“I’m Miss Maple.”The woman stepped behind a long table that spanned the width of the room every inch of it cluttered with bowls of brass and silver, gold and stone.Wood, too.Pestles filled in the crevices between bowls, and plant remnants hid the rest of the tabletop.“You do not have to tell me your name.Most would rather not.”Palms slapped on the table on either side of her body, weight leaned into them.“What can I do for you?”
Even if she had asked for her name, Diana would not have given it.The ton would eviscerate her.Lady Diana Chester in search of a love elixir.For whom, they’d want to know.Her betrothed?A lover?
The ton would get it all wrong.
“I would like”—she licked her lips, the words difficult to push out—“I w-wish to procure a love potion.”What she really wished for was something to strip a person of transcendent powers.But magic passed through the blood could not be taken away.Except through death.Even if such a potion existed, use of it would be considered treason, would end with her neck tight in a noose, her feet and skirts swinging.Peers did not suffer threats to their magic, their blood, their privileges, their lives.
“Of course, miss.We specialize in it, as I’m sure you know.Other women claim they know the secret of the heart, but they are wrong.Lady Guinevere, however…” She raised a hand and trailed it along the fronds above their heads, plucked one, long and thin with tiny, heart-shaped leaves.“Only she knows the truth.And she’s taught it to us.Easy to make as pissing in a pot.Oh.”Wide eyes, smile faltering.“I’m not supposed to curse.Apologies, miss.”
“That is quite all right.Are you going to use that?In the potion?”Diana gestured at the heart-dotted branch waving in Miss Maple’s hand.
“Yes, I am.”She dropped the plant in a gold bowl.“But before I can get going for good, I have to give you the lecture.”
“Lecture?”
“It’s policy, miss.”Miss Maple pulled herself up tall.“Lady G’s love elixir is not permanent.No potion is.Its effects remain only as long as the potion does.In your body, that is.Once you piss it out—blast.Once it leaves your?—”
“Yes, I understand.”It was the way of all potions.
“But also, miss, it will not bereallove.Real love cannot be bottled, you understand.The love elixir merely activates the physical reactions of the body, makes ’em bigger, makes ’em so big you cannot contain ’em and you think you’re in love.”
Diana raised a brow.“Not real love, then.A mere trick.A swindle.”
Miss Maple grunted.“You can leave, then.Lady G doesn’t need your blunt.”
“No, no.”Scholarly skepticism fled when confronted with retreating opportunity.“I’ve heard enough—gossip, you see—to know… I need hers.”
“Then as I was saying, you’ll think you’re in love.That is until you?—”
“Piss it out.”
“Precisely, miss.”Miss Maple grinned.“Now, tell me about the man you wish to love you.”
“Oh, I do not want him to loveme.”
Miss Maple’s jaw unhinged then cranked slowly back into place.“But… then who?”
“Anyone, really.Anyone but me.Can it be done?”She’d spent the first thirty years of her life with her cousin, Apollo, and she wouldnotspend the next thirty as his wife.She suppressed a shiver.She could not marry a man she considered a brother.Never mind making an heir with him.Even if he were kind to her, she’d never be able to look at him without seeing the little boy who’d tried to live in the stables for an entire summer because he’d wanted to be a horse.The young man who’d spit in her glass of champagne just to be churlish.The confident rake who ignored her as much as possible.She didn’t fool herself she could marry for love one day.Not now.Any husband, Apollo or otherwise, would discover her secret as soon as she lost control.In the throes of passion, she might… let everythingslip.Diana would not risk it.Sexual pleasure was not worth her life.
Miss Maple snorted.“Can it be done?Lady G can do anything.Le Fay blood in her veins.I still need to know about the fellow.Each elixir is tailored to the victim.”A chuckle.
Victim.Yes.Quite.“He and I… we’ve known each other since childhood.”
“Familiarity.Hm.”Miss Maple began to rattle the bottles on the table, searching, snapping up a small vial, purple and plump.“Ah.Here.”
After a moment of trying and failing to read the minute words inked onto the bottle label, Diana said, “We are set to wed this Season.I have asked him to delay, to abandon the union entirely, but he refuses.”
“Controlling.Yes.Where is…” Miss Maple fingers wiggled above the crowded table.“There it is.”She set a bowl of seeds next to the purple vial.“What else, miss?”
“I tried to convince him he might fall in love one day.Not with me, of course.I tried to show him he would regret shackling himself to me, but?—”
“Stubborn arse.”Miss Maple laughed, but there was not even a single note of mirth in it.“I know right where that is.”She reached up and broke off a vine from a low-hanging plant—dark green, thick with large leaves.
“He is, yes.I want to show him he’s wrong.With the elixir.I want to convince him he’s capable of loving.”Maybe if he thought himself in love, he’d second-guess his determination to wed without it.
Miss Maple’s eyes on her were hard and cold, gray, clouded marbles.“Is he in love with you now?Any chance of it?Any at all?”
“None.”As children they’d been friends, playmates.But now he was bitter and dismissive.And some days she saw worse in his eyes—cunning and machinations.
