25. A Duke Without His Duchess
A DUKE WITHOUT HIS DUCHESS
Artemis winged around the ceiling of Guin’s bedchamber, trying to tell Bran something.
He tried to coax her down, to calm her, but she tore from one end of the room to the other, each caw almost mournful.
Damn bird. She’d put her own restlessness into Bran, who could not stop pacing alongside her. One end of the room to the other, wondering where his wife had gone and feeling he shouldn’t quite be so surprised to find her missing.
When Berkley appeared in the doorway, Artemis swooped down and landed on Bran’s shoulder, ruffling her feathers.
“Shh,” he said, petting her head. “It’s fine.”
Berkley speared him with a critical eye. “She’d tell you to lie down.”
“She can tell me when she returns.” This was not how he’d hoped to wake up after giving her his heart.
He’d wanted to hold her longer, plan more, reassure her the curse wasn’t a worry.
Not even as an inherited trick of the blood.
He had proof—a family tree fertilized in the riches of arranged marriages.
But she was gone, and now he was worried. At least Ned seemed to have gone with her.
“She has returned,” Berkley said. “I just saw that carriage pull in front of the house. I came to tell you—”
Bran might have sent Berkley off center as he swept past him and into the hallway. He ran down the stairs, every step a painful jolt to his shoulder. He threw open the front door and stood on the street in front of his house without a shirt as the door to the carriage opened.
And Madame Poppy stepped down.
Ned grasped her wrists, held them tightly together and shoved her toward Bran.
“What the hell is this?” Bran demanded. “What is she doing here?”
“Found her in the potion shop at Finsbury. That’s where the duchess had me take her, and I knew she was in there safe, I swear I did, because I could see her moving through the windows.
Then she came out when it started getting dark, and she locked the door, and that’s when I realized it weren’t her.
Hands not the right shape and size, even in her own gloves.
She didn’t have her walking stick, neither. ”
Madame Poppy grinned, shrugged. “I’m a potion brewer, not an actress. Though it is a shame the deception did not last longer.”
“Where is my wife?” Bran growled.
Madame Poppy was riveted by the hole in his bare shoulder. He’d realized when he’d woken that he didn’t know how to dress it, but Guin wasn’t there to tell him, so he’d left it bare. The young woman nodded at the wound.
“Sorry ’bout that.”
Understanding happened in an instant. “You hired the men who attacked us.” The potion-treated bullets, the red eyes.
The poisoned letters. The men of the ton had stopped threatening Guin, but this woman was not bound by any respect for a class system that knocked her to the bottom rung. She’d continued.
“Yes, but I promise not to do it again.”
“Take her inside,” Bran ordered.
“You could be more polite about it,” she said. “Your wife was.”
Bran froze. “What have you done with her?”
“Nothing. It’s more what she’s done with me.” Madame Poppy yanked her wrists out of Ned’s hands and walked into the house on her own. She gasped, and when Bran heard the slapping feet of a running woman across the parquet of his entryway, he ran too.
He caught up with her in the conservatory. She was fast, and he was wounded, and she was hopping about like a child on Christmas morning.
“Oh, it’s exquisite! Everything a woman like me could want!”
“Sit!” Bran roared. “Now!”
She sat, plopped herself right up on top of the worktable and swung her legs. “You don’t have to yell.”
Bran took a breath. Then two more. “Where is my wife?”
“She didn’t say where she was going. But she did give me an extensive list of rules.
I’m first and foremost to take care of her shop as its new proprietress.
Secondly, I’m not to rename the shop, and I suppose that’s for the best. She has cultivated a mystique that will benefit me, and Lady Guinevere possesses more gravitas than Madame Poppy.
But then there’s all the things I cannot do, and they are rather annoying.
I’m not allowed to lie, cheat, murder, hire mercenaries to murder, ruin her good name, dabble in anything containing opium—” She rolled her eyes.
“There’s more, but I’m exhausted. She also told me I’m to hire a guard and come to you should I be in any truly grave or legal danger.
It feels good to finally have friends in high places. ”
He didn’t know what any of that was about. Or what it meant. Right now, he didn’t care. “Where the hell is she though?”
“She didn’t tell me where she was going. Just told me to stay inside the shop until nightfall—another rule—then left through the roof.”
“Fucking Jupiter.”
“Ooooh. I like you. Much better than the stuffy fellow.”
“You’re staying here.” He pointed at her then yelled, “Hesperus! Hesperus!”
Shadows at the end of the conservatory took shape. “Right here.”
Madame Poppy looked like she wanted to spit. “Oh, bugger off. What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” Hesperus drawled.
Bran pointed to the woman again. “And you’re going to stick to her like a damned shadow, do you understand?”
“Why?” Grant asked. “She’s no one. At best a criminal. I’ll hand her over to—”
“She’s someone until I know where Guin is and why she’s done… this!” He stomped off. “Don’t let that women leave this house!”
“You can’t stop me!” she yelled. “I’ve got a brand-new shop to run! Don’t you dare think for one moment because I’m young and American and a woman, I’ll let you…”
He turned the corner and thanked Jupiter he couldn’t hear her anymore.
Guin had given her shop away?
It made no sense. She would never do that. That woman had to be lying. She’d done something to Guin.
As he stomped up the stairs, he bellowed, “Ned! Ned!”
Almost immediately, he heard the rapid thundering of footsteps behind him. “Whatcha need?”
At the landing, he faced the other man. “Tell me everything.”
“She took her walking stick and that’s all. I didn’t think much of it. She can’t leave now, can she, with the queen tellin’ her what to do.”
True, and that slowed Bran’s pulse a bit.
“I searched the shop high and low, but she weren’t in there.”
“Did she give any hint about where she was going?”
Ned shook his head.
And Bran made for his bedchamber. Artemis swooped in from the bathing chamber as soon as he threw open his wardrobe. She perched on top of the cheval glass and cawed.
“I’ll bring her back,” Bran promised.
Something sparkled from the bird’s beak, and Bran reached up for it. Artemis dropped it willingly into his palm—the silver necklace, the potion bottle charm. He held it enclosed in his palm, then opened his hand. Lovers kissing now.
He shoved the necklace in his pocket. “Many thanks, Artemis.”
Then he bound his wound the best he could on his own and dressed, strapping blades where necessary. He was riding out of the mews a quarter hour later and at the docks just as quickly.
He stopped outside Biira Shipping Company, hitching the horse to a post and slamming his fist on the door. When no one answered, he knocked again, louder. In the distance, a man’s voice wobbled into the night air on a sea shanty.
Bran’s stomach roiled.
And the door flew open. Ndege stared up at him. “Bran… is something wrong?”
“Has Guin been here.”
“No. She’s missing?”
Kikulwe appeared behind his wife. “What’s the matter?”
Ndege rested a hand on her husband’s arm. “Guin has disappeared.”
Bran slumped against the door jam. “She’s gone off to figure out the curse, and she doesn’t want me following. But I have to. I thought she might have come to you, for passage on a ship. Or to the docks in general.”
Ndege shook her head. “She is a strong woman, Bran. She can protect herself.”
“I know. But I have to—”
“I know.” Kikulwe slipped into the night beside Bran. “I’ll help you search.
Together, he and Bran visited every shipping house, asking if anyone had sold passage to a woman bearing Guin’s description. They had not. But that meant nothing. She could have changed her appearance any number of ways or exchanged coins for silence.
By the time they’d arrive back at Biira Shipping, Bran was bone-tired. He rubbed his hands down his face.
“Come inside,” Kikulwe offered. “Have a drink, rest. You’re favoring your shoulder.”
“I was injured recently.” And it was bleeding again. “Thank you for the help. I have other places to check tonight.” And it felt like if he didn’t find her soon, he never would.
A curtain in a second-floor window parted and Ndege looked down on them.
“Are you ever scared for her?” Bran asked. “When she’s sailing?”
“Every heartbeat.” Kikulwe gave a grim laugh.
“It is a wound between us at times. I do not dare ask for children because she grows even more restless when I do. And when I try to keep her on land, she grows unhappy. I cannot stand to see her unhappy. So she sails. And I calculate trade rates and taxes and inventory and wait for her to return. And when she does, it is with a smile and eager arms.”
“You think I should let Guin go. Wait for her to return?”
“I think nothing about other men’s women, my friend.” He clapped Bran’s shoulder. “Good luck.”
Bran waited outside the shipping office until he saw Kikulwe join his wife at the upper window. Ndege’s arms were eager, and the curtain fell, leaving Bran in a night so dark there were no shadows.
He rode to Soho, but Mrs. Ariti had not seen Guin, either. He didn’t find Guin at Apollo’s shop, either, or at her old flat. He checked the shop, but it was as empty as he’d left it the night of the attack. Where next? Where next?
Would she really disobey the queen?
He looked up at the sky. Not that he could see a damn bit of it. The low clouds that had promised snow for weeks now had finally burst, and white flakes wafted down from the heavens. They landed cold and sharp on his cheeks, and he couldn’t call up his heat to keep himself warm.
The last thing he wanted to do was die, though. It would prove her right. She expected him to die.
So he wouldn’t.
He headed back to Mayfair and trotted into Grosvenor Square right as a carriage entered from the other side. It stopped in front of his house as he swung to the ground, and a groom took his horse.
Temple stepped out of the carriage first, then he helped his wife down. He spotted Bran immediately. “Ah. You’re here. Good.”
“We have a message for you,” Diana said.
Bran met them in front of the door. “What is it? Who from?”
“You look terrible,” Temple said.
“I was shot.”
They gasped.
“But Guin said nothing when I saw her earlier,” Diana said.
For a moment, Bran’s ears buzzed, and through it he heard himself saying, “You saw her?”
“Yes, several hours ago. She was asking the same questions you were asking—about her family’s history. The message is from her.” Diana looked up and down the street. “Perhaps we should go inside.”
He led them to a small parlor and shut the door. “Did Guin tell you where she was going?”
“I’m sorry, no.” Diana put both hands at the small of her back and stretched.
It couldn’t be that easy. “The message. What is it?”
Diana blushed. “It’s odd. And rather personal.
I don’t think she meant to leave a message originally.
I told her what I told you. That I have traced her father’s family back six generations to the first earl.
And that the Pottingers have excelled at the art of the arranged marriage.
But I also told her that after you left the other day, I started looking into the…
barren branches of the Pottinger family tree, children that died early or produced no offspring.
I told her what I’d found—there have been a horrendous number of unexpected deaths.
The marriages that aren’t arranged seem to end badly. ”
Bran cursed. That little finding would only fuel Guin’s fear.
“There’s a curious pattern, too,” Diana said.
“Up until four generations ago, marriages were not so lucrative and tragedies were not so plentiful. Something must have changed though because at a certain point, every marriage is a gain, and any marriage that is not… Frankly, it seems rather sinister.”
“I agree. What was her message?”
Diana pulled a folded slip of paper from her pocket and handed it over. “I suggested she write it down.” Her blush returned.
Bran took the note and unfolded it, read.
My Bran,
I hope you hate me for leaving. That hate might keep you safe until I return with a cure. When I do, I plan on atoning, earning my forgiveness. I learned how best to earn it from you. I wish I did not love you. And I am overjoyed that I do.
Your Guin
He refolded the paper and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket, close to his heart. “Thank you for delivering this.”
Diana waved away his gratitude. “You and Guin helped me when I needed it. I am more than happy to return the favor.”
“How are you going to find Lady Guinevere?” Temple asked.
Was he going to search for her? She’d told him to wait, to fill his days with hating her. A thing he could never do. He was nothing if not her shadow, and he would follow her everywhere, even into death.
“I’m not sure I can find her,” Bran said. “I’ve been to the docks, to everyone she trusts, and there’s not been a single sighting of her.”
“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places. People she trusts are more likely to help her than to tell on her.”
One of Bran’s many problems.
“But,” Grant continued, “you’re neighbors with men who own railways and ships and who owe her no loyalty at all. But the duke… everyone always courts the good regard of a duke, fears his political influence more than another man’s muscle. It might be better worth your time to talk to them.”
The alchemist was right. Bran might not be able to find Guin hiding in the shadows. But the duke could find her in the light of day.