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Authors: Kate Rothwell

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Beels returned with the lemonade.

He put down the tray and glanced at the door. Rosalie jumped to her feet in case Miss Renshaw tried to go after him again. Watching her companion, she said, “Thank you, Beels. That will be all for now.”

He didn’t run from the room, but he moved more quickly than his usual stately progress.

Miss Renshaw picked up a glass and pressed it to her forehead. “Cold. Perfect.” She pulled a chip of ice from the drink and sucked on it. Water dribbled down her wrists and chin. She sucked harder.

Rosalie stared. Miss Renshaw usually had exquisite manners. The lady nibbled her food and barely touched a roll with her fingers at meals. Now she gulped down the lemonade as if she were dying of thirst.

“Delicious,” she said brightly. “I’m quite refreshed, and now I think I shall go for a stroll.”

“No.” Rosalie’s panic surfaced. “You can’t leave when you’re under the influence of this peculiar substance. I think it best you go to your bedroom and sleep.”

“Sleep? La, Rosalie, it is madness to sleep when I feel this—It was this substance, you say? I’m alive for the first time since I was a girl.” She laughed. “Sleep? No, thank you.”

“Please. Miss Renshaw. You are not yourself tonight, and I think you’ll regret going out.” She hoped she’d put enough iron in her voice to make it clear it was a threat.

“No.” Miss Renshaw still smiled brightly.

Rosalie tried again. “If you leave this house in this state, I will have to find a new companion. I will dismiss you.”

“Really?” Miss Renshaw raised her thin brows. “I must be behaving very badly, then.” She didn’t sound at all concerned.

“It isn’t your fault.” Rosalie decided to tell the whole truth. “You see, the dust that you touched awakens certain animal appetites in people.”

“Aha. That explains a great deal!” Miss Renshaw laughed. “How amusing to think we are animals after all. How long will this effect last?”

“I don’t know, Miss Renshaw. I wish I did.” She had the appalling thought that the effect would never go away, but then she recalled Mr. Dorsey, who’d obviously opened the box and overcome its influence. For a horrifying moment, she imagined him in an aroused state similar to this, but pushed the image out of her mind.

Miss Renshaw still pirouetted toward the door, and Rosalie had to speak loudly to make herself heard over the waltz her companion hummed. “But I hope you understand it is for your own good that I will, um, put a guard outside your door.”

The companion’s brightness dimmed. “My own good,” she said. “All my life, everything that has been for my own good has not been at all amusing or interesting. Did you know that?”

“Miss Renshaw. Emily. I am sorry. I understand what you are saying. But do you truly wish to become disgraced? Lose your good name and possibly even your virtue?” Good God, she sounded like her father when he had lectured her about her meetings with Cousin Johnny, but Rosalie pressed on. “What might happen should you give in to baser impulses?”

“Yes, yes, I am a grown woman on the shady side of thirty-five.” Miss Renshaw was waspish now. “I’ve seen enough of life to understand disgrace. If I indulged in sins of the flesh.” She stopped to take a deep breath and gave another visible shudder. “If I tarry alone with a man, he might put himself inside me. Pshaw. It’s such a shame.”

Rosalie nodded, though she wasn’t sure what she was agreeing with. “I apologize for not telling you about the strange box earlier. I suppose I didn’t believe it, but now I think I must.” She sipped her glass of lemonade, still watching her beaming companion, who’d shed her shoes and loosened her bodice. “I’m sorry you touched the substance.”

“Heavens, I’m not sorry, Rosalie. I shall never forget how I feel this evening. So entirely—alive.” Miss Renshaw drifted to the French doors that led to the back garden. “I hope you won’t mind if I go to the rear of the house? I shan’t go out in public. I promise. I want to see the stars.”

Rosalie put down her glass on top of the letter from her mother she’d just been reading. “I’ll join you.”

“No, please don’t worry. Now that I understand…I’ll be back to my old self soon, I suppose,” Miss Renshaw said, almost in her usual vague and apologetic manner. Perhaps the chemical or whatever it could be was already wearing off. “I would like to be alone, if you don’t mind.”

 

From
Powder of Sin

 

 

BOOK: The Detective's Dilemma
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