“But you do. You’ve done it yourself, I’m certain. Combine flour, water, and yeast, mix and knead them, apply heat, and you end up with something very different from what you started with.”
My brows dipped. “Bread.”
“It’s true. Bread doesn’t occur in nature. Creating it involves art and science, and something of magic, too, I’d argue. I’m not a baker, but what I do is not all that different.”
“What kinds of things do you make?”
He took a breath, gathering his thoughts. “Alchemy is most known for its pursuit of chrysopoeia—the creation of gold from lesser metals. I have dabbled in that pursuit, but my focus is medical alchemy, which concerns itself with bodily imbalances. I work mostly in the distillation of herbal quintessences.”
The meaning of all this remained murky to me, but he was more animated than I’d seen him yet, and I wanted him to go on.
“Like what you put in the water for cleaning my wound.”
He looked pleased. “Precisely, Miss Penrose. You’re a quick study.”
The praise warmed my skin. “Are they medicines for yourself?”
I watched the heaviness settle over him again. I could have sworn I saw secrets scurry behind his eyes like hens fleeing a fox. “Mostly, yes.”
I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. He looked out the window.
Before I could get out another of my questions, he rose from the table, saying, “If you’re feeling up to it, we should get you home before your brother misses you.”
The dark clouds made it impossible to say whether the sun had set, but likely it had. There was still enough light to make it home without a lamp. Jack likely wouldn’t be there for a while yet, but I had his supper to make.
“Yes,” I agreed, rising. “But you needn’t go with me. You’ve been very kind already, and—”
The look he gave me stopped my wordsandmy breath. “Miss Penrose, leaving aside the fact a head injury rendered youunconsciousnot more than an hour ago, it is obvious the danger in Roche has not yet passed. I shall by no means leave you to find your own way home.”
I swallowed, shaken by the change in his manner. He went from soft to hard as suddenly as he did from slow to quick.
But he was right. And as the excitement over my visit to Roche Rock wound down, the facts began to sink in as they hadn’t before. Though I had no real memory of it, I’d been attacked on the heath just like Mr. Roscoe.
“Thank you, Mr. Tregarrick,” I said, a tremor in my voice.
Carefully I put on my bonnet, picked up my basket, and followed him to the heavy, iron-studded door, where he donned a hat and greatcoat that hung on a tree there. He slipped his spectacles from a pocket and put them on.
As we stepped outside, lightning stabbed across the sky, followed by a closer thunderclap.
I jumped, and his fingers came briefly to my waist to steady me; there was no real landing at the top of the steps, and barely enough room for two people to stand. He was close enough that I could feelhow cold he was even through my clothing.It’s not just his hands.Yet his nearness caused another flush.
“I don’t like setting out in this,” he said, “but I don’t see it letting up before dark.”
“No,” I agreed. “At least it’s not far.”
“You must take my hand for support.”
I wasn’t sure there’d be any surviving a fall down the steep, wet stairway, so I reached with my uninjured hand to grasp his. The steps weren’t wide enough for us to stand abreast; he went down in a sideways fashion, one step ahead of me. It made for slow progress, but I was grateful.
Halfway down, the rain changed to pea-size hail. I hunched my shoulders and ducked my head, but this only led to ice sliding down my collar in back. The weather had been so fine when I left The Magpie that I’d forgotten my shawl, and my blouse was wet through.
When at last we reached the bottom, we exchanged a glance. “Are you all right?” he asked.
He, too, was hunched against the hail, now mercifully giving way to rain again. His hat didn’t provide as much protection as my bonnet—which was a very fine one, with a wide brim, that Mrs. Moyle had given me last Christmas—and droplets slid over his cheekbones.
Despite my best efforts to contain it, I let out a bark of nervous laughter. “Do you think we’ve done something to anger the heavens, Mr. Tregarrick?”
He grinned, and for a moment I saw the boy he must have been once. “I think perhaps we have. Let us keep going.”
