Chapter 6 A King
A KING
The summoning stone glowed hot in Temple’s pocket.
He was late, and the king would be most displeased.
The guard who escorted him to the king’s private chamber lumbered too slowly, like a big bear shuffling toward his cave for hibernation.
He wore a glamour that made him appear huge and heavily muscled.
But that unreality shimmered over a rather tall bean pole of a man with a tiny nose, and when the familiar doors rose up before him at the end of the large hallway, Temple rushed past the slender guard and pressed through on his own.
“Hey now!” the guard cried, pushing him back, trying to.
Temple was big, but he could be quick, pouring himself like molten iron into the narrow space between guard and doorframe.
“Baron Knightly,” the guard yelled out. An imperfect announcement, and Temple could feel the man’s displeased glare on the back of his neck as he bowed low.
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” Temple said. “I was in the middle of something when the stone glowed.” Thank Juno his hair was no longer dripping, though his cravat still clung to his neck, damp from his bathwater. Or from sweat. Both, likely.
King William did not respond. He stood at the window, looking out, his thick, white hair brushed back neatly, his hands clasped behind his back.
His broad shoulders were pulled back, and his spine straight and strong despite his two and seventy years.
But that image flickered. A glamour. A good one, but still unreal.
Beyond the illusion stood the real man—white hair thinning, shoulders stooped, back curved.
More wide than tall. A shadow of the former military man.
He was like this old, crumbling room, glamoured into opulence. Every single thing: un-fucking-real.
“Lord Knightly, I have a question for you.” The king turned and unclasped his hands, producing the second summoning stone between fore finger and thumb.
“You know I like to understand the details.” He nodded at a configuration of nearby chairs and sofas.
If the king knew how easily Temple saw through glamours, he’d likely not welcome him so closely.
There were reasons alchemists kept their secrets.
Temple waited for the king to sit before sitting himself, crossing one ankle over the other knee. “I shall do my best to enlighten you.”
The king leaned forward with a groan to brace his elbows on his knees. A servant who had been hovering across the room wandered closer, but he did not notice. Still, he held the stone, studied its smooth, gray surface. “The stone absorbs the body heat of two people, yes?”
“That is correct.”
“And its pair glows when the other is held?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Do you think… it might work even after death?”
“I… do not take your meaning.” Temple shifted forward, too, bracing his elbows on his knees. “The stones can be transferred to two new individuals or one new individual if either of the original pair dies.”
“But… if the stone is buried with one of the original pair, will the other…” He held the stone flat on his palm, his eyes sad. “Glow? Will either of them glow? Could a body have some light in the darkness?”
Did he think of his daughter, in the world so short a time before leaving it? Or did he think about his own mortality?
Temple swallowed a lump in his throat. “Yes, I suppose a body could have some light in the darkness.”
“Good.” The king pocketed the stone, cleared his throat, and leaned back with a forced grin. “How is the wife hunt going?”
“Perfectly fine.” Not at all, really. In the week since the love drugging, he’d been to every social event the king had sent him an invitation to.
And found absolutely no one even a little bit interesting.
Every time a lady so much as grinned at him—a good sign, considering—he’d heard his mother’s voice in his head.
It feels like when you find the metal that’s most yours. It sort of sings along every inch of your skin and tingles in your very bones.
None of the ladies had felt… most his. “It is a decision that must be made with some delicacy. I’m sure you will agree.”
The king nodded, though his attention had shifted.
“Your entire situation is a matter of some delicacy. Your people do not look kindly on what you did. Sharing alchemical secrets?” He shook his head.
“A cardinal sin. You have been ousted from the Guild. Your matrimonial prospects among alchemists is miniscule now. They consider you a traitor. They’ll never have you back. ”
And all because he’d used a secret alchemist invention to save lives. Absurd. His family was better off without such misers in their lives. Yet… they weren’t. The Guild controlled every aspect of an alchemist’s career, provided every social connection.
No more. Now the Grants had no connections at all. He swallowed a sigh.
“My people, however,” the king said, “have nothing but prejudice in their way.”
Oh yes, such an insignificant roadblock.
“But,” the king continued, “they know you helped save lives. Your betrayal, to their minds, is heroic.”
Temple very much doubted that. He’d read the papers.
“A man like you, with a family to provide for, cannot survive on his own. You are unmoored from society, but if you prove your loyalty to me, and to the transcendents, you will not be.”
Giving away alchemist secrets should have been enough to prove Temple’s loyalty. His new titles—gilded cages. And even if the door was open, he couldn’t escape them. The king was right—he must do this for his family.
“Would you like a list?” the king asked. “Of ladies’ names?”
Temple forced a grin. “I think I can handle this on my own, Your Majesty.” If he must marry one of their kind, he’d choose the woman.
The king laughed and slapped the stone on the table between them. “I like you, Lord Knightly. In my youth, I knew a few alchemists in the military. In the Americas, too. You’re a good lot. Your skills are valuable.”
“But not magic.”
The king’s laughter drained away. “No, unfortunately not magic. Everyone knows that.”
“Of course.”
“Your sisters are well?” the king asked. A warning, that. “They can make good matches in the ton.” An unsaid if.
If Temple’s sisters played along.
If they embraced their roles as lapdogs and bowed down like good alchemists to the ruling class.
If Temple did, too.
Temple forced a smile. “I’m sure they will. Me first, though.”
“Excellent, excellent.” The king pushed against his thighs to stand, the shakiness of his movement proving his glamour of strength a lie.
He wandered back to the window and assumed the same position he’d been in upon Temple’s entry.
A dismissal. “See that you do.” Another warning.
The steel in his voice offered no other interpretation.
Temple left, the stone in his pocket now lifeless and cold. The king wouldn’t strip him of his title. He likely knew Temple wouldn’t care if he did. But he could force him to marry a woman of his choosing, and the king would use that woman to keep a watchful eye on the newest member of the ton.
Like hell he would. Temple would choose his own bride.
Visions of a dark-haired mouse appeared in his mind.
The feel of her curves were ghosts along his palms. Miss Diana Chester.
He’d seen only a flash of her in Lady Guinevere’s study before Mr. Bran had forced him out the door.
But he’d seen enough—dazed expression, too-pale cheeks, shivering.
Temple had been almost frantic when a man had said she’d been attacked.
He’d been prepared to rip the door off its hinges to get to her.
He could still see the pools of shock and fear in her golden eyes.
She was escaping the world he now existed in.
Because that world had hurt her. The Marquess of Fordham had hurt her.
He could still see that villain’s pale arse pumping into his mistress. And his curve-cursed palms became fists, eager to know the feel of the man’s nose against his knuckles.
It had felt like wading through mud to leave the shop, to leave Miss Diana Chester behind.
Lady Guinevere was a liar. The potion still rolled through him, had made a home of his chest. That much clear.
He’d managed to keep away for a full week, but he moved in that direction now, his legs eating up the distance with little thought.
He could… marry her. A daughter of the transcendent ton. The king would approve. And Temple would save the woman from her devil of a groom. That man’s title gave him the power to hurt her, to send her running, but it also gave Temple the connections the king would approve of.
He wasn’t going to marry her. Of course not. But he would like to know she was well, that she’d begun to heal from her ordeal and that she’d found a safe place to land. Yes, that the reason he strode toward the potions shop.
Once in Finsbury Square, Temple quickened his pace, and he paused only a moment after stepping inside the shop and taking a deep breath.
The air here was thicker. It smelled of soil, so it smelled of iron, too.
The iron in his blood began to speak, surging and ready.
He clamped down on the growing anticipation he always felt when shaping his metal.
None to shape here, but the plants that seemed to cover every surface, hanging even from the ceiling, enriched the air with the scent of iron-rich soil.
He made for the back of the shop, weaving between the potion mistresses and the customers, ducking beneath low hanging vines.
He felt stronger here. He’d need to visit his workshop after this, to release the iron-hot energy roiling through him in his forge.
But first he’d find out where Miss Chester had gone.
He knocked on the door. It opened as if the lady behind it had been waiting for him. The guard was propping up the corner as he had been last time, and Lady Guinevere sat behind her desk, feeding seeds to the raven on its golden perch.
“Close the door behind you,” she said without looking up from her newspaper.
He did, then he stood before her desk, removing his hat. “Where is Miss Chester?”
“Safe.”
“Good. But where?”
Lady Guinevere shrugged. “I do not keep track of her.”
“You know where she is.”
Lady Guinevere looked up over the top edge of the paper. “Why do you wish to know?”
“Why do I need a reason? Hades Hellfire, woman—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” the guard snarled from her corner.
“I would not anger him, Lord Knightly.” Lady Guinevere lowered her attention to the paper once more.
“I deserve to know. It was your potion that has put me in this position.”
With a sigh, she folded the paper and placed it neatly on her desk.
Then she steepled her fingers and faced him.
“If my memory serves me right—and it does—you consumed a drop of a potion mixed with whisky. A single diffused drop, my lord. I am powerful. My brew the best in the city, the country, perhaps the world. But even I cannot brew a love potion that remains in a man’s system over a week at that low a dose.
Even my most potent potions still lose their power entirely after, ah… release of liquids from the body.”
“It did something to me.”
“It did not.”
“You’re lying.”
She gasped, her hand fluttering to her chest. The guard’s deep laugh joined the airy sound of her gasp. They were making a joke of him.
“What happened was illegal,” he said. “I could tell the papers that you’re selling potions to ladies with the express intent of manipulating the men of the ton.”
Lady Guinevere stood and rounded the desk, but before she could finish her short journey, her guard had crept up behind him.
A looming shadow at his back, a fireball facing him.
Trapped. Hell. He’d go down fighting if he had to.
There was not enough iron in this room to call it up in his aid.
All the iron here already settled and set. Nothing raw and ready.
“My lord,” Lady Guinevere said, “if you work to uphold unfair laws, you are not fit to call yourself a man.”
“Now you’ve done it.” Mr. Bran sighed. “She’ll be up on her soapbox for an age. Best make yourself comfortable.”
She flashed her guard a scowl as the bird spread its wings.
“What about women? Explain to me how it is fair that women can be dosed with love elixir without consent but it is illegal for men to be. As long as that law stands, I will sell to whomever I please for whatever purposes. And before you jaunt off to the press or Scotland Yard, consider my power over potions. If you do not wish to wake up as a frog or without the use of your cock, you’ll keep your silence. ”
Mr. Bran used a toothpick to clean his nails. “She’ll do it. And I’ll help her. And you’ll never hear me coming.”
Temple believed them. They were not worth the trouble of threatening.
And he didn’t really want to. “All I want is to speak to Miss Chester.” Once he saw for himself that she was well, he’d stop obsessing.
That was it. He’d always hated a lady in trouble, hated the kind of trouble that put her in need of protection.
Lady Guinevere smoothed her hair and her skirts as the bird smoothed its feathers. When she next spoke it was with a moderate tone and polite smile. “Miss Chester is safe, and she does not need a man hanging about her. But… I suppose you can speak with her. Briefly. If she agrees.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded. “Go find her, then. She’s likely to be in the roof garden. Take the main stairs up.” She waved toward the door, and her guard opened it. The previously muffled noise of the shop front rushed in on them, but so did the iron in the soil-rich air.
He’d find her. “Thank you.” He found the stairs at the back of the shop quickly enough and slipped through the crowded bodies toward them.
One foot on the first step he stopped, almost bumping into another body carrying a pot of pink flowers.
The woman wore one of the pink gowns of the potion mistresses and a chatelaine at her waist. Her dark hair was knotted neatly beneath a frilly white cap, and she studied the ground, showing only a sliver of face to the room.
He only needed a sliver, apparently, to know her.
He grinned, and when she stepped to the side to go around him, he stepped with her.
Another step with swinging skirts to the other side. He blocked this one, too.
She looked up, scowling. Then her eyes widened, locking with his. Recognition clear in those golden suns. His grin kicked higher.
And she ran. Nestling the plant beneath one arm, she hiked up her skirts and flew up the stairs.
And with the iron pumping through him, he followed, Miss Diana Chester a magnet he couldn’t resist.