Chapter 22 Lightning Strikes #3
“I cannot.” She didn’t feel the words leave her mouth. But she heard them. They sounded in a voice smaller than her own, cracked and breaking.
“You can,” Temple whispered. The words stout as iron yet soft as his lips. “We can. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You cannot promise—”
“I will tear this world apart with my hammer and hands before I let anyone, including the king, hurt you. Do you understand?” He tilted her chin up, forced her to face him. “Do you understand?”
“We should have run.”
“He’ll listen to me.”
“We could already have been far away.” But his family.
She couldn’t… she couldn’t. She swallowed and found her strength, shifted it to her own two legs and straightened her spine.
Every little movement of recovery put distance between them.
When she stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder instead of in his arms, she faced the palace, faced the guards walking toward them.
They moved forward together, and Temple bent to whisper in her ear. “If something bad happens, use your talent. Do what you must to escape.”
She nodded. No matter what glamour she used, Temple would see through it.
He would always know the truth of her. As they stepped inside, she allowed herself a glance at him.
Her very own beautiful knight. Hard jaw smooth, hair sticking up, strong neck, and broad shoulders.
Lips that kissed like forever and promised even longer than that.
Eyes the kind of fog gray that made you fall in love with a misty morning.
She loved him. But she’d stolen him as surely as she’d stolen Apollo’s talent. She’d not meant to have either, but they’d come to her anyway.
Temple clasped her hand, threaded their fingers together as they inched farther into the opulent room.
Rich red wallpaper and golden frames. A large marble fireplace with a gentle blaze behind a fire screen.
Thick rugs, elegant furniture. A man stood at a window, parting the curtain to peek out, strong and tall, and when he turned, his handsome face was fierce—slashing brows and clenched jaw. King William.
She dropped into her lowest curtsy as Temple bowed. She stayed there, staring at the rug, the peep of her shoes beneath her skirts, until the king told her to rise.
“Sit,” he demanded, his hands clasped behind his back.
Temple led her to a small sofa and set her beside him. Only then did she see they were not the only ones who’d been summoned.
“Apollo,” Diana breathed. “What are you… What is he…?” He looked like a corpse draped across the chair set at a right angle from their sofa. His head lolled onto the back of the chair, and his eyes were closed. In the daylight, his skin was paler, the weight he’d lost more visible.
Temple made himself large between her and Apollo, not that her cousin seemed to pose a threat.
“Stand down, Knightly,” the king commanded. “I want to know every detail, and I want it now.”
Where to start?
“Fordham tried to kill my wife.” Temple’s cold statement sounded more like a warning.
“That’s true,” Apollo said, flicking a hand out, then letting it drop limp again.
“Twice,” Temple barked.
“Also true.” Apollo gave another hand flick.
“No.” Diana rose and went to stand before the king. “It began when my grandfather died. I was there.”
“You should not have been,” the king drawled. His words were dangerously slow and hard.
“I was nursing him. I called for Apollo. But Apollo must have come too late. I hid it from my cousin. He did not know for some time. Temple did not know when he married me. I had thought to use him to keep me safe.”
“Don’t say it like that, Diana.” Something stricken in Temple’s voice. “I wanted to protect you.”
“But you were supposed to get something from me in return. I”—she swallowed hard—“failed to accomplish my part of our exchange.” She had known, really, she’d never be able to give him what he needed.
“What was he to do, Your Majesty? When he discovered his wife’s secret?
He is a good man. He protected me.” She couldn’t look at Temple, didn’t want to see his face, to know through the expressions settling there if he realized how he’d been cheated in their marriage.
The king scratched his jaw, stared at the ceiling. After some moments of silence, he looked to Apollo. “Do you have anything to add?”
“Not a bit, Your Majesty.” He didn’t even raise his head.
“And you, Knightly?” the king asked.
“None of this is Diana’s fault.” Temple’s voice sounded raw and ragged. “It is wrong to punish someone for something they cannot control.”
“You think to lecture me on morality?” the king asked, each word like the hit of a hammer against an anvil.
Temple didn’t answer, and Diana still could not look at him. She’d done this to him. He’d been rising like the sun and bringing his family with him, braving the sharks of the ton to improve society and his family’s lives.
She’d brought him crashing down. Not a sun any longer. A rock falling from the highest cliff, hurtling toward oblivion.
“Please, Your Majesty,” she said, “Temple has done nothing but help a woman in need. Whatever you do to me, do not punish him.”
Apollo snorted. “He would have killed a peer this night.” With more work than should be necessary, he lifted his head, opened his eyes. They were cold and glittering.
“A peer. Hmm.” The king walked toward the window, scratching his jaw.
What did Temple see when he looked at the man?
Diana knew his majesty wore a glamour, knew the truth was beyond her reach.
When he turned around, he winced, hid a tremor a man as strong looking as he seemed would never have. “Are you a peer, Fordham?”
“I—” Apollo’s mouth hung slack. “I am. The damn talent doesn’t matter!” He surged to his feet. “I am the heir. The eldest male—"
“Was your father the eldest son?” the king asked.
“N-no, Your Majesty.” Apollo cast Diana an unreadable look. “My cousin’s father was. By a few minutes. They were twins. He died before my father.”
“What are you going to do?” Temple moved like water loosed from a damn, standing and striding to her side in one fluid movement.
“I’ll move at my own pace, Lord Knightly. Remember who you talk to.”
Temple clasped his hands behind his back and ducked his head, but the muscles of his neck strained, and the line of his jaw ticked.
“There’s only one thing I can do,” he said. “Laws are clear.”
“You’re the king,” Temple growled.
“And you’ll keep your mouth shut.” The king’s command echoed across the room.
“The laws of primogeniture call for the eldest son of an eldest son to inherit title, land, and talent, all things entailed to the marquessate. Any heir who fails to receive talent must forfeit his title and lands. And women… well, women do not inherit at all, do they?” He tilted his head, regarding Diana.
She lifted her chin. “They used to. Morgan le Fay.”
“Might as well be a myth.”
“Queen Elizabeth. A queen with talent.”
“One of the last women of her kind.”
“Until now.” Somehow Diana pushed her chin even higher. “You are the Sailor King, the king of the people. You want to know how this happened. You know it’s not unheard of. There’s even talk that you have considered your niece, Victoria—”
“Enough.”
The only sound the soft crackling of the flames in the grate.
The king faced the window once more, and when he next spoke, his words were slow, tired. “Apollo Chester, you are Fordham no longer.”
“What…? No.” Both words seemed to lodge in his throat. They were frogs’ croaks.
“My word is final.” He flicked his hand at the doors. “Leave.”
“That is all?” Temple raged. “He tried to kill my wife twice!”
“He’s pitiful, Knightly. Without money or title now. He’ll take care of himself.” The king tilted his head. “Or his inability to do so will take care of him for you.”
Apollo stood with blank eyes and dragging limbs.
He swayed once on his way to the door, and Diana fought the urge to help him.
When he reached the hallway, he slumped against the wall, and Diana’s last sight of him was all heaving shoulders.
His body collapsed, and he sank to the floor in a heap.
She should not feel for him, but sorrow flooded through her.
“Lady Knightly.” The king considered her, stroking his jaw. “You’re a much more interesting figure. What to do with you?”
Temple stepped closer to Diana’s back, placing his arm alongside hers, weaving their fingers together. Giving her strength, as always.
“Until I figure it out”—the king flicked a hand at the door—“take her to the Tower of London.”
Two guards appeared in a shimmer of gold and pink. They’d been there the entire time, hadn’t they? Glamoured into invisibility.
Through the buzzing and numbness along her every limb and the decidedly mad laughter brewing in her chest, she thought, illusions could be dangerous indeed. A danger, to be sure, to think you know the truth when you do not.
“No!” Temple’s hand flicked, and his body tensed. His ring glowed hot. He was reaching for iron somewhere in the room.
She spun, cupped his cheeks. “Temple, no. Don’t. Please, don’t.”
The guards grabbed her, pulled her out of his embrace.
Temple lurched for her, but more guards appeared, the king’s glamours dropping off them like discarded cloaks. They were huge and well-armed, and they each grabbed one of Temple’s arms, held him fast.
“No!” He jerked and kicked. “Diana, do something!” He wrenched against the guards’ hold to no avail.
Use your glamour. That’s what he meant by something. But if she did, she would continue to ruin his life. Better this way. Better the Tower and whatever future followed that.
It would set Temple free.
And perhaps Apollo would receive his talent, his birthright, finally. Then the king would give his title back.
Everything she’d torn asunder would be put back in place with whatever unknown night followed the Tower.