Night Storm (19 page)

A long line of bulging gray clouds swallowed the sun, casting everything into shadow and dropping the temperature by several degrees. Charlotte pulled her coat closer and began writing faster. The greenhouse would be infinitely warmer.

“Hello, Charley.”

She jumped, sending the Society’s precious copy of Miller’s dictionary to the hard ground and her pencil and paper flying. “Oh, no.” Charlotte retrieved the book, brushing off bits of dirt, gravel, and damp dead leaves. She inspected it closely for damage and found none. She glared at Cameron over her shoulder. “Was that necessary?”

“If you hadn’t been so absorbed in your note-taking, you would have heard my approach.” He held out her paper and pencil. “How is the book?”

“Fine.” She grasped the items, careful not to make contact, and resumed her seat. “How did you get in here?”

“Rather easily.”

Charlotte sent him a skeptical look. Towering redbrick walls surrounded the entire garden. The walls not only protected the garden from intruders, they provided the added benefit of trapping the unusual warmer temperatures within. “Somehow I find that hard to believe, even for you. Unless, of course, you’ve grown wings or have monkeys in your ancestry.”

He barked out a laugh. A full, rich laugh that carried her back to more pleasant times.

“Monkeys in my ancestry?”
He braced his hands against the back of her bench while he struggled to get himself under control. “Now that sounded like my old Charley.”

Charlotte stiffened and focused her attention on Sir Hans Sloane’s badly weathered statue, standing tall and proud. If not for Sloane’s genius and careful forethought, the garden would not even exist.

“Did you think coming here would keep me away?” Cameron asked quietly.

That was exactly what she’d thought.

“I do not plan my day around your demands, Cameron. The sooner you understand that fact, the better off you’ll be.”

He sat down beside her, a subdued smile playing about his full lips. “Is that so? Why did you send Felix away this morning?”

“Are you spying on me?” An odd combination of unease and excitement wove around her chest.

“Neither of you were there when I stopped by.”

Years of practice with her father had taught her how to detect an evasive answer. She’d learned the art of listening to each word and every sentence with care. Figuring out which vital piece of information he’d left unsaid or what phrase he’d lined with beautiful, deflective wrapping. Cameron had left much unsaid.

“You shouldn’t be here. Only Society members are allowed on the property.”

His eyebrows lifted in admiration. “They finally allowed you to become a full-fledged member then?”

Heat flooded her ears. “No,” she said evenly. “Membership is for men only. The director and curator have known me since I was a little girl waddling these pathways with my father. My mother did the same with my grandfather when her mother died. Our family has a long history with the Society, and they’ve extended a courtesy to me they wouldn’t to another female. Given my present circumstances, the director got permission from the Society to allow me to study the collection whenever I wished…for an annual fee.”

“Sounds like a membership to me.”

To Charlotte as well, but she needed access to the garden and to the Society’s library in order to improve her skills and stay current on the latest botanic medicinal breakthroughs. She would not quibble over proper word choices or designations. “At the moment, I will take whatever the Society is willing to give in order to save the shop—and my livelihood.”

He sobered at that. “Understood.”

“I repeat—you shouldn’t be here, Cameron.”

“Pretend I’m a visiting botanist and have requested a tour.”

“You look about as much like a botanist as I do a pirate.” Her tone grew serious. “Every second you’re here jeopardizes my already tenuous welcome.”

“Why tenuous?”

She tapped her pencil against Miller’s book. “I’ve proven myself to many in the Society. But others will never accept a woman in their hallowed domain.”

“Narrow-minded bastards.”

She noted his hard expression, the calculating gleam in his eye, as he stared in the direction of the greenhouse where the day-to-day decisions were made. Though a casual visitor like Cameron would not know such detail. Would he?

“I have no notion of what’s rattling around in the that mind of yours to cause such a fierce look. But I want to remind you that I need the Society in order to maintain my shop.”

He blinked and all emotion evaporated from his expression like a wisp of smoke on a breezy day. His gaze traced the area as if he were committing it all to memory—plant by plant, building by building, walkway by walkway.

Perhaps he was. Cameron had always had an uncanny ability to draw forth the most inconsequential details. Details that were years old. Unlike Charlotte, who sometimes struggled with recalling what she’d eaten the previous day.

That’s why she did a combination of reading, writing, and touching to solidify each plant’s description and medicinal qualities in her mind. She even lightly crushed the leaves and flowers to learn the plant’s smell. But those steps alone weren’t enough. She had to revisit new plants three to five times before she truly felt comfortable adding them to her inventory.

“Cameron.” She added a slight pleading note to her voice.

He released a sigh and unwound his body from the bench. “I’ll meet you outside the gate.” His eyebrows lifted. “In fifteen minutes?”

Charlotte nodded. She had no doubt that if she wasn’t at the gate in a quarter of an hour, he would come looking for her. “I’m almost done here.”

He disappeared into the foliage behind her. She heard not a single crackle of dead leaves to herald his exit.

The phantomlike way in which he came and went forced Charlotte to realize once again how different this new Cameron was from the young man she’d known all those years ago. This Cameron thought nothing of spying on her or using a boy to solve a murder. And yet this new Cameron still possessed enough conscience to leave her be so she didn’t lose her garden privileges.

Gathering her items, she wrapped the
The Gardeners Dictionary
in protective linen and anchored it beneath her arm before entering the greenhouse. At her first opportunity, she would return the book to the library at Apothecaries’ Hall in Blackfriars.

After a few minutes of searching, she found a healthy gentian specimen and proceeded to sketch a horrible rendition of the plant known to resist putrefaction, poison, and pestilence. Normally, she would take a bit more time with her drawing, but she could almost hear the passage of time. The last thing she needed was for Cameron to make another appearance inside the garden.

She headed toward the tall iron gate marking the Swan Walk exit. Every crunch her boots made against the gravel walkway echoed through the garden. Just the thought of meeting with Cameron put her nerves on edge and set her heart to beating an uncommon rhythm.

By coming to Chelsea, she had hoped to avoid another conflict with him about Felix. She didn’t care what he speculated. She knew that if Felix had seen something or suspected something, he
would
have told her.

But Cameron was right about one thing: She was not ready to set aside Lady Winthrop’s murder. The laceration on her ladyship’s face seemed unnecessary, given the mortal nature of her stab wounds. Charlotte understood little about what motivated people to perform evil acts, but the cut to the baroness’s cheek was too violent, too personal for an opportunistic thief.

After her inevitable argument with Cameron, she would make her way toward Lord Winthrop’s home, where she would meet with the coroner, Joseph Blackburne. Not trusting Mr. Riordan to follow through on his word, Charlotte had taken it upon herself to contact the coroner—with a special request to attend his examination of Lady Winthrop’s corpse.

The cloak tie remained in her possession. She had come to the conclusion that the tie had been in the passageway prior to the baroness’s attack. If her ladyship had managed to tear it from her assailant’s cloak, the murderer would not have left something so telling behind. Anyone who would take the time to slash a dead or dying woman’s face would pause an extra second or two to make sure he had left nothing incriminating behind.

Still, she wanted to hear what Joseph Blackburne thought—about the facial laceration and the bruise encircling Lady Winthrop’s neck. She had known Joseph, the eldest brother of one of her childhood friends, for more than a decade. Even then, he had been a serious, detail-oriented young man. Someone you instinctively knew you could place your trust in and never be disappointed.

She had received Joseph’s response to her request almost immediately, but rather than give a yes or no answer, he had asked to meet with her in person. It had taken her nearly two hours to convince him that she would not be in the way, faint, or otherwise be a nuisance during the examination. But she had to agree to pretend to be the midwife in order to attend him inside the room.

Which meant she would be responsible for disrobing the corpse, cleaning it if necessary, and helping Joseph take notes during the examination. Charlotte had witnessed death on a number of occasions and had seen hundreds of horrific wounds. But she had never cleaned a corpse. Her training with her mother had not extended that far. What she wouldn’t give to have a fifteen-minute conversation with her mother, who had assisted the previous coroner several times.

The garden exit lay just around the corner, and she increased her pace. Her quarter hour had nearly elapsed. Seemingly out of nowhere, one of the Society assistants stepped into her path.

“I see you had a visitor, Mrs. Fielding,” Lawrence Hermann said. “How kind of Director Wheeler to approve admittance of someone outside our small community.”

Of the nearly two dozen Society assistants who could have witnessed her conversation with Cameron, Mr. Hermann would have been her last choice. With his weak chin, wide-set eyes, shaggy red hair, and contentious disposition, the assistant made a poor impression on first acquaintance.

From the moment he’d learned of Master Prescott’s decision to allow her use of the Society’s resources, he made sure Charlotte knew of his displeasure. Every time he saw her. Which had been often of late, and at locations outside the Apothecaries’ Hall and the Physic Garden.

Tamping down the spark of fear his subtly threatening words caused, Charlotte said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Hermann. What brings you to the garden today?” She had learned not to address his specific comments. Doing so only led to her becoming defensive, which, in turn, made her appear guilty despite her innocence. All he’d seen today was her speaking briefly to a stranger. He had no way of knowing if she even knew Cameron or not.

“Same as you, I suspect.” His gaze combed over her body, narrowing on the linen-wrapped book tucked beneath her arm.

“Well, then. I will leave you to your study.”

“Is that the Society’s property you have hidden in the folds of your coat?”

Charlotte glanced down at the obvious, unhidden book. “As a matter of fact, it is.”

His eyes widened at her confirmation, though he recovered quickly. He held out his hand. “I’ll take that.”

Charlotte stepped back and tightened her hold on Miller’s dictionary. “I don’t think so. The book was entrusted to me. I’ll be the one returning it to the hall’s library.”

He took a step forward. “You should not have taken it off the premises. I’ll make sure it’s safely returned.”

“Master Prescott is well aware I use
The Gardeners Dictionary
and has not sought to stop me.”

His lips thinned and he developed a twitch below his right eye. “I don’t know whom you”—his eyes roamed down her in disgust—“charmed to slither your way into the Society. But I won’t stand by and allow you to destroy three hundred years of work.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. “What exactly am I destroying?”

“Any time women are allowed into our world, they find a way to seduce us away from our primary mission.”

“What absurd nonsense!” Charlotte could not believe the extraordinary turn their conversation had taken. What awful event had happened in this man’s past to make him bundle all women in the same tainted cloth?

His body expanded, and he took another step toward her. “You think so? Explain to me why Master Prescott would set aside centuries of tradition to allow a beautiful woman inside the hall and garden. Did you allow him access between your legs before or after his decision?”

She gasped and took an involuntary step away from the foul man. It was then that she realized how isolated they were in this part of the garden. If Cameron awaited her outside the gate, he couldn’t be too far away. Was he close enough to hear her scream?

Squaring her shoulders, she said in a firm voice, “This conversation is over.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Nor do I intend to.” She started to storm around him, but he blocked her escape, standing much too close for her comfort. “Step aside, Mr. Hermann.”

“Not until you answer my question.”

Real fear pierced through her anger. She did not deceive herself into thinking that just because they were of the same height that they possessed equal strength. He could overwhelm her and no one would be the wiser.

“If you don’t remove yourself from my path, I will scream.”

The corner of his thin mouth curled upward. “No one will hear you. Not this time of the day. It’s just you and me and my question.”

“W-why are you doing this?” Charlotte’s voice shook. “I’ve done nothing to you or the Society to garner such animosity.”

“Your very presence within these walls, roaming as you will, is enough to earn my contempt.” His words were low, controlled. Frightening in their intensity.

Charlotte smoothed her sweaty palm down the front of her coat. “If you won’t step aside, I’ll find an alternative means of leaving the garden.” She swiveled around and marched off. A curse erupted from behind, followed by the sound of boots pounding against loose gravel.