Sins of a Shaker Summer Read Online Free PDF Page B

error.”
    â€œNoble of him,” Rose said, “but however did he escape punishment? Surely the grieving family arrived fully armed and ready to take vengeance.” She glanced at Andrew and saw him chew his lower lip.
    â€œYea, that was a bit unclear to me, too,” he said. “Hugo might know more of his story. They talked together quite a bit before Hugo became so ill. At any rate, Willy’s knowledge of herbal remedies is phenomenal.”
    Rose said nothing. She feared Andrew’s devotion to the medicinal herb industry might have blinded him to potential problems with his people. She decided to keep an eye on Willy Robinson.

FIVE
    â€œT HIS IS THE AREA WE HAVE CONVERTED INTO THE M EDICINAL Herb Shop,” Andrew explained as he and Rose entered the old Broom Shop.
    Since only brethren had been broom makers, the building had a single entrance. Andrew stood well back as he held the door open so Rose would not accidentally brush against him. She stepped into one large room that she remembered from her early childhood, when bits of broom straw had littered the floor. During those days, half a dozen brethren would fasten batches of straw onto handles and stitch them into the flat design invented by a long-ago Shaker brother in New York. Now the room looked more like a laboratory. Several tables and rows of shelves held dozens of apothecary bottles containing herbal infusions, tins and bags of dried herbs, and bunches of drying stems hanging from wall pegs.
    On one side of the room, Rose recognized Andrew’s assistant, an intense young brother named Benjamin Fulton. Benjamin was slim and darkly handsome, with masses of curly hair and long black eyelashes. Rose found herself thinking what a pretty girl he would have been. His full lips puckered in concentration as he examined what looked like glass infusion equipment. He called Andrew over for a consultation. A third brother bent over a journal, making painstaking notations. Sister Patience worked by herself onthe other side of the room, measuring dried herbs and grinding them in a mortar and pestle. Before adding another ingredient, she consulted a large book that lay open on the table, as if she were following a recipe. Curious, Rose approached. Patience glanced up and made a quick protective gesture, as if to hide the page. The gesture seemed odd for a woman who had so recently displayed spiritual gifts. Patience must have sensed Rose’s surprise, because she kept her arm moving in a smooth arc until it was no longer near the book.
    Rose moved alongside her. “Is this an experiment of some sort?” she asked. “Anything promising?”
    Patience smiled, but her dark eyes remained serious. “Nay,” she said, her mellow voice sounding out of breath. “Nothing of great interest. Just a very old medicine formula that I was hoping to update.”
    â€œOh? Which are you trying out?” Rose asked, looking at the two open pages containing four recipes.
    â€œThis one.” Patience pointed to a formula for a painkiller, at the bottom of the second page. The original recipe contained opium-poppy juice.
    â€œHow interesting. I suppose you are hoping to replace the poppy juice with something more benign but equally effective?”
    Patience gave a curt nod but no further explanation.
    â€œHow did you first become interested in the medicinal properties of herbs?” Rose kept her voice interested, though part of her attention was occupied as she skimmed through both open pages. Just above Patience’s finger was a recipe for reducing fever. One of its ingredients was extract of monkshood root, which Rose knew to be poisonous. Patience’s arm partially obscured the two recipes on the facing page, but what Rose could see looked harmless.
    From the corner of her eye, Rose saw Andrew approaching. Patience went back to her work, pulling the book away from Rose’s view.
    â€œAs you see,” Andrew said,