Читать книгу Stranger: - Zoe Archer - Страница 13

Once inside the room she was to share with Astrid, Gemma looked up, expecting to find hams hanging from the rafters or perhaps goats gnawing on the coverlet. But the room was only that—simply furnished with a washstand, a chair, a chest of drawers and, of course, a bed. As the innkeeper had promised, the bed looked wide enough to easily accommodate two.

Astrid paced the room, taking its measure. She checked the one small casement window, making sure it opened, then glancing down to the road a story below. Checking for escape routes, Gemma realized. Astrid moved with precision and purpose, a battle-hardened veteran who also happened to be a woman. Gemma could only speculate what variety of adventures and hardship the Englishwoman had endured.

While Astrid surveyed the pitched-ceiling room, she continued to glance at Gemma with caution, as though Gemma were a variety of spider that leapt on and bit its unsuspecting prey. The source of Astrid’s circumspection could be any number of possibilities. What might it take to win her trust?

In any event, it seemed unlikely that Gemma and Astrid would spend the night exchanging whispered confidences and giggling beneath the blanket.

Gemma rifled through her little satchel, desperate to find a brush for her disobedient tangle of hair. She wasn’t especially vain, but knowing that she would be sharing supper with Catullus in a few minutes made her more attentive to her appearance. Maybe it was for the best that the room’s only mirror was both tiny and fogged with age. Leaping off moving trains tended to wreak havoc on one’s hair and clothes, and Gemma was sure she looked as though she’d not only jumped off a train, but landed in a sty and then rubbed handfuls of forest in her hair. Looking at herself in a mirror would only confirm her suspicions.

Astrid’s gasp sounded behind her.

Gemma ran to her side, supporting Astrid as she staggered. The Englishwoman wore an expression of both pain and acute concentration.

“Are you all right?” Gemma tried to usher Astrid to the bed, but found herself waved off.

Astrid regained her footing, and shook her head to clear her mind. She looked at Gemma, her eyes sharp and determined, and just a little frightened, which scared Gemma. Astrid Bramfield feared nothing, or so Gemma believed. Then the Englishwoman’s next words truly did alarm Gemma.

“It’s beginning.”

In the taproom, a supper of stew, bread, and cheese was laid out for the four of them, but none quite had the appetite, given Astrid’s revelation.

“You’re sure?” asked Catullus.

Astrid stared into her tankard of ale, her jaw tense. “Quite sure. The Primal Source is manifesting the Heirs’ dreams. Very soon they will be embodied.”

“When?” pressed Lesperance. He held Astrid’s free hand between his own, as though unable to be near her without touching.

“A matter of days, if not sooner.”

“How do you know this?” Gemma asked.

Astrid’s expression darkened even further. “The Primal Source and I are … linked. I can feel its energy, especially the closer I come to it. And I felt its energy gathering. Coalescing. Even without the Heirs’ direct manipulation, the Primal Source is materializing their desires. Now. And it has to be halted.”

Catullus frowned at the worn wooden tabletop, his fingers drumming against the surface. “Damn,” he growled. “There isn’t time to get to Southampton. We have to stop it on our own.” His look turned unreadable when he gazed up at Gemma, sitting beside him. “Which means, you will be coming with us.”

Directly into the path of danger, he did not say. But they both knew it.

The prospect gave her some alarm, yet she couldn’t quite stifle a thrum of excitement. But she couldn’t decipher whether her excitement was because she would witness the upcoming battle or because she was to remain with Catullus. The thought of staying behind in Southampton while he went off to risk his life had been gnawing at her, creating a pit within her, empty and restless.

“I want to come with you,” she said.

“Because you’re a reporter,” Astrid clipped.

Gemma turned from Catullus to meet the Englishwoman’s unyielding gaze with her own. Words formed and tumbled from her, each one gleaming with a truth Gemma fully understood only at that moment. “Because I want to help.”

Astrid’s gaze tried to dismiss her. “What can you do? You’re not a Blade. You aren’t trained to fight. All you have is some parlor magic.”

“Which saved you on the train today,” Gemma noted.

Both Catullus and Lesperance watched this verbal sparring match with open interest.

“We could have kicked the door open.”

“Then the Heirs could have gotten into the mail coach, and you would have been cornered.”

The Englishwoman crossed her arms over her chest, unconvinced. “I still think you will be a liability.”

“I’ll prove that I’m not. I’ll fight, right beside you.”

“And write about everything after.”

“Maybe.” But she countered Astrid’s immediate scorn. “But whether I write about this battle or not is immaterial if the war is lost. As I see it “—she leaned forward, bracing her arms on the table—” you Blades are outgunned and outnumbered. You can’t afford to turn anyone away, not with so much at stake.”

She addressed everyone at the table, her voice vibrating with barely banked fury. “The more I think about what the Heirs are trying to accomplish, the angrier I get. Who asked them to patrol and superintend the world? Why should they impose their values on everyone? And to steal magic—to steal anything—in order to achieve this … I can’t pretend I’m a disinterested observer. I can’t sit idly by and do nothing. I have to help … however I can.”

For a moment, the only sound came from the fire in the hearth nearby. No one at the table spoke; no one moved. Gemma did not look at Astrid or Lesperance. Their opinion of her held no weight.

Richard never truly respected her—she’d realized that too late, after she failed to conform to his idea of who he thought she ought to be. That betrayal had hurt her, badly. Oh, she was used to the snide comments and dismissals in the newsroom. But Richard had been her lover, her confidant. She’d thought him unlike other men. His disappointment and dismissal cut her because she’d thought him different. She learned to prize her own opinion of herself.

She now discovered something, something faintly frightening: she wanted Catullus’s respect. Because he was a man worthy of esteem.

Catullus did not smile at her, nor beam his approbation. But his night-dark eyes flashed behind his spectacles as he tipped his head in a regal nod. Confident in himself, and her.

Within her, this approval, more than anything, burned brightly. She felt momentarily giddy, as if she’d been spinning around the room and came to a sudden stop.

Yet she grounded herself with his eyes, velvety and bright eyes that saw and understood not just scientific theory, but the very real practicalities of what it took to survive.

“Nicely argued, counselor,” Lesperance said, breaking the silence.

Even Astrid had to agree. “I hope you fight as well as you talk.”

Gemma asked calmly, “So, now that that’s settled, where are we going?”

“Wherever the Primal Source’s energy is gathering.” Catullus was all business now, which Gemma appreciated. This wasn’t about her, after all, but the ensuing battle. He turned to Astrid. “Can you feel where it is collecting?”

Astrid snarled, frustrated with herself. “Somewhere south of here, but I’m not certain where.”

Everyone moodily poked at their food. Gemma sifted and sorted through what she had learned about the Primal Source, knowing that a solution lay somewhere within grasp. “You said that the Primal Source is based on hopes and desires.”

Astrid nodded after taking a drink of ale. “Its power, like all magic, comes from wishes, dreams, and imagination—that which makes humanity different from other animals.”

“And we know that the Heirs’ dreams are for a global English empire,” said Lesperance.

“Because they believe England to be the apotheosis of human culture, the pinnacle of all that is good and right.” Catullus’s words, to his credit, held only a slight edge. “They wish England to be the world’s champion.”

“Champion.” Gemma mulled this over. “That word has a very old-fashioned feel to it, as if it belongs in some child’s book of fairy stories.”

Slowly, Catullus drew himself up, his spine straightening even more than his usual faultless posture. His gaze sharpened further to knifelike perception. Gemma was surprised that the inn wasn’t simply cleaved in two from the blade of his eyes.

“Not fairy stories,” he said. “Chivalric romance.”

“Chivalry, as in knights?” asked Gemma.

He turned to her, but his thoughts reached far beyond where she sat. “Exactly. Knights of the Round Table.”

Understanding jolted them all at once, like a current of electricity through water. “Could it truly be?” Astrid whispered.

“Yes—yes it is.” Catullus could no longer sit, energy and thought propelling him to his feet. The taproom’s few other occupants watched him pace, confused and disgruntled that there should be so much commotion to break their evening’s fireside drowse. The aged men helped each other to standing and then tottered out, muttering about strangers coming into town and making such a bustle.

No one paid the old men much attention. They would be back tomorrow, likely having forgotten this night’s tumult. For her part, Gemma was riveted by the sight of Catullus fully consumed by inspiration, his body in motion as if to keep pace with the speed of his mind.

“Consider it,” he said, hands clasped behind his back as he strode back and forth. “The glories of Camelot, when England emerged from darkness to serve as a model for governance and behavior for the world. Knights on quests, perpetuating and propagating the chivalric code—protecting the weak, spreading the faith and honor of their liege wherever they journeyed. A perfect kingdom ruled by one perfect leader, the best and most exemplary Briton, the ideal king.”

As one, Gemma, Lesperance, and Astrid rose from the table, each drawn upward by the same thought. “The king,” Astrid breathed.

Catullus stopped his pacing to stand before the fire, and it formed a fiery corona around his tall, powerful body, turning him into a creature of shadow and light. “King Arthur.”

“Was King Arthur real?” Gemma knew something of the legendary king, but the stories on which she’d been raised were Irish legends and Italian folktales. Kings were exactly what her family had fought against, in generations past. Who wanted a king when America offered at least the theory of equality?

“There’s speculation,” said Catullus. “Some think Arthur was a warlord of the Dark Ages who brought peace between tribes after Rome left England. Others think he was a Christian warrior king who stopped a Saxon invasion. None of this has ever been proven. But it isn’t relevant,” he continued, animated. “It’s not the real Arthur that matters.”

“Who, then?” Lesperance demanded.

“Arthur, as England wishes him to be. The Arthur of legend, of myth and imagination.” Catullus spread his palms, encompassing the realm of collective dreams. “He is the best Briton, the finest example of what England once was, and what it might one day be—a beacon of light to the rest of the world.”

“It makes sense,” Gemma mused, “that the Heirs’ shared desires could be embodied in such a figure. To them, Arthur must be the personification of everything they want.”

“I can well imagine the Heirs believe themselves to be knights,” growled Astrid, “setting off on quests for Sources, bringing the light of civilization to a savage world. And the Blades are the forces of chaos, undermining this noble ambition.”

Gemma shuddered at the depths of the delusion. Yet it seemed far too possible.

Catullus resumed his pacing, unable to keep still. “The legend of Arthur posits that he would rise again when England had need of him.”

“Returning from where?” asked Gemma.

“An enchanted sleep on the magical island of Avalon,” Astrid answered.

Lesperance slapped his palms on the table in front of him decisively. “Then Avalon is where we should go, if that’s where he’ll appear.”

Catullus’s mouth formed a wry smile. “There’s no such place.”

“But you said that it isn’t the reality that matters,” Gemma noted, “so much as the legend.”

“True, yet magic is tied to the physical world, the world of humanity. We can’t simply wish ourselves to imaginary Avalon. If the Primal Source summons him for the Heirs, it will be here, in England. It’s the where of it that confounds me.” He pressed his lips tightly together, angry with himself for lacking any knowledge. He pushed himself, Gemma realized, much harder than anyone else, allowing no room for uncertainty or doubt.

She might not have the answers, but she could help guide the ship toward its destination. Being a journalist meant exploring every realm of possibility to get as close to the truth as possible. As well as using a fair amount of luck.

So she ventured, “There must be a real, physical place in England that is associated with Avalon.”

Catullus stopped his pacing to glower out a window. His fists pressed into the stone wall surrounding the window as he leaned closer to the glass, searching for answers in the opaque night. It was a wonder the glass didn’t shatter from the force of his churning mind. He held his wide shoulders stiffly, as if they bore a heavy weight under which he would not bow.

Avoiding Astrid and Lesperance’s curious glances, Gemma edged around the table and came to stand beside Catullus. Gently, she lay her hand upon his forearm, felt the tense, firm muscles there beneath the exquisite fabric of his coat. Her touch served as reminder that he was not alone in this search.

He glanced over at her hand upon him, his expression gentling. Beneath this, she saw in his eyes a glimmer of something, something hungry and yearning.

No one ever touches him, she realized. He’s sealed off—by design or circumstance, or both. To everyone, he was a perpetual stranger.

It broke her heart a little to think of it. Then realized she saw in him a mirror, reflecting her own solitude.

But now was about more than their shared isolation. So she said, “We will all think of the answer.”

His gaze dropped away, as if embarrassed to have revealed so much, but he rallied in an instant, becoming again the incisive commander. “Several sites in England are associated with Avalon. Some say it lies in the mists off Cornwall’s coast. Or near Wales.”

“Astrid said she felt the Primal Source’s energy gathering south of here. Surely there’s some place south of … wherever we are … that’s linked to Avalon.”

She felt the inspiration hit him, as strongly as a silver wave coursing to shore. A physical sensation, but also deeper, more profound, a strange and strengthening bond connecting them.

“Glastonbury.” He turned from the window, and Gemma’s hand fell away as he surged back into motion. He stared at her, then at Astrid. “Glastonbury,” he repeated.

Where or what that was, Gemma had no idea, but Astrid clearly did, because she changed from grim to energized in a moment. “God! I should have thought of that!” Astrid turned to Lesperance, watching with a puzzled expression that, no doubt, paralleled Gemma’s.

“Glastonbury is an island?” asked Lesperance.

Astrid rushed headlong into her explanation. “No, it’s a hilly town in Somerset. But it was once surrounded by marshes, which would give it the look of an island.”

“One of the holiest places in England,” continued Catullus. He began smiling now, everything within him brightening as the sun of understanding emerged from gloom. “Its abbey used to be the wealthiest, after Westminster. And in the twelfth century, monks claimed to have unearthed the grave of Arthur and Guinevere near the abbey. The bones disappeared, but the legend remained that Glastonbury was, is, Avalon.”

Astrid pressed a hand to her chest, closing her eyes, focusing inward. “I can feel it now. The Primal Source is drawn to where myths are strongest, and there are so many swirling around Glastonbury, it would attract the Primal Source’s energy. I sense it … gathering beneath the ground, taking shape, becoming real.” Her eyes opened. “We have to stop it.”

“How can we prevent something as powerful as the Primal Source from calling forth Arthur?” Gemma asked.

“I don’t know,” Catullus answered, and this dimmed his excitement but not his determination. “Yet we must try. If King Arthur is truly summoned, if he is imbued with the power of legend, then there will be almost nothing the Blades can do to keep him from achieving what the Heirs desire.”

Rush headlong to stop a mythical king from being summoned by the world’s most potent magic? It couldn’t be done. It seemed to Gemma just then that the Blades had set for themselves an impossible goal, that they fought not to win, but because someone had to, regardless of the consequences.

The Primal Source was magic. They were human. Which meant their bodies demanded rest. Racing down to Glastonbury without a night’s sleep went beyond the prospect of daunting to nigh impossible. And Catullus, the general in command of their army of four, ordered everyone to their beds so that, early the next morning, they could speed south without delay, refreshed and rested.

They had finished their supper, everyone barely restraining their sense of urgency and tension, and bidden each other a good night before retiring to their rooms.

By the light of a single taper, Gemma changed into her nightgown. Like all of her clothing, the height of its glory had passed many washings ago. She fought a sigh as she considered the worn cotton. If only a band of French lace adorned it, or a bit of dainty embroidery. Threadbare calico lacked the sophistication and sensuousness of ribbon-trimmed silk—which Catullus was no doubt more accustomed to.

As though it mattered what Catullus thought of her nightclothes! He’d never see her in them.

Gemma glanced over at Astrid, who sat on the edge of the bed they were to share that night. The Englishwoman hadn’t yet changed for bed, but perched warily, fully clothed and ill at ease.

“Have you no nightgown?” Gemma asked. She, herself, had only the one, so nothing could be loaned.

“I don’t wear anything when I sleep,” came the strained reply.

Oh. “I promise I won’t try anything fresh.”

Astrid managed a taut smile, her gaze straying to the door. Across the hall was Lesperance, and through the inn’s thin walls, the deeper voices of him and Catullus resonated in bass murmurs.

“You miss him,” Gemma said quietly.

Astrid choked out a laugh, shaking her head at herself. “Absurd, I know. He’s just across the hall. One night should not matter. I lived alone for years and didn’t need anyone. Then he roars into my life and …” Her look grew tender, faraway. She was in a distant land Gemma had never truly seen—love. “We have not slept apart once since then.”

What must that be like, to need someone so fully? Strange, too, witnessing the steely Englishwoman’s vulnerability. Yet it didn’t diminish her, but somehow made her even stronger, that she could hold such love and need for someone, and still fearlessly fight. It helped that Lesperance was a man of uncommon strength, as much a warrior as the woman who loved him.

Gemma ducked her head. “I’m sorry you have to be separated on my account.”

At this, Astrid chuckled. “Catullus, for all his unconventional ways, can be something of a traditionalist. He wants to protect your reputation.”

Now Gemma laughed softly. “That assumes I have a reputation.”

“He’s an optimist.”

“I know you don’t trust me,” Gemma said, and Astrid did not dispute this, “but I want you to understand something. I will never manipulate or seduce Catullus to my advantage.”

“I know you won’t,” Astrid said, “because, if you do, if you hurt him for your own gain, I will cut each and every freckle off of you with my skinning knife.”

Gemma had no doubt Astrid would do just that. She refused to let the Englishwoman cow her, however. Blandly, she asked, “Which side of the bed do you want?”

Astrid smiled, not entirely without warmth. A kind of détente had been reached, an establishment of mutual respect that might not see bonds of eternal friendship forged, but at least created a foundation of wary esteem.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Astrid said, standing. “I’m not sure how much sleep I’m going to get. I’ve grown so damned used to having that wolf beside me every night.”

Gemma furrowed her brow at Astrid’s word choice, but didn’t comment. Must be a pet name or term of endearment.

“The innkeeper said he had some whiskey,” Astrid continued, moving toward the door. “Think I’ll have a nightcap. That might help me sleep.” She paused, one hand on the doorknob. “Want to come down and have a drink?”

This, absurdly, touched Gemma. “A shot of good whiskey sounds wonderful, but,” she added with disappointment, “I can’t creep about the place in my nightgown.”

“As you like,” Astrid shrugged, then left the room.

Gemma stood next to the bed for several minutes, heart thudding, mind awhirl. The men’s voices across the hall had gone silent.

She drew a breath, summoning courage.

Before she could stop herself, she padded across the hall and opened the door to the other room. She stepped inside and shut the door behind her. A mirthless smile touched her lips. She was forever stepping on the wrong side of doors, into situations she should probably avoid. But then, if she did avoid those situations, her life would be indescribably dull.

And dull certainly did not describe the scene before her.

Catullus, dressed only in his trousers and an open shirt, rose up from the bed at her entrance. His hand reached for a nearby pistol, but stilled when he saw she was the unannounced visitor. Gemma’s eyes moved from his shocked face to the sculptural planes of his chest, satiny skin lightly dusted with dark hair. She would have followed the causeway of ridged, defined muscles down from his chest to his flat abdomen, and lower, but the sound of claws scraping on wood snared her attention.

Gemma froze when she beheld the room’s other occupant.

Less than five feet from where she stood. Staring at her with topaz eyes as it uncurled from the floor to standing. A huge silver-and-black wolf.

“Wolf,” she said absurdly.

And that’s what it was. Not a large dog that had somehow wandered into the room. But a massive wolf looking right at her. She didn’t have a lot of experience with wolves, had only seen a few at a distance when she’d been in Canada, but even someone of her limited experience knew that this wolf radiated power and deadly potential.

What in God’s name was it doing in Catullus and Lesperance’s room? And where was Lesperance, anyway? Downstairs, having a quick tryst in the taproom with Astrid before retiring to separate beds?

Not that any of this mattered. There was a damned wolf in the room.

She backed to the door. Her eyes never left the animal. She rasped to Catullus, “Move slowly. Just edge toward me and we can make an escape.”

Catullus sighed. He was irritatingly calm about the presence of an enormous wild animal in his room. “Not necessary.”

Her eyes flew to his. “But there’s a—”

Before she could finish this thought, the wolf trotted forward and gave her motionless hand a friendly lick. Its tail wagged, briefly, then looked up at her with what she could have sworn was humor in its golden eyes.

Gemma managed to break the gaze to see a pile of men’s clothing folded neatly in the corner. Sober, respectable clothing that an attorney might wear.

Understanding came with the loss of her breath. “Lesperance?”

The wolf gave a soft woof. It moved back and sat on its haunches.

Gemma’s eyes shot to Catullus, watching her with a kind of resigned amusement. Oddly, all she could muster was annoyance, not amazement that there were humans who could turn into animals. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Never seemed an appropriate time,” he said. “’The Heirs are about to unleash a mythic power on an unsuspecting world, and we have to stop it, and, incidentally, Nathan Lesperance can change his form into a wolf, a hawk, and a bear.’”

“A hawk and a bear, too?” This aggravated her further. “What about you?” she demanded of Catullus. “Can you turn into a turkey or an anteater?”

His lips quirked. “No—I’m just a man.”

She was, in truth, all too aware of the fact that he was a man. And she was in her nightgown. In his bedroom.

Which prompted him to ask, “What are you doing here, Gemma?”

Yes. Right. “Astrid’s miserable.” She addressed this to Lesperance. “Right now she’s downstairs trying to drink herself into a good night’s sleep without you.”

Lesperance made a low whine of distress, getting to his feet. Or was it getting to his paws? She really had no idea.

“You need to be with her,” Gemma continued. “The two of you are …” She searched for the most fitting word.

“Bonded.”

Lesperance rumbled his agreement. And Gemma realized she was having a conversation with a wolf. She doubted she could ever write such an outlandish scene.

She held the door open. When she’d left her room, she hadn’t shut the door behind her, so now the empty room waited across the hall. “Go to her.”

Making no noise of protest, Lesperance trotted out of the room and into the other. He even winked at her before nosing the door closed, as if they were two collaborators in Astrid’s waiting surprise. Gemma shut the door of Catullus’s room.

And now they were alone together. They both knew it with the powerful awareness of the rising moon, tidal.

“I think they would have survived a night apart,” Catullus said dryly.

“But not well. I’ve never seen two people so connected.” Which awed her, knowing that such love could truly exist in this world. “And,” she added, willing herself not to blush, “I … heard them.”

“Heard them?”

“On the ship. At night, when I would be …” “Eavesdropping.”

There really was no way to dispute that, since it had quickly become clear that Astrid and Lesperance weren’t discussing strategy or secret plans in their cabin. “Yes. They’re a very … passionate … couple.” Very passionate, and Gemma had the singed ears to prove it. The sounds the two of them made would arouse a glacier.

Catullus lost the war against blushing, his own face turning a deep, burnished henna. “Ah,” he said.

Without the distraction of a wolf in the room, Gemma allowed herself to look her fill of a partially dressed Catullus Graves. His crisp white shirt was undone and untucked, leaving a swath of bare skin from his neck to his stomach. A lone candle upon the nightstand illuminated the room, so his exposed flesh became a tantalizing play of gold and mahogany, planes and valleys of distinct muscle that revealed him to be not just a man of the mind, but also of the body.

No coat, jacket, or waistcoat hid the way his fine shirt clung to the breadth of his shoulders, the length of his arms. And his trousers, of course, fit him beautifully, the expensive drape of wool delineating the lengthy muscles of his legs. His feet, large and long, were bare. This, more than even the bare flesh of his torso, struck Gemma as unbearably arousing, strong yet vulnerable, and she swallowed past a lump of heat that had suddenly formed in her throat.

Likewise, his gaze traveled over her, from the tips of her own bare toes, up along the expanse of threadbare cotton nightgown—lingering, it had to be noted, on her breasts—to her hair spilling over her shoulders, and then her mouth, her eyes. A thorough perusal, not a bit analytical. If anything, Catullus’s gaze held the same haunted look of yearning she had seen before. Yearning, and desire.

He forced his eyes away from her, and his voice, when he spoke, was a growl. “It’s not right for you to be here.”

Which wasn’t a rejection, exactly. But he didn’t exactly cross the span of the room separating them and enfold her in his arms either. His kiss still resonated through her, many hours later, much more memorable than the leap and fall from the train, and she wondered with an almost detached desperation if such heat could flare between them again.

“Neither of us follow the rules,” she said. “Now is no different.”

Astrid could be heard outside, ascending the stairs. She moved lightly, but the timbers were old and creaked with little provocation. Both Catullus and Gemma held themselves still, listening, as Astrid opened the door to her room. The cry she made—a girl’s shriek of unmitigated happiness—caused Gemma’s heart to contract with bittersweet satisfaction. Lesperance gave a low laugh, said something, though his voice was too deep to distinguish words through the walls, and the door to Astrid’s room shut quickly. Then came the unmistakable sounds of two people throwing themselves onto a bed, the headboard knocking into the wall.

The next few hours were going to be rather noisy.

Catullus turned from her to stalk the length of the room, but the chamber’s small dimensions made him ricochet from side to side like a bullet in a cave. “I don’t want you to go to Glastonbury.”

She hadn’t anticipated this abrupt turn in the conversation and struggled to gain equilibrium. “You’ve got no choice. But I can help, and I can fight—not as well as you and Astrid and Lesperance, but good enough.”

He pulled off his spectacles and rubbed aggressively at the space between his eyebrows, as if trying to push her out of his vision and thoughts. “If anything were to happen to you …” His teeth clenched. “Blades do their damnedest to prevent any civilian casualties.”

This stung. She had seen herself as more than a naive bystander blundering into the path of danger, a foolish woman who needed constant protection. “I see. I’m just a civilian whose blood you don’t want on your conscience. A liability.” Maybe this was an unfair accusation, but she wasn’t feeling entirely impartial at the moment.

His breathing changed, hitched. She thought, at first, that he had no response to her accusation. Deliberately, he set his spectacles on the nightstand. Gave them a little push with one finger so they aligned precisely with the table’s edge.

“You’re more than that to me,” he said lowly. “Much more.”

His words sent a deep, resonant thrill through her. Yet he did not move, ruthlessly holding himself back.

She drew a breath. She felt herself hovering in an elemental moment, the suspension between two worlds, with possibility on every side. A single movement from her would cause everything to shatter into shards and dust.

For almost a lifetime, he gazed at her. And then, something snapped, broke within him. He stalked toward her, halting not a foot away, so that she felt the warmth of him radiating out, filling her senses to repletion. Even without the splendor of his elegant clothing, his presence was a palpable thing, the depths of his intelligence and dynamic force of his body.

He stared at Gemma, and without the protective shield of his spectacles, his dark eyes were piercing, sharply aware. His gaze delved into her, probing, as though she were a paradox to be solved, and he had but to stare long enough, pick her apart with the precise machine of his mind and a definitive answer would arise.

Yet she was no equation. No contraption of metal and wood and canvas. She had no single answer—or, at least, she hoped she was more complex than that.

“I want to know more about you,” he said lowly, his voice a rumble of silk.

“It’s the same for me,” she answered. “You’re a wonderful enigma I need to understand. Although I believe, in a way, we do know each other.”

“But—”

“You think too much,” she said, then stepped around him and doused the candle.