“It was well known. Ask anyone.”
“We would if there were anyone left to ask. But it seems you all ran as fast as cockroaches when a stormlight flares. So where did you obtain the leaves used in the biscuits?”
Then her jaw dropped.
He rounded on her. “Ah, so you do remember now, do you?”
“Harold. He wanted to help. We went into the garden to pick mint. Mint.” She looked at him, her eyes damp. “It was mint.”
“Mint doesn’t kill.”
“We didn’t kill them. It was mint.”
“Did you pick it yourself?”
She shook her head. “No. I let Harold…”
“You allowed a child of four years of age to gather herbs for your cooking?”
“Yes. He had gone with me several times before … It was mint.”
“It was negligence. What you and the child thought to be mint was a toxic plant—the same that killed your master and his family shortly after he sliced off your ear and the family fell to ruin. The timing is suspicious.”
“I would never…”
“Would you blame the child?”
“No,” she gasped. “Of course not.”
“Then accept the blame yourself.”
She deflated, slumping over the table, head cradled in her arms. She sobbed. Ever so softly.
Even from the sidewalk outside the Astraea estate John saw lights on in the rooms along the upper floor where Lady Astraea’s chambers were. Watchmen stood in stiff pairs flanking the main doors, men dressed in dark trousers and long, crisp gray coats with silver piping and fancy epaulets on their broad shoulders. These were Council watchmen.
Dangerous men searching for something.
John shifted the bundle in his arms, the wheelbarrow leaning in the shadow of the estate’s wall. He considered his options. Getting past the watchmen carrying the lady might not be impossible … but the odds were far from being in his favor.
He felt the faint beat of her heart and the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. This was his household’s lady, as defenseless as ever a woman could be. He would not openly risk her. Especially not after they’d come so far.
He clung to the shadows lining the property’s tall wall, only the occasional glimmer of light bouncing off his high cheeks and wide forehead telling of his passing. He halted at the back of the main house and looked up, examining its back wall.
A trellis ran along most of the wall, old rose canes and ivy warring to reach the rooftop first. Stepping forward, he grabbed the wooden trellis. He shook it, testing its strength.
“Apologies, milady,” he muttered. He adjusted Lady Astraea’s body so she hung across his chest, shoulder, and back like a sack of grain, and, his hands ignoring the prick of the rose thorns, he began the arduous task of hauling them both toward the open shutters marking her windows.
He was puffing out breath by the time he reached her windows. He crossed one last section of trellis and placed his hands on the edge of the nearest windowsill. Slowly he angled over so his head was just above the window ledge and he could glimpse the room’s interior.
Her bed lay freshly made, the wood floor before it shining in the moonlight seeping in. A few candles still burned—brightly—fresh, considering the amount of time that had passed. So someone had been inside.
Cynda or Laura?
Or Chloe?
John wondered only briefly, knowing it made little difference. He would slip her ladyship into her bed, make his way outside the room, and find one or all of the girls.
With a final glance to assure himself no one watched, he braced his feet, bent his knees to squeeze them into the spaces between the trellis’s narrow wooden slats, and lifted her ladyship off his shoulder, resting her on the window’s broad ledge, one steadying hand on her waist.
Another slide and a step and he was directly before the window, climbing up to rest one knee on the cold stone sill. With a grunt, he got his hands onto the thick wood and iron shutters and hoisted the rest of his bulk up, struggling to not be indecently near her ladyship’s prone form. It was difficult, maintaining appropriate decorum during a rescue.
He slid past her and dropped his feet to the floor before scooping her up. Crossing the floor to her bed, he laid her down and freed her from the quilts and blankets.
She was nearly as quiet as the statues gracing the cemeteries near the middle of the Hill—where the elegant people were buried, if they couldn’t afford a proper tomb or a Bone Shrining. He shivered at the thought of being Bone Shrined—to have the flesh stripped from your bones so your bony bits could be strung up as chandeliers or stacked as walls or doors in your chosen church, where you could forever watch your fellow parishioners and descendants …
His thoughts straying, he stepped away, backing to the door and opening it. He slid into the blessedly dark hall and locked the door before making his way to find either Cynda or Laura.
Or best yet, Chloe.
John found both Laura and Cynda seated outside on a stone bench in the gardens, huddled together over the remnants of one of his lordship’s cigarettes. He should have asked how they came by it, he knew he should, but the way they hung so close together, wary eyes on the house, words soft and sad, he no longer cared.
They startled when they saw him approaching and there was a brief fumble as Cynda tried to hide the smoking thing.
John put his hand out, shaking his head.
They lowered their eyes and Cynda presented the cigarette to him. He hesitated, watching them, before raising it to his lips and sucking down one long breath. He coughed a moment and the girls shared a giggle as he passed it back to them. “S’been a long time,” he muttered. He turned to look at the house, too, at the trellis he’d clambered over and the veranda Miss Jordan and her friends had been entertained on not many hours before. “We have a problem,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Laura.
She snatched the cigarette from Cynda and, eyes wide and wild, placed it to her lips. She nodded.
“You both had best know ’bout it.”
Laura shook her head and ducked when Cynda tried to reclaim their stolen prize. From around the cigarette she said, “Cynda’s got herself a job offer. She’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“The Bertrams,” Cynda said.
John appraised Cynda with a long, slow look. The girl had nice features, long curling blond hair, and an easy smile that was never far from her generous lips. She was not the most efficient household servant but most understood that what Lord Bertram wished for in household servants had less to do with efficiency and more to do with easy attitudes. “If that is what you wish…”
Cynda pouted. “Yes, John. ’Tis. To be cared for in a household free of magicking and witchery is what I wish.”
“Then you had best step away from us now before we begin our conversation,” he warned. “I would not wish to entangle you in family matters.”
She recoiled as if she’d taken the verbal slap physically. Rising from the bench, she snapped her fingers, reclaimed the cigarette, and stalked a distance off, strides so long her skirt swished angrily.
John glanced at the bench and Laura scooted as far over on it as possible so he might sit down and still no one could remark on the closeness of their proximity.
“It’s my fault,” she whispered. “I should not have…” She closed her eyes tight and swallowed hard. “And now Chloe has been taken by the Council…”
John’s lips thinned, pressed so hard together. “Is no one person’s fault. She did not have to do such a thing.”
“I think such a thing is only done when a person feels there is nothing else a person can do.” Laura shook her head. “They have Chloe. Say she’s the one murdered the Kruses.”