Page 10 of The Duchess Curse

It was. Some days he needed a mirror to remind him who he was. At least as Bran, with Guin, he could be himself. No need to change his appearance or hide the brogue. He could use the skills he’d trained in all his life before inheriting the dukedom. And Guin… she needed Bran. She only wanted to be rid of Braxton.

“For four years I’ve kept her safe, and now I have no idea where she is. I need this glamour gone, Chester. I’m stuck, and I need your help getting unstuck so I can get back to my position.”

“As a potion mistress’s bodyguard and not as a leader of British society.”

“Correct.” At Guin’s side in whatever little corner of the world she decreed her own.

“You are mad.”

Bran shrugged. The state of his mental capacities hardly mattered. “It happened during the fire. I was inside, at the hottest part of the conflagration. A beam fell. I was trapped, and that’s when I saw you come in. You swallowed the fire, extinguished the heat.”

Chester stopped pacing, scratched his cheek. “What do you think I can do? For your… situation?”

“There’s new rumblings about glamours, that they’re nothing but manipulations of light.”

Laughing, Chester dropped back into his chair. “Don’t let the little queen hear you say that. Talent is in the blood, my friend.” He drew an index finger down a blue vein in his forearm. “Passed from eldest son to eldest son forever into eternity. To say otherwise, particularly as a duke, is close to treason.”

“You don’t believe that. You can’t. I know what you can do.”

“What I can do?” He snorted. “I can do nothing. I dabble in dirt.”

“You eat light. I would guess you can even conjure a glamour if you liked.”

“Of course I cannot. My cousin inherited the talent, not me.” As he spoke, he gave a half grin and twirled one finger in the air. Light gathered around that digit and spun itself into a little moon, then a scattering of stars, then they fell like comets and the light dissipated once more. “See, no glamours here.”

“Do not play with me. I may look like a naïve boy, easily fooled, but I know hundreds of ways to kill a man. I need you to take this glamour away so I can go back to protecting Guin.”

Chester propped his elbows on the chair arms and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “What’s in it for me?”

“I let you live.”

“I do like living. Hmm.”

“If glamours are nothing but light, and you can conquer it, then take my light, Chester, and dissolve this damned glamour.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You’ll try.”

Silence, then a sigh, then: “I am a bit bored. Yes, I’ll try. But I need to think on it first, consult the sacred texts, et cetera, et cetera. Come back tomorrow.”

“I need it gone today.” Bran loomed over the other man’s chair.

And Chester stood slowly, pushing Bran backward. “I, too, have ways of killing men, some quite unexpected. Come back tomorrow.”

Bran left the office, pausing in the doorway. “I’ll return at noon tomorrow. Be ready.”

The plants seemed to recoil from him as he made his way through the shop and toward the entrance. The bell above the door sounded less irritating than when he’d arrived.

And he sensed the hand that grabbed his arm as he stepped out into the street a half second before it caught him.

Bran threw his arm upward and slammed the heel of his boot into the stranger’s foot. A curse, a whip-sharp movement behind him, then a blade appeared at Bran’s throat.

“What do you want?” Bran demanded.

“It’s not what I want,” the stranger said. “It’s what the queen wants. And that would be you.”

3