But her gaze didn’t vary. Not a tic.
“Look at it!” He jerked the flame one way and another, but her eyes—those beautiful, velvet-brown eyes—didn’t waver whatsoever from staring straight ahead.
Shaking began, way down in his gut and moving upwards, outwards, a rage so pure and distilled that if lit, would blaze over man and beast alike. Clenching every muscle, he returned the lamp to the table. Peckwood would pay for this and pay dearly.
“What did Mr. Peckwood give you?” He swallowed the acid burning up his throat. “Was it a tincture? A powder? Did you drink something or inhale it?”
Strange laughter garbled past her lips. Swaying towards him, she rested her head against his waistcoat. Her arms wrapped around his hips, and she nuzzled her cheek against his chest. “Ssso sssleepy.”
Of course she was! Who knew what sort of drugs Peckwood had given her?
He gathered her up in his arms, cradling her like a sick child, and deposited her in one of the chairs near the hearth. Snagging a blanket off the arm of the other, he covered her, then strode from the room, unsure how he’d be able to keep from landing an uppercut to Peckwood’s jaw before pummeling the man with questions.
He took the stairs two at a time and rattled the door at the top with a thunderous knock before trying the knob. It gave. So did his temper when he entered to see the white-haired doctor calmly sitting at his desk with pen in hand, as if there were naught more important to do at the moment than scribe a list.
“You have taken things too far, sir!” Graham boomed.
Peckwood swiveled in his seat, a growing scowl cutting lines across his wide forehead. “As have you, Mr. Lambert. You were told never to invade my private quarters again.”
Did the man’s pride know no bounds whatsoever? Graham drew a deep breath, his rage hardening to a sharp edge. “You think you can hide from what you have done?”
“Hide? From what? Victory?” He flourished his pen in the air, little flecks of ink spraying about with the movement. “What I have done, sir, is perform a life-changing surgery, and I will thank you to leave me in peace to document such for posterity!”
“Oh, you’ve done far more than that.” Graham advanced, unwilling to be bullied by the old dragon. “You turned the office into a stage and sent me on a fool’s errand. You drugged Miss Balfour and executed a dangerous procedure single-handedly that could’ve ended Mr. Balfour’s life. And if all that weren’t bad enough, you’ve gone and left them alone in the recovery room, where God only knows what could go wrong without monitoring the patient. Why? On all accounts, why?” He slammed his fist atop the desk, rattling the inkwell. “I can find no rational answers toanyof these questions.”
Peckwood set down his pen and folded his hands atop his belly, so benign it took everything in Graham not to throttle the man.
“And therein lies your greatest fault, Mr. Lambert. You make far too many inquiries for a man of your station.”
Graham flailed his arms, a completely juvenile reaction, yet one he could no more stop than a rising tide. “What has my station to do with anything?”
Peckwood chuckled. Chuckled! Of all the condescending responses.
“You frequently forget, Mr. Lambert, that as I am the senior surgeon, you answer to me, not the other way around. And were it not for me taking you on as a potential partner, I daresay even now you’d either be roaming the countryside, prostituting yourself as a doctor for hire, or elbow-deep in disease and filth in some cesspool of a London hospital.”
The truth punched him in the lungs, making it suddenly hard to breathe. There was nothing to say for it, no rebuttal whatsoever. The man was entirely correct. He schooled his face, giving nothing away, for to do so would incriminate—and he ought not be the one on trial here.
“I have been more than patient with you, Doctor,” Peckwood continued, “yet beware that even I have my limits. Still, I am not an unreasonable man, and for the sake of education, I shall answer your questions one by one.” Rising, he lifted his chin as well. “Though in the future, I suggest you present your inquiries with more decorum than one of St. Peter’s inmates.”
Graham planted his feet, rebuffing the attack. “Go ahead.”
Peckwood hooked his thumbs on his lapels, chest swelling as if he were about to address Parliament. “First off, I invited the journalists not for the sake of vanity but to make the public aware of what was accomplished here today. Newsprint is a much faster route to innovation than the hurdling of the bureaucracy which shelters the medical journals. As you know, it can take years and more money than is seemly to publish crucial information.”
Graham’s jaw clenched and he looked away. It was true. Every last word. But that didn’t account for the man’s secrecy. He snapped his gaze back to Peckwood. “Even so, you ought to have cleared it with the Balfours first and had the courtesy to forewarn me.”
“Which I would have done if the arrangements had not all fallen into place hardly an hour before the procedure.” Peckwood paced to the window and back, stirring his peculiar scent of peppermint and ammonia into the air. “Yet, I concede your point, Mr. Lambert. I should have said something. In the haste of the morning’s preparation, I neglected to do so.”
Graham flattened his lips to keep from gaping. What was this? A concession by the man who rarely gave way to anyone?
Removing his glasses, Peckwood wiped off a smudge before resetting the spectacles on the bridge of his nose. “Secondly, the errand I sent you on was not an entirely false venture. There should have been a regulator built to my specifications and shipped along with the nitrous oxide.”
Aha! He had the wily fellow now. Graham tossed back his head. “With or without the regulator, that equipment did not arrive aboard theMary Campbell, for there is no such vessel.”
A slow smile spread like a rash across Mr. Peckwood’s face.“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
The doctor pulled down a now-deflated green silk bag from one of the shelves. “I had already determined to use the gas without the regulating instrument, for as I suspected, it was not necessary, and as you saw for yourself, Mr. Balfour survived. Furthermore, a benefit I didn’t foresee was that these”—he waved the bag in the air—“provided a convenient excuse to get you out of the way.”
