Chapter Six #3
“Yes,” said Silas.
“I meant—”
“I recognize her, from the park,” Silas said. “That is all.”
Dr. Gall looked confused. Mrs. Rose stepped forward, extending a hand to Silas. “Then we must have a proper introduction. I am Madame Vivian Rose, Miss Elderwood’s tutor. And who do we have to thank for the daring rescue of the young lady?”
Silas looked amused. “My name is Sir Silas.”
“Sir Silas… of what house?”
“Blackthorn,” Silas said.
“Silas Blackthorn. So strange,” Mrs. Rose said, putting a finger to her lips, “I have never heard of that house. Do you have family about the bon ton?”
Silas smiled. “None, my lady. Mine is not a noble house; my title comes from services rendered to the crown.”
Mrs. Rose smiled. “An exceptional man, then. You shall have to tell us how you earned your knighthood.”
“Perhaps another time,” Sir Silas said, “when Miss Elderwood is in better form.”
Silas turned from Mrs. Rose, folding his hands behind his back and inclining his head to Elswyth. “How are you feeling? Please, do eat. When Dr. Gall decided to wake you, I went to fetch your tea.”
“Better, thanks to Dr. Gall,” she said. She bowed her head low, but could not get the image of Silas and his lover from her mind. “I must offer my sincerest thanks. I owe you a debt.”
“It can be repaid by keeping your ladyship on the pathways while in the Royal Gardens,” Silas said.
“You seem to have a habit of ignoring signs indicating that certain areas are off-limits.” His dark eyes bored into her, glinting with mischief.
Elswyth swallowed, blushing, turning the scarred side of her face away from him.
Dr. Gall stepped in. “Miss Elderwood was merely trying to sketch the interior of the corpse flower’s digestive system. We should all admire her, dare I say it, gall!”
Dr. Gall grinned, waiting expectantly for laughter. Elswyth obliged him with a smile.
Silas smirked at her. “Yes—a remarkably curious young lady.”
“Miss Elderwood will be assisting us for the summer, Silas,” Dr. Gall said. “You two might get the opportunity to work together. How exciting!”
Silas raised an eyebrow. “What sort of work?”
“Miss Elderwood is an aspiring botanist.”
“Are you a botanist yourself, Sir Silas?” Elswyth said.
Silas shrugged, then looked at her significantly. “I never enjoyed the natural sciences. Too much creeping about in the hedges for needless observation.”
Elswyth’s face flushed. Before she could retort, Dr. Gall spoke.
“Silas is an archeologist—not my usual fare for assistants, but I’ve known him since he was a boy,” Dr. Gall said, clapping Silas on the back. “A brilliant lad, and it helps having someone who can reach the top shelf!”
Elswyth cocked her head, clenching the fabric of her gown. “And tell me, Sir Silas, is archaeology as physically strenuous as it seems? I imagine it’s a lot of panting and sweating in overgrown ruins.”
To her surprise, Silas smiled. “Yes, but the fruits of our labor are so exquisite,” he said. “You should join us sometime, Miss Elderwood—it is so much more satisfying than creeping about in hedges.”
Elswyth lowered her eyes at him. “I’ll stick to the hedges, thank you.”
Silas observed her with a slightly amused expression, chewing on his lower lip. Heat rose in Elswyth’s belly, and she looked away, back to her sutures.
“You will have many opportunities to work together, I should think!” Dr. Gall said. “Wonderful, wonderful—oh, how exciting this will be!”
Elswyth followed Mrs. Rose as she strode through the gardens outside the conservatory.
Along the gravel path, decorative trees bore bright flowers even in the early spring.
Royal gardeners stood on ladders beneath the hedges, pouring vitae into the blooms to keep them fresh and twisting topiaries into impossible forms.
Mrs. Rose ignored all of it. She spoke in a hushed voice to Elswyth as they made their way to the carriage. Elswyth’s right leg ached, but the sutures held, and Dr. Gall had applied a numbing agent before she’d been allowed to leave.
“Absolutely not!” Mrs. Rose said. “Under no circumstances will you be allowed to work.”
“It’s not work, not really,” Elswyth said. “It’s an occupation. Weren’t you just saying that a lady should have hobbies?”
“Croquet! Crochet! Cello! These are hobbies befitting a lady of your station, not, not—”
“Pursuits of merit?”
“Precisely! The point of these hobbies is that they are meaningless. They show that you are so well supported financially that you needn’t dirty your hands with actual work.”
Elswyth sighed. “Yes, but I am not well supported financially. And if I cannot find a match, I may need a pathway to employment. This could be just that.”
Mrs. Rose raised a hand. “Your father will hear of this. He will have the final say. As for now, I am so irritated that I don’t think I can speak of it any more, lest I faint.”
Mrs. Rose went quiet. Elswyth wondered what her father would say—perhaps she could frame it more as gardening than scholarship, and convince him.
Her Uncle Percival had done a wonderful thing, connecting her with Dr. Gall, and she would hate for the introduction to be wasted.
If she worked diligently, made a name for herself…
perhaps she could earn her way into a scholarship.
The thought should have excited her. Instead, she thought only of Persephone.
Pursuing academics—the very same academics she had given up to come here, to find answers—would certainly interfere with her search for her sister.
And yet she wanted it, wanted it perhaps more than she’d wanted anything before.
Stop it, she thought to herself. Stop making excuses. You made a promise. You will find your sister, no matter the cost. If this is the cost, so be it.
And yet… she had no way to search for Persephone if she could not escape Mrs. Rose. Accepting a position at the Royal Gardens would, at the very least, give her a few hours a week out of the house, unsupervised. It was a start.
“… and another thing!” Mrs. Rose said. “That blasted man! The tall one, with the rather… statuesque physique.”
“Sir Silas,” Elswyth said. She’d explained to Mrs. Rose earlier that he was the man who’d pursued her in the hedge maze.
That was another reason to accept Gall’s offer.
There was something suspicious about the man—he and his lover had seemed willing to do anything to cover up their secret affair.
Elswyth had very few suspects in her search for Persephone.
The world of nobility was a small one; Silas might very well have known her sister.
And a man willing to kill to protect his secrets was certainly a man to watch.
She thought again to the bouquet in her sister’s room: hellebore, with its spiraling purple-black petals. Calumny. Ruination.
“No, I was not surprised at all to learn that he was fornicating in the bushes. A known rake, that Blackthorn. Lord Harrow’s bastard son, from the colonies.”
“I thought you didn’t know him,” Elswyth said, looking over her shoulder. “You asked his name.”
“I needed to remind him of his place,” Mrs. Rose said. “Blackthorn is no name. He chose it because he has no name from his father.”
“He is natural-born, then?”
“Upon some princess from India, I hear—but his father acknowledged him, and so those at court must treat him as the son of an admiral, although he is nothing but a bastard.”
Elswyth examined Mrs. Rose’s expression, which had turned sharply into a frown. It was the second time she had seemed repulsed by the mere concept of natural-born children. She thought of Mrs. Rose offering her the vial of silphium and of her distaste for Persephone.
“Lord Harrow. That name sounds familiar,” Elswyth said.
Mrs. Rose scoffed. “As it should. Lord Harrow is the queen’s most feared admiral and the ruler of British India in all but name.
A man not to be crossed. I should hate to think what the Butcher of Bengal would do if he knew his bastard was despoiling some young lady in the hedges.
” She shivered. “But I suppose that is in the bastard’s nature.
Lascivious creatures, born of lust, and unable to control their base desires. Bastards make bastards, as they say.”
Elswyth frowned. She thought that was, perhaps, unfair—after all, the beast has two backs, not one, and Silas’s friend seemed a willing partner. But she said nothing.
“It’s risky, too, now that he knows your name.
He has nothing to lose in terms of reputation, being a bastard already, but his young lady friend will still do anything to avoid being outed as a fallen woman.
No,” Mrs. Rose continued, “you will not be spending any time alone with Sir Silas. In a laboratory or anywhere else.”
Elswyth raised an eyebrow. She was concerned about spending time alone with Sir Silas, after their altercation in the hedge maze. But she thought Mrs. Rose referenced a different sort of danger. “Are you worried for my safety or for my maidenhead? I assure you I have no interest in the man.”
Mrs. Rose shook her head. “You don’t understand men, and especially men like that. They have their ways, and they can wear down even the most pious woman. No—the best we can do is avoid him completely. If I were you, Miss Elderwood, I would stay far, far away from Sir Silas.”