by Alexa Egan
If only Bianca were there to help him.
Is that all you want with her? If you cared for the woman as much as you claim, you’d tell her so.
Gray’s comments continued to rankle like burrs beneath Mac’s skin, the tension in his shoulders sinking like a stone into his chest. Why hadn’t he declared when he had the chance? Was it gallant sacrifice, as he’d told himself while feeding draft after draft of the same unfinished letter to the flames; or was he the coward that Lady Deane and Gray claimed he was, unable to take that final and irrevocable step?
By now the morning sun had climbed through a filmy layer of smoke and cloud. Sweat had dampened Mac’s coat so that it stuck to his back, and his throat was chalky with thirst. He’d seen a tavern just beyond the market’s edge in Bedford Street. Some rashers and eggs were just the fortification he needed to continue his search.
He took a deep calming breath, only to catch a whiff of an all-too-familiar scent.
Bianca? Here? Or had he simply conjured her from his thoughts and a bad case of wishful thinking.
He scanned the shifting sea of faces.
A swirl of blue gown. A gleam of golden hair. Was that her just ahead, dodging that overturned cart of turnips?
He shouldered his way through the crowd, but by the time he’d bulled his way to the cart, she’d disappeared.
He paused between a vendor hawking carrots and parsnips and a greengrocer extolling the freshness of his young cucumbers and crisp new peas. Passed a keen gaze over the stalls ahead, nostrils flared for the elusive scent of her. Turned to the right. Jogged up half a row before the silvery bell of her voice floated on a musty breeze.
Two stalls away, consulting with a gentleman in apron and gaiters holding a tall, thin flower studded with delicate white blooms. “. . . for less than a hundred guineas. You’ll not find another like it in the city.”
“I’m sure you’re right. Well, thank you for showing it to me. It’s lovely, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”
“P’raps another time, miss.” The man placed the flower back amid the potted blooms and shrubs around him. “Now, as I was saying: old Mr. Ringrose—he’s your best bet for what you’re asking for. If he don’t have it, no one does.”
“How much?” Mac asked over Bianca’s shoulder.
Bianca whipped around, flashing him a wide-eyed stare.
“The orchid? One hundred guineas, Captain,” the nurseryman answered.
“She’ll take it.”
Bianca stiffened. “I will not. It’s far too expensive.”
“Do you want it?”
Her gaze flicked longingly toward the plant.
“We’ll take it,” Mac repeated.
“No, we won’t.”
“It’s my money. If I want—”
“Thank you, Mr. Sullivan,” she said to the hovering nurseryman, handing him a shilling. “This is for your trouble.”
Pocketing the coin, the man tipped his cap with a wink as Bianca turned to regard Mac with a cool, appraising gaze. Only the tight hold on her reticule and the slight trembling of her fingers gave her away. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here in search of that last bloody plant, but what the hell are you doing?” he growled. “What if Madame Froissart should turn up, or some more of her hired toughs?”
“So you did get my note. When I didn’t hear from you, I couldn’t be sure the major had found you.”
“He found me.”
“Were your hands broken? Did you have no ink or paper that you couldn’t dash off a sentence letting me know?” He wouldn’t say her comment dripped with sarcasm, but there was a definite waspishness to her tone.
“I should have, but—”
She held up a hand. “You’re right. It’s no longer my concern.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“No? What were you going to say? That you hoped buying me an expensive gift would make up for the fact I worried myself sick over you for the last few days? I warned you once, Mac Flannery, I can’t be purchased with pretty baubles. Just because you and I—”
“You and I what, Bianca?”
She flushed but met his gaze without wavering. “It doesn’t matter. Good day, Captain.”
“Hold on.” He grabbed her arm. “There was no ulterior motive in my offer.” She continued to spear him with a doubtful stare. Heat prickled the back of his neck, and he dipped his head, suddenly self-conscious. “All right, perhaps a slight touch of ulterior motive. But you wanted the flower. I wanted . . . oh, hell, I wanted to see you smile.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “That’s absurd.”
“Is it?”
Just then, an enormous out-of-breath young man with shoulders wide as a ship of the line and a face like a platter bulled his way through the crowd. “You can’t be running off like that, mum. His lordship will have the skin from my back if I let anything happen to you.”
“There’s the answer to your question about my safety,” Bianca said. “As you can see, an entire regiment would find it difficult to outmaneuver Donas here.”
Risking a curt set-down or even a fist to the jaw, Mac tucked her arm under his. Now that he had her alone on neutral ground, he refused to let her escape without a struggle. “You’re dismissed, Donas. I’ll see Mrs. Parrino back to Deane House, where she will stay this time.”
A dangerous line appeared between her lowered brows, her jaw tightly set, but she didn’t argue or pull away. Instead, she nodded toward the footman, who looked as if he might do enough arguing and scene making for the two of them. “Tell Lord Deane I’ll be home by tea.”
Donas glowered at Mac. “I suppose, if you say it’s all right, mum, but—”
“Please.” She laid a gentle hand upon his arm, giving him a smile that would have called birds from the trees and the sun from the sky.
The footman caved, his broad face turning bright red. “Very well, mum. I’ll let His Lordship know.” He turned to Mac with a stare that could strip paint. “But you better not let anything happen to her, ya hear?” He offered him one last threatening look and cracked his knuckles before disappearing into the crowds.
“It’s amazing how you do that,” Mac said, firmly tucking her against him lest she change her mind and go pelting after the besotted Donas. “One smile and he’s ready to charge the cannon’s mouth for you.”
“Don’t tease. He’s a sweet boy and takes his duty very seriously. You of all people should respect a slave to duty.”
Despite her queenly rebuke, Mac felt desire flood him as well as affection and an unexpected optimism. The woman he’d discovered at the Wallace farm was still there, just buried beneath a hard, frosty layer of winter. But, like the delicate petals of the am’ryath, it would take just the slightest warmth for her to bloom again.
He opened his mouth to say the words he’d penned over and over. The arguments he’d concocted as he stood outside Deane House.
A barrow bumped his knees. “Here, now, fella! Out the way, then.”
Coming to his senses, Mac moved aside, swallowing the explanations and excuses. He couldn’t speak. Not yet. Not until Renata Froissart had been dealt with and the curse had been lifted. He could offer nothing until then. But after . . . after, he would not let her go until she believed him. Until she trusted him again.
“I never meant to hurt you.” Hardly inspiring. He’d said it at least a hundred times to her since they’d met. No wonder she continued to eye him with obvious doubt and a dangerous glitter in her eyes.
“So you buy me a flower and think all is forgiven?”
A crowd of laughing men pressed through between them, their faces red with cold, fists tight about their sacks. For a moment he and Bianca found themselves separated as the group passed, and only Mac’s grab for her hand kept her from being swept along in their wake.
He shoved her into the alley between two stalls where the noise was muffled somewhat by the canvas draped across the crates of
cabbages and turnips.
“You’re right, Bianca. From now on, I promise never to buy you anything. Ever. You could be starving and I wouldn’t deign to purchase you the smallest crust of bread. On my honor.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“See, I didn’t spend a penny and I succeeded anyway. You’re smiling.”
“I most certainly am not.”
“You are. It’s there. The tiniest hint of the smallest little smile, but it’s there.” Unthinking, he touched the corner of her mouth; her skin was cool, her lips warm.
A barrel-chested vegetable seller tucked his head out to growl at them. “Here, now, are you buying or gabbing? I’ve customers what can’t see the merchandise with ye blocking the way.”
“This isn’t the place for conversation,” Bianca said.
“You’re right.” Mac took her hand as they passed through the aisles toward the market’s edge.
“Have you found what you were looking for?” she asked.
He flicked his gaze over the porcelain curve of her cheek, one gilded curl peeping from beneath her stylish bonnet. A smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. “I begin to think I have,” he answered quietly.
“Really? I’ve come up empty-handed, though three nurserymen, including Mr. Sullivan back there, all said to call on a Mr. Ringrose. They say for anything out of the ordinary, he’d be the one to see.”
Surprise surged through him. “You’re still searching?”
Pink rose in her cheeks, her chin hardening defiantly. “It’s a puzzle, pure and simple, and I’ve always loved a good challenge. It’s nothing to do with you, so don’t get any ideas.”
Oh, he had ideas, all right. All of them indecent. Hope rushed in to replace his earlier exhaustion, and he had to clamp down hard on the smile fighting to break free. He jerked his head back the way they had come. “So, how do we find this Ringrose?”
“ ‘We’?”
“I promised young Donas. Remember?”
“He has a shop near London Bridge.”
As they fought their way through the crowds, small details took on heightened significance. Her long, tapered fingers resting lightly on his arm, the way her gown slid provocatively over her hips as she walked, the smell of her hair as she bent her head toward his. Unable to stop himself, he noted this new awareness of her with a mixture of joy and sorrow.
Bianca had become more than a means to an end. She was the end.
A woman he could love.
A life he might live.
Passing a young girl sitting cross-legged on the curb, he dropped a few pennies into her apron, accepting in return a bunch of faded blooms, which he held out for Bianca. “I know I promised no gifts . . .”
She shook her head. “Between the gleaming gold braid and the roguish Irish charm, the women of London must not stand a chance.”
“Too bad it’s only one woman I’m interested in winning over.”
She held the flowers to her nose, her expression softening. “You’re a ridiculous, irritating, infuriating man, Captain Mac Flannery.”
He pushed a curl off her cheek. Drank in the growing faith he sensed behind the beauty of her gaze. “You got it half right.”
* * *
Mr. Ringrose’s apothecary shop leaned drunkenly in the shadow of London Bridge, in an alley running behind the giant pipes and pumps of the nearby waterworks. Its windows were clouded with filth, its weathered signboard hanging from one rusted chain. The stench of feces, dead fish, and mud stung Bianca’s eyes and choked the breath from her throat even through the handkerchief she pressed to her mouth.
“Are you certain this is the right address?” Mac asked, looking a bit pea-green himself.
Through her watering eyes, Bianca checked the paper one final time. “This is it.” She jumped back as a rat the size of a lapdog scuttled out from under the rotted foundation to disappear down a nearby drain. “You’d think someone as well-known as this Ringrose fellow would be able to afford a decent workplace.”
Mac threw her an encouraging smile. “Mayhap the rare-plant business isn’t what it used to be.”
She hiked up her resolve with a lift of her shoulders. “Well, we won’t find out by standing here.”
Mac turned the door handle, ushering her inside.
A bell tinkled over the doorway as they entered, an answering chime echoing from somewhere in the back, but Bianca’s attention was all for the Aladdin’s cave of treasures that lay before them.
Narrow aisles ran between shelves heavy with old and weathered books mixed in with jars big and small containing specimens preserved in brine: here a small toad, there what looked like a hairless rat, the third Bianca couldn’t even begin to guess and, by the looks of it, was better off not knowing. Another aisle held shrunken heads—of men and women—some with hair, some without. A trio of mysterious bottles labeled XXX and with a skull and crossbones stood like soldiers in a row beside a stuffed parrot and a glass dish of eggs the size of apples. Just beyond was a wall that contained nothing but drawers from top to bottom. She pulled open a few to find small bundles wrapped in cloth, colored stones, a fish skeleton.
From the ceiling hung thousands of bunches of dried plants, so many tucked against each other that the ceiling joists had disappeared from view. In addition, running the perimeter of the shop were wide counters containing live plants growing in glorious profusion. She recognized sweet marjoram and garden rocket. A small pot of rush leeks peeked from behind the wide leaves of an endive. One wall held a profusion of featherfew blooming as if it were July. Another contained great blowsy peonies, which typically only burst into flower in April.
Vaguely, she registered Mac’s hand giving hers a reassuring squeeze, his muttered oath mixing with her own, the clamor and chaos of the bustling wharves cut off as the door swung shut with the clang of a prison cell.
Dizziness overcame her, a strange tilt and spin as if the earth had suddenly shifted for a moment beneath her feet, the light growing flat and gray, her stomach rising into her throat. She closed her eyes, inhaling through her nose and out her mouth, feeling Mac’s tension in the grip of her hand, the heat in his voice.
“This place reeks of magic, Bianca. We need to leave. Now.”
Her eyes snapped open, the world steadying as she gripped his arm tighter. “We can’t. Not if we want to find the last plant on Adam’s list.”
Mac shot her a strange, worried look. “Bianca? Is something wrong? You seem unwell.”
“Who’s there?” From behind the curtain, a voice as crackly and old as dry paper piped up. “Who is it, Badb? Can you see them?”
“I’m here seeking Bartholomew Ringrose,” Mac called.
Something black and swift as an arrow dove on them from the ceiling, brushing so close by Bianca that she felt the whisper of its talons pass her cheek. A crow half again a normal size alighted upon a chair back, studying them with eyes shiny black as marbles.
“Well, Badb? Do we know them?” the voice asked, still from the anonymity of the back rooms. “Are they who they say they are?”
A croak from the crow, a twitch of its glossy head.
“See for myself?” the voice whined. “Well, I shall, won’t I? I hope they don’t expect to be fed. I’ve only lunch enough for two.”
A hand pushed aside a faded, once-luxurious velvet curtain separating the store from the rooms behind, and out stepped a skeletal man with a long white beard, flowing silver hair, and bushy eyebrows like whisk brooms. Dressed in a shabby suit of threadbare clothes, he had a napkin stuffed into his shirt and a striped and tasseled cap perched upon his head. The combination of all this should have given him a clownish air, but there was nothing humorous in the expression blazing from his glittering silver eyes.
“What’s so important you feel the need to interrupt someone’s luncheon? I warn you, I haven’t enough for any guests. Besides, it’s chops and gravy, Badb’s favorite, and she doesn’t like to share.”
The crow fl
uttered from her perch upon the chair to land upon the man’s shoulder. With twin pairs of gimlet eyes, they sized Mac and Bianca up with raking stares that could curdle milk. A headache blazed up behind her eyes.
“We’re looking for a plant. We were told you might have it,” Mac said.
“A plant? You’re bothering me for a plant? What do I look like, the corner flower girl? Buy the woman a bunch of violets and be done with it. Come bothering me for a plant,” he muttered. “Badb, can you believe it? As if I’ve the time for such nonsense. And us just settling in to our luncheon.”
The crow squawked, skittering a few steps up and back on Ringrose’s shoulder.
“I’d wish you good day, but I’d be lying. Now, push off and let me get back to my chop.” He turned away, obviously already dismissing them from his mind.
“I can see why the plant business isn’t booming,” Mac muttered.
Ignoring the mounting discomfort at her temples, Bianca shushed him with a wave of her hand. “We’re looking for Aquameniustis, Mr. Ringrose. Have you heard of it? You’re our last hope.”
The man peered at her closely for the first time, his stare giving her a pins-and-needles feeling as it traveled from the tip of her head to the tips of her boots. The thudding behind her eyes doubled in intensity, spreading from her temples to overtake her whole brain. It throbbed with every beat of her heart.
The crow bobbed its black head and flapped its wings.
“What’s that?”
“Aqua—”
“Hush, woman. I heard you the first time. Just getting my bearings.”
Bianca sucked in a breath, her hand tightening on Mac’s. Here it was. The answer they sought. Even now, the plant they needed could be hanging inches away or tucked among the vines and greenery growing rampant around the room.
“Aqua . . .” he mumbled to himself, combing a hand through his beard, eyes lost in thought. “. . . iustis. Sounds familiar. On the tip of my tongue.”