Page 24 of The Duchess Curse

“And? It’s always warm in here. You won’t have to worry about the chill. There’re tables. Big ones. And bowls and”—he blew out a heavy breath and looked at the ceiling—“everything you need.”

She stopped spinning and faced him. He leaned against one pillar, ankles crossed, arms crossed, her own brain crossing over and over and tangling in knots.

“It’s yours. This whole room. Everything in it.”

She saw his game now. “If?”

“We remain here for the tenure of your assignment with the Crown.”

“Ahh. There it is.” The golden chain. But what option did she have but to slip it around her waist, turn the key in the lock. If she wanted to get rid of her husband, she had to produce a potion, and in order to do that, she needed space, equipment, plants, everything so conveniently right here. “I wonder you did not try this sooner. It could have saved you a night on the cold floor.”

“I forgot. We’re staying?”

“Artemis comes with me.”

“Naturally.” Beneath the glamour, his voice had the wide openness of a grin. “I’ll gather her. And your other things.” He stepped into the shadowed hallway, hesitated, looked at her over his shoulder. “Don’t leave without me.”

She gasped. “Me? Leave without you? Never.”

His laughter echoed as he left her alone in the warm glass world.

She sank to the floor in the middle of some lilies and inhaled the fresh scent of soil and sunshine. This room had not been here when she’d left. And he’d not had time to construct it since yesterday. Not even since the shop burned down. This well-equipped conservatory had been here for years. Waiting for her.

She pressed her palms to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. How odd her heart puttered to such a staid, steady rhythm. It was the logical choice to remain here, to take advantage of the fine facilities.

And if she feared for the man who’d built her a conservatory and stocked it well, even in February, she’d simply do her best to keep her heart buried, deep as a bulb in winter.

6

EXTINGUISH ALL THE LIGHTS

The next morning, Bran found Guin in the conservatory, wrist-deep in soil. He’d spent the night in his bed but not sleeping. He’d sunk deep into that liminal space he’d been taught to find as a boy. Not sleeping, not awake. The body could rest, the mind could rejuvenate, but his senses were alert. He belonged there, in that place between waking and dreaming, all Second Shadows thrived walking the line between contraries.

And Bran currently walked the line between alert and arousal. In her potion shop, she’d been his employer, he her hired muscle.

But the danger had been in the kissing, not the killing. If he’d taken her to bed—as she’d asked him to do once—she might have recognized him. They’d only fucked once, a ducal consummation, but it could have been enough to unravel his deception. So he’d kept his distance, denied he even possessed a cock (or a wife to wield it with) and lived chaste as a monk.

But his wife was back, and he was stuck as Braxton, and kissing her wouldn’t reveal the ruse.

He could kiss her.

He rearranged himself in his trousers before striding through the vines and leaves and clearing his throat. “I assume you have no intention of staying put today.”

“Hmm?” She glanced over her shoulder then back at the soil she was tilling with her hands. “Oh, no. Not at all. I assume you insist on shadowing me.” She laughed. “Shadowing me. Do you lot ever make puns about yourselves?”

“Not usually, no.”

“Too serious for such stuff?”

“Shadows are serious stuff.”

“Do you… actually use shadows? I thought it a metaphor.” She packed the soil then wiped her hands on a cloth and faced him.

“We do.”

She scratched her chin, and it left a streak of dirt across it. “Fascinating. I knew someone once, and he could… but I always thought it a trick of the light. He fought incredibly well in the dark, in the shadows.”

He swiped his thumb across her chin, clearing away the dirt and giving him a taste of the silk of her skin.