“I seem to have inherited a title with my talent.”
“Bloody hell.”Temple’s body almost collapsed.“You’re the marchioness of Fordham?”
She nodded.
“And you her marquess,” the king said.
“Dear Juno.”Temple pressed a hand to his head.“That’s bloody unexpected.”
“F-Fordham?”The voice came from the side.It was familiar, and it stopped her breath, made her curl into Temple’s chest.Apollo.He looked terrible—grimy and skeletal, his clothes tattered and dirty.He took several halting steps toward them, a trio of guards following close behind with silly grins.“Did he callyouFordham?”
“Yes.”Diana tried to sound confident.“The king has given me the title.”
Apollo dropped, and the guards crouched to pull him back to his feet with curiously gentle hands.He pushed them away, his face mottled, and his lips thin.“Congratulations, cuz.”He bowed, a shaky thing, and when he stood upright again, his eyes hollow.With an almost imperceptible nod of his head, he sauntered away as if he were walking across a ballroom.
Relief to see the back of him?Pity for what he’d become?Fear he would return to harm her?She could not quite identify what she felt for her cousin.But Temple’s arm anchoring around her waist gave her strength to endure it.
With his other hand, Temple scratched the back of his neck.“Apologies, Your Majesty.”
The king gave a rather undignified snort.“Leave now before I decide to put you both in the Tower.”
Arms around each other, they walked outside.
“I came to save you,” he said, seeking out her hand, threading their fingers together.
“Thank you.Was… Apollowithyou?”
He nodded.“I’ll explain at home.But are you… really LadyFordham.”
She laughed.“I’ll explain at home.”
“And you really can come home?”His eyes were oh so gentle, oh so brimming with love.
She smiled, nodding.
And he kissed her.He kissed her like she might break or blow away in the wind.He held her gently in giant arms, his touch feather soft, adoration in his fingertips.He kissed her like?—
“I love you.”His words spoken softly, lips to lips.His eyes were closed, and some emotion worked up through his throat.
“I felt it when I was in the tower.That you loved me.”The iron and opal of her ring had warmed with strong and steady pulses of his love.No careful concoction of herbs and petals and oils could turn a man inside out like this, could put his heart in every line of his face, in his touch, in his willingness to lay siege to a castle.Laughing, she kissed him back.
“I love you, too.”Her words soft but strong, everything she knew as true contained within them.It did not matter how the love had started, only that it ran true.“But I must admit I might love a bathmorethan you right now.”
He laughed, and when he picked her up, she squealed.When he tossed her on top of Newton, she cried out, but as they tore off toward home, she welcomed the stares and whispers of those on the street.Everyone could see her now, just as she was, and no matter what they thought of her or of her alchemist king, she would never hide again.Never run.Unless it was into Temple’s arms.
