Chapter 19

There were voices within her flat when she arrived, Elizabeth's alto responding to two male voices. Saffron could have hidden in her room after greeting her and Colin, ignoring whatever good time her flatmate had planned for her beau, but it would be rude to abandon two guests.

Saffron sighed and pushed the door to the flat open.

The irresistible scents of tea and fresh ginger biscuits drifted down the hall to her. If she was required to be social after arguing with the inscrutable Alexander, at least she would enjoy the refreshments.

She hung up her coat and hat, and paused when she recognized the coat and hat just next to hers. Lee.

As she approached the parlor, his voice could be heard, and immediately cut off when she stepped into the room.

"Everleigh!" he called jovially from an armchair. He rose, as did Colin and Elizabeth, and greetings were exchanged.

"I was worried I'd miss you," Lee said, resettling into his seat.

Saffron accepted tea and biscuits from Elizabeth. "Just staying late at work. Lots to make up for after the conference."

Elizabeth launched into her own complaints about all the filing that had awaited her after her own brief absence from the lord's office. Lee shot her a sly smile when Colin began his own account of the last time he took leave from his work.

"Ah, but the pot's gone cold," he said with exaggerated sadness when he reached for more tea.

Elizabeth glared at him. "It has not."

"I'll tend to it," Saffron volunteered. The two men rose as she did, and Lee followed her out, saying over his shoulder, "I'll help."

"You're about as adept in the kitchen as I am," Saffron grumbled. "It'll be a shock if we don't burn the whole place down."

Lee chortled and planted himself at the kitchen table. He looked around the kitchen with curiosity. He'd visited the flat a number of times during their work on the study, but Saffron couldn't recall him ever being in their kitchen before. She glanced around the room herself, wondering what he observed.

The stove was old but spotless, as was everything else in the room. Elizabeth refused to let dirt, crumbs, or a hint of mold within their home. The kitchen was her sanctuary, and so it was scrubbed daily. Bits of Elizabeth were visible in every corner, from the particular brand of wine she kept on the counter to the new painting she'd bought in Paris from a street vendor. It was a market scene with warm colors that matched the autumn season during which they'd visited.

"Not that I'm not pleased to see you," Saffron told Lee as she lit the stove, "but why are you here?"

"I'd say it was merely because I wanted to drop in on Elizabeth and irritate her, though I did that expertly anyway. She was clearly planning on a quiet night in with her beau." He wiggled his eyebrows. "Though the choice of this fellow is quite … unexpected. He's as dull as toast. Why is she stepping out with him?"

"‘There are only so many penniless poets one can stomach before one realizes they are more often after a hearty meal rather than one's heart,'" Saffron recited, leaving off the dramatic phrasing Elizabeth had used when Saffron had asked her the very same thing. "And Colin is nice." That was the highest praise she could give him, unfortunately.

"He doesn't seem the sort to take a shine to naughty poetry, eh?" He took on a serious air and straightened his cuffs unnecessarily. "I had a thought about Ashton and his little Greek adventure."

Saffron paused in her preparation of the teapot. With a heavy sigh, she said, "I think it's best if we leave that in the past."

Lee leaned forward to peer out the small window at the black night beyond. "I believe that was a piece of the sky that just fell."

"Do shut up, Lee."

"Leave it in the past? Do you know the favors I promised Uncle Matt to get that information?"

"Oh, woe is you. You likely have to attend one of his hunting weekends at his manor. How very dreadful."

Lee grimaced at her sarcastic platitudes. "I am required to go up for the entirety of the Christmas holiday. I'll miss the bloody Chelsea Ball!"

Of course, Lee had planned to attend the notorious New Year's party. "However will you survive?" she said dryly.

"I'll not be wasting my favor," he said with a stubborn moue. "I believe I know what Ashton was doing in that ridiculously hard-to-pronounce place in Greece with Nick."

"Any Greek city would be nothing to the mouthfuls of syllables that you regularly pronounce in your work," a tart voice said.

Saffron and Lee turned as one to the kitchen door, where Elizabeth stood with hands on hips. "What on earth are you talking about? And where is the tea?"

"I've dug up information about your brother and Ashton that might explain how they know one another," Lee said.

"They know each other from the army," Elizabeth said dismissively, nudging Saffron away from the stove.

"Yes, but they served on opposite fronts. Your brother was an officer fighting the Ottomans, and Ashton was in France. My uncle said Ashton went to Greece during the war, and it was in his military service record, so I doubt it was for a friendly family visit." He pointed to Saffron. "Did you ask him why he enlisted in Warwickshire?"

"No." Saffron suppressed a groan at Elizabeth's arched-brow look. "Drop it, Lee. I don't want to know anything more."

"Why the devil not?"

"Because he does not wish me to know," Saffron said. "And he … he is not some puzzle I must assemble."

Lee and Elizabeth turned on her with appallingly similar narrowed eyes. They glanced at each other, and Elizabeth said, "An argument."

"Tonight, I'd wager," Lee said. Elizabeth hummed in agreement and crunched into a ginger biscuit.

"Pardon me!" Saffron waved a hand. "I am not suddenly gone from the room, you know."

"Well, sounds like Ashton doesn't want you poking around in his secrets after all," Lee said. "I do wonder why. Perhaps it is because he doesn't want you to know he was on a diplomatic mission to Greece."

Saffron's mouth fell open, but she quickly caught herself. "I do not want to hear about it."

Lee tutted. "Whatever Ashton said is all smoke, Everleigh. He's trying to cover it up."

Elizabeth nodded avidly, the teapot abandoned. "Of course he is! And it makes so much sense, too, that Nick knows Alexander if they were both in Greece together during the war. Nick is not just a drone for the Agricultural Ministry. He's very obviously a spy of some sort."

Saffron rounded on her. "What?"

Elizabeth wiped ginger biscuit crumbs from her fingers into the sink. "Of course, darling. Why else would my brother just happen to be in town the moment one of his supposed employees—a Russian, no less—drops dead suddenly and suspiciously? Colin quite agrees with me."

"A spy, eh?" Lee stroked his jaw. "His records were rather sparse, according to my uncle. That'd explain it."

"Have you all been eating nightshade berries?" Saffron looked between her friends, incredulity raising her voice. "You cannot actually believe that Nick is a spy and Alexander knows him from some—some mission during the war! What would that make Alexander?"

"My guess is that his role was dreadfully boring," Elizabeth said. "For all his mystery, he's chosen to study bacteria, which is the dullest thing I've ever heard of."

Saffron propped her hands on her hips. "And yet you believe your brother, who is tasked with manure analysis and tracking down grain fungi, is a spy."

"So you do think Alexander is also wrapped up in government conspiracy," Elizabeth said sweetly.

Perhaps Saffron was the one who'd consumed hallucinogenic berries, for she was clearly the only person in the room with a sliver of rationality. "No, I do not. I think you are both in desperate need of excitement in your own lives and should stop inventing trouble where there is none. I'm up to my ears in dramatics already. I do not need any more!"

Rather than allow herself to dwell on whether or not Alexander wanted her to continue helping with Adrian's case, the next morning Saffron spent a bit of time in front of a microscope with the mystery plant from Petrov's stock of dried herbs. While she was able to identify several salient features, she hadn't been able to place it on the taxonomical lines with certainty. She could guess that it belonged to the group known as Sympetaly, but past that, she could not be sure. The rest would be a mystery until she returned to the library or gained the courage to approach Dr. Aster again.

She decided this was worth calling in that favor from Spalding and gave him a sample. He raised a brow at the request but agreed. Saffron didn't trust that her mystery plant would be a priority for him, however, so to the library she went.

She forced her steps to click but not clatter across the polished wood floor of the Flaxman Gallery and had just reached the steps to the library's double glass doors when she caught sight of Nick walking down the hall adjoining the North Wing to the Wilkins Building. He wore a dark brown suit beneath his overcoat and still had his hat on.

"Saffron," he called brightly. He strode to where she stood on the steps. "How do you do?"

"Quite well, but I'm afraid I'm rather in a hurry."

"I must speak with you," he said, his smile fading.

Cold sliced through her. "Is it Elizabeth? What's the matter?"

He shook his head. "Nothing to do with her, I assure you. Could we pop over to your office?"

"I can't at the moment, Nick, I've got something urgent—"

He took her by the arm in a movement too quick for her to process, and suddenly her back was pressed against the wall in one of the small alcoves next to the library's entrance.

His face was inches away and his voice little more than a rough whisper. "I've got something far more urgent, I assure you."

Saffron blinked at him. Was this … a seduction? An attempt at intimidation? She wanted to roll her eyes. "Nick, I do not have time—"

"There's been another murder."

Saffron stared at him. From this distance, she could count the faint freckles on his nose. She fought off chills at the intensity of his gaze. It was not friendly or pleasant but direct and utterly serious.

"The laboratory in Harpenden," he said. "You remember I mentioned the old man who died abruptly." Saffron nodded. "One of his colleagues has gone missing. I'm sure he's dead too."

She swallowed. "W-why is that?"

"Because he's been missing for three days, and the boy who delivers the milk just reported a smell coming from his house."

"Dear God."

Nick nodded grimly. "I want your help."

"But why?"

Something of his humor returned to his face, softening the lines a bit. "You've been involved in several murders, Saffron."

Elizabeth probably told her brother everything about her murder investigations while they were at Lou's.

"And," he continued, raising a questioning brow, "our mutual friend Alexander Ashton has an unfortunate connection to the death of Demien Petrov, doesn't he? I imagine you were asked to intercede on Adrian Ashton's behalf."

Saffron swallowed, shaking her head. "I don't know where you got that impression, but—"

"Otherwise, I very much wonder why you and Alexander were seen on the dead man's street earlier this week. Coming out of his flat, even."

"No one prevented us from seeing his flat—"

"I'm not suggesting you did anything wrong," Nick said in an unhurried fashion. "But I am suggesting you know far more about Demian Petrov than anyone suspects. I imagine you've already gotten halfway to solving his death. Work with me to finish it, and learn what happened to the missing man."

Saffron found she had no idea what to say. Nick was asking for her help in investigating the death, possibly deaths, of government laboratory workers. Surely these were matters for the police, not the Agricultural Ministry. "Was … is the other man, the missing one, also Russian?"

"No, English as the Union flag," Nick replied.

If the other man was dead and the two cases were related, Adrian would likely be exonerated. The other man had been missing three days, and Adrian hadn't left London in over two weeks, according to Alexander. If she helped prove that the other man's disappearance had nothing to do with Adrian, it would likely go a long way in proving his innocence in Petrov's death. And if Nick endorsed her involvement as an agent of a government ministry, then Inspector Green could not fault her for her involvement. Nor could Alexander.

"What exactly is the lab researching?" she asked. "You've mentioned fungi."

"They do study fungi, as well as a number of agricultural topics," he said.

"Anything worth killing over?"

Nick gave her a long, evaluative look. Without breaking eye contact, he leaned so close his breath brushed her cheek. "Are food supplies of the entire country worth killing for? Learning how to combat disease? Or possibly … spread it?"

Saffron couldn't see the movement of the students filing up and down the stairs to the library just before them. All she saw were fields, fallow fields just like the ones she'd seen in France. Decimated. Unable to produce anything but grief and panic. She swallowed hard.

"Is it worth killing for, to keep enemies from learning what the greatest minds in our nation—and others—are developing?"

She didn't need to put herself in the place of the sort of people who gave those orders or carried them out to imagine the answer. The Harpenden lab might not be mixing chemicals to attack men in trenches, but they were creating things that could prevent starvation—or cause it. Not to mention Saffron already had a connection to Petrov's lab that, now she'd been presented an opportunity to examine it, was far too tempting.

"Yes," she said aloud, confirming it to herself just as much as Nick. "I will help you. What do I need to do?"