The Perfect Poison (9 page)

“I am the most fortunate of sons to have you for a father, sir.”

“I regret to say that you will not thank me for siring you after I tell you the truth about yourself.” Fergus closed his eyes in pain. “I never did tell your mother, you know. It was my gift to her. Alice died without ever realizing the danger you will confront.”

“What are you talking about, sir?” Perhaps Fergus was hallucinating again.

“I still hesitate to tell you of the truth,” Fergus whispered. “But you are my son and I know you well. You would curse me to your own dying day if I held back knowledge of such a vital nature. Given what I am about to say, you will doubtless abominate me anyway.”

“Whatever it is you feel you must confide, sir, I assure you, it could never drive me to hate you.”

“Wait until you hear what I am about to tell you before you judge.” Another violent cough interrupted Fergus. He gasped a few times and finally recovered his breath. “It concerns your great-grandfather, Erasmus Jones.”

“What about him?” But a cold trickle of knowing slithered down Caleb’s spine.

“You possess a talent very similar to his.”

“I am aware of that.”

“You also know that he went mad, set fire to his library and laboratory and jumped to his death.”

“You think I face the same fate, sir,” he said quietly. “Is that what you are trying to tell me?”

“Your great-grandfather was convinced that it was his talent that drove him mad. He wrote about it in his last journal.”

“I have never heard that Erasmus Jones kept any journals.”

“That is because he destroyed all but one of them in the fire. He was convinced that the vast amount of research he had done with the aid of his talent was meaningless. But he held back one journal because, in the end, he was still Erasmus Jones. He could not bear to destroy his own secrets.”

“Where is this journal?”

Fergus turned his head to look across the room. “You will find it in the hidden compartment of my safe along with another little volume, a notebook that he preserved with the journal. His son, your grandfather, gave them to me on his deathbed, and now I bequeath them to you.”

“Have you read them?”

“No. Neither did your grandfather. We couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Fergus managed a snort. “Erasmus was Sylvester’s heir to the core. Like the old bastard, he invented his own private code for use in his journals. The notebook is also written in code. Neither your grandfather nor I dared show either book to anyone else in the family who might have been able to decipher it because we feared the secrets it might contain.”

“Why did you and Grandfather keep the journal and the notebook?”

Fergus looked up at him, his feverish eyes remarkably steady. “Because the first page of the journal is written in plain English. Erasmus addressed a message to his son and his future descendants. The note instructed them to preserve both volumes until such time in the future when another male with Sylvester’s talent appeared.”

“Someone like me.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Erasmus believed that the notebook contained the secret to recovering his sanity. He failed to discover that secret in time to save himself. He was convinced that sometime in the future one of his line would face the same crisis. He hoped that his descendant would be able to alter his own fate by solving the mysteries in that damned volume.”

“What is the second volume?” Caleb asked.

“According to Erasmus, it is Sylvester’s last notebook.”

******

He remained by his father’s bedside until dawn. Fergus opened his eyes just as the first light of day appeared.

“Why the devil is it so damned hot in here?” he growled. He glared at the blaze on the hearth. “What are you trying to do? Burn down the house?”

Stunned, Caleb pushed himself up out of the uncomfortable chair in which he had spent the night. He looked down into his father’s eyes and saw at once that they were no longer bright with fever. The crisis had passed. His father lived. A relief unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life cascaded through him.

“Good morning, sir,” he said. “You gave us a bit of a scare during the past few days. How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” Fergus rubbed the gray stubble on his chin with one hand. “But I do believe I’m going to live after all.”

Caleb smiled. “So it appears, sir. Are you hungry? I’ll send downstairs for some tea and toast.”

“And perhaps some eggs and bacon, as well,” Fergus said.

“Yes, sir.” Caleb reached for the velvet bellpull hanging beside the bed. “Although you may have to do some persuasive talking to convince the nurse that you are ready for a proper breakfast. Between you and me, she looks a bit tyrannical.”

Fergus grimaced. “She’ll be disappointed that I failed to meet her expectations. She was sure I’d cock up my toes by dawn. Pay the woman and send her off to the next poor, dying bastard.”

“I’ll do that,” Caleb said.

Caleb found the sleek little black-and-maroon carriage precisely where Mrs. Shute had told him it would be in Guppy Lane. In the morning light the neighborhood displayed an air of proud, hardworking respectability. It was only a short distance from Landreth Square but it was many leagues away in terms of social status. What in blazes was Lucinda doing here?

A thin man dressed in a coachman’s hat and multi-caped coat lounged against the iron railing that guarded the front area of a small house. Caleb got out of the hansom, wincing a little when his bruised ribs protested the small jolt. He paid the driver and then walked toward the man on the railing.

“Mr. Shute?”

“Aye, sir.” Shute watched him with slightly squinted eyes. “I’m Shute.”

“Mrs. Shute gave me this address,” Caleb said. “I am looking for Miss Bromley.”

Shute angled his head toward the doorway to the house. “She’s inside.” He took out his pocket watch and examined the time. “Been there for an hour. Might be a while longer.”

Caleb studied the door. “A social call?” he asked neutrally.

“Not exactly. She’s got business inside that house.”

“Is that so?”

“You came here this morning because you were curious about what would bring a lady like Miss Bromley to this part of town.”

“You are a very astute man, Mr. Shute.”

“Thought she might be in some danger, did ye?”

“Crossed my mind.” The other possibility, of course, was that she was having an affair. For some obscure reason that had bothered him just as much.

“Mrs. Shute and I were raised in this neighborhood.” Shute looked at the row of narrow houses across the street. “Mrs. Shute’s aunts live in number five over there. Retired after nearly forty years of service in a wealthy household. When their employer died, the heirs let them go without a pension. Miss Bromley pays their rent.”

“I see,” Caleb said.

“I’ve got a couple of cousins at the end of the lane. Miss Bromley employs the girls as maids in her household. Mrs. Shute and I have a son. He and his wife and their two little ones live in the next street. My son works for a printer. Miss Bromley’s father got him the job a few years ago.”

“I think I’m beginning to understand, Mr. Shute.”

“My grandchildren attend school. Miss Bromley helps out with the fees. She says an education is the only sure way to get ahead in the modern age.”

“Obviously a lady of advanced notions.”

“Aye.” Shute aimed a thumb over his wide shoulder, pointing toward the door to the house behind him. “My sister’s daughter and her family live here.”

“You’ve made your point, Mr. Shute. My concerns for Miss Bromley’s safety were groundless. She is in no danger here.”

“There’s folks in this neighborhood and the nearby streets who would slice the liver out of anyone who tried to hurt a hair on Miss Bromley’s head with nary a moment’s hesitation and then toss the body into the river.” Shute’s eyes tightened a little more. “Been in a fight, have ye?”

“I was involved in a small altercation last night,” Caleb said. He had done his best to conceal his bruised eye by pulling up the high collar of his long coat and angling the brim of his hat but there were limits to such a disguise.

Shute nodded, unperturbed. “You got the better of your opponent, I take it.”

“I would say so. He is headed for an insane asylum.”

“Not the usual ending for a fistfight.”

“It was not the usual sort of fistfight.”

Shute gave him a speculative look. “I reckon not.”

The door to the little house opened. Lucinda appeared in the doorway. She carried a large black leather satchel in her ungloved hand. She had her back turned toward Caleb as she spoke to a woman in a worn dress and apron.

“Do not worry about trying to get food into him,” Lucinda said. “The important thing is to make sure that he takes a few sips of the tisane several times an hour.”

“I’ll see to it,” the woman vowed.

“The little ones lose all of their fluids so quickly when they are struck by this sort of stomach ailment. But I’m sure Tommy will recover in a day or two, provided he continues to take the tisane.”

“I do not know how to thank you, Miss Bromley.” The woman’s face registered both exhaustion and relief. “I didn’t know what else to do except call you. The doctor would likely have refused to come to this neighborhood.” Her mouth twisted. “You know how it is. He would have assumed we could not afford his fees. In any event, it wasn’t as if Tommy had broken a bone. I suspected that it was something he ate that made him ill. Everyone around here knows that when it comes to that kind of thing, you are far more knowledgeable than any doctor.”

“Tommy will be fine. I’m sure of it. Just keep giving him the tisane.”

“I will, Miss Bromley. Never fear.” The woman leaned out of the doorway and waved at Shute. “Good morning, Uncle Jed. Tell Aunt Bess I said hello.”

Shute straightened away from the railing. “I’ll do that, Sally.”

Lucinda turned in the doorway and saw Caleb for the first time.

“What on earth are you doing here, Mr. Jones?”

“I arrived at your address at eight o’clock to deliver my report on the progress of my investigation and to ask you some questions,” he said. “You weren’t at home.”

“Good heavens.” She stared at him, quite stunned. “You called at eight o’clock in the morning? No one does business at that hour.”

“Evidently you do.” He nodded toward the house from which she had just emerged.

“My business here is of an entirely different nature.”

He took the satchel from her. It was surprisingly heavy. “When I discovered that you were not at home I decided to track you down. You will recall that you insisted upon a daily report?”

“I don’t recall using the word daily,” she said. “I believe the words I employed were frequent and regular.”

“I took frequent and regular to mean daily.”

She looked up at him from under the brim of her small, ribbon-trimmed hat. “Never say that you mean to call upon me every day at eight o’clock in the morning. That is outrageous.” She broke off suddenly, eyes widening behind the lenses of her spectacles. “What happened to you, Mr. Jones? Did you suffer an accident?”

“Something along those lines.”

He handed her into the dainty carriage and followed her with some caution. Nevertheless, the movement sent another jolt through his bruised ribs. He knew Lucinda noticed.

“When we get back to my house I will give you something for the pain,” she said.

“Thank you.” He set the satchel on the floor of the vehicle. “That would be greatly appreciated. Took some salicin but it hasn’t done much good.”

The miniature leather seats had never been intended to transport a man of his size. Gingerly, he sat down across from Lucinda. There was no way to prevent his trousers from brushing up against the draped folds of her gown. One severe bounce and she would be across his thighs. Or he would find himself on top of her. The images heated his blood and made him forget about his ribs.

“In addition to something for the pain, I have another tisane for you,” Lucinda said.

He frowned. “What is it for?”

“There is some tension in your aura.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“The imbalance I sense will not be alleviated by sleep. It is caused by some problem of a psychical nature. I believe my tonic will ease it. I prepared it after you left yesterday.”

He shrugged and looked out the window. “You appear to enjoy something of a reputation in this neighborhood, Miss Bromley.”

“A reputation that is quite different from the one I hold in the polite world, do you mean?” She smiled at a woman who was waving from a doorway. When she turned back to face him the smile was gone. “It’s true that the people in Guppy Lane trust me not to poison them.”

“As do I,” he said, too weary and sore to allow himself to be provoked.

“Evidently,” she said, relaxing a little. “Well, sir, what do you have to report?”

He discovered that he had to work hard in order to concentrate on any subject other than Lucinda’s faint, tantalizing scent and the gentle currents of enticing energy that threatened to drug his senses. Sitting this close to her had a disturbing effect on his usually well-ordered thoughts. It was the lack of sleep, he thought.

Or perhaps there was a simpler explanation. He’d been too long without the therapeutic release of a sexual encounter. It had been several months now since the tepid liaison with a certain attractive widow had ended, as all such connections did, with the usual sense of relief.

Nevertheless, it struck him as strange that he had not been aware of missing the occasional bout of that particular type of physical exercise until yesterday when he had been inexplicably overcome by the urge to kiss Lucinda. And, just as inexplicably, the same nearly irresistible urge was riding him hard once again. He really needed to get more sleep.

“Sir?” Lucinda said somewhat sharply.

He forced himself to apply his powers of self-mastery. “I told you yesterday that before I could give my full attention to your investigation I had to deal with another matter. That business was concluded last night.”

Curiosity sparkled in her eyes. “Satisfactorily, I assume?”