“A man like you, with a family to provide for, cannot survive on his own.You are unmoored from society, but if you prove your loyalty to me, and to the transcendents, you will not be.”
Giving away alchemist secrets should have been enough to prove Temple’s loyalty.His new titles—gilded cages.And even if the door was open, he couldn’t escape them.The king was right—he must do this for his family.
“Would you like a list?”the king asked.“Of ladies’ names?”
Temple forced a grin.“I think I can handle this on my own, Your Majesty.”If he must marry one of their kind, he’d choose the woman.
The king laughed and slapped the stone on the table between them.“I like you, Lord Knightly.In my youth, I knew a few alchemists in the military.In the Americas, too.You’re a good lot.Your skills are valuable.”
“But not magic.”
The king’s laughter drained away.“No, unfortunately not magic.Everyone knows that.”
“Of course.”
“Your sisters are well?”the king asked.A warning, that.“They can make good matches in the ton.”An unsaidif.
If Temple’s sisters played along.
If they embraced their roles as lapdogs and bowed down like good alchemists to the ruling class.
If Temple did, too.
Temple forced a smile.“I’m sure they will.Me first, though.”
“Excellent, excellent.”The king pushed against his thighs to stand, the shakiness of his movement proving his glamour of strength a lie.He wandered back to the window and assumed the same position he’d been in upon Temple’s entry.A dismissal.“See that you do.”Another warning.The steel in his voice offered no other interpretation.
Temple left, the stone in his pocket now lifeless and cold.The king wouldn’t strip him of his title.He likely knew Temple wouldn’t care if he did.But he could force him to marry a woman of his choosing, and the king would use that woman to keep a watchful eye on the newest member of the ton.
Like hell he would.Temple would choose his own bride.Visions of a dark-haired mouse appeared in his mind.The feel of her curves were ghosts along his palms.Miss Diana Chester.He’d seen only a flash of her in Lady Guinevere’s study before Mr.Bran had forced him out the door.But he’d seen enough—dazed expression, too-pale cheeks, shivering.Temple had been almost frantic when a man had said she’d been attacked.He’d been prepared to rip the door off its hinges to get to her.He could still see the pools of shock and fear in her golden eyes.She was escaping the world he now existed in.Because that world had hurt her.The Marquess of Fordham had hurt her.
He could still see that villain’s pale arse pumping into his mistress.And his curve-cursed palms became fists, eager to know the feel of the man’s nose against his knuckles.
It had felt like wading through mud to leave the shop, to leave Miss Diana Chester behind.
Lady Guinevere was a liar.The potion still rolled through him, had made a home of his chest.That much clear.
He’d managed to keep away for a full week, but he moved in that direction now, his legs eating up the distance with little thought.
He could… marry her.A daughter of the transcendent ton.The king would approve.And Temple would save the woman from her devil of a groom.That man’s title gave him the power to hurt her, to send her running, but it also gave Temple the connections the king would approve of.
He wasn’t going to marry her.Of course not.But he would like to know she was well, that she’d begun to heal from her ordeal and that she’d found a safe place to land.Yes, that the reason he strode toward the potions shop.
Once in Finsbury Square, Temple quickened his pace, and he paused only a moment after stepping inside the shop and taking a deep breath.The air here was thicker.It smelled of soil, so it smelled of iron, too.The iron in his blood began to speak, surging and ready.He clamped down on the growing anticipation he always felt when shaping his metal.None to shape here, but the plants that seemed to cover every surface, hanging even from the ceiling, enriched the air with the scent of iron-rich soil.
He made for the back of the shop, weaving between the potion mistresses and the customers, ducking beneath low hanging vines.He felt stronger here.He’d need to visit his workshop after this, to release the iron-hot energy roiling through him in his forge.But first he’d find out where Miss Chester had gone.
He knocked on the door.It opened as if the lady behind it had been waiting for him.The guard was propping up the corner as he had been last time, and Lady Guinevere sat behind her desk, feeding seeds to the raven on its golden perch.
“Close the door behind you,” she said without looking up from her newspaper.
He did, then he stood before her desk, removing his hat.“Where is Miss Chester?”
“Safe.”
“Good.But where?”
Lady Guinevere shrugged.“I do not keep track of her.”
