by Luis, Maria
The inevitable is staring us dead in the eye and waving a bloody white flag of surrender to boot.
“She’s going to end up dead.”
Instead of replying, Guy takes a heavy swig of whisky. His throat works, his knuckles turning white around the bottle’s neck. “What she needs is to get out of the City.”
“She won’t.”
“She will if she knows what’s good for her.” My brother sets the Glenlivet down, rotating the amber bottle so that its label faces him. He traces a finger over the raised font, his other hand planted firmly on the laminate counter. “Æthelred II fled,” he says after a moment, never peering up from the whisky, “in 1013. The King of the Danes had just invaded England.”
Before Pa died, Guy spent years reading books about English monarchs. He stole them from the local libraries, never to be returned, and devoured them while holed up in the room he shared with me and Damien. Used to stay up all night with his nose glued to the musty pages. Whereas words have always been the bane of my existence, they were once Guy’s anchor to reality. He read and he debated and he shoved God-knows-how-many trivia points down my throat during those early years—before we fled to Paris, before Mum died from a sickness we couldn’t cure, before he learned that using one’s fists is ultimately more effective in achieving a desired outcome.
Still, I’ll never forget when he asked me how we could even begin to serve the royal family today when we knew nothing of all the dead kings and queens who came before them.
I didn’t have an answer for him then, back in that tiny flat in Whitechapel with its thin walls and shit space heaters and ancient floors that always whined beneath our feet. All those stolen books never made their way across the channel to France with us, but it seems my brother has forgotten nothing of what he once believed in so fiercely.
Now, I only stay silent as he taps his thumb against the glass bottle.
“They called him Æthelred the Unready. Not a weak king, just an ill-advised one. But he planned—once the Danes took over, Æthelred plotted and he waited. Less than a year later, the Dane King was dead and Æthelred saw a glimmer of opportunity.” My brother’s mouth curves, like he’s imagining the long-forgotten battle from centuries ago playing out before him now. “He came in on the Thames. Danes lined London Bridge with spears, prepared to fight till the death. But Æthelred’s soldiers were bloody brilliant. They pulled the roofs off the houses that they passed, then used them as shields when they came in on the river.” Guy pauses, head cocked to the side, his thumb still idly tapping the Glenlivet bottle. “Could be a dramatized version of events—read it in a Norse saga—but still. The Danes were driven out of London that day.”
Watching my brother closely, I fold my arms across my chest. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because our queen isn’t ready to deal with her fate. She’s no King Æthelred, just biding her time until she can make a big move. She has no moves.” He thrusts the Glenlivet away, and the bottle nearly teeters off the island before he rights it at the last second. “You know who does, though? The Guard, who are meant to protect her, but are now sneaking into her rooms so they can slit her throat while she sleeps. Men like Alfie Barker, who swarm the streets, waiting for the right moment to take her out.”
“So we take Hamish or Jude and introduce the queen to her new bodyguards. Establish more protection around her.”
Frustrated blue eyes flit in my direction. “For how long? How long until the Guard isn’t only coming for her but for Clarke, for Hamish, for Jude, for the men that we put there?”
“They knew the risks when they were recruited.”
“Do you hear yourself? Really fucking hear yourself?” Guy bites out. “They were recruited, which means there’s no more getting out for us than there is for any of them. They didn’t make it through training, they died. They tried to opt out of training, they died. They decide, at any point in time, that they’re done with this life, they die. Holyrood is a one-track journey to the grave, and I’m not trying to bury them any faster.”
He’s right, of course. My brothers and I always knew what life in Holyrood entailed. We saw its ramifications, first with Pa, then with Mum. But the other agents—men like Hamish and Jude and the scores of others who work for Holyrood—knew very different lives before this one. Asking them to risk even more, when they’ve already given so much, would be selfish.
I set my hand on the counter. “Then I’ll do it.”
“You will not!” It’s an all-out explosion. Barely leashed rage twists Guy in my direction, his chest heaving, his hands coiled into fists at his sides. “You hear me, Saxon? You. Will. Not.”
Steadily, I meet my brother’s wild gaze. “You’re not a king doling out orders, brother—just a man. The queen needs more protection and I’m volunteering.” I pause, letting that settle in, then add, “We both know that if there’s anyone in Holyrood who can hold his own, it’s me.”
Guy charges forward, hands lifted like he’s considering throttling me. He wouldn’t be the first to try. “I taught you everything you know.”
Instead of answering, I tilt my head in acknowledgment.
My silence fails to mitigate my brother’s fury. He’s taller by three centimeters—though leaner—and when he steps in close, his breath ghosting over my face, I know he’s seconds away from wheeling back and trying to knock sense into me.
With his fist.
“Holyrood is mine,” he seethes, his blue eyes glittering, “do you hear me? Mine. If I say that we aren’t sending any more men to babysit the bloody queen, then you fall in line and do as I tell you.”
I’ve never been all that good with following orders.
Guy Godwin may be the head of Holyrood, but he’s no god. And his word certainly isn’t the law. Ironic, perhaps, that Damien said the same thing to me just the other day when I reprimanded him about leaving the Palace.
“We took an oath,” I say, roughly.
“We inherited an oath,” Guy returns, each word clipped out from between clenched teeth, “and I’m fully aware of the difference. We have a queen who can’t even wipe her own ass without someone trying to murder her, a parliament that’s tearing itself apart from the inside out, and at least a thousand people outside the gates of Buckingham Palace every goddamn night. She doesn’t need more men; she needs to leave.”
“She needs us to do our job,” I growl.
Guy slants me a harsh look before turning away. “She needs to find her spine before it, too, ends up strangling her in her sleep.”
Breathing deeply through my nose, I run my hand over the side of my face. I don’t remember the last time Guy and I argued. Maybe when Damien was outed by the Met’s police commissioner as having hacked parliament’s internal software. Accidentally outed, if you’re to believe his piss-poor excuses. The only reason Marcus Guthram is still breathing is because we have use for him yet.
Ethical or not, I’d wanted Damien to place the blame on someone else’s shoulders.
He could have done it. He had the technical skills to rewrite history, if not the lack of conscience.
Guy had ordered our younger brother to remain unseen, an informal house arrest that limited him to Holyrood’s main compound an hour outside of the City.
If they can’t find him, Guy had said, his expression stony, they can’t have him.
No, they couldn’t, but at the risk of Damien’s own sanity.
Beyond that, Guy and I have always been on the same page. He taught me to shoot a pistol—how to defend myself. He held me up when Mum died, his then-bony arms wrapped around my shoulders like an anchor keeping me close to shore.
But this . . .
I shake my head. “We’re working with borrowed time. There’s no point in arguing when I’m willing to—”
“No.”
Bloody fucking hell.
Turning on my heels, before I say something that I’ll regret, I pinch the bridge of my nose and seek out the calm. The numbnes
s that’s been a constant companion for years now, always there, always prepared to ice over my vulnerabilities.
I don’t have the chance.
A knock sounds on the door and then it’s cracking open, revealing Jack and . . . and—
“She came looking for you, boss,” Jack sneers, none too gently shoving her forward into my brother’s flat.
Her.
Isla Quinn.
I’m so caught off guard by her presence that I don’t have time to strip the frustration still coating my skin. It bleeds into my icy crevices, blending into heat, into a startled awareness that drags my chest in for a sharp breath. My gaze finds hers—annoyance and unease swirling in those blue depths—and I feel myself step forward, toward her.
Guy cuts me off.
“And who do we have here?” he asks, his voice low, pleasantly curious. But I recognize that tone for what it is, and the startling heat that coiled within me at the sight of Isla dies instantly.
Jack, still standing in the doorway, clicks his tongue in disapproval. “Saxon’s newest hire.”
“For the pub?” Guy gives me his back, his entire focus centered on Isla. I step to the right, needing to keep her in my line of sight.
“She ain’t workin’ with me,” Jack mutters. “So, no. She’s Saxon’s little, special pet.”
I grit my teeth. Over the years, I’ve saved Jack more than once from being sacked. He mouths off to customers. On occasion, he’s been known to mouth off to me. But the day I hired him, I exacted only one promise: his loyalty. To me, not to Guy or Damien or The Bell & Hand. Petty jealousy isn’t a good look on him, but neither is the anger that’ll no doubt steal over him tomorrow when he realizes that I’m letting him go.
Maybe you’re not so unlike King John, after all.
The thought churns my stomach. Sacking someone is not the same thing as murdering them, which is what I suspect happened to Pa after he failed to find Princess Evangeline’s killer.
My stare cuts to the barman. “Leave us.”
Mouth curling, Jack offers a short, mocking bow that has me wanting to grasp his thick neck and drive his head into the closest wall. “You got it, boss,” he says, straightening to his full height, “not a problem, boss.”
The door slams shut behind him, the second time it’s closed so loudly in the last hour, and then it’s only the three of us.
Me.
Guy.
And Isla.
Who, after a moment of halted silence, murmurs, “Well, this is cozy.”
I feel my lips twitch at her sarcasm. My heart doesn’t squeeze, and my lungs don’t ache with laughter, but that twitch . . . It’s more than I’ve felt in years, and I move. Again. Toward her. Again. My feet walk of their own volition, and I blame the inexplicable pull on our strange relationship. In less than a week’s time, I’ve saved her and she’s saved me in return. Her willingness to mediate between Father Bootham and me is nothing less than the only bout of luck I’ve received in life. And, so I move, my lips once again firm and my heart beating at its normal pace and my skin cool, but that pull drives me forward, nonetheless.
Her blue eyes cling to my frame and, for the first time since we’ve met, I don’t sense fear.
Guy, the bastard, steps in front of me. He shoves a hand toward Isla. “We haven’t met.”
I can’t see her face, but I hear the familiar iron steel of her voice when she responds, “Isla Quinn.” A small pause that gives me the impression that she’s looking him over, sizing him up. Does she like what she sees? I demolish the thought with the crushing of a mental boot, ignoring the strange, fist-like vice that lingers in my chest. “You must be Guy.”
My brother tilts his head, just as I step in beside him. “Figured me out, have you?” he says, the earlier curiosity returning swiftly as he drops his untaken hand. It drifts into the front pocket of his joggers like he never offered it in the first place.
Isla only stares at him, her expression clear. “I’m the eldest of three, too.” She says it like they’re in some secret club together, as if with that alone they understand each other in a way that I never will. The fist-like vice eases, the icy fingers of ambivalence settling in once more. “And I’m not Saxon’s little pet,” Isla adds, casting me a quick look before shuttling her gaze back to my brother, “for the record.”
Guy issues a soft chuckle that steels my shoulders. “Saxon doesn’t do pets,” he murmurs, never once glancing in my direction. “The care they take, the gentle touch . . . It’s not the way my brother operates.”
Everything in me strings tight, like I’ve had rope tied around my wrists, my ankles. The imaginary restraints pull, chafing my skin in a way that doesn’t feel so imaginary. No, I feel it all—the sensation of being dragged in opposite directions whilst moving nowhere at all—and I open my mouth, prepared to put Guy back in his place, but then Isla looks at me.
Really looks at me.
Her gaze skimming my thighs and my waist and then, farther north, to my shoulders and finally, finally, to my face. She studies me like she would a framed painting in a museum, like I’m something interesting to look at but nothing you’d ever consider touching yourself.
I will never sleep with you, even if you get on your knees and beg.
That night in my car, her words roused heat within my chest. A certain tightness. A blend of emotion that I never, ever wanted to feel again. And now, under her scrutiny, I put a name to that emotion, a word to the tightness that burns and twists and leaves me feeling decidedly lacking.
Embarrassment.
Bitterness stiffens my jaw, until my teeth are grinding and I’m staring down at this woman—this woman who I saved, who I’ve offered a position, who’s made me feel lacking—and she never once averts her eyes from mine.
Like she isn’t afraid of me.
Like she isn’t considering bolting from this room at the first opportunity.
Like she sees me, all of me, and is still determined to go toe to toe, no matter what I say, what I do that ought to have her running in the opposite direction.
Holding my stare, she murmurs, “I don’t do pets either. The human variety or the four-legged kind.”
Guy’s bark of laughter echoes in the room. “A match made in heaven.” As though this is a casual conversation about the weather, he strides toward the kitchen. Grabs the lowball glass from the cabinet that he abandoned earlier, and snags two others. Props them up on the counter, unscrews the Glenlivet, and pours three shots. “A toast,” he says.
For the first time in my life, I find myself not trusting the man who practically raised me, who sheltered me and then gave me the tools to shelter myself. “To what?”
His mouth quirks with a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Welcoming Isla Quinn into the fold.” He casts an easy glance her way. “For your new job.”
Isla doesn’t move, so Guy brings the tumblers to us, balancing two in one hand. He shoves the first at me, then ushers the second into Isla’s grasp. Raising his own in the air, he murmurs, “To new beginnings, yeah?”
I feel the rasp of the rope around my skin, tightening even more. “To new beginnings.”
Isla doesn’t smile. She stares at the amber whisky, then, without saying a word, tosses the liquid back in one go. Guy grins. I want to take my tumbler and bash it over his head. We both take our shots at the same time, and I should have known that my brother would manipulate the situation to his advantage.
“So, what will you be doing?” he asks Isla, his voice deceptively mild. “Working for one of Saxon’s many projects to take down the Crown?”
If she’s surprised by Guy jumping straight to the chase, she doesn’t show it. “Something like that, yes.”
“How intriguing.”
And then he turns to look at me, and it’s only through an entire lifetime of knowing him that I read every bloody thought crossing his mind.
I’ve never pulled an outsider into Holyrood business, and certainly never a woman like Is
la.
Never. Not once in over a decade.
He knows it, just as I do.
Guy smiles. It’s slow and crooked and just this side of menacing, and the invisible ropes cinch tight, threatening to cut off circulation. “Has he told you everything, then?” he asks Isla while still staring at me. “How we’ve spent years working toward protecting the—”
“Guy.”
He stops, lifts a brow, and there it is, in all its glory of complete self-destruction: the ultimatum he’s prepared to throw in my face should I not back down.
Either I agree that I won’t put myself in more danger by personally protecting Queen Margaret or he’ll tell Isla, who believes in the allure of the Priests, that we’re loyalists at heart, loyalists bound by a duty spanning over a century. He’s crazy enough to do it, too, of that I have no doubt.
I want to murder him.
But would you act any differently if the roles were reversed?
I want to say yes. I want to believe that I would put the queen above all else, but that isn’t true. My brothers come first. They will always come first, no matter what—the queen and the monarchy be damned.
Bitterness and acceptance rise in my chest as I issue a short nod of acquiescence.
Guy grins for real this time, relief flickering through his blue eyes before he turns toward Isla and lies through his teeth: “We’ve used The Bell & Hand as a stronghold for anti-loyalists since we opened it. It’s the only thing like it in the City. Have another drink, and I’ll tell you everything.”
14
Isla
Saxon hasn’t taken his eyes off me since his brother invited me to another drink.
Leaning against the cabinets, he grips the lip of the counter in a pose that’s deceptively casual: heavy boots crossed at the ankle; arm muscles corded and straining under the thin fabric of his shirt; head dipped just so, so he can keep vigilant watch over me while his brother rambles on about The Bell & Hand and its origins.
