16. Unexpected Visitors #3
Then her father exploded, spittle flying with each word. “You told him about the curse?”
“You’re never to speak of it!” her mother wailed.
“I had to tell him,” Guin said. “It wasn’t fair not to. I should have told him sooner. That might have simplified matters.”
Her parents looked dazed. Her father lifted a trembling hand to his lips as her mother shook her head over and over and over again.
Bran moved his hand from the sofa to Guin’s back, settling on the skin above the top edge of her gown.
The weight of him, the heat of him, the scratchy, gloveless roughness of his palm—she wanted to lose herself in his maleness until the rest of the world dropped away.
It didn’t matter that he’d lied. In fact, that made him the safest vessel for her needs. She’d never love him now. No risk.
No risk.
A lock clicked somewhere inside of her, releasing something once held so terribly tight she was only now realizing how little she’d been able to breathe.
No risk.
She stood, body limp and almost lifeless. She could not even lift a hand to cover her wide, inescapable yawn. “If you came to yell at me, please do see yourselves out. I sell potions. I told my husband about the curse. None of that is changing. I haven’t slept in days, and—”
Her mother threw herself at Guin, put a trembling hand on the side of her face. “I have done so much to keep you alive, to keep you well. You must not cultivate emotional entanglements!”
Guin pulled from her embrace. “I know.” She’d run precisely to keep her emotions distant, to protect a good man.
Ha.
No risk.
She rubbed her eyes. The world was wavering as Bran helped her back to the sofa.
“Everyone, sit back down,” he said. “I want to know how this curse began and why no one informed me of it before I married your daughter.” He stood with his legs wide and his arms over his chest, and if he looked lordly and imposing in all his golden, glamoured glory, he’d look terrifying if the glamour failed now, showing the scarred and massive reality of a man well acquainted with violence.
Ah. He’d been lied to, as well. He’d married her thinking… what? That an arranged marriage might become more?
She fell to the sofa, legs too weak to stand.
“Our family history is none of your concern,” her father said.
“I beg to differ. If Guin were to carry my child, you’re implying that child would be cursed. I find myself quite concerned about that.”
“Your child is safe,” her father said. “He will not inherit my glamour. Only children born to men with the Cairnsbury glamour are affected.”
The glamour was connected? “But how?” Guin asked. “I do not understand.”
Her father paled, turned toward the window and gathered silence around him.
“You’ll speak now, Cairnsbury, or I’ll—”
“Don’t waste your threats on me, Braxton.
” Her father sounded defeated, hollow. “My entire existence has been a threat. To me. To others.” He cursed and turned back around.
“You can’t tell anyone. The queen has talent, I know, and that marchioness, too, but they are special, and…
I do not know what will happen if others find out.
You’re connected to us now, though. You have to keep the secret. ”
“What secrets?” Guin asked.
Her father closed his eyes and said, “Some generations ago, one of the earls lost the family fortune. He had to marry for money. And Pottingers always do our duty. But then he fell in love with someone else, and his wife considered it a betrayal.”
Why hadn’t she been told this story before? She’d never asked. The past that had cursed her had seemed so far away, untouchable and unchangeable. “What happened then?” The words sounded like they’d come from someone else; she didn’t even feel them cross her lips.
Her father’s face twisted into a grimace.
“It’s so long ago. No one really knows. But I was told his wife killed him.
She dabbled in potions, and she fed him one.
His glamour died out immediately, but he was still alive.
It must have been like having an arm cut off. He… he killed himself soon after.”
Guin fell into the back of the sofa, and an arm was there to catch her, to pull her close against a warm, hard chest and there were lips, too, dropping a reassuring kiss to the top of her head. And a large palm, stroking up and down her arm.
Her father spoke in a measured, rhythmic cadence.
“His son inherited his glamour as soon as his father exhaled his final breath, but it wasn’t right.
My father told me when I was learning about the talent that I would one day inherit, that it could only be produced with rage or sadness.
Joy makes it flicker out entirely, and I was to avoid anything producing joy, including love, or risk losing the talent, the title.
My mother told me the curse impacted women of the family differently.
Whatever transcendent light you’ve inherited from the Pottinger line has been tainted by that potion.
You live if you deny joy. You die if you embrace it. ”
Her father turned back to the window, leaving Guin in a thick buzzing silence.
He’d just admitted women inherited transcendent talent.
That’s why she’d been told never to speak of the curse.
Because believing in it meant believing women inherited something they weren’t supposed to. Believing in it broke the law.