Chapter 13 #2
If she had any doubts as to Ward’s stupidity, they would have been laid to rest at that moment. Lady Wynwood herself had known the address, a fact that made it plain the house was never as private as Ward so confidently claimed.
When Zephyra had seen Phoebe at Brannon Church and decided to investigate her and her aunt, she had heard the scandalous story.
Apparently Lady Wynwood had gone to Bianca’s house and confronted her the day before she died.
As a result, some members of society suspected that perhaps his lordship’s mistress had killed herself in response to something that her ladyship said to her that day.
Zephyra pressed her lips together to keep from saying anything more. It was useless to speak with Ward. He was irrational, and she did not wish to give away any more information to Maxham, who was too perceptive.
Maxham interjected swiftly, as though he were used to cutting off arguments before they escalated. “There is nothing that can be done about Mr. Lander, so we should return to the matter at hand. Zephyra has some of Bianca’s notes and seeds, and she is offering to share them with us.”
“Some of the seeds,” she said quickly. She could imagine Ward taking all of the Snow hybrid seeds and attempting to grow them all at once, without trying to adjust for temperature and type of compost and source of the water. He would waste them all.
Zephyra could not allow that. She still had hope she might be able to discover a way to germinate those Snow seeds, especially if she couldn’t create Bianca’s famous hybrid from the original Goldensuit plant.
Ward’s face looked thunderous, but Maxham said, “Yes, of course. They do, after all, belong to you and your sister.”
It took a moment for Ward to calm himself, but he continued to regard Zephyra with a narrow, calculating gaze. He was likely planning on following her to the hiding place and then killing her.
Well, she had a surprise for them.
“The Citadel already has a botanist,” Mr. Norton said.
He tried to hide his irritation, but it was obvious in the gravelly tone of his voice.
Perhaps he did not appreciate that this slip of a girl would so quickly take a superior position within the group when he had already been working for them.
“Only Jack’s hybrid plants can be used to make the Root. ”
So Jack used a hybrid rather than the Goldensuit to make his potion. Without even seeing one, she was certain her sister’s hybrids would have been more effective. Bianca had been quite clever about making them.
It also did not surprise her that Jack used a hybrid, because she knew how difficult it was to grow the original plant.
Jack could not possibly have grown the many plants needed for creating the large number of vials of Root potion he gave to his men, if Zephyra believed the gossip she had heard in the Long Glades.
Even Jadis would not have been able to grow those quantities, and he was the best botanist she had ever known.
“We must see the notes and the seeds to determine if you speak the truth,” Maxham said.
“Of course.” She reached under the oversized coat that she wore and reached into the pocket she had sewn a little ways towards the back of the underarm. She withdrew a single page, which was a copy of one of Bianca’s notes, and passed it to Maxham.
However, Ward reached out and snatched the page. He frowned as he perused it, then an incredulous look encompassed his face. “It is?—”
Maxham interrupted him. “Do pass the page over, Dr. Ward, if you please. I’m certain our guest knows exactly what it is, and has no need for you to tell her.”
The doctor’s pale cheeks flushed again, and his blue eyes lightened with the sparks of his fury, but he passed the page to Maxham.
Maxham’s interruption had seemed … strange. Zephyra watched his face carefully.
He merely said coolly, “Yes, these notes are quite … legible.”
“Legible?” Zephyra asked with suspicion.
“I beg your pardon, I mean no insult to your sister, but her writing in her notebooks was at times difficult to discern.”
Zephyra could have protested that her sister had elegant copperplate handwriting, but it would be a lie. Bianca’s handwriting was truly miserable, and Zephyra had had difficulty understanding her scrawlings on several of the other pages of notes that she had taken.
“That is not Bianca’s handwriting. It is a copy I made of the page,” she confessed.
The eyes of all three men were suddenly very intent upon her face, but it was Maxham who spoke. “You are able to make legible copies of her notes?”
Really, was her sister’s handwriting that terrible? “Of course.”
Maxham sat back in his seat and regarded her keenly. “If you bring us the original notes, as well as her seeds, then we have an agreement.”
Ward choked and looked like he was about to protest, but Maxham shot him a sharp look, and the doctor subsided.
With a sniff, Ward rose from his seat and left the room without so much as a word of farewell. Really, the man was more rude than some of the beggars on the street.
“I shall require some time to retrieve them,” she said.
Maxham nodded graciously. “Of course. We shall await you here.”
She stood and had to restrain herself from delivering an elegant curtsy. Just in time, she remembered to bob a curtsy like a maidservant. She left the drawing room, descended the stairs, and was out again in the evening air.
There were more people on the street, all of them heading toward Vauxhall Gardens—some toward the more elegant river gate at Vauxhall Stairs, while others, dressed as servants or musicians, streamed toward the back entrance, which was nearer to Maxham’s house.
She heard the soft conversations on the air, anticipation of the evening’s entertainment or complaints that one had to return to work so soon after staying late at the gardens the evening before.
The tiny, dirty orphan girl went unnoticed.
She slipped into the shadows and avoided the crowds, marveling at how effortlessly Maxham had managed to disappear from sight earlier, although she would never admit such to him. She relied on her size, her speed, and the smooth way of walking that did not draw the eye of anyone she passed.
Her thoughts were burning. She was not quite triumphant, and she did not lose her wariness. Her goal was in sight.
The Citadel had forged her sister’s signature and created false documents in order to make it appear as though the townhouse legally belonged to them, and they had withdrawn Bianca’s funds from her own account.
Zephyra could not reclaim her home, nor could she demand the return of any of Bianca’s money, and it enraged her.
She hated them—she hated them all. And yet she intended to ingratiate herself with them.
Because if her plan succeeded, she would be able to attain the one thing Bianca had desperately yearned for—the means to create the Blood Nectar.
Zephyra had been waiting and searching for the Citadel members in order to find them, to find the recipe for the Blood Nectar, and then kill them all for murdering her sister and stealing her inheritance.
Here was her chance. She would not fail.
She would have her revenge.