The Golden Spider (The Elemental Web Chronicles Book 1) (25 page)

Lady Amanda alone refused to honor his boundaries, constantly pushing for something more. When she looked at him, it was as if she could see into his soul. Such easy familiarity was unsettling. The hours they spent together were the best hours of the day. He was drawn to her in a way he’d felt with no other woman.

Yet one didn’t trifle with a duke’s daughter. So he held himself apart, kept her at safe distance.

“Why,” he spoke into the shifting gray shadows. “Why are you so intent on Mr. Sommersby?” Thornton had been treated to a nauseatingly detailed account of the modifications Sommersby was willing to make to his home in order to accommodate Amanda should she agree to be his wife. But she sounded unconvinced.

Amanda’s eyes grew large, then, perhaps remembering he’d been listening through the acousticocept, narrowed. “Why do you care?” she asked.

“Humor me.”

She hesitated so long, he thought she would decline to answer, but the dark of night made confidences easier. “I must marry,” she said at last.

“Must? Most practicing female physicians remain unmarried.”

“Most practicing female physicians do not have dukes for fathers who make their continued enrollment in medical school conditional. I have the rest of the academic year to become engaged.” Her face fell flat and her voice lost all color as she spoke. “Should I wish to return to Lister University next fall, a wedding is required.”

“That seems…‌ unfair.”

It was more than unfair. That a mind as brilliant as Amanda’s should be placed under the control of a man whose medical career would be middling at best did not sit well with him. Aside from the man’s talents in chemistry, Thornton was at a loss as to why Sommersby had been recruited. Should Sommersby, as her husband, forbid her to practice medicine, or to conduct research, Amanda would have no choice but to obey.

“It was the bargain I made,” Amanda said. “I am allowed to attend medical school, provided I marry.” She laughed bitterly. “At the moment, Mr. Sommersby is the only one in pursuit of my hand. What choice have I but to accept his attentions?”

Thornton swallowed and looked away. His initial assumptions had been correct, but only in part. She was indeed husband hunting, but only under duress. Someday he would need to take a wife. But now? He was willing to do much to further her career. But marriage? No. Marrying her was not the right solution.

Why, then, did it sound so appealing? To have a woman like her in his life. By his side in the laboratory. In his bed.

He cleared his throat; it felt oddly constricted. “What you need is not a husband, but independence. Or, at the very least, more time.”

“I happen to agree,” she said. “Father does not.”

“Will you allow me to speak to him?”

“
You
intend to offer for my hand?” She leaned forward, her eyes soft and round. “I accept.”

It was a punch to his gut that sucked all the air from his lungs. “I…‌”

“Oh, for goodness sakes, I know what you meant,” she said, falling back against her seat. “By all means, try. Perhaps you might hold some influence or think of a good argument for extending my deadline.”

He nodded, breathing deeply as he forcibly pushed the topic into a dark corner of his mind for later consideration. “Why must we visit Lady Emily?” he asked instead. “What can you possibly hope to accomplish?” Then repeated his earlier assurance, “Lady Emily is well guarded.
You
are well guarded. Provided you let our men‌—‌let me‌—‌do our job.”

“You’ve reviewed Emily’s notes?”

He nodded. Her sister’s work was impressive. For an amateur. “They were extensive.”

“Before she…‌ left, Emily hung many plants to dry. I’ve tried recreating her formula using distillations of all those she thought related to the
amatiflora
. None of them work.”

That explained the long hours in the chicken coop. His agents resented‌—‌profoundly‌—‌the need to brush feathers from their clothes after standing for hours in a room full of snoring hens.

She continued, “What if the
amatiflora
is not just some pretty weed? What if your botanists are growing the very plant we need in their greenhouse, but know it by another name? What if Emily can sketch the plant, its flowers?”

He understood. “Then our botanists can identify it and, perhaps, force it to grow, to flower.”

“Exactly.” She nodded. “Because otherwise, until the
amatiflora
blooms again, the formula is worthless.”

He doubted this path was worth pursuing. Then again, the smallest of discoveries could often have great implications, and they
needed
this drug. “Very well. We will visit Lady Emily.”

“Thank you.” Amanda visibly relaxed, turning to look out the window and the passing landmarks finally registered. “This is not the way to Putney Heath!”

“No. It’s not.” He held up a hand as she inhaled to object. “We’ve had Lady Emily‌—‌and a small portion of her band‌—‌relocated. Your father is a very powerful man. With special permission from the Queen herself, a small number of vardos have a temporary encampment in Kensington Gardens beside the Long Water. It is there that I have directed our driver.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I
T WAS AN ODDLY
picturesque and romantic sight. Five vardos formed a circle lined up nose to tail about a single campfire. Behind them, as if a backdrop for a play, a palace rose shimmering in the glow of gaslight. A man dressed in bright colors sat on an overturned bucket, swaying as he drew out a melancholy tune from the fiddle pinched between his shoulder and chin.

Though the gypsy played on, all eyes turned in their direction. As recognition dawned and their last entrance recalled, a number of mouths turned downward.

Emily looked up, and Amanda knew instant relief. She exhaled the breath she’d been holding. For the moment, her family was safe.

But keeping it that way…‌

Luca reached down and helped his wife rise to her feet. Together, they stepped outside the circle of wagons, crossing over the neatly trimmed lawn to where Amanda and Thornton waited.

Beside her stood a silent clockwork horse, his springs all wound down for the night. The same horse that lurched to the right with every sixteenth step? Luca’s craftsmanship was impeccable and she strongly suspected he’d set Thornton atop an unbalanced horse quite deliberately.

“Dare I hope you arrive with news of the eye doctor’s capture?” Luca asked, by way of greeting. “Your agents’ Romani, all but Black’s, it hurts the ears.”

“Not yet,” Thornton answered. “You’ll have to tolerate their presence somewhat longer.”

“Now, Luca. It’s not that bad,” Emily chided. “Think how horrible my Romani was once.” Luca’s lips tugged into a faint smile, and Emily turned to Amanda. “What brings you here thenje?”

“I need to speak with you,” she replied. “About the
amatiflora
.”

“Walk with me,” Thornton said, addressing Luca. “We’ll survey the perimeter while they speak.” He pinned Amanda with a look. “After the two sisters have reached the safety of a vardo.”

Amanda caught her sister’s arm and began walking toward the bright yellow vardo Emily shared with Luca and his great aunt, Nadya. She suspected they might need to consult the old woman. “How are you?” she asked. “How is the baby?”

Emily smiled. “Fine. Kicking strongly, often keeping me awake late into the night.”

They’d reached the curved stairs leading upward and inward. Amanda’s lightness faded. She paused, turning toward her sister. “Before we go in, I need to tell you about a situation brewing with Ned.” Amanda filled her in on their brother’s plans to amputate.

Emily’s face contracted with concern. “He needs to be stopped.”

“I agree. I’ll speak with Father, but only as a last resort,” Amanda said. “The spider, if I could only focus on it alone, without worry this eye doctor might strike again at any moment…‌” Too many responsibilities pulled her in opposite directions. “I could have it ready for rat trials within the week. But…‌”

“But without a working formula, it’s hopeless,” Emily finished.

Amanda nodded. “I cannot make it work, Emily. I’ve tried every plant you suggested, but they all lack…‌ something.”

Nadya called in Romani from inside the vardo.

“There’s certainly nothing wrong with her hearing,” Emily muttered, waving Amanda to precede her.

Inside, Nadya, little more than a face and two gnarled hands emerging from a swirl of colorful rags, gestured to a low cushion beside her.

“Me?” Amanda was uncertain her attire was up to the descent.

The old woman nodded, pointing again and launching into a stream of Romani.

Amanda scooped her skirts with one hand and bent her knees, aiming for the cushion, but the best she could hope for was a controlled fall onto the pillow. “Oof.”

Corsets and crinolines were not meant to accommodate floor seating. Amanda thought she caught a twitch of amusement on Nadya’s face, but buried amidst so many wrinkles, it was difficult to tell.

“So what do you need to ask me?” Emily asked, folding easily onto a cushion despite her rounded stomach.

“
Amatiflora
, it may grow‌—‌somewhere‌—‌in a greenhouse. If you can sketch it, I can hunt for it.”

Nadya erupted into Romani and Emily reached behind her, drawing forth a scrap of paper and a box of broken pastels. Grasping the items in her gnarled fingers, she began to sketch with incredible skill. A twining vine took shape, twisting up a lamp post and bursting into white flowers. Handing the picture to Amanda, Nadya muttered.

Emily translated. “She is not at all confident the flowers will be potent if grown inside beneath a roof of glass where the moon’s rays cannot touch the blooms.”

Another torrent of Romani flowed forth from the old woman’s lips.

“I
did
write that down in the formula I handed her,” Emily replied, addressing Nadya, attempting to force the language into English.

Nadya sighed, her wrinkles scrunching into fierce concentration, as if English pained her. “You must use flowers
exactly
as in formula.”

“I will,” Amanda said. “If I manage to locate them.”

The old woman shook her head. “I know
gadji
. Before
me
, this girl” she pointed a knotted finger at Emily, “not know to pick flowers at full moon. Still, she resists.”

Amanda gave Emily a speaking look.

Emily shrugged, managing to convey with a look that it was easier to humor an old woman than to reason with or oppose her on such a trivial matter.

“Now. You try my way.” Nadya jabbed at the air for emphasis. “It will not do. Fresh picked at full moon. Tonight.”

Emily’s eyebrows rose.

“We cannot. The
amatiflora
is long past bloom,” Amanda reminded her.

The
amatiflora
was a vine-like plant, one that curled its way up trees, lamp posts, buildings, anything that would draw it closer to the sun. In England, Emily’s notes had indicated, the plant’s lifecycle was brief, its blooms confined to late summer.

“There is a chance.” Nadya’s mouth worked. “Long ago, when I was girl, the Effra ran,” her hands waved, “above.
Amatiflora
along its banks.”

The Effra was one of the lost rivers of London. Forced underground, it was now little more than a sewer that emptied into the Thames near the Vauxhall Bridge. She only knew of it because of the coffin. The Effra, passing beneath a cemetery, had covertly carried a coffin and its occupant downstream into the Thames where the coffin surfaced, shocking all of London and reminding its populace of the lost rivers conscripted in the creation of the great sewer system that ran beneath them all.

The Effra had been underground at least fifty years.

“It’s October,” Emily pointed out gently.

Nadya’s eyes scrunched. “Listen.” Her voice wobbled on. “South London Waterworks, they build near the Effra, near Vauxhall Bridge. Yes?”

Companies such as South London Waterworks had once drawn their water from the Thames, but pollution had long since forced them to move operations upstream.

“The building,” Nadya pressed. “It still stands?”

Amanda nodded. “Part of the building was incorporated into Airship Sails.” A large factory, dedicated to manufacturing and sewing enormous lengths of silver cloth to form the balloon that held the aether.

“They have engine station,” Nadya said. “Where great furnaces make sewing machines turn.”

“Yes, of course,” Amanda answered, as realization began to dawn on her. “You think…‌”

“No.” Nadya shook her head. “I not think. I know.
Amatiflora
, it climbs for sun, yes, but also for warmth.”

Amanda and Emily’s eyes caught. Was it possible?

“Unlikely,” Emily said.

“But worth looking,” Amanda concluded.

With a working nerve agent, it was just possible that the neurachnid could soon re-spin the nerves Ned had damaged. It was certainly worth trying before he resorted to Ferrous Limbs.

“Last night was the full moon,” Emily stated flatly.