Sybil sobbed, and his mother gasped, throwing a hand over her mouth to catch the sound.
One thing he needed to say.Just in case.“Whatever happens to me, I will ensure you are left be.You had no idea who Diana was.”
“Who… what?”The hand dropped from his mother’s mouth to lay limp against her skirts.
Behind him, the front door was still open.Let everyone hear.He needed them to hear.“Diana possesses talent.”
His family’s reactions ranged from his father’s silent shock to his mother’s blinking confusion.
“What do you mean?”Sybil asked, shaking her head as if to clear fog from it.
“Diana can create glamours.”
His father cursed.
Sybil cursed even louder.
His mother made a soft “Oh.”
“Until tonight,” Temple said, “she and I were the only ones who knew.Well, other than her cousin, the man who attacked her in the ballroom tonight.The Marquess of Fordham.No.Fordham no longer.His title has been revoked.”
“He was supposed to inherit the talent, wasn’t he?”Sybil said.“But Diana did instead.Somehow.”
Temple nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose.“That’s why he was after her tonight.”
“How horrible,” his mother breathed.
“How sad,” his father grumbled.
“How marvelous.”Sybil’s eyes were like stars.
Marvelous.Yes.His exact thought the night he’d discovered Diana using a glamour.Their wedding night.She was everything a miracle should be, beautiful and bright.But she was simply Diana, too.A woman with book dust on her skirts and questions on her lips who taught herself how to do the impossible when backed into a corner.
“What are you doing to get her back?”his mother asked.
“I… I do not know what I can do.”Anything he tried would hurt these hearts surrounding him now, would hurt all his brothers and sisters more than he’d already done.“I’m s-sorry.”He swallowed to push the trembling from his voice.“Everything I do ruins you.Every step I take drags you through the mud.”He could not save Diana because it would further hurt his family.But he couldn’t not fight for her.He?—
A sob rose up in his throat, and he swallowed it down.
His father wrapped large hands around his upper arms and shook him until his teeth rattled.“Nonsense!”That strong voice booming in the entry hall, striking deep into Temple’s bones.“What absolute horseshit.What would you do if you did not have us to worry over?"
He would storm the Tower, free his wife.
“I can take care of my family, Temple.”His father released him and stepped backward.“You take care of yours.”
He meant Diana.“But?—”
“It is not all your fault we fell from the alchemists’ good graces.I was too cowardly to go to the king, even though it was the right thing to do, even though it was what I wanted.I will always be grateful to you for doing right when I would not.I would much rather be ignored and cast out butrightthan revered and wrong.Look at that ring on your finger, Temple.”
Hades’ hellfire, he couldn’t.He felt it pulsing with Diana’s fear, and that was heartbreak enough.
“Look!”His father’s command echoed off the walls.
Temple swallowed and lifted his hand.The simple iron band glowed a sickly yellow.When he’d forged it, he’d felt only a connection with her body, her lust channeling like a flooding river right to him.
“That bond is sacred, Temple,” his father said.“Your duty is no longer to us.It is to her.What is she feeling right now?”
“Scared.”That coming through strong, but something else there, too… “Determined.”
