by Tracy Sumner
Friendship. With a woman.
A beautiful, infuriating, insanely capricious woman whose mind he couldn’t read worth a tinker’s damn. What could go wrong with that?
Chapter 7
He was late. Twenty minutes, to be exact.
The tea cool, the biscuits untouched, the library hushed, the conversations complete. Julian, Finn’s brother of love-but-not-blood glanced at the mantel clock for the fifth time and tapped a paintbrush Victoria hoped was dry against the bookshelf he leaned against. Tap, tap, tap. She brought her puzzle book close to her face, hoping to appear engrossed in wordplay when all she wanted to do was study the fascinating interaction between Lord and Lady Beauchamp. She’d not been given many opportunities to witness genuine affection, a living, breathing example of a love match. It was almost unheard of in the aristocracy. Nudging her spectacles high, she watched the lady cross the room, settle her hand over the lord’s paintbrush while flashing an adoring smile that would melt butter.
Or melt viscounts, as it were.
“I’m not planning to kill the boy, Yank,” Julian whispered with a glowing look thrown his wife’s way, a lingering sweep of his thumb across her wrist emphasizing the unusual sobriquet. “Just bash his head in a bit. Humphrey will track him down. That’s worse than any piddling punishment I would dole out.”
“He’s not sleeping well,” Victoria offered, the need to defend him making her want, in turn, to howl with laughter and hurl a book across the room. Maybe she’d start with the hulking chronology lying open on the desk, though she wasn’t sure she could lift the volume, must less heave it.
Julian settled his long body against the window frame, tucking his very pregnant wife by his side, muted morning sunlight flowing around them in dust-specked streaks. The viscount presented an intimidating portrait, broad shoulders and fierce glower, a titled thug manipulating his paintbrush like a weapon, his spouse curled against him like a protective kitten. “I’m curious how you came to this deduction, Lady Hamilton.”
Victoria repositioned herself on the tufted sofa, her gaze meeting Lord Beauchamp’s with calm ease even if her knees shook the tiniest fraction beneath her skirt. Her relationship with her father had prepared her to handle sullen men with the steadiest of regard. “Not in an untoward manner, I assure you. I suspect I’m the only female in London who can claim lack of that dubious honor.” She sighed and folded the edge of her puzzle book back, realizing only hoydens and lightskirts discussed bed partners in mixed company. Mercy, who cared at this point? The entire situation was beyond the pale in a disastrous way, and her reputation was likely to crumble and blow away in the wind after this summer. One floor above, she imagined poor Aggie was sniffling her head off. “The dreams he’s having about me. Disruptive is all I’m suggesting,” she muttered and slapped her book to the floor. “But what do I know,” she murmured, hopefully for her ears alone.
Julian popped the paintbrush against his thigh, the first smile she’d noted twisting his lips. She could see what his wife found attractive in the strong jaw, the patrician nose, the eyes as gray as smoke. A solid, handsome face. A strong body. A commanding presence. “What a surprise. Every woman in this library, nay, the entire estate, begs me to go easy on my appealingly beddable little brother. The darling boy. Can’t extinguish the brightest light in London, now can we?”
Before she could retract any protective gesture she’d made because, truthfully, she felt Finn’s light should be dimmed slightly if not extinguished, he was there, being jostled through the library’s doorway by the largest man Victoria had ever seen.
Finn sidestepped, wrestling his sleeve from the brute’s grip. “You sent Humphrey to find me because I was five minutes late? Really, Jule? What am I, thirteen?”
Julian pointed the paintbrush at Finn, his smile growing. “Going on twenty-five minutes. And I don’t know, are you?”
Humphrey sighed and threw himself into the only chair in the room that would hold him, a monstrous leather affair that could house a small family. “Found him in the kitchens surrounded by a pack of squawking geese, and I don’t mean the bird kind. Lounging like he had all the time in the world, waiting for one of the flock to brush crumbs off his lip or offer him another morsel, and of what, I'm not going to say. Delaying the inevitable, he was. Again. Like I don’t dread this research project myself.”
Piper rapped Humphrey on the shoulder, and he started. “Begging pardon, ma’am,” he said with a nod in Victoria’s direction, “because I can’t wait to see what magic you’re about to pull out of your lacy sleeve. I’m sorry to say, after years of miraculous arrivals, I don’t know if I have anything left in me to be impressed. Unless your talent is procuring the finest Irish whiskey known to man with a wrinkle of your nose. That I’d be impressed by.”
Finn expelled a breath through his teeth and circled behind the sofa, seating himself at the opposite end, as far from her as he could get. “I simply went to get another crumpet. Crucify me, but Cook makes the best in England. I was trying to escape the kitchen when the big heavy here found me.”
Victoria swiveled her head and pierced him with a droll look. “Crumpet?” she mouthed. She’d tasted one this morning, and they were stale. She could whip up a pastry in ten paltry minutes that would have him crying in his soup.
Wordlessly, he crossed his long legs at the ankle and balanced his chin on his knuckle, the very picture of impudent negligence. But she could see his jaw muscle ticking in time to Julian’s paintbrush taps. So much more going on beneath the surface than he liked to admit. Exhausting, she imagined, the daily battles he fought to allow the caricature to rule the man.
Victoria moistened her lips and swallowed, the click of her throat cracking the silence. “I don’t make magic. It’s a parlor trick, sleight of hand. Nothing more. Nothing monumental. From the little Mr. Alexander has told me, you invite people here who have true gifts. Sight and touch and sense. This, mine, is largely”—she flipped her gloved hand over and back—“an annoyance.”
“I’ll go first, Lady Hamilton,” Julian said, “as we provide insight into your annoyance.” He motioned to his brother. “Finn, something from your pocket, please. A coin, anything. Although I fear what I may witness during this test, I fear it much less than I normally would.”
Finn tunneled his hand in his waistcoat pocket, coming up with a silver penknife, which he tossed to Julian. The teasing hint of cardamom drifted to her like a caress, and she wondered how he managed to smell edible and entirely masculine at the same time.
Julian traced the engraving on the front of the knife. “You still have this? Must be going on ten years since I gave it to you.”
Finn stacked one glossy boot atop the other. “My thirteenth birthday, so going on twelve.”
Victoria was unable to contain her surprised murmur as she did a quick calculation. Finn was her age, maybe even a few months younger. For some reason, this fact made her crosser than anything had since receiving his bloody invitation. With his innumerable extravagances and the beguiling bit of gray in his hair, she’d imagined him to be thirty at least.
She sank back against the cushions, seething.
The cheeky smile Finn shot her was filled with such genuine delight she wanted to pinch him—like she had her brother when he vexed her.
“Old enough, Tori darling,” he whispered for her alone. Then he danced his fingers through the streak of silver at his temple. “I like it. Makes me appear older than my years, handy on occasion. Nothing so remarkable as your wild tangle, curls fighting to escape those distressingly feeble arrangements. If anxious Agnes can’t assist, you’ll not find a maid at Harbingdon who can. Make you disappear and appear on the other side of the estate, maybe, but construct a simple coiffure? Alas, we’re not equipped.”
Her hand rose to smooth her hair. As if she could help that the strands were as unbiddable as her nature and that neither she nor Agnes was skilled enough to confine them. With effort, she tore her gaze from the reclining
boor taking up too much of the sofa’s acreage and focused it on Lord Beauchamp. “You mentioned providing insight, my lord?”
Julian stared at the penknife he smoothed his thumb over as if he sought to polish it to a high sheen. When he lifted his head, her breath caught at the intensity of his expression. “I see visions when I touch objects. Visions of someone who touched the object previously. A day or a week before, I have no choice in the visitations. Vivid, often disturbing scenes best left unobserved. This gift has complicated my life beyond what I’d wish on anyone, changed it beyond what I’d planned. As yours likely did, my mystic ability started when I was too young to realize I should hide it, and when I exposed it, my father reacted, shall we say, violently. So I ran to Seven Dials, the nastiest slum in London, where I knew I would become lost. Our butler had grown up there, and I never forgot the stories he told me about the place. How you could disappear, never to return. How you could become another person.” He tipped the penknife the hulking brute’s way. “Humphrey found me, saved my life truth be told, and a year or so later, I found Finn, his gift making him notorious in a hellhole where no one wants notoriety, a gentle boy swimming in a sea of sharks. I don’t think I’m telling you anything he hasn’t, which in itself—I dare say your appearance at Harbingdon at all—is most unusual.”
Her attention shifted to the gentle boy, but he’d closed his eyes. Although she knew he was listening from the pulse drumming a fierce beat just below his ear, a delicate spot she had the sudden urge to press her lips to. When her lips had never traveled beyond a man’s mouth—and she’d never wished them to.
Julian placed the penknife on the window seat with almost solemn reverence, a dull click that resonated through the room like a church’s bell. “I’ve never encountered an object, not once in my life, without images—soft and muted or fantastic and grotesque—storming my mind. More vivid than any painting I can create, and trust me, I’ve tried. Laid out what I see on canvas as a way to expunge the illustrations from my mind. This has happened every day, with every touch, every doorknob, every spoon, every teacup, except for four instances.” His gaze circled back to her, blazing with enough emotion to send her to her knees had she been standing. As outlandish as it seemed, he looked like he wanted to drop to his knees himself. She’d suspected this man to be taciturn when he was anything but. “Four instances when you and I have shared the same space.”
“Blasted, bleeding hell,” Humphrey growled and shoved to his feet, stalking to the sideboard situated at the back of the library. “I had a deadly feeling about this summer.”
“Calm down, Rey,” Julian murmured. “This could be a very good thing.”
“A fine predicament is what it is. We’ll need an army to fortify the estate because once they find out about her, we’re at war. You’d better get word to Fireball.” The carafe clinked as he poured, the glass smacking wood after he drank. Apparently, the startling admission meant morning refreshments would be served, at least to handsome beasts who rescued viscounts from rookeries and genuinely detested the occult but chose to live amidst it.
Victoria frowned. “Fireball?”
“The Duke of Ashcroft,” Finn replied from his drowsy repose. “A story for another day.”
Ashcroft. She flinched, kicking her puzzle book beneath the table, so bewildered her teeth were beginning to ache. “I’m not doing anything to weaken your ability, my lord. I’m simply...being. My parlor trick involves stealing time. Brief, insignificant spans of time. I make people forget trivial events, often things they’ve seen me do that I, in all honesty, shouldn’t have done.” She felt Finn’s searing gaze strike her, the judgmental oaf. “I present a change of plan when it suits, paltry misdirection. I persuade people to take certain paths, a harmless nudge.”
“My lady, misdirection appears to be your side gift. However, your main one is astounding in our world, and as you’ve just entered it, I understand your lack of awareness. You see, you’re not weakening my ability, you’re halting it in its tracks. Not to sound disrespectful, especially in front of my cherished wife, but if you were a timepiece, I’d never remove you from my pocket. Around you, I am ordinary. As it is, I’ve spent two mornings in a dining area not of my choosing but one that brings blessed relief from the constant visions. Have you not noticed the crowd in there, servants and family at one table? Have you seen that happen at any aristocratic home in England? Scullery maids and the lord of the manor dining together? But I can’t deny them what is so wonderfully rejuvenating to me as well. You diminish the chaos in their minds, if not outright erasure. That is your gift, one that places you in grave danger should our enemies ever, ever know of your existence. And someday they will, make no mistake.”
“What enemies? I have no enemies.”
Julian flipped the penknife to Finn, who caught it with a one-handed snatch. “Leave it to you, boy-o, to bring home the second most obstinate woman in England. As it seems I’ve failed to convince her, Piper darling, queen of obstinacy, you’ll have to try.”
Victoria scowled as Finn slipped the penknife in his pocket without meeting her gaze. The graceful cur was doing nothing to save her from this interrogation when she’d protected him earlier.
Piper staggered to her feet with assistance from her husband. “Excuse me, everyone, while I roam the room. I can’t sit for long periods without my back spasming, because he or she is a very, very active babe.” She laid her hand over her rounded tummy and smiled, her eyes glowing as fiercely as the emeralds in Victoria’s favorite brooch. A family heirloom sold long ago to pay one of the many creditors pounding on their door.
Victoria settled back with an inward sigh, and an acknowledged cautionary prickle dancing along her skin. She would leave this library with more understanding than she’d ever been granted about herself if she let them continue. But did she genuinely want to understand? Why change her life over a chess move employed to divert select interactions, an innocuous exchange always in her favor? Altering little except to postpone a marriage she didn’t want. Hide reckless kisses she’d mistakenly thought would ease her loneliness. Buying time by stealing it. Why complicate the future with talk of blocking supernatural gifts and being someone’s shielding pocket watch when she could muddle along with some normalcy, the ordinary life Julian Alexander spoke of with such reverence.
This entire country sojourn was inviting the abnormal into her existence.
Piper circled the sofa, halting before the chronology. She flipped a page, two, before she looked over her shoulder. “My grandfather, the Earl of Montclaire, started the League after he realized his wife was afflicted with an unnatural skill, a skill I unfortunately inherited. Healing, not in the medical sense, more an ability to...calm. Strengthen. Provide control. I help mystics find their way.” She smoothed her finger over the lines of text. “He died protecting this, a book containing everything he knew about the occult. And in his final moments, he placed responsibility for the organization, responsibility for maintaining the chronology and protecting his granddaughter, at Julian’s feet. To be honest, lobbed all three like explosives when my husband was little more than a boy himself. In the ensuing years, we’ve grown from a scattered collection of enthusiasts into an organization spread across many countries, with contacts at every level of society, sheltering those at Harbingdon when dire need requires it.”
“This is why the gaslights flicker, doors open and close without touch. The haphazard way…” Victoria paused, twisting her hands in her lap, remembering a lady never commented to her hostess about the disorder of her home.
Piper flipped another page and laughed beneath her breath. “Harbingdon does run a bit like a carriage with a missing wheel most days. Everyone employed on the estate is a member of the League. Either personally affected or a family member of someone who is. So you see, most are placed in positions they were never trained for. But this effort has created an environment of acceptance and, frankly, safety.”
Humphrey grunted from his posit
ion guarding the refreshments he’d had yet to offer anyone else, clearly unimpressed by this aspect of Harbingdon’s management.
“Like you, I have another gift in that I see auras, as I told you the day you arrived.” Piper drew her hand through the air as if she were painting on a canvas. “Colors surround everyone I meet, ones that tell me quite a lot about their state of mind. You’re one of only two people I’ve not been able to record this portrait for. Combined with Julian’s lack of touch and Finn’s inability to read your mind, I predict we have much more to discuss.”
As if on cue, Finn rolled off the sofa and strolled to the chronology. So, he hadn’t been asleep. She watched his lower lip slip between his teeth as he began to flip pages, searching, his long body angled over the imposing leather-bound volume, his hair a tousled mop he had to repeatedly sweep from his vision. He trailed his finger along the lines of text, whispering in a mix of English and German. “There’s mention of someone with the ability to”—he leaned in, brow creasing as he translated—“place obstacles in the path of a mystical corridor. As closely as I can interpret, as the script is quite dated.” He tilted his head, his frown sending that enticing little dent between his brows. “This references an obstructer, though the earl called it a blocker as he’s noted in the margin.” Pausing, he glanced back at Victoria, his regard as tangible as a touch. “But you should think of this as a puzzle, Tori, if it makes the investigation into your gift more palatable.”
Their gazes met as a jolt of awareness passed between them, keen emotion she feared was closer to desire than friendship. Which would just be her rotten romantic luck when all of England lay scattered at his feet. Finn’s eyes were highlighted in the muted light cast from the window, so penetrating she had trouble wading from their depths. Proof of his intelligence, entirely at odds with his lackadaisical demeanor, it brought a hot pinch to her stomach and a shot of anger to her mind. You hide this incredible intellect behind carriage races and feckless mistresses, she thought but let the critical observation remain unspoken.