“Thank you, my lord!” Marley gave a quick bow of his head. He left Lord Hargrieve’s study feeling utterly elated, but he made it only a few steps before a hissing sound stopped him. Marley, his nerves now on edge, knowing there were dark things lurking about, nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Psst.”
He turned and peered into the dark recesses of the hall to find Lady Persephone ensconced in an alcove between her father’s study and the turn to the entrance hall. She waved with her hand, motioning him to her.
Marley glanced at the hallway to make sure they wouldn’t be seen conversing unchaperoned. “Yes, my lady?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Was there something you wanted?” He wondered for a moment if she was aware of the oddity of her father’s profession and that of the lieutenant.
Lady Persephone nodded and nibbled at her bottom lip as she stepped out of the alcove. “I want to thank you for the little dog. I’m horribly allergic to real dogs. I’ve wanted one for so very long. It was the most thoughtful of gifts. Thank you.”
And before Marley had a clue what was happening, Lady Persephone reached up on tiptoe and pressed a warm, velvet kiss to his cheek. Heat spread through his system from the point of contact, making him tingle all over. Her unique scent—a mix of heady hyacinth and sweet female—overwhelmed his senses, indelibly imprinting her on his brain.
She glanced up at him, her blue eyes huge and sparkling, then turned away without another word, which was fine by Marley because he was too tongue-tied to say anything. Other than his scores of female relatives, no woman had ever kissed him before.
But the moment was spoiled almost instantly. A thunderous crash and the sound of shattering glass came from Lord Hargrieve’s study. Marley whipped around and shoved Persephone behind him as a precaution.
There was a great yell and a sharp report of gunfire. Marley only made it two steps toward the ruckus when Lord Hargrieve burst into the hall with a deadly looking blade in one hand and a gun in the other. His white hair was askew, his face florid.
“Demon! Turlock, get her out of here! I haven’t time to load another salt shot, and there’ll be more!”
For a second, panic overtook Marley. What the devil did one do to defeat a demon? His feet seemed rooted to the polished floorboards.
Hargrieve spared him only a glance as he hastily tried to reload his gun with shot and gunpowder and what looked like rock salt. “Move, Turlock! That’s an order!”
Self-preservation and common sense took over. Marley turned, grabbed Lady Persephone’s hand in a firm grip, and ran for the front door.
At the juncture of the hall she dug in her feet, nearly yanking his arm from its socket. “No! Not out the front! They’ll be expecting us out the front!” A swirl of what looked like dark smoke began to leak from beneath the front door, growing denser, into what Marley thought were feet. The watered silk on the walls began to shred and ooze blood, and the crystal vase full of flowers on the front table exploded, sending glass shards like bullets to stick into the opposing wall.
Marley held up his arm to ward off the explosion and swore. What the devil was going on?
“Come on!” She pulled him toward the back of the house at a run, her skirts swishing around her booted feet. They burst into the kitchen. “All of you! Stations! Demons!” she shouted.
The cook’s face screwed up, and she set down her wooden spoon. “Lizzie, get the salt and holy water!” The scullery maid rushed to the larder and pulled out a canister of salt, which the cook began pouring out onto the floor in the doorway.
Marley could pause for only a second at their odd behavior before Persephone pulled on his hand. “Come on! They know what to do. This way!” With quick footsteps she led him down into the cellar.
A dark cellar was not his idea of a good escape route. In fact, he was rather concerned that there might be more to worry about being trapped in such a place. “Your father said I should get you out of here.”
“I know. This way.” She pulled him, as if by memory, through the dark, through the rows of shelving. The musty odor of dank earth, wood, and fresh onions and garlic lingered in the air. Over their heads feet scuffled across the floorboards, and there were unearthly screams and the crashing of crockery and glass. The floor seemed to be sloping upward, and Marley nearly tripped over his feet in the dark.
He tugged on her hand, stopping her headlong race across the stone floor. “Lady Persephone, I must protest. This is most dangerous. We need to go back upstairs and help!”
“My father wants me out of here for a reason. He told you to help protect me.”
Marley muttered a curse beneath his breath. “If we’re going to get out of here before those things come after us, we need a light.” Persephone let go of his hand. Before he could protest, he blinked at a sudden burst of brilliant sunlight. She’d opened a door at the back of the house that seemed to be hidden behind a screen of tall shrubbery. From the smell of hay, horse, and fresh manure, Marley guessed they were close to the stables.
“That enough light for you?”
Marley blinked. Smart girl. She’d found them an exit. The moment he let go of the door, it swung shut, as if on springs. Marley couldn’t see more than the crease outlining the door. There were no handle or hinges to be found, no way to open it from the outside. They pushed through the foliage, the grass beneath their feet hushing their footsteps.
Inhuman screams and more crashing could be heard from inside the house, and Marley hesitated. “Run! I’ll go back and assist. They need help.”
Persephone put her warm, damp palm against his cheek and turned him to face her, locking her serious gaze with his. “We do as my father said. We leave. Now. We need to find someplace safe. I have to make sure this isn’t taken.” She pulled on the golden chain around her neck and withdrew a small, iron key.
He had no idea what lock the key fit into, or how he’d gotten caught up in this insane twist of reality, but all he could do now was carry on. Marley pressed his mouth into a firm line and nodded. “We’ll go to my laboratory.”
They raced through the stableyard, through the alley and into the street and grabbed the first coach for hire they could find. Marley glanced back at Lord Hargrieve’s house as they drove away. Other than the broken front window, it looked utterly placid. From the street in front nothing seemed amiss, and one couldn’t hear the screams. Lady Persephone sat across from him but stared out the window.
“Are you certain they’ll be all right?”
Persephone nodded. Her gaze flicked briefly to him. “Father has plenty of devil’s traps molded into the plaster designs in the ceilings. Chances are they’ll all get caught in one; then father, cook, and the others of the Legion can dispatch them.”
For a second Marley simply stared at her. She knew all about her father’s occupation and didn’t seem ruffled about it in the slightest. How was that possible?
Deep in his own chest his heart beat at a manic pace, suiting a man who had just been scared out of his wits and run for his very life. He glanced down at her hands. Her fingers caressed the small mechanical dog, which had gone still, unwinding in their daring escape. She’d kept hold of the dog during absolute bedlam. Amazing.
Marley struggled to collect his scattered thoughts enough to form rational words. “How long have you known about all of this?”
Her piercing blue gaze, so like her father’s for an instant that it unnerved him further, locked with his. “My father has always been in Her Majesty’s service. Few are called, Sir Turlock, but it is a proud tradition handed down from father to son.”
“And what of you? Is it handed down to daughters as well?”
Her teeth nibbled at the edge of her lip. Marley had the insanely curious urge to kiss her then and there, but he resisted. “We are not Hunters, as the boys are.” Her fingers twisted in the chain about her neck, making the key catch the light. “We are Keepers. We tend to the histories, the knowledge of the Legion. I’m not sure how
much of this I can share with you, Sir Turlock.”
Marley leaned forward and wrapped his hand over her slender fingers. “Given all that’s transpired this morning, don’t you think we’re well past such formalities? I think you should call me Marley.”
Her lush mouth widened into a smile. “I should like that. And you must call me Sephie.”
Sephie. He liked the sound of it. Rather like an exotic flower from Egypt or some other such faraway land. But darker thoughts intruded.
“How will we know that your father and the others are safe?”
“They will send word.”
“But they don’t even know where we are going.”
Sephie arched a delicate brow, an incredulous look on her face. “Marley, do you really think that father would have asked you to take me to safety if he didn’t already know everything about you?”
Marley stiffened. He didn’t know if he liked the idea of any man prying into his personal affairs without his consent or knowledge. He tended to be more of a private man, steeped in his work. He didn’t socialize like Thadeus. Focus was critical if he was to complete his work.
“Do you actually have any interest in aeronautics or mechanics or were you merely sent over to capture my attention?”
Sephie broke her direct eye contact with him and sighed. Her gaze dropped to her lap and the little dog in her grasp, before she looked back up at him. “He didn’t say anything about helping you with your invention. That was purely my curiosity and your kindness.”
His shoulders relaxed a bit. “I meant what I said yesterday. You’re very good.”
She shook her head, making the riot of fiery ringlets about her face dance. “Father is dead set against me inventing anything. My first responsibility is to marry into the Legion and perform the duties of a Keeper.” The sad, hopeless sound of her voice reached into his chest and gave his heart a sharp twist.
“That’s why he’s made an arrangement with the lieutenant, isn’t it?”
She nodded, her eyes growing shiny with unshed tears. Marley chose his words carefully. “You aren’t . . . fond . . . of him, are you?”
She rubbed her fingers over the smooth metallic coat of the little spaniel. “He’s a formidable Hunter. One of the best of the new young ones in Her Majesty’s service. But being an excellent Hunter doesn’t necessarily make one good marriage material.”
“Have you told your father how you feel?”
Sephie sighed, the glistening tears beginning to spill down her cheeks in such perfect little drops they looked to Marley like translucent pearls. Lady Persephone Hargrieve even cried prettily. She hastily swept the tears away with a brush of her hand. “You must think me a silly chit to cry over such things.”
Marley reached out again and covered her hand with his. “What a woman feels is never silly.”
She gave a hiccup and a sad little bubble of laughter. “I’ve never heard a man talk like that.”
He offered her a gentle, genuine smile. “Perhaps that’s because the men you’ve been around have been fighting the unthinkable instead of having an army of well-meaning aunts see to their instruction.” He reached up and brushed one of her perfect tears away from her cheek with the pad of his thumb.
Sephie gave a delicate sniff and a tremulous smile. “I rather like the difference.”
Lady Persephone Hargrieve was a conundrum. In the midst of bedlam, she’d been sharp and strong, focused and brave. But within her was a keen intellect as bright as any arc light, balanced with a sweet, feminine heart as fragile as glass.
His pulse thrummed hard in his chest, spreading out until it filled every cell. It was as if his whole world tilted off its axis for a moment, wobbling. He’d never met a woman who’d thrown him off balance like Sephie.
“Marley?”
He leaned in closer. “Yes,” he whispered.
She blinked the damp fringe of her sparkling lashes, turning her eyes into a lake of blue. Marley felt himself falling, drowning there. “Are you going to kiss me?”
For once, Marley found words perfectly unnecessary.
Chapter 5
The rocking of the poorly sprung hackney cab and the steady clop of the horse’s hooves on the cobblestone streets faded into the edges of Marley’s awareness. All he could focus on, all that filled his senses, was Sephie.
Marley closed the space separating them in the seconds between one pounding heartbeat and the next. His hand slid around the indent of her waist. Beneath his questing fingertips he felt the crisp cloth and regular intervals of the boning in her corset. Hard when he wanted soft. He wondered if she was just as soft there beneath all the artificially constructed barriers as her cheek had been when he’d touched the satiny smoothness of it.
The heady fragrance of hyacinth and warm female wound about his brain, making his heartbeat extend to the very tips of all his extremities, mostly notable the one between his legs. In the back of his brain a warning claxon blared. He shouldn’t kiss her. It could ruin everything for them both. He’d never kissed a woman properly before, but her lips looked as lush and ripe as a strawberry picked fresh and sun-warmed from the field.
She was irresistible.
His lips touched hers, gliding and pressing against the inviting softness, seeking out her warmth. Sephie’s eyelids fluttered shut, and she made soft noises as she leaned into him, her fingers wrapping possessively around his neck and threading into his hair. Her eager response wound his need into an even tighter coil, a spring waiting for release.
For the first time he understood why Thadeus could be so smitten by females as to lose all his common sense. Deep down Marley wanted the moment to freeze, to never end, but continually replay over and over so it could always be like this. The warmth of her against him, the feel of her beneath his hands, the taste of her on his tongue, the fragrance of her skin filling his senses.
Sephie thought she might come out of her skin, or at the very least out of her dress and corset. Every inch of her skin felt alive with flame. Unlike Frobisher’s hard, punishing kisses that left her feeling like she were bruised and drowning, eager to get away, Marley’s kisses were smooth and seductive, luring her deeper into his arms until she was practically atop his lap, her skirts bunched up about her hips.
His hands, warm and firm on her waist, had skimmed up higher, the edge of his thumb tracing along the soft, sensitive underside of her breast, making the tip pebble and ache for his touch.
She wanted to taste him. Sephie tentatively touched the tip of her tongue against his lips. He immediately responded, opening up to her, his kiss deepening in an erotic slide that reduced her insides to a quivering mass of aspic. A persistent throb at her core grew into an unbearable ache. Sephie brushed herself against the broad expanse of his thigh to assuage it. Marley growled deeply in response.
The hackney came to a jolting halt, causing them to nearly slide to the floor. Sephie realized how close she’d come to compromising herself in a way that could never be recovered. Something about Marley made her forget herself far too easily. She pulled back from his touch.
“We’ve stopped.”
A look of hurt flickered through his eyes for a moment, but then he too seemed to come out of the sensual fog that had shrouded them both in the half an hour it had taken to get to Bostwick House.
Marley opened the door, and she moved to climb out, but his hand wrapped in a no-nonsense fashion about her wrist. “You’d best wait in here until I can determine if it’s safe,” he said.
Sephie nearly laughed at the absurdity of his comment. She’d been the one raised as the child of a Hunter, and she knew precisely what they were up against and had come prepared, unlike Marley. But she held her urge to laugh in check, realizing from the frown on his face that Marley was deadly serious.
“If you must. Just be careful,” she said. He gave her a curt nod and shut the door.
Her finger tapped out an impatient tattoo on the leather seat while she waited. It was ridiculous. Of the tw
o of them she’d been more closely associated with the Legion of Hunters far longer. She knew what could stop a demon in its tracks and how to outsmart a vampire. Marley had only learned of the existence of the Darkin a mere hour ago, if not less. Still, it spoke well of him that he considered her safety above his own.
“How long can a look around possibly take?” she muttered under her breath to no one in particular. She knew they hadn’t been followed. The emergency exit through the cellar had warding spells and seals upon it, not letting any through but those alive and breathing, so she knew no Darkin had followed them across town. But in the event that they had been followed, the small sachet of wolfsbane in the pocket of her skirt would ward off curious vampires who could become paralyzed by the stuff. For demons and werewolves, she had a vial of holy water, and if a ghost came too close, she could swing the nearest iron implement and take care of it temporarily.
Marley poked his head back in the hackney and a rush of relief filled her. She’d begun to worry about him.
“It looks safe enough.” He held out his hand to assist her. Sephie was only too glad to have another excuse to slip her hand into his. The smooth, dry whisper of his skin against hers sent a fresh thrill shooting through her, making her tingle in places she’d never considered all that interesting before.
The waning light of evening cast the entrance to Bostwick House in shadow, making the residence seem far more foreboding than it had when she and her father had driven past to inspect the place during his investigations of Marley a month before.
Overall her father was a cautious man. He didn’t choose associates indiscriminately. Her Majesty’s Royal Hunter Service wasn’t considered the top of Europe’s branch of the Legion for nothing, and her father intended to keep hold of that legacy as long as possible.
“Do you think anyone is home?” she asked as the hackney clattered off into the gathering gloom of the street. The lamplighters were making their way along the streets with their long-poled lighters as people returned home to dress for various elegant events. The Earl of Sedgwick’s ball was tonight, she remembered. Not that she’d wanted to go. She’d rather be here with Marley than swirling about a ballroom with anyone else. Lieutenant William Wallace Frobisher in particular.
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