Night Storm (18 page)

“Take care with your friends, Trig. Do more listening than talking.”

Saluting Adair, Trig meandered his way through the dining area; his bag bouncing against his hip in time with each step.

Jules entered Adair’s line of vision. The manager glanced between him and Trig, one dark brow sliced high into his forehead.

“Aren’t you supposed to be teaching Master Trigger how to recover stolen objects, rather than how to steal them?”

“Spying on your patrons again, Julius?”

“Of course, how
else
am I to know who’s a threat to the silver?”

“If Trig is to become a thief-taker, he must first learn the art of thievery. Understanding your opponent’s mind is half the battle.” Adair smiled. “Do not worry, he’s promised to return your linen.”

“I never doubted it. For someone who’s lived off his wits for several years, he has a high moral threshold.”

“‘High moral threshold’?” Adair mimicked. “Jules, me friend, you’ve been hangin’ around toffs too long.”

“For which you should be eminently grateful. Those ‘toffs’ have been a wonderful source of information for you as well as me.”

“Touché.” Adair took one last drink of cold tea before standing. “Anything from the reverend?”

“He’s still in Bath. However, being the thoughtful friend I am, I sent the list to him. With any luck, we’ll have an answer—one way or another—by the end of the week.”

“Thank you.” Adair squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure Trig washes the napkin before he returns it.”

“You’re too generous. The use of a flat iron would not go unnoticed.”

“Don’t press your luck. I would not let Trig within seven leagues of a hot iron.”

With the sun still shining, Adair set off for Long Acre Street on foot. The crisp air kept him moving at a brisk pace, which wasn’t saying much with his wounded leg. Once he reached Charley’s shop, he tried to enter and nearly cracked his forehead against the locked door. He stepped back and noticed the lopsided sign swaying back and forth.

Closed.

His lips thinned in irritation and maybe a little admiration. Her message was clear—stay away from Felix and don’t ever think to demand anything of me again. His Charley had changed. When they were younger, her strength had come in the form of her intelligence and a deep understanding and acceptance that her contribution to mankind would be by healing others.

But when it came to male authoritative figures, her natural instinct had been to give in, make way, and keep the peace. Not once in their eight years of friendship had he ever heard her voice an opposing opinion to her often-domineering father. He knew she had wanted to, many times, though, to his knowledge, she’d never crossed that line.

He stared at the
Closed
sign, a wry smile cutting away his annoyance. Even though she’d complicated his day, a bolt of excitement sizzled in his veins. How long had it been since he’d felt even a simmer from another woman? Too, too long.

A small rotund woman with a grimy face, clumpy hair, and tattered clothing, stepped up beside him. She glanced between him and the door. “What’re ye smiling at, guvn’r?’

Adair cleared his expression. “None of your concern, old woman.”

She cackled when he began to turn away. “I recognize the look of a pining man. Especially yours.” The cadence of her voice shifted; her words lengthened, smoothed out, became less garbled.

Narrowing his eyes, he asked, “Do I know you?”

Her chapped lips curled upward. “Miss Charlotte was always your one weakness. About time you cooked up enough courage to step out of the shadows, Cam-my-man.”

Cam-my-man
.

Memories spiraled backward in time until one long-forgotten face appeared through the fog. Matilda Hardwick, or Tilly Hardwick, to most. The last five years had not been kind to the baker’s wife.

“Tilly?”

She winked, displaying teeth in need of a good brushing—or pulling.

Unable to stop himself, his gaze roamed over her form again. “What happened? Where’s Emmett?”

“Gone.” Her lighthearted grin faded. “Died of an apoplexy not long after Miss Charlotte lost her mother.”

Adair glanced over her shoulder, at the shop next door with its boarded-up windows. “You closed the bakery?”

She shook her head. “Lost it not long after Emmett died. Same thing would have happened to Fielding’s apothecary if Miss Charlotte hadn’t returned when she did. Poor thing worked day and night to restore her father’s business.”

He’d hated seeing Tilly close the bakery. At the time, he had assumed she no longer wished to operate the shop without her beloved husband at her side. Hearing the real reason she took down her shingle sent a pang of regret through his chest.

As for Charley, word of her skill as an apothecary-surgeon had traveled as far as Sydney Hunt’s agency in the heart of London. Even so, he was still surprised by how quickly the community accepted her taking over her father’s shop.

“A female apothecary-surgeon is unheard of.” Adair flicked two fingers around the area. “Yet, from what I’ve heard, everyone seems to accept her in the role as if it’s commonplace.”

A huge grin split across Tilly’s face, revealing her decaying teeth. “We might have helped that along.”

“‘We’?”

“Once Miss Charlotte set the shop to rights again, her father approached several of the local shopkeepers he trusted and asked us to put in a good word for his daughter with our customers. He said that she had helped him in the shop for years and that she was handpicked by a renowned apothecary-surgeon in Scotland to apprentice beneath him.” Her eyes twinkled. “As you can imagine, Miss Charlotte’s popularity increased tenfold. Many were curious. Many were not surprised.”

“None were skeptical?”

Tilly barked out a laugh. “Of course, but George Fielding pulled out his trump card to win those people over.”

“Which was?”

“He told them it was his wife’s dying wish that her daughter take over the shop.” Tilly’s face softened. “Like my Emmett, everyone loved Jane Fielding. She gave everything and asked for nothing in return. No one could have denied her such a wish.”

“Did Charley know about her father’s backdoor scheming?”

“She had her suspicions, but he never let on. Nor did anyone else.” She leveled her gaze on him; her eyes no longer glinted with mischief. “There were times when I suspected George acted out of guilt than fatherly dedication.”

“Guilt for what?”

“I’m not completely sure. Though several months after Charlotte left for Scotland, her mother let it slip about how concerned they was for their daughter.”

The muscles in Adair’s neck pulled tight. “Concerned about what?”

“Her happiness. Miss Charlotte did well at her studies, but according to her mother, who was in constant contact with the Scottish mentor, she kept to herself during her off-hours and could be heard crying in her room on several occasions.” Tilly shook her head. “Jane worried they had been wrong to insist that Charlotte study in Scotland. Can you imagine the turmoil they put themselves through? I wish Jane knew how their decision saved her daughter’s life. What would Charlotte have done after her mother died and her father retired to the country?”

Adair’s head throbbed with conflicting emotions. Had Charley not gone to Scotland, they would have likely wed and begun building a family. But what would their situation be like right now, had Charley followed her heart and not her parents’ wishes?

Five years ago, he had been bouncing from one odd job to another, much like what Felix Scott was doing with the shopkeepers. Only Adair hadn’t limited himself to minor repairs. He had accepted anything and everything—some of it legal, some not—to earn a few extra coins.

After Charley left him, he had shoved his humanity aside and all else that made him consider others’ needs before his own. For well over a year, he had survived off his raw emotions, allowing them to push him toward greater risks and dishonorable acts.

Though his anger and pain never disappeared, they finally receded to a safer place, a controllable place. But the damage had been done. A hard, ruthless opportunist had replaced the young, hopeful optimist. Through the dark times, he had managed to preserve one essential element—his word. He always did what he said he would do. Because of this, people respected him, though he knew they feared him in equal parts.

About the time he’d stopped viewing the world through a haze of bitterness and rage, an old friend of his father’s reentered his life. A cunning, successful gentleman whom Adair had liked and admired when growing up. A patient man, he had never balked at answering all of Cameron’s many questions about his line of work—thief-taker.

When the man reappeared years later, at first Adair had wanted nothing to do with his father’s friend. He had avoided any reminders of his former life for nearly two years. In addition, the thief-taker’s work placed him on the law-abiding side of society, a position Adair had not occupied after focusing his energy on obtaining more lucrative means of survival.

But his father’s friend had continued to plague him with unexpected visits, taking each opportunity to share the details of his most recent case. Despite Adair’s best attempts to remain aloof, he could not close his mind to the old thief-taker’s stories and began to look forward to his next appearance.

Not surprisingly, he learned the thief-taker wanted more from him than a willing ear. But the “what” had surprised him. With the onset of debilitating arthritis in both knees and no offspring to follow in his footsteps, the thief-taker had offered Adair the opportunity to take over his business.

Seeing the man’s offer for the rare gift it was, he had accepted and spent the following six months learning all he could from him before his death.

Realizing he’d been lost in his own thoughts for some time, Adair focused on Tilly’s grimy upturned face. “I’m sorry about the bakery, Tilly.”

Her eyes widened at his change of topic, and the deep lines of sadness around her eyes cleared. “Don’t be. I don’t miss rising at three in the morning and toiling near the ovens all day.” She glanced down at the rusted perambulator carrying her meager possessions. “There’s freedom in poverty. I don’t have to answer to no one and can rise—or not rise—when I want.”

Adair’s teeth clenched. “There’s also disease, infestation, rape, murder, and hunger. The streets are no place for someone with your talent, Tilly.” Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a card. “When you’re finished running from life, come see me.”

She grasped the white linen stock with shaking fingers, her long, chipped nails encrusted with filth. She slid his card into the depths of her clothing. “Th-thank you, Cam-my-man.” Her words were soft, broken.

Cupping his palm over her bent head, he said, “Be safe, Tilly.” He strode away, his chest tight.

“Miss Charlotte,” Tilly said, her voice stronger. “She likes to spend time in Chelsea.”

Slowly, Adair pivoted. “Any place in particular?” He asked the question, though he thought he could already guess the answer. There wasn’t much about Charley he didn’t know.

“Some fancy garden full of healing plants and herbs. They only allow members inside.”

Physic Garden
.

He tipped his hat toward Tilly. “Don’t lose my card, old girl.”

Laughing, she gave the perambulator a tug and set off in the opposite direction.

Adair hailed a hackney. A plan began to formulate in his mind with lightning speed. If Charley thought she could hide from him behind the Society of Apothecaries’ closed doors, she knew him not at all. Picking locks and scaling walls were specialties of his.

Soon, he would add tracking down feisty former almost-betrotheds to his repertoire of talents. He had a feeling he would have plenty of opportunities in the upcoming days to hone his newfound ability to perfection. But before he could track down his apothecary, he had one more stop to make.

# # #

GENTIANA;
Gentian or Fellwort

The leaves grow by pairs opposite to each other: The cup of the flower consists of one membranous leaf: The flower consists of one leaf and is shaped like a cup, being cut into four, five or more segments; it is succeeded by a membranous oval-shaped fruit, ending in a sharp point, opening lengthwise into two parts and containing many flat, roundlike seeds, which are bordered with a leafy rim.

Charlotte readjusted her position on the wooden bench located in the Chelsea Physic Garden. Located along the Thames, edged by Royal Hospital Road and Swan Walk, the garden sat in a small area, strangely warmer than it surrounds, providing a natural environment to propagate plant species from all around the world.

But it wasn’t the favorable growing conditions that had brought the world’s attention to the Physic Garden. That honor belonged to Philip Miller. In the middle of the last century, Mr. Miller corresponded with botanists from many different countries, gathering information and diverse specimens for cultivation. Miller transformed the private medicinal garden into what many considered the greatest garden in the world. He was to horticulture what Christopher Wren was to architecture, or Shakespeare to theater.

Luckily for Charlotte, the master gardener devoted his whole life to setting down his knowledge into several editions of
The Gardeners Dictionary.
One day a week, Charlotte visited the Society’s library, where several copies of Miller’s dictionary resided. She studied every plant, page by page. Mr. Miller’s book and Nicholas Culpeper’s
Culpeper’s Complete Herbal
, an herbal guide, were invaluable to those in her profession.

She bent her head closer to Mr. Miller’s dictionary, skimming the pages to find the next plant she would study. GERANIUM;
Crane’s-bill.

Once Charlotte finished her notes on geranium, she would go in search of a live specimen in the glasshouse, where she would visually commit the plant to memory by studying the stem, leaves, and flowers, or seed pod if it had already gone to seed.

She always sketched the plant too, even though she was terrible at drawing. Something about the process of committing each detail of the plant to paper helped her remember it and enabled her to identify it later on.