Page 108 of The Duchess Curse

Berkley speared him with a critical eye. “She’d tell you to lie down.”

“She can tell me when she returns.” This was not how he’d hoped to wake up after giving her his heart. He’d wanted to hold her longer, plan more, reassure her the curse wasn’t a worry. Not even as an inherited trick of the blood. He had proof—a family tree fertilized in the riches of arranged marriages.

But she was gone, and now he was worried. At least Ned seemed to have gone with her.

“She has returned,” Berkley said. “I just saw that carriage pull in front of the house. I came to tell you⁠—”

Bran might have sent Berkley off center as he swept past him and into the hallway. He ran down the stairs, every step a painful jolt to his shoulder. He threw open the front door and stood on the street in front of his house without a shirt as the door to the carriage opened.

And Madame Poppy stepped down.

Ned grasped her wrists, held them tightly together and shoved her toward Bran.

“What the hell is this?” Bran demanded. “What is she doing here?”

“Found her in the potion shop at Finsbury. That’s where the duchess had me take her, and I knew she was in there safe, I swear I did, because I could see her moving through the windows. Then she came out when it started getting dark, and she locked the door, and that’s when I realized it weren’t her. Hands not the right shape and size, even in her own gloves. She didn’t have her walking stick, neither.”

Madame Poppy grinned, shrugged. “I’m a potion brewer, not an actress. Though it is a shame the deception did not last longer.”

“Where is my wife?” Bran growled.

Madame Poppy was riveted by the hole in his bare shoulder. He’d realized when he’d woken that he didn’t know how to dress it, but Guin wasn’t there to tell him, so he’d left it bare. The young woman nodded at the wound.

“Sorry ’bout that.”

Understanding happened in an instant. “You hired the men who attacked us.” The potion-treated bullets, the red eyes. The poisoned letters. The men of the ton had stopped threatening Guin, but this woman was not bound by any respect for a class system that knocked her to the bottom rung. She’d continued.

“Yes, but I promise not to do it again.”

“Take her inside,” Bran ordered.

“You could be more polite about it,” she said. “Your wife was.”

Bran froze. “What have you done with her?”

“Nothing. It’s more what she’s done with me.” Madame Poppy yanked her wrists out of Ned’s hands and walked into the house on her own. She gasped, and when Bran heard the slapping feet of a running woman across the parquet of his entryway, he ran too.

He caught up with her in the conservatory. She was fast, and he was wounded, and she was hopping about like a child on Christmas morning.

“Oh, it’s exquisite! Everything a woman like me could want!”

“Sit!” Bran roared. “Now!”

She sat, plopped herself right up on top of the worktable and swung her legs. “You don’t have to yell.”

Bran took a breath. Then two more. “Where is my wife?”

“She didn’t say where she was going. But she did give me an extensive list of rules. I’m first and foremost to take care of her shop as its new proprietress. Secondly, I’m not to rename the shop, and I suppose that’s for the best. She has cultivated a mystique that will benefit me, and Lady Guinevere possesses more gravitas than Madame Poppy. But then there’s all the things I cannot do, and they are rather annoying. I’m not allowed to lie, cheat, murder, hire mercenaries to murder, ruin her good name, dabble in anything containing opium—” She rolled her eyes. “There’s more, but I’m exhausted. She also told me I’m to hire a guard and come to you should I be in any truly grave or legal danger. It feels good to finally have friends in high places.”

He didn’t know what any of that was about. Or what it meant. Right now, he didn’t care. “Where the hell is she though?”

“She didn’t tell me where she was going. Just told me to stay inside the shop until nightfall—another rule—then left through the roof.”

“Fucking Jupiter.”

“Ooooh. I like you. Much better than the stuffy fellow.”

“You’re staying here.” He pointed at her then yelled, “Hesperus! Hesperus!”