Shadowdance: The Darkest London Series: Book 4

by Kristen Callihan

  If Jack hadn’t been well trained, he would have sagged against the wall.

  “I’ve read Ada’s file, Jack.” Will’s voice dropped. “Didn’t realize that she was one of the ones who…”

  Jesus. A strange, happy ache surged into something sharp and cutting, wonderful yet at the same time terrible. Mary had killed for him. He remembered the slight wince and darkness that had clouded Mary’s eyes when she spoke of the Nex agent. Moore had been the agent who brought her to the square.

  He cleared his throat, struggling to think of something to say, but all he wanted to do was return to Stone’s barge and… he didn’t know what he’d do. Jack did not deserve her. But he wanted to.

  After dressing in one of her older gowns, Mary found Lucien in the dining room. Like a true pirate, Lucien liked to conduct business there while lording over his feasts. She suspected the man had been starved as a form of torture at one point, for he loved nothing better than to glut himself on food. Not that it would affect his form in the least. Perhaps that was why as well, she mused, as she found him sitting at the head of the table, his booted feet resting comfortably upon the arm of a neighboring chair. There was something quite decadent about being able to indulge as one wished without fear of consequences.

  “I agree with Jack Talent’s sentiments,” Lucien said as she approached. “I am greatly pleased that you are still with us, my dear.”

  “I do not believe that was Mr. Talent’s precise sentiment.” She leaned over Lucien and gave his cheek a light peck. “However, I thank you.” She straightened, and Lucien gave her hand a fond squeeze. He loved to touch, and since she knew she’d given him a scare, she allowed it.

  “I think you underestimate Mr. Talent’s depth of feeling,” Lucien added.

  So many offerings on the table. Rolls and loaves of bread, a platter of cold meats and cheeses, cakes and biscuits, a tureen of what appeared to be hominy grits—Lucien’s favorite. Mary shuddered and moved on.

  His voice went soft. “You can always come back. I do miss you, you know.”

  He’d been the one to offer her the choice, and they had been good friends for twelve years, confidants. Remembering it now brought a lump to her throat. “I miss you too.” She smiled wryly. “Some of the time.”

  He scoffed. “Oh, well, flatter a man, will you?”

  “That would be gilding the lily, Lucien.” She grinned, then sobered. “I don’t want to come back. Nor should I. I left for your sake as much as I did for mine.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” He looked away, petulant to the last.

  “You are one hundred and twenty years old—one hundred and fifty, if you count your first life—”

  “Again with the flattery,” he muttered.

  She leveled him a look. “And yet you’ve hidden behind my skirts like a lad in short pants for a decade.” Mary lowered her voice, coaxing now, because she knew it was a tender spot with him. “We do not live within society, Lucien. You might have a life, not a perfect one, granted. But—”

  “Hidden and subversive nonetheless, eh?” he said with a humorless laugh. “That is not how I want to live, mon amie.”

  Sadness and frustration crashed within her. Lucien would never be able to live free and open. He desired men, not women. Even if the underworld did not condemn him, should any hint of improper relations reach human society, he could be imprisoned.

  “Nor does it matter,” he said quietly. “That part of me is better off dead.” An old hurt Lucien never spoke of. He was silent for a moment, and she could almost see the cogs working in his mind. A rare contemplative look passed over his features, and, as though he’d reached a decision, he straightened his shoulders and looked up at her. “Your Mr. Talent believes we are lovers. He has for some time now.”

  A childish parry if ever Mary heard one. She glared at Lucien sidelong. But the bastard merely smiled. “He is not my Mr. Talent.”

  “Whatever you say, pet.”

  Pet. That’s how he’d always thought of her. Despite missing his wry company, she was glad to be out from under Lucien’s thumb.

  Lucien grunted in apparent amusement over her pointed silence, but made no further comment on the sticky subject of Jack Talent. “Physically you are well, but are you happy, love?” He had been gracious about letting her go, but his tone implied that he second-guessed the move.

  To her horror, tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away, but the damage was done. He’d seen. “Mary?”

  “I have not been happy for some time, Lucien.” She forced a smile, though it hurt to do it. “Do you want to hear the strangest bit?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, his eyes searching her face as though he was seeing her anew.

  “Until last night, I was closer to happy than I’d been in years.” A little laugh broke from her.

  Her old friend grimaced, his hand going to his chest to rub it absently. He was silent for a long moment before he sighed, a real one, not the dramatic bit of nonsense he used to convey his displeasure or boredom. Tired eyes stared back at Mary. “I know what he did, pet.”

  Slowly, Mary turned to fully face him. “How?”

  “There isn’t much I do not know about my own people, chère.”

  “Do not hedge with me, Lucien. Why are you telling me this now?”

  To his credit he did not shy away from her. “That day on the barge when you first met Talent, I followed him and threatened to expose his prior involvement with the Nex to Ian if he didn’t make certain to stay away from you.”

  Wind knocked from her soul, Mary slumped against the high back of a chair. “He never said.”

  “No. But it is the truth.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “I was jealous.”

  “Pardon?” She hadn’t heard him correctly. Surely.

  Lucien visibly winced. “I saw the way you looked at each other. He wanted you.” His green gaze turned soft, sad. “And you wanted him.”

  A hard lump filled Mary’s throat, and she looked away. That day. She remembered it with knife-sharp clarity. And it hurt. “I thought…” She grimaced, not wanting to say the words. “He seemed different, sweet.” A half-laugh broke from her. The very idea of Talent being sweet. “But I was wrong. Talent spent the good part of four years looking down his nose at me as if I were river scum.”

  “Because I walked in that room and deliberately made him think you were my plaything,” Lucien said in a low, rasping voice. He wouldn’t look at her now.

  “Lucien…” She cleared her throat, but that only made it ache more. “I never resented acting the part of your lover.” He’d given her a new life and protected her in so many ways that she had wanted to do the same for him. Lucien’s machinations had never truly hurt her because they’d both known precisely what they were doing.

  Frowning, Lucien shook his head. “It was one thing to play that part when we were working, but that was not why I did so then. And deep down you know it. Admit it, you resent me now because of it.”

  She did. Mary closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Oh, God, she did. She’d wanted to kill Lucien that day. And she’d wanted to kill Jack Talent for believing the worst of her every day since.

  Lucien studied her face and sighed again. “Ah, mon amour, I did you such a wrong.” His booted feet hit the floor with a thunk as he rested his arms upon the table. “I do not think I realized how great until just now.”

  He looked up at her, his jade eyes imploring. “I knew he would take you from me. And I would be alone. I ought to have let him, chère. You deserved happiness, something real. I’m so very sorry for that, Mary. I miscalculated. Badly.”

  Emotion welled up within Mary, and she quelled it with a vicious clench of her jaw. “You berate yourself too harshly. Did you give him instruction as to how he ought to treat me?”

  “Well, no—”

  “I did not think you did.” Mary picked up a silver spoon, not knowing what she was doing, only that her hands shook. “
And now he says that he needs me, doesn’t want to let me go.” She laughed. “Can you imagine?”

  “Yes.”

  The spoon landed with a loud clang. “I confess, I am a novice to love, but I cannot believe one should feel this…” She punched her chest, where the deep ache would not go away. “This agony. Should one?”

  “Ah, mon amie, you are asking the wrong man. The brief glimpse I’ve had of love was a vision of pure hell.”

  Mary winced, sorry that she’d broken open that tender subject. But she could not refrain from adding, “The only thing I know for certain is that, until I allowed him certain liberties, he was content to treat me with scorn.” Until she said the words, she hadn’t fully realized how much it burned her pride. And how angry she was at Jack.

  Lucien looked as though he would argue, and Mary cut him off. “Please.” It was a rasp, desperate and pained. She blinked hard, refusing to look at her old friend.

  He was silent for a moment, then he leaned back in his seat, once more insolent and undemanding. “Very well. Tell me what happened tonight, chère.”

  Mary turned away, inspecting a lovely cornucopia of fruit spilling down the center of the table. “It was vicious, brutal.” She swallowed hard. “He drew a weapon.” Her nail edged a groove in the mahogany. “It appeared to be like a baton, with two spikes on the end. But when he touched me with it”—on a sigh, she faced Lucien again—“a bolt of pure electricity coursed through me, then I knew no more.”

  Lucien wiped a hand over his face. “Damnation.” They both knew what electricity could do to their hearts. “So”—Lucien idly tapped one toe against the edge of the table—“we now know what killed those GIM.”

  Mary wandered over to the table and selected an apple before going to the window to peer out. “And then there is Talent, who is in danger of being driven over the edge by what has happened to him.” Mary could confide that much, because Lucien knew. The blasted man knew everything, it seemed.

  “As much as I dislike the prig,” Lucien said quietly, “revenge is not always the loss of sanity, but sometimes its very balm. And if that is what all of this Bishop mess is about, then devil take the SOS and the Nex, leave it be and let the boy have at it.”

  She glanced down at the apple in her hand. “I killed tonight, Lucien.”

  The chair he sat upon creaked. “Tell me.” The command was so soft that she almost did not hear it.

  Her nail broke through the bright red apple skin with a little pop. “A Nex agent. She was one of them. Who hurt him.” Mary blinked rapidly. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “What am I thinking, chère?”

  That I’ve fallen for him. Her eyes burned but no tears came. “That I was foolish to risk so much for a man such as he. I cannot explain it well, only that I know he’s damaged, but he is not destroyed. You see revenge as a balm.” Mary shook her head, still looking at the apple. “It is a toxin. He has a family who loves him. Should he fall, they will be destroyed too.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “What is one more kill to me? I am already dead inside.”

  “No, Mary.” Lucien lurched forward. “You are not dead. And you are loved too. I love you.” He stabbed a thumb at his chest as he glared at her.

  Of course he did. Lucien had never hidden the fact. But the love of a friend, while comforting, was not enough anymore. It did not soothe the restless discomfort that pushed against her chest or quell the loneliness that seemed to grow within her each passing day.

  Her smile was wobbly. “I love you too. At any rate, I merely meant that avenging the crime against Talent hurts me less than it hurts him. Moreover, it felt good to do this thing for him.”

  That had been the strangest part. For the past two years, Mary had believed that the SOS would fill the dark void that held residence within her chest. And while it helped, she hadn’t felt as strong and as right as when she’d plunged the stake into Ada Moore. What did that make her?

  Her voice was subdued when she spoke again. “But now I find myself wondering if I should quit the SOS. I am a regulator, Lucien. It is my duty to uphold the very rules I broke.”

  Lucien’s mouth twisted. “Rules rarely take into account the stickiness of life.”

  “You always were a nonconformist,” she said weakly. Instinct and logic warred within. Right now logic was screaming that she was a fool and to end this madness and let Jack Talent dig his own grave.

  They fell into quiet. Outside, the weather slowly rolled in, and below, the Thames dulled to pewter. Mary took a deep bite of the apple, relishing the way her teeth sank into the flesh and the crisp snap of the fruit giving way. Tart-sweet flavor filled her mouth as she crunched.

  From behind her came Lucien’s snort of disgust. “That is one thing I shall not miss.”

  She turned to find him pinched-faced and glaring at the apple in her hand.

  “Lord above, woman, the way you go at those things. You’re worse than a cow with her cud.” He waved a lazy hand toward the silver cutting knife resting by the fruit platter. “Has it never occurred to you to cut your fruit like a civilized person?”

  She almost laughed but took the pleasure out on the apple. He winced at her exaggerated bite. And she smiled, her mouth full of fruit. “If the way I eat apples bothers you so greatly,” she said around the apple, which made Lucien sneer, “then why provide me with them all of these years?” It had been the one gift from him that she’d truly valued above all others, for it spoke to her pleasure rather than his vanity.

  Lucien sighed. “My dear girl, it was all I could do not to ban them from the household.” His brilliant eyes twinkled with wry amusement. “Do you honestly believe I’d provide you with the means for your disgusting habit? I thought you placed the order for those things.”

  The apple stuck in her throat, aching and burning as she forced it down with a hard swallow. It took her a moment to speak, but when she did, her voice came out rough yet weak. “You did not send gifts to my rooms? Leave fruits at my doorstep?” The week she moved out of his barge, she had received her first basket. They’d kept coming, once a week without fail. Mary had taken it as a sign of Lucien’s approval of her final step to living her own life.

  A stillness settled over the room. Lucien tilted his head slightly as he studied her. Contemplation made his voice smooth and low. “No.”

  The half-eaten apple grew heavy in her hand. “Nor figs in winter? Strawberries in the spring? Or plums and cherries in the summer?”

  A small smile crept over his mouth. “No, no, and no.”

  Mary blinked at him, unable to say a word more. A strange bitter flavor coated her tongue. Years, she’d received those gifts of fruit. She thought of the other small gifts, the ones that upon reflection did not fit with Lucien’s grand gestures. The thick mackintosh overcoat the year it rained incessantly, the fine set of steel quill nibs that showed up when she broke one of hers, a flagon of spiced wine on Christmas day. For years, at least four…

  Dizzy, she leaned against the wall, her arm pressing against the cool window. “But…”

  Lucien’s voice held a hint of teasing as he softly sang, “Somebody has an admirer.” He leaned farther back in his chair and laced his hands over his stomach. “Now who could it be?” His toe tapped faster now. “Oh, surely not that angry shifter who nearly tore my head off when I went searching for your key?” He tutted, but his eyes held Mary’s. “After all, he has hated you for all these years.”

  The apple fell from Mary’s fingers and hit the floor with a juicy thwack. Whatever else Lucien said fell on deaf ears as she stalked out of the room.

  Chapter Thirty

  If the light glowing in his bedroom window was any indication, Jack was still awake. Which was preferable, for despite her turmoil, Mary hadn’t the heart to creep up on him while he slept. Jack was proud, but had not stopped the staff at Ranulf House from gossiping about his vocal nightmares. In hindsight, that more than anything was the likely reason for his decampment to a home
of his own.

  In cowardly fashion she hovered by the gatepost, silently cursing her unmoving feet. Everything would change if she went into his house. She knew it on a visceral level. What she did not know was if she wanted the change. Nor if she’d be welcome, after the way she’d tossed his declarations back in his face.

  “Only one way to know, you ninny.” Taking a deep breath, Mary let herself in through the back door and made her way up the stairs. Darkness steeped the house in tones of blue and black, and the only sound came from the hall clock ticking and the countermeasure of her heart clicking. She did not attempt to be quiet, nor did she stomp about with her displeasure. He’d scent her coming at any rate, probably had been aware of her a block out. Even so, her breath was stilted, and her heart whirred faster as she carefully mounted each riser.

  A sliver of golden light marked his door. No movement from beyond it. Only stillness and Jack Talent waiting. Even though she yearned to, she did not pause at the threshold but boldly put her hand on the doorknob and opened it.

  Most people read in a chair. Not so for Jack. No, he sat, tucked up in the middle of his pasha’s bed, saffron silk pillows piled behind his head, a blue velvet duvet over his lap. Clearly he read there often, for a small table and reading lamp were set up just next to the bed. Lamplight cast his skin in honey gold.

  That glorious torso of his was once more unveiled. Lovely, sculpted, built for strength and endurance. Her body tightened, and her lungs seized. It had been one thing to see him when she thought him unaware. It was quite another to face him in the flesh. And he was looking at her, as if he too knew the significance.

  Her lips parted, but no sound came. It was not resentment that darkened his eyes, but a hint of fearful resignation, as though he waited for the ax to fall. Yet beneath it all, something simmered like yearning, only stronger. It was that need, so carefully tamped down and controlled, and so much like hers, that tugged at her soul. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything more than take a step farther into the room.