28
Oliver, still reeling from the brilliance of Iris’s discovery, entered the hidden space after the others. Whatever he might have imagined would be there to greet them, however, certainly would never have come close to what was actually revealed by the gilded light from their lanterns.
“Dear God,” he mumbled, staring incredulously at a heavy upright iron chest covered in hobnails and nearly as tall as a full-grown man.
“Oh,” Iris breathed as she took a lantern from one of the other women and moved farther into the room.
“Goodness,” she said, turning back to look their way. Her eyes glittered almost feverishly in the lantern light. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
Oliver’s heart lurched in his chest at the excitement in her eyes.
He watched her, unable to keep the smile from his face as she turned back to the safe, walking toward it as if in a trance.
“Have you ever seen anything like it in your life?” She traced her fingers over the surface, across the hobnails, along the decorative grooves.
At his side, Lady Vastkern cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Why do I feel like we’re watching something private?” she muttered. Oliver choked back a laugh.
“Definitely Italian,” Iris continued, caressing the chest, oblivious to everyone watching. “Of the last century. The craftsmanship is stunning. Oh, you are a thing of beauty, aren’t you?” she cooed.
“Er, Iris—?” Mrs. Finch tried.
With a suddenness that caused everyone to jump, she turned back to face them, eyes like twin flames.
“Do you see these indentations here?” she said, speaking much too fast and much too loud, holding the lantern closer to the chest and pointing at something on the intricate iron front that Oliver couldn’t see for the life of him.
“When pressed just right, they reveal hidden keyholes. You need to release each lock in order or the entire mechanism will seize.” She grinned. “How exciting is that?”
While Oliver would have liked nothing better than to allow her all the time in the world to marvel over the safe—seeing her passion for it made his insides melt—he was also beginning to comprehend just how swiftly she needed to move, something that did not seem possible with how intricate the mechanism was.
A realization that was making him decidedly sick to his stomach.
They had been tempting fate as it was with each step of this plan; truly, how much longer could their luck hold out?
“Do you think you’ll be able to get inside, Iris?” he asked.
In answer, and to his surprise and bemusement, she lifted her skirts and unstrapped a bag she had tied about her thigh.
She laid it down on the ground and unrolled it to reveal a cache of lockpicking tools, more intricate than the ones she’d pulled from her bodice.
Lacing her fingers together and stretching her arms out straight in front of her, she cracked her knuckles loudly.
“I’ll have this thing open in no time,” she declared, with a confidence that, if Oliver was being quite honest with himself, was incredibly attractive.
As was the way she moved as she leaned in close to the great iron beast before her, fingers caressing and cheek pressed to the metal.
Behind him several of the other women stood in the doorway of the hidden room, no doubt listening for any sound that someone might be coming their way.
But for Oliver, his whole attention was on Iris.
Her skirts swished with a whisper as she moved, soft sounds coming from her lips, her slippers sliding in a hush against the bare floorboards.
And then the faint metallic clicking and whirring as each piece of the intricate lock was triggered.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Iris exhaled softly and, with both hands, she pulled the large bar across the front and opened the door.
For a crystalline moment it was as if time froze, not a one of them seeming to breathe.
Then, handing the light back to unseen hands, Iris reached in and pulled a stack of those familiar soft, green-covered journals with their twining gilt vines from within.
Hugging them tight to her chest, she bowed her head and heaved a ragged sob that broke his heart in two.
Hushed voices swirled about Iris. But she could not seem to break herself free of the mixture of grief and joy that filled her.
Finding her mother’s work, after years of believing it gone forever, was like getting a bit of her back again.
And yet it also felt like losing her all over again, as if she were standing at her fresh grave.
She clutched the books tighter to her chest, hardly able to breathe for the sobs ripping from her chest. In her mind, a great roaring storm had started up, memories of her mother taking shape, both a blessing and a curse, reminding her of all she’d had and all she’d lost. She did not have the will or ability to pull herself free.
Until strong arms came about her, squeezing tight.
They grounded her, those arms, anchoring her, giving her the strength to come back to herself, to the present.
The voices finally became clearer, Sylvia and Laney speaking in hushed tones as they discussed how best to get the rest of the papers out of the house, Heloise and Euphemia’s tension-fraught whispers from somewhere off to the left.
And, more solid than any of them, Oliver’s low, rumbling voice in her ear.
“It’s all right, love,” he murmured, arms tight about her, the vibration of his chest soothing her. “It’s all over. You found them. You did so well.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the hot trickle of tears run down her cheeks before, heaving a deep breath, she pulled away. Oliver’s face swam into her vision, the fitful shadows caused by the small lanterns making the worry saturating his features even more stark.
“You are well?”
“Yes.”
His relief was a potent thing, making her heart warm. But it was short-lived. Heloise and Euphemia bolted into the hidden room, pulling the door closed behind them.
“Someone is coming,” Heloise choked.
They froze, their attention fixed on the door, the lanterns going out one by one as the Widows snuffed them lest their light seep under the door and give them away.
Iris, still partially held in Oliver’s embrace, hardly dared to breathe as she tilted her head to listen.
Sure enough, there was the slightest whisper of sound on the other side of the panel, someone moving about the bedroom.
And then, closer, as whoever it was came into the dressing room.
There was the shuffle of feet, a pause, another shuffle.
Iris’s heart beat loudly in her ears as the steps came near the hidden door.
Oliver’s hands tightened infinitesimally on her shoulders, the tension rolling off of him in waves.
Then, finally, the steps receded, the sound of a door closing echoing to them.
They all waited, holding their breath, to see if the unknown person returned.
Finally small sparks flared in the pitch dark as the Widows, by some unheard signal, began the lighting of their char cloths, and the small flames of the candles in their pocket lanterns filled the room with a soft glow.
They wasted not a moment, their near discovery having reminded them of the danger of their situation.
Iris hurried to the safe, eyes scanning the interior.
God, how she wished she could pore over each item, soaking them all in.
But that could wait until they were safely away.
For now, time was of the essence. Focusing on the task at hand, she pointed out the piles of papers, the journals, the cases of specimens that needed to be taken.
Sylvia and Laney followed her orders, swiftly filling the bags they had brought with them for just this purpose.
Iris took up as many of the bags as she could manage, Oliver beside her doing the same.
As they moved aside for Heloise and Euphemia, Sylvia cast Iris a quick look.
“It will be easier to get out without detection in smaller groups. Mr. Beckett, I trust you can get my dear Iris out safely?”
“Yes, my lady,” Oliver replied. Then, arm about Iris, he pushed open the door, guiding her through the dressing room to the bedroom beyond.
Just as Oliver reached for the handle to the hallway, however, the door flung wide.
Iris squeaked, stumbling back, holding her bag with all its precious items close to her chest as a great, hulking man she had never seen before stepped into the room.
Oliver, however, was more than familiar with him. “Wren,” he said, voice tight as he stepped in front of Iris. “I did not expect to see you here.”
“I could say the same thing about you, Beckett.” He narrowed his eyes on Iris. “As well as your guest. Who’s that you’ve got there?”
“I’m not certain that concerns you, Wren,” Oliver said as he stepped more fully in front of Iris.
The man named Wren smiled slightly at his obvious attempt at protection, moving closer to them.
Oliver reacted immediately, moving back, using his arm to guide Iris deeper into the shadows.
The man named Wren followed slowly, as if he were herding them.
Panic clawed at her. There were no doors here, no alternate escape route.
If they continued on this path, they would be essentially trapped.
A moment later, however, the slightest movement caught her eye, just off to the side of Wren: Heloise, peering out of the dressing room door.
She finally understood what Oliver was doing.
By allowing the other man to herd them back, he was positioning Wren so his back would be to the dressing room, allowing the Widows to intercept him.
“I had a feeling you were up to something,” Wren said, his entire focus on Oliver. “I did not trust you from the start. And I let Lord Durand know. But fool that he is, he insisted you would be of use to us.” His lip curled in disgust. “And look where it has gotten us.”
“Us?” Oliver asked, taking yet another step back. “Are you saying you were aware all along what the earl was up to with this so-called scientific discovery he made?”
The man’s face turned florid in the low light, his fury palpable. “Just because we didn’t begin the work ourselves doesn’t mean it is any less ours. We put in the work to complete it. If we had not taken it over, it would have gone to waste anyway.”
Fury boiled in Iris’s veins, so hot she thought she might burn to a cinder. “You’re a fraud,” she bit out, peering from behind Oliver’s broad back.
“I cannot argue with the lady,” Oliver drawled, continuing his maneuvering of the other man. “You really do sound like Durand’s parrot. But you’re obviously talented. Even if this was all aboveboard, why are you and Dawson allowing him to reap all the acclaim?”
The man’s face twisted. “We are not stupid. We know how the world works. We may have talent, but we haven’t two pennies to rub together.
How could we get the funding to do something of this sort?
At least this way we can build our reputation and our coffers.
And one day, when it truly matters, we shall have the means to be acknowledged by the botanical world. ”
“I’ve known men like Lord Durand all my life,” Iris said, fingers gripping tight to her mother’s work in her arms. “You’re deluding yourself if you think he will allow you to crawl out from under his shadow. And trees, after all, cannot properly grow when in the shadow of a larger tree.”
They managed to position Wren just right, for several figures suddenly appeared behind him. There was a flash of light as Heloise held a blade up to his throat. The man froze, a strangled sound ripped from his lips.
“A stunningly apt analogy, my dear,” Sylvia said from somewhere behind Heloise. “But why don’t you and Mr. Beckett take yourselves off now while we deal with this gentleman?”
Iris needed no further urging. Taking hold of Oliver’s hand, she sent her friends a grateful look before racing from the room.
It did not take long, however, before the shock from the encounter gave way, leaving nothing but anger in its place.
And not just any anger, but a white-hot rage such as she had never felt in her life.
An idea took shape in her head, one so outrageous she would never have considered it if she had been in her right mind.
Though perhaps that was not the case at all, and she had just been given a clarity of mind that she’d been lacking before.
They made it to the servants’ stairs, but instead of going through the door, Iris paused. Oliver, who still had his hand clasped tightly about hers, stopped as well.
“Iris, we must leave now while they buy us time,” he whispered, eyes wild with worry for her and her alone. A fact that had her heart warming in her chest.
But she could not allow herself to be distracted. If she did, she would lose her nerve to do what needed to be done.
“Oliver,” she said, squeezing his hand, “I cannot leave him unpunished. And I must do it, tonight.”
A look of understanding crossed his features. She braced herself for his opposition, for him to talk her out of whatever it was she was planning. Hadn’t he let her know more than once that he wished to protect her?
Instead, however, his features set in determination. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
She gaped at him. “You don’t wish to know what I have planned? You will not try to talk me out of it?”
He smiled softly, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it.
“The moment I decided to help you, I vowed to do anything you needed, regardless of the consequences.” His eyes blazed into hers, and Iris felt the ache of tears behind her eyes as he said, with what sounded to be his entire heart behind the words, “Iris, I would burn the world down for you if you asked me to.”