Page 136 of Immortal Rose

“You understand nothing,” he ground out.

“I understand that you’ve let yourself become unfocused,” Reddy challenged. “You were always the first to remind me of Foxcourt’s favorite line: No distractions, no mistakes. Kingdom before all. Am I supposed to stand back and say nothing while I watch you unravel the vow we made to him?”

But, of course, the grievance ran deeper than that: in taking a wife, however fleetingly, Hugh was straying from the path both swore they would follow, forgoing a more traditional life. The vow they’d made to Foxcourt, and to Albion, to dedicate their hearts only to the kingdom. Now, he had abandoned Reddy to it. They were going to have to address it eventually—grit their teeth and wade through emotional depths no man wished to confront.

Perhaps he’d die before then, Hugh thought hopefully.

“Damn it, man, don’t make me be the responsible one. You know I despise it.” Reddy shook his head. “Keyes says you aren’t sleeping.”

Hugh ran a hand back through his sweat-damp hair. “I don’t have time to sleep.”

And whenever he tried, she was there.

It had begun innocuously enough. A flash of her smiling at him from across the coach just before waking. Lifting a bottle of oil to her prim little nose and inhaling with utter delight. Then, less innocuously: Cast in the pub’s firelight, smiling smugly at her victory. The memory of her body pressed against his in the alley. How soft her skin had felt beneath his lips.

And now: Screaming. Begging for him to kill her. The blood dripping from her nose, her mouth; weeping from her terrified eyes. That thought, screaming through him like an unholy blaze, filling his mind with snow and blood and terror: Not again, not her—

Hugh pinched the bridge of his nose, waiting for the band of pressure around his chest to ease. Damn Reddy. Damn himself.

“You’re being careless,” Reddy continued. “Do you know how much I had to pay the gossip sheets to twist the news of your marriage into something other than a wicked seductress enchanting you with her perfumes?”

Less than the “donation” Hugh had paid the young priest and Saint Mere’s Church to swallow his tongue about what had happened after the ceremony, certainly. Hugh had enjoyed tossing all the gossip rags into the fire that morning before Viola had come down for breakfast, but he was haunted by one of them, how close the writer had come to the truth: He is half mad with longing for his new bride and desperate for her company. There was no perfume needed to encourage the ardentness of the E of F’s affections, for once he met her it is said he knew he was gazing upon his own heart. He swears her innocence.

Hugh scowled, starting up the stairs again. “Could you have possibly been less maudlin? It’s not even in line with the blundering rakehell caricature you’ve invented for me.”

Reddy followed him, undaunted. “Does threatening to scoop out a jeweler’s intestines with a spoon unless he finished making a special quizzing glass in an hour line up with that caricature?”

Hugh’s scowl deepened. That had been perfectly reasonable. “She needed it for her work.”

“And did she also need you to disappear half of Fairgate’s guards and its governor?”

Hugh would not stand for that one. “They were abusing the prisoners. That goes against all moral decency and the law.”

“It’s a prison, Fox,” Reddy said. “What did you think would happen when you sent her there?”

“I—” Hugh caught the words before they exploded from him. “I thought she would be . . . left to think about her situation.”

No, that wasn’t true. Hugh knew what happened in Fairgate and the other prisons; he had damned enough souls to their dark hells, and he had taken the most satisfying pleasure in doing so. But those had been criminals, traitors, murderers, and, on occasion, people he meant to scare into giving up their secrets. He had never had cause to question the morality of it, because Albion’s safety had always justified it.

Until now.

The absolute last thing he needed was to grow a conscience right when it was least convenient. As Uncle Giles had said, The kingdom does not need more heroes—it needs shadows willing to kill their souls so that others might live.

“The guards and prison governor could have revealed her stay there,” Hugh insisted. “You make it sound as though I permanently solved the issue.”

He’d meted out only the sort of punishment that had been given to her, then sent them fleeing for their lives. Really, the one odious guard only had a few weeks left, and those days would be far more painful than any end Hugh could have delivered to the pig.

“And retrieving her mother’s portrait?” Reddy pressed. “Stalking the dodgiest streets in all of Linden to find an old doxy? Infuriating the prime minister? Sending the boys back into the Brickbats?”

“Are you really criticizing me for caring about children being abducted?”

“I wasn’t aware we did anything out of the kindness of our hearts—in fact, I specifically remember us being trained not to,” Reddy said. “And I notice you did not attempt to dispute the first three examples.”

Hugh’s scowl deepened. “I am making amends.”

“And did any of it make you feel less guilty about what you did to her?” Reddy pressed. “Did it actually solve any of the issues we’re facing?”

Hugh’s heart twisted violently in his chest. “No.”