My expression must have betrayed my doubt, for he handed me his nearly full cup. “Take mine, then. Besides, if I were going to lace anything with opium, it would not be tea.”
I sipped cautiously at his tea, but it tasted fine. “Why not?”
“Tea is a natural antidote to opium. You would probably vomit it up before it did any real harm.”
“Mr. Brisbane, I deplore your manners. Such conversation is not fit for a lady.”
He regarded me with something like real interest. “That is quite a little war you have going on in there,” he said with a flick of his finger toward my brow.
“What do you mean?”
“You are such a strange mixture of forthrightness and proper breeding. It must always be a battle for you, knowing what you want to say and feeling that you mustn’t.”
I shrugged. “Such is the lot of women, Mr. Brisbane.”
He gave a short laugh. “Not by half. Most women of my acquaintance would never think of the things you do. Much less dare to say them.”
“I do not!” I protested. “If you only knew how much effort I take not to say the things I think—”
“I know. That is why I took the liberty of conducting my little experiment. It worked rather better than I had anticipated.”
I set the cup down with a crack. “You admit you deliberately gave me something—some sort of truthfulness potion—to get information?”
“Truthfulness potion? Really, my lady, your penchant for sensational novels is deplorable. There is no such thing as a truthfulness potion. Herbs, my lady. That is all. I threw a certain compound of dried herbs onto the fire. They produce a feeling of calmness and well-being, euphoria sometimes, lassitude most often. The result is one of almost perfect truthfulness, not because of some magic power, but because the subject is too relaxed to lie.”
I stared at him, clenching my hands into fists against my lap. “That is appalling. No, it is worse than appalling. It is horrible,horrible.” I could not think of a word bad enough to call him.
“I did tell you I was going to conduct an experiment,” he reminded me.
“Yes, but this—this is far beyond what I expected.”
He smiled thinly. “Did you think I was going to swing my watch in front of your face and count backward? I could engage in hypnotism if you like. I have practiced it. Mesmerism, as well. But I have found that those methods frequently have more value as parlor tricks than interrogation techniques.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, my hands fisted tightly. “I do not care. I still think what you did was appalling.”
“Is it more appalling than sending a threat of death to a sick man, making his last days full of fear and doubt?” he asked softly.
Almost unwillingly, I unclenched my fists. “You mean that your methods are justified by the ends.”
“I see that you have read your Machiavelli, along with perhaps some Sappho?”
“Leave Portia quite out of this. I would never have told you about Jane without your nasty tricks.”
“Indeed.”
We sat in silence for a moment, sipping our tea in a state of armed and uneasy truce. I was not happy with his methods, but I understood why he had employed them. If we were to unmask Edward’s murderer, we must use every weapon at our disposal, even if it meant occasionally wielding them against each other. But it would be a very long time before I trusted him again.
“Headache better?” he inquired pleasantly.
“Yes, thank you.”
“You will be quite thirsty for the rest of the day. It is the only lingering effect I have found.”
I nodded obediently and decided to venture a question that had been puzzling me. “Why did it not affect you?”
He gave me a thin, bitter smile. “I inured myself to its effects long ago in China.”
“China! How did you come to be in China?”
