He stood, a frown creasing his brow. “Investigation? Saffron, if anything had gone wrong yesterday, you could still be paralyzed. Worse, you could have died. The information in that journal could have been completely wrong. You won’t do yourself or Dr. Maxwell any good—”
Though she knew he was absolutely right, Saffron stood too, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m not trying to do myself any good. If I was, I wouldn’t have poisoned myself!”
“What?” Elizabeth was frozen in the doorway, her face a mask of shock.
Saffron put her hand to her temple. Now she had done it. She sank back into her seat and braced herself.
Elizabeth stomped into the room and slammed the tea tray on the table. Hands on her hips and color already high, she stalked toward Saffron. “Saffron Everleigh, have you lost your senses? You let me think this was an accident! You poisoned yourself? Intentionally? On purpose! By your own hand!” She was ramping up into a full blown, one-sided row, her voice climbing to a shriek. “You know they have people to help people like you, darling—psychiatrists! Find a Freud man next time! Honestly, I sometimes wonder if you’ve spent too long in hot greenhouses.” Elizabeth rounded on Alexander now, glaring at him. “What did you do? Egg her on? Did you need a test subject or something?”
Alexander looked at her stonily. “Of course not.”
“Eliza!” Saffron snapped, shocked by her friend’s rudeness. It was one thing to shout at her, another to yell at Alexander when all he’d done was help. She got to her feet and crossed to Elizabeth, her voice low, though it would be impossible for Alexander to miss her words. “He had nothing to do with it. Besides, if he had put me up to it, he hardly would have called you up to tell you that I was ill.” Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “I took the toxin that the police think Mrs. Henry was given at the party.” Elizabeth gasped, but Saffron pressed on. “I was doing an experiment to see if it would cause the same side effects. I took a very small dose and wrote everything down so I could show the police. They think it was Dr. Maxwell, Eliza. I can’t let him go to prison!”
Elizabeth scowled at her. “Do you really think that Dr. Maxwell would want you to put yourself at such risk for him? The man who has been like a father to you wants you lying on the floor, poisoned?” She took a few angry paces, then turned sharply back to Saffron, her anger and volume flaring again. “And what would have happened if you had given yourself even a bit too much? You could have gone into a coma yourself! Or died! What precautions did you have in place? Who did you tell before you took the stuff? And what about Mr. Ashton? You could have died right there, and then what would have happened to him?” Saffron bit her lip. She hadn’t thought about that. “He would have a dead woman that he wouldn’t be able to explain away to a doctor or police. He would have been arrested too.” Elizabeth shook her head, one hand on her temple. “It was a stupid thing to do.” With that, she left the room.
Saffron stood frozen, looking after Elizabeth as her words reverberated in her head. The full depth of her recklessness finally occurred to her. She’d thought it was enough to have the journal, but that felt like a paltry assurance of her safety now. She’d been paralyzed and refused a doctor. How could she have been so stupid? Tears welled and fell without her interference.
Behind her, the clink of china sounded as Alexander busied himself with tea. He pushed a hot cup into her hands without commenting.
Saffron patted her eyes dry with the sleeve of her jumper and took a sip of tea. She hesitated to look at Alexander. If he did look at her with censure, she would deserve it. She hadn’t thought for a minute of the consequences for his tangential involvement in her experiment if something had gone wrong.
“I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat. “Knowing what I did about the xolotl vine, I thought it would be all right. I was thinking only of my own ideas. It never occurred to me that it would have put you into a terrible position should I have needed a doctor or … or if something worse had happened.”
Alexander nodded stiffly. “Let’s not make it a habit.” He stood up. “I should be going.”
Saffron was caught off guard by this abrupt departure. “Please, I …” She swallowed the lump in her throat that wouldn’t go away. “Dr. Maxwell has always been the only one at the university who supported me.” Maxwell’s face came into her mind, enraged as she cried to him about what Dr. Berking had done, the very events she’d described to Alexander a day ago. Shame washed over her again. Her voice broke. “I can’t let him be blamed for something he didn’t do.”