The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (32 page)

Emily blushed scarlet as she stood, stammering as she tried to find a safe answer. “She… She is… She’s tired.”

Mr. Fielding didn’t seem to believe her story, but neither did he contradict her. “Stephen will see you home, then.” He inclined his head once more, then made a smart bow. “Good day, Miss Elliott,” he said, and he was gone.

For several minutes, Emily stood dazed beside Stephen, watching Mr. Fielding go.

“He’s very gallant,” she said a little faintly.

Stephen made a strangled sort of grunt. He looked displeased.

Emily didn’t know what to make of that. She thought of her ramblings about Alan, felt ashamed, and kept talking to cover her confusion. “He could be a litigator. I imagine he’s a very good equerry.”

If anything, this seemed to ruffle Stephen further. “He
is
a molly, you know.” Emily stepped back from him, shocked not at what he said but the malice with which he said it. He had at least the decency to blush. “I only meant,” he said a little meekly, “that you shouldn’t get ideas.”

Emily had to open and close her mouth a few times before she could actually speak. “Is that what you think?” she managed. “That I am so desperate for affection that I plot to take every man to my bed who is remotely kind to me?” Again an image of Alan smiling and bowing over her hand appeared in her mind.
Yes, apparently that is all it takes
. Emily crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “Well,
you
should be safe, at least,” she said and turned on her heel.

“Emily, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, hurrying after her.

Emily said nothing and walked faster. She didn’t want to run from him. She wanted to weep again. She knew he was jealous of Mr. Fielding, which was why he had been rude; the thought frightened her as much as it excited her.

Chase me
, she begged him silently as she ducked down an alley behind the millinery shop.
Chase me so that this time I can be sure.

“Emily,” he called after her, but she kept walking. She heard his feet crunching hurriedly on the gravel, and she smiled to herself.
Yes. Keep coming.

Then his footsteps stopped abruptly. “Emily,” he said again, but in a very different tone. He sounded almost strangled. “
Emily
.”

She turned around. And her heart leaped into her throat.

Stephen was frozen in the middle of the narrow passage, his eyes wide and fixed on Emily. The alchemist stood beside him, a knife at Stephen’s belly.

“Hello again, Miss Emily,” he said cordially. He nudged the knife at Stephen’s middle, and Stephen gurgled but didn’t move. “He’s under a spell, a more formal one this time, so don’t get any ideas such as the pair of you had at the cottage. The knife is more to impress you than anything else. Have you ever watched someone cut on a man who can’t move? I assure you, it’s quite something.”

“Stop,” Emily whispered, feeling sick. “Let him go! He’s nothing to you.”

“Not true,” Smith said in the same easy tones. “He is a Perry, I’ve come to learn. His blood is of great interest to me.” He lifted the knife and slid it against the side of Stephen’s frozen cheek, the tip grazing dangerously near his eye.

Stephen whimpered. He turned red with struggle as he fought to use his mouth. “Run.”

“He can’t hurt me,” Emily said, almost sobbing. “Madeline laid a charm—” She clamped a hand on her mouth as she watched Smith draw a thin red line against Stephen’s cheek. “Stop!”

“No,” Smith said and deepened the cut.

Emily turned around to the street, to the houses, searching for faces. “Help!” she cried. She saw a man in the second story of a house two doors down, but when he caught Emily watching him, he ducked. Emily started to sob. “Help!” she cried. “
Help! Help! Help me
!”

A rush of wind came from the northeast, rippling the curtains in the windows and sending a stray bin tumbling over. As the wind died, seven figures appeared, forming a circle around Emily, Stephen, and Martin Smith.

Stephen’s eyes flickered over the ghosts, but Smith did not seem to notice them. The ghosts saw him, though. They stared at him, and Emily saw darkness in their faces.

“Help Stephen, please,” she whispered.

Smith looked amused. “To whom are you pleading?”

The ghosts rose, and as one, they rushed him.

They parted like water around Emily and Stephen, but they hit Smith in unison and squarely in his center, then vanished again. He startled, dropped his knife, and staggered back as the ghosts passed through him again. He swung his head around toward Emily, looking at her with dizzy confusion. Emily didn’t think. She grabbed the fallen bin and swung it at Smith’s head, hitting him squarely in the center of his face. He bounced against the wall, smacking his head hard; his eyes rolled back into his head, and he slid into a heap on the ground. Stephen, however, stayed frozen.

Emily turned to the fallen alchemist. There was no pin on Stephen, and the alchemist had not used stones. It was some kind of stronger spell. It felt like a blood spell, in fact. It felt like a spell intensified by magical blood—Charles’s blood, most likely. Or maybe it was something else. Emily didn’t know, and she couldn’t know for sure, which meant she didn’t know how to stop him without possibly hurting Stephen.

“Help,” she whispered, the word breaking on a sob.

The world went strangely soft, and Emily felt herself go quiet. In a spell of her own, she turned toward the ghosts, who were hovering around her. One of them held out its hands, and in that ghostly space a knife formed, as phantom as its host. The wraith nodded at the knife, and then at Smith.

They wanted her to use a knife on Smith.

Not letting herself pause lest she come to her senses, Emily drew a deep, careful breath and picked up the alchemist’s knife. She reared back.

She drove the blade into the alchemist’s shoulder.

It cut through muscle and flesh, and she felt it, felt every slice, and she kept pushing, on and on until she felt it hit bone. She left it there, then stood, shaking, and turned away from him, praying to the Goddess that it had worked.

Stephen coughed, then staggered forward. Emily grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the street.

“We have to leave.” She pulled him on faster, but she glanced over her shoulder at his cheek and began to falter.

“I’m all right,” he said, but he sounded shaken. He touched his cheek gingerly as they ran, then winced and quickly lowered his hand.

Emily fished in her pocket and produced a handkerchief. “Here,” she said, collecting herself and pressing it into his hand. “Hold this to it. I’ll—I’ll care for it when we get to the cottage.”

Stephen nodded in the direction of the inn as he pressed the lacy linen over his wound. “Fielding will have something waiting at the inn, mark my words.”

Mr. Fielding did indeed have a carriage waiting, a small curricle; they hurried into it, and Emily took the reins. She snapped them and aimed the team out of town.

They drove in silence. When they reached the cottage, Emily let the team stand in the yard and ushered Stephen inside. She paused over the broken mirror in the foyer, then glanced worriedly up the stairs, wondering if she should go and check on her sister. Then she caught sight of Stephen’s cut, decided she could only deal with one crisis at a time, and led him back to the kitchen. She directed him to a stool as she busied herself with gathering supplies.

“It will need stitches,” she warned him. “But mine are very close. There should be only the barest trace of a scar.” She tried to smile. “You can use it as a war story with the ladies.”

He lowered the handkerchief. The cut was angry and still seeping, but if it pained him, he ignored it. He was looking directly at her.

“Emily, I’m sorry for being so clumsy.” His voice was soft and sad. “I’m sorry for saying such a stupid thing and for getting myself caught and for making you so upset.”

“You need to wear a charm,” she said, trying to be brusque, but her voice kept breaking.
Smith could have killed him. He could have sliced Stephen all over and made me watch
. She touched his shoulder, her hand sliding a little onto his back in a quietly affectionate gesture. When he winced and pulled away, she blushed, but he reached up and caught her hand.

“No, I like your touch. It’s just—I have…bruises. I…fell and hurt my back.”

Emily tried to move behind him. “I can help—”

He cut her off and pulled her back in front of him. “It’s fine.” He set aside the bloody handkerchief and closed his other hand over hers as well. “I don’t think you throw yourself at any man who is kind to you. I didn’t mean that at all. I was being stupid. Jealous.
I
didn’t save you.
He
did. And then—” He broke off and turned his face to the side, hiding the scar as he looked away in shame.

“I don’t care about that,” Emily whispered. She closed her hand over their joined ones and squeezed. “I’m making you a charm myself. A very strong one. And you are to never take it off.”

He turned his face back to hers, abashed. “Yes, ma’am.”

She reached up and touched his face, tracing the line of his wound. “He could have hurt you so badly.”

“Your ghost friends were handy in a tight spot.” He reached up and closed his hand over her wrist. “I hope I have a chance to thank them, or that you will convey my thanks for me.”

“I’ve never seen them that far away from the abbey before. And I didn’t mean to call them.” She traced his cheek, dragging his hand along with hers. “I just didn’t know what to do. I felt so helpless just standing there, but I didn’t know how to stop him.”

“You are not helpless.” He caught her hand and twined their fingers. His face darkened, but in a good way, and Emily felt her insides go soft and pliant as his eyes stared into hers.

“I want to kiss you, Emily.”

Emily swayed slightly, and she forgot to breathe.

He leaned forward tentatively, and then, very gently, he brushed his mouth against hers.

Soft
. Emily shut her eyes and let her head fall forward toward his as his hand moved tentatively up the slope of her arm and his lips moved against hers.
His lips are soft and sweet
. Her brain remembered, finally, that she did require air to continue living, and when she opened her mouth and tried to suck it in, she found she drew him in as well. His mouth opened over hers, and her entire spine tingled, sending shivers down her arms as she amended her assessment.
Soft, sweet, and wet
. He made a low sound in his throat that both excited and frightened Emily, but when he drew her forward onto his lap and took her more completely into his embrace, she wasn’t scared at all. Her head was spinning, and all her senses were exploding, but it felt good and soft and safe, even as it was exhilarating too. The more he deepened the kiss, the more she wanted to give to him. Then her hand strayed against his face and touched the wet stickiness of his blood. She stilled, then broke the kiss gently as she drew back.

“I need to tend to you,” she whispered, her eyes still closed, her lips still resting against his.

He laughed softly, then lightly ran his hand over her hair. “You are not helpless, Emily Elliott. You are anything but.” He cupped his palm gently against the side of her face, and he kissed her one last time. “And I am grateful that you keep showing up to save me. I only wish I could find some way to return the favor instead of being more trouble.”

Emily thought of how light she felt whenever she saw him, of how Alan seemed to pale in comparison when Stephen was near. She thought of how much she enjoyed being with him, even when he was being thickheaded or rude.

“You aren’t any trouble,” she said quietly, then slid from his lap and reached for her basin and sponge.

* * *

From the second floor of the inn, Charles Perry watched.

For almost a month now, it was all he had done: watch. When Smith wasn’t here, he stood at the window and watched, and when Smith was, he left his body and watched that happen too. Sometimes he leaned against the wall and simply marveled at his own stupidity.
Not a scratch on you
. That’s what Smith had promised, and oh yes, he kept it. He never so much as grazed a fingernail against Charles. And yet he had all the magic blood he needed, didn’t he, because blood didn’t need a cut to leave his body. It came through his eyes and his ears and his nose and his mouth and his—

At the window, Charles shuddered and made himself think of something else.

And as had become his habit, when he needed to distract himself from what Smith was doing to him, he wrapped himself in the memory of making love to Timothy Fielding in the tower of the abbey. The Goddess had not come to him in any visions since that first time back with Smith, not in dream or delusion, but Charles didn’t really mind, because memories of the Catalian’s body were more than enough to ease his pain. He remembered the way Timothy had yielded to him. Either he was a really, really fucking good concubine, or he had reveled in that release as much as Charles had. But Charles didn’t just remember the sex. He remembered the way Timothy had surrendered on the couch, the way he’d been so prickly and determined and then had given over to Charles’s seduction. It wasn’t the power over the Catalian that Charles loved; it was the surrender, the trust he’d won. It was headier than any drug he’d ever taken.

He could only imagine what it would be like to come inside that man, or to have that man come inside of him. He ached for it in a way he’d ached for nothing else, promising that this and only this was the reason he was alive, that if he coupled with Timothy Fielding, nothing else would ever matter again. Charles suspected this was just his desperation speaking. Still, it was a very lovely desperation, and so he didn’t discourage it.

Sometimes he saw Timothy in the village street, and those were the best moments of watching, because he could play the memories
and
enjoy the visual of the actual man all at once. The inn was a bit off the main street, away from the shops and houses, but all the roads came through here, and when Timothy came in from the abbey, he passed by the inn and Charles could see him. The Catalian looked worried, Timothy thought. Sometimes Charles even fancied his brother’s equerry was looking for him, for Charles. Sometimes Charles pretended Timothy was coming to rescue him. He knew it couldn’t work. The walls of their room were painted with Charles’s blood, and the blood itself had been seeped in Smith’s enchantments. Not even the Goddess herself could find them here now. The only thing there was to do was sit here and wait and watch, locked behind the prison of Smith’s spells.