16. Unexpected Visitors
UNEXPECTED VISITORS
It could be the sleep fogging her eyes, the heavenly scent of fresh coffee, or the fumes of her latest potion, but Guin’s husband was irritatingly angelic.
He pushed through the overgrown palm leaves of the conservatory and placed the steaming mug on the thick, cluttered worktable, and dawn sunlight streamed through the windows, shaping him.
His glamour sparkled like a halo. She could see the real him, dark and dangerous and sharp outlined by a well-garbed golden shimmer.
The man and his ghost. But which was which?
Exhaustion did odd things to her brain.
She took a sip of the coffee and moaned as he propped a hip against the table. One of his eyebrows crept toward his hairline—gold and black at the same time—and she hated that such a simple gesture could make her shiver.
She snapped her mug onto the table and pushed the tendrils of hair falling across her face behind her ears. “No time for coffee. I think I’ve had a breakthrough.”
“How long have you been up?”
“Do not pretend as if you don’t know.”
“I like to let you think some things are a mystery to me. It’s more… empowering for you.”
“How obliging.” Grudgingly, she took another sip of coffee. “One day I will leave this place and never see you again.”
He winced.
She pretended not to notice, flipping through her notebooks, looking for the ground lavender.
He fiddled with some dry leaves discarded near his hip.
The tip of one was brittle brown, and it crumbled beneath his touch.
“That day will be sooner rather than later. The queen’s plan worked.
It has been a fortnight since the ball, and not a single attack.
You seem to be benefiting from all that extra time not fending off attackers. ”
“It is, I admit, productive. But also a tiny bit…” She leaned close to the notes, trying to decipher her writing.
“Yes?” he drawled, the warmth of his breath right next to her ear.
A tingle sailed from that spot where his breath coasted along her skin to every nerve ending in her body. Her throat dried, and she licked her lips. Air and warmth were sweet temptations and instead of leaning into them, she pushed away and steeled her spine.
“So very boring, if you must know.” Thank Gaia her voice was steady. “Not having to knife a man before noon every morning is rather dull.”
“You can always knife me.”
“Hardly diverting. You’d just stand there and let me.” Her next breath was shaky, and she pressed her eyes closed because a pressure was growing there, little prickles. She needed sleep.
“You need sleep.”
Her bark of a laugh bounced off the glass walls. She handed him a small vial of potion. “Drink this.”
He did.
“So very accommodating.”
“What was it?”
She leaned against the table and closed her eyes.
“The night of the fire, you were trapped near the back of the shop where I kept the plants that thrive in shade and the potions made from them. In order to begin to break your glamour, you had to die, to literally kill your light, so my hypothesis is that a potion made of shade-loving plants will help break down the glamour more quickly. But”—she lifted a shoulder, dropped it—“it is similar to my hypothesis that a potion made of plants that love the sun will allow a glamour to retain its strength in the dark, and that has so far proved a failure.”
He studied his arms. They were in full sunlight, the warmth of early morning magnified in the conservatory’s windows. His glamour should be strongest here and did seem to gain ground every few seconds, Braxton overtaking Bran slowly.
“Let me know,” she said, “if you notice a significant weakening of the glamour.”
He grunted, and she felt such a fool for not having seen Bran beneath the Braxton glamour sooner.
She should have known Bran’s grunt as well as her own laugh.
There’d been nights she’d laid in her narrow bed above the shop aching for his strong arms, then crying herself to sleep with guilt.
She’d felt like she was betraying Braxton, and the whole time she’d been the one betrayed.
She did need sleep. Her eyes were sharp and tingly. She pressed the heel of her hand into her eye socket. “Hand me that knife.”
“The golden one?” Bran asked.
“Yes.”
He did so.
“Hand me that bowl.”
Only one on the table, and he pushed it her way, even though she could have reached it easily herself.
She pushed knife and bowl back toward him. “Slice your palm open over the bowl.”
He picked up the tool, positioned his hand over the bowl.
She grabbed his wrist before he could set blade to skin. “No, Bran. Don’t.” Anger shot like lightning through her body. “Will you always simply do as I say?”
He placed the knife carefully onto the table. “You’re the potion master. If you need my blood, I’m sure there’s a reason.”
His trust was immovable, pure and complete. It infuriated her. “It wasn’t about any damn potion, Bran! It was about you and me and—”
“Revenge.”
She rubbed her brow, feeling a thousand years old. “Yes.” Revenge was a game she grew tired of playing.
He knocked her hand away from her brow and smoothed the lines of her forehead with his thumb.
He drew his knuckles down her cheek until he found her chin, and that he tipped up, forcing her to meet his gaze.
Too green. Too golden. She closed her eyes.
He looked at her with such tenderness, such determination, and what could have been between them—without the curse, without his betrayal—was an open wound that might never heal.
“I was your servant before,” he said. “And I still am. However long you remain here, is how long—”
“Your Grace.” Bentley the butler’s voice rose high above the plants. He refused to set foot into any room with a glass ceiling, so he was forever yelling. “Are you at home?”
Bran held her gaze a beat longer then dropped his hand. She rather itched to know what the rest of the sentence was.
“We’re both here, Bentley,” Bran said.
“Who is asking for an audience?” Guin asked. She made her way toward Bentley, Bran close behind.
They stepped out of the foliage together and into the long, columned hallway to find the butler standing in front of three women, one with Queen Victoria’s profile for a reticule, another with Egyptian mummies glamoured and walking across her gown, and a third with a horn around her neck to help with hearing.
Baroness Folley, Miss Anna Prince—a viscount’s daughter—and the dowager countess of Maryville.
They’d come calling a few days ago for gossip and potions, a mission only scantily disguised as a social call.
“Ah. Good morning,” Guin said. “It’s rather early for a visit, but I suppose we can manage.
” She gave Bentley a look she hoped he interpreted as meaning Why in Gaia’s good name would you let them through the door at this hour.
She turned to the ladies. “You’ll have to excuse my appearance. I’ve been up for hours.”
Bran flicked a hand toward her, and she found her gown glamoured—the wrinkles gone, the stains dissolved, the color changed.
It was red now, an amber sash tied round the waist, and the little silver potion bottle necklace that was currently upstairs in her bedchamber glamoured round her neck.
The glamour was a signal to the women: Guin was his duchess and should be treated as such.
It was nice to know she would not be at a disadvantage with her well-dressed guests.
But it was high-handed. He could dress her like a doll, and she would not be able to shake his magic on her own.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she mumbled.
“I have business in my study. Good day, ladies.” He bowed to them then strode down the hallway. Or seemed to. She felt him still. He must have taken up residence in a shadow nearby, watching.
“Bentley,” Guin said, “Refreshments, please.”
“No, thank you.” Miss Prince stepped forward. “We do not want tea. We want potion.”
Lady Folley stepped forward, too. “I need a facial salve for my freckles. Cook’s attempts are not so potent as yours.”
Guin looked to the dowager. “You’re the Earl of Maryville’s mother. He spares no love for me.” A nice way of saying he wants me dead.
The older woman studied Guin’s lips as she spoke, then said, “He’s a prick.”
“I won’t disagree.”
“And he won’t come after you anymore. He’s mortified he tried to kill a duchess, keeps complaining it’s not fair you hid your marriage.”
“Do you think it’s unfair?”
“I think a woman’s got to take what advantages come her way.
A neglectful husband is one of the best of them.
I want a potion for my eyes. The spectacles solution.
I haven’t used my ears much in decades, but I need my eyes to read lips.
And I haven’t been able to do as well since your shop burned down. ”
Guin looked at the other two women. “And your husbands approve of you being here?”
“I don’t particularly care,” the baroness said.
Miss Prince’s cheeks were apple red. “I’m not married.”
Guin grinned. “Excellent.” She led them into the conservatory, yawning. The mess sprawled across the worktable reminded her—she didn’t have time to brew potions for the ton. She now had two mysteries to solve. Bran’s and the queen’s. “Take your gloves off,” she instructed.
The women blinked at her.
Guin repeated the command, looking straight at the dowager duchess, who nodded and stripped her hands bare.
“Now what?” the older woman asked.
“Now”—Guin yawned again—“I’m going to teach you how to make your potion yourself. So that you can do so as it pleases you.”
The women exchanged nervous glances.