by Tracy Sumner
I’m yours, she thought as the door to the library burst open, and a startled exclamation shattered the silence.
Edging back, she glanced over Finn’s shoulder to find Lord and Lady Beauchamp standing in the doorway, echoing expressions of astonishment on their faces.
Finn banged his head against the wall and sighed. “Julian. Piper.”
She nodded, letting her arms slide free and giving him a shove that sent him stumbling, all his delicious magnetism moving away with him.
His eyes when they found hers were a dogged blue-black, darker than she’d ever seen them. The look in them alarmed and aroused. “You owe me for this one, Tori darling, and you should know I always seek payment.”
Chapter 9
The first taste of her had felt like Finn’s brief but frenzied experience with absinthe.
After Freddie’s death, he’d spent many a predawn surrounded by starving artists, butchers, cobblers, earls, actors, barons, princes, paupers—even a doctor who’d kindly attended to his chest wound when he’d torn the stitches during an unfortunate brawl—crowded in the back room of the Mon Plaisir, the lowliest back alley club, during the infamous l’heure verte. The green hour. Only to be expelled like a heedless gasp into the wretched London miasma when the curtain of darkness began to fade. He’d stumbled through those twilight streets night after night with a blessed sense of detachment.
Which, at the time, he’d needed to withstand one day rolling into the next.
He’d not felt that sort of separation from mind and body until he’d stepped away from Victoria a half hour ago, forced apart by intrusion, a good thing, as his awareness had compressed to only the points where their bodies touched, like poking holes in a sheet of paper and trying to see the world through it. The nape of her neck, his hip, her thigh, his bottom lip, her cheek, the rounded curve of her breast. Scalding points of contact drawing them together as if they’d been connected with needle and thread. Coming back to find himself surrounded by the scent of moldy books and ink, stacks of letters and open ledgers, the sound of his breath rushing from his lips to mix with hers, had been as bewildering as a blow across the jaw.
He’d never lost himself in a kiss. Not once.
Not ever.
Had never imagined he could when his attention was centered on the thoughts. This time, amazingly, the ones crowding his mind were his and his alone. He’d found that to be, indeed as he’d always imagined, quite wonderful.
From his view out the library window, Finn recorded Victoria and Piper’s progress across the sloping lawn. At this late stage of pregnancy, Piper waddled, to put it kindly. They paused at the fountain to rest on the carved stone bench adorning it, Victoria’s gaze not once roaming his way, although she knew Julian was monitoring how the increasing distance affected their gifts—observations to be recorded in his blasted chronology.
Finn tapped the letter he held against his thigh. It was a simple kiss. Two, he supposed, if precise calculation signified. Nothing he and Tori hadn’t experienced many times with other people and walked thoughtlessly away from. Kisses were weapons he often retained to create distance, not eradicate it when he wasn’t even sure he liked the amusement all that much. Too intimate an effort when reading someone’s mind was the very definition of dispassion.
Victoria was quite skilled at using kisses to remove herself from tight spots, conversations she wanted to divert. He’d seen her in action. Saved her from letting the ton see her in action.
Because being caught in a compromising position was more damaging than anything she could do aside from marrying him.
He crushed the letter in his hand, wondering where the hell that thought had come from. Simple, Finn, remember? Nothing to this. Just another girl. Same old. Except simple was an unfair categorization for an interaction more carnal then ones he’d had with someone’s legs locked around his hips.
“Incredible,” Julian said from his place beside Finn, shoulder wedged against the window frame, folio balanced on his arm as he scrawled notes across the page. “I don’t even get the sensation of a vision from this pencil until she’s more than a hundred yards away. She and Piper made it to the garden before the images starting floating in. So faint I could almost overlook them, and I had half a dozen people touch it at breakfast, something that would’ve had me retching in the rubbish bin on a normal day after holding it this long. The most curious element? It seems to draw nothing from her to impede our gifts, like she holds them off with a sword that weighs less than a feather.”
“Minnie was able to perform while in the same room. Remember her giving Lucien the cookie? Different effects on different abilities.”
“True enough,” Julian agreed and scribbled another note. “We’ll test everyone on the estate. Distances, interpretations of potency. She and Piper, for instance. One gift strengthens, the other calms. How do such divergent abilities work together?”
Finn shrugged, the occult not nearly as interesting to him as it was to his brother. The chronology was Julian’s religion. What was fascinating to him at the moment was watching Victoria hold her arm aloft for a passing butterfly to land upon. Her smile could light the darkest of souls should one tear down the walls and let her in. “Test her with Simon. It should be interesting. Can Lady Victoria’s fantastic gift repel the haunts? They seem to multiply with every year that passes. I think they talk amongst themselves and decide Harbingdon is a nice place to visit, then they never leave. God, would it be wonderful for Simon if they’d leave him for even a moment.”
Julian flipped a page, paused. “You test her with Simon. He’s your boy. Always has been. Attached at the hip since we dragged him here. Or in the past six months, did you forget that fact?”
Finn muttered an oath and turned his back as Victoria struggled to pull Piper to her feet, their warmhearted laughter trickling in the open window. Not a surprise they’d become fast friends as both were obstinate and attracted to trouble. Nevertheless, he’d no time to stand there mooning over a woman plainly out of reach. There were letters to translate and invoices for the gaming hell to pay, enough work to keep him sequestered in this library, should he be hiding from anyone, which he was not, for days. “Broach the subject with Si. He’s a bit perturbed with me at the moment.” He extracted his penknife from his waistcoat, slid the blade beneath the envelope’s seal and shredded, relishing the obliteration.
Julian’s stinging gaze landed on him. Suggesting there was discord in the Alexander household was like waving a crimson flag before a papa bull. “Meaning?”
“Meaning he wants to live in London. With me. Above the Blue Moon, where he’ll graciously ignore the women and the drinking, all for peace. From you.” Finn dropped to the worn leather chair behind the desk and gave a halfhearted salute with the penknife. “Congratulations, Jule. You continue to suck the sunshine out of your brothers’ lives, one cloying gesture at a time.”
Julian hummed beneath his breath, signaling advice was about to be offered, a marked expectation of obedience attached. “I don’t usually get involved in your liaisons. Except for the one with the Earl of Kilmartin’s daughter. Couldn’t just stand by and let that work itself out.”
“How was I to know she’d brandish a pistol? And proceed to shatter every window in the earl’s ballroom shooting at me?”
Julian glanced out the window and closed his eyes—still testing the visions he was receiving from the pencil against how far away Victoria stood. “You don’t have to tell me anything, boy-o. The broadsheets described the destruction in detail, ink bleeding over every society matron’s fingers the next morning. We can only thank God Lady Esmerelda has horrendous aim, and Baron Fredricks was besotted enough to marry her the following week.”
“I paid for every window from my funds.”
Julian laughed then for some bloody reason, tapping his pencil against his knee in time to an internal clock. “Your adventures have kept me young, Finn. Should I have desired a quiet life in the country with my belove
d wife and babies.”
Finn released a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Piper’s never given you a peaceful day in your life, and she never will. But you love her too much to notice. And speaking of serenity, who’s on the docket to arrive this week?”
Julian had the good grace to flush, halting the tapping of his pencil. “A young groom from the Marquess of Ardmore’s estate. His communication with animals is unparalleled, but he’s being thrashed daily by the villagers because he made mention of his gift. There’s scant information about such a talent in the chronology. Most intriguing. We have Piper to help him, and maybe now Lady Victoria, too.”
Finn looked to the wiry mutt who never strayed more than ten feet from Julian. Henry lifted his head, yawned, then let it fall back to his crossed paws with a contemptuous sniff. “Superb. I can’t wait to finally find out what he’s thinking.”
Julian sank into the chair across from him; a gleaming mahogany battlefield laid out between them. “Lady Victoria’s talent is inconceivable, so formidable it makes Piper’s look dull in comparison, a statement I never thought to hear myself make. Especially when I wondered, to the depths of my soul and back, if I’d be able to protect her. Now there’s another. A blocker, which I didn’t even believe existed.” Julian trailed his finger over a drop of dried green paint on the desk. “Until someone from the other side infiltrated the League last year, a man we had no knowledge of until he arrived here seeking asylum, I thought we might be safe for longer. For my lifetime and yours. For Lucien’s. But now…”
Finn directed a veiled glance to the envelope he clutched—sent from a Parisian friend of the League with deep-seated contacts in the supernatural world, a man who’d had word of menacing rumblings—hoping Julian didn’t see the tremor travel down his arm and into his fingers. “You’re going to propose she marry Ashcroft.”
Julian braced his forearms on the chair, set to rise. “She must be further from the house than I thought if you’re able to dip back into my mind. Let me check on the distance so I can note—”
“Jule, I can’t read anything.” Finn tapped the envelope against his head. “And no blinding headache trying not to. Trust me. They’re giggling by the fountain, dreaming up mischief. Their thoughts, and yours, are closed to me.”
Julian settled back, frowned. “Then, how did you know?”
Finn unfolded the letter and smoothed his palm over it, diving into the lines of text. French came easily, too easily he thought. He woke from dreams with the language heavy on his tongue, spilling from his mind like an overfilled mug. “It makes perfect sense. Ashcroft makes perfect sense. Title. Money. Protection. Everything she requires. And when she sucks the fire from his fingertips the first time”—Finn made an inelegant crease in the foolscap, barely containing the twist of irritation the purposely suggestive words sent through him—“he’ll throw himself at her feet in supplication. Even if he has to give up the opera singer, reported to have the most talented lips in London, by the by. A wonder he hasn’t burned down his Mayfair townhouse.” Finn smiled but kept his eyes on the page. No need to invite Julian into whatever might be written across his face. “You just know he’s caught more than one bed on fire.”
“Glass houses, brother of mine, glass houses.”
Finn flicked away the critique, struggling with a line of colloquial speech in the letter he wasn’t sure how to interpret. “It’s a perfect solution. Wish I’d thought of it myself. Oh, wait, I did. Now you just have to get Victoria to agree.” He spared her spectacles, sitting almost within reach on the desk, a hard look, vexed for no reason. Or no reason he wanted to admit. “Good luck with that.”
“It isn’t perfect in any way if you care for her, Finn.”
Finn folded the letter with two neat tucks and slipped it inside the envelope. “You know how it goes. Women can’t seem to help themselves, and apparently, neither can I.”
“The kiss Piper and I witnessed was nothing, that’s what you’re saying.”
“A bit of boredom. I’m used to the excitement of Town, and so is she. Consider it a country pleasure among friends.”
Julian was silent for so long—a painful, drawn-out hush—that Finn was forced to look him in the eye. Lord, did his brother know how to employ medieval torture.
Finn tossed the letter to the desk, feeling his temper notching higher. Yanking open a desk drawer, he nudged Victoria’s spectacles into it and slid it shut. “It would be ruinous for her to consider an association with me.”
“From the ton’s perspective, I agree.” Julian flipped to a blank sheet in his folio and began to sketch, his hand whipping across the page. An artist since he was a child, he often drew while he talked. Finn had long-ago gotten used to it. “If that’s what she wanted, however, who cares what they think? You don’t owe society a thing, Finn. I’ve made sure of it. You have funds and a family. A home. Your wife won’t have anyone to challenge, please, or enrage but you. Chose for love and only for love. That’s my advice. Above and beyond this weird realm we find ourselves thrust into, find the person you can’t live without.”
“I’m not cut out for marriage, Jule. Mind reading presents too many complications. And would place too much strain on the one relationship where my gift isn’t a concern.”
Julian paused, did another hum beneath his breath, then added a stroke to the drawing. “I used to think that about my gift, about Piper. Too much responsibility. Too incredible a task to protect and love her at the same time. While growing the League, being the man I wanted to be. Only when I allowed myself to do just that without thinking about it so hard did the world right itself, was I able to find my home, my place. Fear kept us apart for years. My fear, not Piper’s. I still wake some nights in a panic, thinking I let her go, let Lucien go, because of my stubborn belief that I knew better. When I knew almost nothing except that I loved her.” He glanced up, then down, and Finn had the awful realization that Julian was sketching him. “In the end, I just blindly went with my heart.”
Welcome anger washed over Finn, and before he could stop himself, he sent his hand across the desk, hurling papers and ledgers to the carpet. “I don’t even know who I am, Jule!” With a choked inhalation, he slumped back, realizing he’d spoken in French. Rage flowing from his soul in a language a rookery orphan shouldn’t know.
Shouldn’t dream in. Shouldn’t adore.
With the calm composure he was known for, Julian knelt and began to tidy the mess Finn had made of his correspondence. “You know, you did that often when we first pulled you off the streets. During what I called the night terrors, when Humphrey and I had to hold you down to get you to sleep, you’d slip into this perfectly-accented French mixed with the most dreadful cockney. You went from street thug to refined toff in the blink of an eye while telling me exactly what I was thinking. It was terrifying.”
Finn searched the ceiling for a crack, a spiderweb, anything to keep from looking at his brother. Losing control wasn’t a reward he normally afforded himself. “I don’t remember.”
“Probably beneficial that.” Julian slapped two neat stacks on the desk. “I hope Humphrey has children of his own someday. He was so good with you. Had all the answers when I was hopeless, little more than a boy myself. You and I would’ve never survived without him. His gruff exterior is as contrived as your glib charm.”
Finn gestured to the mess he’d made, his smile weak around the edges. “Apologies. It seems I left my glib charm in London.”
“Thank God for something.”
Finn laughed, affection for his brother overwhelming him. A frightening sentiment that had kept him hiding in his maisonette above the Blue Moon for months.
Being home was splendid and unbearable.
Julian perched on the edge of the desk, traced his finger along a jagged score in the wood. Subtlety wasn’t his strong suit. “Maybe French is part of your history. Why you picked up languages so quickly.”
“No, Jule.”
“We could hire a
n investigator. Bow Street has worked well for us in the past.”
Finn’s heartbeat kicked into a ferocious rhythm as the scant memories of his time in the orphanage, and before that, if he tried very, very hard to recall, coated him like a bracing winter mist. He looked to Julian, letting everything work its way to the forefront. Coloring his eyes, twisting his features. Of all his talents, and they were many, hiding his feelings wasn’t one of them. “The past is staying in the past. I can’t go there. I don’t want to go there. Not now, not ever.”
Julian waited the appropriate amount of time, letting silence smooth a coarse path, the best man Finn knew at not rushing in. “It doesn’t change anything with your family, this family. That you want to know about the other one. Or need to. I know everything about my past, although I wish I didn’t. But it’s not a blank canvas. I know why I am the way I am, and in some respects, that brings solace. And grief.”
“I’d like to engage an investigator, actually.” At Julian’s surprised look, Finn rushed to add, “To look into what Rossby holds over Victoria’s father. And if they can’t find out, I’ll go directly to the source and steal the unquestionably captivating thoughts in the Grape’s mind.”
Julian blinked, clearly stunned. “You’d go that far for this woman?”
Finn clenched his jaw and looked away, to the window and the hint of yellow he could just make out in the distance. Victoria’s gown was a golden shimmer on the verdant lawn, the exact color of the buttercup that bounded the lake’s edge during summer. If he’d had her opera glasses handy, he would have taken a closer look.
She needs to ride again, Finn suddenly realized, the notion as bright as a friction match being struck in his mind. She’d been watching him these past mornings with longing and fear. He’d felt both emotions shimmering off of her, remnants from the accident with her brother. He could help her in this one small way. “The stable is well stocked, Jule, am I correct?”
