Eros Element (12 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Somewhere in the North of France, 11 June 1870

The first thing Edward noticed was how he hurt all over. He tried to curl away from the blows that must be falling from the schoolboys, who had never understood his interest in science over sport, but the smallest movement made him hurt more, so he made himself take stock of his situation. He lay on something soft, but the contents of the mattress pricked him if he pinched the cloth hard enough. Someone had loosened his tie. No, no, it had been removed along with most of his clothing. Now the familiar burn of anxiety flooded through him, and he tried to sit.

“It's fine,” a female voice said, and a weight on his chest pinned him to the bed. “Will you open your eyes? I can douse the candle if you like.”

The voice. It sounded familiar, and he shied away from it. Was Lily here to torment him further? He thought she'd humiliated him enough at the seashore, but now, back in Huntington Village, he knew she waited to embarrass him further—scared Edward who wouldn't ride a horse on the sand with her. Funny how that happened after she found out he was the second son, contrary to her assumptions. She'd been much more patient with him and his anxieties before that.

No, that wasn't right. His mind attempted to make sense of the jumble of memories. He'd been at the shore, yes, but not at the beach. No, there had been a large creature—an aircraft. There had been an aircraft and a battle and a fall, and oh, his favorite small copper globe had gone out the window with a thug. And the escape compartment, and the shattering of the wooden walls around him along with the life and routines he had so carefully constructed to protect himself from circumstances like these.

That meant the woman in the room with him wasn't Lily. It was… “Iris?” He had to employ all his forehead muscles to drag his eyelids open and found he lay in a rustic room dimly lit by a candle that didn't have a shade over it. And sitting on the bed with him was a light-haired fairy. In the dim flickering light, her eyes looked deep purple. Her hand rested on his chest, but he found it more comforting than restrictive.

“Yes, good, you remember.” But she didn't sound too certain. “How are you feeling…Edward?”

“Like I've been beaten by a horde of large schoolboys with clubs,” he said. “Where are we? Are Johann and Marie…?”

“Everyone's fine. You and I took the worst of it, you most of all. You cushioned my fall.”

Now the light in her eyes spread with the refraction of her tears.

“Don't cry. I'm fine, I think.”

She didn't confirm or deny his assessment, and he tried not to squirm—was something seriously wrong with him?

“Are you hungry?”

“What time is—” He realized what a stupid question it was. What did it matter if it was time to eat? He was hungry. “Yes. Yes, I'm very hungry.”

Iris stood, and the place her hand had rested now felt cold with its absence. “I'll inform Doctor Radcliffe.”

“Who?”

“I'm not entirely sure who he is,” she said. “Another man with secrets.”

And with that cryptic answer, she disappeared. Edward took the opportunity to test his limbs and run his fingers over his face. He came to the conclusion his sensations had merit, but no lasting injuries, he hoped. The cuts on his face presented some concern, but as he never planned to engage in the social ritual of marriage and have to accommodate someone else in his routines, he was less worried about disfigurement than the possibility of internal harm. He would ask this Radcliffe person when he appeared. What had the man done or said to bewilder Iris? She seemed a very sensible young woman.

A dark figure appeared at the door, and Edward squinted at the light of a lamp. “Doctor Radcliffe?” he asked.

The man's face didn't turn much lighter in the lamplight. “You presume correctly,” he said in a flat American accent. He ran his hands over Edward's limbs, pausing when Edward flinched, and tenderly probed those areas. Next he took a stethoscope out of his pocket and used it to listen to Edward's heart and breathing.

“Nothing broken, but I'm hearing a slight wheeze in your left lung,” he said. “You seem to be breathing fine, so I'll recommend resting for a week.”

“But we have a mission to complete,” Edward said, then suspected he should have kept his mouth shut.

The doctor nodded. “I'm sure it's very important, but you won't accomplish anything if you can't breathe.”

Edward recognized that tone—Radcliffe was humoring him—but before he could say anything, Johann came through the door followed by a redheaded chap with a tray, from which savory odors emanated.

“Help him to sit, gently,” the doctor said.

Edward tried not to tense as the other men helped him to a sitting position and sucked at his teeth as Johann assisted him to and from the water closet. When he returned to the bed, his impulse was to curl into a ball in shame at being so helpless and out of control of his fate, but that meant he wouldn't be able to eat the lovely smelling broth in the bowl. Even better, there was a crusty piece of bread beside it. He lifted the spoon and noticed the others watching him.

“What?”

“Just making sure you can swallow it,” Radcliffe said. “It was impossible to examine you for some internal injuries.”

Edward put the spoon down. “I can't eat with you watching me. Shoo. Go away. If I need you, I'll call.”

“Don't be difficult,” Johann told him. “We're trying to make sure you're fine.”

“I am fine,” he said. “Now step into the hall, all of you.”

They didn't move.

“Fine, the doctor can stay.”

With shrugs, the other two left. Edward lifted some broth to his lips, aware more than anything of the doctor's gray eyes watching him. Unlike Iris's purple eyes, Radcliffe's gray ones seemed to gather the light in, swallow it, and spit it back in sparks. Edward hardly tasted the broth until the man stood and placed the ends of the stethoscope in his ears.

“If you wouldn't mind pausing, let me see if your digestion is moving as it should.”

“I can be the judge of that. I can assure you that until this insane journey, it was running like—” He didn't want to say
clockwork
. That word had a negative connotation now, and using it to describe his stomach would make him feel like his digestive tract was going to try to kill him. “It was running smoothly and on a better schedule than most trains,” he finished.

The doctor lifted the tray from Edward's lap and listened to his abdomen in several places. “All sounds like it should. You must have taken very good care of yourself before your crash.”

“I did.” Edward said nothing else. He waited for the doctor to replace the tray and finished his dinner and the watered-down wine that came with it.

“Any trouble with the wine? Any burning?”

“No, all is well. I'm very tired.” Edward was barely aware of the others coming in, taking the tray, and helping him lie on his back. The room faded into a strange dream about clockwork stomachs and brass spiders.

Iris met the doctor and Bledsoe in the hall. The Irishman gave her a nod and carried Edward's dinner tray toward the stairs.

“Is he all right?” she asked.

“He's fine,” Doctor Radcliffe said. “I put a little laudanum in his soup so he would sleep without pain.”

“He's not going to appreciate that,” Johann told him. “He hates losing control over any aspect of his life.”

“I gathered. You two seem to know a lot about him. Why don't you fill me in?”

“No need,” Johann said. “We'll be on our way tomorrow. There's a timetable we're supposed to keep to.”

Iris found her own astonished expression mirrored on the doctor's face. “You can't mean it,” she said. “He's gravely hurt, and our employer put
us
in danger, remember? I'm sure he would understand if we took a few days to let him rest.”

Bledsoe pulled her aside. “I wasn't supposed to reveal this,” he murmured, “but Cobb gave me a more detailed itinerary than the two of you. We have a very important meeting in Paris in two days, and we need to leave tomorrow if we're to get there in time. We can't miss this window—the Marquis is leaving on Tuesday for the French seashore, and he has one of the city's biggest private collections of Classical art and the Renaissance art it inspired.”

“But what about Edward? We can't leave him here.” Iris bit her lip. “I mean the professor.”

“Edward, huh? I didn't realize the two of you were on a first name basis.”

Iris drew herself up. “Surviving a life-or-death situation tends to do that.”

“Yet you don't call me Johann.”

“Fine, Johann.” She crossed her arms and felt she'd swallowed something slimy. “But you may continue to call me Miss McTavish.”

“You're an infuriating young woman, but you shall not distract me from the matter at hand. I'll arrange transport, the most gentle conveyance possible. He can rest in Paris while you and I visit the nobility. Your eyes are more important for this stage of the journey than his, Iris.”

Her name on his lips made her draw back as if he'd slapped her. “Very well,” she said. “But I wish we could bring the doctor with us. I don't trust him, but the fewer who know about Edward's incapacitation, the better. And Radcliffe and his friend are stuck here. We owe them for helping with Edward.”

“That's a brilliant idea. I'll see what I can do.”

Iris watched Bledsoe—she wasn't going to call him Johann again anytime soon—walk down the hall, his hands in his pockets, and she wished she hadn't asked him for anything, even if it was for Edward's sake.

“What was that about?” Radcliffe asked. He'd been fiddling with his pocket watch and standing a discreet distance away.

“We're trying to determine how to get Professor Bailey to Paris,” she said. “Would you be interested in coming with us to help me care for him?”

A sigh lifted his shoulders. “I would love to get out of this little town, but I'm afraid I have a responsibility to Madame Gastron.”

Johann turned at the top of the stairs and gave Iris a rakish smile. Now she really worried what he was about to do.

Iris woke the next morning to shouted French. She got the gist of the yelling, but a lot of the words were ones she hadn't learned in Miss Cornwall's French classes, probably for good reason. She identified two of the shouters as Monsieur Gastron and Johann, and the third a woman who didn't sound familiar.

Marie burst through the bedroom door. “Best get up now, Miss McTavish,” she said. “Your friend the Maestro revealed Madame Gastron wasn't as hurt as she made out to be and was faking it because she liked the looks of Doctor Radcliffe. Now the Monsieur is kicking us all out.”

“What happened?”

Marie's cheeks pinked, and she looked down. “Best you focus on getting ready, Miss. We leave as soon as you are.”

“And the professor?”

“Doctor Radcliffe is with him now.”

Iris shook her head at the sheer ridiculousness of it all—were they in some French novel where the drama was always overblown?

The cessation of the shouting left a ringing in her ears, and she flinched at the slam of a door downstairs. Marie helped her with her various tying and buttoning, and the maid pulled Iris's hair back into a quick chignon. Iris remained alert to any sound outside the room, and the thump of a man's footsteps up the stairs and down the hall followed by a knock on the door made her shoulders tighten and her breath catch. Was she to be the target of yelling now? She didn't do anything wrong. Well, not recently.

The Irishman Mister O'Connell stood there. “I'm to help you with your bag, Miss,” he said. “Are ye ready?”

“Yes. And the Professor?”

“I'm to load him next. The doctor is getting him up.”

Am I ever to leave a place at my own leisure again?
Iris followed him out, down the stairs, through the front hall, and to the front of the inn, where a coach waited for them. Bledsoe paced back and forth in front of it. Iris couldn't stand any more emotional turmoil, so she said, “I'm impressed you managed to find a conveyance for us, Bledsoe.”

“A Frenchman always has rivals. His neighbor across the street was going into Paris today for some supplies that have become scarce around here due to the fighting, and he was happy to make the trip more profitable.”

O'Connell and Radcliffe emerged with Edward supported between them.

“I'm perfectly capable of walking,” he groused.

“Faster this way,” O'Connell grunted and loaded the petulant professor into the carriage.

Iris hesitated, but Bledsoe motioned for her to follow Edward in. “Since you're on a first-name basis with him, you get to play nurse.” The smile on his face indicated he would enjoy watching Iris's struggles.

“Very well.” She entered the coach and settled beside Edward on the forward facing padded bench.

“Is there tea?” Edward asked. “I always have tea when I wake.”

“Sadly, no.” A dull ache settled in Iris's forehead, and it worsened when the others climbed in and caused the stuffy air in the carriage to warm. Opening the windows helped somewhat but let the dust in, and the doctor said it would be worse for Edward to breathe dusty air than stale.

Soon Bledsoe, who had sat beside Iris on the other side from Edward, was asleep, and she looked for something she could sneak a glove off to “read” to find out what had happened that morning. But Bledsoe didn't hold anything, and even if she could pinch a bit of fabric without him waking, she'd never had much luck with clothing. Her talent seemed to work best on objects that had more lasting properties, and fabric was too flimsy and ethereal. Buttons were held for a moment and didn't store many impressions.