“Oh, but I insist.” He pressed the glass against her fingers.
Apparently she had no choice but to take it. Still, that didn’t mean she had to drink it. She tucked her chin in what she hoped looked like a posture of submission. “I will trouble you no further then, Doctor.”
She turned away, but hardly a step later, a firm hand tugged her around.
“Ah-ah, Miss Balfour. I cannot have you setting down your glass and forgetting to drink what is sure to calm you. Do so now, please, and I shall take the empty cup with me.”
She frowned. Why was he so insistent? “But—”
“Make haste, please. Your brother awaits me, and time is of the essence. We cannot have his senses returning during the midst of surgery.”
For one unnerving moment, his gaze reminded her of the rats she’d seen in a Bulgarian alley. She blinked, and the intense zeal in his eyes was gone, replaced by the placid and compassionate surgeon whom her brother had trusted with his life. How could she do any less?
She lifted the glass to her lips. Hopefully whatever was in the liquid would soothe better than it tasted, for the metallic tang of it coated her mouth.
And burned all the way down to her stomach.
TWENTY-FOUR
“…that in all the misery I imagined and dreaded, I did not conceive the hundredth part of the anguish I was destined to endure.”
Rain fell hard and heavy, darkening the world—but no darker than Graham’s thoughts as he leaped from the gig. Despite Peckwood’s previous experiments with Humphry Davy, he didn’t like that the man was about to employ an unknown use of gas on Colin. Neither did he like the eager gleam in the eyes of the journalists, ready and willing to spread Peckwood’s fame far and wide. It wasn’t professional or safe.
He strode along the planks of the Bristol Dockyard, sidestepped a bollard, and cupped his mouth, hollering up at a sailor in a sealskin coat. “Pardon, but at which berth is theMary Campbell?”
The man shook his head over the gunwale. “Couldn’t tell you.”
And so began a long and fruitless search for a ship no one could account for. With each inquiry, Graham’s apprehension grew. If that vessel had already sailed with the forgotten regulator on board, Balfour’s surgery would have to be postponed until the piece could be shipped back to Bristol. Unless, of course, the instrument had been off-loaded and even now sat in a warehouse…but which one? He should’ve paid closer attention to Peckwood instead of being so focused on his own irritation. Would he never learn to curb his anger?
Flipping up his collar, he wheeled away from the ships. It was closer to tromp to the harbourmaster’s than go all the way back to the office and ask about the forgotten warehouse name. Even if the ship had set sail, paperwork would’ve been filed for unclaimed cargo.
Soaked to the skin, Graham flung open the door to the harbourmaster’s office.
A pie-faced man with hair the colour of burned crust looked up from a stack of papers. “Can I help ye, sir?”
“Yes, would you be so kind”—squinting, Graham read the man’s name placard on the countertop—“Mr. Williams, as to tell me where to find theMary Campbell.”
“Mary Campbell?” The man shook his head. “I’m not familiar with that name.”
“As harbourmaster, should you not be familiar with every ship sailing in and of this port?”
“Harbourmaster? That’s a good one.” Williams chuckled. “I am only a clerk, and a new one at that. Barely warmed this seat but a few weeks now.” He gestured to a stool on his side of the counter.
Graham pulled off his hat, preferring to let the leftover moisture drip on the floor than down his collar. “That being the case, could you check the records, please?”
“Now that I can do.” The man rummaged through a series of file drawers. “Not here,” he mumbled while he worked. “An irregular, maybe? Mmm. Ha-ha! Not there either.”
Graham ground his teeth. He didn’t have time for this.
Williams faced him with empty hands. “Can’t find it, though could be I looked it up wrong.”
“Then look it up right!” he snapped—and instant remorse punched him in the gut. No sense taking out his frustrations on a new hire. He softened his tone. “Forgive me, Mr. Williams. It is imperative I find that information. A man’s life hangs in the balance.”
The clerk’s tiny eyes grew to the size of coat buttons. “All for want of a docked ship?”
“Yes.” Graham sighed. He sounded like a madman and he knew it. “I am a surgeon, sir, and there was an important piece of medical equipment aboard theMary Campbellthat was either neglected to be off-loaded or has been stored in a warehouse. I must find it posthaste.”
“Well…”The clerk scratched the side of his jaw, the roundness of his cheeks rippling with the action. “I shall give it one more try, then, eh?”
