“I hope so. He’s still adjusting, but it’s fortunate we’ve all been brought together.”
Not entirely hearing her, I simply nodded. My cheeks burned as I turned away from Miss Lodge and poured her the willow-bark brew. Mr. Braddock truly had reasons for his grief, and I had mocked his pain. I winced inwardly, remembering my accusations about his fake tragic past. He had had every right to yell at me—indeed, he had been incredibly restrained for someone who had lost both parents and a best friend. With every breath, my perceptions seemed to rearrange until I was hopelessly confused and my opinion of him was reduced to a chaotic mess.
Serving Miss Lodge the tea, I endeavored not to betray my swirling emotions. She drank it down quickly, lay back, and began to drift away. Though I knew it was futile, I couldn’t help but take her hands in mine, hoping that I really did have some ridiculous power. As Rose’s assistant, I’d never held a life in my hands and felt that full, impossible responsibility. This girl did not deserve to die, yet here she was: weak, delicate as a bird, and wasting away.
I didn’t know how many long minutes passed, my thoughts bounding back and forth between this girl I wished I could save and the man who was at every turn an enigma. When there was nothing left to do but pray, I noiselessly stood up and slipped out of the room. Before closing the door, I took one final glance at Miss Lodge, finding her color almost matching the ivory bedclothes. Her fair complexion seemed to be returning. But as I looked closer, I realized it was just a combination of the faint sunset and wishful thinking.
I hated wishful thinking. It always made me feel useless.
I WAS ABLE to return to the Kents’ early enough for dinner. Lady Kent questioned me on my whereabouts the entire day, but Laura helped corroborate my hasty excuse about visiting my friend Catherine. To repay the favor, I spent far too long giving Laura an exhaustive account of my day with Miss Lodge. She almost fainted when she heard the drama of Mr. Braddock’s tragic past.
Before I could take my well-deserved rest, though, Tuffins informed me that Mr. Kent had come to speak with me. I groggily shuffled into the drawing room and found him standing by the fireplace, eyes full of pity.
“How was the search today?” I asked, my voice high and worry pounding in my ears. “Did you find anything?”
“No, and I’m sorry. I almost did not come because I hate the idea of delivering bad news to you, but then I realized that my absence would in itself be the worst news you could possibly receive.”
“Thank you for sparing me from such despair.”
“But to be positive, the list of druggists grows shorter, and from a broader perspective, we are one day closer to finding Miss Rosamund.”
“You don’t always have to bring me good news.”
“That comes as a relief, because try as I might, I cannot see the happy side to my other news.”
I sat down hard in an uncomfortable chair. “What happened?”
“I was just coming out of a druggist’s shop in Bloomsbury at about two thirty in the afternoon when I happened to see Mr. Braddock on the other side of the street. I followed him for—”
“Why would you waste your time—”
“Professional curiosity at first. I merely wanted to see where his ‘valuable expertise’ led him.”
Curiosity? It sounded more like competitiveness. “And where, pray tell, did he lead you?”
“He went from public house to public house, drinking and carousing with his many drunk acquaintances, and when he was tired of that, he went to a gambling den, where he knocked some poor fellow unconscious. I’ll admit the man had an abhorrent mustache, but Mr. Braddock went about it all wrong.”
He kept his voice light, but I could see the concern in his eyes. I would have thought he was fabricating the entire story, were it not for the display of Mr. Braddock’s fighting abilities last night after the magic show. “Is it not possible he was seeking information?”
“He capped off the night with a visit to a, uh, a brothel.” His lips tightened as he mentioned the unmentionable.
“Excuse me?”
His eyes locked on a candle in front of him. “Ask any decent Londoner about the Argyll Rooms and you’ll get a blush in response. They call it a dancing room, but that doesn’t change what it is on the inside. What could he possibly be investigating there?”
The news should have rendered my legs lame and kept me seated. Instead, it flared through my body, sending me up to my feet and almost out the window.
“There must be some mistake!” If it was true, I would kill, absolutely murder, Mr. Braddock.
“I assure you, there is not. Now, he doesn’t deserve a second thought, Miss Wyndham,” Mr. Kent said, seeing my anger. “Nothing will come of his assistance except distraction.”
“So what do we do, then?” I cried back. My shaky plan had fallen apart, and the others were even flimsier. I felt suffocated, buried under it all.