Page 173 of Immortal Rose

“As I assume you already know, I did not poison him at all.”

“And yet, you resisted all of my attempts to bring you here,” he said, “to bring you under my protection.”

Hugh’s eyes narrowed.

“Is that what it was?” Viola shot back. “I might have called it kidnapping.”

“I offered you the life of the woman who dared to poison you, didn’t I?” Greystone said.

“You offered a gruesome token of your own power,” she said.

“I’m glad you saw it as such,” Greystone continued. “From the moment I knew you existed, I have only desired to protect you, to keep you away from Rosebourne and his darkness. You wish to believe I am the villain, but you have impugned the wrong man.”

“Actually, I’ve hated you both quite equally, and not without good reason,” Viola said. “I have never needed or wanted whatever passes for your idea of ‘protection.’”

“And yet, here you are.” Greystone waved a dismissive hand. “Am I to take it that you need the nectar of the flowering Afallach to save the King and claim that inheritance? Do I have the right of it?”

“You do,” Viola said. “And as I have never, and will never, ask anything else from you, I expect that this should not be too much of a hardship.”

“On the contrary,” Greystone said with a tsk. “I’ve spent years hunting down the nectar. I could not possibly let it go as a mere favor.”

Viola straightened at that, and Hugh knew her temper was very close to catching. Bloody hell. Hugh’s thoughts raced, trying to summon what else they might barter with. A piece of information, a promise to look the other way on importations . . .

“Why?” Viola asked. “Because you need it yourself?”

The words seemed to cleave the room in two. The man went very, very still. Hugh stepped closer to Viola’s chair, subtly eyeing the desk for anything he might be able to lunge for.

“Your scent is strange,” Viola told him. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever encountered. Not poison, not illness . . . something else.”

Hugh’s brows rose. What else could it possibly be?

“Is that the reason for all of this?” She gestured to the fairy relics displayed on the shelves around them. “Is it something to do with fairy magic?”

The man said nothing. A single brow arched, curtailing any further line of inquiry.

“You called this a matter of business,” Greystone said. “Make me an offer.”

“Certainly,” Viola said, and there was a faint metallic click. “How is this for an opening bid? You give us the nectar and allow us to leave unharmed, and I don’t shoot you in the heart.”

Hugh looked down to find that Viola had, seemingly out of thin air, procured a pistol. She braced her elbow on her chair’s armrest, leveling the barrel at her father with a pleasant smile, as if it were merely a thing Greystones did to each other. A customary greeting.

Because this—her sharper edges that had always beckoned to his love of danger—this was all Greystone, not Rosebourne, as he’d assumed.

“It’s rather expected to store a pistol beneath your desk,” she said sweetly. “Next time, you might pay more mind to whether or not your guest is within reach.”

Greystone let out a laugh of astonishment and delight—a true laugh, which made it even more unsettling. “I could swat that gun’s bullet away like a fly.”

“Shall we try?” Viola asked brightly, and if it were possible, Hugh was more aroused than he’d been downstairs.

Greystone leaned back against his chair, openly appraising Viola as one might study a piece of art he wished to purchase. Hugh’s hackles rose.

“I must say,” Greystone began, “I never expected to have a child marry into the aristocracy. You’ve done quite well for yourself, haven’t you?”

“I might have done better still, had my mother chosen a man with a soul to be my father,” she said flatly.

Hugh’s hands tightened around the back of Viola’s chair, nudging her shoulder with a warning finger. As far as negotiations went, Hugh had experienced worse, but not by much.

“And yet, for all you have the look of your wretched grandsire and your mother’s fine way of speaking,” Greystone began, steepling his fingers, “you’ve more of me than you’d care to admit.”