15. Madame Poppy’s Potion Emporium
MADAME POPPY’S POTION EMPORIUM
When Guin didn’t wake up with a polite nudge, Bran whipped the blankets off the bed.
Guin’s still-sleeping (or trying to sleep) brows scrunched together, and she curled her legs up to her chest, whining a little. Snowy chemise, lovely skin, a little constellation of freckles on her left thigh…
Under different circumstances, he could climb in there with her, wrap himself around her, and sleep the day away. Fuck his current circumstances. Not that he could ignore them.
“Rise and shine,” he commanded.
“Noooo.” She was not too dignified, apparently, to thrash about. Just a little bit.
“Last night’s performance isn’t over yet.”
Her eyes slanted open just enough for him to see her ire. “Too early.”
“You stay up late almost every night, your head in some recipe, then wake up early the next day. You’re used to it.”
She rolled onto her belly, stretched her legs out, then stuffed her head under her pillow. He barely heard her mumble, “There is no champagne involved with that. Or dancing. Leave me alone.”
“The queen’s plan seemed to be successful last night, but I’m not taking chances. Get up or I’ll help.”
She went entirely still. “You wouldn’t.”
He grabbed her ankle and pulled her toward him.
She groped for the pillow with a yelp, and when he got her legs over the side of the bed, he grasped her hips and flipped her, slammed his palms on the mattress on either side of her body so they were nose to nose.
Sleepy eyes grew sharp, and dream-plump lips slightly parted.
He could kiss her. Before she fully woke. Before she strangled him or punched him or twisted his testicles right off his body.
He needed to kiss her.
Instead, he said, “Good morning.” Then he slapped her luscious thigh and made for the bathing chamber. “Get dressed.”
An hour later, they were riding through Hyde Park side by side.
“Are you ready to talk?” he asked.
“I suppose. The morning air has diluted my urge to kill you. Go ahead.”
He pointed toward Rotten Row. “There’s one of the men from last night. The one who admitted to hiring mercenaries to go after you.”
“And we are going after him, I assume? Bran, couldn’t you have done this on your own with Hesperus? Sneak into their houses and terrify them.”
“That won’t work. They need to know you’re not just a friend of the queen. They need to know Braxton will carve their hearts out with his signet ring if any of them touches a single hair on your head.”
“Signet ring? That would take ages.”
“I’m a patient man. Oh, and Guin, gird yourself. We’re coming back this afternoon.”
“I’m the one who is supposed to be torturing you. You’ve got this all turned wrong.”
“Different audience at noon. Think of this as a matinee. The main show is later.”
“And just what is the play, Your Grace?” She lifted her nose, and her dusky pink riding habit rippled behind her with each of her mare’s movements. She wore a jaunty little top hat with something flimsy and pink waving in the wind behind her, and a snowy white cravat peeked out at her throat.
It wasn’t hard to say with utter conviction, “The one where I’m in love with you.”
She laughed long and low, throwing her head back, that pink gauzy stuff attached to her hat fluttering behind her.
The angle of her neck gave him a good view of the little silver potion pendant he’d commissioned the toy maker to craft for him from her wedding ring.
He’d have to thank Sir Nicholas not only for his craftmanship but for getting the gift to Guin without giving away the actual giver.
This way she could have something from him that was not a chain, but a symbol of her independence.
“My,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye, “that is theater.”
No good way to respond to that. Besides, they were too close to the others for conversation. And those others had caught sight of Guin. Every horse restless as every gaze hit Guin hard, remained riveted as she and Bran approached.
“Should I try to appear besotted?” she whispered.
“That’s my task.” An easy one, at that. “You just do your best to act superior. Yes, just like that. You’re a natural.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, and he brought his horse right up beside her. Her legs were draped across the other side, and he caught her chin, stroked his thumb down her jaw, and kissed her. She startled, stiffened, and Jupiter, he wished she’d melt into him instead.
He released her when one of the men started their way, pleased to see a cessation of steamy breath near her lips for a moment before a small translucent cloud puffed out again. She may hate him, but she wasn’t immune to him.
Lord Maryville sat atop his horse like he’d been born to it, and he rode toward them with the kind of confidence learned when still in a gilt-gold cradle. When he reached them, he said, “You’re not welcome here.”
“I go where I please.” Bran could be a haughty lord, too, even if it was all an act.
“Take your harlot home first, then.”
“Harlot?” Guin laughed. “Is that the worst you can do, Maryville? Even your assassins were better equipped to pain me, and they were ill-equipped indeed. Tell me, how is that one recovering from the knife wound I put in his gut?”
Maryville’s face flushed violently, a mottled red and white.
He bared his teeth, and as he tried to find words biting enough to meet Guin’s careless insult, Bran slipped his cravat pin from his throat and called his body heat to lengthen it into a blade.
It glowed as it grew, and when he blew on it to cool the metal—not necessary but certainly dramatic—the cutting whistle of wind against steel seemed to clear the morning fog.
Maryville cut him a look, blanched.
“Do you think, my love,” Bran said calmly, holding the steel up between him and the other man, “Maryville here requires personal knowledge of what his mercenary felt?”
“Quite possibly.” Guin sounded oh-so chipper.
“I’m not sure. He is a coward, happy to send out hired villains to attack a woman instead of facing her himself.”
“Oh, but I’m hardly a woman, am I?”
“You’re my duchess.”
“Indeed. But more than that, too.” Guin reached across the space between them and ran her hand along his jaw, smoothed the creases of his cravat. “I’m Lady Guinevere, potion master capable of swaying men’s hearts.”
“I suppose it would be more fitting,” Bran said, “if you made him fall desperately in love with you. Right here.”
Maryville backed away, his horse skittering under his own nervousness.
“Oh no.” Guin cupped Bran’s cheek. “I do not care for any man to love me.”
“Too late.” He placed a kiss in the center of her gloved palm.
Then, holding Guin’s gaze, he twirled the knife between the fingers of one hand and spoke only for Maryville.
“Should any man think of hurting you, I’d have to kill him.
” He stopped with the hilt of the knife clutched in a fist and pointed it at Maryville, drawing a line down his center.
“But if any man ever falls in love with you, I’ll make him suffer. ”
“Not if I get to him first.” Guin twisted in her saddle and kissed his cheek as if their conversation were about their afternoon plans. “I’m bored, Braxton. Shall we go find more diverting company?”
Now he sought out Maryville’s gaze, held it fast. “Let’s. And hopefully I have no reason to seek out less diverting company again. Come along, duchess.”
“She wasn’t a duchess then!” Maryville shouted after him.
Bran stopped, said loudly. “How long have we been married, darling?”
“Six years last autumn, according to the St. Paul registry.” The corner of Guin’s mouth quivered.
“Your allegations are outrageous!” Maryville screamed. “You have no proof.”
They turned and trotted away, but not before Bran saw Maryville begin to shiver and curse.
“That’s it? That’s all we’re doing?” Guin whispered.
“For now. Remember, back this afternoon.”
“Do you think it worked?” Guin asked.
“I do. Speed up. We have to get far east now.”
“Why?” She met his speed with ease and grace.
“The new potion shop I told you about. It’s hidden, and there’s a code phrase you need to get in. Whoever’s running it doesn’t have the connections I had to keep you out of trouble. But Hesperus has come into possession of the code. We’re going to have a little talk with the one running it.”
“That does sound diverting.”
“I had considered going without telling you.”
“I am not surprised to find myself betrayed by you once more. I would rather poke your eyes out than be left behind.”
“Don’t you mean your own eyes?”
“No, I do not.”
Ouch. “That is why I decided to be less predictable. Save my eyesight.”
“Wise man. For once.”
The ride to a dirty East End alley was completed in silence, and when he jumped down to tie their horses to a hitching post and help her down, she was studying his face intently.
“What are you going to do about the glamour?” she asked.
“Hope the shadows take it away. It would not be ideal for word to get out that the Duke of Braxton is slumming it in the East End. Finsbury Square is one thing. This…” He set her on the ground but didn’t release her right away, and she didn’t seem to notice, so he held on as long as he could. “Stay close.”
She stepped away from him but didn’t object when he stuck so close behind her they almost touched. “Where is it?”
The alley was dark, and the glamour on his arms had begun to fade.
The buildings on either side of them grew thinner the higher up they went and were crumbling around the edges.
Ropes spanned the width of the alley, stretching between windows and were draped with drying clothes and the odd dead bird.
“Ominous,” Guin said, looking up.
“The door at the end of the alley.” It was narrow, paint crumbling off it, a drooping awning hanging over the top. And above that hung a sign that read Madame Poppy’s Potion Emporium.
“Should we have brought Hesperus with us?”
“He’s about.”
“Ah. I should have guessed.”
He placed a hand on the small of her back, and she looked up at him.
“Your eyes are still golden and glowing,” she said.