Chapter 12
Gwendolynne
We’d come so close to getting caught.
It takes me several rapid heartbeats to regain my breath, and even longer to gather my wits. And then I’m hurrying after Harrisford as he strides through the corridors of his mansion.
What did he mean by kissing me on the neck? Mr. Briggs’s words are seared in my brain: I shouldn’t have to tell you again. Which means that Harrisford has done this before, in this house. It doesn’t surprise me, really, given his reputation.
Still, I can’t help wondering…exactly how many women has he pushed up against one of the Briggs mansion’s many walls?
My mouth twists in disgust. He’s a right royal shit and I feel quite sure he only did it to toy with me. To throw me off my game. He didn’t actually want it. He didn’t actually want me. He probably wasn’t enjoying himself at all.
But then…My mind strays to the way he’d physically reacted to me on the dragon. And again, when I slipped the card into his pocket. That second time, my fingers had inadvertently bumped the evidence in his trousers that he was, in fact, enjoying himself. Very, very much.
It’s nothing, Gwendolynne, I scold myself. Just a physical reaction. Nothing more, nothing less. We were only in that compromising position so we wouldn’t get caught raiding Darghan Briggs’s study.
Harrisford moves faster than me, so I’m breathless by the time we stop in front of an opulent set of double doors. “My room,” he says curtly.
My stomach gives a sickened lurch. His father had told us to go to his room, so he took us to his room.
Inside, it’s much like his dorm room at Heywood Hall—except even more extravagant.
The comforter on the bed looks like gold-shot silk, the marble mantelpiece is stupidly large, the ceiling is vaulted with a painted mural.
A fucking mural, for Chrissakes! It’s ludicrously, preposterously, and nonsensically lavish.
It makes me even more determined to stop him from ever entering my room.
I slip the book out from under my shirt, unthinkingly dumping it on a nearby table. My attention is elsewhere—my head swiveling, taking in my surroundings—unaware until too late that my mouth is hanging open.
When I catch sight of Harrisford’s smirk, I shut it, my teeth clicking together, and give him a tight-lipped smile. “I suppose we should make a plan.” I lean against his desk, grasping the edge with both hands.
Harrisford disappears into his walk-in wardrobe for a few seconds and reemerges holding a fresh shirt, which he drapes across a chair. “We should,” he says, shrugging out of his braces so that they’re hanging below his waist. Then, facing away from me, he tugs his shirt over his head.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him shirtless and…
he is more muscular than I’d ever envisioned.
Not that I make a habit of envisioning Harrisford Briggs without clothes, of course, but I’m amazed at what he’s managed to hide beneath his scores of shapeless coveralls and loose linen shirts.
He’s all carved muscle, thick biceps, and broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, and his unnecessarily tight trousers display the thickness of his legs.
There are old, healed scars—probably from his time working with mythical beasts—covering his back and neck.
I swallow, my mouth dry.
Harrisford looks up suddenly, over his shoulder, and grins. “Like what you see, Chan?”
Heat floods my face and neck, and I grab a book off his desk, flipping it open and burying my nose in it to hide the redness of my face.
“No.” I stare hard at the words on the pages, but they don’t seem to make any sense.
They’re bleeding and blurring together, and my ears are roaring, and it kind of feels like I’m drowning, being pulled underneath the water.
In my peripheral vision, I see Harrisford putting the new shirt on. He buttons it, leaving the top three open as usual, and saunters over. I stare even harder at my book.
Harrisford tips the book toward me so that he can read the cover. His smile widens, becoming almost exultant. His murmur is sultry and velvet soft. “Reproductive Biology of Monstrous Creatures,” he reads out. “Really, Chan?”
Ugh. Of all the books I could have grabbed off his desk, I had to grab this?
My cheeks are burning, but I refuse to be cowed by him. “Yes. It’s a bit of an interest of mine.”
His eyebrows raise in mock surprise. “What a coincidence. It’s one of mine, too.” He grins. “Perhaps we should study…together.” He’s entirely too close. Uncomfortably close.
“Sure,” I say, and shut the book with a snap. “How about we start with all the different methods of castrating a male?”
He chuckles, and I throw the book at his head, unfortunately missing it when he manages to duck out of the way. The book tumbles to the ground. We both leave it.
“So?” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “What now?”
Harrisford runs a hand through his hair, leaving the back sticking up. “I suppose…I suppose we should try to figure out the source of the actual surges. It definitely seems as though Magecorp are doing something shady, but to find out what, we need to know how—and where—they mine the magic.”
I frown at him. “You don’t know?”
“No. That information is restricted to a select few, and kept hidden in the vault at Magecorp HQ. They say it’s for security reasons, and because it’s their intellectual property, but I suspect it’s actually so they can control the market.”
I pause for a moment, thinking. “We’ll need to sneak into their offices, then,” I say finally.
Harrisford paces to his desk chair, bracing his hands on its back.
He stares at the ground for a long while, then shakes his head, defeated.
“I don’t know if it’s even possible. My father’s study is one thing.
But Magecorp HQ? That’s a whole other layer of difficulty.
The levels of security they have there are tremendous. ”
He straightens as I approach him, watching me with wary eyes, until I’m close—near enough to feel the heat emanating from his body. I reach out, slipping my hand into his pocket. He goes rigid beneath my touch.
“Luckily, then,” I say, pulling out the card, “I have a staff ID.”
The next morning, Harrisford’s gaze slides to my face, then back to the card he’s holding, then back to my face.
“You look nothing like her,” he says, his voice flat.
I shrug. “She’s Asian, I’m Asian…”
He squints at the small photo on the staff ID. “You still look nothing alike.”
It’s Saturday, and I’m standing in the place where I’d least like to be on a Saturday: Harrisford’s dorm room. Well, it’s where I’d least like to be any day of the week, really.
I’ve spent a good half hour trying to do my hair like Hani Nguyen, the Magecorp employee who’s pictured on the card. And I’m wearing the business attire that Harrisford pilfered from his mother’s closet.
I had always known that Mrs. Theodora Briggs had died, but I’d never considered how or when.
Now, I’m still too hesitant to ask about it—and Harrisford doesn’t seem keen to elaborate.
But I hadn’t missed the lifeless expression that had settled across his features when I walked in wearing his dead mum’s clothes.
Moving closer, I snatch Hani Nguyen’s ID from him and shove it into my pocket. “Trust me, Briggs,” I say. “I’ve been mistaken for other Asian women often enough. Literally no one is going to notice.”
He frowns, still skeptical. “Surely not.”
I let out a heavy, long-suffering sigh. Why won’t he just believe me? “I promise you, it happens. I had one client recently that swore I’d treated her Dogue de Bordeaux with an entire six-month course of chemotherapy.”
“And let me guess—it wasn’t you?”
Shaking my head, I sigh again. “No. It was Marika Yamata, who graduated last year.”
The vein on Harrisford’s temple dilates, and he splutters, “But that—it’s ridiculous—she’s not even Chinese!”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Do you really think that matters?” I rub at my face and blow out a breath. “It’s not just clients, either. Professor Bartell still gets mixed up between me and Alice Chu…”
“Then he’s a fool,” Harrisford mutters, crossing his big arms. “An ignorant fool.”
“Yes,” I say. “So many people are. I guess you’re just lucky you don’t have to notice it.”
He tugs at his lower lip, his blue and brown eyes boring into mine. Then, after a long silence, he says, “Regardless. I think we should think of another way. It’s too dangerous.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “There is no other way, Briggs. You know that as well as I do.”
We’ve been over it a hundred times. Maybe more. We’d even discussed using a glamour, but I had to admit that I’ve never cast one and don’t actually know how. Harrisford does, but he refuses to use them for reasons he can’t—or won’t—explain.
So here we are. I’m banking on the fact that Hani Nguyen’s staff ID will still be functional.
Since Darghan Briggs is seemingly trying to obfuscate what’s happened—as evidenced by the IDs he’s keeping locked inside his study and the fact that it’s somehow been kept out of the mainstream news—there’s a chance he hasn’t yet deactivated Hani from the system.
Still, this is risky. Very risky. We’re entering the workplace of someone who may or may not be a murderer, to steal some top-secret information that is kept I-don’t-know-where.
Added to that, I have no idea how close Hani was to her colleagues—all it would take is for one to not recognize me, and the entire farce would all be over.
But I know I at least have to try.
Harrisford swallows, his Adam’s apple rippling beneath the skin of his throat. I guess he’s so nervous because he’s about to defy his diabolical father. “Just—be careful, all right?” he says quietly. “And stick to the plan.”
I nod, straightening the hem of the late Mrs. Briggs’s pencil skirt. It’s a tweed skirt suit with shoulder pads and an alarmingly nipped-in waist.