“You know where she is.”
Lady Guinevere looked up over the top edge of the paper.“Why do you wish to know?”
“Why do I need a reason?Hades Hellfire, woman?—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” the guard snarled from her corner.
“I would not anger him, Lord Knightly.”Lady Guinevere lowered her attention to the paper once more.
“I deserve to know.It was your potion that has put me in this position.”
With a sigh, she folded the paper and placed it neatly on her desk.Then she steepled her fingers and faced him.“If my memory serves me right—and it does—you consumed a drop of a potion mixed with whisky.A single diffused drop, my lord.I am powerful.My brew the best in the city, the country, perhaps the world.But even I cannot brew a love potion that remains in a man’s system over a week at that low a dose.Even my most potent potions still lose their power entirely after, ah… release of liquids from the body.”
“It didsomethingto me.”
“It did not.”
“You’re lying.”
She gasped, her hand fluttering to her chest.The guard’s deep laugh joined the airy sound of her gasp.They were making a joke of him.
“What happened was illegal,” he said.“I could tell the papers that you’re selling potions to ladies with the express intent of manipulating the men of the ton.”
Lady Guinevere stood and rounded the desk, but before she could finish her short journey, her guard had crept up behind him.A looming shadow at his back, a fireball facing him.Trapped.Hell.He’d go down fighting if he had to.There was not enough iron in this room to call it up in his aid.All the iron here already settled and set.Nothing raw and ready.
“My lord,” Lady Guinevere said, “if you work to uphold unfair laws, you are not fit to call yourself a man.”
“Now you’ve done it.”Mr.Bran sighed.“She’ll be up on her soapbox for an age.Best make yourself comfortable.”
She flashed her guard a scowl as the bird spread its wings.“What about women?Explain to me how it is fair that women can be dosed with love elixir without consent but it is illegal for men to be.As long as that law stands, I will sell to whomever I please for whatever purposes.And before you jaunt off to the press or Scotland Yard, consider my power over potions.If you do not wish to wake up as a frog or without the use of your cock, you’ll keep your silence.”
Mr.Bran used a toothpick to clean his nails.“She’ll do it.And I’ll help her.And you’ll never hear me coming.”
Temple believed them.They were not worth the trouble of threatening.And he didn’t really want to.“All I want is to speak to Miss Chester.”Once he saw for himself that she was well, he’d stop obsessing.That was it.He’d always hated a lady in trouble, hated the kind of trouble that put her in need of protection.
Lady Guinevere smoothed her hair and her skirts as the bird smoothed its feathers.When she next spoke it was with a moderate tone and polite smile.“Miss Chester is safe, and she does not need a man hanging about her.But… I suppose you can speak with her.Briefly.If she agrees.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded.“Go find her, then.She’s likely to be in the roof garden.Take the main stairs up.”She waved toward the door, and her guard opened it.The previously muffled noise of the shop front rushed in on them, but so did the iron in the soil-rich air.
He’d find her.“Thank you.”He found the stairs at the back of the shop quickly enough and slipped through the crowded bodies toward them.One foot on the first step he stopped, almost bumping into another body carrying a pot of pink flowers.The woman wore one of the pink gowns of the potion mistresses and a chatelaine at her waist.Her dark hair was knotted neatly beneath a frilly white cap, and she studied the ground, showing only a sliver of face to the room.
He only needed a sliver, apparently, to know her.
He grinned, and when she stepped to the side to go around him, he stepped with her.
Another step with swinging skirts to the other side.He blocked this one, too.
She looked up, scowling.Then her eyes widened, locking with his.Recognition clear in those golden suns.His grin kicked higher.
And she ran.Nestling the plant beneath one arm, she hiked up her skirts and flew up the stairs.
And with the iron pumping through him, he followed, Miss Diana Chester a magnet he couldn’t resist.
