Chapter 19
Thomas had never felt so empty. Not even after Lissa left him.
His darkest shame had been exposed by Clio’s bright flame, and nothing but charred chunks of coal remained.
She was a mystical creature who controlled the elements, and he was a fool to think there could ever be anything more for them than a few heated moments of pleasure.
He had to leave. He would not be able to stay away from her if he remained.
And seeing her look of pity or disgust after she had time to process his last memory with Lissa would break him.
Shame tasted of ash and smoke on this tongue and burned like brimstone in his soul.
He packed his few belongings that night and woke early, asking the coachman to take him to the station.
Catching the early-morning train, he was back in London by eleven.
Instead of returning to his home, he caught a hack directly to Scotland Yard.
At the very least, he needed to tell Lachlan he had abandoned the case.
The train journey had given him ample time to torture himself with memories of Clio.
From their first meeting when she stood in Viscount Beachley’s entryway, a raven on her shoulder and fire in her gaze, to last night, naked and bound on the bed.
She bewitched him. His needs were perfectly mirrored by her own.
But it wasn’t her body that claimed his soul.
It was the woman herself. Her stubborn spirit.
Her sharp mind. Her fearless courage. Each facet of her personality was a perfect foil to his own.
He could spend a lifetime between her thighs, or standing next to her in a parlour as they puzzled out a murder, or sitting by her side as she drove her carriage to their next adventure.
Their future spun out like a silvery spell, as strong and stunning as a spider’s web.
And he was caught like a fly in his own trap.
Because it could never be anything more than a fatal fantasy.
He would never damn her to a future where he could offer nothing more than himself. She deserved more than Thomas. She deserved everything. He loved her, so he would stay far away.
His mind stuttered as the carriage bumped over a rut in the pitted road.
Dear God. I love her. I love fighting with her, I love solving mysteries together, I love making her burn with desire. I’m even fond of her foul-mouthed raven. I haven’t been bewitched by her. The only spell I’ve fallen under is Cupid’s.
It was a devastating realisation. Because it meant he couldn’t possibly see her again. Ever.
She is magic, but I am a curse.
When she pulled him into her vision, or he fell into it, or the cosmos, in a cruel twist of fate, decided to test his mettle by taking them to the moment that shattered every hope he had of a future with any woman, it became clear he must leave.
And now he could admit why. Not to avoid her reaction, but to save her from himself.
In the end, she would thank him for running away.
He shook his head, fisted his hand, and slammed it into the squabs as the carriage came to a stop. He climbed the steps to 4 Whitehall Place, his heart a black hole sucking any hope into its endless darkness.
‘What are you doin’ back already?’ Lachlan looked up from his mess of a desk, his eyes clouding with confusion. ‘Is Clio with you?’
Not even caring that the settee was covered in a host of detritus ranging from case files to shackles to a pickled herring sandwich, Thomas sank onto the cushions. ‘No. She is not.’ And that was his problem.
Lachlan leaned back in his chair. ‘Is she well?’
‘Better than me, that is for certain. She’s still with my sister at Blackthorn Manor. Given Clio’s… unique skills, I thought she might do better without me in her way.’
Quirking a brow, Lachlan inhaled a long breath.
‘So, you know.’ His oldest friend stood, walked around his desk, avoiding the pile of tumbled books, and stopped in front of the bookshelf.
Pulling out a large tome, he reached behind it and withdrew a bottle.
Scotch. Of course. ‘Did she tell you, or did you puzzle it out on yer own?’
‘A bit of both. You spoke of a witch who claimed your heart?’
Lachlan tipped his chin in acknowledgement.
‘I understand exactly what you mean.’
Bringing the bottle to Thomas, Lachlan pulled the stopper free and offered it.
‘Drink?’
Thomas looked up at Lachlan and took the bottle. The liquid burning down his throat brought a measure of comfort. Oddly, the heat reminded him of Clio.
‘It is a strange thing to recognise one’s limitations. Especially when that revelation comes at the hands of a beautiful woman whose power so easily eclipses your own.’ Lachlan took the bottle back from Thomas and took a healthy swig.
‘Rowan.’
‘Aye. Rowan. And I’ll tell you, her nieces are cut from a similar cloth. I hope you aren’t as stupid as I was.’
Before Thomas could answer, Lachlan handed back the bottle.
‘What happened with Clio?’
Thomas took another swallow, exhaled as the warmth in his belly turned into fire, and was about to tell Lachlan everything when the door behind him banged open. Both Thomas and Lachlan turned as one.
A tall woman with chestnut hair piled in a heap of curls and braids, her grey eyes flashing dangerously, the cut and style of her dress confidently declaring her wealth, stood in the doorway.
She glared first at Thomas, then Lachlan.
Striding into his office, she carried herself with the grace of a queen.
‘You promised me she would be safe, Lachlan MacDougal. You lied!’ She advanced on Lachlan, and Thomas had to give the man credit.
He had the courage of a Celtic warrior not to shrink away from the woman.
She might be slight and delicate, but the power rolling off her in waves was palpable.
Thunder cracked, and Thomas glanced at the window.
Though it had been a rare sunny day when he arrived at Scotland Yard not fifteen minutes earlier, black clouds now roiled in the sky as lightning streaked across it in a jagged spear of white light.
Thomas rose from the couch. Feeling very much like a soldier once more on a suicide mission, he stepped between Lachlan and the advancing woman. ‘Aunt Rowan. How lovely to meet you.’ Because she had to be Clio’s aunt.
She swivelled her head and narrowed her gaze at Thomas, who immediately regretted his decision. He should have hidden behind the settee, not put himself in the middle of imminent danger.
‘I will deal with you later.’ She flicked her wrist, and Thomas was pushed back onto the couch by an unseen force. When he tried to move, he realised his arms and legs were frozen. Fear licked up his spine.
Rowan turned her focus back to Lachlan, who paled, but straightened his shoulders and firmed his jaw. ‘Calm down, Rowan. Your anger helps no one.’
This was not good. Even Thomas knew telling a woman like Rowan to calm down would only end in murder. Lachlan’s murder. Thomas would probably be next for witnessing the event.
Thunder cracked again, so loud, it shook papers off Lachlan’s desk, as if the storm were in the room with them. And perhaps it was.
‘Tell me to calm down again, Lachlan, and those will be the very last words you ever speak. Ellie saw what is to come. Clio will not escape her fate. Her coven can’t help her.
She is alone.’ Rowan turned to glare at Thomas.
He felt the weight of her accusations like an anvil crushing his sternum. ‘And in far more peril than she knows.’
Lachlan’s face flushed, and Thomas recognised the signs of anger in his friend. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Rowan.’
But Thomas understood with blinding clarity.
I left her alone. And now she is in danger.
Thomas couldn’t move, but he could speak. ‘You must release me. I need to get back to her. I should never have left.’
Rowan turned to him. She cocked her head, and Thomas felt stripped bare.
My God. She knows. She knows everything.
She nodded, and he felt the impact of her power like a physical blow. ‘If you wish to help, tell me everything from the moment she left until now.’ Rowan wasn’t asking.
As quickly and succinctly as he could manage, Thomas recounted everything that had happened, save the intimate moments he shared with Clio.
Lachlan took a healthy draught of his own medicine. ‘You believe both the viscount and the viscountess are dead?’
Thomas nodded.
Rowan waved away Lachlan’s question. ‘He left marks on Clio?’ Her anger was dissolving into something far more troubling: fear.
‘Yes. I didn’t see the ghost, but I saw what he was doing to Clio. Her neck was bruised.’
Lachlan’s cheeks paled. ‘It isn’t the first time. She had a vision in the viscount’s house on the first day. The viscountess slapped him in the vision, but Clio came out of it with a mark on her cheek.’
Of course.
Clio’s behaviour that day had never made sense to Thomas. But it made sense now.
‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’ Rowan might as well have eviscerated Lachlan with a butter knife.
‘Clio told me all was well.’ Lachlan’s voice was strained.
‘Oh yes. It’s perfectly grand a spirit left marks on my niece.’ The next crack of thunder shook the foundations of Scotland Yard.
‘She swore the ghost wasn’t trying to hurt her.’ Thomas shook his head, trying desperately to understand the rules of this new world. ‘She said he mistook her for the murderer. Is she in danger from the ghost?’
Rowan shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps if someone had thought to tell me what the bloody hell was going on before my niece left her coven to fight some murderer alone, I might have more insight.’
Lachlan ran his hand through his hair, tugging hard on the wild curls. ‘You are always so protective of them, Rowan. You can’t keep them locked away forever. They must live their lives.’
‘They cannot live their lives if they are dead.’ Her words dripped with barely contained violence as fear punched Thomas in the gut.