Chapter Three
My hands curled into fists, my broken nails biting at my palms until I was sure steaming blood dripped from them onto the
floor. I stared at the man—who had traded his soldier’s uniform for that of a gentleman—sickened and furious to my very soul.
His eyes glittered with cold amusement at my expression, a brow arching as he took in the full, miserable sight of me. Baiting.
My blood simmered as the fuse of my temper lit.
“Branson will be posted outside the door, should you require anything else,” came Pembrooke’s simpering voice.
“The only thing I require,” the man said, not bothering to look at him, “is your absence.”
One of the guards let out a huff of surprise at the dagger-edged words. I barely heard it. Every bruise on my battered skin
throbbed in time with blistering memories of the humiliation, the utter degradation, of the past two days. Each sawed at my
nerves until, with the sound of the door shutting, that frail thread of control snapped.
One moment I’d been standing near the fire, and the next, I’d lunged over the desk and shoved Sweetie’s sharpened tip to the
pale column of his throat, in the tender hollow above his cravat. Ragged breath tore in and out of me as the blinding white
cleared from my vision. My hand trembled with the force of my grip, the furious beat of my heart.
His piercing gaze shifted from my face to the weapon in my hand.
“Is that a gentleman’s pipe?” he asked mildly. “My, how . . . resourceful.”
A droplet of blood welled where Sweetie bit into his skin. I startled as his hand covered mine, engulfing it with his hot
palm. He left a raised pink welt behind on his skin as he drew my hand and Sweetie’s razor edge to the right side of his neck,
just below his jaw. Where I knew his pulse beat. His grip only tightened as I tried to rip my hand away.
“There,” he said. “That’s where you’d cut to kill a man. Though it would be rather unsporting to exsanguinate the one intending to
free you from this hell.”
I drew in a sharp breath—but again, there was nothing. Not a hint of an essence or even the finery he wore, let alone a shift in his scent that would indicate he’d spoken a lie. His face, that torturously direct gaze, gave nothing away.
How? The world may as well have inverted itself. I felt as if I were falling, and there was nothing to slow the descent, to orient
myself.
“Who are you?” I demanded. What are you?
He smirked, blood trickling down the long line of his neck like the caress of a lover’s finger. “Ask nicely, and perhaps I’ll
tell you.”
I tugged back on my arm again, and this time, he released me, watching with a wolfish interest as I retreated over the desk,
knocking his hat and gloves from it. My foot slid against the scattered papers that littered the ground. An upended inkpot
dripped, dripped, dripped from the edge of the desk onto the fine rug.
“Who,” I asked again through gritted teeth, “are you?”
“The better question, I fear, is who are you?” He leaned back against the chair, picking up a familiar leather-bound black book. The very one I’d been forced to sign
my name in. “Miss Viola Elizabeth Lockwood, lately of 18 Crescent Street—a Brickbats girl through and through, I see.”
“I live on the north side of Crescent,” I ground out. Not that the difference would signify to someone of his ilk. My boardinghouse was outside
the boundaries of the Brickbats, and I had scrimped and saved for years to afford it, damn him.
“Lately employed by Mr. Stevens, the florist—”
“Congratulations, you can read,” I bit out, slipping Sweetie back into the tear in my dress—for now. “How thrilling for you.”
“Arrested,” he finished, with a tsk and ironic arch of the brow, “for selling wares created with fairyborn magic.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I’d only stolen the basket of them, but he added, with a droll look, “Several witnesses attested
to the fact. Their names have been noted here, to be called upon at your future trial.”
I waved my hand dismissively, attempting to mimic his cool demeanor. “It’s hardly my fault they were gullible enough to believe the lie I sold them. They’re too desperate by half to get their hands on Rosebourne’s
perfumes—but those are only silly scandal sheet rumors, of course.”
I said the last part too acidly for him not to notice. Drat.
“In fact,” I continued quickly, “I’m rather flattered my perfumes are so finely made that others can’t help but credit the notion they contain magic.”
“Is that so?” he began, reaching into the inner pocket of his superfine jacket. He held a familiar brown bottle up to the
firelight. “Shall we test that theory?”
Blooming Beauty. Thank God my own perfumes had no effect on me. He was already terrifyingly attractive without the illusory
effects of magic. The Devil himself couldn’t have crafted a face better suited to tempt a woman into sin.
Well. Two could play this terrible game out to its conclusion, whatever that would be.
“Go on, then,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “If you’re brave enough, that is.”
A muscle fluttered in his jaw at some unspoken thought. He twisted a silver signet ring on his left little finger. It was
unembellished, save for the flecks of dark rubies embedded in it like drops of blood.
How appropriate.
“What a delightful creature you are,” he said flatly. “And how remarkable that your east Linden accent has seemingly slipped
away, leaving one altogether more polished. A gift from your mother, perhaps?”
At that, a touch of warning crept through my mind. I kept my chin lifted, laying on a thick east city accent. “My mam was
born and raised in Riverside. Ye only need to listen to toffs prattle on about themselves but a few moments to mimic their
fancy speech.”
“Not bad,” he said, brows raised as if in appraisal. “You’ve got the cadence right, though your reluctance to swallow your
r’s gives you away.”
Somehow, through a hitherto unknown restraint, I managed to not give him that darling gesture known as an east city greeting.
“And you’re an expert, are you?”
“Something like that.”
He shifted, bringing his feet back to the ground. Now that he had my full attention, he didn’t merely exist in the office;
his large body seemed to own it entirely, pulling every aspect of my attention to him.
As his fingers tap-tap-tapped down onto the desk, a thrill of danger danced along the back of my neck.
“It may surprise you to discover, Miss Lockwood,” he began, “that prior to our memorable first encounter, I’d spent three
days searching for you.”
I stared at him, fighting the urge to swipe at the limp curls stuck to my cheeks. “Wanted yourself a perfume, did you?”
“In fact, yes.” He leaned forward with that same wolfish intensity as before, as if scenting blood in the air.
And it was then, seeing the triumph burn in his gaze, that instinct stirred and my whole body seized with the desperate need
to run.
“How long,” he began, “have you known William Rosebourne was your grandfather?”
For perhaps the first time in my life, panic won out over pride, and I whirled away from the desk. It didn’t matter that it
made me seem weak, not then. His focus was intolerable, and all I cared about was stepping closer to the fire, letting the
flames drive out the chill settling in me.
Ten years I’d carried that truth deep in my heart, so deep that I’d foolishly believed no one would ever find it, let alone
speak it back into existence.
This . . . this man, whoever he was, he didn’t have the right to shatter that peace. A helpless anger nipped at me as I tried, and failed, to
scent out his intentions again. In another situation, that veil of inscrutability might have come as a relief to my nose.
Now, it only put me at his mercy.
Darling . . . darling . . . I’m so sorry . . . Mama’s voice was a frail whimper in my ears.
I stared into the flames, thoughts racing, my hands gripping either elbow as I hugged my arms to my center. The floorboards
squeaked as the man rose from behind the desk. I hadn’t appreciated how tall he was until he was all but looming over me,
blotting out the light from the hearth.
“I’ve a theory about you,” he said. “One I’d greatly like to test, if I may?”
I glared at him. “Do I have a choice?”
“No,” he said, turning one of the leather chairs beside the fire around to face the door. “But you’ll be rewarded for your
efforts. Have a seat, Lockwood.”
Something about the way the firelight caught his eyes, making them flash with gold, unnerved me enough to obey. His earlier
words came back then, whispering cruel possibilities: the one intending to free you from this hell.
I lowered myself onto the firm tuft of the seat, marveling at the feel of something other than hard stone beneath me. And if I left a smear of filth behind on it and the smell haunted Pembrooke for days? All the better.
As I folded my hands in my lap, I realized the man hadn’t moved. His hard gaze was fixed on—
I smoothed my skirt back down, hiding the angry welt ringing my ankle. I met his inscrutable expression with one of defiance,
swallowing the swell of humiliation threatening to rise. If he had said anything about it, I would have done him bodily harm.
Well, worse bodily harm.
Instead, he strode toward the door, opening it. “Mr. Branson, would you be so good as to join us?”
The guard’s stocky form filled the doorway, his black eyes meeting mine with unnerving efficiency.
“She givin’ you trouble, sir?” Branson asked. “A wily bitch, that one is. Just say the word and I’ll have her back in ’er
cell.”
“How helpful,” the stranger said dryly, turning on his heel to face me. “Miss Lockwood, what can you tell me about this man?”
My brow furrowed. He can’t mean . . .
“His name is Cecil Branson,” I said in a flat voice. “He’s a guard here at Fairgate.”
“And?” the man prompted.
Oh, God. He knew. He knew all of what I could do.
“Go on, tell ’im what a friend I’s been to ye,” Branson said, a warning glint in his eye. “How capable ol’ Branson is.”