Clio shook her head. ‘But why?’
‘She told me if I could get a bastard on some other woman, she would take the child. Raise it as her own. As ours. And so, I did as she asked. Even though it nearly killed me. I fucked any willing woman trying to prove that I was worthy. I gave those women my soul. My honour. My dignity. But do you know what I never gave them? Not a single. Fucking. One?’
‘Bastard!’ Sir Robin’s timing couldn’t have been worse. For the first time, Clio wished her familiar was anything other than a raven.
Thomas’ green eyes grew bright with pain even as he stretched his lips into a smile. He reached up, offering his forearm to the raven, who obliged. ‘Exactly, Sir Robin. I couldn’t give them a bastard. And so instead, I became one.’ With exquisite care, he heldthe bird to Clio’s shoulder, and Sir Robin hopped to his favourite perch.
The raven rubbed his head against her cheek, but she gained no comfort from her familiar. ‘And she fell pregnant with another man’s child?’
‘She did.’
‘Thomas. I’m so sorry.’ But her words were not enough. Not nearly enough.
He swallowed as tears glistened in his beautiful green eyes. One fell, and she reached up to catch it, but he pulled away. ‘Don’t.’ He sniffed, cleared his throat, and took another step backwards. ‘She was right. After so many years of being told she was the problem, Lissa proved that it wasn’t her failure. It was mine.’ The words ripped out of him like shattered pieces of his soul. Clio’s heart bled with him. ‘I could never provide her a future. I have nothing to give, Clio. Except for the one thing she asked of me. The only thing I have left to offer. Freedom.’ He backed up another step, only a few feet from the door.
He was going to walk away. He was going to leave Clio, just as he left Lissa. But she wouldn’t let him.
She moved to block his path. ‘That’s not true. Freedom isn’t fear. And that is why you’re leaving. You’re afraid.’
He smiled then, a cold expression threatening to freeze her fire. His jaw could have been granite, his body stone, and his heart, cold steel. ‘Maybe I am. Maybe I’m scared of a witch who steals the secrets from my soul. I think our games here are at an end.’ He stepped around her, walked to the door, and twisted the knob before Clio could process what was happening.
‘You can’t leave.’
Thomas turned, his face in profile, refusing to look directly at Clio. ‘You might control everything else, but you don’t control me. I cannot stay here with you. Iwillnot.’
He stepped out of the door as Clio’s world erupted into flames.
19
Thomas had never felt so empty. Not even after Lissa left him. His darkest shame had been exposed by Clio’s bright flame, and nothing but charred chunks of coal remained. She was a mystical creature who controlled the elements, and he was a fool to think there could ever be anything more for them than a few heated moments of pleasure. He had to leave. He would not be able to stay away from her if he remained. And seeing her look of pity or disgust after she had time to process his last memory with Lissa would break him. Shame tasted of ash and smoke on this tongue and burned like brimstone in his soul.
He packed his few belongings that night and woke early, asking the coachman to take him to the station. Catching the early-morning train, he was back in London by eleven. Instead of returning to his home, he caught a hack directly to Scotland Yard. At the very least, he needed to tell Lachlan he had abandoned the case.
The train journey had given him ample time to torture himself with memories of Clio. From their first meeting when she stood in Viscount Beachley’s entryway, a raven on her shoulder and fire inher gaze, to last night, naked and bound on the bed. She bewitched him. His needs were perfectly mirrored by her own. But it wasn’t her body that claimed his soul. It was the woman herself. Her stubborn spirit. Her sharp mind. Her fearless courage. Each facet of her personality was a perfect foil to his own. He could spend a lifetime between her thighs, or standing next to her in a parlour as they puzzled out a murder, or sitting by her side as she drove her carriage to their next adventure. Their future spun out like a silvery spell, as strong and stunning as a spider’s web. And he was caught like a fly in his own trap. Because it could never be anything more than a fatal fantasy.
He would never damn her to a future where he could offer nothing more than himself. She deserved more than Thomas. She deserved everything. He loved her, so he would stay far away.
His mind stuttered as the carriage bumped over a rut in the pitted road.
Dear God. I love her. I love fighting with her, I love solving mysteries together, I love making her burn with desire. I’m even fond of her foul-mouthed raven. I haven’t been bewitched by her. The only spell I’ve fallen under is Cupid’s.
It was a devastating realisation. Because it meant he couldn’t possibly see her again. Ever.
She is magic, but I am a curse.
When she pulled him into her vision, or he fell into it, or the cosmos, in a cruel twist of fate, decided to test his mettle by taking them to the moment that shattered every hope he had of a future with any woman, it became clear he must leave. And now he could admit why. Not to avoid her reaction, but to save her from himself.
In the end, she would thank him for running away.
He shook his head, fisted his hand, and slammed it into the squabs as the carriage came to a stop. He climbed the steps to 4Whitehall Place, his heart a black hole sucking any hope into its endless darkness.
‘What are you doin’ back already?’ Lachlan looked up from his mess of a desk, his eyes clouding with confusion. ‘Is Clio with you?’
Not even caring that the settee was covered in a host of detritus ranging from case files to shackles to a pickled herring sandwich, Thomas sank onto the cushions. ‘No. She is not.’ And that was his problem.
Lachlan leaned back in his chair. ‘Is she well?’
‘Better than me, that is for certain. She’s still with my sister at Blackthorn Manor. Given Clio’s… unique skills, I thought she might do better without me in her way.’
