by J. M. Snyder
Kit accepted the brandy. He could use it.
He still hurt with cold, inside and out. Harry Arden had been kneeling on the floor at his feet. He was experiencing some difficulty reconciling these pieces of the world, not to mention his own responses.
The first swallow tasted like fire and gold, and was likely priceless; it burned, but it gave back some hint of temporary glow. Steadiness. Refuge. He wrapped hands around the glass and found certainty in the answer he did know. “I don’t know why it’s here. But I know what it is.”
They watched him, waiting. Harry Arden sat on the corner of his brother’s desk, the corner closest to Kit’s chair, and looked as if he wanted to reach out, but did not.
“I’ve never personally dealt with one,” Kit said, “but I’ve heard of them. They’re unusual but not completely rare. This one’s pretty well burrowed in, though.”
“An elemental,” Ned Arden said, resigned. “Something pure magic. Something powerful.”
“Yes,” Kit said. “You’ve got an ice elemental.”
Chapter 3
The afternoon groaned into evening, creaking and implacable as icebergs. In the wake of Kit’s pronouncement, not much else could be done that day; they did not have time to explore all the Fairleigh fields, nor a precise enough location. The night’s blizzard threatened, howling.
The occupants of the study had gazed at each other and sighed; Miss Featherdale said she’d need to walk home before dark, as her mother needed help with the children. Kit very nearly said something about young women and walking alone and unattended, and then remembered that he wasn’t in London and this particular young woman knew the paths and country lanes better than he did. And then he couldn’t help glancing at the latest angry eruption of snowflakes beyond the windowpane anyway.
Harry caught this glance. Murmured, “It’s fine, Lizzie’s a greenwitch, remember? She’s not strong enough to fight all this, and she won’t do anything to antagonize an elemental, but she can keep herself warm, and it’s only just across the park. But it’s nice that you cared.”
Kit, who did not enjoy being so transparent—and who did not care about people, only doing his job, thank you—glared.
Harry grinned. “Would you like to finally see your room, and then come and meet me in the library? I’ve got an idea about narrowing down the search, if we’re going out tomorrow.”
Kit’s brain took this poor innocuous suggestion and rewrote it in lascivious resplendent detail. Harry Arden offering to meet him in the library. To show him to a bedroom. Harry Arden, who Kit had thought earlier would be such a luscious challenge, such a luminous beacon to those empath’s senses. Harry, who had knelt unselfconsciously to get closer and ensure that Kit was unhurt.
Harry broadcast emotion like a waterfall: cascading, vibrant, tingling with life. To have that waterfall beneath him, beside him, spilling into Kit’s own senses, matching breathless plunges into the depths—to have Harry on those knees again, but this time feeling everything Kit made him feel, more and then even more, as Kit touched him and handled him and made him cry out with pleasure—
Harry Arden was dangerous. In one of two ways: either he truly was hiding a deadly secret—which Kit did not quite believe but couldn’t rule out—or he was as unguarded and guileless and innocent of the world as he seemed, in which case Kit had no business being anywhere near those shining eyes.
Which at the moment had become quizzical. “Er…sorry, was I interrupting your thoughts? Deductions? Working out strategy? I can let you think.”
“If you learn anything come and tell me,” Ned said, “I’ll be trapped here for eternity attempting to figure out the cost of new seed crops,” and poked at a scribbled note with an expression of good-humored despair. “At least we’ve got money.”
“No,” Kit said, recovering from his own thoughts. “No, you’re not interrupting, I…ah, never mind.” Harry Arden probably was exactly that innocent, and had no idea regarding what two men might do with each other in the first place, never mind some of the darker rope-tinted pleasures that Kit enjoyed with partners. “Thank you, Sommersby, I’ll meet you in the library.”
“Oh,” Harry said, managing to turn into a sad heap of puppy without changing form. Even his hair drooped. “It’s Harry, remember? I don’t especially like the title. It’s never felt like me.”
“Don’t tell me you went by Harry at Eton or Oxford.” Kit might not move in the exalted halls of English aristocracy, but he knew perfectly well the usual forms of address and the emphasis placed on one’s inheritance.
Harry fidgeted. Moved a foot. Moved it back. Did not quite meet Kit’s eyes. “I never went. To school, I mean. Mother and Father hired private tutors. I’ve never even been off the estate.”
This tidbit promptly got filed in Kit’s constable brain as highly unusual. “You’ve never been to Town?”
“London? No. Ned’s been, once, with Father, to look over the townhouse and the property and to make the Court appearance, but that was only a day or two, and they came right back. I wasn’t—” Harry winced at whatever word that would’ve been. Opted for, “I’m sorry about that as well, Constable. I know I’m not…we’re not…what you’re used to. Society. Town. All that.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ned said, with fondness. “Uncivilized brat.”
“You’re only three years older than I am!”
“And infinitely wiser.” Edward Arden was grinning, though; that was the look of a man who had do anything for his sibling. “Shouldn’t you be in the library? Since it was your idea.”
“Don’t you dare start that again,” Harry said, rather mystifyingly, and went.
Kit, left alone with the Earl, raised eyebrows.
“It’s personal,” Ned said cheerfully. “Private joke. Or not really that private, considering the footman who was also involved. Harry thinks I’m overly inclined to meddle in his life, and he’s no doubt correct, but he is my only brother. Do you have siblings, Constable?”
“A sister.” He was trying to read between the lines of Edward’s comment. Would Harry resent meddling? In what ways were footmen involved? And why hadn’t Harry Arden been allowed to visit London? “Younger.”
“Then you know about being the oldest.” Ned picked up his teacup again. “You know exactly what I’d do for him. My brother.” That was a warning if Kit had ever seen one: the youthful and delicate Earl of Fairleigh would nevertheless stand up and throw all his strength and devotion and not inconsiderable wealth and titular authority at anything that threatened Harry.
He found himself impressed. Those eyes. Cool whip-crack steel. Not as inviting and open as Harry’s, but then Ned would’ve spent years not expecting, according to rumor, to even survive; that knowledge, along with the more recent loss of parents, changed a man.
Harry Arden had managed to remember how to smile. To meet a potentially lost stranger and immediately offer assistance. Kit knew no one else who would’ve made that offer without calculation.
Idly, not quite connecting the thoughts, he decided he rather preferred Harry’s unaffected blue gaze to Edward’s wry grey.
Ned took a sip of tea, gave him a smile, and finished, “Having said that, I believe he’s waiting for you in the library; you wouldn’t want to disappoint him, would you?”
Kit gave Harry’s brother a long hard look. Ned smiled serenely across the teacup and tapped fingers on his estimated crop costs, a dismissal.
Grayson materialized out of ancestral-manor air at the study door, in case Kit needed guidance to a guest room.
Kit glanced from skinny butler to tranquil Earl, gave up, and let himself be dismissed. No arguing with the aristocracy. Not for a common thief-taker.
Besides, well—
Harry Arden was waiting for him.
Chapter 4
The guest room turned out to be rooms plural. A set of rooms. An extravagance of rooms.
Kit gazed at dressing chamber and multiple fireplaces and black-and-gold onyx
-inlaid wardrobes, wondered who in all the hells lived like this, and contemplated tearing the bell-pull from the wall as a sort of futile rebellion. The bell-pull had gilded tassels. So did three of the bed-cushions.
The bed itself towered. It possessed ivy-carved columns. It had indigo drapes that likely cost more than his and Anne’s combined rent. He engaged in a staring contest with it.
“Yes,” Grayson the Younger said mildly, “this would be the Blue Room, Constable,” and gently pried his bag away from his grip and took it someplace else in the expanse of wealth. “If you’d like the services of a valet during your stay—”
“No! Er…no, thank you. I’m used to taking care of myself.” How extensive were the revenues from the Fairleigh estate? And were those walls papered in custom designs, with that blue and gold swirl? “Though…could you tell me a bit about the house?”
This worked, as he’d guessed it might; the butler softened with familial pride. “The late Countess supervised the redecorations, several years ago. She wanted the best of everything, of course. The finest fabrics, silver, papers. She wanted to make this house the equal of any in Society.”
“It’s very nice,” Kit said diplomatically. “And expensive, I’d imagine.”
“Oh, yes. But, you know, that wasn’t a problem.” Grayson hesitated. “Since you’re here to help…and since Harry likes you…”
Harry had said as much? To the staff?
“…you should know how things stand,” Grayson went on. “The estate’s never had a problem with funds. The late Earl and Countess, well, whatever else they did and didn’t do, nobody had ever accuse them of mishandling money. They spent dearly, but they spent it on Fairleigh, too. I won’t say you couldn’t say a word against them, because we all could, and we did, below stairs, when Harry—but that’s not my story to tell you, it’s his. But if you’re looking for money troubles or debt, there’s none of that to be found.”
“Harry told me he wasn’t allowed to leave the estate,” Kit said, which was technically a true statement, if a purposefully leading one.
“Did he, then…” Grayson’s eyebrows, thick and tense, went up in surprise. “Not that that’s much of a secret. Everyone you might ask would know as much. And if he didn’t tell you why, then I can’t. But whatever’s wrong, Harry’s nothing to do with it. He’s the soul of Fairleigh, Constable Thompson. He’s the heart.”
Kit tried to indicate the yes, go on with his expression. Wished, not for the first time, for less receptive and more projective empathic talents. Much more convenient for assisting further confessions.
“He solves problems,” Grayson said with finality. “And he’d never hurt Ned. Apologies for speaking out of turn, Constable. But they’re my family, you see.”
“Yes,” Kit said. “I do see that.” Loyalty, commitment, passion. And Harry Arden evidently solved problems. What sorts of problems? In what ways?
And why had Harry been kept here on the estate?
“Just ring for a footman if you need help finding the library,” Grayson said, and took himself off, quite possibly to tell Harry everything that had just been said, given the loyalty.
Kit contemplated the expanse of guest accommodations for another moment, listened to the wind wail, and then followed. Answers wouldn’t present themselves in a fold of counterpane or a curtain; the weather was only growing worse, and he had a job to do.
And he did not need help finding the library. He had a good sense of direction, and of people. He could feel presences and motion and passion. And Fairleigh Hall had a simple, and simply intuitive, floor-plan.
He passed a maid, a footman, one or two other members of the house’s staff. They regarded him with saucer-eyed fascination. He nodded politely in turn.
The staff did not feel afraid, or angry. They did feel concerned, no doubt over the unrelenting weather, and physically cold, and strangely protective. Optimistic that he could help, but wary of him, an outsider, as well.
He decided that both reactions were justified. He was good at his profession.
He discovered the library without trouble, and went in; he paused in the doorway, as vivid sunbeam artwork leaned over a table and filled up his vision.
Harry Arden, dressed in the same casual walking-the-estate clothes from earlier, cravat askew and collar loose and shirt-sleeves shoved up, bent to unroll a map. Ran a hand through that messy too-long golden hair.
Drawn-back curtains framed him in scarlet plush and dense white snow. Antique wood and forests of book-spines provided a literary backdrop. Harry’s slim waist and broad shoulders became the center of the story, and those merry treasure-box freckles cavorted through library light. When he bent over more to flatten out a map-corner, fabric pulled tight across his equally nicely muscled backside.
Kit finally remembered to take a breath. Essayed a step forward.
Harry turned. Lit up like sunrise. “Oh, hello! I didn’t hear you come in. Is the Blue Room good enough? We can always change rooms if it isn’t. But I do like that one. Splendid views, not that you can tell in this weather, but I promise you they’re there. Do you need anything? Tea, brandy, biscuits, magical paraphernalia?”
“No.” Kit drifted across the room to his side: drawn by splendid views and chatter about biscuits. “I’m an empath, not a conjuror. I don’t work with tools.”
“But you do like the Blue Room?”
“Yes, thank you.” He barely heard his own reply. Bare skin was visible at Harry’s disarranged collar. Freckles there too, as if Harry Arden tended to take that shirt off and run about bathed in sun, in summertime. “Is that a map of the estate?”
“It is. I thought it might be useful. Before that, though…did Ned say anything to you?”
Investigative instincts kicked in. Sharp and shrewd. “Anything about the estate, you mean?”
“No, not as such.” Harry poked at the map, though from Kit’s perspective it seemed perfectly aligned with the edge of the table. “About me.”
“Should he have?”
“Possibly not. But he does tend to…I only thought he might have. Said something to you.”
“He didn’t say much. He reminded me that you’d be in the library.” In the library, alone, embodying the definition of temptation. “I think he’d quite like us to work on solving this quickly.”
“Us.” Harry poked at the map again. “When it’s your job. You certainly shouldn’t need my assistance. Ned should know that.”
“You know Fairleigh,” Kit said.
“Yes, but you’re an empath and a practiced investigator.” Harry sighed. “I apologize on behalf of my brother. He’s unnervingly invested in my social life. He thinks I haven’t got enough…er, friends.”
Kit, who had seen Edward Arden’s expression, did not think friends was the word. He did think that the present Earl of Fairleigh had decided to throw a celebrated London Bow Street constable at his own younger brother, possibly out of some desire for vicarious adventure.
Harry Arden, on the other hand, had not witnessed Ned’s veiled warning regarding disappointment. And had just said friends.
Harry no doubt thought that Ned really did want him to have a larger circle of social acquaintance. Those big blue eyes had grown up rambling through fields and sheep pastures, not whisper-dark back rooms and leather-sleek gentlemen-only clubs.
Kit resolutely did not picture Harry dressed in only polished leather boots, arms bound. Wrists stretched up above tousled hair, perhaps. Lips parted and beckoning. Freckles extending everyplace.
He cleared his throat. “No apology necessary. You had an idea about narrowing down the search?”
“Yes, you said you’d been able to work out at least approximate distance, and if you had an idea about direction, we could look for likely places.” Harry waved a hand across estate map, books, research. “I know most elementals are traditionally reclusive, so it wouldn’t be too near anyone’s home, and then I thought, well, ice, so water, possibly, and someplace near the l
ake might fit your not too distant suggestion? If that makes logical sense to you, of course; I’m not the expert.”
Kit let out a breath, amused. Unconsciously inching weight closer to Harry’s gesturing hands. Feeling the tall warmth of him, physical and less so. “Neither am I. Not with elementals.”
“No, I expect it’d be difficult to arrest one.” Harry gazed down at him, eyes entertained and grave at once. “About earlier. Your reputation. I’m sorry. I imagine it must be uncomfortable for you. Feeling everyone’s reactions, knowing what they’re all thinking, picking up the way they—we—fall all over you, that notoriety…And you can never not feel it. Being the sort of empath you are.”
“I have good shields,” Kit said. “Again, no apology necessary.”
“Not necessary,” Harry said. “But that doesn’t mean unimportant. I’ll try to behave. What did you think, about the lake idea?”
“It’s a good idea. Not in the water itself, but nearby, someplace it can settle in and draw energy from the land. Is there someplace like that, where it wouldn’t be disturbed?” Snow whirled and flashed and ricocheted from windowpanes; indoors, behind the armor of library walls, Harry Arden’s freckles winked like cinnamon and nutmeg along forearms, running upward under rolled-up shirt-sleeves. The scents of books and maps and parchment drifted; Kit could imagine remaining here, settling into that overstuffed armchair or that long low sofa, with a fire crackling and Harry in his arms, idle and domestic as a daydream, one that came with a possessive stroke of Kit’s hand through that hair…
He put a hand flat on the map. Authoritative. Professional. Shields up: he did not trust himself, at the moment, to reach out. To seek out any emotion without slipping. “Where’s your lake?”
“There. Under your hand.” Harry actually put a hand out too. For an insane moment Kit wondered whether Harry meant to touch him, to take his hand, to lift his fingers away; but in the end one explanatory fingertip only tapped ink-lines. “It’s a bit of a walk, but we can manage. I’d rather not take horses out in this weather, and I never get lost on foot.”
