14. The Duchess of Braxton #2
She shook her head and slipped it into her pocket. “It doesn’t go with the diamonds. It reminded me of why I brewed the love potion to begin with.”
“Why’s that?”
“I wanted someone to find love in this world. Find it and keep it.” Because she couldn’t. “Let’s return. I feel like dancing.” Truly, she felt like melting away, like whirling off into nothing. Surely there was peace where existence stopped, a clean, black void where she could rest, feel nothing.
Bran led her to the dance floor for the first set, and it was fast and boisterous, and she let the glamoured candles floating above them intoxicate her, let the spinning of her feet melt her doubts, and let the man she could only feel and not see in all this light steady her.
Steady her.
Steady her.
The whispers increased as the second dance ended and Bran led her from the floor.
“Another set?” he asked.
“No. A refreshment.”
“I’ll be right back. Hesperus is just there.” He pointed toward the windows. “And Morington and Grant and Sir Nic—”
“Yes, yes, I know. I have many wardens tonight. Go and find something to get me drunk.”
“Not a good—”
“Idea. I’m aware. Still.”
He left, and she leaned against a column, closed her eyes.
“Excuse me.”
She opened her eyes and found a rather gray lady wearing a large bonnet and the largest gigot sleeves Guin had ever seen standing toe to toe with her.
“Are you actually Lady Guinevere?” the lady asked.
“I am.”
“The Duke of Braxton brought you?”
“He did.”
“Did you happen to bring”—the gray lady looked left then right—“the amber bottle?”
“Love potion? No. I do not carry my wares to social events.”
The woman rocked back on her heels. “Pity. Pity. Harold is being a jackass tonight, and I would dearly love to make him mind his manners.” She scowled at a man with fluffy mutton chops who stood several feet away. Then she returned her unblinking attention to Guin.
Guin waited for another topic of conversation. It never came, and she began to feel like a beetle beneath a microscope. She stepped to the side. “Erm… Good evening.” She bobbed a curtsy and darted off.
Only to run into another woman, taller than Guin, with a pile of yellow hair and more large gigot sleeves, these striped pink and green with little jumping fish all over them. Glamoured. “You’re Lady Guinevere,” the woman said.
“Unfortunately so.”
“I bought your elixir once. Worked like a charm. I have missed its efficacy since the destruction of your shop. When will you return?”
“I… I am not sure. Excuse me.” She stepped to the side again, darted for a quiet alcove.
And found herself surrounded by curious women, all clamoring for love potion.
“Can you check your pockets for me?”
“Are the plants here usable for our purposes?”
“I saw some lovely specimens in the garden.”
“I tried once at home, but all I got was a runny nose. And I think I made my husband allergic to me. He sneezes every time we’re in the same room together.”
If the wives knew who she was, so did their husbands.
“Pardon me,” Guin said, her back against a wall.
She’d met assassins less intimidating than this collection of women.
“I’m in need of the retiring room.” She ducked under a lady’s arm and ran for a dark corridor.
Bran would not be pleased. But he was likely nearby anyway.
And in the unlikely event he wasn’t, she could protect herself.
She pushed deeper into the dimly lit hallway. On the right side, a door was open, the frame filled with flickering candlelight. Raucous laughter floated from it. Right outside of it, she stopped, hearing her name.
“That witch? She’s not here. Can’t be her.”
“It is! My wife swears it’s her, and the woman she pointed to has the look of the witch. Lord Maryville had a bounty out on her, and he gave just that description to the mercenaries—tall and buxom with reddish hair, a bit mannish.”
Mannish! She took a step toward the door.
An arm caught her around the waist, hauled her backward into a torso like steel. He smelled of mint, like her soap, and she wasn’t scared for even a moment.
Bran whispered near her ear, “You are not going in there.”
The men hadn’t seen them and continued talking.
“I have an arrangement with a fellow from Seven Dials. He specializes in slitting the throats of whores. But the man hasn’t been able to find her. She’s disappeared.”
“Into a duke’s bed, that’s why.”
“No idea she’d fucked her way upward so quickly.”
“Now my man knows where she is, she’ll be nothing but a memory shortly, the faint scent of dirt and potion on Braxton’s sheets.”
Guin began to snarl, and Bran’s hand slapped over her mouth. He hauled her away, toward a room on the other side of the corridor. He pulled her inside and shut the door, and she ripped out of his embrace.
“I’m not going to let them talk about me that way!”
“Neither will I, but here’s not the place.”
“What do you mean ‘neither will I’?”
His glamour was dissolving in the darkness, and Braxton put his hand near the side of his coat, but Bran pulled a knife from a holster nestled against his ribs. The blade glinted even in the darkness. “I have ways.”
“Good.” It was an immovable word, stronger than she felt. It was sheer bravado, a mask for the tender, bruised heart of her. All she’d done was help their wives, women who felt neglected and ignored, some who were battered in body and soul. She’d only wanted more love in the world.
“Guin.” Bran’s voice was a low, heated growl. “I must confess something.” A pause, then: “I found a bottle of love potion in my pocket. I drank it.”
“Why would you—”
He was on her, around her, everywhere in the blink of an eye—his hand spanning the small of her back, his other at her nape, his lips settled against her pulse as he whispered, “Please.”
She rested her hands on his chest, ready to push, but he said it again.
“Please.”
The fight went out of her, and her head found its way to his chest. She rested her forehead there as he loosed a string of pleases right into her ear.
“Please, Guin, let me kiss you tonight. Let me touch you. I’m lust mad for you, and if I leave this room without some release, I have no idea what I’ll do out there. Rip off the head of the next man who touches you.”
His gruff brogue stoked her to life, and she fisted her hand in the V of his waistcoat.
“Please.”
“Yes.” The word was more of a moan that rolled her body against his.
He startled then lifted his head slowly, and his eyes glowed like little golden suns as if he’d gathered every sliver of light about the room to use to peer into her face. His throat bobbed. He was nervous, and the tip of his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Yes?”
“Just kiss me already, Br—”
Then he was kissing her more thoroughly than she’d ever been kissed in her life. The boy she’d loved who’d died—Tommy—had been enthusiastic, but he’d lacked Bran’s singular devotion to the task. Her first husband had never kissed her more than a peck on the cheek.
Her husband, Braxton, had kissed her like a precious thing as he’d carried her to his bed on their wedding night. She’d never forgotten the devotion of his embrace, how his kisses were like prayers, and she was the goddess he prayed to.
Bran was right. Had he kissed her as her guard, before the fire, she would have found him out. She felt precious beneath his kiss, breathless and divine.