5. Do Not Touch It #2
“Little things remind me of him.” Guin laughed, a pitiful sounding thing, half hiccup. “Anytime a man stands by a door.”
Braxton shifted from foot to foot, and a maid swept past him into the room.
“Briggs said you were in need of refreshment,” the maid said. “Then there was the bell, but we were mostly through by then.” She left a silver tray, laden with a variety of goods and a steaming pot of tea and bustled out again.
“Is it a race?” Guin asked.
Diana melted into the back of her chair with a groan.
“A few days ago, there was some calamity in the kitchen, and I did not get my afternoon tea. I hardly noticed, but Temple did, and he gave quite the unfair lecture to the staff.” She rubbed her round belly.
“He is much too nervous about all this.”
“It’s natural.” For a moment, Guin savored the sounds of preparation as her friend poured the tea and distributed biscuits. Then she savored the first sip and said, “The queen has given me a task.”
Diana’s eyebrows shot high. “Has she? That makes three of us, then. You, me, and Sybil.”
“I thought Sybil had been relegated to apprentice.”
Diana nodded. “But she’s learning terribly fast, and Temple has projects he prefers to transmutation.
Sybil began replacing him during their updates to Queen Victoria, and the queen decided, since Sybil had married already, to allow her to lead the transmutation project, with Temple’s guidance when needed. ”
“Excellent. Though I doubt turning lead to gold is actually possible.”
“She’s discovering a variety of other inventions to amuse the queen in the meantime.” Diana paused to chew a biscuit. “What have you been tasked with?”
Guin told her about the potion, about her new guards, though she didn’t need the heavy weight of Braxton’s regard to leave out mentioning to Second Shadows, even though Diana’s brother-in-law was one. If she and Temple needed to know, they would.
“Do you have any ideas where to begin?” Diana asked when Guin was done.
“I was thinking of focusing on plants that require full sun to grow and those that can thrive without much sun at all. They have different properties that may prove fruitful. And I was hoping you might have come across something in all your reading that mentions or at least alludes to a potion with the properties the queen desires.”
Diana tapped her belly. “Nothing comes immediately to mind, but I’ll think on it, and make a list of titles that might interest you. The library at the Alchemist Guild is brilliant. They have books on everything, not just metals. I’ll speak with their librarian.”
“The Grants are enjoying their return to the good graces of the alchemist circles, then?”
Diana shrugged. “People are rather pleased Sybil and Apollo saved the Guild from a madman. Tell me, where will you do your experiments? You no longer have the shop—the tables, the plant inventory, the stillrooms and gardens and…” She bit her bottom lip. “I do not mean to remind you.”
Guin waved her hand. “It’s a fact, whether I like it or not.
My shop is gone. My workrooms and equipment are gone.
I have a little left, and it is set up at my flat, but”—she shook her head—“I’m afraid it will not be enough.
I’m considering renting some space or… or…
do you think Apollo might let me use space in his shop? ”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Braxton said. He shifted, again, from foot to foot. A tell of discomfort she needed to understand his mood since she couldn’t see him blush. “He, erm, he and his wife, they erm… I went there once and caught them… quite busy with one another.”
Diana chuckled. “I had to watch him quite busy once. Got stuck behind a curtain. Would have been awkward to reveal myself.”
“He can keep those activities in the appropriate places,” Guin said.
Braxton coughed into his hand. “I do not think he’ll appreciate that advice.”
Irritation was rising fast, and Guin could no longer sit comfortably. “Where, then? I need a workspace if I’m to please the queen.”
Braxton cleared his throat. “I have an idea.”
A half hour later, Guin followed the duke into the Mayfair mansion that had been her home for a few short months years ago. It seemed a mausoleum. Nothing had changed. Or perhaps she remembered so little about it, anything would have seemed familiar. Or not familiar at all.
“Where is this conservatory you promised?” she asked. Better to deal with the duke than whatever emotions returning here had surfaced. “Show me so I can evaluate it, find it lacking, and move on to other options.”
“This way.” He turned left and guided her through several rooms and into the far side of the house where one wall had been knocked down, where stone grew into glass, where Braxton had built her a conservatory.
Sunlight streamed through crystal clear walls and ceiling and onto thriving plants of every sort.
Marble pillars in a perfect line demarcated the line where the hallway ended and the conservatory began.
On the one side of those marble pillars—elegant painted walls and candle sconces.
And on the other—a warm world teeming with life and color.
She entered the conservatory gingerly, shoulders brushing against palm fronds. The floor was white marble and warm. “Is the floor heated?”
“It’s an elaborate alchemist system.”
“Naturally. When did you do this?”
“After you left. Wasn’t using the ballroom. Thought, if you ever returned, you might like it.”
Like was such a pale word, appropriate for tea the right temperature or a comfortable night rail. Like was a good knife that split a stem with ease or an unobjectionable acquaintance.
A marble-and-glass conservatory fully stocked and ready for use was something else entirely. It was hands tingling to dig into dirt and a heart grown uncomfortably big in a cage of bone.
“Yes,” she whispered, “I like it.” She might have squealed a little, running from corner to corner of the bright space. “There’s everything here!” Roses and juniper and sage and basil and lavender all in bloom. “It’s February!”
“And? It’s always warm in here. You won’t have to worry about the chill. There’re tables. Big ones. And bowls and”—he blew out a heavy breath and looked at the ceiling—“everything you need.”
She stopped spinning and faced him. He leaned against one pillar, ankles crossed, arms crossed, her own brain crossing over and over and tangling in knots.
“It’s yours. This whole room. Everything in it.”
She saw his game now. “If?”
“We remain here for the tenure of your assignment with the Crown.”
“Ahh. There it is.” The golden chain. But what option did she have but to slip it around her waist, turn the key in the lock.
If she wanted to get rid of her husband, she had to produce a potion, and in order to do that, she needed space, equipment, plants, everything so conveniently right here.
“I wonder you did not try this sooner. It could have saved you a night on the cold floor.”
“I forgot. We’re staying?”
“Artemis comes with me.”
“Naturally.” Beneath the glamour, his voice had the wide openness of a grin. “I’ll gather her. And your other things.” He stepped into the shadowed hallway, hesitated, looked at her over his shoulder. “Don’t leave without me.”
She gasped. “Me? Leave without you? Never.”
His laughter echoed as he left her alone in the warm glass world.
She sank to the floor in the middle of some lilies and inhaled the fresh scent of soil and sunshine.
This room had not been here when she’d left.
And he’d not had time to construct it since yesterday.
Not even since the shop burned down. This well-equipped conservatory had been here for years. Waiting for her.
She pressed her palms to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. How odd her heart puttered to such a staid, steady rhythm. It was the logical choice to remain here, to take advantage of the fine facilities.
And if she feared for the man who’d built her a conservatory and stocked it well, even in February, she’d simply do her best to keep her heart buried, deep as a bulb in winter.