She let out a shaky laugh, still looking down. “Don’t be ridiculous—you didn’t do anything wrong. By some standards, Berking didn’t either. And I shouldn’t have gone to his office when I knew his reputation for—”
“It was not your fault,” Alexander ground out. Her eyes flew to his. Alexander moderated his tone and added, “You can’t blame yourself for his behavior. I’m sorry that it happened.”
“Oh.” Saffron paused, looking nonplussed. “I … I appreciate that, Alexander.”
An awkward silence fell. There were a lot of things Alexander wanted to say, but none felt right. Nodding toward her arm, he said, “That’s regressed a bit more. Can I get you a glass of water or perhaps tea?”
She nodded, and by the time he returned, the blue marks were down to her elbows. With a bright smile, Saffron reported she could move both her arms and her legs, demonstrating inelegantly before insisting he write it all down. They agreed that the lines were fading faster than they’d developed. Alexander didn’t admit it aloud, but he found that fascinating.
Alexander helped her sip from the glass of water he’d retrieved, and then went to finish arranging the bookshelf. When the lines had vanished from her hands, Saffron flexed and rubbed them together before she carefully took up the glass of water and finished drinking it with a grin. “Just a bit stiff.”
Unsure what to do now, Alexander simply wrote down the information.
“I should go.”
He looked up from the notes, surprised, and jumped to his feet to steady her as she rose from the couch, her hand braced on the arm. “But you just regained feeling—”
“I can walk, I think. I should go home.” Her voice was patient and tired.
Another protest was on the tip of his tongue, when Saffron straightened up, surprising him with her closeness. Her face was inches from his chest. Saffron took an uncertain step backward, and he took her by the shoulders to steady her. She looked up at him, a little frown wrinkling her brow, and said softly, “Thank you, Alexander. Would you excuse me for a moment?”
Alexander didn’t bother arguing as he stepped into the hall so she could adjust her clothing. He certainly could not insist that she stay locked in the office with him. She seemed, shockingly, well enough, and according to Dr. Maxwell’s journal, no other effects should develop.
Alexander walked with Saffron, arm in arm to keep her steady, into the chill night air. He hailed her a taxi home, where she assured him her flatmate would keep an eye on her.
The taxi disappeared into the steady stream of evening traffic. It was a damned foolish thing to do, Alexander reflected as he slowly made his way back to the North Wing and his own office, but Saffron’s experiment seemed to have achieved her goal. The blue lines on Saffron’s skin, the fact that she wasn’t in a coma—they all pointed to the xolotl vine not being responsible for Mrs. Henry’s poisoning. But he wasn’t sure it would matter. If the police wouldn’t believe the written account, he didn’t see why they would believe the report of a woman who felt strongly enough about Dr. Maxwell to administer poison to herself to prove his innocence.
CHAPTER 8
Saffron wasn’t aware of the time when she awoke. Her curtains were closed, and her body was senseless as to how long she had slept. She sat up, rubbing her stiff neck. She looked about for her notebook and jotted down her observations of her condition, sore and feeling rather like she’d been hollowed out. Looking over the notes from yesterday, written in Alexander’s surprisingly messy hand, she realized for the first time just how hastily she’d made the decision to poison herself. But she wasn’t sorry she’d done it. After all, she’d achieved her goal of proving xolotl wasn’t responsible. But it wasn’t well done of her to have conducted the experiment so haphazardly.
She pulled on her dressing gown and padded into the bathroom, where she ran a bath. The warm water soothed her twinging muscles. She stared at the bubbles, wondering if her lethargy was a result of the lasting side effects of xolotl or from sleeping through breakfast.
She was mindlessly gazing into the water when a voice in the hall caught her attention.
A man’s voice.
She hastened from the water and, clutching her dressing gown around her, cracked the door open and peered into the hall. She just caught sight of a tall man passing through the door of the sitting room and heard Elizabeth’s low voice. Had she slept so long that Elizabeth had returned home from work?