Page 17 of The Duchess Curse

He had to look. Just a glimpse over his shoulder, discovering her head tilted to the side. A thought was forming in that constantly whirring brain, and it felt like she could see right through his glamour.

“Look at Artemis,” she finally said, “curled up on your shoulder. You make quite the cozy pair.”

He’d forgotten the damn bird. He stroked a finger down one wing. “She… senses a friend.” Not a lie.

“Sometimes even the more intelligent of creatures make mistakes.”

“Like you?”

She blinked, and it was like a door slamming in his face. She could hide herself well without a glamour. She added the book for good measure, opening it to the contents and running a finger down the page. “Ah, yes. Plants that require full sunlight. Might be something useful there.” She flipped through the pages, dismissing him.

Trying to. He leaned a shoulder against the door—the better to guard the only entrance—and crossed his arms—the better to show she could not ruffle him. “Our marriage was your mistake, was it not? That’s what you think.”

She flipped through the pages much more quickly than she could read them. She did not look up.

In all his years at her side as Bran, as his fucking self, he’d never been tempted to ask about her husband. Braxton always seemed a world away, a different life, and he’d not wanted to rip up what was good about Bran’s life—the freedom, the action, the woman—by tossing about a name that would turn Guin to stone. Yes, he had to slip on the glamour, attend the Lords, speak in parliament, and court those who might support his causes, but that chained life always seemed easier, the fit of it a bit better, when he could slip it off and enter the potion shop in Finsbury Square. He’d been more master there than in Mayfair where illusion ruled. In Mayfair, a name was master, a façade, not a man.

“Say it, Guin. You wish you hadn’t married me.” As long as he was the duke, he might as well get answers for yearslong mysteries.

“You were my parents’ choice.” She turned another page. And another. Too quickly still.

“You were… are… still in love with your first husband.”

She snapped the book shut. “He was their choice, too.”

“But you didn’t run from him.”

“Why do you care?”

He lifted a shoulder, dropped it. “Call me a cat. I’m curious.”

“It changes nothing. Marriage for women like me is a means of survival. I didn’t wish to merely survive any longer. I wished to live.”

“I would have let you live.” And kept her in his bed. That one night… Fucking Jupiter, that memory wouldn’t help the situation in his trousers.

“Yes.” She stood and strode for the sideboard, the plants and bowls and pestles. “Well.”

“That’s your answer?”

She pinched off a leaf of some long-tendrilled plant. He never could learn all their names and applications. She picked up a pouch and spilled its contents—seeds—into a bowl.

He pushed off the door, yanked it open. “I’m going to speak with Ned and Grant.” She didn’t even look up from her work. “You stay here.”

That got her attention. She glared over her shoulder. “I shall do as I please.”

“Not today, Lady G.” He shooed Artemis from his shoulder, and she flew to Guin. He shut the door behind him with a wince. Not because it reverberated in the thin walls, though it did. Because Braxton had never called her Lady G before. But Bran had.

His accent, his mannerisms, his little quirks she was so damn acquainted with. He needed to be careful. He’d not had to been so careful four years earlier when he’d stepped into her office to interview as her guard. No glamour, no pretense. He’d been himself alone. Brandon Lennox. To her only and always simply Bran.

The small shop in Finsbury Square was neat and busy, and the maid wearing yellow and white with a gold chatelain swinging at her waist led him to the very back and knocked on double doors.

“Lady Guinevere,” she called, “your next interview has arrived.”

“Come in.” The words muffled but confident.

The maid pushed through the doors, and he trailed behind her, feeling free without his glamour. He paused in the doorway, ready to flee. Gabriella wouldn’t recognize him. She couldn’t. He’d always worn his glamour, keeping his grandfather and uncles and cousins and father and brother alive in at least that small way. She had no idea what he truly looked like.

And now she looked her fill, studying him from the top of his head to his booted feet.