Chapter Nine #2
His unfocused eyes sharpened as they met mine. What little blood was left in my head promptly drained, and a terrible feeling
of vertigo swept over me.
“Unless they’re not trying to kill you at all,” I forced myself to say.
Unless they were trying to kill me.
Smoke curled around us, veiling the park. Foxcourt drew in a ragged breath, and for a moment, I was sure he would find a way
to slither out of answering.
“The linseed oil,” he said finally. “It was the same with Rosebourne’s coach.”
I stared at him in shock.
He witnessed it. The realization seemed to emerge with the morning. He saw Rosebourne die. And if he hadn’t . . .
We would be dead as well. I would be dead.
“The poisoner . . . it would seem they know about Immortal Rose,” Foxcourt said. “He will do everything in his power to stop
you from making it, as he stopped William Rosebourne.”
I forced myself to draw in a breath. Another. The words swirled in my mind like the ash around us. The moment came into terrifyingly
stark relief.
“What was that you were saying before,” Foxcourt mused as the ash whirled around him, “about being able to take care of yourself?”
“Yes, well,” I said acidly, smoothing a muddy white curl out of my face, “you neglected to mention that explosives would be part of the terms of my freedom. How easily mortal peril slips from the mind.”
“They won’t stop at explosives,” Foxcourt said, surveying the destruction around us. “So, the question becomes: Are you still
willing to see this through?”
“I never give up,” I told him.
He seemed to take it as the warning it was, his lips curling.
Perhaps it was only the high-strung feeling of my blood still being up or merely the elation of having survived bubbling over
like the froth of sparkling wine, but, for once, the smile didn’t exasperate me. It felt . . . intimate, almost. Something
shared, rather than inflicted.
“Even if I were to say that you could walk away now and be free, with no consequences?” he said quietly, running his thumbnail
along his top lip.
He had directed the question to the fallen tree beside us, not to me. And, again, I resented not being able to detect his
essence. There was no way to know for certain if that look on his face was regret or guilt—two foreign emotions to a toff.
To know if that door was truly open to me now to run.
I slammed it shut regardless.
“You would never allow me to,” I scoffed. “And they’ll need to do far worse to frighten me into walking away from the Rosebourne fortune.”
“You’ll inherit nothing from the grave,” he warned.
I gave him an arch look. “Then next time, you had better look under the bloody carriage before we set off.”
“Does this mean you’ve accepted that you need my help?”
Hell’s tits. That smile was lethal to virtue.
“It means I’ve accepted that you’ll serve nicely as a shield,” I said. After all, what good was pride to the dead? Better him than me. “And anyway, I’m harder to kill than you think.”
God knew Riverside had taken a stab at it, and the Brickbats had come lumbering up after it with a club. All my broken pieces
had been welded back together, stronger than before. Not even Fairgate had shattered me.
The meeting point of life and death was primal instinct. Even now, it made me too aware of myself, of my body. The frazzled
curls stroking my cheeks and neck, my shift brushing against my legs, the way each breath I drew strained my corset. I knew
he saw all of it. And still, he didn’t look away—as if he didn’t dare to. As if a cloak had been lifted, and he was truly
seeing me.
My pulse, which had finally slowed, began to climb once more, and my stomach tightened.
Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. He didn’t know me, and he never would. By this time next week, we would be strangers.
Less than a memory.
Foxcourt pulled back suddenly, letting out a deep, rasping cough. He turned his back to me, revealing his ruined jacket once
more, and braced a hand against the tree that still stood behind him. Lingering raindrops glittered in his dark hair as he
bowed his head, his body convulsing with each hacking breath. We wouldn’t get far on foot, and I doubted he wanted to be discovered
like this.
“The horses are long gone,” I said, shielding my eyes as I stepped onto the road. The rain and mist had swept away any hint
of them. I rubbed at my arms, trying to drive away the chill of the cold rain and mud. “I’ll go find help.”
We weren’t near enough to any residences for anyone to have witnessed the blast, though surely someone would have heard it.
“No,” he bit out. “No. We’ll walk to—to Foxcourt House. It’s not far.”
Foxcourt gritted his teeth, patting at his jacket with his free hand. From a hidden pocket, his trembling fingers pulled out
a handkerchief and a small black bottle—a flacon of Rosebourne perfume. He dropped the latter into the muddied grass with
a curse.
I retrieved the bottle for him. The first hint of the perfume revealed itself before I removed the stopper. It was an invigorating
herbal blend of rosemary and peppermint, with a warm, sweet shimmer of magic.
He gripped my wrist, lifting the bottle toward his face and inhaling deeply. A powerful shudder rolled through him, and his eyes fluttered shut.
A breath later, the telltale warmth of magic curled in my own chest, shimmering through my blood. Unable to resist its drugging
pull, I trailed some of the perfume up my forearm, until my skin felt encased by sunlight. The magic spread sparkling tendrils
through me, pushing out the smoke from my lungs, easing the ache in my throat. My exhaustion receded, leaving me clearheaded
and steadied.
I reached for the earl before he could pull away, turning his gloved hand up toward me. He tried to tug it free, but just
then, I was stronger. I pushed the layers of ruined clothing up his arm, and heat—the magic, no doubt—kissed my cheeks, gifting
me an almost drunken feeling of power as I revealed him: the hard muscle, veins, a dusting of dark hair. A spark seemed to
leap from my fingertip as I drew a featherlight touch of the perfume onto the hot velvet of his skin.
Foxcourt pulled his arm back as though I had scalded him, clearing his throat roughly.
“The Healer’s Hand,” he said, and I was relieved to find that he sounded more like his usual ornery self.
His gray gaze was clearer now, too, darkening to that of cut steel as he surveyed the burning wreckage of the curricle. Foxcourt
smoothed a hand back over his mussed hair, and it was impossible to tell if he was angrier at himself or whoever had attempted
to kill us.
A morbid curiosity overcame me. “Why did it take so long to detonate?”
“There was most likely a fuse hidden near one of the wheels, as it was on your grandfather’s coach. The park’s gravel can
spark if it strikes the wheels with enough force, lighting the fuse. The earlier rain meant less loose gravel, but we were
likely saved by the simple luck of a long fuse.”
“And the linseed oil?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“I believe the fuse was coated with it, as was the explosive’s casing. Boiled linseed oil can waterproof cloth while still
remaining highly flammable,” he said. “There . . . wasn’t much left of Rosebourne’s coach to study.”
I sidestepped that dark thought. “Foxcourt, who is behind this? Why won’t you just come out with it?”
“Because all you truly need to know,” he said, the words searing, “is that I will do everything in my power to protect you.”
“Until I’ve completed Immortal Rose,” I finished. When this business between us would, mercifully, be at its end.
He nodded, scrubbing a hand over his face. “We’d best make for Foxcourt House.”
I gave him a doubtful look. “Are you certain you’ll be all right to walk?”
“Lockwood”—he lowered his hand—“do you really believe I’d risk lying at a time like this?”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said, giving him one last narrow look. It wasn’t a show of martyred stoicism, then. “Besides,
when has a man ever suffered in silence?”
A bark of surprised laughter made me turn, but Foxcourt had already moved past me, walking stiffly in the direction the curricle
had been heading. Realizing I wasn’t behind him, he glanced back.
“Well?” he called, arching a brow.
It was strange the way my heart fluttered then, alive with dread and anticipation, making each step toward him feel more fateful
than the last.
“I will protect you,” Foxcourt murmured as I walked beside him. “You need only to concern yourself with the perfume.”
And, together, we made our way through the waking streets of Linden.