She vanishes into the office, leaving me alone on the threshold. Outside, the morning is mild, but there’s a promise of July heat in the air, the taste of humidity that will leave everyone limp. For now, though, the flowers wave in the breeze, and windows in the houses across the street are open.
I shut the door but stand there, gripping the handle, considering the umbrella at my feet. It looks brand new or perhaps little used. The color really does evoke butter, a cold and unblemished stick on a porcelain dish.
My hip still aches, but I lean down to pick up the newcomer. A fizzle of electricity races across my skin, from fingertips to shoulder. I jump back, dropping the thing.
It shocked me!
I’m not sure I want it in the stand with my umbrella. Still, it needs to be somewhere. I pull my jacket from the coat tree and use a sleeve as a buffer before slipping it into the stand. Henry’s umbrella is still morose, and mine is inching away from Gwyneth’s. This is not a happy trio. I crane my neck but catch nothing from the office.
Toothpaste, I think. And then tea. Maybe some actual clothes? I cast the office another look and my nose prickles. I wipe away the blood with a finger and lock down the Sight without a second thought. Even so?
I decide to stay in my pajamas.
Chapter 48
Henry
King’s End, Minnesota
Friday, July 14
Of all the things Botten could have thrown at him, Henry hadn’t expected Gwyneth. In retrospect, he probably should have. The man could not have orchestrated a more unwelcome situation if he’d meticulously planned it. Henry considered that Botten actually had. After all, Henry had yet to fulfill his part of their Faustian bargain.
Gwyneth now sat in the space where Pansy had slept. The telltale hint of her warmth lingered in the couch cushions. Were last night’s sleeping arrangements obvious? Pansy answering the door in her pajamas, the two pillows, one with an indent that clearly wasn’t from his head. He waited for the pang of guilt, but the only emotion to wash over him was deep annoyance.
Gwyneth knew how he felt, after all. It wasn’t as if they’d never discussed their betrothal and what to do when their parents started pushing. During her research sabbatical in England, she’d even confided that she’d found the one. Henry had given both his blessing and hearty congratulations. But Gwyneth returned to Seattle alone and refused to speak of what had happened. Still, before he petitioned for an annulment, he’d called her. They had talked for hours. No recriminations, simply a gentle letting go. They both agreed it was the right thing to do.
Or so he had thought. Because Gwyneth never submitted her own petition.
A long-standing Enclave tradition was ignoring your betrothal obligation, and often your betrothed as well. Generations of agents had paired up only to switch partners and do it again and again—a game of romantic musical chairs that long summers isolated in the Pacific Northwest only encouraged. The arranged marriages, when they inevitably happened, were often short, dismal, and brutish. Certainly, his parents’ marriage had been.
But no one appointed to the High Council—with the exception of Reginald Botten—had ever reneged on that obligation, no matter how short the marriage. If the union produced an heir? That opened doors for the politically inclined. His father had stepped through that door, secured a seat on the council early, and held on to it with the grace of an elder statesman and the tenacity of an underdog.
As for Gwyneth Worthington-Wells? The woman who, right now, was holding a stethoscope against his chest?
She was many things. First and foremost, a brilliant research scientist. She was undoubtedly politically inclined. However, she was not someone who’d be sent during that first wave, as part of a response team. Her time in the field had been in a support role, arriving only after the task force had secured the area and set up a field lab.
For all his achievements, all his accolades, Henry knew he was expendable. But not even the Enclave would risk a mind like Gwyneth’s.
So why had Botten sent her?
From down the hall came the clatter of cups and the whistle of a tea kettle. He wondered, again, about Botten’s agenda, his fixation with King’s End, Rose Little, and her daughter. Ah, yes. That fit. And that something told him this orchestrated situation was meant not only for him, but for Pansy as well.
Chapter 49
Pansy
King’s End, Minnesota
Friday, July 14
I carry a tray with a pot of tea, three cups with matching saucers, and pastries, this last courtesy of Guy. I send a silent thank you his way. I’ll follow up with a real one later. My culinary skills truly do not extend past brewing tea. I suspect Agent Worthington-Wells might even turn up her nose at Guy’s hotdish.
Is there a rational reason for disliking her? Other than the fact that her umbrella shocked me? No, there isn’t, except for the Sight nattering at the back of my mind. Honestly, I think it’s trying to stir up trouble because it’s bored. Or it’s so tied to King’s End, and we only like out-of-towners during Saturday’s farmers markets.
Despite her surly umbrella, I resolve to treat her with kindness. I enter the office and discover Gwyneth Worthington-Wells perched on the couch, her hip next to Henry’s. The silver-sided briefcase now rests on the coffee table. Gwyneth herself is aiming a penlight at Henry’s eyes. He’s enduring the onslaught stoically, his hands resting on top of the fleece blanket, the skin across the knuckles bruised and battered.
On the left ring finger sits a platinum band.
