14. The Duchess of Braxton
THE DUCHESS OF brAXTON
The Morington ball was already a crush. It seemed the entire ton milled about, mouths open and wide eyes reflecting the glowing, glamoured spectacle all around them. The ceiling dripped with diamonds and roses, and the windows were rainbows of solid light.
Bran rolled his shoulders—a tell he was uncomfortable beneath the glamour, and Guin pushed down any pity the gesture might have cultivated.
But she could not ignore how they moved through the crowd together at the same pace, his hand at her back, the both of them studying the crowd for danger.
They knew without speaking how to work side by side.
For the first time since Bran’s death, she felt like she had her partner back.
The muscled menace who could kill a man before she even knew she’d been attacked.
He wouldn’t like her to think of him that way. And she’d just tried to convince him he was more than that.
Bran caught her arm and pulled her close against his body. “Don’t run off. I need you within arm’s reach at all times.”
“No one knows who I am yet.”
“Any of these women could recognize you from the shop, and they don’t know you’re a duchess yet. You’ll be safer once they do. I have to find Morington. Don’t”—his lips brushed her ear—“run off.”
She yanked her arm out of his grip. She should have given him the love potion. Her mercy had been as much for herself as for him. When he was clearly and painfully aroused for her… she could not escape a similar painful arousal for him.
“Morington’s over there.” Bran pointed to the top of a staircase where a man with tousled golden hair lounged against the balustrade, a glass of champagne in one hand, his other arm draped intimately around a petite woman with curly hair the shade of Artemis’s feathers—a sleek blue black. “Come on.”
Bran cut through the crowd like a fish through water, his big hand tight around hers.
The crowd in the entry hall was lining up to greet the duke and his duchess, slowly filing up the staircase, and they joined the queue.
He positioned Guin in front of him, his arm behind her, braced on the banister, a group of people in front of her.
“I feel caged,” she hissed.
“That’s the point. Don’t worry. Once your identity is revealed, I’ll open the door.”
“And I’ll run all the way back to my old flat.”
They moved up a few steps, then he said, “You’d leave your conservatory?”
“Your conservatory.”
“I don’t use it. I made it for you.”
“I didn’t ask for it.” She’d not even lived there when he’d had it designed and built.
But if she were tasked with designing her perfect, private workroom, it would look exactly like the one he’d built her.
“Perhaps I’ll remain in Mayfair until I’ve brewed the queen’s potion. Or until I have a new shop.”
They moved up a few more steps. She shifted from foot to foot and back again.
“Stop fidgeting,” he said.
“This is so tedious. I’d rather be fighting off an attack in a back alley that smells like piss.”
The woman in front of her turned around just to glare.
Guin glared back. “I was not talking to you.”
The woman opened her mouth to berate her no doubt, but then her eyes narrowed before shooting back open wider than before. She whipped back around, and the line moved forward.
Bran’s hand tightened on Guin’s waist. “She may have recognized you. Do you know her?”
“I remember very few of my customers.”
“Rumors will begin circulating soon. I’m sure more will recognize you.” They finally reached the top of the staircase, and Bran nodded at the waiting duke. “Morington.”
“Braxton.” The duke was handsome in a sharp sort of way and did not appear to be wearing a glamour. “Have you met my wife? Duchess of Morington.”
Bran bowed to the other woman then slightly nudge Guin forward. “And this is my wife, Duchess of Braxton.”
Lady Morington wore a friendlier expression than her husband.
“It is a delight to finally meet the mysterious duchess across the street. Please call me Persephone. I’m more at home with informality and graveyards than I am with precedence and ballrooms. I worked for you briefly, Lady Guinevere.
I was a horrible potion mistress, though. Didn’t last long.”
Morington looked to Bran. “I’ve an entire production planned. Potion bottles as tall as you, amber of course.” He winked at Guin. “Excellent choice of gown this evening. It will match perfectly.”
Guin shook her head. “I do not wish for a production.”
“Too bad. A production is why I’ve been put in charge of this evening,” Morington said. “I know the necessity of drama.”
“He really is good at making a scene.” Lady Morington hooked her arm though Guin’s. “I’m going to steal her.”
“Perhaps later,” Bran said. “She must stay by me until—”
“Let them go,” Morington said. “Persephone will show her about to get everyone whispering.”
“Part of the plan?” Bran crossed his arms.
“Precisely. Besides”—Morington pointed at a couple standing against the upper balcony—“that’s my sister and brother-in-law.
He’s an alchemist and fights harder than you’d think.
” He wiggled his jaw. “He’s friends with Temple Grant, who’s also arrived with his wife and brother, the fellow who’s been hanging about your house the last month. We’ll all keep an eye on her.”
Persephone pulled Guin away, and Guin just knew that if she could see beneath the glamour, Bran’s eye would be twitching, his jaw hard as granite, and a vein throbbing on his forehead.
She grinned and wiggled her fingers at him as she followed Persephone, who said, “There is a story behind Braxton’s mysterious absent wife being you, but as I’m a part of the performance my husband has planned for you, we shall have to save it for another day.
Are you nervous? You were a bit of a mystery before, and now… ”
“Every angle of me shall be seen and studied.” Indeed, the whispers had already started, glances being thrown her way sharp as knives, curious as cats.
“Precisely. Come, meet my sister-in-law.” Persephone tugged Guin toward a handsome couple. The man was tall with auburn hair, and the lady looked rather like Morington.
“I assume the shorter, prettier version of Morington is his sister.”
“Do not let my husband hear you say she’s prettier. He’ll be distraught.” She stopped them right before the couple. “Lady Braxton, meet Sir Nicholas Bowen and Mrs. Bowen.”
The man bowed and the woman curtsied, and that was all it took to feel absolutely charmed.
“I hear you’re making your debut,” Sir Nicholas said.
“I suppose I am.”
“I hope you do not think it odd,” Mrs. Bowen said, “but my husband has brought you a gift. A good luck charm for tonight.”
“Oh?”
Sir Nicholas reached into his jacket pocket. “I’m a toy maker. I have a shop in Finsbury Square.”
“You’re that Sir Nicholas!” She’d often walked by the shop and marveled at the wonders in the window.
“I am indeed, and I’d made some time ago a little charm for my wife. A potion bottle because she’s a bit of an amateur brewer herself, you see.”
“Not as good as you,” Mrs. Bowen said. “I have always admired your work.”
Sir Nicholas held out a little silver chain, a small charm dangling from the end. “But when Morington told us he was helping you tonight, Jane thought you might like one too.”
Guin took the chain and held it up to the light. The little silver potion bottle was shaped like the one she put her love elixir in. It was breathtaking in its detail, powerful in its simplicity.
“Hold it tight in your palm,” Mrs. Bowen said.
Guin did.
“Now open.”
Guin opened. And gasped. “Oh!” Where the potion bottle had been was now a man and woman locked in tender embrace, kissing. “Oh.” She didn’t want to cry, but she had to blink several times quickly to beat back the tears. “It’s lovely.”
“Nico is brilliant,” Mrs. Bowen said.
“My wife exaggerates.” Sir Nicholas slipped an arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her close, looked down at her with such adoration, Guin remembered, for the first time in years, why she’d brewed the love potion to begin with.
She clutched the gift to her chest, her heart suddenly racing, the air draining from the room. “I… I need some fresh air. Thank you, thank you so much.” She darted into the crowded ballroom.
Lady Morington’s worried voice followed her. “Victor and Braxton will not be pleased if we lose her.”
But Guin wanted to be lost. She pushed through the crowd, ducking and dodging as whispers hounded her.
A string quartet was warming up, and wobbly notes clashed with raucous conversations.
There, across the crowded dance floor—a wall of open doors and windows.
She made for them, but before she reached them, a wall of heat rose up behind her, and she knew without looking, knew with a longing half hatred exactly who it was.
She turned so abruptly, her palms hit his hard chest, and she had to take several steps backward, her heart beating in her ears, to look up at him comfortably. “I need air.”
With a tight nod, Bran took her arm and led her through the door.
She’d been hoping he’d understand her unsaid plea for solitude. He likely did and had determined to ignore it.
“Are you well?” he asked. “You look pale.”
“I am fine. It was hot in there.”
“Everyone’s whispering.”
“What is this production Morington is talking about? I have never desired to tread the boards.”
“Before dinner, he will gather everyone’s attention with a display of fireworks in the ballroom. Glamoured, of course. Then he’ll welcome us as his guests of honor. I talked him down from the six-foot-tall potion bottle illusions.”
“That’s a relief.” She still clutched her own potion bottle illusion to her chest, and she held it up to the dim outdoor light. It was a bottle again.
“What’s that?”
“A gift from Morington’s sister and brother-in-law. The toy maker on the other side of Finsbury Square.”
He took the bottle between finger and thumb, and it shifted shape. “Do you wish to wear it?”