Chapter 5 A Room with a View
A ROOM WITH A VIEW
He shook her so hard and fast and brutally the back of Diana’s head hit the wall and dark spots bloomed across her vision.
“Give it back!” Apollo demanded, shaking her again.
Her head hit the wall again. Her arms felt, beneath his punishing fingers, as if they might lose all feeling. She prayed to lose all feeling.
“Please,” she squeaked. “Please… Pollo… stop.” She reached for the magic curling inside her, a sleeping cat. Hers. Shouldn’t be, but it was. And it never behaved. Never woke up when she wanted it to. She feared it. Perhaps that’s why it stayed away.
But now she feared death more. Right now he shook her, but what would he do when he realized she could not give it back?
Mine! The word screamed along every inch of her, and then there was the magic, hissing and arching and sizzling along her veins. Yes, hers. For now at least. She grasped her cousin’s wrists and dug her fingernails into his skin, kicking at his legs.
“I need it, Diana!” he sobbed. “Why won’t it come to me?”
She grasped the magic and shifted the world to her liking.
Then…
Nothing. Only Apollo’s beating heart and desperate eyes, narrowed in mindless determination, then…
blinking, something pouring into them as his grip loosened.
Something like fear, like sorrow. Like disgust. What was he seeing?
She couldn’t see anything but him, the darkened room beyond his shoulders.
She’d done something to herself with the magic, but what?
She flicked her gaze to the mirror, her heart stopping.
It reflected her. Limp and pale, eyes bulging, arms and head limp.
Spirit gone.
Body dead.
“Oh, God.” Apollo jerked away from her and held his hands up before his face.
“What have I done?” He dropped to his knees before her, his hands trembling, hovering over her frame.
She was still standing. But she wasn’t. Her reflection had slumped to the ground, heavy and lifeless, blood oozing from the back of her head.
Diana slapped her hand over her mouth to hold back a scream.
Her throat burned, and her fear rioted in her belly.
She must leave before the illusion vanished.
No idea how she was doing it or how long it would last. But she couldn’t move.
Apollo clutched at her skirts. How strong was her magic?
Some glamours were stronger than others.
Would the illusion she’d cast move with her?
Would it look like a dead body sliding across the floor.
The image almost made her laugh, a sickening feeling.
Stuck. She was stuck until he left.
But he wasn’t leaving. His watery gaze darted about the illusion of her lifeless form, and his hands still hovered over her, wanting to touch her, not daring to.
“I’m so sorry, Di. Oh, God. You can’t be dead.
I didn’t mean to. I swear, I didn’t mean to.
” He flipped his hands over, looked at his palms. “Where is it? If you were dead, it would come to me. Wouldn’t it? ” The last two words mumbled.
Then his hands steadied, his eyes cleared.
“Wouldn’t it?” he repeated, rising slowly to his feet.
He knew. He suspected.
And the glamour of her corpse flickered.
Diana bolted for the door, not daring to see if he followed.
He did follow, though. Of course he did, his footsteps loud and relentless behind her.
But not quick enough this time. They slowed, the echoes of his steps hesitant. Reluctant? Her desperate imagination. She threw the door open and ran, pushing shopgirls and customers out of the way.
“Diana!” That Lady Tascott, confused. “Diana!” Indignant that time.
Diana didn’t slow down, not for her aunt, not for anyone, and soon she pushed out onto the street.
Where to, though? Nowhere to go that Apollo would not find her.
And once Lady Tascott knew her secret… she would not stop Apollo from his deadly purpose.
Her comfort and social position more important than Diana’s life.
To hell with that.
She hurtled down the street. What direction didn’t matter. Away. Escape.
She screamed when a hand caught her shoulder, swung her around. She raised her arm to strike at Apollo.
But it wasn’t her cousin. It was a large man with a hard face, a scar several shades lighter than his dark skin slashed across one cheekbone. “What’s wrong, miss?”
“There’s a man after me.” And she saw him behind her rescuer. Apollo bore down on her, every angle of his body honed for a single purpose: catching her. “Please help me.”
Her rescuer nodded, cracked his knuckles. By the time he’d swung around, Apollo was but a few steps away.
“That’s him,” Diana said, pointing.
“Right.” Her rescuer reared his fist back and slammed it straight into her cousin’s nose.
Apollo staggered backward. “Bloody hell!”
The man hit him again. This time Apollo fell, sprawled in the dirt, parting the sea of trousers and skirts now gathered around them. He held his nose and blood, red as a heart’s beating, poured from his nose.
“Stay right there,” her rescuer commanded, “unless you want another.”
Apollo looked wildly at the growing circle of onlookers around them, and he didn’t rise as her rescuer led her down the street.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.” But where did she go now? What could she do? “Who are you?”
“You can call me Ned.”
“Ned. Thank you. I cannot thank you enough. You’ve saved my life.”
He grunted. “That’s what I’m here for.”
She stopped, and it took a few steps for him to realize he’d left her behind. He returned to her side. “What’s wrong, miss?”
“What do you mean that’s what you’re here for?”
“Ah, that. Lady G sent me to keep ya safe. Seems I was a bit too late. I looked too conspicuous inside the shop. Stepped out.”
“Lady G? Who is that?” She’d heard the name before. Recently. But where? Difficult to think, her mind still muddled, still breathless, still backing away from the plummeting edge.
He turned a corner, ushering her down a narrow, dark alley. “Lady Guinevere. You bought a p—”
“The potion.” When cold water seeped through the toe of her slipper, she paused. This… was not a good idea. She may have run away from the lion and into a tiger’s den. Damn.
“Aye, that’s it, miss. I’m sure you’re right sharp when you’re not scared for yer life.”
“I try to be.” She rubbed her temple. A drum pounded inside her skull, but she tried to get the smart part of her brain spinning, thinking. “Lady Guinevere sent you to look after me?”
“To guard ye, aye.” A small conveyance sat like a spider at the end of the alley. He opened the door and held out a hand. “In ya go, then.”
“And where are you taking me?” She did not venture closer. The main street was behind her, a few steps away.
But where was Apollo? Had he followed them?
“Ah, yer scared. Understandable, miss, understandable. But I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’m gonna take ya to Lady G now. Promise.”
She looked over her shoulder. Lighter out there. A man ran by, a blur of brown hair and pumping legs. It might not be Apollo.
But her body wasn’t convinced. Her heart stuttered, and her palms sweated. Hot. She hid them behind her back and willed her pulse under control. No one else could see her do that. Slowly she walked forward and let Ned help her into the unmarked hack.
“Atta girl.” Ned winked and closed her in. The hack shook as he took his seat up top, and the coach lurched forward with echoing clip-clop of horse hooves.
She clenched the edge of the seat. A grave mistake. But what option had she? Now that Apollo knew, and now she knew what Apollo was willing to do… she could not go back.
At least she no longer had to marry the man.
A bark of laughter broke through her lips. Then another and another until she was clutching her belly, tears running down her cheeks. Madness, this riot of relief and horror. Absolute madness to follow a strange man down an unmarked road.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and she wiped the tears away with the heel of her hand as the door swung open. Another dark alley lay beyond, and she gathered her courage with her skirts and put her foot on the ground. “Where to next, Mr. Ned?”
“Right this way, ma’am.” He guided her down the alley and through a door.
The scent of cinnamon hit her first and then soil. And somewhere nearby, but beyond a wall, the muffled roar of busy voices. She must be at Lady Guinevere’s. He’d truly brought her to safety.
She felt safe, the cinnamon scent wrapping round her. She wanted to melt, her muscles sluggish, her head suddenly heavy. But she followed Ned, heard his fist knock against a door or wall in the dark room.
“Lady G,” he called out. “Got another one fer ya.”
The door swept open, and light spilled in.
Diana stood in a storage room of some sort, shelves floor to ceiling lined with bottles of all shapes and colors.
She barely blinked the details into existence when she noticed the woman standing in the square of light, a dark void of a bird perched on her shoulder.
“Lady Guinevere?” Diana whispered.
The woman’s smile was like the sun after winter—warm and welcoming. “Yes, and you are…?”
“Miss Chester. Diana Chester.” Her name not much more than a sob. Relief crumpled her muscles, and Ned dove in to catch her before the floor did.
“Was a man after her,” Ned said. “The one she’s ’sposed to marry. She seems muddled. Might have knocked her ’ead on something. Think he almost did ’er in.”
Some movement behind Lady Guinevere stole her attention, and she partly shut the door. “Go home, my lord. You have the information you’ve come for.” Said to someone on the other side of the door.
A deep voice rumbled something where Diana could not see. Then another joined in, an argument beyond Diana’s reach.
“I say what happens in this shop.” Lady Guinevere rapped the door once with her knuckles. “And you will leave. Now.”