Marissa Day (23 page)

“Exactly.” Jane bent her lips into a smile, showing how glad she was they were in agreement. “So, you see, not only would I not have time to orchestrate any significant change, I will have no reason to do so. Equally, as I intend to leave quietly and quickly, I don’t suppose there would be any reason for any person to interfere with my going, or with anything I might do afterward.”

“I could not imagine any such reason,” Conroy replied, and they looked each other in the eyes, and that was that. The bargain was made. She would leave, he would not interfere and the papers need never be seen, by anyone who mattered.

“Then I shall bid you good evening, Captain, and let you get back to your business.”

“Good evening, Lady Jane.” He undid the latch and opened the door again. As she passed, he bowed his head, acknowledging that she had played well, and that he was letting her retire. It was a little like having a wolf watch her remove herself from its den.

As soon as the door shut between them, Jane closed her eyes and breathed out a long sigh in relief. She did not permit herself any other outward show, but moved down the corridor, heading for the stairs and her own room.

It had begun. There was no retreat now. A strange warmth flooded through her. She would be with Thomas tonight. She would be able to tell him that she was—they were—this much closer to freedom.

Her heart soaring, Jane climbed the stairs to wait for her lover’s call.

W
hen Thomas finally woke, his head was splitting and his mouth tasted like he’d been kissing the London cobbles. It was dark, and the moon shone blearily down from behind a high haze. He’d been unconscious for hours. He wanted to spit, but his mouth was dry, so he settled for cursing instead.

What happened?
He cradled his head in his hands.
How did I come out with a bloody hangover?

He’d drunk nothing stronger than claret wine, and not much of that. He’d met Jane, and left Jane, and found Conroy’s secrets, and met Jane again, and loved Jane . . .

Not fucked Jane, not swived or tumbled Jane, as he was sent to do. Loved Jane. And in so doing lost his love for Her Glorious Majesty.

No. No. It wasn’t Jane who did this to him. It couldn’t be, because that would put her life and soul in danger from the queen’s rage. It was the mortal magic protecting Kensington House. The wards had cut him off from what was true and central of his existence. They made him forget who he had become and think only of who he had been. They had blinded him, and now he was back in the light. No wonder his head hurt.

But it wasn’t Jane. His temporary faltering had nothing to do with Jane. He’d just thought it did while he was under the influence of those other magics. Clearly, they were stronger than he had realized.

Because forgetting Jane was the only way to keep her safe.

Except she wasn’t going to be safe if he succeeded in his mission.

Thomas levered himself to his feet with the help of the tree trunk. He looked across the lane. His sense of magic had fully returned and to Thomas’s eyes, the brick wall surrounding Kensington House was coated with an ice-like shimmer that left no crack through which even a mouse might creep.

Jane was on the other side of that carefully guarded wall. He glowered at the brick and its warding spell with something that felt very like hunger prowling inside him.

“I’ll end it,” Thomas murmured to himself. “It’s been enough. Another absence and she’ll be desperate enough to seek me out for herself.” Desperate, ready, trusting. She’d call to him from inside the walls, invite him back, and that invitation would crack the wards open and let him, and anyone he chose to accompany him, in to her.

But even that thought was a mistake, for a new image seared his brain. But this one was not of Jane bound and naked and begging for him. This was an image infinitely more powerful. He saw Jane sitting in front of him, pouring out her troubles. He remembered Jane taking simple human comfort from his presence.

Simple human comfort. Simple human companionship. The sympathy of a friend. Thomas’s heart swelled, painful and uneasy. It kept coming back to that. Friendship. How long had it been since he’d walked with anyone he could call a friend? A wave of loneliness swept over him, and a memory bobbed to the surface, a piece of worn flotsam on the ocean of his disordered mind.

He remembered waking up on a muddy shore, wet and cold to the bone. Mud and sand filled his mouth. He remembered looking down at the flow of blood oozing out of his side. It was a splinter wound, deep and jagged. Pain had been with him so long it failed to surprise him as it snaked up his limbs into his dulled brain. He had come ashore only to die.

The loneliness of that moment had been like this. It was the understanding that there was no further to fall.

Only when he lay dying on that empty beach, the queen had come to him. She had saved him and made him her own. This time, it was Jane who wounded him.

Thomas clenched his jaw. He needed to get out of here, right now. He needed to return to the queen. She would want a report, and he needed to remind himself who his true mistress was.

But then, something stirred at the edge of his inner senses and warning touched Thomas like the odor of hot iron. His head snapped up, his thoughts made completely clear by the sense of approaching danger. Something was coming. Someone was searching, and they were using magic to do it. He needed to hide, quickly, and he couldn’t risk a glamour. It would be sensed by whoever or whatever approached. Thomas cursed inwardly. His little patch of fern and bracken wouldn’t hide a rat if someone decided to wade through it. All around stretched nothing but yards of open park land.

That left the oak tree. Thomas kicked his boots off and grasped a lower limb of the oak. He found a toehold in the deeply grooved bark and pulled himself up. Skills he’d gained climbing the rigging of his father’s ship surged through his bones and sinews, and Thomas swarmed swiftly into the branches. When he could go no higher, he balanced on a limb as thin as his wrist, one hand resting lightly on the trunk, praying darkness and the meager spring foliage were enough to hide him.

An owl soared silently over the peaked rooftop of the palace. Undergrowth rustled below. A stag, his antlers tall and proud despite it still being early in the season, stalked past the grass. Thomas was ready to laugh at himself for panicking at the approach of a couple of animals, until he saw the woman.

She circled the wall of Kensington House, her fingers trailing against the bricks, rippling the icy light of the warding. The stag showed no fear at her approach, but came immediately up to her, touching its muzzle to her brow. The owl glided down to perch on the ground beside them.

Thomas did not dare breathe. He wished in vain he could stop his beating heart. The very heat of his skin seemed to shine like a beacon in the hazy moonlight.

The woman laid her hand on the deer’s flank. Bending her knees, she also touched the owl’s head. The distinctive rushing prickle of magic filled the air. It surrounded both beasts, distorting them as a shallow stream distorts sunlight. Then, the animals were gone, and in their place stood two men. Both were tall and muscled. The taller of the pair was black-haired, with a hawk nose and eyes that were nothing more than pools of shadow. Despite his old workman’s clothing, Thomas recognized him instantly.

It was Corwin Rathe.

Rathe, who’d been whispering in Kensington House with Fraulein Lehzen, and who lied about how he’d come to know Thomas’s name.

The other man was as fair as Rathe was dark. He was also shorter by a bare inch, with chiseled features and pale eyes that were probably blue in daylight. He also dressed in old, loose clothing but carried himself with an air of absolute assurance.

They were Sorcerers. Among mortals, only Sorcerers could change their forms, and among Sorcerers only the most powerful and seasoned could perform the act. As the woman had maintained her shape, probably she was their Catalyst. All Sorcerers required a Catalyst to draw the magic from the natural world and channel it to them for their use.

One more thing was immediately apparent. These three were enemies, servants of the English crown. The queen would have told him if any allies patrolled the boundaries of Kensington House. In these times, there were not as many mortal Sorcerers as there had been once, but still there were enough to be dangerous. Just two years ago, two of Her Majesty’s most powerful and highly placed mortal spies had been destroyed by such as these.

Thomas clenched his jaw. He had to get out of this ridiculous position, huddled high in a tree like a naughty schoolboy. He had to warn the queen.

Below him, however, the Sorcerers and their Catalyst showed no signs of being ready to depart. They stood conferring in low voices. Strain his ears as he might, Thomas could make out no words. He did not dare open his senses to try to eavesdrop. The Catalyst would be able to detect any magic shifting near her. From the gestures, and body language, however, it looked to be a conversation undertaken in frustration. That was some small comfort. Whatever they sought here, they had not found it.

Well, if he was stuck here like a naughty boy, perhaps a boy’s tricks would serve. Thomas edged his way along the branch. Two of last year’s acorns still clung stubbornly to their twig. Thomas closed his hand gently around them, muffling the slight snap of the stems as he pulled them loose. Slowly, silent as an owl himself, he stepped downward, into the lower branches, until he was right above their heads.

One of the Sorcerers, the blond man, was making a restless circle, kicking at the ferns.

“They’re not hiding in the grass, Darius,” said Rathe.

But the answer was a soft thump. “Oh, no?” Darius, stooped, and retrieved one of Thomas’s discarded boots, and time was suddenly up.

Thomas tossed both acorns hard toward the wall so they rattled off the brick.

“Miranda.” Darius and the woman took off at a run, leaving the dark-haired man behind, guarding their backs. But he was more than a match for one.

Thomas leapt.

He landed on Rathe’s back, rolling them both down into the grass. Thomas wrapped his hand around the other’s mouth, smothering any scream, and slammed his fist down hard at a precise point on his temple. The man went limp and Thomas jumped aside, leaving the unconscious body to sprawl in the ferns. The others would waste time now, making sure their comrade was all right.

Thomas ran into the dark. He felt magic surge behind him. It sought to bind and topple, but Thomas had the queen’s blessing on him, and that blessing grew stronger with each running footstep that carried him deeper into the park toward the gate. The pursuing spell fell away like a noose coming up short, and then Thomas was in among the trees.

Ahead, he saw the sylvan light. He lengthened his stride, his bare feet pounding the uneven ground. The light enveloped him, the harsh bonds of mortal earth slid away, and he was gone.

Thomas stumbled and fell to his knees. The light was blindingly bright here. He had fetched up in a garden filled with a riot of flowers from all corners of both the Fae and mortal realms. The scent he breathed was of warmth and impossible loves. This place was garden and palace and ahead of him, beneath a bower of thorn and ivy, stood the queen.

“Sir Thomas,” she said, and he thought she sounded a little surprised. “How is it with my knight?”

“Majesty.” Thomas drew his legs up under him until he knelt properly and tried to control his breathing. He was in shocking disarray, and he felt her disapproval seep inside him along with the scent of the blossoms.

Thomas relaxed his internal guards and let his mind open so the queen might see his memory of the Sorcerers and their Catalyst outside the walls of Kensington House. As she absorbed the scene, her eyes slowly darkened to the color of storm clouds. The air all around him chilled to the killing depths of winter. Her anger swept out hard, like a blow to his mind. Thomas bowed his head and grit his teeth to hold unmoving against the storm.

“Oh, they think themselves so very clever, these dogs of the crown.” He felt her smile in his heart, diamond-edged and killing-sharp. “They will hunt high and low for the magic that chips away at their precious warding, but they will never think to look at their own bitch in the manger.”

Thomas kept his head bowed, hoping his consternation did not show. To hear Jane spoken of in that way, even by his queen, stirred anger deep in his bowels. But that was wrong. He could not be angry at the queen. It was as impossible as if he should flap his arms and fly to the moon.