Page 2 of The Love Remedy (The Damsels of Discovery #1)

2

“Oh, someone is going to die, but it won’t be Duncan Rider. Read me the note again.”

An apology sat on the tip of his tongue when Winthram flinched at his words, but Thorne swallowed it.

Thorne’s first purse fights were held far from the tumult and notoriety of the London auditoriums of his later career. His second-ever bout took place in a muddy field halfway between Leicester and Peterborough. He’d ended the match being beaten bloody by a giant of a man named Dubbers. First or last name, Thorne never learned, but Dubbers was a creative bastard. After toying with him for the last few minutes of the fight, he’d gotten Thorne in a brutal hold and jabbed his elbow directly into Thorne’s throat.

Since then, Thorne’s voice could be described as rasping on a good day. When he was irritated, it sounded like two pieces of rusted iron rubbed against each other.

Right now, Thorne was irritated.

A sheaf of auburn hair flopping over his forehead, Winthram glanced at the note that had been delivered to the office a half hour earlier. With a hairless chin, wide blue eyes, and pale skin that stained red with every strong emotion, he appeared much more youthful than his twenty years. Having been born female, he would never grow a beard and was fated to appear forever young.

Not always a bad thing when it came to being a private agent.

“ Dear Winthram ,” the young man read. “ I appreciate your advice yesterday to check with the patent office before making accusations about Mr. Rider .”

Winthram continued. “ I am in dire need of funds, however, and cannot wait to bring my formula to market. If I do not bring you proof of his theft by tomorrow morning, it means I was wrong, or I was caught. If the latter, please bring my sister Juliet to Newgate with money for bribes. And some cake, as I will no doubt be hungry by then. With fondest regards— ”

“What was she thinking?” Thorne interjected.

Winthram shrugged as he set down the note. “Miss Peterson does enjoy a nice piece of cake—oh.” His cheeks flushed at Thorne’s scowl. “Well, she weren’t too pleased that we said to wait. I suppose she’s thinking to take matters into her own hands.”

Thorne suppressed a wince as he rose from his chair. The damp, chilly autumn air ravaged his old injuries. Each year the onset of winter brought a rediscovery of wounds he’d have barely noticed twenty years ago. He walked to the window of the same room in which Miss Peterson had sat yesterday, expressionless, as Thorne explained that Tierney’s agents most certainly did not engage in assassinations and could accept cases only where the life or livelihood of the person was at stake.

Miss Peterson’s lips had thinned to the point where they’d nearly disappeared, and the delicate wings of her brows pulled together to meet at a deep wrinkle at the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t argued, however, simply bid them both a good day and left without another word.

Thorne, like a fool, had brushed aside Winthram’s worries, confident that a woman smart enough to run a business would take his advice and be practical.

Obviously, these women scientists were cut from a different cloth.

“Take matters into her own hands,” Thorne echoed. “Meaning...?”

“Well, if she’s worried about being taken to Newgate, she must be considering sneaking into Rider’s office and getting back her—”

Thorne had grabbed his hat and was out the door before Winthram could finish his sentence.

The impulse made less and less sense as a fine drizzle of cold rain crept beneath the collar of Thorne’s greatcoat and ran in tiny rivulets from the cupped brim of his wool top hat as he trudged through the murky dusk, as there were no hacks to be found in this kind of weather. The kind of weather that seeps in through a man’s boot soles and causes a throbbing ache in his misused joints.

How much worse would he feel if he hadn’t quit drinking and fighting at the tender age of eight and twenty?

As he turned a corner into a narrow alley, the unhappy conjecture slid from his brain to be replaced with bewilderment. Bewilderment and a hefty dose of exasperation.

“They do not allow gifts of cake for prisoners at Newgate,” Thorne informed Miss Peterson. Or rather, he informed her arse, which stuck out of a second-floor window above his head.

Miss Peterson’s legs stopped kicking, and she hung there, limp, half her body wedged in the window, the other half growing wetter by the second. There was a small hole in one of her boots, and the sight struck Thorne in that soft place in his chest that most days he could ignore. Today was not one of those days.

“Of course, you can’t be sent to Newgate if you haven’t committed a crime,” Thorne continued.

For a moment there was no reaction, then Miss Peterson’s left ankle turned in a circle as if to say, Go on .

“From the crates overturned right here, I would guess that you made a tower and climbed up to get to that window, found yourself stuck, and accidentally knocked over your means of escape.”

Miss Peterson’s left foot tapped the side of the building twice.

Aha.

“If I were to stack the crates again beneath you, would you please climb down here so that we can speak face-to-face?” he asked.

Miss Peterson’s left foot hung motionless for a moment, then slowly moved side to side.

“Is it the speaking face-to-face you wish to decline?” he asked.

The foot moved side to side again.

“You’re well stuck, aren’t you?”

Miss Peterson’s left foot tapped the building in a grumpy manner, if a foot could be said to be grumpy.

She smelled like eucalyptus and chamomile.

The combination struck Thorne as both comforting and odd as it filled his nose once he’d rebuilt a tower of barrels and crates and stood behind her rounded arse.

“I’m going to put my hands around your waist,” he said to the back of her. “When I pull, suck in your stomach and push with your arms against the wall in there if you can.”

Miss Peterson’s foot tapped in agreement, and Thorne bent over her. She’d worn a dull gray pelisse for her crime spree, and the odor of damp wool competed with the eucalyptus as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

He’d not touched a woman in seven years.

Miss Peterson’s beauty had nothing to do with the pang of longing that clawed at his gut, it was simply the soft curve of her warm body beneath him.

How he missed holding a woman.

Thorne left off his foolish pining and braced himself against the bricks as Miss Peterson’s ankle spun in rapid circles.

“On the count of three, I will pull,” he warned her. “One, two, three—ungh. For the love of God, how did you get yourself so stuck?”

Miss Peterson’s feet scrambled for the walls, and Thorne helped her find purchase. After a terrifying moment where he considered having to push her into the room, he heard a quiet squeal, and he felt some give.

“That’s it,” he coaxed. Reaching under her, Thorne prayed he wouldn’t grab her bosom by accident as he eased her torso out, careful not to squeeze too hard. With scarcely any room on the crate beneath him, there was no place for her bottom to go but right up against the front of him, and Thorne scrabbled for the mild outrage he’d felt upon seeing her sticking out the side of the building. When the back of her head finally emerged from the window, he breathed a sigh of relief.

“There now,” he crooned. “We’ll just get you down from here and—”

Oblivious to their precarious perch, Miss Peterson whirled about and threw her arms around Thorne’s chest, her head coming only to his chin, the carpetbag in her hand smacking him in the back and nearly knocking them both two stories down to the ground.

“I knew someone would come,” she said. Leaning back from her surprise embrace, she peered up at Thorne with a radiant smile.

The rain, his aches, the ridiculousness of him standing on top of a pile of crates to pull this strange woman out of a window—any combination of these would have put him in the foulest of moods. If he were honest, however, Thorne would later admit it had been her smile that gave him the most pause.

Her smile revealed two top teeth overlapping ever so slightly, a flaw that turned her remote, ethereal beauty into something more. Something human and attainable. Glowing with a combination of relief and gratitude, she gave off a warmth that made him want to set his hands to her face.

Thorne tried to convince himself he didn’t want to touch Miss Peterson in particular. He simply wanted to touch someone else, anyone else, and find in that moment of flesh against flesh a place of recompense, a promise of forgiveness, a warmth that eluded him in the coldest part of the night. It took him far too long to break her hold.

After tonight, Thorne wanted nothing more to do with women scientists, Miss Peterson in particular.

—

Lucy had daydreams of being rescued. Not by a knight in shining armor from a dragon, of course. That would be silly.

She dreamed of being rescued by a clerk. Or a carpenter. Someone who was trustworthy and organized and had no taste for fame or fortune. That was the stuff that dreams were made of. A bookkeeper would have been ideal, but this particular bookkeeper seemed as though he wanted to shove her back through the window he’d just pulled her from.

“I must apologize for my forward embrace,” she said, yanking her arms back to her side, trying to appear penitent, the carpetbag pulling her too far back so that she swayed like a drunkard. “I was overcome with the greatest relief. Thank you so much, Mr. Thorne, for coming to my rescue.”

For whatever reason, this was the wrong thing to say. Thorne’s scowl deepened. The dim light of the alleyway painted black and gray every scar and groove on his weathered white skin.

“I did not rescue you,” he growled. “I stopped you from making the worst mistake of your life. Do you know what they do to women accused of murder?”

Lucy gasped. “Murder?” Had the man fallen on his head? “I’m not here to murder anyone.”

Slapping one great hand over his forehead and pulling it down over his face as though to wash away her surprise, Thorne held the hand over his mouth for a long moment while his eyes searched hers.

Finally, he spoke. “Miss Peterson. You came to our offices asking us to assassinate a man—”

“Thieving pustule,” she interjected.

“Then you attempt to break into his home,” Thorne continued. “And you are carrying a bag full of something suspicious. What am I supposed to think?”

A slight rustle came from a corner of the alley, and Lucy shivered. Dusk had passed, and the only light in the alleyway came from the windows of the building next door to Rider’s apothecary. Lucy was far from home, her backside was wet, and an angry man now loomed over her.

Was it possible to have two worst days in a row? Did that make this the worst week ever?

“I don’t suppose you came here in a hack?” she asked, knowing even as she spoke that if this were indeed her worst week ever, the answer would be no. When Thorne confirmed her fears, Lucy sighed.

“About the murder, Miss Peterson,” Thorne began.

“This.” Lucy held up the bag and again nearly toppled backward. Thorne reached out and encircled her waist with his arm, holding her away from him as though she smelled foul. Lucy quashed the urge to sniff herself and shook the bag instead so it rattled.

“This is full of medical instruments. I was... stopping in to see a customer too ill to come to the shop.”

“Hmmm.” Thorne communicated his disbelief with a growl.

“I wasn’t going to murder Duncan,” she insisted. “I was just going to... Never mind.”

Thorne waited for her to finish, but she shook her head. What was the use? When he realized that she wasn’t going to speak, he nodded brusquely.

“This won’t take but a moment,” he said, and, without further ado, picked Lucy up and swung her over his shoulder, then took a careful step down off the top crate. The rain continued to fall, and the stink of whatever lived in the corner of the alley wafted by on a cruel breeze. True, Lucy could object to being hauled about like a sack of flour, but it was the worst week ever. What did she expect?

Her bottom was even with his head, and every time he navigated another barrel, her hips bumped his ear. Lucy let go a long sigh, too tired at this point to have the energy to be humiliated.

When Thorne bent and set her on the ground, Lucy held the bag in front of her and stared up at his grim face.

“My brother, David, oversees our accounts, and he assures me that all is well, but I know he is lying. If I can’t get that formula back, my business is going to close, and more than just my family’s livelihood is at stake.” Lucy took a deep breath and continued, pushing her words out before he could speak and tell her again about her foolishness.

“I cannot pay much, but what I have in savings is yours. There are rooms over ours that I can let you for free. I can give you medicine, I can...”

Lucy stopped at the expression on Thorne’s face, for as she spoke, his glare grew fiercer and his scowl more fearsome. What else could he want?

“I do not want your money,” he said. His voice was dry and crumbled as he bit out the words with an incongruously upper-class diction. “I want you to tell me the truth. What did you plan to do to Duncan Rider?”

Lucy twisted the handle of her bag in both hands. Her stomach hurt where she’d been stuck in the sill. Some splinters had found their way past the wool of her skirt and thin petticoats, and the cold was making her nose run.

“I was going to find my notes and prove Duncan stole them. Then, once I found them...” She peered up through the rain at the man before her. There was no one on the street outside the alley, and she could barely make out the lines of his face in the murk. Despite her vulnerability, Lucy wasn’t frightened to be here alone with him. Something in the set of his shoulders and the way his gaze traveled the alley gave the impression that he hadn’t finished rescuing her, so she kept going forward.

The only way she knew to go.

“I confess, I did bring along a tin of calomel to mix with his tea.”

Thorne blew a long breath out between pursed lips. “And you thought to poison him with them?”

“If by poison you mean give him the trots, then yes,” she confessed.

“Give him what?”

“Easy enough to slip in with the sugar since it has no taste, and he takes four spoonfuls for every cup.” Lucy perked up as she imagined his discomfort. “It wears off after two days and is less than he deserves, but if I had succeeded, he would have lived in the privy for those two days.”

“That was your plan?”

Her enthusiasm cooled at the disbelief and scorn in Thorne’s voice.

“I’m an apothecary, not a master criminal,” she said.

“True,” he said, shaking his head. “You are not even a mediocre criminal.”

Stupid to feel offended, but Lucy bristled nonetheless.

“It was a good enough plan,” she said.

Thorne’s head jerked back in disbelief. “Where was it good enough? The part where you got stuck in the window, or the part where you toppled over your means of escape?”

“Please,” she said. “Just get it back for me, or if it wasn’t him, find out who took it.”

All the resentment she might expect to feel standing in front of a stranger who had the power to change the direction of her life, much like Duncan had done, was absent while Lucy waited for Thorne to make his decision.

In its place was the strange sensation that it was Lucy who had a hand on the scale and Thorne who weighed whether he was worthy.