Chapter 23 Temple in Ruins
TEMPLE IN RUINS
Diana’s ghost seemed to waver in the empty doorway. The sight of her dragged off by guards would likely haunt his mind for the rest of his cursed life.
She’d not even fought in the end. She’d stood there as herself, bold and brave, and God, that would not be the last time he saw her. A vow he’d keep or die trying.
He was free now, he realized. The door that had closed on Diana was now closed and guarded by the men who had held him back.
And the man who had made it all happen stood behind him. Slowly, Temple faced the king. He had no words. What could he say, after all, to the man who had dragged Temple’s heart away, who held it still, not yet crushed, in his hand, who determined its fate.
“Don’t look at me like that, Knightly,” the king said. “She’s a threat to the order of things.
“You mean the woman who’s had her life threatened twice in the last few months? The woman who has been in hiding and who only stepped into a ballroom tonight because you demanded it? That woman?”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
He was being suicidal, raising his voice at a man who thought himself divinely appointed. The only thing that had appointed him, though, was a string of early deaths in the direct line of ascension. He wasn’t divine. He was a damned lucky bastard.
“We’ll find you a different wife,” the king said.
That meant either divorce or… death. There was a bit of rust on the fireplace poker. Temple felt it like a hole in a wall that let a hint of fresh air into a stuffy room. But if he used it in any measurable way, it would be the final nail in Diana’s coffin. No one would live to fight for her.
The king sighed. “You should be in the Tower with your wife. You’ve clearly known about her, and you’ve not said a word to me. Some would consider you a traitor to the crown. You were seen clearly attempting to attack a peer of the realm, too.”
“Who was trying to attack my wife.” Temple didn’t yell, but he heard the outrage in his voice, the quivering, fraying control.
“Who is herself a danger. There are those who will say Fordham—ahem—Mr. Chester was protecting himself.”
Those could meet the end of his hammer. Every cell in his body ached do something hard and brash, to break through walls and knock through skulls, to get to the woman he loved, but he couldn’t.
So he curled his fingernails into a fist so tightly his fingernails bit through the thick calluses on his palm.
“I’ve not decided what to do with you yet,” the king grumbled. “But for now you can go. Do not leave London. Do not even go to Hampstead. Do you understand? There’ll be guards stationed at your house.”
A prisoner in his own home, then. Temple nodded. What else could he do. Any action taken now could very well lead to her death. When the guards opened the door, the first face he saw in the hallway was Nico.
Temple brushed past him, and Nico followed at a trot all the way out of the house.
“What happened?” he asked. “I saw Diana… where are they taking her?”
“The Tower.”
“No. Fuck. What do we do?”
“You do nothing. Go home to your wife.” Temple stopped, turned to his friend. “Thank you, but there’s nothing you can do.”
Nico seemed to harden for a moment. Then he hunched forward and ran his hands through his hair with another curse. “Very well. But let me know if you need me.”
They clasped hands, and Temple walked the rest of the way to Bloomsbury Square trailed by two of the king’s guards.
He didn’t see, feel, hear, or smell a single step of the journey.
There was a fight in his body he couldn’t let out.
Not yet. He could walk the whole of England and back and likely never rid himself of the anger coursing through him.
Better anger than despair. The despair would choke him, snuff out his forge, ruin him entirely.
When he pushed through the door of his terrace, the guards took up position on either side of it with stony faces and arms that seemed ready to use the pistols at their hips.
Those guns were likely alchemist guaranteed to have a smooth, steady, far-reaching shot.
The transcendents liked what alchemists could do, even if they wouldn’t admit it.
With the first click of his boot against the parquet flooring, his family appeared from a nearby parlor.
A wave of concerned faces swamped him. Sybil threw her arms around him.
His mother did too, making a sandwich of him.
His father stood in front of him and placed a gentle, gigantic hand on his shoulder.
“Tell us what’s happened, son,” he said.
“Where is Diana?” his mother asked, voice touched with shaky fear.
In the Tower. God, he could not bring himself to say the words again. The only words he could push through a dry mouth were, “I’m going to get her back.”
Sybil sobbed, and his mother gasped, throwing a hand over her mouth to catch the sound.
One thing he needed to say. Just in case. “Whatever happens to me, I will ensure you are left be. You had no idea who Diana was.”
“Who… what?” The hand dropped from his mother’s mouth to lay limp against her skirts.
Behind him, the front door was still open. Let everyone hear. He needed them to hear. “Diana possesses talent.”
His family’s reactions ranged from his father’s silent shock to his mother’s blinking confusion.
“What do you mean?” Sybil asked, shaking her head as if to clear fog from it.
“Diana can create glamours.”
His father cursed.
Sybil cursed even louder.
His mother made a soft “Oh.”
“Until tonight,” Temple said, “she and I were the only ones who knew. Well, other than her cousin, the man who attacked her in the ballroom tonight. The Marquess of Fordham. No. Fordham no longer. His title has been revoked.”
“He was supposed to inherit the talent, wasn’t he?” Sybil said. “But Diana did instead. Somehow.”
Temple nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s why he was after her tonight.”
“How horrible,” his mother breathed.
“How sad,” his father grumbled.
“How marvelous.” Sybil’s eyes were like stars.
Marvelous. Yes. His exact thought the night he’d discovered Diana using a glamour.
Their wedding night. She was everything a miracle should be, beautiful and bright.
But she was simply Diana, too. A woman with book dust on her skirts and questions on her lips who taught herself how to do the impossible when backed into a corner.
“What are you doing to get her back?” his mother asked.
“I… I do not know what I can do.” Anything he tried would hurt these hearts surrounding him now, would hurt all his brothers and sisters more than he’d already done.
“I’m s-sorry.” He swallowed to push the trembling from his voice.
“Everything I do ruins you. Every step I take drags you through the mud.” He could not save Diana because it would further hurt his family. But he couldn’t not fight for her. He—
A sob rose up in his throat, and he swallowed it down.
His father wrapped large hands around his upper arms and shook him until his teeth rattled. “Nonsense!” That strong voice booming in the entry hall, striking deep into Temple’s bones. “What absolute horseshit. What would you do if you did not have us to worry over?"
He would storm the Tower, free his wife.
“I can take care of my family, Temple.” His father released him and stepped backward. “You take care of yours.”
He meant Diana. “But—”
“It is not all your fault we fell from the alchemists’ good graces.
I was too cowardly to go to the king, even though it was the right thing to do, even though it was what I wanted.
I will always be grateful to you for doing right when I would not.
I would much rather be ignored and cast out but right than revered and wrong.
Look at that ring on your finger, Temple. ”
Hades’ hellfire, he couldn’t. He felt it pulsing with Diana’s fear, and that was heartbreak enough.
“Look!” His father’s command echoed off the walls.
Temple swallowed and lifted his hand. The simple iron band glowed a sickly yellow. When he’d forged it, he’d felt only a connection with her body, her lust channeling like a flooding river right to him.
“That bond is sacred, Temple,” his father said. “Your duty is no longer to us. It is to her. What is she feeling right now?”
“Scared.” That coming through strong, but something else there, too… “Determined.”
“What does she feel from you right now? Hm?” He father grasped his wrist and shook Temple’s hand in front of his face. “What are you sending her? The sort of feelings to buoy her, give her hope? Or are you leaving her even more desolate than before?”
Temple yanked his wrist back. Heartbreak, confusion, fear, indecision. His mind was a roiling cauldron of chaos, and if she felt his emotions the way he felt hers, the iron binding them tight, Hades’ hellfire, he was a thoughtless brute.
“Do what you would do if you didn’t feel guilty, Temple.” His father walked past him, gathering Sybil and their mother and nudging them toward the front door. “Take care of your family and let me take care of mine.”
The front door clicked closed behind him, and Temple ran.
But not to their bedchamber. That would be too much, too painful.
Up there with her scent in every inch of the air he might not be able to believe that he could get her back.
That he could face the forces of tradition, law, his majesty, and save an innocent woman, bring her home.
He fled all the way to the back of the house and out the door into the alley. He ran across it and into the mews.
Where he found a man slumped against a stall.
Apollo Chester, former Marquess of Fordham. That fucking bastard.
Temple lunged forward, and the other man scurried to his feet. Temple wrapped a hand around his throat and slammed him against a wall.
“Excellent,” he wheezed, arms limp at his sides. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m going to kill you.” Temple squeezed.