“You never checked to see what retaliation she might have done?”
Charlotte turned her head, averting her face. “I was too afraid to see the damage. In my mind, Wyreton is still well. My cousin rules the House in my stead. I prefer to imagine them all well, rather than dispersed to the winds or charred to the ground.”
With her head turned aside, he noted some bruises on her throat. Fingerprints. Chilled, he tried to keep his voice light as he stroked his fingers lightly over those marks. “Maybe next time you decide to bring out the flail you should wait until I’m here.”
She turned her head back, eyes narrowed but not enough to hide the fire smoldering in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was desire at the thought of him participating…or anger. “Are you interested in sitting on the receiving end? Or merely jealous?”
“I’ll try anything you’re interested in at least once. And I’m not jealous, dearest, only concerned. He could hurt you badly.”
She shrugged off his concerns and settled back against his chest, tucking her head up beneath his chin. “No he won’t. He’d never hurt me.”
Gil held his tongue. Any protests he made would only sound as though they came from jealousy, not concern for her safety. She didn’t believe Sig would ever hurt her.
Let alone kill her.
The thought made him clutch her tightly enough she made a low sound of protest. Loosening his arms, he kissed the top of her head. She didn’t want his protection. She didn’t believe she needed it. But he’d have to talk to Sig about this, one way or the other.
Hopefully Sig wouldn’t decide life would be easier if only one of them sailed with Lady Wyre.
Chapter Thirteen
For the first time that he could remember in a very long time, Sig wasn’t perfectly dressed.
His shirt was wrinkled and looked like he’d slept in it for days. He hadn’t bothered to tie the neck shut, let alone to knot a cravat, and he’d accidentally separated one of the sleeves from its seam in his efforts to free himself last night.
Last night.
He shuddered at the memory and paced faster, as though he could escape. There’s no escaping. I can’t escape myself.
The images and emotions were engraved in his brain, a blazing path of agonizing pleasure he didn’t want to ever follow again, but knew he would. He couldn’t stay off that path, even though it led into the darkest, wildest part of himself.
When he’d first awakened, all he could do was marvel at the silence in his head. Peace. For the first time in weeks, he felt good. Relaxed. Calm. He didn’t feel the burning itch to move, to scan his contacts mercilessly, anxious for that next contract. The next challenge. Maybe Charlie had been right. Maybe he didn’t need to take a life when that darkness began to slide over him.
Maybe all he needed was a little pain.
But then he’d seen the bruises. He must have gripped her throat at one time, hard enough he could see exactly where each of his fingers had lain on her fragile skin. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried not to see. Not to remember. But those marks blazed in his mind. All too easily, he could see the tilt of her head, his thumb forcing her chin up and aside to bare the carotid artery.
If he’d had a blade, would he have put it to her throat?
I can’t take that risk. I love her too much.
“You’re up and around early.”
At the woman’s voice, Sig whirled around, cursing himself in every language he’d ever learned across the galaxy. How had he allowed someone to sneak up on him? I’m losing my touch.
Dowager Empress Cixi inclined her head. He forced himself into a stiff, formal bow. Behind her, several attendants lined the path, awaiting her every need, whether to assist with her royal train or…
To run to her enemies with every whisper that passed her lips.
Sig knew the political game all too well, even before he’d met Charlie.
“I’m pleased to find you so easily,” Cixi continued. Sig fell into step beside her. At last. Here was his contact. Relief swept away the boulders of guilt and worry suffocating him, at least for now. He had somewhere to focus all his energy.
All his self-hatred.
His mouth twisted into something he hoped was a smile and not a miserable snarl. “Who’s the mark?”
Cixi blinked at him with such genuine shock that he smoothed his face, afraid he’d already given away too much. “You’ll have to tell me.”
Fury pulsed through him. God, I’m sick of politics. I’m sick of waiting. Just tell me whom to kill so I can leave this wretched place and put as many planets between Charlie and me as possible. Before it’s too late.
Hardening his face to granite to keep his thoughts as hidden as possible, he finally forced out, “Beg pardon?”
“I assume someone has contracted your services to assassinate His Majesty. I want to know who. And then, my dear Lord Regret, I’ll double your exorbitant fee to have you kill the person who dares even think to touch the Son of Heaven.”
His anger faded at the prospect of earning twice his fee. Plus he rather liked the young Emperor, and he couldn’t fault a mother willing to hire an assassin to protect her son. Unlike his own mother who’d rather have hurt him herself. “You’re correct that I have been offered a contract. However, I have confirmation of neither the mark nor the contractor. I thought you were my contact, Your Majesty.”
Cixi gave him a wry smile. “Technically I am, then, but only once you receive the original orders.”
“Perhaps you could give me some ideas of who might want your son eliminated?”
Her smile sharpened, her eyes flashing like daggers. “Take your pick. Prince Gong would benefit the greatest. It could either be him or half a dozen of the ministers who believe he might be easier to manage.”
Sig neglected to mention that he suspected the hirer had been female. “Easier to manage than the Emperor? Or you?”
She examined her hand as though she’d never seen it before, drawing his attention to her long, lacquered nails. She could slit a man’s throat with those talons. “I’ve made no friends while ensuring my son retains his throne. If the price is a long, hard life alone as the reviled, sharp-tongued harpy hiding in the shadows, then so be it. I’ll do anything to keep my son in his rightful place.” She pinned Sig with her glittering eyes. “Anything.”
He had to admit that he found the Empress Dowager interesting. A formidable woman was the ultimate challenge. She was clearly warning him, but perhaps not exactly as she intended. If she wanted Charlie to heal the dragon to keep her family in power, then she wouldn’t have hired the black assassins in the market. Yet that didn’t mean Cixi meant them well, either, just that she intended to get what she wanted first.
He had a feeling it was going to be very difficult to escape from Xuanyuan, even if the mark didn’t die by his hand. She was the kind of woman who’d have him do her dirty work and then sell them to the highest bidder.
“I wanted to ask your forgiveness for my comment last night.” She stared at his chest a moment and then averted her gaze. “Evidently I upset you and that wasn’t my intention at all.”
It took him a moment to remember what had been said. It was like everything that had happened before Charlie used the flail on him had been wiped from his mind. Finally he remembered the way Cixi had looked at him at the dinner, like she knew the secret needs that he himself didn’t even understand. Let alone acknowledge.
“I came to the Xianfeng Emperor’s harem when I was just a slip of a girl,” she said lightly, still avoiding his gaze. “If you’re not familiar with Zijin marriages, let me simply say that I didn’t see my husband very often, and once I bore him a son, not at all. It’s a very lonely life.”
Sig didn’t know what to say. “Honestly, Your Majesty, I’d already forgotten it.”
Her shoulders went rigid and she jerked her head around to glare at him, her eyes as hard and cold as his when he intended to kill. Too late, he realized that he’d probably insul
ted her most grievously. “Forgive me—”
She cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. “Indeed, it’s better forgotten. Let me just say that I’ve seen the way you look at Lady Wyre, and for a moment, I wished I could have had a man look at me with such hunger and violence. Have a care to keep that rage well leashed before you seriously hurt her.”
Mouth gaping, he stared as she glided back toward the palace, her attendants streaming by in her wake. She had indeed seen that darkness twisting inside him, the very thing he tried so hard to hide. Who else could see it? Did Masters sense the fine line Sig walked each and every time he went to her bed?
As the last attendant hurried by, he noticed a small, folded piece of paper on the ground.
He’d swear it wasn’t there before. He picked it up. On the outside, a swirling, elegant R. He scanned the retreating group, but no one hesitated or looked back. Cixi hadn’t hired him for the original mark, yet one of her people must have left the note for him.
He unfolded the note, unsurprised to see no name but the familiar Imperial dragon emblem. Sighing, he tucked the note into a pocket. The mark at last, but now he needed to discover the identity of the hirer so he could kill him or her instead.
If his instincts were correct and the contractor was female, then there were only three women it could possibly be who were powerful enough in the Imperial family to believe they could pull off an assassination of this caliber. With Cixi eliminated, it could only be Ci’an, Princess Rong’an or the absent Empress, Lady Alute.
If he listened to court gossip, the Tongzhi Emperor cared enough for his wife that his mother had resorted to separating them, which probably meant the woman had gained too much power. Cixi had put a stop to it by banishing the young lady to the farthest reaches of Xuanyuan. What reason could either of the other women have to murder their brother or adopted son?
Surely Cixi had the most to gain in personal power if her son was eliminated… If, and that was a big if, she was able to keep the throne and rule herself.
His caller buzzed. Distracted, he accepted the call before he noticed there was no calling signature.
Queen Majel smiled at him. “Hello, my Scorpion.”
First her rich voice sheeted his skin with ice. The last person he’d ever expected to call him was the Queen. Then that nickname hit him square between the eyes and he couldn’t breathe. It felt like she’d struck him upside the head with a sledgehammer.
Scorpion. The name his House had earned long ago while in service to House Krowe.
“I’m pleased you accepted my call so readily. I was afraid I’d have to threaten you in a message, Scorpion.”
He flinched again at that word, unable to hide his emotions. Unable to flee his past.
Queen Majel smiled wider, a shark smile of pleasure and enjoyment with each blow she struck to his soul. “Are you secure?”
Numbly, he looked about the park. No one else wandered the awful blue-green grass. She couldn’t have timed it better unless she’d bugged him somehow. For all I know, that’s exactly what she’s done.
He shivered and gave her a jerky nod.
“Good.” Her face hardened, still beautiful but now iron forged in the smithy to something terrifyingly brutal and determined. “You’ve failed me, Scorpion. Whatever would your dearly departed mother say?”
“How…” His voice quivered. He cleared his throat roughly and forced the words out even though it felt like he’d swallowed razor blades. “How have I failed you, Your Majesty?”
“The elimination of my greatest enemy,” she said chidingly. “Yet your failure will suit my purposes now.”
He took a deep breath and held it for a count of ten. Then he released it, letting all the tension flow out of his body. He’d been waiting for this call for years. Truth be told, he’d almost despaired that it’d ever come. He slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his coat, wrapping his fingers around the locket he’d carried with him since he left Britannia for good. At last, he could end this long, bloody charade. He could end it all.
“I never accepted any contract on Lady Wyre and I never shall. Let alone from you.” He paused deliberately, withholding her title as long as possible. He had a death wish, but he had much to accomplish before he could indulge it. I have to make sure Charlie gets out of this alive. “Your Majesty.”
“Have you forgotten our arrangement, Scorpion?” The Queen’s eyes flashed and she spat out that word like a curse. “I suppose you might have been too young when you left Londonium to understand the ramifications of your title.”
“That title has never been mine!”
She leaned forward, pinning him with her glittering eyes. He didn’t remember her eyes being so black and shiny. They didn’t even look real, more like shards of obsidian glass. “You inherited that title with your mother’s death, along with all duties and responsibilities for House Tudor.”
The secret he’d tried so hard to forget. The name he’d hoped Charlie would never hear. Never associate with him. “My House died with Queen Elizabeth I.”
Queen Majel tsked like he’d failed an important history lesson. “You know very well that House Tudor didn’t die when they lost the throne. The least my House could do was allow her House to continue in her memory.”
“So you could blackmail and humiliate us for generations,” Sig replied bitterly. “We’re forced to do your dirty work behind the scenes while you go about ruling the Empire.”
He’d only been thirteen when he’d stowed away on a ship and left Britannia forever, but he’d known the shame of growing up a Tudor. They’d ruined the country and lost the throne, and no one in Britannia would ever let them forget it.
Everyone hated Tudor, with reason. Though it’d never stopped all the grand lords and ladies from attending Mother’s parties in hopes they’d catch a glimpse of the next horrible crime she’d commit for Krowe. Of course it helped that Tudor always served the best wines and the finest foods, with the most luscious young people to serve, sweet and ripe for the picking.
No one threw a drunken orgy like Tudor.
She smiled. “Of course. Hence the title. You’re the Queen’s Scorpion, last living Tudor, and it’s time you honored your obligations to me.”
His face twisted with disgust, fury rising in him, choking and drowning him in shame. All those years he’d been forced to watch his mother, supposedly to learn the “trade” of House Tudor. Torture, blackmail, murder. More often than not, she’d used his father to show him how it was done.
“You were born a killer,” Queen Majel said softly. “Lord Regret. The galaxy’s most infamous assassin. Son of the Scorpion. It’s in your blood.”
“Along with madness, hatred, misery…”
“True.” Queen Majel shrugged. “Your line has never been considered stable or very sane. In fact, your family has always bred a very vicious line of sadism. As every male born to the line must bear the infamous name, I wonder, do you harbor that same twisted need, Henry Sigmund Tudor?”
She might as well have stabbed him in the heart and left him to stumble and fall into a puddle of blood. His true name. He hadn’t heard that name in…
“Or do you take more after your father? Incidentally, your mother failed me in that regard too. She was supposed to get an heir on that sweet golden boy and then eliminate him quickly, but she enjoyed playing with him too much. In the end, I suppose she even loved him, at least as much as it’s possible for a Tudor to love. Tell me, Henry, do you love Wyre as well as your mother loved your father? Or does your love run along the lines of Henry VIII’s? How many women have you killed now?”
He couldn’t seem to breathe. He tugged at his cravat, but it already hung loose about his neck. “Stop this madness.”
“I can stop the madness,” she agreed gently, her eyes beseeching and compassionate. Surely the biggest lie she’d ever tried to tell. “Do one simple task for me and the Scorpion title can fade away into eternity.”
“What…” His b
reath rasped harshly, his chest aching. I won’t ask what she wants. I can’t. But to be free of his past, to finally see the end of a bloody path of dirty deeds done in the shadows, captive to House Krowe’s every whim. Reviled through the ages, at last House Tudor could die out. The final blow he could deal to his mother. “I won’t kill her.”
“Of course not,” Queen Majel soothed. “I’d never ask you to do so. But aren’t you afraid in the slightest that you might very well commit that task without my order?”
His face ached from trying to keep all expression blanked. She can’t possibly know.
“Oh but I do, dear Scorpion.”
Had he said that aloud? His head spun and he longed for escape, a place to sit down and think, away from her all-seeing eyes. Away from the bruises on Charlie’s throat. The sting of her lash that still burned his back. She was driving him closer and closer to the edge of the ravine and he feared one of them would never walk away from it. Let it be me. Dear God, let me fall rather than her.
“I need Wyre very much alive. That’s why I cannot delay any longer, for fear you might at last execute my Royal Physician, even accidentally.”
“Alive?”
Queen Majel leaned forward and lowered her voice, even though it was just the two of them. “Alive,” she repeated. “I need her skills most desperately. No one else can help me with this matter. I must have her. Whatever happens to Zijin and this so-called Opium War the young Emperor has so foolishly instigated, she must not die.”
She knows where we are. He tried to keep that knowledge from bubbling up like acid in his eyes. Carefully, he didn’t confirm or deny their location. It wouldn’t do any good. Either she truly did know and any attempt to dissuade her otherwise would be a waste of breath, or she was fishing for clues and his denial might confirm what she suspected. “Why would you expect trouble?”
“I always expect trouble.” She smiled but her eyes didn’t soften from that piercing glare. Maybe the blackness of her eyes was highlighted by the ebony feathers framing her face. She wore so many feathers that he could barely see the golden blonde of her hair. “Especially when they’ve already challenged my authority by attempting to bar my merchants from their markets. Then they try to assassinate the very person I need in this desperate hour. No, Zijin shall not be spared my wrath for long. I have to admit that Wyre certainly has a knack for seeking out hiding places of rebellion against my Crown. If she manages to weasel out of this net, I suppose I can just wait for her to waltz into Kali Kata next.”
Lord Regret's Price: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 3 Page 14