Her Quicksilver Lover: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 6

by Lynne Connolly

  Although Amidei had assured her their wedding would be a quiet affair, she still wanted to dress for the occasion. Almost everything she now owned would serve, but she picked blue, because that was his favourite colour.

  Rummaging through the pile of petticoats, she found a white one with bluebells embroidered on it, which were the perfect match for the ones on her gown. A stomacher of white brocade would complete the outfit.

  However, Joanna had never taken so long over dressing. Half an hour at most had completed her preparations every day, but arraying her in this magnificence took much longer. Betty had an assistant, who handed her pins and threaded needles and so forth.

  The cap Joanna wore was a mere scrap of lace with frivolous lappets, which Betty pinned up to create a confection of delicate threaded lace. Her fan—when had she last used one of those?—was spangled to catch the light when she flicked it open. When she swished her skirts in front of the mirror, Joanna hardly recognised herself. About to ask them to find her something simpler, she stopped herself. Amidei would dress for his wedding. She could not do less.

  She tossed her head as she left her bedroom, and swept downstairs to the mixed drawing room, where the vicar waited. With a special licence, they could marry anywhere, and what better place than the Pantheon Club?

  When she went downstairs and found Lord Ellesmere waiting, tears sprang to her eyes. She had longed for this day, and for her father to give her away, but although he was recovering, he was not yet ready for the rigours of the ceremony. He had given her his blessing, tears in his eyes, and made her swear to recount every part of the events to him later.

  For him, and for Amidei, Joanna blinked the tears away, dabbing up the residue with a clean handkerchief. “I wanted my father here,” she confessed.

  “Think of me as your father,” he said. “I know that is difficult, but I am merely his deputy, nothing more. I know you will be good for d’Argento. He deserves this good fortune.”

  “He won’t be sorry.” She had sworn that to herself, and now she gave Ellesmere the same words. “I will make him as happy as it is possible for a man to be.”

  “Of course you will. As my wife has done to me. I would not have met her had I not gone to Bedlam to rescue Stretton. We have to step out of our normal spheres to meet our destiny sometimes.”

  He held his arm out for her. She laid her hand on it, and nodded to the footman patiently waiting outside the room.

  The footman flung open the double doors to admit her. She glanced at him, startled, and then back into the room.

  It was full. Everyone inside appeared to her dazzled eyes to be dressed in the height of fashion. Sacques, robes d’anglaise, in all the colours she had upstairs and more. They were gossiping, just as if the room was the best and most exclusive salon in London. She recognised Lord Wickhampton, who sat at the front next to Amidei, but few others.

  The staff had arranged the chairs in rows, facing forward. Every one was full, and all heads turned as she came in. Nobody appeared disapproving. Who were these people?

  When she stepped forward, the thrum of power told her. They were immortals.

  Where had they all come from? Why were they here?

  As she stepped forward towards the man at the end of the makeshift aisle, she took in the faces. Now the stars had left her eyes, she recognised some people. Was the Earl of Ellesmere an immortal? And Lord Stretton? Goodness, she’d had no idea! They were powerful peers, not gods. Except, it seemed, they were both.

  *

  Joanna went through the ceremony in a dream, half believing none of this was real, and she’d wake up in the kitchen, with the cook admonishing her to get a move on and take that tray upstairs. Except the club was completely empty today.

  The footmen on the door had been told to inform any members calling that the chimneys were being swept, and the club would be open as usual tomorrow. Amidei had thought of everything. After the ceremony, he led her through to the dining room, which had been laid out with one great table, made of the smaller ones pushed together, and provided with a feast fit for a king. A huge copy of the Four Rivers fountain in Rome stood in the centre, but it spouted white wine instead of water. Crystal goblets, gleaming silver, and plentiful removes stood ready to be eaten.

  Best of all, when they entered, the staff lined the walls, and they were applauding. All the staff, not just the immortal ones. Not that Joanna was skilled in telling the difference yet. She would learn.

  They ate, Amidei’s attentiveness making a few people nearby chuckle, and Joanna learned that every immortal who could come was there. “It was Wickhampton’s idea,” Amidei said, spooning a few more sugar peas onto her plate. “I know you like these, my love.” He reached for a dish of asparagus, but she protested she was close to bursting.

  At which he murmured in her ear, “Not yet,” and she went hot with the reminder.

  Glancing down, she moved the ring he had given her, a posy ring, with tiny diamonds studding the band, and inside, a secret message, which he informed her was merely ti adora, since that said it all.

  At the end of the meal, the servants efficiently removed the dishes and the crisp white cloth, replaced the wineglasses with fresh ones, and set a few sweetmeats on the table in delicate porcelain dishes. They could have been in a palace.

  Amidei got to his feet, and silence settled from chatter, to a low hum and then to silence. “Thank you for coming,” he said. He glanced at Lord Wickhampton. “I had no idea Apollo had this planned.” Joanna looked around in alarm, but the mortal servants had left and only immortals remained. Their departure had been so smooth she had not noticed, and she felt a burst of pride at the well-trained efficiency of the staff here. “I thank you. Most of all, I thank my lovely bride, who had the great good sense to accept my proposal.”

  General laughter ensued, and they toasted her. On these occasions, toasts could go on for hours. Joanna was wondering whether to rise and lead the ladies into the other room when Lord Ellesmere rose and cleared his throat. Silence fell once more, and Amidei spoke one word into Joanna’s mind. Jupiter.

  While Joanna was doing her best not to let her mouth drop open in shock, the man spoke. “While we are all delighted to see Mercury finally married, we are not here for that alone.” He smiled and toasted her, nevertheless, but only took a sip of the sweet white dessert wine and then put his glass on the polished mahogany table. “We are heading for a crisis. Another one.”

  A dazzlingly beautiful woman farther down the table, sitting next to a craggy but powerful man who had walked to his seat with the help of a cane, snorted. “The world is full of them.”

  Venus. And the man next to her is Vulcan. The Earl and Countess of Valsgarth.

  Vulcan-Valsgarth touched her arm and she turned to him, smiling so beautifully she made Joanna smile too. She had thought the marriage between Venus and Vulcan an unhappy one. Not, it appeared, in this version of the story.

  Jupiter—Lord Ellesmere—continued, after shooting Lady Valsgarth the kind of glare that should have shrivelled her in her seat. She merely raised a brow. “This is a council, ladies and gentlemen. We are here to populate the club and to make it the centre of fashion.”

  Beside her, Amidei gasped. “You could put yourselves in danger.”

  Ellesmere curled his lip. “They would not dare. Not today. Not here.”

  “I said that thirty years ago,” Amidei said. “Look what happened.”

  A moment’s silence indicated that everyone caught that inference. Ellesmere nodded. “I have caused the king to be in residence at St. James. He has an urgent meeting with his cabinet. And yes, I used compulsion, though I consider it was in a good cause. Anyone bringing danger to the Pantheon Club also threatens the king. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is treason. The cabinet will have a wonderful time discussing the potential and possibility of increasing the army, and I shall join them later. I will tell them where I’m staying, and answer the rumours with fact. This is a very convenient, high
ly respectable club, and if they believe it a centre for sedition, then they must include me in that number. I have seen nothing of the kind.”

  “Ha, very good!” Lord Stretton, a clever, if wild man, commented.

  Bacchus.

  Well now, that certainly explained the wildness. If the devil himself strolled through the doors at the moment, Joanna would not have been surprised.

  “I shall attend the myriad balls that we’ve been invited to. The invitations are currently cluttering my mantelpiece,” Lord Stretton said.

  “Our mantelpiece,” murmured the lovely woman at his side.

  Stretton put his hand on her arm. “Indeed you have the right of it, my dear.”

  “Together we can cover the whole of London in a day or two,” Ellesmere said. “This club will not die.”

  A spike of emotion deep in her mind made Joanna pay attention to her husband. Were his eyes gleaming more than usual? It appeared so because as she watched, a lone tear slid out of the corner of his eye and tracked down the side of his face.

  Ellesmere picked up his glass and toasted Amidei. “From the moment he rescued me from the hell I was living in, I swore I would pay Mercury back. He has not stinted in his efforts to help us, and we will not fail him now.”

  The others murmured their approval. All the people Amidei had helped, all his efforts for the gods were garnering its rewards now. They’d come from the length and breadth of the country to give him their support.

  Amidei took a deep breath, his gold embroidered waistcoat glittering as his chest rose and fell. “Then I want Argus,” he said firmly. “For what he has done to my wife, and for what he plans to go on to do.”

  Ellesmere nodded, and sat. His wife leaned closer, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Faith, Lady Ellesmere, had a tranquil loveliness and a sense of steadfastness that shone from her sweet face.

  Joanna listened to them talk, of sending a miasma of madness over the city, to conjuring up a thunderstorm that would turn the skies black, to forging a net so strong nobody could escape. To her, the plans sounded so fantastical as to be impossible, except these people were capable of accomplishing it. But that would not work. The schemes grew ever more elaborate, ever more, well, godlike until she could bear it no more.

  Eventually, she yelled, “Stop!”

  And everybody fell silent and looked at her, waiting for her to speak.

  Joanna took her courage in both hands. In fact, she gripped it so tight she was in danger of drawing blood from her palms, so tightly did she clench her fists. “Do you want the country to know they’re harbouring a set of immortals? I thought that was what, above all things, you wanted to avoid?” A few people nodded, but Ellesmere frowned, flashing anger at her.

  She ignored him, or pretended to. “Why not keep matters simple? Why not draw him out?”

  “And how do we do that?” Stretton drawled, the picture of bored English aristocracy.

  “By using me,” she said simply.

  Amidei’s voice rang out over the hushed room. “No!”

  If that meant they were about to have their first argument, then so be it, although she would have wished to conduct it in less exalted company. “You can dress this up as the battle between the Olympians and the Titans, and I have no doubt that Patrick will do the same thing. It adds a higher message to what he wants, makes his actions heroic. But it’s not true. Patrick Gough wants me. He wants me very much.”

  Amidei stared up at her, his eyes dilated in shock. He swallowed. “You’re right. You are his prize. But he wants the club, too, and everybody in it. It is not just you, sweetheart. He has another motive.”

  She kept her attention on him, but spoke to everybody. “He was willing to come out of hiding for me. He’ll do it again, if I ask him to.”

  “And how will you do that?” Lord Wickhampton’s sister, Lady Damaris, glared at Joanna. “You are only just turned immortal. You have no powers worth speaking of, and Argus is adept at concealing himself. Tell us how you will get in touch with him.”

  Didn’t these gods know anything about everyday life? Lifting her head, she took in the picture of elegant power that lay before her eyes. “I’ll write him a letter. I’ll leave it at the coffeehouse at the end of the street we used to live on, telling him I’ll meet him. I’ll write several and leave them at strategic places, places where the Argus sells well. I’ll tell him I’m afraid, that he was right, that I want to run away with him. I’ll say Amidei married me by force, and beg for his help. He’ll risk it, if he thinks he can have me. Through me, he’ll get the club.”

  While they’d been talking and planning, drawing up the most outrageous schemes, Joanna had been thinking hard. Once she’d stripped all the elaborations, all the complex myths and stories away from the problem, what was left sparked an idea, and that had led to a plan.

  “He would love to see the inside of the club, would he not? I’ll tell him that I can get away by the private side door, if he waits for me.”

  “You will do no such thing.” Amidei spoke in a low growl, indicative of his simmering anger.

  “You said he has a hundred eyes, that he can see into every place he has been, whether he is there or not. He can’t see here, because he has never set foot inside the club. So I’ll let him see inside the club. Only the side stairs, and our apartments, since we’re changing them anyway. That will keep the action inside the club, instead of in public. You’ve caused enough scandal, between you, and we’re trying to quell it now. Doesn’t it make sense to do that? But he needs to see me, needs to know he is safe before he sets foot in the club. He’s no fool—he won’t come without strong enticement.”

  Heedless of anyone else, in front of the greatest collection of powerful people possible, Amidei ignored them all and addressed her. He turned to her, and clasped her hands in his. “Joanna, I love you more than life. Do you think I would allow you to put yourself in this kind of danger?”

  “If that’s the kind of husband you intend to be, ordering me around without discussion, then I will leave now.” Joanna met his gaze, her hands and voice steady, because she meant it. She would not bow down under her husband’s will, however powerful that happened to be. “From what I understand, you want to keep mortals’ freedom. You want to preserve free will and their right to decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives and their world. Well, I want the same. I demand the same. With Argus free, he will not stop coming after you. Wherever we go, whatever we do, he will follow us. I will never be able to walk in the park or go shopping with friends without looking over my shoulder all the time. He wants me, Amidei. Either we use that or we spend the rest of our lives running. You will run because of me, and I won’t have that. I won’t.”

  A sharp sound diverted her attention. Lord Stretton was clapping. “Bravo!”

  Gradually, the others joined in, and the faint patter of applause made her swallow. Her pride in her husband, to engender such support despite not asking for it, made her burst with joy. A sense of belonging swept over her, difficult to recognise at first, because she’d never belonged anywhere before, except with her papa.

  Joanna had inadvertently joined the most exclusive and the most welcoming club in the world.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Amidei did not stop trying to persuade Joanna against her course until she told him firmly that if he did not stop, he’d be spending his wedding night alone. That had the effect she wanted, but later, getting ready for bed, she went cold when she thought he might actually take her up on her challenge.

  He’d been so impassioned that at one point she’d considered allowing someone else to take her place, until Lady Damaris had pointed out that Argus would know his quarry so well any attempt to substitute her would lead to disaster.

  Now Amidei entered the room they’d come to share, the one in the suite that had originally been hers. He wore a magnificent robe, blue silk with tiny Chinese people embroidered all over it, busily going about their lives. Transfixed, Joanna
’s gaze went immediately to the robe, but he laughed and caught her hands, bringing her attention up to his face.

  His eyes burned hot silver. Her mouth dropped open, but without hesitation, he dragged her close and sealed their lips together. He kissed her, licking deep, banding her close to his body, his erection burning through their clothing.

  With a groan, he finished the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers. “That was exquisite torture. You were so beautiful, so damned perfect, and I had to leave you alone, be polite to our guests, and wait all this time to get you to myself. You’ll be the death of me, I swear.”

  She gave a shaky laugh. “I will pray nightly that I am not.” The reminder came too close to what they were discussing earlier, and she wanted none of that now. “I felt the same. For two pins I’d have jumped on you at the dining table.”

  A lascivious smile curled his mouth. “I would have loved it if you had.”

  He kissed her again. “Enough. Come to bed, my love, before I die from wanting you.”

  “I’d like to make you suffer, sometime,” she said thoughtfully. “Is that wrong of me?”

  “It is tonight. Another time, who knows?”

  His joyful smile had no shadows. Neither did hers. “Every time I heard someone say ‘your wife’ to you, I wanted to turn around to see where she was.”

  He touched her cheek. “She’s here, and I’m not looking anywhere else. We’ll have plenty of time to get used to respectability.” He turned his attention to her robe, unfastening the hooks that held it together.

  She gave a short laugh. “I thought our marriage was for respectability. When are we telling society that we married?”

  “A month ago.” He glanced up at her face and then resumed his task. “It’s unfortunate, but there you are. If anyone recognises you as the little maid, we will tell them it was a bet between husband and wife. A private bet, where I said you could not serve in the kitchens, and you said you could.”