Eros Element (20 page)

Death, death, death… It seemed determined to follow her, and she pushed the thought away that she had somehow attracted it after that last argument with her mother before she became ill.

No, I'm not going to think about that now. Those memories will make me look guilty.

“Mademoiselle?” The head of museum security sniffed so hard his entire moustache jumped.

Iris put an automatic polite smile on her face, her best weapon as a woman in a man's world. “
Je suis desolée
, Monsieur. It has been a trying day. Poor Monsieur Anctil…” She wiped at her eye with her right hand.

“I believe that will suffice,” the detective, who sounded like he'd gone abroad to study English, said. His clipped tone belied his youthful appearance but matched his aristocratic demeanor.

He seems too handsome to be a detective. And I am too distraught to think straight.

“Obviously the Mademoiselle can't tell us much in her current state.” He handed her a card, which she took and put in her reticule. “If you think of anything else, please contact me.”

She stood and curtsied, and they let her go. She met Johann outside the front of the museum, where he waited with Monceau's steamcoach. He held his right hand at an angle away from his body, and water dripped from his sleeve.

“Did you get it without attracting attention?” she asked. She glanced around for signs of Jeremy Scott's men—somehow she doubted they were far away. With all those people watching them—and now she had to add the Pythagoreans and possibly the dandy detective to the list—she wondered how they were to discover anything and keep it a secret.

He lifted her into the carriage, and she was sure to give him her right hand. “Yes. I managed to knock it into a fountain, and the water muffled the sound of the capture alarm.”

“That explains your sleeve.”

“Indeed. I look forward to Edward and Mister O'Connell figuring out how to play the cylinder so I can hear the conversation you desperately want to hide.”

Iris's cheeks warmed. “I do not mind you listening to it, truly, for I have a favor to ask you related to it. But I'm glad you captured the clockwork spy device. It will be something else to keep Edward occupied during his convalescence.” She wanted to ask if they would return to the hotel during his allowed visiting hours, but she didn't want to push it. Although she possessed a secret of his now, she had something bigger to ask for. “Since we're done at the Louvre early, perhaps we can visit the address poor Monsieur Anctil gave me. You said it was a hospital?”

Bledsoe squeezed the end of his sleeve, and water dripped on the floor of the steamcoach. It didn't add much to the already humid atmosphere. He gave her a skeptical look. “Perhaps you should go back to the hotel and rest. You just witnessed a man's death, after all. Or are you unhappy he did so where you could see him and therefore you can't pretend he's alive?”

“That's not fair. Now the world has lost two of its brilliant minds in archaeology and history.” She gazed out of the window to quell the desire to slap him, especially not with her possibly poisoned with her left glove. As much as he infuriated her, she didn't want to have anyone's death on her hands, not Edward's best friend's. And having death literally on her hand caused power and a sense of entrapment to war in her chest. She returned her gaze to the musician, who studied her with a crease between his blond brows.

“What?” she asked.

“I've encountered many women in my time—”

“Don't be crude.”

“—but I've never met one who could switch her emotions off and on like you. Not even the best of the actresses, who admittedly never made it as far as treading the boards in London. But I could always tell what they're feeling no matter how hard they tried to hide it.”

“What are you saying about me? That I have no feelings?”

“No, but that you have a strange ability to shut them away. A man died in front of you.” He gestured to the floor in front of her as though Anctil's body lay there. “At your feet! And here you sit, cool and hard as one of those marble statues you're so fascinated with, and you want to follow some vague clue—from a man who died giving it to you, no less—that may put you in more danger, which you're not worried about in the least.” He stopped and ran a finger under his collar. Iris's stomach wanted to bust through her corset to take enough of a breath for the response she wanted to make, but Marie had laced her in too tightly, so she had to settle for icy disdain.

This explains Adelaide's typical response when I angered her. She never allowed sensible corset lacing.

“Make no mistake, Mister Bledsoe,” Iris said. “I mourn my father. You have no idea how badly I miss him and wish every day I could ask his opinion about this crazy quest and the things we're finding out.” She almost said, “About ourselves,” but she didn't want to give away anything about the strange events of the previous night until she'd puzzled through them herself. “I feel flawed, cracked down the middle and held together by the need to survive all humans seem to have whether they're slave girls about to be sacrificed in a temple or the most powerful philosophers or kings. I know my strength, which is to solve problems and figure out riddles given to me by the past. I cannot control my gender, but I can do what I can to keep it from hampering me. I will not apologize for not meeting your low expectations and melting into tears in your arms like your typical female companions, but I have a job to do, and you do too.”

He sat back, and his mouth opened and closed like a drowning gargoyle. “That's not at all what I was saying, and I certainly have no desire for you to be in my arms. You've too many hard and flinty bits for me.”

“If you're trying to insult me, you failed. I wouldn't be soft and gentle for Jeremy Scott, and I won't be for you!”

“What does that milquetoast have to do with anything? Now you're arguing like a woman.”

The steamcoach stopped in front of the hotel, and the driver opened the door.

“Hopefully that will satisfy you. Now if you will excuse me,” Iris told him, “I shall return to my logical self, find Doctor Radcliffe and see what he can tell me about Anctil's death, what substance may have been responsible.” Her throat burned with tears at the thought of the little man's kindness to her that morning—at least compared to Bledsoe's and Firmin's harshness—but she'd be damned before she allowed Bledsoe to see her cry now. She
liked
her flinty bits. “And then I shall change gloves, find Marie, and go to L'Hôpital des Enfants and satisfy Anctil's final wish. Do be sure you don't catch cold with those wet clothes. Dead men can't pay their debts.”

And with that, she swept up the stairs and nodded to the doorman, who tipped his hat at her like she was the queen. She walked into the lobby, chin tilted at a most confident angle, and searched the faces for Doctor Radcliffe. He wasn't hard to find, and she approached him with a determined stride.

When he saw her, his expression wasn't the welcoming one she expected. Instead, he stood, crossed the distance between them in two steps, and said in a low, curt tone, “We need to talk about something. You're engaged?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hôtel Auberge, 13 June 1870

What do you mean she's engaged?
Edward asked again in his head. Patrick O'Connell had long ago left him to his sulking. Instead of working as his schedule dictated, Edward gazed out of the window like some idiot he'd seen in a painting. That was all they did in those French pictures, stare outside like lovelorn fools. Patrick said he didn't think Iris meant to be engaged, exactly, but there was some young man determined to marry her, and some agreement must have been made, or else why would he have sent his men after her? Plus a packet of official-looking papers arrived for her from Scott. A marriage contract, perhaps? The courier had knocked on Edward's door while Radcliffe was in assessing his condition, and Edward answered the door. The young man asked if they knew if she had left for the day, and years of teaching had taught Edward to read upside-down, so he could see Scott's name on the return address.

Iris, the beautiful, delicate Iris with more strength, determination, and cleverness than any woman he'd met. Why did he let himself get so tangled up in her charm? He replayed the events of the past week in his head, how he'd been so impressed by her cool demeanor in that initial meeting with the dean, department chair, and that American Parnaby Cobb. Of course she had a secret. Everyone had secrets, but he had hoped hers would be something innocent and girlish, not a fiancé determined to bring her back at all costs.

But his anxiety emerged. Where was she now? Was Johann watching over her? Those men could be anywhere waiting to snatch her up and whisk her back to England, where the next time he'd see her, she would be someone's wife. Perhaps she was along because she wanted to escape, not because her father was ill. But that didn't make sense. If Irvin McTavish wasn't ill, she wouldn't be alone, but why would a father risk his only daughter to a strange expedition when she could be home safely wed to a local nobleman, even if he was a second son?

A second son… Perhaps that was the root of it. In his heart, which Edward wasn't accustomed to thinking of as an actual receptacle of anything important, he knew he didn't have much to offer her. A modest aetherist faculty salary, assuming, of course, that the department survived. She deserved a season in London, suitors of much higher means than either him or Jeremy Scott, whom Edward's brother likely knew. Edward didn't follow the doings of the ton. But what if Iris preferred to be back in England with Scott but was along because of her father's wishes?

Something about the situation didn't add up. Edward drummed his fingers on the table, where the clockwork butterfly lay in the same disassembled state as previously. The door opened, and Johann came through.

“Iris has a secret,” Edward said. He couldn't keep the moroseness out of his tone.

Johann's shoulders slumped. “I was afraid you'd find out.”

“You knew she's engaged?” Edward stood, but pain shot through his lower back and left hip, and he lowered himself. “How does everyone know but me?”

“Wait, what?” Johann shed his jacket and sat across from Edward, who saw his friend's right sleeve was damp. “She's engaged? To whom?”

“Lord Jeremy Scott.” Now Edward was sure he would hate the lordling if he ever met him.

Johann barked a laugh. “If she is, I can assure you it's not a happy engagement. She seems to have a low opinion of him.”

Now Edward's anxiety twined into the green tendril of jealousy he hoped had shriveled but seemed to be as tenacious as his beloved ivy. “She's talked of him with you? This gets worse and worse.”

“In a sense. Trust me, I'm not exactly a girlish confidant.” He reached into his pocket, from which he drew a clockwork butterfly. “But the contents of the cylinder in this one should be much more interesting than worrying about who's engaged to whom.”

“You're trying to change the subject.”

“Yes, because that young lady isn't worth worrying over. Trust me, there are others out there much better suited for you.” But Johann didn't sound convinced.

“So what is Iris's secret, then?”

“Oh, her connection with Scott, of course.” Johann gestured to the clockwork he'd laid on the table. “Think you can get it apart and figure out how to listen to it?”

“I'm an aetherist, not a tinkerer, but I'll do my best. Why is there another one? Why is the Clockwork Guild watching us so closely?”

“Let me worry about that.” Johann stood. “I need to change and take Miss McTavish back out. A clue was dropped in her lap by an unfortunate gentleman.”

“Unfortunate how?”

“He's now dead.”

“How? Never mind.” Edward returned his gaze to the street outside. “I am not supposed to be having visitors at this time, anyway, and you're disrupting my concentration with your talk of women with secrets and dead men.”

The door shut, and Edward was once again alone with his thoughts, which went back to his secure, predictable time in Huntington Village and to his brother and family. Did they miss him? He turned his attention to the clockworks in front of him, and an idea squirmed into his brain as to what to do with them. He reached for his valise.

Iris followed Radcliffe into the hotel restaurant, where they were shown to a booth in a corner by the window. Gauzy curtains gave Iris a hazy view of the street outside, where men's faces melted into light-colored smudges between their dark coats and hats. None were as dark as Radcliffe, and she wondered if he felt as out of place among the self-assured Parisians as she did, no matter how confident she could appear for a moment. And now Jeremy Scott made trouble for her again. But first they had to follow social convention and order tea and croissants for a late morning snack so as not to draw suspicion. Once the waiter left, Radcliffe didn't allow Iris a moment to draw a breath to ask the questions on her mind.

“This came for you,” he said and brought a packet of papers from his inside pocket. It was addressed to, “My Beloved Iris McTavish,” and the return address was Lord Jeremy Scott, Hôtel
de Musée, Paris.

Big hairy ox's bollocks, he's in Paris!
“I can assure you, if he finds me beloved, the feeling is not reciprocated.”

“So you do not have an agreement?”

“No!” She removed her gloves, careful to allow the left one to slide itself inside-out as she took it off, and untied the string. Porous impermanent materials like textiles and paper didn't hold tight to many impressions, but she did get an overwhelming sense of disappointment and confusion.

Oh no.

“Was Edward with you when the courier brought this?” she asked. The reproachful look in his gray eyes answered her question. She swore again, this time under her breath but couldn't say anything aloud until after the waiter poured their tea and moved away.

“I assure you, Doctor Radcliffe,” she said again in as even a tone as she could, “I am not engaged to Lord Scott, nor do I wish to be. I find him to be a most odious human being and wish he would cease this ridiculous pursuit.”

“Whether or not his pursuit is welcome is immaterial.” Radcliffe removed his gray gloves and poured cream in his tea with movements Iris admired for their precision. He didn't waste a single ounce of energy, and she could understand why her supposed engagement irritated him—it went against his plan for Edward.

“I'm so sorry it inconveniences you.” She took a cube of sugar, picked up the cream pitcher, and read it. The flash of fear seemed incongruous with Radcliffe's unruffled appearance, but he watched her with those hawk's eyes of his, and she couldn't hold on to the cream longer.

“My convenience is also irrelevant,” he said. “The problem is that you've upset Professor Bailey, whom you are intimate enough with to be on a first-name basis. I understand that some women are not of a nurturing kind, but you must at least wish him no harm.”

“Of course I wish him no harm, and I do care for him.” Iris trapped her tongue between her teeth before it made any other awkward revelations.
Where did that come from?

“I see. The psyche is a fragile thing, and the professor's world has been turned upside-down. He seems to care for you as well, and the morning's revelation may have set his recovery back.”

“How is he?” Iris asked. Now that her declaration flitted between them like one of the clockwork butterflies, she decided to ask what was on her mind.

“Still in a lot of pain, but I cannot find any physiological reason for its intensity. Admittedly, he has some bruising from the crash, but nothing to warrant his symptoms other than emotional turmoil.”

“And you believe that, emotional turmoil? Could it have that much effect on the body?”

A cloud passed over the sun outside the window, and Radcliffe's face also darkened. “They are studying it in Vienna, the relationship between the mind's output and the body's experience. Have you heard of hysteria?”

A dark shadow in her peripheral vision caught Iris's attention, and she turned to see a woman in mourning dress and veil take a seat alone at a table. It was impossible to tell under the tower of dark clothing what the woman looked like or how old she was, only that she had lost someone and could wear her grief openly. And hide from prying eyes.

Iris wanted to go to her, take her hand, and tell her she understood and to take as long as needed. But she turned her attention back to Radcliffe and the table, where the croissants had appeared. The memory of Anctil's telling her they were his daughter's favorite, the glimmer of fatherly pride in his eyes, made her feel that fissure in the core of her soul, that crack from grief unexpressed. Another daughter would be crying tonight, and Iris's stomach quivered at the thought she had something to do with it. For if she and Johann hadn't gone to the museum, Anctil may still be alive.

“Miss McTavish?” Radcliffe's face folded into a frown of concern. “Are you ill?”

“I'm as well as could be expected.”
…after having a man die in front of me and finding out my tormentor is in Paris.
But she did what young women were expected to do—she smiled and took a croissant as if everything was fine.

“You're not telling me the entire truth. As I mentioned, I know something about hysteria.”

“That's a flippant term for soul-sickness, and perhaps I don't feel like talking about it, not here.” She didn't mean to snap, but she'd had quite enough of men accusing her of lying, never mind that they were right. They had more important puzzles to solve. She lowered her voice so he would have to lean in to follow the thread of her tones among the tapestry of restaurant and traffic sounds. “What you could do to help me is determine what kind of poison was used earlier to kill a man.”

Radcliffe paused the journey of the croissant to his mouth and returned it to the plate in front of him. “Come again?”

“I'm not repeating what I said.” She handed him her gloves, the left one inside the right one. “I may have been holding the object that carried it in my left hand, but thankfully I wore my new gloves.”

“And do you have the object itself? What was it?”

“Not something a lady of polite society can discuss in public. I had to abandon it at the Louvre because security wanted to question me, and I didn't want them to accuse me of thievery. I didn't trust Bledsoe to carry it out for me.”

“Interesting. I'll see what I can do. What symptoms did the victim display?”

Iris tried to separate herself from the emotional details of the memory, to describe it as if she were documenting a just-opened tomb, not the journey of a man to his own grave. “He became flushed, and when he grabbed me, I could feel the heat of his hands through my gloves. Toward the end, he seemed to have trouble breathing, and his eyes got wide. Not his eyes, his pupils.”

“Thank you. That gives me somewhere to start. My field is military and battlefield medicine, but I've some experience with poisons.” He glanced at the window and swallowed. “And I've become friendly with the apothecary around the corner.”

Iris drew her shoulders back against the shiver of skin at the back of her neck. “Don't reveal anything to him. Your discretion is of the utmost importance in this. There are dangerous men afoot.”

“I gathered. People usually don't get poisoned if there aren't.”

“Don't be flippant. It's not a funny situation.”

“Oh, so you are not amused?” He sipped his tea, but the crinkles around his eyes told her he hid a smile.

“I am most certainly not amused.”
Wait, isn't that one of Queen Victoria's sayings? Cheeky man.

“You're also not accustomed to death and dying. When you're in that situation on the battlefield, it's necessary to keep your sense of humor, even if it is of the gallows variety. Now,” he said and placed his empty teacup on the plate in front of him. “I feel it would be best for my patient if you were to go tell him you are not engaged to Lord Scott and don't intend to be. Patrick will recognize his man if he comes sniffing around here again.”

“Thank you.” Iris rose. “I'm glad to be surrounded by such gentlemen.”

She walked away from the table, and again the woman in the mourning outfit caught her eye. Iris nodded to her with a grim smile that she hoped said she understood. The other woman nodded once, so perhaps the message got through.

She crossed the lobby, her thoughts full of how relieved Edward would be, when she encountered Bledsoe getting off the elevator.

“Oh, good,” he said. “I'm glad I found you. If you want to visit the place you mentioned earlier, we need to get going.”

Iris thought quickly. “But I don't have any gloves.” A sensation of pressure built in her chest not unlike that of the volcano egg on the night it called for her to discover it, and she turned to see who or what wanted her attention. Marie approached from the side door.