Damn all men!
With nothing better to do other than curse those of the masculine persuasion, she flipped through the notebook once more.To spite those men, just to spite them, she would figure out how to make this device—whatever it was—work perfectly.
But she would be damned herself if she told them how.
4
EAST AND WEST
Apollo was damned.A man couldn’t do the things he’d done and find heaven after he shuffled off this mortal coil.The only heaven for him was one he crafted right here on earth.
So he couldn’t free the Grant chit.
Or so he told himself as he left the museum.Locked in the dungeon, Miss Grant kept Stone’s secrets, well, secret.She couldn’t rat him out.Couldn’t rat Apollo out either, for not helping her.And positioned as he was between a rock and a hard place—a Stone and a Temple, ha!—he had to be careful.
Stone.A true villain, apparently, proficient in machinations, dastardly deeds, and maiden-napping.Made him much more fascinating than before.He’d never have thought the man had it in him.
In the museum’s bustling courtyard, Apollo blinked several times, his dark-accustomed eyes screaming in the sinking sun.No idea what time it was.Despite the heat, he pulled the collar of his greatcoat up high and slipped on his tinted glasses, turning the early-evening world a dark green.
He headed west.
He lived east, only a short walk from the museum, but he headed west, where his feet wanted to go, where they belonged.
Used to.
Grosvenor Square, the city home of the Marquess of Fordham.Marchionessof Fordham now, though she preferred the small terrace home she shared with her husband in Bloomsbury.
He turned the corner, and there it was—his old home, his old life.White marble rising heavenward, clean glass windows and plush velvet curtains, wrought iron gates with no rust.Four huge mansions occupied the square, three of which were glamoured.Golden swirls wrapped the white marble walls and columns, glinting in the setting sun.The windows glowed a rainbow of colors that changed with the shifting light.
The fourth house had once looked like the others—wrapped in gold and rainbows, glamours to show the world where power slept each night and broke its fast each morning.When his grandfather had been alive, it, too, had been glorious and glamoured.But Diana didn’t believe in such frivolity, thought there were more useful occupations for her talent.
He wandered through the garden, trailing his fingers through the candles glamoured among the tree branches and bushes.They bobbed in the air like fairy orbs but possessed no substance.His fingers sent them scattering, only to have them reassemble before his eyes.
If he could only so easily reassemble his life.
Pointless, this self-pity.
Miss Grant had called him pathetic.She was right.
He rubbed his chest, just over his heart.The woman was still locked in a dungeon.Would Stone even remember to feed her?
Not his problem.
Carriage wheels slid across the street, the steel at their center smoothing over whatever rocks or potholes might jolt it about.Leaving the garden behind him, Apollo recognized the crest on the carriage’s door—the Fordham coat of arms.The moon in front of the sun, surrounded by stars that looked like the sparks of newly made or dissolving glamours.
A woman stepped out of the carriage wearing a huge straw bonnet, the sleeves of her gown making her as wide as three women standing side by side.One smacked the footman helping her down in the arm.The footman, wisely, did not react.
Strolling across the street, Apollo said, “Good evening, Mother.”
She froze, swung toward him, then started to cry right in the middle of the damn street.“A-poll-ooooo!”
“Shh.”He whisked her into the shadowed, narrow stairwell that descended to the servant’s entrance.“Shh.No more caterwauling.”
She tilted her face to the sky and sobbed, her bonnet falling off.Her blonde hair had more silver in it than last time he’d seen her, and the lines around her watery blue eyes were deeper.“L-look at youuuuuu!”
“Bloody hell.What’s wrong with me?”He tilted his hat back and took off the glasses, shoved them back into his greatcoat pocket.
“Y-you look like one of theeee?—”
