by Zoë Archer
“Why’d the master want this stuff in here?” a footman asked.
A maid shrugged as she tucked sheets into the bed. “Gentry. Who knows why they does anything?”
“It’s for me,” Zora said.
“Is someone goin’ to sleep in here?”
“Me,” Zora said again, getting to her feet. She scuttled aside as another footman came in bearing a tray covered with delicious-smelling food. The servant very nearly walked right over her, almost as if he hadn’t seen her standing right in front of him.
“Your master is holding me prisoner,” she said. She turned to the maid, who shook out a blanket and laid it atop the bed. “Please help me.”
The maid continued on in her work, paying Zora no mind.
“Can’t any of you help me?” Zora spun to the footman with the tray of food. He set it atop the card table.
“Don’t make no sense to me,” the footman muttered. “Make up a full breakfast with no one to eat it.”
“I told you.” The maid adjusted the placement of the pillow. “He’s gentry. They get all sorts of odd notions in their heads. He wants the gaming room made up for some pretend honored guest, we just nod an’ say, ‘Yes, my lord.’ ” She marched to the window and shut it with a slam.
Zora whirled around, frantically searching the faces of the half dozen servants preparing the room. “Please—”
An immaculately dressed man appeared at the door. “Is everything attended to?”
“Yes, Mr. Kitson,” answered the footman who had brought in the food.
“Who’s this for, Mr. Kitson?” asked the maid.
The well-dressed man scanned the room, his gaze passing over Zora without as much as a blink. “I’ve no idea, and it’s none of your concern. If you are finished here, then I suggest you leave in anticipation of the guest’s arrival.”
The servants sighed and filed out of the room, with the finely dressed man shutting the door behind them. Zora was alone again.
She stood by the bed, dazed. Somehow, the magic that held her in this place kept the servants from seeing or hearing her.
In truth, she hadn’t been counting on the servants. She counted on herself alone. Always had. For if anyone could figure out a thorny situation, it was her, and she had seen herself through some very sharp thickets.
She would not allow herself to be touched that Whit had seen to her needs, instructing his servants to make the gaming room more comfortable. As if one should appreciate a captor using silken cords rather than coarse rope to bind one’s wrists.
Whit belonged to the Devil now. He and his friends were in league with the beast. They had, in fact, set the Devil free. Which meant that something had to be done. Whatever they or the ironically named Mr. Holliday planned, it would not be good. It was very likely disastrous. Of those who knew that the Devil had been raised from Hell, only Zora opposed him. The responsibility fell to her to figure out what Mr. Holliday schemed and how to stop him.
She had to stop Whit. He was a danger. To her, to himself. To the world.
Zora paced to the window, watching the gray dawn. She pressed her hand to the glass and saw a corona of heat mist form around her palm. Trapped.
There was a way to freedom. She knew it. And she would find it.
Even if the Devil himself stood in her way.
Sleep did not come, not as quickly as Whit thought it would. The night had been long, extraordinary, something out of a boyhood fantasy. Yet the fantasy was very real. He had only to go downstairs and look into his gaming room to prove that he did not dream the last twelve hours.
Zora was his. He wanted her, and she was his. That lovely, fierce creature belonged to him. The dark part of himself reveled in this. A voice within him, though, growled out that no one could, should, have ownership over another.
He’d surprised himself when he’d bluntly invited her to share his bed. As if unable to stop himself from speaking aloud his desire. But, by God, he’d wanted her from the moment he had seen her in the Gypsy camp, a need that built with each hand of cards they had played, and it could no longer be contained.
Whit kicked off the blankets and stalked to the window. He didn’t care that he was nude—his bedchamber was high enough that no one could see in. Hands braced on the window frame, he stared out at the garden below. She had the same view a story below him. He wondered if they were looking out at the same time, if she watched the pathways fill with silver light and heard the sounds of London as it came awake.
He hoped the servants had made the gaming room comfortable for her. He couldn’t stand the thought that she would suffer under his care. If she let him, he would give her anything she wanted. A shadowed voice within rumbled, As long as she remains mine.
Power suddenly coursed through his body. He was alive with it. Fully alive for the first time in many, many years. He’d never known this sense of possibility, of potential.
He opened and closed his hands, feeling surges of energy coursing through his blood, his muscles and bones. Of what was he now capable? Anything. Everything.
No wonder slumber eluded him. How could he sleep when he knew himself to be on the verge of something monumental? The gift of chance was his, to control as he desired. All over London were gaming hells ripe for harvest. He would claim it all for himself.
With Zora, though, he would take another tack.
Whit rang for his valet. Moments later, Kitson appeared, immaculate as always, even though it could scarce be past six in the morning. He arrived so quickly, Whit was still in the process of slipping on his banyan. Whit had one arm in one sleeve, and the other was bare.
Kitson stared. Normally, the man was as composed as a sonnet, but the valet actually stared openly at Whit. More specifically, he stared at Whit’s bare shoulder.
Glancing down, Whit saw what snared his valet’s attention. He strode to a mirror atop a dressing table. Stared at his reflection.
Images of flames covered his left shoulder, as if someone had drawn upon his skin. They resembled flames in an alchemical text, entwining over the curved surface of his shoulder. He lightly touched the markings, marveling. They had not been there the day before. But last night, he had been given a gift from the Devil himself. The images must have appeared after that.
He now wore the Devil’s mark. What did it mean?
This was not the time to consider it. Whit turned from the mirror and covered his shoulder.
“Has the gaming room been prepared?” he demanded without preamble, securing the banyan.
Kitson recovered immediately, his gaze now suitably disinterested. “Yes, my lord.”
“And food was brought, too?”
“Yes, my lord. Are you expecting a guest?”
Whit stared at him. “My guest is already in the gaming room.”
“There is no one in there now, my lord. I saw it myself. I heard no one speak.” Kitson kept his expression carefully blank.
Whit’s mind worked. It was impossible for Zora to have left the gaming room—Mr. Holliday had assured him she could not be more than twenty feet from the card, and Whit himself witnessed her inability to leave or even move the card. She had to still be there.
Yet neither Kitson nor any of his servants had seen her. Or heard her. Which meant ... she was as a ghost to them. More of Mr. Holliday’s power.
Perhaps if Whit were in possession of the card, she would be visible. If that were true, he would need to make preparations for her.
“Send someone to Madame Lyonnet,” he said. “She has a shop on the Strand, I believe. Get everything a pretty young woman could want—gowns, fans, ribbons, underclothes, shoes. The cost doesn’t matter.”
If Kitson thought this command was peculiar, his impassive expression did not show it. He simply noted, “Such a large order will take some time for Madame Lyonnet to complete.”
“Tell her I will double her usual asking price if she can have everything ready within two days.”
Kitson bowed. “I shall mak
e that known, my lord. If I may ask, the young woman in question, what are her dimensions? Is she fair or dark? Robust or slight?”
“She is this tall.” Whit held his hand up to just beneath his chin, remembering with a frisson of heat how he had to bend to bring his mouth close to hers. “She is slim, her waist about ...” He had not touched her waist, but he had marked its slenderness well, and knew that she would be lithe and quick beneath his hands. Whit held his palms out to approximate Zora’s narrowness, wanting her there and not empty space.
“And her bosom, my lord?” At Whit’s brow raised in question, Kitson explained, “Modistes find such details highly important, my lord. To ensure a proper fit.”
Whit had not touched Zora’s breasts, but he sure as blazes wanted to. “Lush,” he said, though the word seemed paltry compared to her delectable flesh, so abundant with vital energy. He had no doubt that she would be soft and sleek and luscious. “And as for complexion, her skin is the color of heather honey, and she has night-black hair and dark eyes.” Eyes full of fire and cunning, eyes that taunted and seduced him even as she declared without reservation that she hated him.
She desired him, too. She could not deny that. He relied upon it.
“I shall see to it immediately, my lord. Is there anything else you require?”
“That is all for now, Kitson.”
The valet bowed again and left Whit’s bedchamber noiselessly. Kitson was the perfect manservant for a nobleman. Discrete, reliable, and utterly disinterested. If he gossiped, Whit never knew, and that was all that mattered.
Alone again, Whit strode back to his bed. He rested his hand atop the rumpled bed linens. He would have Zora here. Whatever vow she made that he could not take her except by force, he made his own countervow. He would not employ the gifts given to him by Mr. Holliday. Instead, Whit would use all his own arts to make her willingly his. Seduction. Beguilement. The interplay between him and Zora was the same as the first few hands of cards, where opponents learned each other, their strengths and flaws, strategies and gambits. She was a worthy challenger.
Whit’s attention strayed to the coat he’d thrown carelessly over a nearby chaise. His eye immediately went to the missing button—proof that the gifts bestowed upon him by Mr. Holliday were genuine.
His waistcoat lay beside his coat. From its pocket, he plucked Zora’s ring. Such a tiny thing—it wouldn’t fit even on his littlest finger. He took from his dressing table a length of leather cord he sometimes used to bind back his hair, then threaded the cord through the ring. He put the cord around his neck and knotted the ends together. Zora’s ring lay just beneath the hollow of his throat, the cool metal warming against his skin. Just as she would warm to him.
Whit smiled as his gaze returned to the bed. It was empty for now, but would not be for long. The Devil had given him control over probability, and a beautiful woman, both to do with as he pleased. Whatever Whit wanted could be his. He had only to take it.
“By hell’s fire,” he whispered, “I will take anything I want.”
Chapter 4
Voices sounded on the other side of the door. A man and a woman, Zora judged, with sharp city voices. She recognized them as two of the servants from earlier in the day.
“It’s ridiculous, is what it is.” The woman spoke lowly, but the complaint in her voice made her nasal. “Nobody’s been in or out of here all day.”
“Ridiculous or no, it’s what the master wants,” the man answered, tired and bored.
The door opened, and Zora tensed, pressing herself against the wall. She exhaled after half a moment. There was no need to conceal herself or worry that these two servants posed a threat to her—as far as they knew, the game room in their master’s home was empty. Moving to perch on a footstool by the windows, she watched the man and woman enter the room. The footman held a tray with more food, while the maid carried a taper to light candles against the fading daylight. He appeared resigned, while the maid’s annoyance was writ plain across her youthful, peach-cheeked face.
“Bring in food, take away food,” the maid grumbled. “Make the bed. Empty the chamber pot. Am I supposed to pantomime all of it, like some Italian in the commedia?”
The footman set the tray of food upon the card table, and his dull eyes barely noticed the tray beside it, until a second later. His gaze snapped back to the first tray.
“Moll,” he said.
The maid stood in front of the fireplace, her hands on her hips. “Don’t I have enough to do between Mrs. Salter runnin’ me near to collapse? Master ain’t hardly ever at home, but she wants each chamber cleaned twice daily. If I wanted to be worked so hard, I’d have stayed back in Banbury with my mam and five brothers.”
“Moll,” the footman said again, sharply.
“What?” snapped the maid.
Wordlessly, the footman pointed at the first tray that once held Zora’s breakfast. All that remained of the cakes were scattered crumbs, and smudges of cold grease on a plate marked where the morning’s eggs and bacon had been. A film of tea coated the bottom of a dish.
“Ned must’ve eaten all that.” Moll marched over and sniffed disdainfully. “He’s always gettin’ caught in the larder.”
The footman paled. “Ned’s been with me in the front hall.”
“Somebody else, then. There’s fifteen other souls livin’ in this house.”
“Ain’t nobody come in here all day. So Mr. Kitson said.” The footman yelped. “Look, Moll.”
Both he and the maid peered under the table. Zora had taken the blankets off the bed and made a pallet for herself beneath the card table, and now the two servants stared with growing dread at her makeshift bed.
“You sure nobody’s come through?” Moll whispered.
“Mr. Kitson don’t lie.”
“The windows were closed, too.” The maid stared at them now, wide open to let in what fresh air could be found in London. “I closed one of ’em myself.”
The unease in their expressions stoked something dark and angry within Zora. She had been trapped in this room the whole of the day, starting at every sound, pacing like a caged beast, alternating among states of fury, determination, resentment, and, worst of all, fear. Seeing vulnerability in the servants’ faces made the snapping vixen within Zora lunge.
Jumping to her feet, she grabbed a deck of cards from the table and flung it at the footman and maid. Both servants screamed as cards scattered around them.
“Who threw ’em?” Moll gulped.
“They just flew. On their own.”
Zora banished her own fear by preying upon theirs. She gathered a handful of ivory gaming tokens and hurled them at the terrified servants. She yelled, too, though she knew they could not hear her.
Shrieking, terrified, the footman and the maid bolted from the room. A shadowed thrill shot through Zora as she heard them running down the hall. They left the door swinging wide open, which only served as a taunt of Zora’s own confinement. She had never been indoors this long, used to living beneath the canopy of open sky, and her caging within this gorgio house pushed her near to madness. Her frustration rose up like a baited bear, wanting to tear the throats of the dogs that tormented her. She kicked the footstool, and it smashed to pieces against the marble-fronted fireplace, but still she wasn’t satisfied. God, she wanted to tear this whole house down.
“I hope you know of a good placement agent.”
She spun at the sound of the deep voice, the same voice that had taunted and inflamed her during her restless attempts at sleep. Whit stood in the doorway, holding a lighted candlestick, and Zora told herself that her heart pounded from anger and being too long confined, not the sight of him, nor the rich resonance of his voice.
He stepped inside the room, shutting the door behind him, but his gaze never left hers. She could not look away from him, either, for she had never seen any man so darkly beautiful in the whole of her life.
Zora had little experience with wealthy gorgios in their evenin
g finery. She saw them in their daylight clothing at fairs and markets, and only sometimes, at night, caught glimpses of carriages or sedan chairs and their torch-bearing outriders, a jeweled hand at the window, a froth of snowy lace draped across a wrist. How the gorgios dressed themselves for their nighttime pleasures mattered little, for their world and her own did not overlap.
A distant edge of her mind wondered if she had denied herself a great pleasure by never standing outside an assembly hall to see the adorned creatures within. Yet she knew that, no matter what assembly hall or private ballroom she might have haunted, from Cheltenham to London, she would never have seen a sight to rival the man standing before her now.
His velvet coat and breeches were deepest green, the color of forest shadows. Light from the candle gleamed and sank into the fabric’s lushness as it stretched across his wide shoulders and clung to his tight, lean thighs. Golden embroidery traced along the collar and wide cuffs, echoing the glinting, faultless needlework that ran across the surface of his white silk waistcoat. Impossible for her not to notice the leashed strength of his torso, how the silk managed to cover yet powerfully suggest the musculature beneath. The shapes of his calves made sleek arches beneath his white stockings—a gorgio he might be, but not one of softness. A minimum of lace gathered at his wrists and throat, the stock about his neck almost austere in its simplicity, yet it seemed exactly right, for the column of his throat and slant of his jaw were displayed impeccably.
Whit wore no wig, nor did he powder his hair. Instead, he had pulled his chestnut hair back in a simple queue, tied back with black silk. He was elegant and beautiful and masculine, surpassing every construct her imagination had built during their hours apart, and he stared at her as though she alone could sate his devouring hunger.
God help me, she thought.
She felt almost self-conscious and shabby in her wrinkled, slept-in Romani attire, but reminded herself that it was his doing that had her wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothing.
