I Thee Wed (27 page)

“Forever, Pennysmith. Congratulations.”

The butler nearly skipped with joy. “Oy, move it along!” He clapped his hands and shouted out instructions for the livery boys to fetch the trunk from her bedchamber. Francesca took a seat in a small rosewood armchair near the door, and Pennysmith resumed his rigid stance, nose up, looking anywhere but at her. After a long moment, he suddenly turned her way and smiled.

“With the young miss soon to be absent, I take it that rabbit shall be back on the menu?”

A hot jolt of alarm sent her to her feet.
Dio!
How foolish she'd been to think she could simply leave the rabbits here for Attie to study! The cook would have them stewed and served before Francesca's ship left the dock! She certainly could not take one hundred rabbits on an ocean voyage, so what would she do?

The Worthingtons
. She would send them to Worthington House with a note of explanation, sure in the knowledge that Attie would keep them safe.

“Pennysmith, I shall need several footmen to assist with the rabbit hutches,” she said perfunctorily. “I should like all the rabbits driven to Worthington House immediately.”

His eyelids drooped again. He looked down his long weasel-like nose at her. “Would miss like this accomplished before or after her trunk is taken to the docklands?”

“Oh, dear Pennysmith!” She looked at him with false concern. “Is the prospect of coordinating two things at once distressing for you? Do you fear you may actually have to
do
something?”

He said nothing. His upper lip spasmed.

“I want the rabbits delivered first, then the trunk.” She retrieved her valise. “And I shall be in the laboratory for a little while before I assist with packing the rabbits.”

“Yes, miss.”

Just as she turned to leave, a loud clamor emanated from the street. Francesca peered out a front window to see a roofless, rickety wooden freight cart pulled by a single dray horse.

“Your chariot awaits,” said Pennysmith.

She leveled her gaze at the self-satisfied butler. “Then I suggest you send it 'round back before it turns into a pumpkin.”

A
ND investigating this process took years of folderol and balderdash.”

Folderol?

Sir Geoffrey stared at the cards. Alarm jolted through him. What he had just uttered aloud was nothing but nonsense. Was his vision impaired? Had he selected the wrong notes?

And then slow, desperate fear crept over him—he had used too much! Pennysmith had not been here to prepare his tea for him, so Sir Geoffrey had ground some dried pods to bring to Somerset House. He'd dosed his tea on the sly because that damned Worthington wouldn't give him a second to himself!

He took a sip of water from the goblet provided for him and tried to focus his racing thoughts. Then he tried reading again.

“The immediate result of using the two solvents”—
ah, that sounded acceptable!—
“was to separate the multicolored feces of the unicorn”—
what the hell?
But his lips were already forming the next words—“from the previously collected flatulence of the hedgehog—”

He heard the first snickers begin in the gallery. He felt his face reddening as he gazed in horror at the cards. A drop of sour sweat fell from his brow to the ink. In a panic, he scrabbled through the notes, but it just got worse.

“High concentrates of doltish perambulators . . . while mixing equal parts acids and piglets . . . through repeated applications of Cornish pasties.”

With dismay he heard his own voice ringing through the hall. Indeed, he had dosed himself incorrectly, and now his mouth was running away on him. But that was not all—he realized he'd been the victim of a prank, and most likely by the ingrate Worthington himself. And yet he could not stop . . . Everything that went into his mind through his hypersharpened vision spewed from his mouth, unfiltered by any shred of self-control. With horror, he heard his volume increase as the laughter in the hall grew louder and more mocking, sounding like church bells ringing his death knell!

Sir Geoffrey looked frantically through the audience until he located Worthington at the back of the hall. The backstabber appeared calm, a slightly mocking smile on his lips.

Judith. I need Judith. She will help me, come to my aid, ensure I recover from this sabotage! But . . . where is she?

She was not present!

As if to guarantee that Sir Geoffrey's ruin was irreversible, the snide Nicholas Witherspoon stood and gestured grandly toward the podium. “Remarkable! Our much-admired First Speaker has just expounded on the biochemical properties of unicorn dung, piglets, and pasties!”

Sir Geoffrey threw his notes in a rage, and they fluttered to the floor. He hurried from the presentation hall, only to be halted when the rear doorway would not open. Sir Geoffrey jiggled and jostled the latch, and finally, with the roaring laughter echoing through the presentation hall at his back, he threw his considerable bulk at the door. It gave with a splintering of fine wood, and Sir Geoffrey, innovator, forward thinker, Renaissance man, and all-around paragon of science,
fled the raucous mockery of his erstwhile peers, running away into the night.

*   *   *

F
RANCESCA UNPINNED THE
last chart and laid it flat upon the steel laboratory table. She took the single thick roll she'd fashioned from the other charts and began to carefully incorporate the last one into the roll.

The laboratory was so silent that the faint rasp of the thick paper against itself seemed loud in comparison. With the task complete, she stood quietly in the room for one last moment, the charts clutched tight in her arms.

She had had such hopes in this place. Hopes that her research would be taken seriously, hopes that she would find her place in the world among family . . . and then, upon finding Orion Worthington, sweet, impossible hopes that she had perhaps found the heart that beat at the same pace as hers.

Her arms tightened around the roll of paper for a moment, until the crackle made her realize she was crushing it. She eased her grasp. A memory had just flashed before her, the memory of something real and true: Orion's eyes, softened and laughing as they lay together on the carpet before the fire. His touch, once somewhat clinical, was now tender. Orion's kiss was now as gentle and solemn as a vow. Orion's body melded with hers, thrumming to a shared heartbeat.

But his words, wounding and indifferent, came from a man apparently cold to the core. When he pushed her away, it was harsh. And final. But almost as if spoken by another man entirely.

In the hours since, Francesca had developed a theory as to why his actions did not match his words. She believed that Orion chose to marry Judith to advance his career and that he placed more importance on his academic reputation than on Francesca. But a thought had been niggling at the corner of her mind, a thought that told her it might not be that simple, that other forces were at work. The First Law of Proof: If the
evidence does not support the theory, one needs a new theory. Did she need a new theory about why Orion Worthington had rejected her? Was there something here that she had not fully analyzed?

Francesca kept her feet planted on the same spot on the laboratory floor, afraid that if she moved, she would lose her train of thought. She needed to ponder this matter carefully and thoroughly.

First, she was certain that Orion was already deeply disturbed by something before she arrived with the picnic basket. She heard him pacing in his bedchamber. She saw the slope of his shoulders and the desolation in his eyes. It was almost as if he were dogged by something outside of himself that he had no power to shake off, as if he were being manipulated, forced.

Francesca was ashamed—she'd seen his pain and then forgotten it. She had been too busy seducing him, and then wallowing in righteous self-pity after he had scorned her.

It hurt Francesca so to hear his words—but what if it hurt Orion just as much to say them?

Second, it was clear Judith did not wish to marry Orion; therefore, the pressure would not be coming from her.

Which pointed to Sir Geoffrey. Could he be forcing Orion along a particular path, one that included marriage to his daughter? If so, what were his leverage and his motivation? How had he bent Orion, a strong-willed and determined man, to his will? And why?

She could ignore it no longer—Francesca admitted to herself that something was amiss with her uncle. He treated his daughter like a scullery maid and spoke kindly to her only in public. His moods and health seemed unpredictable, running the gamut from sunny and spry to dark and diseased, sometimes within the span of minutes. And there was the surprising litany of offenses that had slipped from Judith's mouth in a moment of weakness—“covered for him, lied for him, stol—”

Had Judith nearly accused her father of theft?

But theft of what? What would he need to steal that he could not easily procure for himself?

Francesca tilted her head and felt herself scowl under the weight of her suspicions. She had always been puzzled by the fact that Sir Geoffrey, a man acclaimed for his scientific acumen, barely set foot in his own laboratory. And if he were presenting new findings at tonight's meeting, what might these new findings be?

Whose
findings?

“Orion!” Francesca lifted her chin, the knowledge prickling down the length of her spine. Sir Geoffrey was behind all of this. He had to have found a way to corner Orion, to threaten him where it would hurt him the most.

She felt her lip curl in disgust. “
Feccia sporca!
Filthy scum!”

Francesca spun around in a rage, the roll of charts knocking into a mortar and pestle sitting near the end of a table.

Out of reflex, Francesca grabbed the stone mortar by the neck before it could tip from its perch. Then she frowned down at it. “That's odd,” she said aloud. When she had swept up the remains of Judith's emotional breakage that morning, everything had been neatly put away, including the mortar and pestle. She knew Orion had not returned to work, nor had she.

Sir Geoffrey must have come in that afternoon, before he'd begun preparing for his important night. Goodness, the scientist had done some actual science?

Curiosity, considered a fault in a young lady, but a virtue in a scientist, brought the mortar closer to her nose for a careful sniff. There was a familiarity to the sweet, slightly rotten scent.

Francesca's eyes widened. She thrust her pinkie into the mortar bowl and dabbed at the inner surface. Then she touched it to her tongue with a frown.

Ground poppy? It was unmistakable, and quite intense.
She recalled the poppy flowers blooming in the garden. Every household kept some form of poppy pain medication about, usually in the form of laudanum syrup, but this?

“Oh, Uncle.” Her shocked whisper rasped through the empty laboratory. “What have you
done
to yourself?”

It was a raw powder of pure poppy pods. A few grains of this concentration would act simultaneously as a soother and a stimulant, although there would be a great possibility of addiction. Just then she remembered the night she and Orion hid behind the draperies in Sir Geoffrey's study. Her uncle entered, shaking and unsteady, and unlocked a cupboard fitted with laboratory supplies. They had not been able to see what Sir Geoffrey did, but when he left many moments later, his pace was brisk and steady.

Francesca's breath left her in a gasp. The absentminded air. The occasional stagger. The smiling geniality that abruptly turned to rage. And the inability to focus a formerly sharp mind to new and innovative experimentation—an inability that might drive a man to do terrible, unscrupulous things to maintain his position!

H
E took the carriage—to hell with that conniving, backstabbing Worthington! He could rot in the gutter for all Sir Geoffrey cared! And Judith—abandoning him at his time of need. Ingrates everywhere he looked! Turncoats! Frauds!

Oh, the horror of this night.

He raised his clenched fists and smashed them down into the tufted velvet seat at either side of his body.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
His head reeled. “How could this—? How did this—? What would become—?”

Sir Geoffrey began smacking his palms against his forehead over and over and over.

Worthington.

Worthington!

He snatched his walking stick and began violently poking its silver end piece, a lion's head, into the ceiling. Soon he began a wild swinging to and fro inside the carriage, finding some solace in the sound of ripping and tearing velvet. Shred, rip, slice, tear.

Of course Worthington was responsible for the vicious prank! And to think . . . he had the gall to turn on him after all he had done for the man! Sir Geoffrey rescued that rat from the disgrace of his notorious name! Promised him the hand of his truest treasure, his darling Judith!

The carriage rolled to a stop in front of Blayne House. He shoved his way out of the carriage, noting how the two footmen tried to evade his keen eye. “What are you looking at, you two layabouts?” He smashed his walking stick against the side of the carriage, for emphasis, and both men turned and busied themselves with the horses.

The difficulty in finding good help!

He staggered up the steps and waited for the door to open. “Pennysmith!” Sir Geoffrey beat at the door with his walking stick.

Many seconds passed. The door remained closed in his face. Sir Geoffrey was forced to open
his own door
and, as additional insult,
no one
was there to greet him in his front hall! Where the bloody hell was everyone?

The world was crumbling before his eyes!

*   *   *

T
HE PRESENTATION ROOM
at Somerset House was in an uproar with laughter and outrage and chaos. Worthington vengeance, indeed! The crowd seemed to have particularly relished Iris's contribution concerning unicorn dung.

Orion sauntered toward the podium with Attie scampering in a circle of glee around him.

“Attie,” he cautioned her, not able to stop smiling. “Show some decorum, please.”

With his smile lingering, Orion passed his hand over his own neat stack of notes. In a moment, when the uproar died down, he meant to take the podium himself—and present his own research. He rather thought his own measured and logical manner would provide a charming contrast to Sir Geoffrey's breakdown.

He frowned slightly through his triumph, thinking of Sir Geoffrey's behavior. He'd meant the man to be flustered, to make him fumble, and then, since the research and knowledge weren't truly his, to be unable to recover publicly. Orion had even prepared a few pithy questions to throw at the man while he dithered, to make the audience realize that at the very least, Sir Geoffrey didn't fully understand his topic. He'd hoped they would see that the ideas Sir Geoffrey claimed as his own were, in fact, those of one Orion Worthington.

However, the simple prank had gone even more horribly awry than it was meant to. Sir Geoffrey had truly fallen apart! He'd babbled like a madman, his words coming faster and faster, as if he'd lost all control. Orion pictured the man's face—dripping perspiration and flushing so deeply that Orion had almost feared for his heart!

Orion meant to understand the meaning of that behavior, but further investigation would have to wait until after his own triumphant turn at the podium.

Then a slender hand touched his arm. “Mr. Worthington?”

Orion saw Attie scowl. He turned to see Judith there, with that Asher Langford bloke hovering behind. Judith looked very odd to Orion, quite unlike her usual cool, remote self. She was rosy cheeked. Her golden hair was mussed, with wispy strands coming down from the pins. Moreover, her lips were very pink, and a bit swollen.

Orion's recent experience with Francesca led him to the inescapable conclusion that Judith had been recently kissed, and very thoroughly at that!

He cast a glance at Langford, who also showed signs of romantic pawing. The big fellow blushed at Orion's knowing look, but he also thrust out his chin, as if daring Orion to comment.

Heaven forbid. Judith could go kiss a regiment for all he cared. If Asher Langford had turned poor, brittle Miss Judith Blayne from a porcelain statue to a real girl, then bully for him!

“Mr. Worthington, what has happened? Where is Papa?”

Orion frowned down at Judith. He'd forgotten to consider the consequences for Sir Geoffrey's daughter when he'd plotted his revenge.

Orion tried to tell himself that Sir Geoffrey hadn't cared if his actions caused problems for his only child, but guilt still pricked at him. He took a breath. What could he tell her?

“We demolished your papa,” Attie informed her belligerently. “Now everyone knows he's a thief and a liar!”

Judith went back on her heels. “Oh.” Her expression chilled. Langford put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Judith lifted her chin as she covered Asher's hand with her own. “I must go home and check on him,” she said. She didn't sound angry, nor did she sound overly concerned. She sounded . . . drained.

Then she looked around. “Where is Francesca? I thought she would be here by now. Packing her things shouldn't take that long.”

Packing? Orion went cold.

Perhaps I shall return to Italy.

Perhaps you should.

Oh no
.

“I told her I planned to marry you, Judith. I told her she should go home.” He swallowed hard, blood racing and his gaze scanning the faces of the others. “She wouldn't really . . . would she?”

“I would!” Attie and Judith affirmed simultaneously. Behind Judith, Asher nodded at Orion, his expression pitying.

A world without Francesca?

A world without her light, her laughter . . . her love?

I love Francesca.

Love?

Yes
. It was as simple as that. In the blink of an eye, former convictions shifted sideways. Suddenly, with vision refracted through the prism of Francesca, Orion saw the world in all of its wonder and magic, at last.

“I love Francesca.” He said the words out loud, in marvelous awe.

Attie rolled her eyes. “He's a genius!” Then she hit him on the arm. “Are all men so thick?” she queried Judith. Judith bit her lip, but Asher nodded again.

Orion straightened. “I have to go.”

Attie grabbed his sleeve as he turned to depart. “What about your triumphant assumption of the throne?”

All of his ambitions seemed trivial next to the thought of losing Francesca. Science was wonderful. Francesca was
everything
.

Orion pulled his notes from his pocket and thrust them into Judith's hands. “You do it.”

Then he kissed his little sister on the top of her contrary head and ran for the door, for Blayne House, and for Francesca.

*   *   *

I
NSIDE THE HOUSE
, forced to fend for himself without a bit of assistance from a single of the useless creatures in his employ, Sir Geoffrey used his walking stick to guide himself along the wall. Finally, he reached the refuge of his study and the relief he would find in his special cupboard.

He lurched forward, his head now pounding, like his fists on the seat. He removed his watch fob and singled out the small key that would save him.

There was no time for tea.

With shaking hands, he snatched the decanter of brandy, poured a snifter, and wrestled with the lid that kept him from the contents of the special jar. He thanked God he'd had the presence of mind that day to grind additional whole pods in the laboratory and replenish his supply! He doubted he would be capable of such focus in his present state.

His fingers twitched violently but finally loosened the tin lid. He then proceeded to dump the entire contents into the brandy. After a quick swirl, and without a care for the
consequences, he drank every drop. What did it matter? He was finished. Life would not be worth living with his reputation as shredded as the carriage ceiling!

Sir Geoffrey felt the liquid burn his throat. Feet planted on the carpet, he braced himself on the cupboard, waiting for the rush of liberated thought and complete invincibility to suffuse him.

“Yes!” He lifted his face to the ceiling, sensing the return to his true self. But he was interested to find it did not stop there. The concoction swept him higher, higher, until his mind was a cascade of superhuman thought. He knew what was to come. He understood everything. He could do anything.

It was so clear now. They all had conspired against him. Orion Worthington wanted his laboratory—he even admitted so the day he arrived!—and enlisted everyone in the household to assist him with his debauched plan. Every soul was in on it, from Pennysmith and Eva down to the lowest scullery boy. And Judith, of course, too timid to find herself a duke, too frail and lazy to be of any real use to him! And that outlandish brat Francine, or whatever his inept half brother had named her—she must have had a primary role in all this, with her sneaky, foreign ways. That unusual girl and her filthy rodents had made his life a living hell!

Enough!

He sucked a huge gulp of air into his lungs and stood tall, prepared to do what had to be done. Now that Worthington had ruined him, Sir Geoffrey could not allow him to marry Judith and profit from his evil deeds. The mere thought of such an outcome brought a wild hatred roaring through his blood.

Would Orion Worthington become heir to the Blayne scientific dynasty? Would he lie his way into Sir Geoffrey's chair at the Fraternity? Would the blackguard be allowed to steal the fruits of Sir Geoffrey's life's work?

Not bloody likely.

He snatched the brandy decanter and the nearest candle.
“Pennysmith!” Sir Geoffrey hastened down the hall in search of his indolent butler. How dared he not be there to greet him upon his return?

“Pennysmith!”

He shoved open the rear door of the house and reeled into the garden, suddenly unsure as to his original purpose in coming outside. He took a swig from the crystal decanter and then saw it. The fountain? Was that his destination? Well, why not?

He stumbled his way to the Italian marble, set the decanter and candle on its edge, and unbuttoned the flap of his breeches. The relief, the sheer pleasure of pissing in his own bloody fountain simply because he bloody could! To hell with them all—he was still a man at the pinnacle of his power!

In midstream, Sir Geoffrey let his gaze wander to the laboratory.
His
laboratory. One that would never fall into the hands of that sniveling Worthington! Ha! He would rather see it burned to the ground than belong to a man so unworthy.

Sir Geoffrey was suddenly struck by a flash of pure genius. He had everything he needed, right at his fingertips, to follow through on his spectacular plan. As all of the world's wisest men knew, desperate situations called for desperate measures.

With his flap still open, Sir Geoffrey ripped the cravat from his throat and began shoving it into the neck of the decanter. He was careful to leave fabric protruding from the top for use as a wick. He grabbed the candle.

His chest expanded with purpose, and his legs churned relentlessly, carrying him to the laboratory in a matter of seconds. Sir Geoffrey smiled with satisfaction as he lowered the candle flame to the brandy-soaked cravat and it caught. It was strangely hypnotizing, that flame, and with every bit of superhuman strength he possessed, he hurled the fiery decanter against the wooden laboratory doors. It exploded with a deeply rewarding shatter of glass and a
whoosh!
as the wood succumbed to the flame.

Sir Geoffrey reared back to avoid getting singed. “Aha!”
he cried, clapping his hands in joy. “Take that, Worthington! You will never best the Great Sir Geoffrey Blayne!” He turned, giggling uncontrollably, nearly falling as he lost his footing, yanking at his drooping breeches. He pressed on, ever the knight, fist raised to the sky. The smell of smoke was delicious in his nostrils, which caused his giggles to blossom into full laughter. With one hand grasping at his breeches, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed . . .

They all hated him. They were all out to get him. But he beat them at their own game! The thought struck him as hilarious.

Sir Geoffrey staggered along until he reached the cutting garden, where he tripped over a row of gladiolas and landed on his arse in the middle of the poppies.

Poppies!

Sir Geoffrey tilted his head back and roared. He continued laughing until his sides hurt, and then three words passed through his agitated mind, clearing a path and leaving a purity of understanding in their wake—
multicolored unicorn feces
.

“Unicorn feces!” he cried aloud into the night, stretching his arms wide. He heard his own laughter grow harsh, then breathless, then transition into a series of uncontrollable sobs that almost immediately became laughter again. Nothing made sense to Sir Geoffrey, yet the laughing ripped at his lungs and the sobbing doubled him over.

Oh, the bittersweet agony of it all! The tenderness! The terror! Sir Geoffrey decided that the loss of one's mind was a strangely fascinating experience.

His awareness dimmed. The last thing he sensed was his cheek hitting the damp, plowed earth.