24. Kill the Duke #2
They walked east, and the cold, bracing air coupled with moving limbs helped clear her head. At Finsbury, she used the key to open the door but paused before entering. “Please wait outside, Ned.”
“No one to watch both entrances. It’s better if I’m by you.”
“Please.”
He grumbled but he let her have her way, and she locked the door behind her once she was inside and sat in the very middle of the shop.
Alone.
As she had been since becoming Handsford’s child bride in his secluded castle, as she would be every day until she died, unless she could find a way to fix it. She’d fixed the danger before, distancing herself from a man she could love, opening her shop, finding a tolerable rhythm in a new life.
This was her shop. She belonged to it as much as it belonged to her. Yet…
She closed her eyes, tried to remember the gentle hum of customers, the lyrical jangle of the shopgirls’ chatelaines.
Instead, she heard it as music beyond her office door she could never dance to. She felt the hum of conversation as something she could never join. She’d been so alone. Even her shadow-shaped guard had kept his distance, giving her what she wanted.
What did she want?
To live without the fear of killing the man she loved.
To be free from the fear that had carved such emptiness into her.
When she closed her eyes and imagined her future, she saw the dowager stooped over a bowl of apple seeds, crushing them to a fine dust. She saw Lady Sophia’s little pink tongue poking out from the side of her mouth as she stirred the rose petals in rainwater.
She saw Lady Anna with pink cheeks because her lover had just left her bed.
She knew the sounds of them learning to save themselves, taking the power of potions into their minds and fingers so they could take power over their own bodies.
She saw Mrs. Biira coming for tea and trading secrets.
She also saw Bran. Half gold, half green, smiling yet sharp, gentle and strong. The only man who could make her feel so strongly about him, she hated him.
And she didn’t hate him.
He wanted a life with her, was willing to kill half of himself to make it happen. He didn’t believe in the curse that would kill the rest of him eventually.
Unless she stopped it.
Fear was such a habit, it was hard to clutch at hope, hard to see the world in a new way and take that first step into it. She wanted to, oh she wanted to, but she was so damn scared.
What if there wasn’t time to stop whatever it was that forced her family to turn their hearts to stone? What if she worked day and night to produce a potion that cleared her blood of that long-corrupted glamour light, and Bran died before she succeeded?
She could survive nearly anything.
Except for his death.
She opened her eyes. And saw she was not alone.
Madame Poppy sat on top of the railing on the balcony above her, legs swinging beneath her skirts. “I see you plan to revive the old business.”
“How did you get in here?” Guin stood slowly, the better to show she was neither shocked nor worried by the woman’s presence.
Madame Poppy swung her legs to the other side and hopped off the railing. “Locks are such silly things, don’t you think? A little potion can melt them right away.”
“Melting other peoples’ locks… quite rude.
” And also talented. Guin had developed a potion that stripped metals of their setting layer, allowing alchemists to reshape any metal they pleased.
She’d only allowed its use once during an emergency.
She’d never heard of anyone developing a similar concoction.
Madame Poppy shrugged as she descended the stairs into the main room of the shop.
She whistled. “I only saw your shop once before. Before the fire. You’ve done a fine job getting it back together.
But then, your husband is a duke. Lifts a finger, gets what he wants.
It’s much harder for the rest of us.” Her eyes hardened, and she became a strange sight—a floating, dainty fairy queen with the cold eyes of a warrior.
“It’s quite convenient, yes.”
Madame Poppy strolled between the long worktables, dragging her palm across the tops. “I see you’re still alive.”
“Have there been rumors to the contrary?”
“No, but I had hoped…”
Hoped. Fascinating.
“And then,” the other woman said, “when that pompous alchemist came to my shop demanding my customer list, I knew things had become complicated.”
“Do you mean Hesperus Grant?”
“Tall and broody and with a stick shoved so far up his bum it comes out his mouth? Yes, him.”
“Thank you for providing the list.”
“What does it matter that you know who buys from me? It won’t help you find the source of the attacker.”
“And why is that?” Though Guin was beginning to suspect.
“Because I don’t put myself on there.” She stopped, gave Guin a brilliant grin. “Are you surprised I’ve been sending mercenary assassins after you?”
“Moderately.”
Madame Poppy took up her slow pacing again, tapping her fingertips on the tabletops.
“It’s nothing personal. I admire you tremendously.
But as long as your business is popular, mine will not be.
Oh, I’ve cornered the nefarious market. Every criminal wants a red bottle.
But the ton only want amber ones. It’s not fair.
I’ve worked and starved my entire life, and every door remains closed against me. Unless I open them myself.”
“Or have mercenary assassins kick them down for you.”
“Precisely. I knew you’d understand.”
“So you’ve come here to kill me?” Guin flexed her hand in her skirts. Very close by, her walking stick leaned against the table.
Madame Poppy sighed. “No. I’ve decided killing you is more trouble than I care to take up. That walking bum stick is hanging about and scaring off my clientele. I’ve come to make you an offer.”
Guin scooted her hand closer to the carved raven, though with much less urgency than before. “Oh? Do share.”
The other woman stopped walking. She looked Guin straight in the eye, the hardness melting away from her gaze.
“Be a duchess. Please. Be a duchess and let me take care of the potions. I don’t have anything else.
I had nothing in New York. I have little here.
My sister”—she swallowed some emotion she didn’t want Guin to see—“she’s sick and—”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I do have a sister!”
“Oh, I’m sure, but I guarantee you she’s as dubious and healthy as you are.”
Madame Poppy hid a grin, shrugged. “I see why you’re so cunningly successful.”
Guin grasped her stick, and the young woman didn’t even flinch, so Guin walked closer, stood right in front of her. “I do think you’ve worked hard, though. I think you’re talented.”
“Think? Ha. I know I can brew better than you.”
“I also think cockiness will be your ruin.”
The girl rolled her eyes.
“Can you fight?” Guin asked.
“I know how to throw a punch. But what’s the use when potion is so much cleaner? Stop trying to distract me. Will you leave Finsbury for Mayfair and let someone else take your place?”
“Why do you want my place?”
“I’m the best, but no one recognizes it.”
“And?” Still Guin circled.
Madame Poppy was growing nervous now. She was tough, but young, and the girl wore the madame like a glamour that was growing thin. “And I don’t want unnecessary competition between me and riches.”
“You want money.”
“Who doesn’t?” the girl snapped.
“Why?”
“Why not?” Trying to sound flippant.
“Because I’m prepared to make you an offer, but you’ll never know what it is if you don’t tell me the truth.”
Poppy opened her mouth but said not a word.
Her shoulders were rigid as a cliff face, her eyes stormy as the sea, and if Guin could pull back the curtain of the girl’s composure, she knew what she’d find there because it would be exactly what roiled behind her own calm facade—fear, loneliness, desperation.
She stopped circling right in front of the other woman. “What’s it to be? The truth? Or do I call Mr. Hesperus Grant up to run you out of town?”
“He’s nothing but a dog on a leash!”
“And I’ll loose him unless you give me what I want.” There was much in life Guin could never have, but this she would.
Madame Poppy’s jaw worked side to side, her eyes flashing between hate and rage, but finally she spit out. “It is my sister. She’s not sick, but she’s mine, and I’m hers. And if I don’t keep her safe and alive no one else will.”
And she could sell a thousand potions at a pence a bottle, but life would never be stable enough, never satisfy the need for more. The girl had lived a cursed life. That fact was written on every line of her face.
Guin stepped back, resting both hands on the raven carved to look like the one she’d left at home with her heart.
“Is that enough?” Madame Poppy ground out. “Is that enough for your offer? Or do you wish me to prostrate myself before the great duchess? I won’t. Never.” She stood tall, hands balled into fists.
“No. Never prostrate yourself for anyone. Do you understand?”
Madame Poppy blinked. “I… well, yes, but… I think I’m lost. What do you mean?”
“It means I will make you that offer, but you must make me a promise.”
Madame Poppy inched closer, hands opening and closing in greedy little gestures. When she was almost toe to toe with Guin, Guin lifted the other woman’s chin with the raven of her walking stick.
“No more assassins,” Guin said. “No more attempted murder, no matter what you think of the competition.”
Madame Poppy grinned. “I suppose I can consider that.”