“Since no one where we’re going knows you, you’ll travel as my brother, Hesperus.We’ll tell the driver you’re acting as my guard.A last-minute change Temple must have forgotten to mention.”
“Not bad.You’re a natural at machinations.”
“No one will remark on siblings traveling together and…” Her throat dried.“We can visit one another’s bedchambers.”
“Well, well, well.”He folded his hands behind his head.“I hadn’t thought to be invited to your bed, but I accept.”
“Not to my bed, Chester.To my fire.”
“Same thing?”
“Not at all.We need a flame to practice alchemy.Nothing more.Do you understand?”
He shrugged, sighed loudly.“I suppose.”
“Not suppose.Swear it.Swear you won’t try to… try to…”
“Seduce you?”
“Yes, that.Swear to me you’ll behave like a gentleman, foreign concept though I know it is for you.”
“I could swear it, and you wouldn’t believe me.”
True.But… “You told me about Stone, about spying on me for him.I take that as an offering of peace.You didn’t have to tell me that.Thank you.In exchange for that truth, Chester, I’ll trust your word, should you give it now that you will not try to?—”
“Seduce you?”
“You enjoy saying that far too much, I fear.”
He laughed.“I give you my word, Sybil Grant.I will not try to seduce you.But could you try to call me Apollo?”He shivered.“I truly cannot stand Chester.”
“When I’m not calling you Hesperus, I’ll try.”
“Excellent.”He held out a hand.“Truce?”
She clasped it.“Truce.”
“This is going to be an excellent partnership.”
She hoped so.Because it was several other things—mad, ill-advised, and ruinous.But if he was right, and they could learn from one another…
Together, we can make a whole alchemist.
Then it would be worth all that and more.
8
DELUSIONAL RABBIT
Apollo was glad to see the gown go.He’d not been wearing an actual corset, of course, but for some reason the sight of his waist pinched in had made it feel as if he couldn’t breathe.
He’d been glamoured before.His grandfather had enjoyed tweaking his appearance on occasion—giving him a longer nose and a receding hair line.The old man hadnotbeen amusing, and Apollo often wondered, at the very end, when he felt the talent slipping from his body with his final breath, if he’d known it would go to Diana and not to Apollo.
It hadn’t been a conscious choice, that much Apollo knew for certain.There was no choice in inheriting.It followed the male line without fault.
Except for Apollo.
The coach wheels crunched over the gravel spread across the Alconbury inn yard, and even though the sun had long since begun to dip in the sky, Apollo still wore his tinted spectacles, which he’d donned at the sun’s zenith.
