Chapter 21
MARIETTA
A servant showed us into a spacious study before Gabriel finished presenting his card. Glittering panes of glass encased one side of the room, while books rimmed the others. Display cases and stands with curios dotted the space alongside a desk and a cozy nook for tea.
The house spells caressed Gabriel in a way that made my skin prickle. I stepped closer to him. He slid a hand around my waist.
A vision in green and cream stepped forward to greet us.
I had seen her at gilded functions but never spoken with her.
The High Lady of Steelcrest and Nightshade was far above me socially and had reveled in staying apart from the other women in the gilded, standing in her own space, her beauty on display.
Removed—an icy diamond separated from the paste.
Her gaze swept over and dismissed me. Then immediately connected back. To Gabriel’s hand at my waist, to Gabriel. Cool green eyes narrowed on me. Gabriel’s warning landed.
“This little sparrow deserves more of my attention, I see.”
“You grow duller in your waning years, high lady, if you think that I will let you touch her.”
A tingle swept through me.
The high lady smiled. It was a pleasant smile, all the more chilling for the complete insincerity behind it.
“Come. Have some tea and biscuits.” She swept a hand toward the service on the table.
I perched on a chair after she was seated and thought of the first lesson of the underworld, never to eat at the dark table.
Delicate hands lifted a teacup. “Two visits in as many days? Today is the day then, Gabriel? That I will be cruelly murdered? And you, my white knight, have come to save me.”
“If the knight suddenly decided to save the dragon, I suppose your statement would be true.”
I wanted to reach for him. I squeezed my hands in my lap instead.
She laughed, a light, breezy sound. “Of course, dear Gabriel, of course.” Her eyes traced him. “But you are here. Couldn’t stay away. You’ve returned to me.”
He tapped a finger on the arm of his chair. “You would see it that way. At this point I find myself disinterested in playing.”
Her eyes chilled. Her gaze cut to me. “You must tell me about yourself, dear.”
Gabriel spoke before I could answer. “We are only here to finish this, high lady. I doubt Ma—Lady Winters is interested in making your acquaintance.”
Pink lips lifted. Satisfaction combined with anger.
“That may be true, Gabriel, but here we are. And you did say you wanted to initiate how this drama would unfold. So, go, shoo, while I chat with your Lady Winters.”
Gabriel’s expression tightened.
“La, Gabriel, your companion can handle herself, can’t you, Lady Winters?”
“Of course.” Ferris and Felicity had taught me how to navigate difficult people and petulance. Socially and magically superior, the High Lady of Steelcrest and Nightshade could give Felicity lessons in viciousness, but showing fear would mean defeat.
His lips pressed, but Gabriel rarely interfered before giving people a chance to handle their own issues first. He walked to the fireplace. She rose, motioning for me to do the same.
She put her arm through mine. “Come view the gardens, Lady Winters.” She led me to the window. Walking to the gallows would feel safer.
Gabriel watched us from the corner of his eye as he inspected the tall fire screen.
“The azaleas look lovely this time of year. And the roses magnificent. Do you enjoy horticulture, Lady Winters?” Her voice was soft in the spacious room. Not that it mattered. Gabriel would hear.
“No more than the average person, high lady.”
“Please, call me Melissande. A close friend of Gabriel’s cannot stand on ceremony.”
“Master First Noble calls you high lady.”
“Is that what you call him—Master First Noble—when he is inside you, Lady Second Winters? Pushing cries from you as he plumbs your depths? Seems a bit formal. Oh, Master First, your cock is so large.”
I tried to pull away, but her fingers locked around my arm. “But then High Lord Steelcrest himself has never called me anything but high lady. Annoying, don’t you think? To be so formal?”
I stopped struggling. “You are jealous, high lady.”
“I am, Lady Winters. Terribly jealous that you have my little avenger.” That name rolling from those lips made bile rise.
“Not that he is little,” she continued. “He is terribly lovely in that department. In all departments. My jealousy indeed knows no bounds. He was delightful at sixteen, and he is delicious now. You must set him free.”
“Set him free?”
“He is besotted by you.”
Besotted, no. Magnificently considerate, yes.
She gave a tinkling laugh. “You don’t see it. How wonderful. And better that way. You two will never last longer than it takes for your brother—the younger one, if the papers I finally procured were correct—to go free.”
“You are projecting your own wishes.”
She laughed again, fingers tightening. “And you are projecting yours. You are from two very separate classes—in all respects—it will never last. I do so hope you break his heart. Perhaps he will return to me.”
“You are delusional.”
“Perhaps. But it is all I have now.” Her fingernails curved into my flesh.
I found myself free of her grip and in Gabriel’s instead as quickly as I’d been freed from Kennen’s so many days ago that it felt a lifetime.
She stuck one delicate finger into her mouth and sucked it, her lips making a little pop as she pulled it out. “Naughty, Gabriel.”
“I grow tired of this. Hopefully the murderer will spare me your antics and show soon.”
A faint whistle echoed.
Gabriel motioned toward the screen, which he had moved closer to the desk. “Marietta, behind the screen. High lady, sit at your desk.”
I ducked behind, then watched her saunter to her chair—only her straight back and tensed shoulders belying her concern.
Gabriel crouched next to me and held out his hand. I put mine in his and concentrated on the feeling of being invisible—of connecting and extending the field over both of us.
One minute. Two minutes. I kept a steady grip on the shield. The room sat in silence. Another minute passed. The shield wobbled. The door opened.
A person stepped into the room, face going from the shadows into the light.
~*~
GAbrIEL
John Alcroft stepped into the room. I heard Marietta inhale sharply, and John’s attention turned our way before Marietta’s shield did its work and his eyes shifted back, narrowing on Melissande sitting primly in her chair.
“High lady.”
“John.”
Marietta started to rise and I tugged her back, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to keep her in place. She was still maintaining the shield around us, and it was a magnificent thing.
“It has been almost a year since you visited, John. I thought you hated it here?”
“I do. I planned to wait another week, but matters have forced my hand.”
John walked toward Melissande, but stopped as his gaze passed the tea service. Three cups, two still full. His lips crushed together. “Gabriel.”
“Have you decided to call me a pet name, John?” Melissande said. “How thoughtful, though I question the choice of moniker.”
I could kill her myself.
“Silence,” John hissed, his gaze gleaming and vicious as he focused his own magic around the room, yanking the household spells from her grasp.
She stiffened, her only reaction. “Did you truly think those spell modifications would hold him, high lady? Failing in your advancing years. Let me tell you now—they won’t hold me either. ”
She shifted the journal on her desk, all buttery leather and malicious intent.
“Blackmail won’t save you now. The third cup, Gabriel?
Bringing Marietta here to use her skills?
You should have left her at home.” He shut his eyes, but just as quickly opened them again.
“I rooted the household spells. Still part of them—perk of being a ward here for so long. Hiding won’t help you.
Though if you are under the desk, down on your knees before the devil, I will be quite upset. ”
I squeezed Marietta’s shoulder and rose from behind the fire screen, pulling from the warm embrace of her magic.
“Ah, a preferable choice of seating, with the option to pitch yourself into the fire to spare yourself the irritation of petty games.”
“John.”
“Gabriel. And Marietta, be a dear?” He looked to the screen. She popped the shield and peered over the edge. “And here we are.”
“John, we don’t need to—”
“Wrong, Gabriel. I think we do. How did you find out? And when?”
“Earlier.” The grief that had been clawing at me ever since stretched.
“I read Octavia’s journal. There were entries concerning someone else, tied to me, with the rest happening after I left.
And then I remembered you saying you had been to the estate last summer.
When questioned, she”—I motioned sharply at Melissande—“mentioned losing her letter opener around that time. I remember that letter opener. Hideous, evil, familiar.”
I looked at John’s left hand, at the silver tip enchanted with terrible things sticking out of his sleeve. “It all made a sick sort of sense.” I lowered my voice. “They got you too. I never knew.”
“I know you didn’t, Gabriel.” John’s chest heaved before he took a deep breath, shoulders straightening.
I took a step away from Marietta, putting distance between us, silently willing her to stay put. Or flee. I had made her practice running while invisible. I prayed she would do so. “Why didn’t you say something? You never even pretended to know about their club until a few weeks ago.”
“What was I to say? You left me there. You weren’t the buffer for me.”
Pain sliced through me. “I didn’t know. I never thought they’d touch you. She said they couldn’t—”