Chapter 7 The Allure of Iron #2
“Oh.” She did not have to ask what with. “There is nothing you can do. Apollo holds all the power. If he… if he wishes to hurt me, he can.” She dared a peek up at him. “All I can do is disappear.”
His jaw was working side to side, his gaze fixated on something in the distance. His hands clenched and unclenched, hammers becoming blades becoming hammers. “Has he discovered your intentions with the potion?”
“No.” She couldn’t tell him what Apollo had discovered. That secret must go to her grave. “He simply… I am an obstacle to something he wants. Desperately.”
“He wishes to marry you, and you have refused.”
“Mm.” She picked at her apron. “Exactly.” It was true she did not wish to marry him. And it was true Apollo did not wish to marry her. He wished to kill her.
“What do you plan to do, then?”
“He’s a marquess. There is not much I can do but hide.”
“That is not a long-term solution, Miss Chester. I will—”
“You will do nothing!” She jumped to her feet.
She stood close to him, so very close, and she had to tip her chin up to see his eyes.
She could read them as well as she could a sky.
Anger, there. Frustration. Not aimed at her, though.
Oh God, he was the kind of man who liked to play knight, wasn’t he?
She’d only ever read about them. If she didn’t know better, she’d say the potion still boiled his blood.
She did not need his help, though. She could not have his attention.
She’d been working in her little room above the potions shop on casting and banishing illusions.
Her control was still so precarious. To form close bonds was to court discovery.
High emotions seemed to trigger her talent, and she would cast glamours without thinking, without trying.
“Please do nothing,” she said softly. “It is my problem to solve.”
A wind blew between them, ruffling the plants and pushing a cloud over the sun. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
He took off his jacket, slipping one taut arm after the other out of the sleeves.
Then he whipped it behind her, rested it across her shoulders.
It billowed down to encase her from chin to toe.
He pulled the neck of it together tight, his knuckles brushing her jaw.
“Please. You say the word like you’re begging. ”
She straightened her spine. “I suppose I am.”
“Begging doesn’t suit you.”
“What else am I to do?”
“Not what you should do. What I should do.”
“And that is?”
“Help you.” He released the edges of his coat and walked away from her.
“No. You are sweet to offer. Rather chivalric. But you cannot help me.”
He whipped back around. “Remaining in the city, where anyone can find you, is careless.”
“Lady Guinevere’s shop is well guarded. I’m staying in a room above, and—” She should not have told him that.
“You like working here? You like… working?”
She laughed. “I suppose I should not. But I will brave the truth. I do not fear censure from you.”
“Because alchemists are common, brutish laborers?”
Exactly what Lady Tascott had said about him. What everyone said about all his kind. But they had never seen one pull iron from the soil as if his hand were a magnet. What would they think, then? Would this man’s life be as much a danger to the well-known order of things as hers was?
“Just so,” she said. The lining of his coat was a slippery silk, soft and warm, and the collar smelled of some spicy cologne. She’d smelled it behind the curtain, and when she’d knocked him over before that. But then he’d smelled of whisky, too. She buried her nose in his collar, inhaled deeply.
He cleared his throat. “I’m not ashamed of it.”
“I do not think you should be. I am glad to have something useful to spend my hours on. And I am learning so very much. The names of plants, which ones go in which potions. It’s fascinating. Plants are categorized, did you know, and they have Latin names as well as the common ones.”
“I did not know.” His hard face broke a little, into the barest smile.
“They do. I cannot remember them very well. Yet. Except this one.” She strode across the rooftop, guiding him to a sun-bright corner. Better this than the other conversation. Much better. She gestured to a small shrub. “Do you know what this is?”
His face broke even more. “I do not.”
“Laurel. It’s one of the few I can remember, and do you know why?”
“I cannot wait to learn.”
“We have that in common.” Oh dear. She was beaming at him.
She ducked her head and tamed her lips. “That is neither here nor there. The laurel, yes. I remember it because it is named for a poor young Grecian girl named Daphne. She happened to catch the eye of a god, and the only way to escape him was to be transfigured into a laurel tree.”
He eyed the bush from top to bottom like it might suddenly become a naked woman. And it rather looked like the rough outline of a naked woman. The potions mistresses enjoyed pruning it in an hourglass shape. The bush was bustier than Diana with a padded corset.
“Which god?” he asked.
“Apollo,” she whispered. She rushed on to sweep the feeling of his name from her lips. “Mint is the other plant I’m confident at identifying.”
“Is there a story that goes with that one, too?”
She nodded.
“Will you tell it to me?”
“No. I must return to work. But before you leave, thank you. I feel oddly better after having spoken with you. I do apologize for the potion, and I am terribly glad to see no harm has come from it.”
“None at all.”
She made for the door, but his touch on her shoulder stopped her.
“Yes?” she asked.
“You have nowhere to go?”
“I have here to go, my lord.” She shrugged away from his touch and made it another few steps toward the door.
“Miss Chester,” he called out.
She looked at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Marry me?”
She laughed. “You are amusing, my lord.”
In two long steps he was right beside her once more. “I’m serious. I need a wife. And you need a home.” He was serious. Quite so. His stormy eyes had gone molten metal. “I think I was in more possession of my faculties that night at the ball than I first thought.”
“You were not. You were mad for me. And you’re mad now.”
“Some men need excuses to give in to their wildest impulses.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
The tiniest half smile, his white teeth flashing. “I’m entirely clearheaded now. Think of it as a business arrangement.”
She shook her head. “All the benefit would be on my end.”
“It would not. The king has demanded I wed, and I, as you well know, was not born to this title, this life. I need a woman who can help me navigate the ton. I would benefit more than you can know from a marriage with you. And”—he reached into the cave of his coat and found her hand in the warm darkness, brought it into the light and folded it between his own—“I would protect you. From your cousin. If you are married to me, you cannot be married to him.”
If that were her only problem, she might well be tempted to say yes.
“Marry me,” he repeated.
“Again?” she huffed. “A third time?”
“Well, that’s twice now you’ve refused to answer me. I suppose I’ll keep asking until I get a yes. Or a no.”
“No answer is an answer, my lord.” She pulled her hand from his, slipped his coat from her shoulders and handed it to him. Cold now. She missed the safety of that silk lining, of that high collar, of being wrapped tightly in the smell of the man—rich soil after a spring rain.
“No answer is a maybe.”
“You are wrong, my lord.”
He took his coat and leaned down to meet her gaze on a level field. “Do it, then, Miss Chester. Say one word. One syllable. Easy to shape with those pretty lips. No.”
“N—”
“Never mind. Do not do it. Let me court you.” He swept toward the door. “A fortnight. I’ll prove to you what a good idea it is.”
“Or…” And this was a good idea. “I’ll teach you in that time how to navigate the ton and you will not need a wife to help you.”
“I suppose so. But the king will still require it. And I have a feeling I’ll still want you.”
“Oh, you must be potion mad.” She pushed past him and into the stairwell. A man like him courting her? If she weren’t a dangerous anomaly, she’d be… breathlessly flattered. Precariously proud. And a little bit at risk for falling for his charms.
He followed closely behind. “I’ll return tomorrow.”
“You do not have to.”
“I will. Do you have certain work hours? I do not wish to interfere.” He jolted down the steps right behind her.
When she reached the ground floor, she whirled around to face him before entering the front of the shop. “You cannot be serious.”
“I am always serious.” He did not blink, did not crack a grin. The man must be… serious.
She slapped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. This mirth… she’d not laughed so easily in an entire week. That she could so soon…
“Yes,” she said. “You may visit me again. The shop closes at seven, and we spend an hour cleaning after that.”
“I’ll be here at eight.” He flinched as if he might… do something. She waited to see what it might be. But then he only said. “Good day, Miss Chester.”
She should not encourage him. But she could not quite let him go, either.
A strange impulse. No, a perfectly practical one.
He was her connection to the outside world.
He could bring her information on Apollo, information that might keep her ahead of him, keep her safe.
More than that, he fascinated her. What he’d said about alchemists, it contradicted everything she’d always known as true.
Her existence contradicted everything she’d always known as true.
She wanted to study him, to learn more about alchemists if he’d let her, to perhaps, learn more about herself as well.
“I will see you tomorrow night,” she said. “Good day, my lord.”
Then he swept into and out of the shop as if he were a breeze passing through, ruffling the leaves and vines and leaving nothing of himself behind.
But he had left something of himself behind.
The fear that had built a wall around her in the months since her grandfather’s death now possessed a crack or two.
Hairline fractures were webbing throughout the stone.
It should be stronger than ever. Apollo had…
She shivered, dread like a chip of ice trailing along her skin.
And Apollo was still out there, likely searching for her.
But she was free. And doing something interesting with kind, fascinating people. And Lady Guinevere took the safety of those in her care seriously, and…
And now this man, this alchemist had offered himself up as her knight.
He’d swept out of the shop like a ghost, leaving nothing of himself behind.
Except this new fullness in her heart.