Chapter 21 Stepping Into the Light #2
Sybil broke free first and ran to Diana’s side.
“Are you surprised to see us? Temple secured invitations. Rather, the king secured invitations, I’m sure.
I’m also sure everyone in attendance is incensed that we’re here.
Don’t you love to rile them?” She hooked her arm through Diana’s and dragged her toward the ballroom.
“Leave Temple and Papa to discuss alloys and such with Nico.” She stuck out her tongue at that man as she passed him, scooping up Jane’s arm on her other side.
“I’ve not seen you since your wedding, Jane. I hope Nico is behaving.”
“Not at all.”
Sybil sighed. “Well, then we shall have to misbehave, too. What an uproar the three of us shall cause. They will be shocked by our natural beauty. No glamours needed.”
“Temple has brought me a mighty warrior,” Diana said.
“Indeed,” Jane said from the other side of a still chattering Sybil. “No way you can fail with such confidence buoying you up.”
They paused before passing through the doorway into the ballroom. They seemed to inhale at the same time, and Diana vaguely recognized Temple’s heat at her back. No going back now.
The whispers began almost as soon as they entered.
Lapdog.
Secretly married.
Who’s that?
An alchemist infestation.
The questions and insults hummed over a deeper silence. The quartet had stopped playing. Every eye skewered them.
Temple broke Sybil’s hold on Diana’s arm and pulled her ahead of their small group. He seemed to have a goal in mind, and that goal seemed to be a short man with yellow hair. “Lord Starling.” Temple spoke loud enough for everyone to hear him. He bowed. “May I introduce my wife, Lady Knightly?”
Lord Starling gaped like a fish. Then he stuttered and sputtered. Then he gave up. “Yes. A delight.”
A direct attack, and no one could give the cut direct to the king’s lapdog.
“Lady Knightly,” Temple said, then softer, “Diana, this is the Marquess of Starling.”
“I know of you,” Diana said. Finding her voice was easier than she’d thought it might be. “You were friends with my grandfather, the Marquess of Fordham.”
Starling became a fish once more. “F-fordham? Then, are you, the young woman engaged to marry the new Fordham?”
“I was. But I walk an entirely different path now.” She smiled at Temple as if he was her world.
And the whispering returned, louder.
“Excuse me, Starling,” Temple said. “I think it’s time I took a turn about the dance floor with my wife.”
The dancers parted as Diana and Temple joined them, and after some warbling hesitancy, the quartet started back up. Diana and Temple melted into the steps as if they’d been dancing together all their lives. And soon the other dancers joined them.
“Have you survived?” Temple asked her before they parted for a turn.
“I rather think I have,” she said when they returned to one another. “The worst is yet to come, though.”
“Fordham will not be here. Relax.”
They parted again, and she tried not to notice how every new partner in the set looked at her with raw curiosity.
“Lady Knightly,” one gentleman said. “You are tonight’s entertainment.”
“I’m afraid I do not know you.”
The man shrugged, and they parted.
Temple had noticed the exchange. The fires of hell had coalesced in his eyes, and his gaze had one focus—the other man. “Who is he?”
“I’ve no idea. I’d hoped you would know.”
“Do not talk to him.”
“I’m afraid I should.” She almost didn’t part of Temple. He grasped her wrist to keep her from joining the others in the pattern of the dance. But one look from her, eyebrows raised, and he released her.
She met the other man with curiosity. “Who are you?”
“A friend of your cousin’s.”
Not good. Her pulse picked up speed, beating a wicked rhythm at her wrist. No, no no. She pressed back the panic. She could deal with this. She had to. For Temple. “And how is he?”
“He is well. We thought you ill. Glad to see you’ve recovered.”
“As I am glad to have recovered.”
They parted.
“Temple,” she whispered as she came back together with her husband. “Breathe.”
He snorted fire. More or less.
And she returned to Apollo’s friend.
He dragged his gaze down her body then up again. “You are not the long-toothed spinster Apollo described.”
“I’m not a spinster at all anymore.”
“Yes.” The man’s gaze flashed to Temple. “You’ve rather come down in the world, haven’t you? Dirtying your skirts with alchemist soot.”
“I feel I’ve risen. Considerably. The company is much improved.”
“Hmm. I suppose you could say you’ve eclipsed your former position. Your husband is the king’s lapdog. After all. But then… that would make you the lapdog’s bitch.”
Gasps on either side of them, the nearest dancer’s face pale with shock.
“Did I say something wrong?” The man held back a chuckle.
And Diana held back her fist.
The music faded around her, the dancers stopped, and power flickered in her palm. She could create glamours and destroy them. Could she rip his away? If she could see the false lines of them like Temple could, perhaps. “You no doubt wear a glamour, sir.”
He bowed. “Naturally.”
“You are beautiful to look upon. You clearly need the illusion to distract from the utter pile of horseshit hiding behind it.”
“Pardon me? Are you calling me—”
“A pile of refuse,” Temple grumbled from behind her. “A putrid one.” She could feel his heat at her back. Her ring glowed so hot on her finger it might bubble her skin, burn it away.
She snaked her hand behind her back to press her palm against his belly.
Taut, hard, dangerous. Apollo’s friend would not last one punch when Temple’s fist was a blacksmith’s hammer.
But before he could take a swing, chaos broke out at the back of the ballroom, near double doors that seemed to lead outside.
A man’s low rumble, a woman’s yelp, the sounds of scuffle, then silence.
Until a slow clap sounded like the percussion of a funeral march. The crowd parted.
And Apollo appeared. Not alone. He held Sybil by the arm, and he pointed a golden dagger at her neck.