So he turned toward her, used his other hand to tilt her chin up, and kissed her.
It wasn’t a scientifically sound way to cope with triggered anxiety, but it was effective.
He’d always had luck snapping himself out of attacks by disrupting patterns dragging him deeper into panic. Focusing on a mundane object could snap him out of visions of war, or a sharp, unusual smell might help clear his head of the remembered stench of blood or smoke. Saffron’s frantic breathing needed to be interrupted. Kissing her was a quiet, effective way to do that.
It was hard to tell her reaction from the half second of frozen stillness. His hand moved to cradle the back of her head, and his fingers slid along the back of her neck.
Her grip on his other hand eased. He smiled against her lips in relief. With tentative pressure, she kissed him back. It was brief andfirm, as if she was saying, “Thank you.” Their foreheads rested against one another. He slowly stroked the soft nape of her neck.
The sound of muffled footsteps was receding.
They sat like that for a long time, well after the house had gone silent again, his hand on her neck, sharing her breath.
At long last, Saffron whispered, “Do you think we can get up?”
He nodded. By feel, he reached for his coat. He’d removed it and rolled it against the bottom of the door in the hope that it would block the smell of the extinguished lamps from wafting into the hall. The coat was no doubt covered in dust now. He grimaced at the thought.
Beneath his feet, papers crinkled. He reached into his pocket for the matches he’d begged off the barkeep when they bought their pub sandwiches and lit one.
Saffron was kneeling on the floor, retrieving her lamp. Just as their eyes met, the match went out. He lit another, and she was lifting the lamp to him. He took it, the light dropping out for a moment as the wick of the lamp caught.
“Wait!” Saffron hissed, nearly making him drop the lamp. “The light! Bring it back!”
He turned the handle to make the lamp brighter. Saffron was scrambling to her feet, a paper in hand and eyes huge.
She shoved the paper at him. “Alexander,look!”
He winced at the clear imprint of his shoe’s tread on it. Anyone looking at this paper, or any of the others still under his feet, would know something had happened with the reports. “We’ll have to hope no one wants to look these over any time soon.”
“Not the footprint.” She jabbed the paper. “This.”
“Erratic behavior” was his first indication of what Saffron meant, followed by “prolific destruction.”
He set the lamp on the nearest shelf and read over the entire paper, Saffron peering over his shoulder. It was a report, but a second or third page, as the page had no introductory information and the first line was a continuation of a sentence. It seemed to refer to an insect or group of insects, a sample of which a certain farm, referred to as “Farm E,” had sent into the laboratory.
“What does this mean?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” Saffron admitted. “But I’ve never seen any reports referring to prolific destruction! That has to be meaningful.”
He had to agree. “Where do they keep the samples from the farms? Maybe they still have it.”
Color had returned to Saffron’s face, along with the enthusiasm he found so damned irresistible. “Help me sort these, then I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER40
Though her body was fairly vibrating with the need to search the stored samples, Saffron forced herself to look over each report before she and Alexander carefully organized them back into their original sheaves and returned them to the shelves. None of the other papers Saffron had spilled provided meaningful information about the specimens in question.
Alexander peered out of the cracked door, and seeing no one lurking in the hall, opened it wide for her.
Getting back into the hall was a relief she’d been waiting for. Even after Alexander’s timely kiss, she’d felt like she was being buried alive. Had anyone else seen her in such a state—even Elizabeth, who knew well Saffron’s fear of enclosed spaces—she’d have been mortified. But Alexander understood. She felt no judgment for nearly getting them caught from her panic.
She was grateful to see the sample room was larger. It was narrow but long, with rows of little glass bottles and vials with matching green labels. Each stated, “Harpenden Phytopathological Service,” in bold black letters, followed by a series of typed words and lined spaces that were filled out with handwritten identifiers for fields, plots, and dates. Most were filled with soil, but there was a section for insects too.
Saffron wrinkled her nose at the heaps of dead insects inside the finger-sized glass jars at the back.
“We need samples from September,” she murmured.
“October,” Alexander said with a frown.
