Venomous Secrets

by Anne Renwick

  A few minutes later, it was done.

  Judging from her husband’s scowl, she was an unhappily married woman.

  He’d fallen victim to the classic parson’s trap, one the duke and duchess had helped spring. Or was it an arranged marriage? No, more a scheme cobbled together on the fly and neatly tied up with a pretty bow, rather than the carefully crafted alliance more commonly known among the ton.

  Cunningly executed, regardless.

  Cogs, what kind of marriage had he allowed himself to be steered into? How steep a price would he pay that he might be allowed to put his life on the line in the pursuit of a deadly, venomous beauty? All while guarding a woman, now his wife, who seemed hell-bent on putting her own life at risk to catch the very same creature.

  “Keep her safe, or I’ll peel off strips of your flesh to fish for kraken on the Vauxhall Bridge,” Black growled after kissing his sister goodbye on the train platform and handing her into a private compartment. No doubt the impending task of informing Cait’s mother of her daughter’s precipitous marriage and immediate honeymoon rendered him grumpy and irascible.

  “Safe. Your sister? Is such a thing possible?” Jack asked. Annoyance simmered as it coursed through his veins. “It’s like you’ve never met her. The word simply does not apply. Given her proclivity for all things poisonous and deadly, it’ll be a miracle if I survive the honeymoon, let alone the wedding night.”

  A low blow, reminding Black exactly what his sister would be up to later this very evening? He didn’t care. In for a penny in for a pound. Their marriage might be arranged, but they’d both agreed it would neither be celibate nor faithless. Warmth flooded his body at the anticipation of sharing her bed.

  “If you had only—”

  “You dragged her into this. She followed me.” Jack jabbed a finger into Black’s chest. “Who trapped who?”

  True, a wife as an agent suited him. He himself had proffered the idea. But his stomach sank at the idea that any unmarried Queen’s agent would have served Cait’s cause equally.

  No, he revised his position, the moment he’d attached himself to the vampire case, he’d become her sole target. It burned that the duke valued him so little that Jack was easily presented to a favored agent’s sister for social and career advancement.

  His words found their mark, rendering his new brother-in-law speechless. But Black was not a man to cross. Jack backed away from the glowering agent onto the train, unwilling to turn his back and present an easy target for a knife.

  He landed on a red velvet-covered bench opposite his wife. Dragging in a lungful of damp, spring air, he released his breath slowly, conscious that he did not wish anger to color the start of his marriage, regardless of his feelings.

  As the train pulled away from the station with great huffs and chuffs and a screech of iron wheels upon steel tracks, Cait ventured a smile. “Is it too much to hope that the frown carved into your stoic face is due to a deep-seated worry that the duchess herself oversaw the packing of our trunks?”

  Not trusting himself yet to speak, Jack lifted an eyebrow.

  “All new attire, selected by tailors and dressmakers on Bond Street with only our measurements from which to work.” She removed her gloves and unpinned her hat, then set both beside her reticule.

  Such glorious hair. Dark waves twisted into submission and fastened in place. Resentment battled with a certain sense of gratification that he could soon see it cascade free about her bare shoulders.

  “Will my corsets be plain cotton?” Cait mused aloud. “My stockings of itchy wool, my every gown no more than serviceable? Or will there be miles of ruffles, ribbons and beads stitched onto low-cut gowns?” She leaned forward, eyes wide. “Perhaps they packed you striped knee breeches and an orange, paisley cravat? Or maybe waistcoats of yellow silk with embroidered, blue butterflies?”

  He huffed a laugh. Impossible not to warm to her game. He kicked up the corner of his mouth and added a new level of heat, all while wondering at the transformation of his earlier ire. “More to the point, were they informed that we were newlyweds? Or did they believe I required a flannel nightshirt and you a high-necked cotton nightgown?”

  Her cheeks colored, but she rose to the occasion. “Better an indecent scrap of satin trimmed with lace?”

  An image of Cait in his bed crept to mind, one where he wasn’t fighting to save her life. One where she encouraged his eager explorations with soft sighs and sharp cries as he peeled away soft layers of silk to—

  “Which reminds me.” She fell back against the cushions. “We know so very little about each other. I’ve married a man who once trained to become a physician, then worked alongside cryptozoologists, but holds no degrees nor commands any laboratory space. Care to explain? Or shall I make up wild stories when asked?” The grin that stretched her mouth took on a playful air. “A different one each time, I should think. The sight of blood makes him ill. He can’t stand the sound of patients screaming. There was an incident in the laboratory involving a pteryform—” she clamped her lips together, then whispered, “but I’m not to speak of it.”

  He laughed. “My training is, upon occasion, useful in the field. But neither medicine nor flying creatures proved a true calling. Jack of all trades, you’ll recall. All skills have served me well as a Queen’s agent.” He narrowed his eyes. “I note similarities to your own arrival at Lister Laboratories.”

  His wife tipped her head, acknowledging a certain truth. “True. I’m a self-taught poison expert with little interest in pursuing a formal degree or permanently ensconcing myself within laboratory walls.”

  “I’ve a similar aversion to close walls and missions afford me an opportunity to locate things people do not want found.” He gave a half shrug. “A product of my childhood. A father with addictive tendencies and mother determined to present the perfect façade. Mix in a spoiled and misbehaved brother intent upon self-destruction, and my upbringing was a proving ground for self-preservation.” Much of which also applied to Angela, traits which had unfortunately caught the duchess’ attention.

  “And the constant travel keeps you from close familial contact?”

  “There’s that. Though I happen to enjoy travel, fieldwork in particular.”

  “Have you found your aim with a rifle more accurate than holding a scalpel?”

  That sobered him.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “That was insensitive. Nothing is amusing about your prognosis.”

  “If also true. Or, rather, it was. I already experience occasional double vision.” He ran a hand over his eyes. “For now, it comes and goes. Exhaustion does not help.” Time to shift from fact to fiction. He didn’t want her pity. “At the baths, we’ll require a cover story.”

  “We were instructed to be ourselves.”

  “Inasmuch as is possible.” He crossed his arms, let amusement ripple over his face. “Would you inform the world that we met across a cadaver? Spent a London evening together following the trail of a venomous creature? How you suffered a near-fatal bite, then slept off the effects in my bed?”

  “Certainly not!” She snapped her mouth shut, then tapped her lips with a fingertip. “I’ve noted a greenhouse perched upon Lister’s rooftop. Perhaps we met there?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “We can do better. An omnibus. You climbed aboard the wrong one and found yourself far from your stop. I escorted you home.”

  “Unacceptable. I do not require a chaperone, nor would I make such a mistake.” She twisted her lips. “An omnibus. You stepped on my hem and tore my dress, making me miss my stop. Then you walked me home, apologizing profusely.”

  He barked a laugh. “Are you ever wrong?”

  “Rarely. Hen’s teeth are more common.”

  “Very well,” he snorted. “A ruined gown it is.”

  “Now, about my brother, why the hostility? In the morgue where we did not meet, you and Lord Thornton were clearly concealing your prognosis from him, so it’s not that he’s threatened to
terminate your status as an active agent.”

  “Not yet. But if—or when—he finds out, he’ll see my status as an active agent terminated.”

  Cait lifted her eyebrows and spread her hands. “You dislike your new brother-in-law because…”

  His fingers tightened about his arms. A wife would know about her sister-in-law. “During my recent mission abroad, he had the audacity to help the duchess arrange and execute the marriage of my sister, Angela, to an Icelandic nobleman.”

  Cait frowned. “That’s a problem because?”

  “He knew my objections to her becoming a societal liaison.” Jack closed his eyes for a moment. From all reports, his petite sister, often compared to a china shepherdess with her rose-bud mouth and bright blue eyes, had been a smashing success during her first Season. Many had offered for her hand, but she had refused them all.

  He had wanted better for her than a life in service, bearing the children of a man the Crown feared. When word of her impending marriage had reached him, he’d wrapped up his foreign assignment and hurried back, but she’d been gone before his feet even touched British soil.

  “Whatever for?” Cait stiffened. “Such marriages are arranged by the duchess, that a woman might serve the Crown, but are not forced.”

  “She was relocated to a cold, remote island with only three months of official training. That’s very little preparation, even for a societal liaison. Moreover, her marriage exposed her to direct and immediate danger. That floating castle that nearly tipped into the sea? She was on it. She could have died.”

  “Yet didn’t,” Cait pointed out. “I like her already. She and I both have brothers who are peas in a pod.” His bride rolled her eyes. “And such similar stories. I nearly died to earn my chance at becoming an agent.” She spread her hands wide. “Then married, that I might undertake a mission with no training. But I’ll learn.”

  His sister possessed little in the way of skills, though her determination knew no bounds. “You’re different. Stronger.”

  An eyebrow lifted. “More deadly?”

  “Of a certainty.”

  “Yet my brother objects.” Cait huffed, then fell back against her seat, arms crossed. “So predictable. Men. Both of you think your sisters delicate flowers, incapable of strong, independent thought or action though evidence to the contrary has been staring you in the face your entire lives. She knew what she was doing, have no doubt.”

  “As you did?” He narrowed his eyes, disliking the oily feeling that slid down his back insisting he’d been caught like a rat in a trap.

  “As I did.”

  His nostrils flared. “As we’re on the topic, what, precisely, made you agree to marry me? Beyond retaining your access to the hallowed halls of the Lister Institute?”

  Chin lifted, she met his gaze. “A yearning for adventure. Travel. I’m done chaining myself to a laboratory bench and missing all the fun.”

  A dull ache settled into his chest. “The man himself didn’t factor in?”

  “You need to ask?”

  He stared back, silent. Waiting.

  “Well, if I’m to be brutally honest…” Her narrowed eyes swept over him from head to toe. “I had every expectation that I was marrying an intelligent man. But it’s entirely possible my judgment was unduly swayed by an expert kiss and little else.”

  With that, her lips pursed, and she turned her head to glare at the dark shapes outside rushing past as the train rattled and swayed its way north, leaving Jack to contemplate the quagmire that threatened to suck him under.

  His heart wanted to trust her, but life experience worried that disappointment lurked beneath the surface. Either way, it seemed the next move would be his.

  Chapter Eleven

  Though exhausted by hours of stony silence and frosty politeness, Cait swore the blinding brilliance of the Grand Menwith Hotel could wake the dead.

  Their arrival had been delayed due to the midair collision of a pteryform and dirigible outside London. Track clearance had taken hours ensuring that their journey north to the Harrogate station felt nothing short of interminable.

  Even then, reaching their final destination had involved a long carriage ride and an unsolicited lecture delivered by a fellow passenger. By the time the vehicle rolled to a stop, she considered herself an expert on the history and mineral content—iron and sulfur—of the hot springs that welled upward to fill the spa’s baths.

  The hotel burned coal gas at a rate rivaling any London hotel. Light pooled beneath gas lamps lining its circular drive, splashed across the entryway, and flooded every corner of the marble-paved and gilt-encrusted lobby.

  Lord Aubrey and friends had spared no expense.

  White-gloved staff descended upon them in a flurry of activity. Dazed, damp and disheveled from the eventful day, Cait crossed the plush red carpet following a uniformed attendant assigned to lead the newlyweds to their suite.

  She clutched her reticule and its precious contents.

  How many hours had passed since she plated the double immunodiffusion biogels? She counted fifteen. By daybreak, results would be definitive.

  At which point, she would have to make a decision.

  Could she trust Jack enough to tell him the complete and unedited truth when no one—not Logan, not Janet, not her mother—knew the full extent of her secrets? Or, if she were being brutally honest, not even herself? Her heritage was a patchwork of parts that didn’t quite piece together to make a whole no matter the efforts she’d made to stitch them together, bit by bit.

  Her near perfect health. An inexplicable resistance to toxic substances of an organic nature. A biological father who reportedly hailed from the subcontinent of India. A man whose name Cait’s mother could barely pronounce. A traveler forever on the move amidst gypsies and carnival performers. A man who, in all likelihood, had left British shores long ago. What exactly about his immune system set him, and therefore her, apart?

  As the basis for her own research, she longed for specifics. But the need to know was deeper, less cerebral and more visceral. Who, exactly, was she? What was she?

  Every time she caught a glimpse of a caravan, or the striped and pointed peak of a circus tent, she had inquired after her father—only to be met with blank stares or the quick shake of a head.

  Which was why—when no one was looking—she’d snatched up a flier nailed to a pillar at the train station pinpointing the exact location of Professor Grimaldi’s Floating Cabinet of Curiosities. Tethered nearby, out on the moors, there wasn’t a chance she’d leave Yorkshire without a visit. With or without Jack in tow.

  Leading her back to the questions of how much she ought to reveal to her new husband. He already knew she was an aberration, but the gulf of resentment stretching between them gave her reservations.

  Both of them were on their own quests. Both refused to accept their current circumstances. He sought to save his eyesight without losing his livelihood. She wanted more than ceaseless toil in a laboratory. Adventure. Travel. To better understand her gifts.

  She snorted.

  They needed each other.

  For now, she pushed all concerns and doubts aside.

  Doors were thrown open, arms waved. A bellboy bustled past with their trunks. The newlywed suite included a sitting room, washroom, dressing room and two bedrooms. A small comfort that there was no need to confront a complete and total loss of personal privacy.

  Yet.

  Grateful, she submitted to the deft fingers of a maid who helped her undress and bundled away her rumpled clothing—all while a steam maid unpacked.

  The silk of a lace-edged nightgown skimmed over Cait’s skin and a tall glass of water was pressed into her hands. “Drawn directly from the Menwith Well itself just this morning. Will that be all, ma’am?”

  Cait sniffed the water, wrinkling her nose at the smell. “The sulfur is strong.”

  “Good for the hair and skin,” the maid extolled. “And most excellent at resolving blockages of the bow
els.”

  “Lovely. Just the thing a bride needs.” She set down the glass. “Thank you.”

  Lips twitching, the maid dipped a curtsy and departed.

  Cait slipped a hand over the whisper of barely-there silk, a nice touch on the duchess’ part, but… Aether. This was her wedding night, and she was bone-tired, not to mention tied in knots over the unknowable mindset of her new husband.

  Should she go to him? Would he come to her?

  She dropped her head into her hands. Eyes closed, she sighed. This was not at all a promising start to a successful union.

  A soft knock sounded.

  She straightened and pulled her shoulders back. Any delays would only extend the torment. “Come.”

  The door opened. In a heartbeat, all fatigue evaporated.

  Jack was a sight to behold. Tousled locks above dark eyebrows and the rough scruff of a beard. A landscape of texture that made her fingers ache to explore. All taken in before her eyes drifted away from his face and fell upon the black brocade robe wrapped about his torso, fabric perfectly cut to emphasize his broad shoulders and narrow hips and provide a tantalizing view of the hair scattered across his chest.

  He slipped a finger beneath the lace at her shoulder, sending a shiver across her skin. “Everything I could have hoped for and more.”

  With that, his lips met hers in a slow, bone-melting kiss. A soft and tender exploration, full of seductive promises. She rose onto toe-tips and leaned forward, sighing in encouragement, but he didn’t drop his hands to her hips, gather her close or nudge her toward the bed.

  Cait fell back onto her heels and looked into his shadowed eyes where ambivalence flickered.

  “Not prepared to make the marriage binding?” she ventured, refusing to step backward. To indicate in any way that such an outcome was acceptable.

  “Not tonight. We both need to rest.” But neither did he retreat. Instead, he caught a tendril of her hair between his thumb and forefinger, toyed with the curl at its end. Then his hand touched upon the bandage at her neck. “The bite?”