Elswyth stumbled through the front doors of Devereux Place after a long and silent carriage ride with Silas Blackthorn. After the death of Captain Burr, all the women had quickly been escorted from the house and into their carriages. The lords stayed behind to speak with the police, including her Uncle Percival. Silas had been assigned the duty of escorting her home, to his obvious chagrin.
Silas followed her inside, brushing the rain off the shoulders of his black suit. Elswyth did the same with her gown, but it was no use—the fabric was soaked through and her skin was pale and frigid. “Let me start you a fire,” Silas said.
“I assure you, Sir Silas, your assistance is no longer needed.”
“Not quite a thank-you, but so close. Would you like to try again?”
Elswyth tried to scowl, but her teeth chattered too much for it to be intimidating. “I am more than capable of starting a fire for myself,” she said, lifting her soaked gown and moving toward the doors of the drawing room. “You may be surprised to find that women are not totally—”
Elswyth opened the double doors and stopped. Inside, to her surprise, was something of a party. Kehinde sat at the fire with two other people, sharing plates of colorful food between them, talking boisterously. Across from him was a man with braided hair, wearing a flowing colorful robe and a tall knit cap. And seated just to his right was a younger, dark-skinned woman in a beaded dress and intricately woven headwrap that seemed to bloom like a flower. They all stopped laughing as soon as they saw Elswyth, rain-soaked and shivering.
Kehinde—who had been relaxing in his chair with a beer in one hand and one of Percival’s stuffed monkeys on his lap—excused himself and stepped out into the hall, closing the doors behind him.
“Elswyth,” he said, “what is the matter? You are meant to still be at Syon House.”
“I’m afraid the party ended early,” Elswyth said.
“For Captain Burr, at least,” Silas said dryly, still standing in the doorway.
Kehinde, seeing Silas for the first time, stepped toward him. Elswyth thought he would receive a lecture for entering an unmarried woman’s home uninvited. Instead, Kehinde embraced him. “Dear boy. It is good to see you.”
Silas smiled, a more genuine expression than she had ever seen on him. “You too, old friend,” he said.
Elswyth looked between them, uncertain of what she was witnessing. “You two know each other?”
Kehinde turned toward her, grinning. “Of course. I knew Silas when he was barely up to my knee. And before he got so serious.”
Silas looked almost sheepish. “Your uncle and Kehinde were instrumental in my coming to London. I owe them a great debt.They also sponsored my application to the Explorer’s Club, for which I am eternally grateful.”
Elswyth tried to hide her shock. She’d seen Percival speak to Silas at society events, but Percival spoke to everyone as though they were old friends. How had she not known?
Silas gestured to the closed door, where Kehinde’s friends waited. “Where was my invitation?” he asked playfully. “Don’t tell me Madame Okoye has made jollof rice? She knows it’s my favorite.”
Kehinde smiled. “No, no, tonight I cooked. Come, have some bean cakes.” He began to pull Silas toward the door, but the expression on Silas’s face stopped him. He looked between Silas and Elswyth, and something curious passed behind his eyes. “Ah. It seems you had more interesting matters to attend to this evening.”
“I would say so,” Elswyth said. She quickly recounted the events at Syon House, watching Kehinde’s eyes go wide.
“I see,” he said. “Perhaps I shall end my little party early tonight. Silas, can you get home safely?”
He nodded, and Kehinde clapped him on the shoulder before returning to the drawing room. Silas then turned to her, his smile vanishing. He bowed quickly, wet curls of black hair sticking to his forehead. “Good night, Miss Elderwood.”
“Good night, Sir Silas.” Silas turned away and moved to the door. Elswyth, suddenly uncomfortable, added: “And thank you.”
Silas paused in the doorway, his back to her. He said nothing. Then he was gone, vanishing into the rain.
Elswyth waited, sitting by the fire in her soaking gown, while Kehinde escorted his friends to their carriages. In a moment,Kehinde returned, clicking the door shut behind him. “Apologies, Miss Elderwood. I try to schedule my dinner parties for when I have the house to myself. Would you like to try some food?”
Elswyth shook her head. “Perhaps another time. I’m afraid the sight of Captain Burr has turned my stomach. Is there tea?”
He sighed. “It may be an occasion for beer, instead. Light or dark?”
“Dark,” Elswyth said. Kehinde went to a small barrel near the bar and pulled a draft. He handed it to her, and she sipped, down past the creamy head, even as her hands shook around the glass. The coolness of it soothed her dry throat, but something about the flavor nagged at her. She looked at Kehinde and tested the beer with her floromantic sense. Then she spat her beer back into her glass and scowled at him. “Really, Kehinde? Even now? I’ve just seen a man murdered.”
Kehinde leaned back in his chair, a strange smile on his face. “A man poisoned, Miss Elderwood. I would think that my lessons are more important now than ever. It may seem callous, but it is necessary. And it’s nothing you can’t handle.” He brought out his silver pocket watch and tapped it. “Tick tock,” he said.
Elswyth frowned and closed her eyes, focusing on the poison in her blood. Several plant essences appeared in her mind’s eye. Deadly nightshade,Atropa belladonna, was the most obvious. Beneath that was yellow jasmine,Gelsemium sempervirens, a paralytic when concentrated into alkaloid form. The trickiest was strychnine, a chemical poison derived from the seeds ofStrychnos nux-vomicathat was remarkably difficult to create floromantically. It killed by muscle contraction, which complicated her antidote for the paralytic effects of the yellow jasmine. Her body reacted almost instinctually now, beginning to fabricate the antidotes. Yetshe still struggled to untangle that particular knot of poisons. She concentrated, fighting the toxins as they spread.
When she had settled the worst of it, she set her glass back down on the table. “These lessons may not prove useful after all. I know of no poison that can kill a man with flowers from the inside. Do you?”
