Page 150 of Immortal Rose

“Ah, well, ye needn’t know.” She kissed my hand tenderly. “Others like the work, and that’s all fine to be sure. But I’m not the daisy I was, and the streets, they’ll freeze yer tits off in the winter.”

Mrs. Keyes nodded with understanding and sympathy. “That they will.”

Fleming let out a strained noise, resting his face in his hands.

“So me and Francesca and some of the others, we followed the gent, and one by one ’e dropped us off and ’ad a word with the owner—at a boarding’ouse and taverns and those shops where the fancy bits get their ’ats—”

“Milliners?” I asked. A suspicion was dawning over me, filling my chest with a soft glow.

“Yes. We got to choose, see,” Arabella said. “I picked the haberdashery, I did. Ye know ’ow I like me bits ’n’ bobs ’n’ trinkets.”

I did, indeed, know. “And Mrs. Turner treats you well?”

“Oh, yes, a fair, kind woman she is,” Arabella marveled. “Sometimes makes me listen to ’er read the ’oly book, but I don’t mind overmuch when I’ve a roof and proper bed. God blessed me with that man, after all.”

“You said he intentionally sought you out?” I asked quietly. “Who was he?”

“Oh, but that’s the strangest bit of all,” Arabella said. “For there was no reason for ’im to want to do it.”

For the rest of my life, I would remember that very moment—the way the seconds slowed to a crawl—and I knew, as that glow became a golden, dawning certainty, that he had done this for no other reason but me.

“’E introduced ’imself as Mr. Anders,” Arabella said, her face bright with wonder, “and said ’e was a locksmith.”

Foxcourt House seemed to settle itself, as if relieved to have all of us home at last. The shutters no longer rattled with the wind. The old bones of the house had ceased their shifting and groaning.

But the newfound quiet had the opposite effects on my thoughts. With everyone else asleep, and no more stories to distract from them, the frenzied mess of them burst forth again. The memory of being taken, my ears ringing with phantom gunshots. And with the next breath, I’d be back in the shade of the oak tree, Hugh’s hands, his lips trailing over mine . . .

Even if my mind had been willing to forget, my body remembered, and my heart would speed again. The pounding blood brought with it a tingling in my lips and a delicious throbbing between my legs.

I sighed, pressing my face against the cool pillow. I turned my heart over and over again in my chest, trying to understand it, trying to understand myself and the pull I felt to him.

The man was so bloody maddening—so utterly confounding. He was proud of his arrogance and vindictiveness, but hid or played down his good deeds, as if they spoke to some weakness. As if an innate bent toward protection and kindness was only another failure.

“You are completely dicked in the nob, Viola Lockwood,” I muttered to myself, pressing a cold hand to my face.

After a while, I gave up on the pretense of sleep and relit the candle at my bedside.

I had brought William Rosebourne’s commonplace book up with me to look through, curious about why he’d gone to the trouble of leaving it to anyone, but spite had overtaken me and I’d set it aside.

I glanced over at it now, trying to ignore the way the man’s essence clung to its weathered pages. It seemed unlikely to contain any reference to the nectar or Dobbin, but I had to look, even if it meant delving into a hateful man’s thoughts.

We had lost another day; now the King would have three, perhaps four left, if the King’s Blend was still having an ameliorating effect.

I pushed back the covers and swung my legs around to feel for my slippers. But as I stood and retrieved the book, something slipped out of it—a loose piece of foolscap. I turned, searching for it on the floor, then under the bed. Strange. I shook my head, taking the candle, the journal, and my quizzing glass into the sitting area.

“All right,” I murmured, opening it to the first page. It was a hastily scrawled series of notes about daffodils from three decades ago, musings on how to alter the formulation in the Treasury to better replicate the scent.

An entry from a decade ago recounting a discussion with one Lord F had me arching my brow. DeForest spies—Withers, Falconbridge, Moorings—takeover of business through purchase of shares funded by Gallian crown—acid at no cost.

I’d no idea that the DeForests had tried to purchase the House of Rosebourne, but it cast their subsequent destruction at William Rosebourne’s hands in a new light. Acid.

Page after page, I found notes on countless business meetings, abandoned ideas for perfumes, and drawings of elaborate flacons that had later been put into production. A more recent entry caught my attention, given the familiar name.

Radcliffe Apothecary

Possibility of exclusive scent, bright floral, little musk—draw up contract within fortnight

Gloves, combs, same order