Epilogue #3
He finally tapered off, sounding remarkably like a toddler who had thrown a tantrum and soon grew too exhausted to continue. He frowned at the sight of her waiting with her hands folded in front of her.
Then, without another word, he stomped past her and out the door of the greenhouse. She followed him silently back to the gig and climbed in, and then they headed back to London.
“I do hope you shall keep your temper when we speak to her,” Zephyra said in a conversational tone.
“It is not necessary for me to be polite to that woman.”
“Lady Nola can be like a bad-tempered donkey, and I would rather not be forced to pry the herbs from her stiff, dead fingers.”
“And why not?” he asked mildly, as if looting a corpse were as commonplace as eating breakfast.
“I suspect that she, similar to yourself, stores her most valuable herbs in other places, and if she is dead, I shall never find them.”
He opened his mouth as if he would object, but she could almost see the thoughts circling around in his head, and he finally closed his mouth. “Very well,” he said grudgingly. “I had intended to visit her anyway to ask about a certain plant she might have acquired. I shall not kill her.”
“You shouldn’t harm her, either. I suspect that if you do attempt to persuade her with pain, it will only sew her mouth shut all the tighter.”
He gave a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose I will do as you say.” Then he looked sideways at her with a nasty grin on his face. “At least, I shall try.”
Zephyra knew that Jack conducted the greater part of his business in the Long Glades, but he seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about the warren of streets in Rasken Hill.
He drove to a tiny tavern that didn’t look as if it even had a stable, but a stable boy came running out the front door.
Jack tossed him the reins as well as a few coins, and the boy led the horse down a small alley between the buildings which Zephyra had not noticed.
Jack led the way to Lady Nola’s house, cutting through dark alleys that Zephyra would not have entered were she alone.
However, even though Jack had not painted his face, no one accosted the two of them.
Or perhaps it was because it was too early in the afternoon, and the ones who might otherwise beset them were still asleep after their nightly activities.
She realized something was amiss when she saw that Lady Nola’s front door was hanging ajar. The hinges creaked terribly, but the door itself was not warped and would not have opened on its own.
Before she could call out a warning, Jack entered the building ahead of her. Zephyra followed a bit more cautiously, for she knew that Lady Nola had questionable aim with the knives she liked to throw around.
But she needn’t have worried. The grate in the corner was cold and dark.
Darkness cloaked the room because of the closed front shutters, but she could see that the curtain between rooms swayed, indicating where Jack had gone.
Zephyra looked around and noticed several empty spaces among the jars and baskets on the shelves along the walls.
She followed Jack through the curtain only to find the empty back workroom. Dodging the herbs hanging down from the ceiling, she saw that the shelves on these walls also had empty spaces among the dark-colored jars.
Zephyra was about to ascend the stairs when Jack came back down, his footsteps stomping loudly on the wooden steps. “Gone,” was all he said as he reached the ground floor.
She glanced at the hook next to the back door. Lady Nola’s cloak was gone. “Perhaps she stepped out to do some shopping.”
“Everything in her bedchamber has been tossed about. It was either thieves or she packed hastily for a trip.” Jack’s eyes glittered dangerously in the feeble light coming from the small window. He was not pleased that they had missed her.
Zephyra sniffed. The scent of rotting herbs that always disgusted her when she visited Lady Nola was no worse than normal. “She has not been gone long. Otherwise, the herbs she left behind would have decayed more than this.”
“The fireplace is still warm,” Jack said.
“I am astounded Lady Nola has left,” Zephyra said. “She has worked out of Rasken Hill for many years.”
Jack looked around the room, then suddenly began sniffing the air like a dog. He even went down on his hands and knees and began smelling near the floor, finally stopping at a far corner where he breathed in deeply two or three times.
He rose to his feet with eyes as cold as the heart of winter. “She left to escape from me.”
“Why would she do that?” Zephyra recalled that he had been gone for several weeks. Perhaps Lady Nola had wronged Jack in some manner. “Did she get into some mischief while you were away?”
“I smell the Goldensuit. Can you not smell it?”
Zephyra could not keep herself from stiffening in surprise. She blinked once or twice, then tentatively inhaled. “I smell nothing but dead herbs.”
Jack sighed and looked at her with an expression tinged with disappointment. “There were Goldensuit roots in this room as recently as two or three hours ago.”
“How did she acquire them?”
Jack gnashed his teeth as if he were trying to chew a particularly tough piece of beef. “She must have taken a plant from my greenhouse.”
“How would she know the location of your secret greenhouse?”
“My other secret greenhouse,” he said impatiently. Then, reluctantly, he added, “I was robbed two months ago.”
Zephyra was torn between cackling in glee and fainting in shock that anyone would attempt to rob him, much less succeed. Wisely, she held her tongue.
Jack sniffed the air again. “The plant did not flower. I smell no pollen.”
His ability to determine this by smell alone reminded her of how dangerous he was. “Now I understand why Lady Nola left so abruptly. She heard that you had returned.”
Jack turned to her and smirked. “Did she leave any of the herbs you require?”
With a sinking heart, Zephyra scanned the shelves in the kitchen. She thought she might be in luck when she spied Strophanthus written on a tag attached to one of the jars, but inside was nothing but plant debris.
She returned to the front room and looked along the shelves, but all she found were a few withered leaves of Cerbera thevetia—she might have been able to use the seeds, but the leaves were too difficult to utilize with any precision.
Jack had followed her as she scurried around, searching the shelves. Now his smile widened. “You must wait until I have restored the poisonous plants in my greenhouse.”
She wanted to stamp her foot in frustration. But he was correct. While she could perhaps find one or two of the herbs from other smaller apothecaries, she would be unlikely to find all of the more rare ingredients she required.
“If you wish it, I might assist you in improving their condition,” she said reluctantly.
Jack’s smile disappeared and he frowned deeply at her. “No,” he said with a growl.
Zephyra sighed. She tried again. “Would you like for me to assist you so that you need not hire help?” Even if he hired someone only to help with his poisons, they would see the Goldensuit plants in his large greenhouse, and they would be aware of the location of the property.
“It will save you the effort of killing them later to keep your secrets.”
Jack smiled nastily. “But that’s the best part.”
“Well, if you would prefer that I go to someone else to buy my herbs, then …”
“There is no one else besides Lady Nola in all of London.”
“Are you so certain of that? I’m sure I could find someone. I may be forced to inquire at several different apothecaries, but I could eventually collect all the herbs I need.”
“No one else in London has as many varieties of poisonous plants as me.”
“You may be correct,” she said thoughtfully, “but I’m sure there would be some apothecaries who could procure whatever stock they did not possess.”
It was obvious that Jack would rather get a tooth drawn than accept help—especially her help—but even more so, he hated the necessity of sending her to one of his rival apothecaries.
“Very well,” he said, his teeth grinding audibly. The sound made shivers run down her spine. “Which herbs would the young lady require?”
She ignored his sarcasm and reached into her cloak, removing a folded piece of paper she had slipped into a pocket. She had no sooner held it out to him when he snatched it out of her fingers.
His brow furrowed as he read the list. “What on earth are you making?” His voice was curious, confused, and there was also a thread of admiration.
That admiration caused disgust to ripple across her shoulders and twist her stomach.
Zephyra wanted to exclaim in wonder that he, who called himself Apothecary Jack, did not know this recipe, but just in time, a wiser part of her mind prevented her.
He acted the fool, causing her to become complacent and see only the mask of an absent-minded man of deranged habits.
But she must never forget that he was as dangerous as a wolf.
“Those herbs will make a tincture with nearly no color, and almost no odor.”
“To do whaaaaaaat?” he asked, drawling out that last word in an unpleasant way.
“Why, to poison a man.”
Discover the answer to the mystery of why the Citadel is after Barron when Isabella and Thorne return to Wittenden in Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 10: Heir.