Page 38 of A Fearless Heart
“She seems like a lady,” he replied. “A little sad, but I gather she’s lost both parents, so that’s expected. How much do I owe?”
The proprietor took his money, though it was clear that he’d rather hear more about the mysterious lady of Calderwood. Gabe left the shop, his mood much darker than before.
His last stop was the local posting inn, where he’d arranged for the Zodiac to send any missives. They would be addressed to Mr Court and held at the inn until he picked them up, for a very reasonable fee.
Today, the young woman at the desk smiled when he gave his name. “Why yes, a letter just came earlier today. Isn’t that lucky?”
He could use some luck. Gabe paid her the coin to retrieve the letter and he went outside to read it, hoping that the organization had unearthed something else he could use in his search. The letter was short and to the point, omitting several fascinating points of methodology and ethics:
Local doctor performed novel tests on victims. Identified poison as: clephobine. Very rare. Only one person in England known to have successfully synthesized chemical: A. B. Osbourne.
Chapter 15
It was a few daysafter the meeting with the mouse, and Cady was puttering in her laboratory, creating different concentrations of the solution that she’d accidentally overdosed on before. This time, she was taking no chances, and started with a concentration of one percent in an otherwise neutral base. She took a very cautious sip, and recorded her results in the same notebook as before.
She looked at the previous entry for this experiment, which ended in Gabe’s note that he’d written down at her rather befuddled insistence.
Subject’s eyes extremely dilated. Pale skin, shallow breathing. Unfocused.
She frowned, tracing the words with one finger. He’d been in a hurry, naturally, and there were splotches of ink where they’d dripped from the nib. But the actual penmanship was well done, with clear, consistent lettering. And even the phrasing hinted at an excellent education. Not what one might expect of an ex-soldier turned gardener.
How was it possible that this man hadn’t been able to find employment elsewhere, and needed to leave London and come to a house where no one else wanted to work?
There was a knock at the door. Cady frowned, unused to interruptions while she was at work on her botany.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“It’s Gabe.”
Just who she’d been thinking of. She twisted in her seat. “Come in.”
He opened the door and leaned in slightly, looking around with sharp, interested eyes. “Am I interrupting?”
“Technically, yes, though I am almost done for the day.” She quickly shut the notebook, hiding the entry that puzzled her so much. “Is something the matter outside?”
“No, not at all. I finished with the roses and I cleared out the willow pond.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Cady loved the small pond surrounded by a walking path and dotted with huge willow trees. Once, cattails and water lilies grew there in the summer. The pond itself, though, had been in a dire state, more muck than water. She hoped that by removing the dead leaves and rotting vegetation, she could replace the fussy aquatic plants with new hybrids she’d grown in large tubs, and restore the pond to its former beauty. “I can’t believe you accomplished all that.”
“I do what I’m told to do,” he replied, his attention on the various apparatus of the laboratory. But then he looked at her and smiled. “Actually, I’m starting to like it. Gardening, I mean. Once you realize that you have to work at the garden’s pace instead of your pace, it gets easier.”
Cady blinked, impressed by the insight. “Are you sure you haven’t gardened before?”
“Definitely not.”
“Have you studied philosophy?”
He paused, surprised by the question. Then he said, a little warily, “A teacher or two tried to shove Plato into my brain at some point. I’m not exactly the scholarly type, though.”
No, he wasn’t, not with that build. Cady realized she still didn’t know why he’d sought her out.
“Was there something…?”
He nodded. “Yes. But if you’re busy—”
“I just need to tidy up.” Cady abhorred messiness, particularly in the lab. It didn’t take long to clean up her workspace and put aside the various solutions.
“What were you making?” he asked.
