The Alchemist's Daughter by Katharine McMahon Read Free Book Online Page A

loose, and I’m afraid you’re about to lose it altogether.” His voice had many layers: a throatiness and soft sibilance that made me shudder. I glanced up and saw that his eyes were brimming with laughter because of the activities behind the curtain.
    The ribbon had fluttered over my shoulder. When I tugged at the end, more and more slid away and my hair fell down. I pulled out the ribbon and tried to pin up my hair, but now I was in a worse state, because by lifting my arms I had strained the precarious arrangement of my neckerchief so that I had to cover my bosom with my hair and thrust the ribbon into my pocket. Fortunately, when I glanced at Aislabie, he seemed unaware of my discomfort, only smiled so that the dimple came in his cheek.
    My father sat down again and began his nighttime yawns. Once started, they went on and on, contorting his face until he was like an ancient lizard. Aislabie leaped to his feet, apologized for keeping us too long, and asked permission to come back soon in case my father had any further thoughts on the application of the phlogiston theory to shipping. My father said that he was about to leave on his annual trip to London, but Aislabie could call again in two days’ time.
    I followed Aislabie across the entrance hall and waited with him in front of the house while Gill brought his horse. The top of my head was level with his upper arm, and we stood so close that the tip of his boot almost touched my uneven hem. We said nothing, but when he mounted I stepped away and looked up at him. At first he gave me a polite smile of farewell, but then his eyes filled with heat and I thought I saw into his soul, pure as gold itself. He pulled the reins, the horse reared its powerful front legs, and they were gone.
             
    W HEN I GOT back to the dining parlor my father peered at me. “Well?”
    “Father?”
    “What are your observations?”
    Since the Shales episode, I had learned to be cautious. “I don’t have any.”
    “You must. What did you see?”
    “I saw a young man, Father.”
    “What else?”
    “He held you in a great deal of esteem.”
    He laughed through his nose and jabbed his staff at me. “He had no more respect for me than for a barrel of good sherry. He’ll give me as much attention as he needs until he gets what he wants, then he’ll drop me—except for the fun he’ll have at my expense in his coffeehouse. So think again, Emilie. Tell me what you saw.”
    “I saw a young man who traveled a long way to ask your opinion. He has a problem and thinks you can solve it. Where is the harm in that? You’ve always taught me that one of the keys to success is knowing where to look for answers.”
    “There is no harm, Emilie, so long as you’re not taken in. But you were. You missed all the signs. You think that the man is after knowledge, when what he actually wants is profit. Tell me how I know.”
    I was as close to tears as I’d been in years. I had rarely seen my father so virulent in his attack of anyone except Shales, who had dared challenge the validity of alchemy, and various charlatans guilty of publishing rubbish. M. Étienne-François Geoffroy, for instance, had devised a table that ordered chemical substances according to their affinities for each other, but he had made the mistake of mixing up physical and chemical properties, an error so fundamental that my father had spent weeks muttering that it was beneath his dignity to publish a rebuke.
    “Tell me.” His eyes had gone cold.
    “His clothes were very fine,” I said at last.
    “Ah yes, they were. But don’t you go confusing the quality of what a man wears with the quality of his soul. Anyone with a bit of money can pay for expensive tailoring.”
    “He dressed with care. What’s wrong with that? He wanted to impress you.”
    “No. He wanted to overwhelm me, because he knew that I was a reclusive old man. If he’d wanted to please me, he would have dressed plainly. Now what