Unleash the Curse: An Imnada Brotherhood Novella (4 page)

But so, too, had the moment.

Sarah pulled away to stand, fixing her gown, plucking her shawl from the floor to wrap it around her once again. Eyes averted. Limbs shaky and stiff. She tried to laugh but it was a dull, defeated attempt. “You were right, my lord. I can’t trust you.”

“Sarah . . .” he began, though beyond her name, he’d no idea of what to say. An apology seemed ludicrous under the circumstances Besides, he wasn’t sorry. Not by a long shot.

Her eyes lifted to his and his body’s heat froze to ice with the empty look she turned on him. “But I can’t trust myself, either,” she said with an apologetic smile. “Good night, my lord.”

She unbent long enough to touch his cheek in a fleeting caress before abandoning him adrift and alone on a floor that seemed to tilt and shift beneath his feet.

And stupid bastard that he was, he let her leave.

Again.

3

“Thank the gods,” Sarah said, snatching up the bracelet from the tray on her dressing table. “Where did you find it?”

Hester brushed Sarah’s hair, her narrow face pinched and unsympathetic. “A maid brought it up this morning. You’d best put the horrid thing somewhere safe before you lose it again and have to explain to that prince of yours. Not a good way to begin a marriage, I’m thinking.” She offered her a pointed look. “Nor is turning up downstairs with a love bite on your neck.”

Sarah’s hand touched the bruise below her left ear. “How do you know Christophe didn’t give it to me?”

“Did he?”

Sarah placed the bracelet in her jewelry case and didn’t respond.

“That’s what I thought. Care to tell old Hester what’s going on?”

“No.”

That was the last thing Sarah wanted. Instead, she would push last night to the back of her mind. Pretend it hadn’t happened. Behave as if she’d not a care in the world or a guilty secret buried in her heart. Only this time, she couldn’t put an entire city’s population between herself and Sebastian. She’d have to face him, make small talk and smile, and pretend one smoldering stare didn’t turn her into a puddle of warm jelly. She could do it. She was an actress. If she couldn’t pretend to an indifference she didn’t feel, she might as well put away her greasepaint and crawl back to her father’s two leaky rooms with her tail between her legs.

“Suit yourself.” Hester sniffed, continuing her work with combs and crimper while Sarah set to the business of covering the mark with powder and brush. A few practiced strokes and the visible sign of her weakness vanished beneath a layer of makeup. If only she could obliterate the memory so easily.

What had she been thinking? First she’d misled Sebastian about her betrothal. Then she’d thrown herself at him like the trollop he’d assumed she was. In the years since she’d left home, she’d spurned every improper advance from the men who hung about backstage on nights she performed and haunted her drawing room the mornings after. So what was it about Sebastian, a man who’d made his low opinion of her very clear, that made her lose every ounce of self-control? It was as if her body were betraying her. Showing her what could be hers every night if she wished it. Sebastian in her bed, the ecstasy of his touch, the fire in his kiss. All she had to do was give up all she believed about herself. Surrender to the world’s assumptions, to his assumptions.

She couldn’t do it.

Sebastian might make her stomach dance and her skin tingle, but Christophe offered a respectable marriage and a secure future. She’d be a fool to throw that away for the temporary happiness that would come from being Sebastian’s mistress. And, as he’d so rightly claimed, she was no fool.

Tucking the last comb in place, Hester stepped back, and Sarah, equilibrium restored, rose to pull on her gloves. A traveling party was headed up onto the moors to tour an ancient burial mound. Sarah looked forward to the trip, if for no other reason than it would offer her precious hours away from the house and away from Sebastian. The less time she spent in his company, the better.

Hester shushed Sarah toward the door with a parting warning. “Be careful, girl. A storm’s brewing. I’d hate for you to get caught up in it.”

Sarah glanced out the window at the blue sky, naked trees dancing in a brisk wind. “The weather’s lovely.”

“You know what I’m talking about. Things aren’t right here. Too many secrets. Too many silences.”

Sarah’s chest tightened, but in no other way did she indicate that Hester’s words worried her. She pecked the old woman on her cheek and offered her a reassuring smile. “You know me. I’m always careful.”

“That’s not what that mark on your neck says.”

But Sarah chose not to hear her.

The corridor outside the bedchamber smelled musty and damp, and a draft leaked under a padlocked door to the left that must lead into the crumbling west tower. Repairs had halted when the guests arrived, but signs remained everywhere, from the piles of rubble to the locked doors behind which chaos and construction lurked.

And an injured shapechanger hid.

In her frantic self-recrimination, she’d almost forgotten, but it was too amazing. The Imnada were real. Creatures from her imagination come to life. Who would seek to destroy one of them? Why? And might Sebastian be next?

“On your way to visit the barrow ruins up on the moor?” Katherine Duncallan slid a door key into her apron pocket and brushed dust from her hair. Had she been checking on the repairs . . . or on the wounded stranger, Lucan? She must be in on the secret, but Sarah dare not ask. “Let’s hope the weather holds. Mr. Chapp at the Home Farm says a storm is brewing.”

Hearing Hester’s warning repeated verbatim sent a shiver dancing up Sarah’s spine. She clutched her reticule until the eerie sensation passed and fell into step beside Katherine as they headed toward the main staircase. “How do the repairs progress? James seemed at his wit’s end from all the construction.”

“If all goes as promised, we should be able to reopen that part of the house by summer, though it’s not as if we need the extra space. A visit to the Duncallans is hardly the invitation of the year these days.”

“I hope my presence hasn’t made things difficult.”

“In what way?”

“Don’t play coy, Katherine. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly accepted by the Patronesses of Almack’s. It costs you and Duncallan socially to have me here. Then I make things worse by having Christophe intrude with his Italian entourage.”

Katherine placed a sisterly hand on her arm. “You’re our friend, Sarah. No matter what those old cats of the
ton
say. As for the prince, how can I be annoyed about royalty gracing us with its presence?” Her eyes scrunched as she grinned. “He’s positively delectable, and it’s obvious he dotes on you. Might there be a wedding in your future?”

Sarah lifted a brow in sly amusement. “That would certainly turn London on its ear.”

“For a few months, but it’s amazing the protection from scandal a crown can offer.”

“More like an invitation to scandal, I’d say.”

Sebastian crossed the hall below them, disappearing into the library. For the first time, Sarah noticed his confident easy bearing and the way his clothes hung on his lean muscular frame with a casual elegance born of breeding and innate self-assurance. Sebastian had nobleman stamped in every drop of his blue blood. This was a man who bowed to few. A man who took his place in Society for granted. A man who could choose a wife from the daughters of dukes and the sisters of marquesses.

“Does your prince make you feel like this? Does he tempt you? Do you lose control?”

His words pounded in Sarah’s skull and made her breath catch. “I grew up in a hovel on Rag Lane scrabbling for enough to eat and dodging the Watch. I can just imagine how the upper ten thousand would react to my stealing such a prize.” But did she speak of Christophe or Sebastian when she spoke those words?

Katherine had no time to respond. As they stepped off the stairs, a startled cry of distress sounded from the library.

“That was Melissa.” Katherine hurried to throw open the door, Sarah right behind her.

Light spilled from the windows, illuminating the tableau before them like a scene upon a stage. Sebastian’s arms encircled Lady Melissa’s waist, her hair tumbling from its combs, the collar of her gown askew.

“It’s not what it seems.” Sebastian disentangled himself from Lady Melissa as he cleared his throat.

“Lord Deane attacked me in a fit of passion,” Lady Melissa bristled as she pulled the collar of her gown up to cover the strap of her chemise. “Look at my gown. He nigh dragged it off me.”

“Come, Melissa,” Katherine said stone-faced. “Let’s retire to your chamber before anyone sees you so discommoded.”

“You’ve seen me . . . seen us,” she whined.

“Yes, but Miss Haye won’t say anything, and you know you can rely on my utmost discretion.”

“What of him? He needs to make it right. Do the honorable thing.”

“Who ever told you His Lordship was honorable?” Katherine answered with a faint smile.

Lady Melissa cast a swift puzzled glance over her shoulder at Sebastian’s arrogant and impassive countenance, her lip caught between her teeth, a frown furrowing her alabaster brow as if she sought to argue further. Instead Katherine steered the girl with an iron grip from the room, leaving Sebastian and Sarah alone.

So much for the space of a dining table to keep them apart. She pasted a bland smile upon her stiff features and wished she could crawl under the rug.

“She tripped,” Sebastian said. “I caught her as she fell, and she started screaming.”

“You needn’t explain to me, darling.” Sarah waved an airy hand, hoping she looked suitably unconcerned and completely untroubled. “Stones and glass houses and all that nonsense.”

Anger flared in his face, and he took a menacing step forward. “Enough with the playacting, Sarah. I’ve had more than my share of amateur theatrics this afternoon.”

She locked her knees and tried to steady the wild plunging of her heart. “Are you equating my professional abilities to Lady Melissa’s painfully obvious attempt at being compromised?”

“I’m telling you to drop the wharf-rat manners. You and I both know it’s as much pretense as anything Lady Melissa contrived.”

“You could do far worse than Duncallan’s cousin.”

He grimaced his horror. “Plots like hers are as old as Eden. I’ve been dodging them since I came down from Oxford.”

Last night flashed before her eyes with gut-churning clarity. Would that have been his excuse if they’d been caught? Would he have stood by with that same haughty lack of sympathy as she was led in disgrace from the room? Would he have cast her off as a conniving fortune-hunting female?

Forget hiding under the rug. If only the floor would swallow her whole.

“Be relieved it was Katherine and I who discovered you rather than Lady Melissa’s mother. You’d be halfway to the altar by now.”

He plowed a hand through his hair, his signet ring flashing in the sunlight. “I’d be relieved if you stopped eyeing me as if I meant to ravish you on the library carpet.”

“I’m not worried about any such thing. It’s two in the afternoon, there’s an entire household just beyond the door, and . . .”

“We’re both back to being proper models of decorum. Is that what you’re saying?” He gave a snort of disgust. “You’re safe, Miss Haye . . . if you wish to be.”

Proper. Safe. Why did neither word make her feel any better? She turned away from his unnerving golden-eyed stare to wander about the wood-paneled room, trailing her hand over tabletops cluttered with artifacts and knickknacks and piles of books in every language under the sun. “Is the gentleman any better? Have you discovered who attacked him?”

“He’s still unconscious. Whoever stabbed him used a silver blade. It’s . . . complicated his recovery.”

“Is being stabbed with silver worse than being stabbed with anything else?”

“It is if you’re Imnada. Its touch is poison. And Fey magic reacts on them in odd ways, so Katherine’s been wary of drawing on her healing powers. It’s wait and see for now.”

She scanned the rows of leather-bound volumes, studying the oil portraits of ancient Farradays whose comely, golden-eyed faces proclaimed their Fey bloodlines to anyone with the knowledge to read the signs. “He was trying to tell you something last night. He said it over and over.
Naxos katarth theorta,
the door, they’re here,” she muttered to herself, the words niggling at her like a sore tooth. “What do you suppose it means?”

“Sarah, about last night . . .”

Sebastian had come up behind her, standing close enough that when she turned she felt his words as a warm breath upon her cheek, noted the drawn look about his eyes and the lines carved on either side of his mouth. An unwelcome flutter began in her chest. To combat it, she stepped back, a hand closing on the book beneath her fingers. “You were carried away. I lost my head. I blame it on the late hour and the chaos of the situation and . . . and there was moonlight. You know what they say about the full moon.”

“Is that all it was?”

“Of course. If I had a pound for every man who pressed his attentions, I’d be able to buy myself a house as big as this and a title to match. Only last week Lord Randall vowed to join the priesthood if I didn’t run away with him to the West Indies.”

By the time she finished speaking, the same foolish part of her that had answered his kiss last night was urging her to shut up and kiss him again. To hell with the proprieties and the prince.

She barely heard the approaching voices over the roaring in her ears and the knocking of her knees.

“
Mi amore
! There you are! The carriage awaits, my sweet.”

Christophe blew into the room like a bracing dose of sanity. As always, his hair was artfully tousled and every inch of his wardrobe set off his sculpted body to perfection, but there was a tension to his features and a lack of sparkle to his dark eyes. He looked as if he were recovering from too much wine and too little sleep. She could definitely sympathize.