"Me? Dinner?"
"Well, the galley, really. But I have arranged for a seat in a secluded corner."
He seemed to be getting at something she did not quite understand. "Did Electa cancel your date?"
"No. I just . . . I will have to tell her, of course. I will tell her the truth, which is that I would prefer to have dinner with you."
She stopped short in her tracks as if she had been hit in the mouth by a cricket stick. Me? She wanted to babble out, Do you have a high fever? Or perhaps you are subject to bouts of temporary insanity? But what she heard herself say, in a rather civil and considered manner, was, "I would be happy to accompany you."
The grin that spread across his face was like the sun after a dark winter sky. He held out his arm for her to take.
She took it, returning his grin. Together, they walked toward her dorm room as though out for an evening stroll, dressed in their finest.
How magical and incredible the night suddenly seemed! Despite her efforts to the contrary, she hadn't been able to find anything suspicious about Handy whatsoever. Surely, the vicar was mistaken about him. He had to be. She would write and explain that he had the wrong man, and that she certainly couldn't kill him for that reason, and he would check his intelligence and realize that he had gotten it wrong all along. What a splendid solution! All was right with the world.
Right about then, the officers’ quarters exploded.
Commandant Elderbatch stood among the smoking ruins, his robust mustachios drooping at the ends and a tuft of his salt-and-pepper colored hair sticking up at an awkward angle around a woolen hat Electa had convinced him to put on. His pajamas protruded from the pea coat unbuttoned about his round belly.
"Do come out of there, sir!" called Lieutenant Mercy. "There's nothing to be gained by singeing yourself!"
"The devil there isn't!" Elderbatch trumpeted. "I know what I'm doing, Lieutenant. You just keep the gawkers out of the way, you hear me?"
Florance herself was one of those gawkers, standing shocked and dismayed next to Handy, her ears still ringing with the sound of the tremendous explosion.
"What on earth is he doing?" Handy asked Electa, who stood next to them with her arms folded over her chest, her perfect rosebud lips twisted into a disapproving frown. Together, the three of them watched as Commandant Elderbatch picked his way across the ruins of the officers' quarters. Every now and again, he would pause, insert the monocle into his eye, and examine some bit of detritus before shaking his head and moving on. Everyone except for Elderbatch seemed to have been at Handy's unveiling, thank heavens.
"He imagines that he is an expert on the properties of explosions, and he means to find the cause of this one." Electa's voice sounded less snide than Florance was accustomed to, so much so that she looked at her in surprise, to find Electa glancing at them both with a sort of rueful acceptance. How odd to be a part of an actual conversation with the woman and not merely the recipient of an order or sharply worded retort.
"Certainly, there must have been a blockage in the stovepipe," Lieutenant Marcy interrupted, most rudely joining their conversation.
"Perhaps," Electa allowed. "You know how he is, though. He won't rest until his curiosity is satisfied."
"He is rather relentless, isn't he?" Lieutenant Marcy replied with a resigned sigh.
"Relentless is precisely the term I would use to describe him." The note of fondness to Electa's voice and warmth in her eyes surprised Florance.
A small knot of scientific personnel stood together, pointing and arguing their various theories about the cause of the explosion. The general consensus seemed to be the stovepipe. However, at least two of the men argued for the presence of dynamite, a new and dangerous substance with which they had become acquainted while working at various mining enterprises. The significant problem with that theory lay in the fact that there was none of it here or in the surrounding 8,000 miles.
"Oh, dear," Florance said. "I do believe his investigation must stop at once."
She pointed at the swirling mass of clouds headed for them at a rather alarming pace. It appeared that they were in for a rather windy evening.
"Batten down the hatches!" called Lieutenant Mercy in a deep baritone.
Onlookers scattered to their various duties. In short order, they closed lids, ensured barrels and supply stacks were adequately roped down, and set up the line that would guide them to and from the latrines in white-out conditions.
"Accompany me, please, Master Gardener," Lieutenant Mercy told Handy. "You and I will be bunking in the main dormitory for a while. It will be a little cramped, but we can endure that humiliation for the crown, can we not?"
"Yes, of course," Handy replied, then he smiled at Florance. She gave a half-wave and an answering smile, her heart swelling.
Florance rushed about her own assigned duties, securing the coal bin, seeing to the supply of old catalogs and discarded newspapers in the latrine, and making sure there was adequate firewood stacked up beside the kitchen, all of which took her longer than almost everyone else. They had all disappeared, save for Commandant Elderbatch. He was still staring most intently at the ruin on the ground, completely ignoring the rising wind and threatening clouds.
"Sir—" she began, worried about his safety.
"Aha!" he exulted, snatching up a board and holding it aloft. "This is it! The cause of the explosion! See here, the pattern of the outward breakage indicates that this was the epicenter of the blast."
The writing on the box said: "Bentley's Beautiful Narcissus Bulbs."
"What on earth is up with you, child?" Libby Masterson shrieked. "You're going to contaminate the radish pie if you keep on with your howling!"
Florance couldn't help it. Brave English face and all didn't last long when she was getting ready to murder someone. She dabbed at her streaming eyes with a hanky and sniffled like a fisherman with a cold.
"So sorry. It just hit me, it did. Mum's last letter told of how my dear old orange tabby, Beauregard, ran afoul of a motorized plow. I so loved that fat little devil!" Her voice got high and loud, and her sentence ended with a wail akin to that of an attacking harpy.
Libby, a portly matron of indeterminate age, squinted at her in exasperation and grumbled something about hysteria and insanity under her breath. Without looking, she scooped a mound of pie onto the plate of the next man in line.
Florance tried to compose herself. Man after man shuffled past the serving table, plate in hand and a hungry gleam in his eyes. She had volunteered to take Margaret's place on the line, urging her friend to rest instead. Since Margaret's favorite form of recreation was sleeping, she didn't need much convincing.
Florance hadn't slept the previous night, a consequence of deciding upon a fiendish plan to do away with poor, beautiful, treacherous Handy. Her eyes clouded over again, either from tears or exhaustion. She kept looking up from serving the portions of radish pie, boiled legumes, mushy potatoes, and watery soup that made up lunch.
At last, Handy joined the end of the line, his wavy brown hair distinct above the line of gray, hat-covered heads. A thrill of perfect horror lanced her midsection. Breaking out in a cold sweat, she stopped breathing. She fumbled under her apron for the small vial of colorless liquid. Previously, it had harbored rather foul-smelling perfume—the contents of which she’d tossed out the back door and which had settled on the coat of a shaggy old husky—but now it contained a measured amount of strychnine. Precisely enough to end Handy's blessed existence.
With mechanical movements, she scooped food onto the plates, glancing up every now and again to gauge when Handy would appear in front of her. I can do this. I can do this, I can do this. I can—
"Well, hello, miss. It is wonderful to see you again," Handy said in that warm, delicious, soon-to-be-dead-and-forever-wiped-off-the-earth voice. "I am most anxious for our dinner later this evening. I do hope that you’ll be off work in time?"
"I don't think so. I mean, it is wonderful to see y
ou, too," she jabbered.
Under the table, she unscrewed the vial. Looking up at him with a watery smile, she drew him a bowl of soup and dashed the vial into it. She had practiced distraction and stealthy application of the poison dozens of times while the other women slept on peacefully despite the raging gale outside. By the end of the gale some hours later, she found that she could perform the dastardly deed with the necessary discretion.
His eyebrows drew together. "Er, tally ho, then. Tonight it is. Eight o'clock all right?" He nodded at her, pleasant and unsuspecting, and moved on down the line.
How odd that no one had grabbed her and begun yelling that she was a filthy assassin.
Oh, dear. She really was an assassin now, wasn't she?
Her vision narrowed until she could only see a pinpoint of light. A squeak rose from her throat, the sort of which emits from a mouse when a hungry cat snatches it in its jaws. She felt herself swaying dangerously.
Libby made an alarmed snort and grabbed her around the shoulders. She felt herself being herded out of the serving line and into a chair. "Here, Florance. Can't have you fainting in the afternoon meal."
"Thank you, Miss Libby," she said faintly.
Libby patted her on the shoulder. "There, there. You just sit down and try not to think about your smashed—er, deceased—cat." She hurried back to the serving line to do double-duty.
After several long, deep breaths, Florance's vision returned. The dizziness passed soon after. The sounds of lunch time—low conversation, benches scraping across the floor, the determined chewing and lip-smacking of dozens of hungry men—waxed and waned all around her. When she looked up, she saw Handy sitting two tables away, conversing with his fellows while slurping down the soup.
One sip. Two. Oh, goodness. Now he was lifting the bowl and drinking the last dregs. His conversation continued unabated, though. Something about a future endeavor building an igloo with a machete while wearing galoshes. Handy laughed and gestured, his cheeks ruddy and his motions vigorous . . . most healthful. Perhaps she had somehow missed dashing the vial's contents into his soup? But she was certain she had succeeded. What if . . .?
Handy stopped talking rather abruptly. One hand went to his belly. His chin dropped to his chest and the expression on his face—or his profile, rather, since she viewed him from the side—lost all humor.
This is it, she realized. A mewling sort of sob escaped her lips. She watched, frozen, as he seemed to fold in on himself. The other men at his table carried on, oblivious. Quite against her own will, she rose to her feet.
As if they shared some invisible connection, he rose as well. Shoulders hunched, he lifted his hand from his stomach to his forehead. He stumbled over the bench.
"Handy!" she cried, unable to help herself.
Wide brown eyes met hers. The whole of the galley melted away in the wake of that gaze. Sweat popped on his forehead in fat beads. A warbling cry escaped his lips. He lurched toward her.
"My guts," he moaned. "They're on fire!"
"Oh, Handy. I'm so sorry. I can't bear to see you in agony!"
He responded with a terrible cry and crashed to his knees. Then he sagged to the floor and shuddered. She rushed to his side and knelt there, tears cascading down her cheeks. Squeezing his shoulder, she felt his muscles tensed and trembling a little. Then his entire body seized up and he sat straight up, eyes wide open and bulging.
A tremendous belch erupted from his mouth. The sound echoed around a suddenly silent hall. A hundred plus faces gaped in stunned surprise.
"Peppermint," she noted, "with an undertone of . . . ginger?"
Handy let out a relieved sigh. He looked a thousand times better, the color returned to his face, and the tension drained from his body. "Well, that explains it, then. I'm seriously allergic to peppermint. Gives me terrible dyspepsia, it does." A wrinkle appeared between his brows. "I didn't know that reconstituted buffalo soup had peppermint in it. How odd."
Her thoughts whirled around her stunned brain like vultures. She heard herself mutter, "Oh, yes, it's a little-known ingredient . . ."
"Make way for the physician! Make way!" Libby bawled, barreling through the men with the ease of long practice.
The base physician waddled in behind her, perspiring, spectacles perched on the end of his bulbous nose. "Mr. O'Hanagan, do be reasonable and lie down this instant!" he directed, lowering himself to his knees with a grunt of effort.
As he fumbled a stethoscope into his ears, Florance backed away.
"What is it, dear?" Libby appeared from somewhere. "You look so terribly pale!"
"I . . . uh, air. I need some fresh air!"
She rushed out of the suddenly stuffy and overly hot room and into the shockingly frigid outdoors. Last night's gale had blown over with uncharacteristic quickness, although it left a modest wind of seventy-five miles per hour firing bits of snow and ice at her face with bullet-like accuracy. By the time she made it into the ladies' dormitory and pawed through the bottles on the vanity, she realized what had happened.
It seemed that she had chosen the wrong bottle. The strychnine sat there, untouched.
Instead, she had given Mr. McHanagan a rather substantial dose of Professor Moynahan's Menstrual Relief Tonic.
Footsteps made the floor creak. Florance heard them in a distant sort of way but she paid them little mind. She lay back on her bed with a cool rag over her eyes, hoping in vain that the swelling from all the recent weeping would go down and the throbbing in her head would vanish, enabling her to think straight. What a trying day it had been! She really needed some restful sleep and perhaps a sip of the menstrual tonic herself in order to think about what she had to do next. If only the other girls would leave her alone while she rested. Hannah had an annoying habit of nattering on when the last thing she wanted to do was talk.
"Oh, dear, Miss Barton, you look quite under the weather," said a concerned male voice.
She snatched the rag off her eyes and sat straight up, blinking. "Handy? Whatever are you doing here?"
He looked quite well put-together, with his wavy hair combed to the side and held in place with oil, wearing a suit jacket only a little too small for him. He held a bouquet of three flowers made from pencils, green paint, wire, and blue and yellow box tops.
"Our engagement. You forgot?" A dimple appeared in his chin when he frowned.
"What? Oh, yes, of course. It's just that I feel so woozy, you see. I do believe I inhaled too many ammonia fumes when I was sterilizing the medical equipment."
"Goodness! You certainly shouldn't be resting here. You need to evacuate your lungs of that foulness! The gale has stopped entirely and the sun is shining most prettily. Come, let us walk. It will do you good."
That did sound a lot better than what she was currently doing. Besides, perhaps she would see an opportunity to complete her mission by pushing him off a cliff or into a crevasse or whatnot.
"Very well, then. Allow me to suit up."
Handy waited in the foyer while she drew on the wool leggings, wool undershirts, sealskin gloves, goggles, and moose fur hat necessary for a quick stroll in the subzero summer afternoon.
He had taken the opportunity to arrange the paper flowers in an empty tin of tobacco on the small table.
"Oh!" she said, admiring the surprisingly thoughtful act. "You are so kind. Thank you."
He blushed and opened the door for her. She blinked in the bright sunlight despite her goggles. She never could stay out too long in such a glare.
"Queen Margaret whelped six puppies just this afternoon. Would you care to visit them? They are occupying the most comfortable looking corner of the tool shed. "
It took her a moment to comprehend that he was talking about the albino husky bitch named Queen Margaret. She didn't much like dogs, really. But day-old dogs were mostly harmless, and there wasn't much else to do out here.
"Yes, I should like that."
As they headed toward the shed, they passed several men sifting throu
gh the ruin of the officers' quarters. One of them looked up and, pointing at Handy, declared, "There goes the bomber himself!"
"Shut it, now!" Handy burst out, startling her. "I've been cleared of misdeeds per the Commandant!"
She stopped in her tracks, gaping at him. He walked on a few more steps before realizing that she was no longer there.
"My apologies, miss. I shouldn't be bellowing so. But the boys have been hassling me since—"
"What do you mean you've been cleared?" Florance interrupted.
Handy removed his woolen hat and smoothed his hair back. "Er, well, you see, it seems that I'm the reason the officers' quarters blew up—"
"Yes, I figured that out, actually."
"You did? But how? It doesn't matter, I suppose. I'm afraid that the box of narcissus bulbs I had under my bed for so many days was filled with dynamite! I don't know why the young man who gave them to me would do such a thing. I mean, that might have killed people, myself included!"
"I rather think that was the point, don't you?"
Handy's mouth snapped shut, and such a look of complete surprise came over his broad, honest face that she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had been used as an unwitting pawn.
"But that is dastardly! Why would anyone do such a thing? He didn't know me from Adam! He certainly could have no personal grudge against me."
A bubble of laughter, sharp and strident, erupted from Florance's lips. It echoed off the ice pack like the calving of an iceberg.
A telltale crinkle of surprise appeared between Handy's eyebrows.
Florance felt her own eyes clouding over. She tore off her gloves and rose to her tiptoes, steadying herself by grasping his lapels. Leaning up, she pressed her lips to his. The sensation of his breath, warm and fragrant, contrasted with the feel of his moist, slightly chapped lips. After a suitable amount of time, but far too soon, she withdrew from the kiss and caught her bottom lip under her front teeth. Quite unbidden, a tear slipped down her cheek.
Whiter Pastures: (Sweet and Sassy Historical) (An Icebound Tale) Page 3