The Apothecary's Curse (25 page)

She looked up, catching him as he stared at her.

“Sorry?”

“When you touch these pages—the deep engraving of the print—how can you not feel the history of science run through from your fingertips to every nerve? It is an extraordinary volume. It must be worth a small fortune!”

“It is. And it is not for sale. Now, if you don't mind . . .”
Focus on getting rid of her, Erceldoune!
Bloody hell
. She was like a mouse insinuating itself beneath the stove in winter.

“Oh. Sorry. Of course.” She blushed.

Gaelan pinched the bridge of his nose. The throbbing in his head, which had not abated since returning from the hospital, escalated now to deafening, and he gasped as a sharp pain lanced spear-like through his skull.

“Are you all right, Mr. Erceldoune?” Her mobile rang, relieving him of the need to respond. “My boss. I'll ring him back later,” she said quickly. “I'm so sorry to have bothered you. I shall get out of your hair. And what sort of doctor am I, keeping you from much-needed rest.”

She started to go, reaching the doorknob before turning back. “Look, would you mind taking a look at something I recently acquired? Tomorrow, I mean. It's a book. Very, very old, and I've no idea what to make of it. I have it back in my hotel room. It's quite remarkable for its obvious age, and—”

Anything to steer her away from more dangerous topics. “Yes. Of course I'll take a look at it,” he interrupted, “as long as we don't discuss the nature of my injuries, DNA, or anything else to do with my physiology; I would be . . . 
honored
. But I warn you, most so-called ancient books are replicas, not authentic. But I shall give it my honest appraisal.
Tomorrow!
”

Finally, she was gone, and Gaelan fell to sleep in his chair; he dreamed of Eleanor.

LONDON, 1842

CHAPTER 30

Gaelan's mind whirled as he and Bell entered the drawing room through the garden doors. Could it be true, then, that Bell had become like him? He'd not used the same combination of ingredients at all in the elixir, yet somehow . . .

“We must, then Mr. Erceldoune, locate your book forthwith. Whatever it takes shall be at your disposal. And should it—”

“Simon!”

“Eleanor, darling!”

The young woman fled into Bell's arms, her full skirt and petticoats swishing loudly as she swept across the carpet. Gaelan considered the scene, wondering who she might be. A new wife, perhaps? With her hair piled high beneath a feathered bonnet and fine gown, she was a striking woman, if not conventionally pretty. And Gaelan could not tear his gaze from her.

“Mr. Erceldoune,” said Bell, settling Eleanor at his side. “Might I present my sister, Lady . . . ? That is, Eleanor.”

Gaelan backed toward the doors. Might
this
be the sister married to Braithwaite?
Dear God, what was she doing here?
Could Braithwaite himself be not far behind?

“Eleanor, darling, will you please excuse us a moment?” Bell pulled Gaelan aside and whispered in his ear. “Calm yourself, Mr. Erceldoune. She is innocent of Braithwaite's proclivities, I assure you. She dislikes him, as I told you. I doubt he is with her.”

Gaelan was unconvinced, quickening his pace toward the garden doors.

“Please, at least stay a moment and make her acquaintance. I promise I shall not reveal you.”

Gaelan nodded, not at all reassured. Yet he would not be rude, however monstrous her husband.

Eleanor drew near and extended her hand. “Mr. Erceldoune.” She gazed at him, her scrutiny flushing his face hot with its intensity. She knew . . . something.

“Lady . . . Braithwaite.” He could barely spit out the name past his revulsion of it. Gaelan bowed slightly from the waist, taking her proffered hand, the tremble in his own impossible to still. He noticed a profound sadness in her eyes as he straightened again. But something else too. Terror? He dismissed the notion. Braithwaite was
his
tormentor, not hers.

“To what do we owe this surprise visit, my dear, and why did you not send word you were coming? I would have made preparations. Is . . . Lord Braithwaite with you?” Bell asked a bit too breezily.

She shook her head tightly, eyes closed; when she opened them, tears had gathered in her eyelashes.

Bell looped his arm about her back, and her head fell to his chest. “My darling, what is it? You must tell me.”

“I would really rather not talk about it. In fact, I would beg you to tell no one that I am here, most especially Richar . . . my
husband
.” She stepped back, her expression beseeching. “I would ask the same of you, Mr. Erceldoune.” Tears spilled in delicate tendrils down her nose, already streaked and red.

“Perhaps,” Gaelan said, excusing himself, “I'd best take my leave so you may talk in private. Dr. Bell, we shall talk again later.”

Eleanor held up a hand. “No, please. Do not leave on my account. It would grieve me to know I've interrupted your conversation, and I am quite exhausted from my travels. I shall retire to my rooms and leave the two of you in peace.”

Bell ushered his sister to a settee, but she did not sit. “Sis, please end the mystery, and tell us what is the matter?”

“I . . . I shall in good time. I promise, but I've not slept, and would . . . Would you mind awfully if I went up now? I've no stomach at the moment for tea—or company.”

“Of course not. We shall send for you when it is time to sup.”

“I'm sorry to be so mysterious, but—”

Gaelan observed Eleanor as she disappeared through the doorway. There was something not quite right about the way she walked, an odd limp that suggested . . . He shook it off. If it was something wrong, surely her own brother would have made mention of it.

“She is quite upset, but it shall all sort itself out, I am certain, at least I hope so—and soon. But, Mr. Erceldoune, please, might we return to our earlier conversation? Please do sit.”

“I admit, I find it a trifle disquieting to discuss this particular subject whilst Braithwaite's bride is about—”

“You've little to fear from her; that I warrant.”

Gaelan cleared his throat and drew a long breath. He'd never said it aloud. Ever. Not in more than two centuries. He drew a long breath. “I was born in 1586, to speak true. In the Scottish Borderlands, though I look not much more than a man of forty.

“I would but guess, Dr. Bell, that when you administered yourself the elixir, it affected you in the same way it did me when I administered myself quite a different medicine created from that same book.”

“Did you suffer cancer as did my Sophie?”

“Not cancer—it was plague. It cured me to be sure, but as you see, it had other . . . consequences.”

“Plague!”

“Aye. I'd not realized anything was amiss for ten years after. By then, my contemporaries had grown old and shriveled, yet I remained unchanged. When I created that medicine for myself, I'd been delirious with fever. Certainly, I would have died by day's end. It was only later I discovered my grandfather's notes in a scroll hidden within the book's binding. But, I assure you, my faculties were quite intact when I prepared the elixir for you. My head was clear. It was you—”

Bell shot him a skeptical glare. “You'd been drinking when I came to see you—”

“Not so much as you'd think. No. The formula was correct.” Gaelan paused a long moment, considering his words carefully. “All medicine is poison, Dr. Bell. As a physician, you well know this. Laudanum given in a proper dose will ease pain and more. But too much will slow the breathing enough to kill. The line is razor thin and murky as well between enough and too much, between manipulating the components not enough and far too much. The combinations of herbs and natural mineral elements endless and unknowable. For your wife, the result was tragic; for you and me . . . ?”

“I need for you to reverse it. I cannot any longer abide living in this world. I must go to my wife.”

“I have told you. Without that book it is, I am afraid, impossible.”

Bell placed his hands on his hips. “I cannot believe it to be true. There must . . . there must be a way, some recipe elsewhere. Another book in that immense library of yours. Surely—”

Ah, now the consequences of Bell's inaction five years past came to the fore. Gaelan did not feel avenged. “Surely, I've no idea what's become of my library in these nearly five years of my
imprisonment
. And that book—I assure you, there is none other of its like. And now, sir, I am weary, and beg your leave; I yet tire easily. Please be so good as to tell your cook not to expect me for supper.”

CHAPTER 31

Simon dined alone; not even Sophie's ghost visited him. He burned with the need to continue the conversation with Erceldoune. It could not end here. It must not! There had to be a way, and Simon's well-outfitted laboratory was the perfect place to pursue it. He would take Erceldoune there come morning; perhaps together they might discover an antidote. An antidote to immortality.

Simon wandered the house and, without realizing it, arrived at the threshold of the laboratory. It had been four and a half years since he'd set foot inside, however often he'd been up the stairs, only to turn back, unwilling to confront that terrible afternoon again.

The light of a waxing gibbous moon, bright in the clear twilight, poured in through the arched windows, despite the years of accumulated dust and neglect. He lit candles, which wove the room into a washed-out fabric of cobwebs and grime. Simon scowled at the scene. Perhaps not so well-outfitted, after all. This place was to him now a foreign land, pushed far out of mind. Any fond memory of it had been blotted out with Sophie's death.

Simon ran a finger aimlessly along the top of the workbench, his white cuff blackening along with his hand. What did it mean, this new state of affairs? That he would walk through life, never—ever—able to die? Never to be at his eternal rest with Sophie? That he would see James, Eleanor, nieces, nephews . . . all grow old and die?

“Would it be so awful, Simon, to live forever?”
Sophie, her voice a song at his ear. Just like her to appear at such a moment.

“Except for the torturing part. Did you not see what they did to him for it? To live in fear of discovery like that for an eternity? To see all around me wither and die? To—”

“So you believe it with a single word from him; how do you know that what he says is not a cruel joke—revenge for his years of imprisonment? For it is you he blames, whether he denies it or not, and is it not the harshest of punishments to suggest to you, now, what you fear the most profoundly
?
”
She was wearing the yellow silk gown—innocent and demure, sitting upon the laboratory bench. She sighed, bored.

Simon picked up a glass cylinder, blowing a layer of dust from it. “And worst, my love, I can never join you in eternity. I must exist in perpetual purgatory of grief, apart from you forever, except upon your whim to visit me in my loneliness.”

“Simon, my darling. Hear me. You must go on; it is now nearly five years, and it is as if you have stopped time itself. Look at the condition of your laboratory. What would your uncle say to you?”

He would laugh, that was what he would do, call him the fool he was. Simon reached for Sophie, stopping short in frustration when he realized he could not hold her.

“Have I not gone on? What other choice do I have?”

“But you have stopped living! Your days are spent in Baileys and your nights in a drunken daze. Until your accident. Perhaps it was a blessing, that. Woke you up from this dreary somnambulant so-called life of yours.”

“Why must you chide me, my love? Perhaps it would be better if you simply vanished and did not torment me thus.”

“My darling Simon. You've only to wish me away—truly wish me away, and then . . .”
She was gone, and Simon drew in a deep breath, relieved, yet missing her already.

There must be a way to reverse Erceldoune's elixir. Either he was lying or didn't care to help him, but somehow . . . A knock on the door.

“It is Eleanor, Simon. Might I have a word?”

“Yes, of course,” he breathed, recovering. Simon opened the door, brushing the dust from his coat. She took account of the dusty benches and neglected glassware. Simon was grateful that she said nothing of its forsaken state.

She walked lightly through the room, her skirt billowing along the dirty floor and cabinetry. “Do you remember, Simon, when we used to play up here? We playacted at Mary Shelley—I was our modern Prometheus, and you my grand creation?”

“Yes, I recall it.” Of all the games they played as children, why this one in particular must she bring up?

“You know, I'm still envious of this house. It was always my favorite of all the family properties, this laboratory a magical alchemist's lair. Such sorcery to fuel the imagination amongst the odd-shaped glassware jars of powders, prisms that cast rainbows upon candlelight.” She picked up a swan-necked flask, blowing from it a cloud of dust, examining its delicate bends, holding it up to a candle flame.

“So, my dear, are you ready to confess why you returned to London, and me, so soon? Have you finally fled that idiotic swine of a husband? I am not totally oblivious, and it is clear you arrived by train and with no trunk. Not even a satchel, Mrs. McRory proclaims.” He immediately regretted the sharpness in his tone.

Eleanor glowered; Simon could nearly taste the bitterness. “I despise him.”

“At least you've come to your senses about that! I have always thought him a poor match.” Simon wondered if she suspected anything untoward about Braithwaite.

She sat on a high stool next to her brother. “Yet you never said a thing?”

Simon placed a comforting hand on her arm. “It was your own choice, and not mine, the mate you selected. Would you have listened, even had I interfered? I
am
grieved to have been right in my thinking about him, however. I cannot countenance the man, even more so now that—”