Chapter 16 #2
“Sorry,” he mouthed. His face was partially obscured by shadow but his expression of concern was clear as day. She nodded to show she was all right.
He moved his hand from her face. They were sprawled in a small gap between the cypresses and a collection of thickly leaved bushes.
His warm body was beneath hers. Saffron shuffled slightly so she lay next to him.
Leaning close enough for her lips to brush his ear, she whispered, “What do we do now? Was it Berking in the car?”
Alexander inclined his head to hers, his breath warm on her cheek. “It was Berking, he went inside ten minutes ago. We’ll have to stay in the bushes until he turns off the lights or make our way like this.”
With a sigh, Saffron let her head rest on the hard ground beneath her. “I suppose crawling along the ground is not the best option.”
Alexander relaxed into the same position, and for five minutes they lay in the dark bushes, facing each other.
Wind continued to batter the trees overhead in great, swirling gusts.
Faint hints of blooming flowers and the deep scent of fresh soil mixed with something warm and clean, which Saffron realized must be the man laying not a foot away from her.
Was it odd that she found lying in this dark garden with Alexander a little romantic?
She forced herself to consider their next move.
It seemed that there was nothing hidden in Berking’s garden but two wayward scientists.
Where would they look next? Could Berking have stolen aconite from another garden?
Or perhaps it was simply growing in a pot in his house. Or a friend grew it for him.
The minutes ticked on with no change in the house.
Saffron was growing cold on the chilled earth.
Shadows from the glow of the house swayed around in the wind.
After fifteen minutes, they agreed to try to move.
Alexander crawled forward through the brush with Saffron following.
Before long, they reached a naked patch of dirt surrounded by large rhododendron bushes. The earth there was recently tilled.
Saffron stilled and she scanned the area. It was shaded by a broad Chinese Juniper that had littered the ground beneath with berries. On a sunny day, this area would likely receive dappled light—
A rapid shuffle in front of her brought her back to the situation at hand.
Alexander had turned around—somehow managing it with so little space available for his tall form—and was crawling back to her rapidly.
He moved past her with surprising agility and paused in the far corner near the base of the tree and the rhododendron.
With one hand, he reached into a pocket.
The door to the house banged open. Heavy footsteps sounded across the threshold.
Saffron sucked in a breath and Alexander tensed, then raced back to her on his elbows, grasping her arm and pushing her ahead of him.
They scrambled into the rhododendrons bordering the bald patch.
Thorns bit into her arms and legs, grabbing at her hair.
They’d just reached cover when the unmistakable sounds of the lumbering Berking crossing the lawn in their direction.
They had no hope that the shadows would obscure them, not at this distance and not with the house lit up.
Saffron curled her legs up just as Alexander flattened her to the ground.
Then he was next to her, his eyes locked on hers.
They lay still as the sound of rustling met their ears.
A torch flickered on. The rustling grew louder, a light passing just over Alexander’s face.
His mouth was a line, his eyes narrowed.
Saffron’s heart pounded wildly, the urge to spring up and run away overpowering.
Her fingers dug into the dirt and she forced herself to remain still.
She flinched as something passed very close to her foot.
Alexander took her hand. She squeezed it with the full power of her anxiety.
What would they do if they were found? Berking could have them arrested, or force them into his house for questioning or send Alexander away and then she’d be alone with him—
The torch went out.
Berking’s booming voice swore, then came the clatter of him shaking the torch aggressively. “Blasted thing!”
He stomped off. Alexander and Saffron didn’t wait to hear the door open and close. Once Berking had cleared the stairs to the house, they crawled back to the gate through the bushes, catching more rhododendron thorns as they went. Alexander opened the gate as quietly as possible, and they fled.
They ran down the street and into an alleyway, far into the rubbish bins.
“You’re covered!” Saffron gasped, breathless but laughing. She was a little light-headed. She dusted leaves and dirt off Alexander’s shirt with shaking hands.
“You are, too,” Alexander chuckled, pulling a twig out of her hair. He grinned down at her. “You’ll want to look at this.”
“What is it?” Saffron asked, frowning at the long rectangle of linen Alexander passed her.
“I snatched this just before Berking came out. Is this what we were looking for?”
Saffron opened the handkerchief and squinted in the half-light of the alley down at the small, flowered stalk within. “Alexander!” She looked up at him in disbelief. “You found it!”
Saffron cradled the small shoot of aconite in her shaking hands, nearly dropping the handkerchief. Alexander met her hands with one of his, steadying it with warm pressure.
“Adrenaline.” His murmur was quiet and utterly enticing, until Saffron registered what Alexander had actually said.
“Adrenaline?” she repeated.
He dropped her hand. “Adrenaline, you know. The hormone responsible for certain physiological responses in mammals. The fight or flight response. Hyperarousal as a result of a perceived threat. Cannon’s hypothesis states—”
“I see,” she said, fighting a smile. His biology talk was endearing, if not exactly romantic. She held up the handkerchief. “You make quite the botanist, Ashton. Well done. Now what?”
Looking down at her with his small smile, he said, “Now, we find a taxi and hope that no one asks us why we’re covered in dirt.”
Alexander scrutinized the plant under the glare of the light.
It was no more than five inches tall, a pale green stem interspersed with clumps of small purple hooded flowers.
Botanical references opened to illustrations and entries covered the small kitchen table alongside the lamp Saffron had removed the shade from.
The naked bulb’s light cast harsh shadows on her face, enhancing the smudges of dirt she had missed in her rapid wash-up moments ago.
With a hand cupping her chin, she stared down at one of the illustrations, then back to the specimen from the garden.
“It certainly looks like aconite … But it’s not quite right.
See here?” She used a pen to indicate the cavernous, violet flowers.
“It has clusters of flowers rather than single ones.
“Aconitum species have single flowers along the stem. Not to mention the blooms are about three months too early. Aconite flowers in the summer.”
He ran a hand over his face. Now that they were safely settled in Saffron’s kitchen, the late hour and recent nights of poor sleep were catching up to him. “Could this be a different species? One you haven’t encountered?”
“The genus is widespread and varied, so I suppose that’s possible …
But this specimen has foliaceous stipules, here.
” She gently prodded a pair of leaves from which a stem was emerging, “Yet the entirety of the Aconitum species can be characterized as lacking stipules altogether.” She leaned toward one of the texts and confirmed her statement with a nod.
“But the structure of the flower, the hooded opening with clearly defined veins …”
Alexander left her to it. As he watched her lean on her elbows and frown in concentration, he wondered how exactly he’d ended up in a woman’s flat in the middle of the night, covered in dirt, studying a potentially dangerous plant.
He apparently drifted off, hand supporting his head, as Saffron had to rouse him to declare that she was satisfied that what they stole was at least in the same genus as the well-known poisonous species, but she couldn’t absolutely conclude that the plant was a species of poisonous Aconitum.
Improvising with what she had in her kitchen, she did her best to preserve the various parts of the plant and tucked it into the ice box.
With utmost solemnity, she said, “Alexander, I think we need to go to Inspector Green and tell him everything.”
“And tell him what?” Alexander wasn’t looking forward to explaining to him how they had gotten the plant.
“That we found Dr. Berking created his very own breed of a highly toxic plant, of course!”
“Is that what this is?” Alexander asked, eying the quick sketch Saffron had done of the plant.
“I can’t think of any other explanation.
I’ll have to look at some other references, of course, but a man of Berking’s experience would be able to cross-breed until he got something like this.
” She paused, discomfort flashing across her face.
She sighed and shook her head, her enthusiasm waning to make her look pale and tired.
“I’m not sure what he bred it with, or what chemical properties it has, but the features of aconite are definitely there. ”
“Inspector Green will have to send it to a lab to be tested.” Alexander ran a hand through his hair, dislodging a scrap of leaf and frowning down at it. “The results might not be ready before the ship sails. He can’t arrest Berking for breeding a new plant, even if it is poisonous.”
Saffron bit her lip. “He arrested Dr. Maxwell for less, didn’t he?” She looked up at him, eyes pleading. “We can’t not tell the inspector, Alexander.”