by Gaelen Foley
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded, reached into the storage bench again, and pulled out a brown clay jug wrapped in a kitchen towel.
“What’s that?”
“Mulled cider, still warm—courtesy of one Grimsley, my butler.” He took out two tin traveling cups, then closed the bench and sat back down. As she tucked the lap blanket around herself, he uncorked the jug and poured her a bit of warm, steaming apple cider.
Its sweet cinnamon fragrance filled the carriage, and Serena stared at her companion in wonder, stunned by his solicitude.
“Oh, wait—how could I forget?” After carefully handing her the mug, Azrael dug back into the bench and brought out a tin with a boyish glint in his eyes.
Removing the lid, he revealed a sugar-dusted batch of golden Scottish shortbread. She looked at it, then at him with a sense of unreality. This was the man some people claimed was evil like his father?
“Take one,” he urged her.
“You spoil me,” she uttered, trying to hide her astonishment.
“I have a whole hamper of food for us here if you’re hungry.”
“Er, no. This is lovely for now,” she said, taking an offered piece of the crumbly shortbread.
After all, everybody knew it went perfectly with cider.
Serena couldn’t take her eyes off her host as he got himself situated with a similar snack.
And, just like that, from the cold and gloom of the morning beyond the curved walls of the coach, inside, it had suddenly grown altogether cozy.
They ate their shortbread, smiling at each other.
“So,” she said at length, “where are we going, then?” She did not say so aloud, but this was the most fun she’d had since her world was upended by Toby’s revelations.
It almost felt like they were eloping.
Maybe we should. She chased off the rogue thought. “Where is Owlswick, exactly?”
“Buckinghamshire.” His tone turned businesslike. “The village of Owlswick lies near West Wycombe, in the Chiltern Hills. It’ll take us about four hours to get there. My father’s country house is situated a stone’s throw west of the village. I figure we’ll stop halfway there and let the horses rest. We’re sure to come upon a decent coaching inn or some such.”
“That sounds fine.” She paused, frowning. “What if someone sees us there together?”
He shrugged. “Then we’ll have to tell them a Banbury tale of some sort.”
She arched a brow. “Such as?”
“You’re abducting me?” he suggested, then crunched his biscuit.
She laughed. “Yes, let’s use that. I’m carrying you off to Gretna Green against your will. Forcing you to honor our childhood betrothal.”
“And using my own carriage to kidnap me! So rude.”
“Yes, I am quite diabolical. But you had it coming,” she replied.
“Mm,” he said skeptically, though his eyes danced, and the color was high in his cheeks.
“We’ve cleared the city, sir!” his driver called back to them a few minutes later.
“Thank you, Paulson,” Azrael shouted back, immediately lifting the blind nearest him.
Serena followed suit. When she looked out the window, she beheld a drab, moody landscape of farms and fields, the spiky branches of bare hedgerows, a distant village and its steeple still veiled in mist.
Nearer the country road along which they rumbled, dingy sheep in thick winter wool grazed in pastures enclosed by brooding stone fences.
It was a contemplative scene, with a pensive beauty, Serena thought.
Not unlike the man across from her. Of course, he hid his nigh-poetic sensitivity fairly well behind his veneer of worldly cynicism. But his house, his reticence, his solitary habits gave him away.
If she had not already loved unusual people, she would’ve developed a fondness for them after meeting him, Serena decided.
“So,” he said. Having finished his snack, he rested his arm along the cushioned back of the seat. “Did you have any trouble getting away this morning?”
“No.” She took off her bonnet, since they had a long way to go.
“What did you tell your chaperone?”
“That I’d be spending the day helping my friend Lady Portia Tennesley organize and plan more of her wedding details, along with the other bridesmaids. Do you know her?”
“No.”
“She lives on Moonlight Square, Azrael.”
“I don’t know anybody,” he said.
“Well, we shall have to fix that,” she declared, and he frowned. “Anyway—my dear Portia is afflicted with a bad case of wedding madness. She’s getting married next Season and is quite determined to have the wedding of the decade.”
“Oh really?”
“Today, we—the bride and a few close friends, chaperoned by Portia’s married elder sister—will supposedly be visiting possible locations for the reception, choosing card stock for the invitations, debating fonts, and possibly Wedgwood patterns for the china, if we can get to it. Then taking supper at a tea shop.”
“I see.”
“Naturally, Cousin Tamsin wanted no part of this lengthy excursion.”
“I can’t imagine why,” he drawled. “It sounds positively riveting.”
She tried to give him a stern look, and failed. “When I asked permission last night, Tamsin declined the invitation to join us, just as I knew she would, and cried off, telling me she needed to spend today reading some novel to get ready for Lady Delphine’s book club tonight.”
“She’s going to read a whole novel in one day?”
“Oh, she does it all the time. She’s a famous bookworm. Anyway, the point is, she’ll have already left for Lady Delphine’s before I get home, so we’ll miss each other.”
“Crafty girl,” he whispered with a half-smile.
“I don’t mean to be.” Serena sighed. “I do hate lying to Cousin Tamsin. She’s such a good, sweet, unsuspecting soul. But alas, as I said, I fear I am my mother’s daughter.”
Azrael smiled at her. “Your deception would not have been necessary if Lady Dunhaven would’ve answered your questions, as she ought.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.” Serena looked away with a nod, thinking. Then she glanced at him again. “Speaking of Mother and all of that unpleasantness, I was wondering, when we reach Owlswick, will we have a chance to see the barrow that started all this? I should like to, if we can.”
“It all depends on the time,” he said with a shrug. “We should arrive about eleven. Our main objective then will be to find the group’s box of records hidden somewhere on my father’s estate.”
She tilted her head.
He explained: “There is a small trunk of secret books and papers, journals and ledgers and so forth, that should contain information about who was involved in the, er, club—if we’re calling it that.”
“What would you call it?” she asked.
“Cult? Coven? Crime ring?”
“Oh,” she said faintly, startled.
He gazed at her for a moment, taking in her uneasy expression. “At the very least, there should be some financial records among these papers that will show indisputably who was involved then. Records of things like illegal business dealings, bribes and extortion payments.”
“Good God.” Serena shrank down in her seat a bit and pulled her cashmere shawl closer. “Are you saying this was actually all about money?”
“No, power.” Azrael fixed her with a probing gaze, his pale eyes wise and secretive as those of the mythical sphinx.
“It all sounds very nasty,” she murmured.
“You have no idea.” He glanced out the window at the stubbly cornfield where a murder of crows had descended, pecking for scraps. “If we get especially lucky, we might even find some letters they exchanged. That sort of communication, I should think, is more likely to contain the kind of gossip about who was bedding your mothe— Never mind.” He looked at her, wincing at his bluntne
ss. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she said with a sigh.
“Anyway, all I have to do once we get there is figure out where Lord Stiver would’ve hidden their treasure trove of dirty secrets after my father died. I’m sure he’d want easy access to it when necessary, but he would not have risked putting it somewhere that anyone else could possibly stumble across it, God knows.”
“Who’s Lord Stiver?”
“My father’s top toady, or henchman, if you prefer. His right-hand man.” Azrael gazed out the window. “I always thought the earl was almost…I don’t know, a little in love with my father in some strange way.”
She cocked a brow. “You don’t say.”
“He was fanatically devoted to the blackguard. Believed everything he said, like he was some sort of earthbound god. Naturally, my father trusted him—and my father didn’t trust anyone, believe me. That’s how Lord Stiver became my legal guardian after Father died.”
“Oh,” she said.
Azrael fell silent for a moment. “Stiver is their leader now, if they’re still up to their old mischief. For all I know, they could be done with all that by now.” He paused. “Perhaps they’ve outgrown it.”
“One hopes.”
“I sincerely doubt it, though. Because, if there was one rule, as I understand it—once you’re in, you never get out.”
Serena furrowed her brow. “Yet my parents did. I wonder how.”
He shook his head. “I’ve wondered that, too. But I must warn you: I don’t think you’ll like the answer to that question, either, if we can ever learn it.”
She nodded, chilled with a deepening sense of uneasiness. “It doesn’t matter whether I like it or not. All I care about is finally knowing the truth.”
“Well, I can certainly respect those sentiments,” he murmured.
An awkward silence descended.
“Are you warm now? Comfortable?” he asked.
“Yes, quite, thank you.”
He nodded then took off his greatcoat. Between the lap blanket and the hot cider, Serena felt toasty enough in the carriage by now to do the same. She was eager for him to see her carriage dress, after all the trouble she’d gone to choose the blasted thing.
She was gratified when his admiring glance flicked over her body. He turned his gaze out the window once more, as though to stop himself from staring at her.
“Oh, look at that rowdy lot,” he said, pointing out a passel of rosy-cheeked peasant children playing in a field, taking turns leaping off the top of a turnstile.
Serena chuckled as she looked out the window. “They seem to be enjoying themselves.”
The children noticed their carriage then as it swept along on this flat, lonely stretch of road. Pointing and exclaiming at the beauty of Azrael’s magnificent black horses, the children started waving madly to their coach as if Queen Charlotte herself were passing by.
Laughing, Azrael and Serena waved back, but didn’t stop.
“Oh, I meant to tell you,” he said after they had left the children some distance behind, “I met your ex-suitor.”
Serena’s eyes widened. “You did?”
“Yes.” He paused, gazing wryly at her. “I went to see Lord Toby at his coffee shop.”
“Why?” she asked.
“So protective!” he said, his pale, wolfish eyes dancing. “Don’t worry, I didn’t hurt the dear lad. I just wanted to make sure he understood the need for secrecy about his discoveries.”
“Did you terrify him, Azrael?”
“I don’t know! Maybe. Well, it wasn’t on purpose.” He gave an innocent shrug. “You tend to terrify people without even trying when you’re named after the archangel of death. But that is hardly my fault.”
She sighed. “Very well. Out with it, then, since you must be dying to comment. What did you think of him, the bounder who cast me off like a smelly old shoe?”
“Honestly? I rather liked him. He has an endearing sort of innocent quality about him, hasn’t he?”
“Oh, I know!” she exclaimed, clutching her heart with a fond wince.
Azrael stared at her for a beat. “I got my copy of his book signed. I must say, though, now that I’ve met the man in person, I am all the more perplexed. You really must explain.”
“Explain what?”
“Of all your admirers, why on earth him?”
“Didn’t we already discuss this?” she asked, blushing, though the twinkle in his eyes was hard to resist. “Yes, I’m sure we did. In that bedroom of yours.”
“Maybe, but I’m afraid I am still not satisfied with your answer, my lady.”
“Oho, Your Grace!” she said, laughing, as he held her in a placid, stubborn gaze.
“All the less so now that I’ve met him,” he added. “Besides, we’re stuck in this carriage for the next four—no, three hours now. What else is there to talk about? Politics? Great world events? Mathematics, perhaps?”
“Oh, God no.”
“Well then? Confess. Of all the rich and handsome eligible bachelors who follow you around, you chose a silly-headed commoner like Lord Tobias Guilfoyle as your favorite, because…?”
Serena harrumphed. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were jealous, Your Grace.”
“Maybe I am,” he replied matter-of-factly, and crunched another shortbread.
She held his gaze for a second, unsure how to react. Then she saw the crumbs tumbling down his chest. “Oh, look at you,” she mumbled fondly. Leaning across the space between them, she brushed some golden fragments off his warm, muscled chest.
Azrael stopped chewing at her light touch, staring at her.
Her pulse leaped and her blood heated as she saw the quickening interest in his silvery eyes.
But then she remembered her precarious situation, alone with him in a carriage in the middle of nowhere. Unchaperoned. Best not to tempt the tiger. She sat back slowly with a gulp and was suddenly glad to have another topic to distract her from the sudden flapping of the butterflies in her belly.
Toby, she reminded herself. Ah, yes, right. He wanted to know about her relationship with her ex-beau.
She shook her head slowly, trying to focus. “I don’t know. I suppose I appreciated the fact that he was always kind to me.”
“Lots of men are kind to you, I’m sure.” His voice had dropped to a low purr.
She faltered. “I suppose that’s true enough. As I said, it’s hard to explain—” She cast about for words. “He’s such a quiz, and I like—I like to feel needed.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Very well. The jury will accept that. Still. I think there is more to it. Continue.”
“Azrael!”
“Serena.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Merely the truth. You claim that’s so important to you, after all.”
“Toby loved me.”
Azrael said nothing, just crunched his shortbread.
His silence spoke volumes; she realized with astonishment that he didn’t believe her. She was almost indignant…
Until she realized perhaps he was right.
If Toby really had loved her, he would not have quit the match over something as absurd as money and some made-up, idiotic curse.
But on the other hand, she realized slowly, if she had really loved him, she would not have let her true love walk away.
“Oh hell,” Serena mumbled, sitting back in her seat, suddenly morose.
“It’s all right,” he murmured with a smile. “I understand.”
“You do?” she retorted. “Please explain it to me, then.”
“You were never in love with him. He was merely safe for you.”
She made a small, pouty sound of distress, retreating to lean in the corner of her seat, and scowling at him a bit. But she did not deny it.
Mother had taught her well to marry a man she could manage.
“Come, darling, you think he didn’t know?” Azrael asked gently. “We men may be dunces in matte
rs of the heart, especially me, but we’re not blind. I daresay our literary friend is clever enough to have realized the deficit in your womanly affections for him. He didn’t want to make you unhappy in your marriage. That’s probably got more to do with his ‘jilt’ of you than any so-called curse.”
She stared at him, taken aback.
“I hope that helps to soothe any hurt you might still be feeling about the loss.” Azrael held her in a caressing gaze. “Frankly, I think he did you a favor, kicking you out of the nest.”
“The nest?” His words startled and confused her. “What, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?”
“You were too comfortable with him. He didn’t challenge you. He didn’t excite you,” he added, holding her stare, and her pulse leaped.
The way you do, you mean?
She could feel her cheeks heating, and dropped her gaze. “Well,” she said, trying to hide her reaction. “Your Grace certainly seems to know a great deal about the mysteries of love. And yet you are not married yourself. Hmm.”
“I never claimed to be an expert.” He frowned, his chiseled face flushing slightly. “I merely observe humanity…and all its foibles.”
“From a safe distance,” she said.
He snorted, hesitated, and when she arched a brow at him, he laughed ruefully and said, “Indeed.”
He was, she thought, absolutely charming when he smiled like that. It was like the winter sun peeking through the leaden gray clouds.
“Have you ever been in love, Azrael?” she asked after a moment.
He lowered his gaze and frowned, silent for a moment, as though dutifully searching his memory. “I’m sure I must’ve been once or twice, over the years.” He shrugged, looking unconvinced.
“So.” Serena decided to push her luck. “What about that woman, the actress, from the night of the masked ball? Miss Burns. Has she become your mistress now?”
He looked at her with astonishment. “God, you are impertinent!”
“We are long past the niceties, Your Grace, I daresay,” she said, laughing. “Just tell me. Is she yours now, after being Netherford’s?” She took another dainty bite of shortbread.