Chapter 4
Eliza and Henry arrived in Clerkenwell about an hour after they left Hartmoor House.
The townhouse her aunt occupied stood in a quieter street just beyond the thickest press of the market. Its brick was worn but solid, its windows clean, its door freshly painted in a sober shade of green. Carefully maintained respectability.
At five and fifty, their father’s younger sister, Octavia Langdon, carried an air of unshaken independence that had unsettled London society since the day she returned from India at her husband’s side. Her gown was plain but cut with confidence. Her eyes, sharp and observant, missed little.
“You are flushed, my dears,” she remarked, drawing Eliza inside. “In triumph or trouble?”
“Triumph,” Eliza declared at once.
Henry closed the door behind them and lowered his voice. “Both.”
Octavia’s brow lifted, but she merely gestured toward the back of the house. “Your uncle is awake and in tolerable spirits.”
They passed through a narrow corridor into the stillroom that had become the heart of Eliza’s secret enterprise.
The scent here was different from the market. Dried lavender hung from the rafters. Bundles of thyme and rosemary lay neatly bound. Glass jars labeled in careful script lined the shelves. Mortars and pestles gleamed upon the central table.
He sat near the window, propped in a cushioned chair.
Once a surgeon with the East India Company, Dr. Percival Langdon had returned to England with knowledge far more valuable than coin and a constitution permanently weakened by malaria.
Even now, his complexion held a faint yellow cast, yet his eyes retained keen intelligence.
“My brilliant niece and nephew return,” he said warmly.
Eliza crossed to him and pressed a kiss to his temple. “And they find their favorite physician alert and formidable.”
“Formidable in mind, if not in limb.”
Eliza knelt beside the table and untied the first parcel with reverence. Henry took a seat in the opposite armchair as his uncle.
“Observe,” she announced, unable to suppress her pride. “Fresh ashwagandha root. Not the dried husks the London apothecaries peddle. These were harvested scarcely three weeks past.”
Henry leaned in closer, observing the items that she placed on the small table between them. “It smells like damp earth…I rather prefer the dried root as it does not hold quite as much of a stench.”
“I think it smells like life,” she corrected, and then unwrapped the second bundle.
“Brahmi leaves. Whole. Unpowdered. We may grind them ourselves to preserve potency.”
Her aunt entered then, knelt on a cushion around the table, and examined the color of the leaf. “Deep green still. Good.”
Finally, Eliza opened the smallest packet with particular care.
Saffron threads spilled into her palm, vivid and fragile as flame.
“For the calming blend,” she said softly. “For the recipe you gave me. I think I am finally ready to try it.”
Her uncle leaned forward, interest sharpening his posture. “Remarkable! May I?”
She passed him the threads, watching his long fingers assess them with practiced scrutiny.
He nodded once in approval.
Then his expression altered.
“These roots, my dear,” he said slowly, lifting one between his fingers. “look to be already crushed…even if ever so slightly.”
Eliza glanced down.
Several of the ashwagandha pieces bore visible pressure marks. She then examined each with a closer perspective and noticed that a few Brahmi leaves were bent sharply along their veins as well as the small tear on the edge of the saffron packet.
Henry cleared his throat.
Her aunt’s gaze shifted to Eliza. “How did this occur?”
Eliza straightened at once, indignation rising afresh.
“When I purchased them, they were intact. I examined them thoroughly.”
Henry coughed then, and everyone stared at him until finally he broke the tension. “There was a collision…remember, Liza?”
The memory of the tall, boorish man who stood ridiculously in the middle of the alleyway as if he owned the place.
Eliza rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course I remember.”
“A collision? With whom?” her uncle asked, in clear defense of his niece.
“He was most certainly a gentleman, Uncle Percival,” Henry supplied dryly, and Eliza shot daggers from her eyes.
Gentle? Ha!
Her aunt and uncle were now both staring at her with bated breath. “He was standing in the narrowest portion of the alley as though inspecting it for structural deficiencies.”
“And you ran into him?” her aunt asked mildly.
“He obstructed the path,” Eliza insisted. “Entirely without consideration.”
Henry’s mouth twitched, as did her uncle’s, who said, “And this gentleman was…?”
“I did not recognize him, but he was of the ton,” she said with certainty. “One can recognize the type at once. Polished boots. Upright posture. Vacant expression. The faint air of believing the pavement ought to part before him.”
Henry snorted.
“He looked positively affronted by the existence of trade,” Eliza continued. “As though the very air of Clerkenwell offended him.”
“I still do not understand how you, who know the alley like the back of your hand, managed to run into him…and not the other way around,” her aunt observed. “Was he perhaps…lost?”
“I did not see him in time,” Eliza admitted. “He was positioned precisely at a turn in the alley as if there on purpose—”
The thought escaped her lips before she could even think to hold it back. Her mind journeyed back to the alley. To the man. To the look on his face.
Her uncle studied her more closely. “Did he say anything about his purpose?”
Her frustration returned, and she scoffed, “No. Is there much damage? Can we still use them?”
Henry hummed, not so quietly, and her aunt’s eyes flashed between them. “I would hope he was there in search of alternative medicine and not, oh…a purpose to shut down the operations.”
Henry laughed outright. “Aunt Octavia, you should have seen him. His purpose was most certainly one of desperation. It was almost as if he was more embarrassed to have been seen there than affronted by being assaulted by Eliza.”
Eliza felt the memory sharpen against her thoughts. The impact. The steadiness of his hands as he caught himself. The way he had not flinched backward like many gentlemen would in such surroundings.
“He had the most arrogant bearing,” she went on briskly. “I would not put it past him, though, if he had come to inspect some kind of moral failing.”
Yet even as she spoke, a fragment of hesitation threaded through her certainty.
He did not look nefarious. No. He had looked purposeful.
“And his reaction to you?” Percival pressed gently.
Eliza hesitated for the smallest fraction of a second.
“He questioned my business,” she said.
“And you answered?”
“With a question of my own.”
Henry grinned. “She told him he was an idle obstruction.”
Her uncle chuckled softly, then coughed.
Eliza moved quickly to steady his chair, her irritation momentarily eclipsed by concern.
“I do not understand,” she resumed once he settled, “why gentlemen of rank believe they may intrude upon any sphere they choose.”
Her aunt laughed quietly”
Eliza bristled and then busied herself rearranging the saffron threads. The memory of the man’s eyes flashed across her vision.
They were intense and calculating and gray. Not dull gray. Storm-lit gray.
She dismissed the thought at once.
“He stood his ground,” she added, with a shrug and a slight lift in her tone in an effort to sound nonchalant. “Despite obvious discomfort.”
It was true. He had not recoiled. He had not sputtered or retreated in offense.
“Why do we not start processing these roots?” her uncle suggested as he pointed to the mortar and pestle behind him. “These roots are salvageable.”
Eliza stood, sticking her tongue out at her brother, who was clearly enjoying the line of questions, and retrieved the tools she knew they needed to process the roots, the saffron, and the leaves.
“His arrogance cost us several unblemished roots,” she concluded. “I am glad it was not a wasted trip. In fact, I would say it was quite the opposite. Quite a productive…”
He was…just…was he not? Eyes. Chest. Voice. The challenge—
“Do you need help, Sister?” Henry said, stifling a chuckle.
Eliza startled and nearly dropped the mortar before she busied her hands with collecting the tools before walking back to the table. The people around her were more of a blur than she had hoped, but her body knew instinctively what to do even if her mind was preoccupied.
The rhythm of work reclaimed her focus as she sorted the damaged leaves and roots from the whole. She kept her movements precise, until slowly, her haze cleared.
She grabbed the pestle and started to grind the Brahmi leaves.
Henry watched her for a moment longer before he finally broke the heavy silence that had settled in the room. “You speak of him as though he were an intruder,” he said at last, leaning back against the worktable. “Yet you forget something rather inconvenient.”
Eliza did not look up. “Do enlighten me.”
“You are also of the ton.”
She gave a short laugh. “In name only.”
“In every way that matters to Papa,” he countered. “And you were careless today.”
Her hands stilled.
“I was not careless.”
“You collided with a gentleman in an alley behind the herb market while carrying foreign goods,” Henry said plainly. “If he had recognized you?”
“He did not.”
“That you know of.”
Eliza set down the pestle with deliberate calm. “I was veiled.”
“Not very well. And you were vexed anyway,” he added. “Which makes you even more conspicuous.”
She lifted her chin. “I am never conspicuous.”
Her uncle chuckled softly, and her aunt’s brows rose slightly at that claim.
Henry continued, more soberly now. “If he had followed us? If he had asked questions? Papa need not discover your ledgers. He need only hear that his daughter was seen in Clerkenwell back alleys.”
The words settled heavier than she liked.
“You exaggerate,” she insisted.