Stranger

by Zoë Archer

“Good morning.” A fair start. “I trust you … ah … slept well.” Too familiar? Not familiar enough? “That is, I hope I didn’t wake you. When I rose. To work.” Which only confirmed the fact that he was, and would always be, too idiosyncratic for any woman to accept.

  Gemma, however, smiled, unperturbed. “Mm, I slept very well. Thanks to your very skilled hands.” Her smile turned sultry.

  Oh, Lord. “Ah. Thank you. Likewise.”

  Thank you? Likewise? Catullus squeezed his eyes shut, mortified by his ineptitude. He wondered if the innkeeper kept any hemlock.

  But either Gemma did not notice his social clumsiness or did not care, because she asked smoothly, “Was it a productive night?”

  “By ‘productive,’” he began, cracking open his eyes, “do you mean—?”

  “Work.” She pointed to the small leather case that held his tools, resting atop a wooden table. He had, in fact, only just packed the tools up minutes before she appeared. “I imagine sleeping only a few hours a night gives you many more hours to work on your remarkable inventions.”

  He brightened. “Yes! Some of my best creations are constructed in the predawn hours, before everyone else is up.”

  “No distractions.” She nodded with approval. “I’m too lazy to get up before the sun, but I’m sure it would make me a hell of a lot more prolific.”

  Scowling, Catullus said, “You’re not lazy. Certainly no one who is lazy would have forged a career for themselves in a hostile environment, which is exactly what you’ve done.”

  She appeared momentarily taken aback by his vehemence, as well as his praise; then she smiled again and the lovely sight tugged hard on his chest. “Thank you,” she said. “Likewise.”

  He hesitated, unsure whether she was mocking him. She winked.

  The tug on his chest turned into something else—a lightness with which he was unfamiliar.

  Astrid and Lesperance chose that moment to stride into the taproom. Both wore matching expressions of alert focus, and, based on appearances alone, one would never have known that they had spent a goodly portion of the night engaged in some very—what was the word Gemma used?—passionate activities. Catullus, however, had been treated to their uninhibited sounds on and off during the night for the second time in his life. He flushed to see Astrid now, trying to block the mental images.

  She was one of Catullus’s closest friends, yet listening to her making vigorous, ardent love made him consider developing advanced earplugs, or soundproof wall material, or both.

  Considering the speculative glance Astrid sent toward him and then Gemma, he wondered if maybe his old friend had heard a few things of her own last night. His flush deepened. He had never been an exhibitionist.

  He found refuge in command. “Everyone rested? Good. We’ll have a quick breakfast, and then we must leave. There’s a hard day’s travel ahead.” He consulted his pocket watch, then shut it with a decisive snap. “Every minute not spent on the road means the greater likelihood of disaster.”

  Urgency meant they needed horses. Impossible to reach Glastonbury in time on foot. But the only horses to be found in the village were as old as its human inhabitants, so there was the loss of an impatient hour to reach a stable with horses to hire. Astrid was the best judge of horseflesh, and she selected three strapping, eager mounts.

  They led the snorting horses away until they were a goodly pace down the road. A small wooded stand provided a bit of necessary shelter.

  “There are four of us,” Gemma noted, casting a glance at the three mounts.

  “I won’t need a horse,” answered Lesperance. He had already begun loosening his clothing as he strode toward the cover of the trees. This had to be out of respect for Gemma, since Catullus and most definitely Astrid had already seen Lesperance unclothed in preparation for his transformation.

  Catullus watched Gemma’s face as she stared at Lesperance’s retreating back. Lesperance had whipped off his jacket and his shirt was being tugged off to reveal the sharply muscled expanse of his shoulders. She blushed as her eyes widened. Catullus scowled.

  Here was something new: jealousy.

  Ridiculous for Catullus to be jealous of Lesperance. If ever a man was entirely devoted to one woman, it was Lesperance, whose love for Astrid obliterated everything. And the sentiment was returned with the same vehemence. Astrid had loved her late husband, but this bond she now shared with Lesperance glowed white-hot and eternal.

  And Catullus and Gemma had spent only one night together. An incredible and awkward night, but just one. He hadn’t even slept under the covers with her.

  So there was no rational explanation for Catullus’s surge of possessiveness. None at all. That didn’t stop him from glowering and wanting to plow his fist straight between Lesperance’s shoulder blades. Instead of falling to Catullus’s imagined punch, Lesperance disappeared behind a tree.

  With her own far-too-perceptive glance, Astrid took in Gemma’s reaction to Lesperance, and Catullus’s scowl. She raised a brow in silent question at Catullus, and he turned away, pretending to rifle through his bags.

  Moments later, an avian shriek unfurled, and a red-tailed hawk flew from behind the tree. Astrid held out an arm. The bird perched there, accepting Astrid’s strokes along its feathered throat with a series of soft chirps that could only be described as contented.

  Gemma slowly approached, her wide gaze fastened on the hawk. “Is that …?”

  “Yes, it’s Nathan.” Astrid smiled warmly at the bird. “He’ll scout for us, and if he sees any trouble ahead, he’ll let us know.”

  The hawk chirped again.

  “How will he know where to go?” Gemma pressed. “Has he ever been to Glastonbury before?”

  “No,” answered Astrid. “But I have, and so he’ll know.”

  Gemma turned confused eyes to Catullus, seeking an explanation.

  Still riled, disturbed by his own jealousy, he gritted, “The bond they share. It enables them to find one another.”

  Gemma nodded with growing understanding. Wonder lit her face, and she glowed with delight at this newest discovery. “Like a homing beacon.”

  “Something like that,” Astrid murmured, scratching just beneath the hawk’s beak. The bird’s eyes shut, rapturous.

  “Ready?”

  The hawk bobbed its head. Astrid gave a small push with her arm, and the bird took to the air with a few beats of its powerful wings. Everyone watched the ascent, until the hawk became a tiny, wheeling fleck against a pearl gray sky.

  “That must be wonderful,” Gemma breathed. “I’ve always wanted to fly.” She turned to Catullus. “Have you ever built a flying contraption? Is such a thing possible?”

  “I have and it is,” he answered with a small sliver of pride. He might not possess magic, nor a younger man’s physique, but no one disputed his ingenuity. “Bennett Day used it in Greece not too long ago. Still needs refinement, though.”

  And he felt a gleam of satisfaction when Gemma looked up at him with genuine respect. Different, too, from the usual looks he received, especially from women, who were occasionally intimidated. Often mystified, as if he’d wandered in from the bottom of the ocean to display his gills and drip on the floor.

  “I’d like to see that,” she whispered. “Maybe when this is over …”

  Reality returned with a snap. There might not be anything after the battle with the Heirs. A battle they might be able to avert if they reached Glastonbury in time. He had his duty to Blades. And to Gemma, to keep her safe. Which meant there wasn’t a moment to waste on his fumbling attempts at flirtation.

  “You can ride astride?”

  Gemma blinked at Catullus’s abrupt change of topic, but recovered quickly. “Yes—there weren’t many sidesaddles in the Northwest Territory.”

  “Good. Mount up.” He gave a clipped nod and turned away, his mind already miles down the road.

  Hard travel taxed the horses and the riders, but as the hours and miles rolled past, alternating betwe
en a run and a brisk trot, Catullus pushed everyone—especially himself—even harder. Glastonbury was still half a day away. He saw with a strategist’s eye the familiar English landscape unfold around him: its gently undulating hills dotted with bare trees rattling in the late-autumn winds that offered little shelter against a possible attack, the exceedingly domestic villages and towns that had to be skirted, those stretches of road bound by hedgerows that left the travelers far too exposed for his liking.

  Yet he wasn’t alone in his vigil. Astrid was at all times aware of her surroundings, and Lesperance kept watch from the sky. Even Gemma, a stranger to the way of the Blades, never relaxed into complacency as she bent low over her horse’s neck. Catullus allowed himself a moment’s distraction to watch Gemma ride.

  She had a natural confident grace in the saddle, despite her skirts bunching as she rode astride. Though she wasn’t a toughened mountain woman like Astrid, Gemma commanded a supple strength all her own. He recalled lucidly the satiny, bright feel of her legs beneath her nightgown and cursed himself for his vivid imagination when his body responded to the mental image. Arousal and horseback riding made for a bruising combination.

  Shortly before midday, a hawk’s cry drew them all to a halt.

  “Heirs.” Astrid squinted up at the sky, where Lesperance wheeled and banked overhead in a sequence of intricate circles. Catullus at once detected a pattern in the hawk’s movements. “One mile up, at the junction of two major roads. Three men on horseback. There’s a bridge that spans a river, and they’re on it.”

  Gemma also looked up, shading her eyes with her hand. “You worked out a communication system ahead of time.”

  “A simple code. Easier this way, so he needn’t go through the bother of landing and transforming into a man.” Astrid turned to Catullus. “Suggestions?”

  Standing up in the stirrups, Catullus took in the surrounding landscape, gauging exactly what could get them past the Heirs without going too far out of their way. Rerouting even a few miles could cost time that wasn’t theirs. Then he saw the solution.

  “There.” He pointed toward a narrow river cutting through the vale. “That’s the river over which the bridge spans. The Heirs will be watching the roads, but not the water.”

  “Will we be able to sneak past them without being seen?” asked Gemma, but there was no fear edging her words.

  Catullus smiled. “I’ve got a way to ensure their attention is elsewhere.” He glanced at Astrid. “Tell Lesperance to land. I have a job for him.”

  “Don’t think anyone can tell Nathan anything,” Astrid murmured wryly. Yet she pulled from her coat pocket a heavy Compass, then used its polished surface to send a signal up to Lesperance.

  Gemma peered at the Compass, curiosity illuminating her face. With her sharp journalist’s eye, she couldn’t have failed to notice the Compass’s unusual design, its metal casing covered with fine engraving, the four blades that marked the cardinal directions. Catullus saw Astrid’s use of it now as a sign of her growing trust in Gemma, for the Compass was closely guarded by the Blades.

  “That’s the Compass,” Catullus said in answer to Gemma’s unasked question. “All Blades carry one as a badge of office and means of identification.”

  “Including you?”

  “Of course. It’s our most prized possession. My great-great-grandmother Portia created the very first Compass.”

  Gemma chuckled ruefully even as she shook her head at Portia’s innovation. “It’s claimed my great-great-grandfather Lucca created a fountain that endlessly poured wine, but no one was ever able to prove it.”

  “Endless, hm? I’ll have to work on that. Could prove profitable.”

  “It wasn’t for great-great-grandfather Lucca. They say that when he died, he owed money to at least seven men and three women.”

  “Women?”

  “A handsome man, Lucca. A little too handsome.”

  They shared a smile just as Lesperance alit on Astrid’s outstretched arm. Reluctantly, Catullus turned from Gemma to address the hawk—a process he still wasn’t used to, speaking with an animal that wasn’t truly an animal but a man. Sometimes, he thought with an inward sigh, it was deuced difficult to reconcile science with magic.

  Nevertheless, he asked blandly, “Ever spooked a horse, Lesperance?”

  The hawk gave a small cry that could only be described as eager. It seemed that Lesperance had lost none of his rebellious spirit.

  Hidden behind a bend in the shallow river, Catullus, Gemma, and Astrid watched the bridge. It was a newer iron bridge, thirty feet above the river. Normally, Catullus liked to study bridges, contemplate what the engineer had attempted and whether the effort could have been improved. Not a few coins in the Graveses’ coffers came from helping to build bridges just like this one. Bridges ensured that the grinding poverty of rural life could be alleviated through regular deliveries of food and modern convenience.

  Today, however, Catullus wasn’t scrutinizing the bridge, but the men on it. Three of them, mounted, their expensive horses gleaming with the obsessive care that only wealth and privilege could afford. The men surveyed the road, attentive to anyone who might pass. Catullus, mounted on a much more economical horse, watched the men through his spyglass.

  “Are they really Heirs?” Gemma whispered.

  “Costly clothing, de rigueur moustaches, autocratic posture, and aura of entitlement.” Catullus ticked off a list of attributes. “Those are most assuredly Heirs.”

  “I don’t understand how they knew we would be here.”

  “They knew we abandoned the train and likely have men scattered throughout the area.”

  “Do you recognize any of the bastards?” growled Astrid. She, more than any Blade, had a personal vendetta against the men who killed her husband and tried to capture and torture her years later. “Is Bracebridge or Gibbs with them?” Her hand strayed to her coat, where her revolver waited.

  “No.” Thank God. As dedicated as Astrid was to their mission, Catullus wasn’t certain she wouldn’t give their position away by simply shooting either Bracebridge, the mage who tried to kill Lesperance, or Gibbs, one of the two men personally responsible for Michael Bramfield’s death. “And they all start to look the same after a while. Pompous and self-congratulatory.” He shut the spyglass and returned it to his saddlebag. “There’s Lesperance.”

  Sure enough, Lesperance swung his hawk form down from the sky and disappeared behind several buildings lining the road. Then, in a burst of silver and black fur, a huge wolf darted out and ran straight toward the bridge.

  The Heirs’ overbred horses sensed the wolf before their riders. At once, the animals began to rear up, whinnying in terror. The Heirs tried to rein in their horses, lashing them brutally with their riding crops as they shouted for control. Before the mounts could be restrained, the wolf snarled and charged. This proved too much for the poor, skittish horses, who had likely never seen a wolf, especially one so enormous. All three horses bolted, tearing off the bridge and down the road, their riders clinging to their backs. There wasn’t even time for any of the Heirs to draw a weapon and fire at the wolf.

  “Now!” Catullus commanded.

  He, Gemma, and Astrid urged their own horses into a swift canter, darting through the river and underneath the bridge. Water splashed up as they sped down the center of the river, the horses’ hooves clattering on the rocky river bottom. But it didn’t matter how much noise they made. The Heirs would be halfway to Torquay before they regained control over their terrified mounts.

  As Catullus, Gemma, and Astrid raced through the river, Lesperance appeared in hawk form to fly alongside them. He gave a victorious cry, and they all shared a brief smile of triumph. So many obstacles, many of them deadly, lay ahead. None of them truly knew what did await them. A consciously reckless plunge into the unknown.

  Everyone needed to savor whatever victory they could, however transitory. And Catullus’s gratification came not just from thwarting the Heirs, but also
from Gemma’s smile.

  Chapter 7

  Question and Answer

  “We stop to eat and rest,” Catullus said, hours later. He slowed his horse, and Gemma and Astrid did the same. There was one other member of their party. Gemma looked up to see the red-tailed hawk bank and then alight upon a tree branch. The hawk watched as the horses came to a stop in a sheltered glade.

  She still could hardly believe that animal was actually Lesperance. She thought she knew about magic, but so much existed beyond what she was coming to learn was her own limited scope. A good deal of magic remained a mystery to her. But she had a feeling that she’d learn more, much more, before too long. The thought frightened and thrilled her.

  Right now, however, she just wanted off this damned horse.

  She’d been shipbound and idle for too long. Her bottom ached from nearly a full day in the saddle. She needed to relieve herself. She was hungry.

  Her complaints went unvoiced. Whining never did anyone any good, and Gemma was determined to show the Blades of the Rose that she could be as tough and resilient as any of them. Astrid continued to warily scrutinize her. And Catullus …

  As everyone dismounted—Gemma fighting not to wince—she gazed at Catullus. He moved with athletic grace, and surveyed the glade with a strategist’s eye, sure and alert. Astrid asked him a question about distance and travel to Glastonbury, and he answered with a ready air of authority and command. When he caught Gemma looking at him, he smiled; then his smile faltered as if he became aware of himself. He glanced away, removing and polishing his spectacles with a spotless handkerchief. Once the already-clean lenses gleamed, he busied himself with tying up his horse, and wouldn’t meet her eyes again.

  This, from the man who’d touched her intimately, who’d given her a devastating climax with his extraordinary, wonderful hands! Such a damned puzzle.

  Once her own horse had been secured, Gemma started toward the shelter of some bushes. Catullus appeared, blocking her path.

  “Where are you going?” he demanded.