by Tracy Sumner
Julian darted a glance at Finn. Finn’s cheeks paled, bleeding parchment.
Simon, he mouthed.
As if they’d summoned him, Simon came through the doorway in a skidding burst, his face crimson, sweat streaking his skin. Finn was before him in two strides, tipping the boy’s chin high. “Did you find her?”
Julian straightened, daring to breathe. His life flashed before his eyes—with and without Piper in it. The prick behind his lids had him blinking as he swallowed, his throat working furiously. “Where is she?”
Backing out of Finn’s hold, Simon bolted for the door, making it as far as the rose bushes before he dropped to his knees and heaved. Finn yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and thrust it at the boy. “Calm down, Si. It’s okay. We have you now.”
Simon’s head hung so low his hair skimmed the stalks of grass. As Julian reached him, a horrifying theory left him breathless. What if they’d hurt her, and the boy hadn’t the nerve to tell them?
Julian kneeled. “Is she…”
The emotion in Julian’s voice seemed to give Simon courage. “I heard a floorboard outside my chamber creak. I’ve tested the entire hallway, for protection. It was the one by that stiff chair no one wants to sit in. She went out a window, first floor but still high up, like nothing I’ve seen a girl do. A lady most especially. Before dawn. Pitch-black. No guard. I don’t much like the kind of real dark you find in the country, but I followed her anyway.”
Finn grasped Simon’s hand. “And?”
Simon sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Two rat bastards shoved her into a carriage and the yappy haunt, the one been following me all week, said: jump on that tiger platform and hide. So, I did.”
Julian rocked back on his heels, the relief coursing through him lethal enough to dim his vision. “You know—”
“Where Lady Piper is. She didn’t fight, but…” A tear streaked Simon’s cheek, and he turned his head to hide it. “The haunts. Godawful ones. Bloody horror the evil lady is.”
Finn picked Simon up and cradled him to his chest. “My destiny,” Julian heard him whimper.
Julian fisted his hands, wishing their gifts and the world it forced them to occupy to perdition.
“Mount up,” Ashcroft instructed his men. They were armed, thankfully, to the teeth.
However, rescuing Piper wasn’t precisely like fighting an opponent one knew well. A sane opponent. Adding an element of surprise to this campaign might deliver the superior approach, Julian decided as he swung his leg over the saddle of his black.
“Ashcroft, any chance your work with Piper has provided more control over those fires?”
“I met your grandfather many years ago. Were you aware of this?”
Piper brought her head up slowly. Too quick a movement, and she would lose consciousness. Leaving the present for even a moment could not happen again, as it had invoked her captor’s rage, lunacy unlike any she’d ever experienced.
Sidonie.
The woman chasing her for weeks through Finn’s dreams had a name. And a horrific past Piper had spent two days mired in. Being caged in Sidonie’s mind was worse punishment than being beaten and tied to a chair—worse punishment than anything she could imagine. Healing was not the word for what she’d done, stitching together Sidonie’s awareness with gossamer thread. The edges tattered and uneven, Piper had made a patchwork quilt of the mess but, impossibly, left gaping holes.
Gaping holes the woman’s sanity was draining from like blood from a wound.
But what had Piper’s skin stinging like a razor was being scraped across it: Sidonie had no aura. Only skin, bone, and madness. There was no way to save her, no matter the initial spark of hope Piper had held. No possibility for her to do anything but play this game until Julian found her.
Please, Jules, find me.
“My grandfather,” she whispered from bruised lips bruised. The room was overly warm. A fire raged in the stone hearth; the windows were closed to hold in the heat. Yet Piper shivered, tremors racking her body, the ropes binding her to the chair holding her up. The scent of Frankincense pressed, and her stomach heaved. “When?”
Sidonie paused in the middle of her trek across the room, a route she had repeated a thousand times without a hint of exhaustion slowing her. Her pupils were such a startling shade they appeared crimson in the firelight; her hair snarled, a black demon hanging down her back; her clothing well-made, speaking of affluence, but from another era. Piper shrank back helplessly as Sidonie leaned over her, the brooch she had relinquished in return for a sip of water glistening from its perch on the woman’s collar.
Devil.
No more. No more.
Sidonie thumped her hand against her chest. “Il y a longtemps. You understand?”
Piper swallowed, her head beginning to pound. Her French was dreadful. That governess had only lasted a week. “A long time?”
“Long ago.” Sidonie blew out a disgusted breath. “Senseless American.”
“A good thing…my gift is from the English side, then.”
Sidonie struck Piper across the cheek before she could prepare for the attack. With a snarl, the madwoman drew her arm back to deliver another blow.
“I can’t heal if you strike me senseless. Remember the last time?” Piper wiped the blood coursing down her chin on her shoulder, astounded her words were strong when she felt as feeble as a child. If Julian waited too long, Sidonie would kill her.
“Your grandfather was known.”
Piper gazed through the eye not swollen shut as Sidonie resumed her circuitous route. Blindfolded when they brought her in, Piper didn’t know exactly where they were. A secluded manor. South, if her sense of direction was correct, less than an hour by carriage from Harbingdon. If Finn had enough time to dream, they would eventually find her. She simply needed to keep Sidonie from putting a knife through her neck as had been threatened multiple times.
In between impassioned demands to heal.
“Known?” Piper asked, directing Sidonie back to the conversation. Talking had proven effective at diminishing her wild ranting.
Sidonie turned in a fraught swirl of aged velvet. “Known! Even in Lyon. My father had contacts who requested a meeting with the Occult Earl. An ambassador. Or maybe it was the Baron who—convoité moi—wanted me.” She waved this away as if her past were nothing. Her accent worsening with her agitation, Piper struggled to comprehend her speech. “Desperate, all of them, to keep me from an asylum. Imagine, a trip to England in the dead of winter. Froid.”
She halted, her gaze seeking Piper’s. “Your grandmother tried to help me.”
Piper straightened, gasping in pain. She had battled the knots securing her legs to the chair for hours with little success, leaving abraded, tender skin. “I was…too young to remember her.”
Sidonie gestured frantically with each pass across the carpet. “Her eyes were kind. She didn’t look at me like a, like a monstre. Like my family! Like everyone! Curse that I am, that I have, my thoughts stopped her heart.” She dropped to her knees before Piper, her passionate gaze appealing for understanding. “I didn’t mean to kill her. You must understand. You must.”
Piper shuddered. Her lungs burned, her vision blacking at the edges.
Breathe, Piper. Defenseless if you faint.
Sidonie gripped Piper’s knee, both of them trembling. “Before. Before she died, your grandfather told me there was another. Stronger. Someone to help me. Un Americain. I never forgot you were my savior. But years passed, and…your amoureux hid you well. Too, the beautiful boy. He distorted the communication traveling between us. He is not my friend.”
I can’t help you.
Sidonie took one look at the miserable validation on Piper’s face and exploded. Bounding to her feet, she set about to destroy. Pages ripped from books; porcelain tossed to the floor; paintings ripped from the wall. The guards standing in each corner observed as indifferently as those at Buckingham Palace, apparently not the first time
they had seen this feverish display.
A tear tracked Piper’s cheek. She could not survive this encounter.
Then, miraculously, smoke slipped in and stung her nostrils.
She glanced frantically into each corner as a pop set the tassels of the carpet aflame. Another spark flickered near the drapes, not strong enough to hold. Then again, this one flaring to life.
Julian had found her.
And her lessons with Ashcroft were working.
The Duke of Ashcroft’s imperfect, astounding gift was going to save her.
Chaos erupted as Sidonie’s men scattered like crocket balls across a lawn. Sounds collided: Sidonie screaming; flames roaring up the exterior wall; stone splintering. Scents invaded: scorched fabric, wood, plaster. Skin.
Dash it, she thought and began a desperate struggle, the knots binding her unrelenting.
The room was an inferno.
A hand captured her wrist, in turns tender and insistent. Startled, she peered through the haze and into Julian’s eyes, a deeper, darker grey than even the smoke. Her breath shot forth in a stunned gasp; he had the ferocious look of someone set to slay a dragon.
“Hold still.” He slipped a knife from his boot and sliced through the ropes. Without another word, he yanked her from the chair as the ceiling rained plaster chunks like snow around them. When she stumbled, he lifted her into his arms and sprinted down the hallway, shouting orders that became a tonal blur. His heartbeat pounded beneath her cheek; a button on his waistcoat dug into her ribs as she tucked into him. Coughing, she gasped for air.
Above the smoldering scent of death, she smelled Julian.
Julian, she thought and collapsed against him.
“I have you,” he whispered, “and I’m never letting you go.”
Chapter 21
They that are rich in words, in words discover. That they are poor in that which makes a lover.
~Sir Walter Raleigh
The room she awoke in was remarkably crowded. Finn, his long body looking like it sought to escape the narrow confines of the chaise lounge, slept as soundly as a babe. Minnie hummed beneath her breath as she poured tea and arranged a tray Piper prayed contained something edible. Julian and Humphrey stood by the hearth, engaged in a heated exchange.
“She’s my responsibility,” she heard Julian say.
Piper grimaced, the word cutting through her lethargy. A grown woman, she didn’t want to be anyone’s responsibility. Making sure she was adequately covered, she inched off the bed. Pain shot through her ankle as she tried to stand. Wincing, she perched on the mattress. Each part of her body ached, right down to her toes. She reached to touch. Her eye was bandaged, her lips covered with an ointment that felt delightful but smelled dreadful.
She must look an absolute fright.
Minnie gasped and hurried to her. “Coo, Lady Piper, goodness no. No walking on that bum ankle. And, oh, your face. Mirrors are not going to be your friend for a bit, love.” Turning, she glanced at the teacup she’d left too close to the edge of the tray, and it slid back with a gentle click.
Julian was there in seconds, tenderly cupping her cheek. His thumb brushed her lip, and she flinched, watching as his eyes darkened to the color of the ash that had blanketed them as they raced from Sidonie’s horror chamber. “I would kill her if Ashcroft’s fire had not taken care of that for us.”
“I’m not your responsibility,” she whispered. She wanted more. She’d meant it when she said she was finished chasing him.
His arm dropped, and he rocked back on his heels. Irritation wiped the soft smile from his face as his aura shimmered. “Yes. You are.”
She rose with help from the mattress, a crooked lean, shaking off Julian’s hand when he tried to assist. She wasn’t going to debate her life, her future, while hiding beneath bedcovers.
“I’m willing to revoke any promise I made. Risk everything—”
“She killed my grandmother, Jules.”
He stopped midstream, off-balance. “What?”
“Sidonie’s father took her to see the earl. Years ago, before you and I were there. My grandmother tried to help her.” She grasped the teacup Minnie offered, cradled it in her hands, and drank deeply. “Her heart gave out, maybe. I don’t know. You see, the earl made you promise because of what Sidonie did to my grandmother. A frail, elderly woman, Julian. I spent two days inside her mind—and I survived. I can be a partner to you. Our relationship is not an exchange. Your honor for my love. And if you think it is…”
“Ah, a lover’s quarrel,” Finn drawled from the chaise lounge. “Brilliant.”
Humphrey grunted, stoic sentry by the hearth.
Julian threw out his hand. “It’s—”
“Don’t you say it’s not,” Piper snapped. “This is our family, and if you can’t admit to them what you feel, then how can we go on?”
Silent, Julian’s jaw clenched. He hadn’t shaved in days and was halfway to a full beard, giving him the look of a brigand. A serrated, rather angry scratch ran from his ear into the collar of his shirt. Yet he stood there in shirtsleeves and wrinkled trousers, hair askew, eyes flint, looking as formidable as a king. She should be frightened but was only vexed.
He braced his hand on the bedpost, effectively locking her in. “They bloody well know what I feel for you, Piper. Everyone knows.”
“How about this for a novel idea? Tell me. Maybe I don’t know.”
“I’ve told you so many times in the past twenty-four hours, I’m hoarse with it.”
“Care to try when I’m conscious?”
“Maybe you should start this discussion by apologizing for being reckless for the last time in your life, so help me God,” he hissed between clenched teeth.
Caught in the crosshairs of her affection, she was rendered motionless, breathless.
Oh, she was over the moon for the blasted man.
“I love you, Lady Scott. Obsessively. Ardently. Maddeningly.” He slapped the bedpost. “And you know it. You always have.”
“You sound thrilled. No, make that resigned. La, the romance is killing me.”
He looked away, lips pressed, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “Can we talk about this in private, please?”
“No.”
Julian exhaled, hand going to his temple in a bruising press.
She popped her teacup atop the table, tears stinging her eyes. She was irrational. Confused. Exhausted. Forcing his hand. They had played adversarial roles for so long, she slipped back into the Scott-Alexander groove without a moment’s hesitation.
Julian had finally told her he loved her, and she was acting like an idiot!
When his gaze traveled back, his look was all intractable male. “I’m securing a special license.”
She flopped to the bed with a sniff. “That’s an abysmal proposal.”
His aura rippled like a calm pond disturbed by a boulder.
As long as she’d known him, he had handled every hardship thrown his way with enviable composure. She didn’t want to present another ordeal for a man who, truthfully, needed someone to soften the wild splash coloring his life.
But, this time, she needed him to fight for her, for them.
If she loved Julian in gross comparison, she would die a slow death.
When he realized she was not going to bend to his will, he growled to anyone willing to take on the job, “Reason with her, will you?” Then he exited her bedchamber, slamming the door behind him.
He went to the lodge to hide.
Being surrounded by the scent of turpentine and paint used to bring relief. Now lilacs and lavender invaded the space, upending his equilibrium. Add to that a thousand lewd images, and you had complete unrest. The weight of her perfectly round breast balanced in the palm of his hand. Her lids fluttering as she glided into ecstasy. Their bodies colliding into every piece of furniture in the room—and draped languorously on the floor.
And the more deadly reminiscences.
Piper lounging on his bed, his shi
rt barely covering her pert bottom, a wicked grin on her face as she debated his repeated use of green in his paintings of late. Toe grazing his as they worked together on her research, her gaze so genuinely inquisitive he was conquered. Brushing his hair from his face as he labored over the pages of her grandfather’s chronology deep into the night.
He hadn’t told her why he strived for the exact shade of emerald in those paintings. A shade he only seemed able to recreate in his dreams.
Dammit.
He’d mucked it up, a foul effort. The Reluctant Viscount apparently could not propose with any delicacy.
Where was the romance?
Hidden deep in his heart, that’s where.
He wasn’t a poet, he lamented, drawing wrapping paper around a painting of Bond Street headed to a tobacconist he frequented, one who wished to modernize his shop. At Julian’s core, he was an unpretentious man, caught up in managing the viscountcy, growing the League, working on his paintings. Protecting the motley assortment who were now his family.
He was somewhat staid, even slightly dull. He wasn’t vibrant enough for Piper, of that he was sure, but she was his, and he was not giving her up.
Helpless to fight his attraction, and with that atrocious promise standing between them, he’d mishandled the entire relationship. More than once sent them down the wrong path. Now he was willing to share every part of himself, yet, he was floundering.
Like most men, when it came down to it, he was simply a daft prick.
However, this time he might surprise her. When Beauchamp the Lionhearted made up his mind, he was as bloody stubborn as Scandalous Scott.
“She doesn’t believe you.”
Julian turned, having made a wager regarding whom he least wanted to provide counsel when counsel showed. Heartless Humphrey or chiding-with-a-smile Finn.
Obviously, the boy had lost the coin toss.
Finn closed the door with a soft snick and strolled in as if he owned the space. Sauntered from one side of the room to the other, inspecting canvases and toeing aside paintbrushes with a polished boot.