Chapter Seven
Seven
“How was it?”
I wasn’t surprised that both Hannah and Lily were still up and waiting for me. Likewise, Dante got up from where he’d been napping near the kitchen fire and uttered a few barks before going to sniff Lily’s feet.
“Tea first,” I demanded, sitting down on one of the chairs and removing the gloves.
Hannah busied herself making tea while Lily gave me an assessing look. “You have an interesting scent at the moment,” she said, accompanying her words with an audible sniff.
“I smell?” I said, horrified.
Lily rolled her eyes. “No, I didn’t say that. My kind, we can smell when someone is—let’s say when they are intrigued by someone else.” She shrugged. “You have that scent.”
I was even more horrified when I realized what she meant. And what it meant about me.
“I do not!” I said, but she just gave me a knowing look.
“It was the Devil’s son, wasn’t it?” Hannah said, placing a cup of tea on the table in front of me. “Making you exude some sort of love scent. Like a romantic skunk.”
I made a face of disgust at her choice of words as Lily bent over in laughter.
“So, Skunky,” Lily said, when she was finally able to speak again, “how was your evening?”
I finished my tea before responding. Keep calm, Cora, I reminded myself.
“It was fine but a bit terrifying. The Queen is…well, she is a vampire, after all, and the most powerful person in Great Britain on top of that. And she seems to either not care about her food or like very bland food, because everything was pale and unseasoned—”
“Like so many Englishmen,” Lily said with a grin.
“But the dessert was very good,” I finished.
“And your demon?” Hannah prodded.
My cheeks heated. “He is not my demon. In fact,” I continued, the memory of the church bazaar making me mad all over again, “he did something he should not have this afternoon and will not apologize for it.”
“He kissed you?” Lily said, bright-eyed.
I was dumbstruck. I shouldn’t have been—Lily was a succubus, after all; it was rather her business to suss these things out—but I didn’t think it would take such a short time.
“He did!” Hannah exclaimed after seeing my face.
“That wasn’t the thing that made me mad!” I sputtered.
“Oh, so you weren’t mad about that?” Lily asked, sounding suggestive. “Did he kiss you by way of apology?” She rolled her eyes. “So many men think that is the way they can get out of things, when usually that is how they get into things.”
My face turned bright red, and I briefly thought about flinging myself into the fireplace, just to join my fellow flames.
“He did not kiss me to apologize,” I said stiffly.
“It was consensual,” Lily said, narrowing her eyes at me.
I gave a quick nod, and her expression relaxed.
Hannah sat down at the table beside me, her silvery-green eyes as wide as saucers. “How was it?”
Wonderful. Intoxicating. Entirely too dangerous.
“Uh—”
Lily flapped a hand. “That’s not important.”
Oh, thank God.
“What’s important is how far it went.” She sat on my other side, regarding me with a twinkling gaze. “Was it a kiss? Or was it a kiss kiss?” she said, emphasizing the first kiss.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Hannah complained.
Lily gave her a skeptical look. “You know, with tongues and hands and such. That is a kiss kiss.”
Lily’s expression turned gleeful when she saw my face. “It was a kiss kiss!”
“Can we stop talking about this, please?” I asked.
How was it possible I could blush more? Perhaps I could get a new job as a fire starter.
Because after tonight, I wasn’t certain I would still have a position as a species ombudsman.
Especially if I couldn’t school my blushes.
I had no doubt Lord Spontaneous Kisser would be fine—he was as comfortable being duplicitous as I was having brown hair—but if my superiors suspected…
well, they would pull my assignment straight away and possibly relieve me of my job entirely.
“We should stop,” Hannah said. “Look at her, she might just die of mortification, and then I’d have to find a new housemate.”
I glared at her, but she only laughed.
“Fine,” Lily conceded, folding her hands on the table. “Is Prince Albert as besotted with the Queen as he appears?”
I was relieved to be onto another topic. “I didn’t get much of an impression of him, but I’d say yes. There was another human there when we were meeting with Queen Victoria—”
“You met with the Queen?” Hannah said in an incredulous voice. “And then you were kissed by a demon?” Her wings started flapping, and she rose a few feet into the air. “That is an incredible evening!”
“Except I have to go to work in the morning and escort the Devil and his son all around town, and who knows where else the Devil wishes to go. Maybe to visit a farm so he can try his hand at milking cows? Or to Madame Tussauds to see if any of his hellish denizens are in the Chamber of Horrors?” I had to admit my tone verged on the hysterical.
“Will there be more kissing, though?” Lily asked, putting her chin in her hands and giving me a wide-eyed look.
“No!”
I spoke forcefully, but it seemed as though neither one of my friends believed me, since they just looked at each other and shrugged, smiling.
I rose, suddenly feeling exhausted by everything. The humbeetles, the dinner, the meeting with the Queen, the walk home, that incident, and now getting grilled. Dante perked his ears up, then trotted over to me with an inquiring look.
“I’m off to bed. I have to be up early tomorrow. Hannah, can you take Dante to the shop again?”
“Of course,” Hannah replied. “Sleep well.”
“Sweet dreams,” Lily added with a wicked smirk.
I resisted the urge to reply with a crude gesture unbecoming to a lady and stomped off to my bedroom.
“Good morning, Miss Hastings.”
I entered Clarence House earlier than expected so I would have a chance to compose myself before seeing any of my charges.
But no such luck.
The marquis was downstairs, sitting in one of the high-backed chairs in the lobby.
He held a copy of The Morning Post, whose front page was agog with news of the upcoming Great Exhibition.
I wondered if the newspapers had even heard of the incident at the church or if the government had covered it up, for security reasons.
He folded the newspaper back up, then rose and moved toward me with a distinctly predatory gait.
I did not flinch, however; I had given myself a strict talking-to on the walk over, and I was determined to treat him as courteously as I had Before the Kiss, or BK.
There would be no After-Kiss behavior, that I knew. Or at least thought I knew.
If only my body knew as well. As it was, as soon as I saw him, it felt as though I’d been jolted with one of Mr. Faraday’s electrical machines.
Curse his attractiveness. The marquis, not Mr. Faraday. I had no opinion on that gentleman’s appearance.
“My father has not risen yet, so today’s adventures will have to wait a few hours.”
“Oh,” I said and turned to leave, but his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.
“Wait, Hastings.”
I bit my lip and turned back around. “What is it, my lord?”
His eyes darkened. “My lord? You can call me Marcellus, you know. We can be on a more intimate footing now, given—” And his gaze trailed down my person, starting from my eyes all the way to my feet, and back up again. “And I can call you Cora.”
Damn, but he was good. Which was probably because he had done this numerous times, and I was just another ember in his collection of hellish flames. Or something like that. I had to keep that in mind and not get swept up because he was charming and beautiful and had a deliciously deep voice.
I arched my eyebrows in my most disapprovingly supercilious expression and waited until his eyes met mine again.
“I believe we should remain on the same terms, my lord,” I said, emphasizing the last two words.
Even though my heart was still fluttering at how he’d said my name.
Actually, that was even more reason to keep to the same terms—I didn’t need my heart to flutter any more than it was already.
“Pity,” he said. “But I do wish to get some breakfast, and I don’t want what the hotel has on offer, so you will take me out.”
It wasn’t even close to a question. It wasn’t even a statement. It was a demand.
“Fine,” I said, trying to keep the peevishness from my voice.
“Lead the way, Miss Hastings.”
I drew a deep breath, then walked out, one of the most dangerous creatures in the world right behind me.
I was literally playing with fire, pushing back against his flirtatious nonsense, but what other choice did I have?
I couldn’t risk my job, and continuing down this dangerous path with him could be risking my life.
It was one thing to be aware one was with a dangerous creature, but it was hard to keep that truth in mind when seated across from them in a cozy tea shop. He’d ordered a full English breakfast and was currently demolishing his food as though he had never eaten in his life.
Rather like Dante every evening when I fed him supper.
“Where does your father wish to go today?” I asked when he had finished chewing. “Savile Row? Or the circus, was it?”
“I wonder how they get their scrambled eggs so fluffy,” he mused. “Mine always turn out dry.”
The image of a demon fussing over his cooking made me start to laugh, which I smothered under the guise of a cough. He glared at me, so I probably hadn’t disguised my laugh well enough.
“He changed his mind about both the suit fittings and the circus. Now he wants to tour the Tower of London,” he said, sounding weary. “He heard there were ghosts there, so he wants to see if he knows any of them.”
From anybody else, the idea would have been ludicrous, but this was the Devil—the chances were good that if there were ghosts in the tower, he might have made their acquaintance.
And what would he do if he did know them?
Would he spirit them away—pun absolutely intended—to Hell, or just reminisce about old times and leave them there?