10. Aftermath and Atonement #2
“I grew up in Edinburgh, ma’am. And I apologize for bothering you with my wife’s request. It is a point of disagreement between us, and we will settle it ourselves.” He grasped Guin’s upper arm, leaned close and hissed, “Do not run off like that again, do you understand?”
She yanked her arm out of his grip. “I refuse to spend any more time with you. That young Shadow can do what you do and likely better. Hesperus Grant. Your Majesty, please replace the duke with Hesperus Grant.”
“I…” The queen’s head tilted, and she pointed at Bran. “There… there is a face on your neck, Braxton. The—erm—the usual face.”
The traditional Braxton glamour was reappearing, the hair bobbing beneath Bran’s chin. He also wore a neat glove at his elbow.
“Fucking Jupiter.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between one black brow and one golden.
The queen gasped.
“Apologies, ma’am.”
“Get yourself under control, Braxton. And you, Lady Braxton, you shall have to control your ire. Your husband goes nowhere.”
“That is for the best,” Braxton said. “Last night we fended off an attack by four men who’d taken a potion that either increased their pain tolerance or dulled their ability to feel it.”
“Three men,” Guin corrected, “and they were easy enough to neutralize.”
“Four. You forget the one in the copse of trees. And I consider an easy mark one that doesn’t stab me.” Bran lifted his shirt, revealing a jagged cut across his abdomen and thick slabs of striated muscle climbing up out of the band of his trousers and into his ribs.
“Oh, were you injured? I hope it does not get infected.”
“You hope it does.”
Guin fluttered her lashes.
Queen Victoria blushed and waved her hands at Bran. “Put it down, put it down.”
He dropped the edge of his shirt, and Guin ignored the twinge of regret at losing the sight of such a well-built man.
“I grow concerned,” the queen said, “that you will be killed before you’ve completed my potion.”
“She will not be,” Bran snarled. “I’ll lock her in our house if I must.”
The queen tapped her chin. “I do not think that will be necessary. In fact, I think she must leave the house at least once.”
Guin did not particularly like the thoughtful look creeping across the queen’s face.
“Yes, I know just what to do.” Queen Victoria grinned at Guin then Bran, quite pleased with herself. “Whoever is trying to kill you has no idea who you really are. But once they do, they won’t dare to threaten you.”
Guin’s trepidation was warranted. “Your Majesty—”
“You will attend a ball. As the Duchess of Braxton. It’s one thing to murder a potion master without position or family, after all, but quite another to target a duchess.
You’ll be safe once everyone knows who you are!
” She clapped then folded her hands in her lap.
“I’ll select the perfect event at which you can reveal your identity and let you know.
” She waved them toward the door. “Until then, please do not disturb me with your domestic disputes.” She picked up the letter she’d been reading when Guin had arrived.
“I’ve my own domestic future to consider and do not appreciate the distraction. ”
Her return to reading was their sign to leave, and when Bran wrapped one big hand on her shoulder to steer her toward the door, she ripped out of his hold.
“I do not need an escort.”
“You’ve got one. You cannot run off like that.”
“You cannot lie to your wife!” She spoke too loudly, and her words bounced off the glass ceiling, echoed back to her. This was no place for an argument. She stormed outside, Bran close behind her.
Ned appearing from the shadows, and Bran motioned for the other guard to stand back. The glamour was spreading across his body, shifting ill-dressed reality to faux perfection. His face was the last to go, sunlight wrapping it in golden hues.
“I have no desire to see you ever again, Braxton.”
A cloud rolled over the sun and the glamour flickered out again.
If Braxton’s glamour was haughty and confident, Bran’s actual face—scarred and brutally beautiful—was drowning, gasping for air.
The sorrow in his green eyes might drown her too, the downturned corners of his mouth could pierce her right through the chest.
There was her Bran, her friend, the man she’d grieved for months. She’d thought he’d burned to ash with everything else, a victim of her cursed birth. She’d killed him, she’d thought, by loving him.
And here he was—very much alive, making a mockery of her pain, her love.
“Bloody hell,” Ned whispered. “What’s all this about? Are you… him? Are you Bran?” He stared, open mouthed, into the duke’s face.
“Yes,” Bran clipped. “I’ll explain.”
“I bloody well hope so.”
Guin tore through the gardens, not waiting for either guard, not waiting for something flimsy and useless as hope to explain anything at all about this nightmare.
Bran chased after her, and when they reached the street, he caught her, grabbing her by the waist and throwing her up onto a waiting horse. He mounted behind her, banding her to his chest with one muscled arm.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he said. “Do you understand?”
He didn’t deserve an answer. She didn’t even nod. But he was too strong to fight with muscle and she was suddenly terribly, terribly tired. When the horse started forward, she collapsed against Bran, that old sense of safety wrapping her round as surely as his arm.
She hated him. Hated what he’d done. But…
Bran. Bran! He wasn’t dead! She wanted to bury her face in his chest and cling to every inch of him and cry.
They rode for some time before he said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Ha.” That hardened her. She sat upright, putting as much space between their bodies as possible.
“It’s true. I left you alone for years. After you left, I hired a guard to follow you about. He sent me weekly notes assuring me you were okay. It wasn’t until the first murder attempt I became Bran. The fellow I hired died fending off an attacker, and I knew I had to do it myself.”
“He… died.” She’d not even known anyone had been following her.
“You set an ad in the paper for a guard, and I took the opportunity. I had training, and it was wasted in my life as a duke. You were off being who you were meant to be, you were free, and I was still locked up in a glamoured cage. When offered the chance, I escaped.”
“Only to lock me up in return.”
“When did I lock you up? When did I limit your freedom? I walked beside you day and night so you could be free.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “You lied.”
“Would you have accepted me had I introduced myself as your husband? Or would you have let some fool nonsense about a curse turn away the most qualified guard you were ever likely to find?”
“It’s not nonsense.” But he wasn’t wrong. She’d left to keep him safe. And he’d followed, voiding every single sacrifice she’d made.
“My living proves it’s nonsense, Guin. I have followed you about for years, facing every danger possible, including a fire, and here I am. As alive and healthy as you are. There is no curse.”
“You know nothing.”
They reached the mews behind the Grosvenor Square house, and he dismounted, holding up his arms to help her down. She jumped to the ground on her own and swept toward the house without waiting for him.
His bootsteps were heavy and quick behind her.
“Leave me alone, Bran—” She covered her face with both palms. “Brandon Lennox. I’m such a fool.” And she hated him for making a fool of her as much as for everything else. She ran for the back stairs.
He followed.
She meant to lock herself away in her room, but he remained close on her heels, storming into her chamber almost at her side.
She pushed him back toward the door. “What would you have done then, you great lumbering nodcock?”
He rocked on his heels but steadied himself. “Guarded you.”
“Guarded me, a newly widowed shopkeep. Knowing I wasn’t widowed at all!
” Knowing she wouldn’t have been able to mourn her husband openly.
She hit his shoulder, and an animal sound escaped her throat as she paced away from him.
Behind her, she heard the click of the lock in the door, then she felt him behind her, his presence a solid heat. Too much.
She fled to the window and threw it open, taking great gulps of air.
“You’re not a fool,” he said quietly. “You could not have known. I just wanted to keep you safe. And to live as you did. Free.” He was right behind her, incredibly still and radiating heat.
She spun with fists made to shatter even the strongest man and hit his chest again and again and again, calling him names, cursing him for lying, for dying, for not dying, for kissing her and not kissing her and—
She screamed, pushing him backward with all her might.
He stumbled backward only a step. He didn’t fight back. But he didn’t hang his head. His body was partly in the sunlight streaming through the window and partly in shadow. Where the sun hit him, Braxton glittered, and in shadow, Bran glowered.
They had the same lips—firm and shapely and completely incapable of telling the truth.
“You said the other night you knew Bran had wanted to kiss me.”
His jaw twitched.
“You knew because you are him. Tell me…” She pressed her body against his, making sure the generous mounds of her breasts were firm against the hard plane of his chest. “Was that a lie, too? Were you laughing when I chased you round the shop like a green girl mad with love?”
“No.”
“Or did you regularly fantasize about bending your wife over her desk and—”
“Guin, stop.”
“Fucking me.” She lifted her lips to him, and though his jaw twitched, he made no move to kiss her.
And she hated him, more than she could think. Perhaps that’s why she did it. Or perhaps she did it to make a fool of him.
The reason didn’t really matter.
And the kiss wouldn’t either.