Chapter 4
“Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n.”
—Lucifer, Paradise Lost
Their merry little band of misfits had picked themselves up and dusted themselves off after his mother’s surprise arrival, but there was still a marked sense of soldier’s cheer.
It was much like the martial stoicism that had driven his fellow soldiers towards the end of the terrible, bloody days of the Nive.
Faith was faltering, though the others tried to hide it.
They were uncertain they could win this war against his mother.
Perry might be holding all of their lives in his hands. Though no one had said as much, he knew they were depending on him to see this through. They needed him to be better at this game than his mother—and he didn’t know if he could be.
Bands of stress wrapped around his chest and along his throat, and absently, he set his hand against his stomach, focusing on his breathing while the others talked.
Selina stroked her lower lip with a finger, giving him a sidelong look at length.
“I am loath to bring up such a barbaric topic, but our knight-errant wasn’t wrong.
People may be hurt. Even if it might help us trap the harpy, I am not keen to offer one of our lives to do so, and our enemy is willing to violate the boundaries of home. We need to safeguard ourselves.”
“I agree with Lady Normanby, unfortunately,” said Ravenscroft as he straightened his cuffs.
He glanced at Peregrine. But swiftly, that look transferred itself to Thorne, standing to the side of the group.
“The rest of us have some servants to guard the household. It isn’t wise for you to stay in that empty townhouse of yours alone, Sir Nathaniel. ”
“You don’t think so?” Thorne asked, his blue eyes creased with worry. “I doubt Lady Fitzroy has any idea who I am.”
The raven-haired Lady Normanby ran her eyes over Thorne’s tall figure.
“You bear too strong a resemblance to the Duke of Northumberland to wager on that. If she has not figured out who you are yet, she will soon, and the moment she understands your relation to the Percy family, you will find yourself marked as an enemy. Perhaps you should become a guest of Perry’s. ”
“He should stay with me,” Ravenscroft countered. “Sir Nathaniel taking up residence at the Fitzroy estate will only mark him sooner. Besides,” he said with a ghost of his toothy, wolfish grin, “Antoine will be overjoyed to continue to assist with his court wardrobe and dance lessons.”
Peregrine could have sworn he saw the tiniest flicker of horror in Thorne’s expression. The man’s elevation from north-country-bred bastard to knighthood had been meteoric. Though he masked it well, clearly he was still vastly uncomfortable with his new position in society.
And dancing.
Selina and Ravenscroft’s disagreement became idle banter, and Thorne’s attention bounced between the two. Charity offered only a few words to the conversation. And while the others spoke, Peregrine’s thoughts continued to tread into dark places.
The sense of time ticking pushed harder on his senses than ever. His mother had an appointment she was keeping; he was certain of it. If it relied at all on the events during the meeting of the Allied Sovereigns, then they had at most two weeks to thwart her plans. Likely less.
To allow his mother free rein in conducting her plans… God help them all. It did not matter that there was only two weeks for her to enact her scheme; it would be folly to assume that she hadn’t left herself time to deal with the unexpected.
Like discovering her son was both still breathing and that he was consorting with the daughter of the Cresswells.
His gaze turned inwards, attention on the pieces of the riddle.
Perry had the sense that the pattern was there, if only he could view it from the right angle.
The pressure to see it quickly was punishing, because it was only a matter of time before his mother began to cut his allies down.
She would, even if only to prevent their interference with her plans.
Charity would be in the most danger of all. Perry was still haunted by the vision of how she had looked when she had collapsed on her front walkway, covered with soot and scratches.
God, how could he protect Charity?
Would it be safer for her to stay in London, with him? Or would the right thing be to send her away to some hidden place? Wouldn’t that be the cruellest irony—if he had begged her to keep fighting to stay together, and then he decided to send her away?
Occasionally his mother’s voice surfaced in his head, pointedly reminding him that everything would have been simpler if he had found the strength to have put her down like the slavering beast she was.
But he had not, and his circling, festering thoughts were making him feel ill.
He swallowed reflexively, trying to settle his stomach.
Suddenly, a figure stepped fully into his field of view, forcing him to shift his attention to the golden-haired woman waiting in front of him. He lifted his eyebrows in inquiry.
Charity gave him a sad, knowing smile. “The others said I should talk with you. You are brooding most fiercely.”
Peregrine glanced at Ravenscroft, Selina and Thorne, who had taken their conversations to a corner of the room. They were, all three, giving him furtive glances over their shoulders.
His first inclination was to get peevish. But now that Charity mentioned it, he realised he was grinding his teeth. He touched his fingers to his forehead, trying to relax the furrows forming.
“Apologies,” he said to them shortly. “My thoughts are leagues away.”
“You should take yourself leagues away, Canary,” drawled the magpie. “There is nothing more to do here tonight at St James’s. Duchess, drag him home. I trust you are a clever enough woman to figure out how to entice him.”
A faint flush stained Charity’s cheekbones at Ravenscroft’s crass implication, and the words earned him a disbelieving look from Thorne. Thorne turned to see whether Selina would chastise the man, but she only hid a slight smile behind two fingers and turned her head away from the view.
Peregrine’s mood grew a trifle blacker. “I do not require your mothering, Ravenscroft.”
“Good. Then you may be duchess’ed. Don’t worry; I will give all my tender affections to Sir Nathaniel instead.”
Irritation flared, but Charity took his elbow, and the sensation ebbed abruptly. It left Perry drained, and he stumbled a little in her wake as she led him towards the door. “You do not have to help me toddle home either,” he said.
“Perry, if I go to Atholl House, I am sure you can imagine who will be waiting.” Charity’s voice was so dry that Peregrine could envision the irate Lady Cresswell standing on her doorstep. “I do not mean to impose, but I rather hope you will not send me home to encounter my mother.”
“If you can tolerate my poor company tonight—” He halted, realising he was being an ass. “Of course, Charity.”
Quinn could prepare a guest room for her whether he was a broody bastard tonight or not, and her coming to the estate was for the best. Atholl House no longer had its guards. Even with only him and Will Hodges around, Charity would be safer than she would be at her home.
They focused on presenting a composed front as they exited the palace. Charity sent the Atholl carriage home and then waited serenely by his side for Hodges. “Don’t mind Lord Ravenscroft. He and Lady Normanby were trying to be helpful,” she added.
“In their way. The man should aim to be rather less helpful.”
Charity tilted slightly to watch him out of the corner of her eye. “But Ravenscroft was right to suggest I take you home.”
Will Hodges, worldly grizzled veteran that he was, seemed to be able to scent the trouble. He set both forearms on his knees and gave him a hard stare as Jack opened the carriage door and helped Charity in.
“Later. Not here,” Peregrine told him firmly.
Hodges grunted an acknowledgement, but he settled back on the driver bench. And Perry climbed inside, taking the rear-facing seat even though Charity had left him space beside her.
The briefest flicker of pain crossed her face, but she hardened the set of her mouth. “You are pulling away from me again, rebuilding a wall between us. I wish you wouldn’t.”
He swallowed, gazing out the window. His thoughts ran like thorny brambles, every which way, menacingly sharp. “I am all right, Charity.”
“That was almost convincing.” She paused, and from the corner of his eye he could see how tightly her hands were clasped in her lap. “I think it is the first time you have ever lied to me. Or at least, I think it’s the first time you’ve ever done it so directly.”
He didn’t bother to refute it. But it seemed that they were beyond polite boundaries now. She was stubborn enough to keep pushing. She spoke firmly, and without inflection.
“Look at me, Perry.”
After taking a moment to steel himself, he turned his face in her direction, meeting her eyes. Those sky-striated irises, ringed with a darker, gentian blue.
“Talk to me. Please.”
His throat hurt. “I don’t want to,” he said finally, the words coming out rougher than he meant them to. “Don’t ask me to talk about this.”
It would devastate her if she knew how slim he thought their chances were of capturing his mother without trouble. He didn’t want to rob them of any sense of hope. And he most certainly did not want Charity to see he was desperately, terribly afraid she might be hurt.
This tension was a physical ache that ran from his lower spine to his teeth. Right now, it might be the only thing holding the broken pieces of himself together.
But she, too, had been afflicted by a fatalistic melancholy. A thought that time was slipping away from them. That these were wasted moments they would never be able to reclaim.