by Tracy Sumner
Humphrey waved the question away as if it were a fly in his face. “What choice is there on the docks? Someone gets gutted every day.”
“A clairvoyant steward sounds enchanting as the position is currently vacant.” Julian yanked gloves from his coat pocket and tugged them on, tucking between the fingers to tighten the fit.
“Can’t be worse than anyone else we’ve placed in a job they’ve never in their life undertaken.” His lips canted, the topic a familiar argument between them. “Since you insist everyone employed here be able to make magic, shoot fire from their eyeballs or something.”
“I do insist. We’ll be lightly staffed until we’re not.” Since they’d been talking crack shots and protection, Julian checked the pistol in his boot, the cold metal caress relieving a little of his tension. “You’re the only ungifted person I’ll ever trust in this lifetime.”
“Oh, ah, thank you very much, too,” Humphrey snarled as he kicked aside a pile of hay littering his path.
“For?”
“Leaving it to me to tell Scamp you went running to London with your tail between your legs.”
“I don’t care what you tell her, you just keep her in your sight every minute,” Julian said between gritted teeth as he led his horse from the stable. In the yard, he grasped the pommel and swung into the saddle. The black danced to the side, and Julian reined her in with a deft shift. “Her pattern is to rebel when denied.”
“Denied, huh?”
“She followed me right into the vision, Rey. I looked back, and there she was.” He drew a gloved hand down his face, still panicked to recall her entering the otherworld. His hell, not hers. “I don’t want her there, but I don’t know if I can leave without her. How disturbing is that?”
“It’s a damned mess any way you play it.” Humphrey squinted as he looked up at Julian. “Who knew she was going to end up being such a beauty?”
“Are you listening to me? I’m talking about protecting her.” In any case, her beauty wasn’t the main draw. It was her wit. Her nimble mind. The way she challenged him; the way she kept him off-kilter. And, if he must admit, how she’d always approached him charmed him right down to his toes, like cracking him open and looking inside was the most essential quest she’d ever undertaken.
Humphrey grabbed the halter as Julian tried to trot past before anything he was thinking tumbled out of his mouth. The black nickered in response and danced on the lead. “I saw her, Jule. I saw you. The chit about took my head off on the ride to the house when Minnie was the one at fault. Her idea to intrude!” He stepped back in disgust. “Did you ever consider that you’re exactly what that reckless girl needs? She’s exactly what you need? And maybe, just maybe, the earl, that old fool, was wrong about everything?”
She is not yours.
Julian dug his thigh into the horse’s flank and wheeled her around. Torment to be fascinated by the one woman you couldn’t have. Why, when London was full of women ripe for the plucking, did he only want her?
Had never wanted anyone but her.
Dirt and grass flew as he galloped from the yard without a backward glance.
As he crossed the windswept field, a phrase he’d learned at university circled his mind: fuoco nelle vene.
Fire in the veins.
Piper Scott was fire in his veins. And as he was about to consider, fire was a ruthless power best left undisturbed.
The crickets in the ragged bush edging the portico were screeching, their chirp shattering an otherwise hushed night. Even after years spent in the country, whether here or one of Julian’s estates, Humphrey wasn’t used to the sound, as unpleasant as a streetlamp’s glare cutting through a crack in the draperies.
He rested against a column, his cheroot an orange glow across his fingertips, smoke drifting about his head and mixing with what he had come to appreciate about country living: air so clean and clear you could drink it. Layers of smells that made a body want to fall into them like they were a feather mattress. Flowers, grass, and something—he rubbed the cheroot between his fingertips, deciding maybe it was just good old dirt.
He sighed, tempted to leave his station and track Piper down.
Keep her in sight. Blast, what a bitter pill this girl and the calamity that followed her was to swallow.
Taking a final drag, Humphrey lifted his leg and stabbed the cheroot out on his boot, then slipped the stub in his trouser pocket with a grimace of equal parts amusement and embarrassment. Minnie complained something fierce about the things littering the ground. He didn’t need two harping females, that was certain.
Another hour passed without a murmur, until Humphrey suspected he and Julian were wrong. Maybe Piper had grown out of her hotheaded decision-making.
In the end, nothing had changed, and they weren’t wrong.
Thudding footfalls sounded, and his stomach fell. “Coming down the back stairs, heading for the scullery entrance,” Edward whispered, his words halting, uncertain, as if he delivered information he should not. The boy had taken a liking to Piper. He was sleeping again and working on his gift, although he’d had no dreams that would benefit the League at this juncture and darn if Humphrey hadn’t asked. As was the way, in the process of working with her, Piper had twisted the boy around her finger, like she did to most without exertion. Men, women, children, dogs. His call for the staff to watch her this evening had been met with more than a few frosty glances.
Waving Edward away with murmured thanks, he rounded the house, a headache arriving in the center of his head. Bullseye. Damn the girl. If anything happened to her, Julian would never forgive him, a guaranteed fact no matter feelings denied on all sides.
Like he believed that horseshit.
He was responsible for the two of them and had been since the beginning, an anvil resting squarely on his chest and at times sucking up all his oxygen. Stuck in the middle, between a rock and a hard place. Piper, he guessed, was the rock. Julian, he laughed at this, because he had to do something or he’d start shouting, was the hard place.
He watched Piper’s head, covered in a ridiculous, frilled bonnet, peek from the scullery doorway. My God, he thought, sorrowful for whoever ended up marrying her, if Julian wasn’t going to accept the challenge. At least the pathetic sod would never be bored, but he wasn’t likely to live long enough to appreciate his delightful existence, either. Frankly, Humphrey wasn’t in the mood to pansy around. Wordplay was not his gift.
Truth be told, he was highly annoyed and disappointed.
“Julian sure had you pegged,” he snapped as she stepped from the shadows.
She gasped, stumbled on the uneven step and propelled herself into the yard. A leather satchel, one of Julian’s, was tucked neatly under her arm. Her gown was designed for travel; the boots on her feet weathered and perfect for tracking through the muck.
Humphrey pressed his finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose to hold back the headache. “You truly deemed to try this? With the danger surrounding you?”
Her head tilted, gaze seeking his. Moonlight fluttered over them, stealing through the scattered clouds, and her face became visible before being thrown back into darkness. But he’d seen enough. A fierce expression, and it was no longer a girl’s face but a woman’s. A woman who loved Julian more than anyone, if Humphrey’s bet was sound, and one who had his best interest, no matter how senseless her design, at heart.
Oh, hell. Her eyes were that roaring green Julian told him to watch for. And he never argued with Jule over colors. Blast it, he swore, consigning his best friend to Hades for leaving him with this mess.
“He’s going after the room from the vision,” she said, tucking the satchel under her arm, perhaps preparing to run for it. As if she could make it ten paces without him catching her. Him or the ten guards posted around the house.
“I know what’s he going after.” Fear, rarely engaged, tunneled through his belly. Dread, because Piper had gone directly to the point without lying, which was her norm when pres
sed, and the bloody simple fact they shared the same concern.
He believed it insanity Julian had ridden off to London on his own, but he didn’t want to admit this to Scamp Scott, of all people.
“The vision, I can’t quite explain…” Her lips pressed as she struggled. Again, a spike of unease hit him. This woman had never lacked for words, not once in her life. “It was like being pressed between two sheets of vellum. No room to move.” Stepping closer, moonlight hit her just so. Humphrey noted the desperation shaping her features, the worry lines drifting from her eyes, her mouth. She grasped the satchel like the battered leather would bring answers if she wrung it hard enough. “I had to pull him back, pull him out. And there was a hesitation, like he didn’t want to return. I was terrified I’d have…have to leave him there.”
Humphrey heaved a huge sigh, itching to light another cheroot. Or break open a bottle of brandy and guzzle the entire thing. “I can’t keep him from searching for that room, Scamp.” But I can stop you.
“Oh.” She frowned, as if stopping Julian had never occurred to her. “I know that.” She managed a surprised laugh, but what the heck she found amusing he didn’t know. “Heavens, Humphrey, I only know I must be there when he finds it.”
“You must be there when he finds it,” he said, feeling as if he’d drunk the brandy, and his mind couldn’t keep up. The ground tilted as control shifted to the sprite standing before him. A tiny thing, her head barely reaching his elbow, harmless if you judged only the physical, but she’d just worked him over rougher than a hustler on the streets of Bethnal Green.
Her head slanted in question: you agree with me?
His hand went out in a gesture of helplessness.
She danced from one dirty boot to the other, hugging the satchel close. “You hulking beast, you know I’m right. Bring the bloody battalion if that’s what it takes.”
With a violent oath, Humphrey brushed past her and into the house, the scullery deserted at this hour except for the lingering smell of charred meat, cabbage, and onions. She dashed after him, right on his blamed heels, knocking a pan to the floor in her haste, the dull ting echoing along the hallway as she chased him down it. The tick of a clock counted off each second, matching his irate stride. He knew what Julian would say. He’d been played, outfoxed, outmanned. But his gut—way, way, deep where he listened when it spoke to him—said she was right.
“Finn is coming along for the ride,” he growled as he took the stairs by twos. “And Minnie. She started some of this mess if you ask me. She can chaperone.”
“I have no idea what—”
“Let me be clear. I’m sharing the pleasure of this trip.” He grasped her arm and propelled her toward his bedchamber, situating her as kindly as anger allowed in a mahogany chair gracing the hallway for looks, not comfort. The hard-backed piece was perfect for her troublesome arse. “Stay. Until I get back here. Or I swear…”
She dropped the satchel and lifted her head. That warning green flickered again. “I’m insulted by this tirade.” She blew a strand from one of her sad little hairstyles from her face. “And wondering why we’re wasting time arguing.”
“Insulted?” Humphrey paused with his hand on the doorknob, glancing over his shoulder in amazement. “Julian’s going to take a knife to my throat for this.”
“He would never.”
Humphrey laughed roughly and thumped the door against the wall. “Scamp, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
Chapter 12
The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
~Edward Young
Chandeliers scattered fiery prisms across the ballroom floor Julian traversed, his path blocked by viscountess, earl, baroness, marquess, earl—each an oar stuck at an awkward angle, pulling him off course through a lake of society jetsam. The orchestra played at a level allowing for conversation should he desire it, when he only wanted to make it to the veranda, imbibe his third glass of champagne, smoke his second cheroot, and wait the night out.
The tapestries in the vision had looked quite valuable—Boucher, he learned—a reasonable discussion point, viscount to duke. A footman had taken no note when he mentioned seeing them years ago and questioned if they were in this home, one of Ashcroft’s many. The footman had been quite knowledgeable and had unwittingly given Julian the tapestries’ exact location. Interestingly enough, he’d also mentioned a house fire last week and advised Julian to pay no mind to the charred area staining the drawing room floor.
Humphrey was right. Ashcroft needed help before he gutted a structure to completion. Julian wanted to laugh when the topic was as far from humorous as one could get; the rumor circling the ballroom was that the Duke liked to dabble in pyrotechnics, hence the occasional blaze at his estates.
The subdued light provided a forgiving lens with which to behold the glittering, bejeweled mob, but still, the colors stunned, making him question how Piper tolerated it in combination with hundreds of brilliant auras. It was hard enough for him; already, his head pounded from the unwanted visions even as he tried to limit what he touched.
“No need to face this horde sober, Beauchamp.” Lord Holt, the Earl of Stanton, grabbed a flute from a waiting footman and thrust it at Julian, leaving him no opportunity to refuse. Holt had a fast wit and was one of the few men Julian knew who had stooped to commerce to save his earldom from insolvency—as Julian had done for the viscountcy. He gave Julian an update on his wife and his mistress, the upcoming Henley Royal Regatta—as they’d been in the same boat club at Oxford and soundly beaten Cambridge two years running during those years when Julian had tried so hard to fit in—before elbowing his way back into the crowd.
Leaning against a pillar, Julian dipped his head to avoid the interest of the ladies on the hunt. From first-season virgin to widowed countess, they were at turns wide-eyed and blunt. His attendance had drawn comment—it was rare. Strangely, the seductive glances, whispered entreaties, and bared breasts made him moody and even a bit cross, where before they’d left him bored. Chalk dust swirled with each passing group of dancers—a stunning floral design on the floor meant to keep the masses from slipping on new leather soles to their padded bottoms.
Amazed to feel so isolated in such a crush, Julian was quite simply alone with his visions.
A modest distraction, they shimmered through his mind, the champagne acting as an antidote. He felt weightless, unencumbered, able to take the cleansing breath he could not at Harbingdon. The wagers going on around him amused, though he took no part. Who would be the first to pass out in the Duke’s rosebushes or cause a scandal of the first order?
A steady wash of relief flooded him. Piper would not be there to win the latter.
He wouldn’t have to save her from herself.
Not tonight, at least.
Although, he thought, his hand going to the hairclip in his coat pocket—brought for stubborn locks should he need to pick one, not because he was a man obsessed—he would have loved to take her in his arms beneath a thousand glittering candles, draw her lithe body against his while whispering suggestive words in her ear. Ashcroft’s garden had concealed nooks ideal for clandestine activities.
Blistering images lit his mind. Of hiking Piper’s skirt and following her down to the dewy grass; fitting her across his lap on that massive stone bench beside the fountain, her legs on either side of him as she rode him to completion. He could make love to her for a month, in a hundred different ways, without leaving Ashcroft’s lawn.
Marianne Coswell found him moments later, as he’d expected she would, looking as beautiful as intended. Her hair, the color of a wheat field in bloom, was caught in an intricate knot at least two maids had assisted with. And the gown? Fit to perfection, a lustrous silver which perfectly suited her gossamer skin. He recalled her fingers tangling in his coat lapels as she pulled him into her carriage. Accustomed to being pursued, for the title and hint of intrigue surrounding him, her assault had been particularly acute.
When s
he reached his side, she flashed a knowing smile. Deep in his pocket, Piper’s hairclip pulsed, posing strong opposition.
He questioned if his cock could rise to Marianne’s occasion should his very life depend upon it. When seconds ago, fantasies he had no intention of satisfying had him considering a brief retreat to the gentlemen’s drawing room until the erection pressing awkwardly against his trouser buttons wilted.
“I’m beyond delighted to see you here, darling.” Marianne curled her hand around his wrist and a gemstone on her bracelet nicked his skin. A vision of her body twisting in ecstasy beneath someone flooded his mind. Someone who was most assuredly not him. Closing his eyes, he focused on the masculine face captured in the throes of delight, because he really couldn’t help himself.
Oh. Lord Featherstone.
Julian repressed a shiver of distaste and uncurled her fingers. He and Featherstone had shared little in this life, and he wished it had remained that way.
She arched a brow, her lips sliding into a treacherous twist. “Would your indifference have anything to do with the recent arrivals?”
“Marianne, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She smiled, a genuine display that made his stomach sink. His former lover had him in some way he could not account for—and suddenly, they both knew it. “Your ward just arrived. With your devastating half-brother.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth, her cheeks glowing. “Give that boy a few years, and society is going to go mad over him, by-blow or no. Almost painful to gaze upon such splendor.”
Julian inhaled a startled breath of Marianne and chalk. He was going to strangle Humphrey. Then Finn.
Then he’d deal with Piper.
She hadn’t come alone, but he bloody-well knew whose idea it had been to come.
“Lady Scott is not my ward,” Julian said as he peeled off the pillar, “as I’ve stated on more than one occasion.” And Finn is the brother of my heart.