The Lady is Trouble: League of Lords, Book 1

by Tracy Sumner

  Julian took a slow sip. “Consider this your request.”

  The Duke tucked the soul catcher in his waistcoat pocket with care. “I don’t suppose the chronology is for sale.”

  “No, but you have full access to it at my country estate. There’s a woman, a healer, who also may be able to assist you.” He would not reveal Piper’s identity until Ashcroft was standing on Harbingdon’s property. “There’s no cure for people like us…but there is salvation.”

  “This is sounding dreadfully biblical, Beauchamp.”

  Julian recognized the cynical twist to Ashcroft’s features. He remembered what it was like to have no one to trust, to share the madness that was this life.

  “Before my brother’s death,” he continued, “before I assumed the title, I chose the life of a soldier to escape. Then, I found I was cursed with blood, death, and fires. I don’t want to wage another war. I can’t win another war. Not when I have this role to play. This damned curse doesn’t keep me from my ducal duties. Has it kept you from yours?”

  As the Duke’s voice rose, the temperature in the room soared. With another cork pop, a tiny spark caught the edge of the carpet. Julian was there at once, stomping out the flames beneath his heel. The scent of charred fabric stung his nose, and he looked back to find Ashcroft with his head in his hands. “You started the fires in the hotel. It was you.”

  “I thought the medium might help me. I’m quite desperate, as you can see.”

  “She can help you.”

  Ashcroft lifted his head, moonlight washing over him, throwing him into shadowed relief. “I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s consider it a gentleman’s agreement. My resources for your might. You have contacts in places I can’t begin to penetrate—and I’ve seen the men you travel with. I need an army, and you have one.”

  “Mercenaries are more like it. I’ve too much to hide and protect to travel lightly.” Ashcroft gestured to the smoking carpet. “You’d invite this into your home?”

  Julian felt his pulse settle for the first time in hours. The Duke of Ashcroft was going to accept his offer. “I have a lovely stone cottage at the ready.”

  A smile crossed the Duke’s face, the first hint of the man beneath the apprehensive mask. “Fire and stone don’t mix.”

  “Exactly,” Julian said and raised his glass in partnership.

  Chapter 14

  You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.

  ~Jane Austen

  Two days later, Julian rode into the Cock and Bull’s courtyard, soaked to the skin from a driving rain, grateful to see a crested Beauchamp carriage parked next to a stable that looked as if a strong gust would send it to the ground. Evidently, Humphrey had received his missive.

  The mere suggestion of another second astride brought a queasy jolt to his gut.

  Sliding from the saddle, he dropped his brow to the black’s flank and sucked in an equine-scented breath, the reins clutched in his fist. Somewhere in the air was a fresh slice of the country, too, cut grass and wildflowers, a sensory shout telling him he was close to home, the stink of London hours behind. That alone knocked the headache down a notch. He’d anticipated fatigue this trip, but the visions had been fiercer than expected, unrelenting, and entirely too vivid. There was only so much he could do to protect himself when each turn of a corner presented mental involvements he was not always able to manage.

  Unfortunately, this was not his only problem.

  Piper, he thought and lifted his gaze to the sky as if tempestuous clouds could help him deal with a tempestuous woman. Beautiful, tenacious, charming, intelligent Piper, whom he wanted and feared in equal measure. What to do about her? She was turning his world inside out, ruining his plans, a destructive, enticing squall. Every second he’d spent with her in Ashcroft’s medieval chamber circled his brain, a bloody carousel that never stopped rotating.

  And now he knew, at least in part, which was horrible and glorious.

  Details men dreamed of knowing.

  Maybe he imagined with an artist’s mind. Maybe another man would have recorded the images with less precision.

  Her pale-pink thighs; the burnished swatch of hair between her legs; the shape and, down to a very specific hue, the color of her nipples; the round, faultless weight of her breast in his hand. If sculpting were his chosen passion, he’d prepare the clay and set to work. As it was, he promised to bring her to life on canvas.

  And he’d not seen all.

  Ah, but he wanted to.

  He tried to suppress the memories, but they, like the woman, intruded. That throaty mew she made when she came apart, a silky, panting moan. Stronger than a whimper, softer than an outright groan.

  The most erotic sound he’d ever heard in his life.

  Too, he wanted not just her body but her mind. Conversations in the pitch of the night. Her laughter, her wit.

  One night. One night to cleanse them both. He wasn’t going to drag Piper into the abyss his gift was pulling him into. A gift propelling him to the outer edges of sanity.

  The black danced to the side, and he whispered a gentle plea, begging for another moment to gather his strength. He had no experience with tender emotions, and the protective ones he expressed for those he loved seemed to overwhelm. His childhood had been an experiment in survival, sleeping with one eye on the bedchamber door, a butcher knife stolen from the kitchen stuffed beneath his feather mattress. Love or anything close to it had never entered into the equation.

  Sleeping beneath a luxurious counterpane with a face bloodied, a body bruised, had been the worst sort of torment. He’d fight until his death to save as many people as he could from the hell he’d experienced as a child. His journey had started with Finn and would end when he drew his last breath.

  To fulfill this oath, he would relinquish the only woman he’d ever loved.

  Because her gift gave; his took.

  And he wasn’t going to take anything more from her than one night.

  The touch to his shoulder had him spinning around, the sudden move splashing black across his vision.

  “Jesus, Jule,” Humphrey muttered and steadied him with a firm grasp under his elbow, for which Julian was embarrassed but thankful. He didn’t want to pitch face-first in the mud. He really didn’t.

  “I’m okay.” He held up a hand that shook enough to have him deciding it might be better to have it retreat to his trouser pocket. “I have it.”

  Humphrey cursed, a gutted breath shooting from his lips. “Sure you do,” he snarled and brushed past Julian to gather the saddlebag from the horse. He tossed it over his shoulder without comment and left Julian standing forlornly in the yard. A young lad from the inn rushed over with a promise that Julian’s horse would arrive tomorrow at Harbingdon, brushed down and fresh as a daisy. He nodded and slipped the boy a coin, too exhausted to comment.

  With a sigh, he trudged to the carriage, feeling like a child reprimanded for breaking an antique vase in his mother’s salon. He’d be dead, throat slit and body dumped in a gutter or the Thames, if not for the towering man guarding the vehicle with an expression equal parts annoyance and concern. Humphrey was the only person Julian had ever let protect him in the way he protected everyone else. It was humbling but, hidden deep where most men housed their feelings, welcome. They’d agreed long ago to total honesty in their friendship, almost like a marriage, if Julian wanted to be downright maudlin. Humphrey and Finn were his brothers, as surely as if they’d been unlucky enough to be sired by Edward Alexander, eighth Viscount Beauchamp.

  In the most delicious revenge possible, because of Julian’s subterfuge, all of London thought they had.

  He reached the carriage and without a word of appeasement, clambered inside, keeping the pain the movement caused to himself. Head pounding in time to his heartbeat, he sought the darkest corner and prayed for the interrogation to wait until he had a night’s sleep behind him. And food in his belly. Closing his eyes, he dropped his head to the velvet sea
t and willed the ache to perdition.

  Humphrey tapped the trap, three hard knocks, and they settled into their journey. A blanket smelling of lavender landed on his lap. He wadded it up, cushioning it underneath his cheek. Brilliant. More of Piper’s sweet-smelling laundry.

  The bump and sway of the well-sprung carriage would have lulled him to sleep had he not felt the heat of Humphrey’s scrutiny. He blinked into the dim light cast from the lamp. “You brought her to London.”

  For a long moment, Humphrey studied him. Whatever he found during the investigation did not satisfy. With a grimace, he tossed a leather satchel next to Julian. “You trying to kill yourself, is that it?”

  Julian opened the satchel and reviewed the contents. Cheese, bread, ham. A flask containing excellent scotch, which lit him up quite nicely. “What?” he asked as if he’d just heard the question. He shook his head to clear it. “What? No.”

  Humphrey ripped his flask from his coat pocket and jabbed it at Julian in a violent motion. “I saved your arse from that once. I’m not feeling up to it again, boyo.”

  “That’s—” He halted, the word absurd set to follow, but the boy in that alley had, in all honesty, nothing to live for. Why flee a grand estate in his family for centuries for the most crime-ridden neighborhood in London if not to punish someone?

  Abuse by his hand rather than the random cruelty his father had dished out.

  Julian observed the passing countryside, the little he could see with rain-streaked glass and negligible moonlight. He considered eating, but when headaches were this bad, keeping what you put in wasn’t a sure bet.

  “You’re going to take her goddamn help.”

  He took another drink, the liquor hitting hard with nothing to cushion it. “Says who?”

  The flask left his hand to pop like a champagne cork against the wall, liquid raining down on him. He rolled his head toward Humphrey, temper beginning to spark. “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “I have responsibility in this, too, my friend.” Again, he stabbed his flask Julian’s way, rising from the seat. “For you most of all. And you”—he jerked his head in the general direction of Harbingdon—“for them.” He settled back with a fast sip. “See how the bleeding structure works?”

  Julian grunted, incapable of going rounds. He understood the bleeding structure. Sliding low, he let his legs sprawl, hoping the indelicate slouch adequately expressed his wish to conclude the conversation. He was drained, chilled to the bone, and famished but afraid to eat. His clothing was damp and sticking to him in all the wrong places. And the interior of the carriage reeked like a scotch-and-lavender prostitute.

  “You’ve been angling after each other for years. How hard can it be to let her in?” Humphrey paused, his voice folding in on itself. “I don’t care what that bastard Montclaire made you promise.”

  Julian fumbled for the flask, but it was bone-dry when he lifted it to his lips. Blast Humphrey and his sulking moods. “If you know so much, why ask?”

  “Because I don’t understand your reluctance!”

  “It transferred, Rey.” He closed his eyes, willing away the dizziness, which was starting to send the world into sluggish, nauseating rotations. “In the vision, she was standing in the Duke’s room, right beside me. She could have described it as well as I.”

  “But—”

  “If I’m unsure about my being able to leave,” he interrupted, “what to do with her? Can she step out as easily as she seems to step in?” He swallowed, taking a harsh breath through his nose. “If you can guarantee her safety, or tell me a way I can, I’ll gladly accept her help. Her healing. If not, I have to go it alone. At least for now.”

  “Your plan, then?”

  Julian was too weary to lie. “One night, then she’s going to release me. After that…” He lifted his hand from his lap in a meaningless motion. He did not feel well. And talking about Piper pained him on a good day.

  “One night, as in—”

  “Yes.”

  A charged silence lapsed. Julian heard Humphrey take a drink. “Release you? Like you’re a dog on a leash?”

  “If it amuses you to think of it that way. Hell, maybe it amuses me to think of it that way.” She could tie him to the bedpost with her leash any time she liked.

  “Scamp agree to this claptrap?” Humphrey grunted beneath his breath. “Doesn’t sound like her. Girl wants all of you, always has.”

  “She knows me too well,” Julian said as if this answered the question, which it did not. We’re connected, he could have added, but that was too private, too intimate, to share. “I think I’m inviting her inside the visions.” Without opening his eyes, he reached for the satchel, took a bite of cheese, and mumbled, “If we can get past this—” Fascination. “Maybe then, I can accept the healing without wanting the rest.”

  “Isn’t my place to enforce society’s senseless rules, but won’t your one night amount to ruining her?”

  Julian laughed when he wanted to cast up his accounts on the carriage floor. “We’re already ruined, Rey.”

  The silence stretched, broken only by squeaking carriage springs and wheels churning over packed earth. Julian drifted for a minute, maybe two, then Humphrey’s voice, halting and unsure, split the calm. “Finn had another dream.”

  Julian peeled out of his slouch. “When?”

  “The day after you left.” Humphrey tapped the flask on his thigh. “The Frenchwoman was in London. Finn knew from the room, the street, something. He felt she was close, maybe to that damned party. And it’s killing him because he thinks he’s pulling her in, making us more vulnerable with what he can’t help sharing.”

  “My God, the whole world was at that ball, so Piper is officially out of hiding. Ashcroft’s had them, too. Dreams.” He frowned, the ache in his head fair to splitting it open. “Why do they have them? And I don’t?”

  Humphrey pushed his flask into Julian’s hand. “Drink, Jule. You’re looking the color of a cow’s teat.”

  Julian laughed, having no idea what color a cow’s teat was. But following the directive, he drank while giving Humphrey a brief accounting of his meeting with the Duke of Ashcroft.

  “He wasn’t angry to find you there?”

  “He was relieved, I think. He cast a blaze in the hearth with a flick of his fingers. He just bowed his head and poof! The earl’s crystal has kept him from burning down the city, although we don’t understand the power it possesses. More investigation is needed. As a child, he dreamed of flames engulfing him, then one day they started rolling off his fingertips. Firestarters, the earl called them.”

  “And?”

  “He’s arriving next week.”

  Humphrey jumped to his feet, bumping his head on the carriage roof. “What?”

  “Hard for him to enjoy the benefits of our merry club if he’s not asked to join. Plus, reflect on this, my cautious friend. The Duke is a former soldier and surrounded by a small band of loyal mercenaries. And they’re coming with him. That’s protection we can use. Not to mention how much this expands our world. You may hate it, but he has influence and power we may someday need.”

  Humphrey threw himself into the seat with an exasperated gust.

  Julian pitched the flask back to him, then tugged his coat off. He was starting to overheat in the confined space. Maybe the reason for his cow-teat complexion. “Consider it a symbiotic relationship. We help him control his gift; he shares his contacts. And his army. We’ll have entry into every gaming hell, every public house, every drawing room in a way no mere viscount would.”

  “He can take the West End, and we’ll take the East. Don’t want him to dirty his velvet slippers tramping through the muck.”

  Julian dropped his head to his hands, minutes from asking the coachman to stop the carriage. Scotch on an empty stomach had been a ghastly idea. “No velvet slippers this one. Trained for combat when we only trained on the street.”

  “Fireball trained as a soldier? What, in a drawing r
oom?” Humphrey snorted. “I could stomp his wee arse.”

  Julian counted until he caught a full breath. “I think that’s an excellent…start to your friendship.”

  “Hope the village fire brigade is prepared if the flaming bastard’s coming here.”

  “Laundry cottage. By the lake,” Julian whispered, his composure slipping. He should have taken an extra night in London to sleep this off. He’d drained his reserves with the visions—and he wasn’t recovering quickly. Not as quickly as he used to. But he’d been frantic to make it back to Harbingdon. Back to Piper.

  “Made of stone, which is fireproof. And near the lake, should we need water quickly.”

  Julian bounded to his feet, rapping on the trap with a closed fist. “Halt!”

  He was out of the conveyance before it rolled to a stop. Flinging himself to the ground, he sunk his fingers knuckle-deep in the mud. The scent of rain and earth rose to him on a rip of air that was a moist blessing washing over his skin. It almost eradicated the smell of lavender gliding from the carriage’s interior and into the night.

  Minutes passed before he was able to climb to his feet and lumber back into his transport. He sank to the seat, avoiding the censure he knew would be lingering in Humphrey’s eyes.

  Maybe his friend was right.

  Maybe he was killing himself.

  Before she touched him, Piper reminded herself of her mission.

  Because anything connected to Julian was a snarled morass of conflicted reasoning and always had been. Love, rage, admiration, jealousy. Possession. She’d never used her gift in an organic way for his benefit: with only the thought to mend.