Chapter 32 #2
But instead of leaving, he remained in the room. With a sigh, she shoved biscuits into her mouth, heedless of her etiquette lessons, while the servant watched her with a face like a dispassionate, pale moon.
Zephyra heard Ward’s arguing voice before Maxham and the doctor entered the sitting room. He was trailing behind Maxham, loudly proclaiming, “I have not given you permission to show the books to anyone!”
Maxham gave the doctor a look that almost made the air buzz with irritation. “I am more interested in discovering how we may read them rather than catering to your petty desire to keep them all to yourself.”
Ward turned as red as a strawberry, his eyes bulging out of his face. But before he could speak, Maxham placed one of the three notebooks into Zephyra’s hands.
She faintly heard Ward voice an objection, but her eyes were drawn to the worn leather cover and the smell of old paper and slightly moldy leather.
It brought to mind a memory of seeing Bianca in the greenhouse on Lord Wynwood’s secret estate, sunlight shining through the glass and turning her hair into the color of flame as she bent over the book, carefully writing in it with ink-stained fingers.
Zephyra recalled the scent of the Goldensuit, a sweet floral scent like a slightly spicy lily, mixed with the bitterness of crushed weeds.
It mingled with the scents of other flowers in the greenhouse—carnations, three different types of lilies, gardenias, roses, and of course, poppies.
Then she exhaled, and she was once more in the sitting room, her ears ringing with Ward’s arguments with Maxham. She ignored them and untied the leather thong that held the notebook closed, spreading it open.
The binding was loose, and the pages were marred by large, dark fingerprints (which likely belonged to Ward).
And there were numbers, dozens of them, covering the pages, some partially obscured by Ward’s smudges.
It was as Maxham had said, eight to twelve numbers per line.
The numbers seemed completely random—sometimes a single digit, sometimes two digits, sometimes three. There were no four-digit numbers.
What had Maxham said? That Bianca had hidden the notebooks with Lord Wynwood. Which meant she had likely hidden the key with him, also.
Zephyra realized with a start that Phoebe had already translated the code.
She remembered how Phoebe had looked the last time she’d seen her. She had not walked proudly, with head held high as Bianca had done after she had taken her first dose of the Blood Nectar. Nor had she looked weighed down by worries about where she would acquire the next dose.
“Did you tell Phoebe that she would die without another dose of the Blood Nectar?” Zephyra’s voice cut through the argument.
Maxham’s eyes gleamed with a hint of sadistic pleasure. “Of course.”
So Phoebe would have known her death was imminent, and yet she had been calm, confident. She had not been afraid.
“Phoebe has translated the code and discovered how to grow the Goldensuit,” Zephyra told him.
Ward stopped haranguing Maxham and turned to stare at her. But it was Maxham who said, “How do you know this?”
“I told you that I had seen her recently, and I smelled the Blood Nectar. But she did not behave as a woman whose days were numbered.”
“That is impossible. She was probably too stupid to understand her situation,” Ward said with a sniff.
Maxham asked, “Are you certain?” He did not disbelieve her, but he wanted her confirmation.
“She had the assuredness of a woman who had a solution to her dilemma.” Zephyra had spent most of her life studying others and learning to read their disposition and their expressions.
Phoebe hid her emotions quite well, but even her skill was no match for Zephyra’s.
“I know that Bianca made notes in her journal about the Blood Nectar.”
“What!?!” Ward screeched. He was not very discreet, and yet he was also not a volatile personality. But he could not help himself at this threat to his authority within the Citadel. “She made notes on my Blood Nectar recipe? How would she have known anything about how it was made?”
In the last year or two before her death, Zephyra had seen Bianca studying books on chemistry, but she knew her sister was far too careless to be very skilled in the practice of it. She was careless even in her botany, which annoyed Zephyra to no end, for she was much more precise and methodical.
However, Bianca had used those books to study the dregs of the Blood Nectar potion that Ward doled out to the rest of the Citadel. Bianca had told the rest of them that she hadn’t shared any of the Citadel secrets with her sister, but in truth, she had told Zephyra a great deal.
But it was Maxham who quickly and soothingly said, “We all know that Bianca could not have made notations of any worth.”
“Bianca told me once she believed that she could create a strain of Goldensuit that would have the same effects as the Blood Nectar,” Zephyra said.
It was true. Bianca had been mumbling ideas one night when she was drunk, although she had also said that it was unlikely to be as effective as Ward’s potion.
But Zephyra realized that if the Citadel did not have the key to translating Bianca’s notebooks, she might have a chance to view Bianca’s notes on the Blood Nectar, and that could be very useful to her.
Ward was still upset, but he seemed slightly mollified that there was likely no threat to his recipe.
“How would Drydale’s team have found the key to Bianca’s notebooks?” Maxham asked, obviously wishing to turn the subject back to its original course.
“Bianca asked Lord Wynwood to hide it for her, and Lady Wynwood must have found it,” Zephyra said.
“That is a distinct possibility,” Maxham said thoughtfully. “After all, she had Lord Wynwood hide the keys to her laboratory for her. And the key to the encryption on her notebooks would be of the same importance. I would not be surprised if he had hidden both of them for her.”
“All of this is mere speculation,” Ward said. “I would hazard a guess that this girl has no more idea about the key to the cipher than any of us.”
Zephyra pointed to the numbers on the page of the open book in her lap. “I know this cipher. Bianca created one for me as a child, as a means to keep me occupied whilst she entertained Mr. Emsley. The key to the code is a book.”
Both men had expressions of surprise, which were soon replaced by expressions of dismay. “It could be any book,” Ward said, the edges of his voice ragged with despair.
“Did you keep any of the books that you found in my townhouse?” Zephyra asked.
Two sets of eyes looked at her blankly.
She sighed. “Of course you didn’t.” She looked at the numbers on the page in front of her, and the largest went up to 573. “Do you recall any books that were particularly lengthy? I doubt the volume of a novel would be 600 pages long.”
“She had books on botany,” Maxham said slowly, his eyes distant as he tried to recall. “One or two books on chemistry.”
“It was likely one of them.” Zephyra cast her eyes over the three books on the table. “I would not be surprised if she used a different book as the key for each notebook.”
“So we must discover all three books?” Ward exclaimed.
“Do you know which titles?” Maxham asked her.
She met his eyes bravely, although inside, her heart was trembling like a blancmange. “If we had the books, it would be quite simple to determine which book corresponded to which journal.”
A new voice suddenly cut through the room. “If she doesn’t know, then we should kill her.”
Zephyra started. She had not even heard anyone climbing the stairs, and now Jack walked into the drawing room. She had nearly forgotten that he had returned.
She felt her chances of survival dwindling.
Jack dropped down heavily in a chair directly across from her. She had not realized it until he moved from the shadows of the door into the light near the fireplace, but his face was devoid of facepaint.
He might have been a handsome man if not for the ragged scar across his left cheek. His eyes were blue, like a winter sky, and his hair was a riot of curls that would make any young woman jealous. Strangely, while they were dark chestnut at the tips, they were blond at the roots.
He smiled contemptuously at her. “Do you like what you see?” he drawled.
His face without cosmetics caused terror to tighten around her heart like a clawed hand, frightening in a way that the sight of his painted face would never have done. He never showed his face to anyone.
Which meant he intended to kill her.
She swallowed and kept her face impassive to hide her alarm. But he could likely tell through his enhanced senses.
“Jack is right,” Ward said, his voice slightly higher pitched than normal. “She knows too much.”
Zephyra wanted to snap that they were discussing her fate directly in front of her, but she kept her mouth shut. Any of these men could kill her before she made it to the door.
She began to slowly, subtly reach toward the inside pocket of her coat.
She had stashed a bottle of sulfuric acid, and while she would hate to lose Bianca’s notebooks, if she splashed the liquid over them, Ward and perhaps Jack would be too distracted in trying to brush the acid from the pages that she might be able to make it to the door.
And if Maxham tried to stop her, a sharp, slender blade stabbed at his nutmegs would make him release her.
After that … she had no idea. It was late, and the crowds were thinning, but she could try to hide herself in Vauxhall Gardens.
She would not allow them to put her down like a dog.
“I have become good friends with Phoebe,” she said quickly. “I’m certain I could trick her into telling me about the key—or keys—to solve the code.”
“My dear Zephyra, your friend and her associates are in hiding,” Maxham said. “Mr. Norton has turned the Ramparts against them.”
She blinked once, slowly, to hide her confusion. The Ramparts? Perhaps that was the secret government department that Maxham had mentioned earlier.
“I alone could lure her out,” she said with more conviction than she felt. “Unless any of you have a clever means of finding her?”
None of the men responded to her challenge. She began to hope that she might not be killed tonight after all.
“I still say that we kill her,” Jack said, then yawned.
Zephyra wanted to kick him in the shins under the table.
“Yes, what use is she beyond some vague promises?” Ward gave her a flat look as he added, “She could be lying about those promises, also.”
“You are all too short-sighted,” she said, lifting her head and regarding them like a queen, just as Bianca would have if she were in Zephyra’s place. “Jack disappeared for some time, if the rumors are true.”
“I wasn’t gone for that long,” he snapped at her.
“And who cared for your plants whilst you were away?”
Without his facepaint, she could see the flush rising up his neck and into his cheeks. “My good friend Maxham watered my plants for me.”
“Did he? And how many of them died because they were not given adequate fertilizer in the soil? Surely you understand my meaning, Jack?”
He ground his teeth so hard that she could hear it. Then he finally said to her, “Only my friends are allowed to call me Jack. You are to call me Mr. Dix.”
“How unfortunate you have lost several plants when I have several in my secret greenhouse, Mr. Dix,” she said.
Maxham and Ward frowned fiercely at her, but Jack leaned forward, his eyes alight like a child’s. “Do you have a secret greenhouse, too?”
Zephyra had heard about his swings of emotions, but she had not realized how exhausting they were. “I do.”
And it was indeed a secret. Through her father’s attorney, she had arranged to anonymously build a greenhouse on a property owned by her father near London.
He did not use it very often, for it held only a hunting lodge, and the game nearby was sparse and not satisfying.
The greenhouse was not listed on the property records.
No one would know it had been built unless they traveled there and saw it.
“You cannot possibly have grown the Goldensuit very successfully,” Ward said.
“I had Bianca’s notes, and I am a better gardener than she ever was.” She gave him a level stare, implying, And I am better than you are.
He perhaps knew she was insulting him in her thoughts, because he flushed once again.
Maxham sighed. “It is no use denying that we are in need of more Goldensuit plants.”
“She also said she had Bianca’s hybrid seeds,” Ward said. “I want them.”
“Give me the Blood Nectar,” she shot back.
“You will not get the seeds,” Maxham said to Ward, which surprised Zephyra. According to Bianca, in general, he did not contend with the doctor so directly.
Ward looked like he was about to explode, but Maxham quickly said, “You don’t know how to grow them, and Jack will probably eat them.”
Jack opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. He shrugged. “Yes, you’re probably right. Best to keep them out of my hands.”
“I can—I could—I can grow them,” Ward stuttered.
Maxham ignored him and said to Zephyra, “We have a bargain for the Goldensuit plants and the key to the notebooks.”
“I want the Blood Nectar before I give you the key.”
Ward sputtered, and for some reason, Jack growled like a dog and barked at her, but Maxham nodded and turned toward Ward. “Would you be so good as to make an extra dose for Miss Irvine? It is the only way in which we shall unlock Bianca’s notebooks.”
Ward looked highly disgruntled, but he nodded. “It will take some time. I didn’t bring the ingredients with me to London.”
Maxham raised an eyebrow at her. “So? How shall you induce the archer to give up the key?”
“It must be done carefully,” she said. “I shall need a few things.”