8. Mirrors in the Dark
MIRRORS IN THE DARK
Bran leaned against a pillar at the back of the conservatory and watched for glimpses of red-gold through the leaves.
She was humming somewhere in there, a slow, mournful tune that knocked the breath out of him.
The humming stopped, and she mumbled something that sounded like, “Earthworms? No, likely not,” before picking up the tune once more.
He’d been waiting years to kiss her again, and last night he’d gotten one sweet, short taste. Worth it. Worth the wait, worth her shock, worth her retreat. Wasn’t sure if it was worth never tasting her again. And if she had her way, likely, that would be the outcome.
She’d run from him last night like he’d run from her the night of the love potion.
He’d known two things would have happened if she caught him, persuaded him, that other night long ago.
First, he would have never stopped kissing her, and second, she’d have stopped it.
Hard and fast with a punch to the face. Because she’d have recognized in tongue and teeth and lips the man she’d married.
At least now she couldn’t recognize Bran in her husband’s kiss. Thank Jupiter for small blessings.
A clatter beyond the leaves. Her curse clipped into silence, which meandered into thoughtless, off-key humming that charmed a smile from his reluctant lips.
Her husky, lovely voice followed him all the way to his study where he locked the door and stood before the mirror.
He flickered. Or more precisely, the glamour flickered, revealing one side of his face, his right hand, his left knee. He was a patchwork man, part silken noble, part scarred ruffian—the man he was supposed to be and the one he actually was.
Dying had worked. The glamour was dissolving. But only partially and slowly, and he possessed no damn control over it.
He’d startled his valet—a long-suffering man who didn’t get much use as he’d like for himself—when he’d been scraping a blade along his jaw. Chives had yelped and jumped back and left Bran with one hell of a cut.
He’d apologized profusely and gestured vaguely to Bran’s face. “The glamour’s fading. I’m actually quite pleased now I can see your face to do my work. It’s quite a chore working by feel only. And by the brief glimpse of your cheek I got, my work has been patchy indeed.”
Bran had run to the mirror and stared at his cheek—his cheek—for longer than he ever had in his life.
Until now.
He was coming back to himself. But not all at once, and this proved a difficulty. How in hell was he going to keep it from Guin?
A knock on the door behind him swung him around.
“What is it?” he called.
“A message from her grace.” Bentley the butler, his bald head polished to a high shine, his tall frame poised and perfect.
Bran unlocked and opened the door, and Bently blinked at him. His servants had seen the real him many times over the years. At the potion shop he was Bran. In society he was Braxton. At home he was whoever the hell he needed to be.
“What is the message?”
Bentley spoke haltingly, fixated on Bran’s features. “Her grace is not going out today.”
“Did she seem like she was lying?”
“And what does that seem like, Your Grace?”
“Stuttery. Won’t make eye contact. Shoulders hunched.” As if she were guarding her lie in the hollow of her body.
“No, Your Grace. She looked me right in the eye and spoke clearly.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to Bran’s face.
“Do you have something to say, Bentley?”
The butler popped backward, brows shooting high. He cleared his throat as he smoothed his lapels. “It is only you are much more like your family than I used to think. Your resemblance to the glamour is negligible, at least I thought so, but…”
“Spit it out.” He didn’t resemble his family at all. Never had. In any way.
“It is only… seeing half your face glamoured and the other half naked, I see it now. The high cheekbones and strong jaw, the shape of the eyes, though they are different colors, is exactly the same.”
Bran turned back to the mirror. Were his eyes similar to the first duke’s?
His features had always been rougher than his grandfather’s, his father’s, his cousin’s and brother’s.
Even his brother, who had shared Bran’s dark coloring, had possessed finer features.
The title, the glamour—had Bran ever seen it on him—would have fit him better.
It didn’t matter. “Thank you, Bentley, for delivering her grace’s message.
Could you deliver one for me? To Philpot Lane, a plant shop there.
” He went to his desk, scribbled out a few lines for Apollo, then folded the epistle and handed it to Bentley.
“Have whatever footman you send wait for a reply.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Bentley left.
And Bran closed the curtains, doused the lights, locked the door, sat behind his big desk in the darkness.
Last night, Guin had looked at him differently. In the firelight, she’d studied the lines of his body and face as if seeing him for the first time. Had his glamour been dissolving even then? If it had, not enough to give him away. She’d not stabbed him in the gut and twisted the knife.
What the hell was he going to do about this muddle? He wanted his wife back, wanted to kiss her at his leisure, but he didn’t want to be the duke. But he couldn’t kiss her as Bran because she’d likely realize his duplicity. If he’d known how all this would turn out, he never would have married her.
Ha. Lies. He’d still have done it.
He’d been new to the title and trying to do the right thing by it when her parents had approached him about marrying their daughter. They’d told him she was newly widowed and willing to remarry. And his first sight of her had been enough to convince him to do whatever they said.
There was nothing good about being a duke, Bran thought as the butler let him into the Pottinger London home with a stiff bow and a blank face.
A glimpse of his own reflection in a mirror as he passed through the entry hall only emphasized how right he was.
How could a woman look at his face and want to marry him not knowing what was beneath it?
How was he to court a woman as someone other than himself?
But the woman in question—a one Lady Gabriella Cunning, Marchioness of Handsford—likely didn’t care what was beneath it. That wasn’t what mattered to the transcendent ton, and he’d have to remember that.
So much to remember, and none of it as easy to remember as the best force and angle to attack with a blade in order to pierce a man’s lung.
He knew five different languages but putting Debrett’s to memory elluded him.
In his other life, his Shadow life, he’d not needed to know the precedence for entering dinner.
He simply needed to know the name of the man he was supposed to kill. Or protect.
The butler led him to a small sitting room on the side of the house, and Bran saw the woman almost immediately. It was as if she gathered all the light pouring in from the window.
She stood as he entered and curtsied.
He wanted to tell her not to. A woman like that—all sweet curves and red-gold curls—should never make herself smaller, should have men on their knees for her.
Bran almost hit his knees, but somehow he managed to make it across the room toward her. “You are Lady Handsford?” he asked, making sure to use the clipped, carefully moderated British tones he’d been practicing to go with the glamour.
She nodded. “And you are the Duke of Braxton?”
He nodded.
“My mother is just upstairs. She will return soon.” Her words were almost monotone, her face as blank as the glamour that covered his.
“Then we best make the most of our time alone.”
She stepped away from him, high color rushing across her cheeks. “I barely know you! I will not… You cannot convince me to…” She pulled herself up tall, chin high. “I will scratch your eyes out if you touch me, duke or not.”
Scratch… his eyes out? Fucking Jupiter, she was a hellcat, and it made him just a little bit aroused. “Do you think I’m going to… molest you? Good God, no! I meant conversation, not… whatever you thought was going to happen.”
She blinked at him.
He blinked at her.
And then she laughed, and the sound was so merry, so perfect, he knew he’d hear it in his soul every happy day of his life. He couldn’t withstand the siren call to join her, and when her mother joined them, they were both laughing, collapsed into matching chairs, thank God, and not on the floor.
When they’d finally wiped the tears away and caught their breath, her mother had been sulking in a corner like a good chaperone, and Bran sat up straight in his chair.
“I didn’t mean to proposition you,” he said. “Or threaten you.”
“I see that now.”
“Are you often propositioned?” Or threatened. He was well acquainted with violence and not hesitant to use it for her sake.
“No. Never, actually. Only I have been told that widows in town are supposed to be…” She leaned low and cupped a hand around her mouth. “Merry. And that many men think them… easy and eager to fall into bed. And you do look like a rogue of the first order.”
He studied what he could see of his glamour. “Do I?”
“Too handsome for your own good. And for the good of every woman within viewing distance.”
“Except your mother. She’s frowning at us.”
“Yes, well, Mother believes it best to keep conversation as vacant as possible. And very, very loud.” She raised her voice with each word, and her mother startled and snapped up a book to bury her face in.
Bran laughed. His future wife laughed. And he thought, maybe, there was one good thing about being a duke after all.