Chapter 6
Harrisford
Gwendolynne crawls out backward from beneath a row of my best Italian wool trousers.
Wisps of her hair—normally silky and black—have escaped from her messy bun and are hanging in frizzy waves around her flushed face.
She’s still wearing that horrible baggy cardigan, and beneath its loose neckline her normally pale chest is reddened too, all the way down to her—
I snap my gaze back up to her face and scowl. “I asked you a question, Chan. What are you doing in my room?”
She must have snuck in, not expecting I would be back so early.
After the explosion at the gala, I’d fought through the crowds to locate my father, only to find him already giving an interview to some reporters.
Fine, I’d thought, bunching my fists in my pockets.
It wasn’t unexpected, really: that he’d be more interested in doing damage control than finding out whether his only son was safe.
So, not bothering to say goodbye, I had walked out the door, hailed the valet, and promptly left.
And now my evening has only got worse. What are the chances I’d return to my room to find Gwendolynne Chan rummaging through my wardrobe?
After how shifty she’d looked earlier, and how obvious it was that she was hiding something beneath her clothes, I am immediately suspicious of nefarious intent.
I’m so certain of it that I’m willing to stake my considerable inheritance on the fact that she is trying to sabotage me.
By what? Blowing my door apart and breaking into my room?
Creeping into my wardrobe and planting something to get me in trouble?
As if I would truly get in trouble. Frankly, the idea is laughable. Just like every other time, Father would make a phone call, gift a hefty donation to Seamere, and everything would be smoothed over by supper.
Not that he cares about me, of course. He just wouldn’t like the optics of his son causing controversy at one of England’s most prestigious colleges.
Gwendolynne straightens her shoulders and blows a strand of hair from her eyes. “I…” she starts, then swallows, the smooth column of her throat rippling. “I was looking for my cat.”
I stare at her. “You don’t own a cat.”
She raises her chin. “I do.”
My eyes narrow; so do hers. “No you don’t.”
“Listen, Briggs—” Her voice has taken on a slightly hysterical edge.
“Just because you’re too priggish and self-centered to notice anyone else around you and whether or not they actually have a cat doesn’t mean that I do not have a cat!
And I do have a cat!” She takes a step toward me, fists clenched. “So there!”
I step forward too, until we’re chest-to-chest. She’s bluffing. I know she is. I’ve watched her for the past seven years and never once have I ever seen her with a blasted cat.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it? Very well, then. Why don’t you show me the reason you’re trespassing in my room? Why you’ve blown a hole through my fucking door?” I allow the corners of my lips to curl up into a sneer. “Go on, Chan—show me this alleged ‘cat.’ ”
She shoots me a look of unfettered loathing before dropping back onto her hands and knees and crawling back under my clothes racks.
I watch her narrowly, trying not to make eye contact with her backside, though it’s difficult considering it’s stuck high up in the air and her jeans are hugging her curves in all the right places—
Fucking stop it, Briggs. I swallow, tearing my gaze away from her wiggling arse. Gwendolynne is the enemy. She’s snuck into my room, she’s trying to frame me for something, she’s trying to steal the top spot from me, and she’s…
She’s holding a cat. Bloody banshee’s balls. She actually does have a cat.
I glare at her as she climbs to her feet, hugging a black ball of fluff to her chest.
“See?” she says, victorious. “I got him.” Her eyes meet mine and she blushes again. “Thanks for, er—letting me look for him. I’ll just be off now, yeah?” She’s looking nervous. She shuffles closer, trying to push past me, heading for the wardrobe door.
Realization clicks into place. Was this what she was concealing under her clothing earlier? When she was on the way home from Saint Gertrude’s? Nothing but a goddamned cat?
“Wait.” I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, and she sucks in a breath. I freeze, my muscles rigid, then snatch my hand away. She was warm, so warm, beneath my palm.
I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever touched her.
In all of seven years.
“Why?” she snaps. She’s annoyed now.
Flustered, I rake my hand through my gelled hair. I am well aware I’m not looking my best. My robes are scorched and I’m pretty sure I have a smudge of charcoal somewhere on my forehead. “Is this cat one of your patients, Chan?”
She begins to tremble, just slightly. We’re standing entirely too close in this confined space. I can feel the heat radiating off her and smell the scent of her chain store perfume.
“No,” she says.
She’s a fucking terrible liar.
“You’re lying,” I say accusingly.
She begins to shake even harder. “I…” She’s stammering. Shaking her head like a kid caught with a hand in the biscuit jar. “I’m not.”
“Give it to me.” Even I’m surprised by the firm tone my voice has taken on.
Her trembling stops, and she scowls at me. “Him, not it,” she says, and it’s as though defending the furball has given her courage. “And I’m not giving him to you!”
“Come on, just let me look at him—”
She clutches him to her chest tighter. “No!”
As she squeezes, though, the cat gives an incensed yowl. His head pops up. He thrashes—Gwendolynne manages to keep ahold of him, just—before he swivels to look at me, fixing me with one devilish eye.
I stare, disbelief tearing through my bones. I know this cat. With his flea-bitten ears, his single eye, his crooked tail…
“Percy,” I spit out, and the cat pulls back his whiskers and hisses. A little torrent of sparks flies from his open mouth.
Gwendolynne’s eyes widen, and she glances from me to the cat, then back again. “Wait—you know him?”
“Of course I know him, Chan,” I snap. “He’s my father’s boss’s familiar—”
“Was your father’s boss’s familiar,” she says, resigned, and it’s obvious she knows that it’s all over. She’s been caught. There’s nothing she can do or say now to feign her innocence. “Mrs. Mason-Price was going to euthanize him, and I—”
“You took him.” I’m horrified, of course, but not surprised, that Mrs. Mason-Price would do such a thing. I mean, I used to play with this cat when I was a kid, and he a kitten.
Still, I can’t show Gwendolynne any sign of weakness. This is the first time ever I’ve had an ounce of leverage over her, and if I want to exploit her fear I need her to believe—without question—that I do not care one iota about this cat.
It takes tremendous willpower to hold in my maniacal laugh. Finally, after so many years, I’ve figured out what the indomitable Gwendolynne Chan actually, truly cares about.
I tilt my head, regarding her for several long moments, watching as she withers beneath my stare.
“Look at you, being all rebellious. I wonder what the dean would think if she found out you broke a Seamere rule?” Professor Anika Kaur, the dean of Magical Veterinary Sciences, is a no-nonsense woman who has a zero-tolerance policy for rule breaking.
I know this because my father has had to go above her before to settle issues with my rule breaking.
And there’s something else I know: Gwendolynne absolutely idolizes her.
All of the color drains from her face. “I haven’t.” Her voice cracks and I almost—almost—feel sorry for her.
Or at least I would, if she hadn’t been caught breaking and entering my room.
“Oh, but you have, Chan. Imagine that! The mag.fam princess, top of every class, never-broke-a-rule-in-her-life Gwendolynne Chan, stealing patients from Saint Gertrude’s.
” It’s difficult in this cramped space, but I manage to lean even closer, so that our breaths mingle in the heavy air.
“I can see the headlines now, Chan, and let me tell you…They’re glorious. ”
She visibly gulps, her face pale, her fingers twisting into the cat’s fur.
Then she seems to gather herself, and her chin tilts up.
The movement brings her lips close to mine, and my heart begins to pound.
Involuntarily, my breath catches in my throat; I hold my ground, just managing to stop myself from stepping back.
“What do you want, Briggs?” she says, her eyes suddenly hard. “I’ll do anything you want as long as…As long as you don’t tell.”
Anything I want? She doesn’t know what a dangerous proposition that is for a man like me. Again, I conceal my derision. She is so tragically na?ve.
Good god, I hate her. I’ve always hated her beating me in class and being so difficult to read and acting so uppity even though she’s laughably poor and her family comes from nothing.
And I really fucking hate her now.
I hate the way she’s affecting me. How rattled I feel that I found her here, on hands and knees, in my walk-in wardrobe. The way I seem unable to stop noticing how her face flushes when she’s angry, or how full her lips look at close proximity.
Her heat. Her smell. The way her shoulder felt beneath my touch.
And I suddenly feel the insatiable need to make her suffer, as I’ve suffered.
So I turn on the full force of my charm. Reaching out, I finger a loose strand of her hair, listening to how her breath hitches. Then, so slowly, so deliberately, I tuck it behind her ear.
“All right, Chan.” I smirk, allowing my fingers to linger at the soft skin of her neck. Her breaths are coming ragged, uneven. “As a matter of fact, there is something that I need from you.”