Page 7 of The Duchess Curse

A feminine chuckle. A masculine curse. The rustling of clothing.

“Get the hell out!” Chester bellowed.

“Pull up your trousers,” Bran demanded. He’d decided to seek out this scoundrel, and he wasn’t about to back down because of a little peek of bare arse. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“This is my shop. Leave.”

Bran glued his feet to the floor. “If you wanted privacy, you should have locked the door.”

A small gasp. “You didn’t lock the door?” the woman asked. Miss Sybil Grant. No, not Grant anymore. She’d wed the scoundrel. Mrs. Sybil Chester now.

“Thought I did,” Chester mumbled.

“Are you decent?” Bran asked.

“Yes,” Mrs. Chester said at the same time her husband said, “Turn around and find out.”

Bran did turn, just in time to see the wife slap her husband on the arm and the husband catch her chin and kiss her hard.

“Go away,” Chester said against his wife’s lips. “I’m busy. Can’t you see?”

“How in heaven’s name do you stay in business with these sorts of practices?”

“Because I’m the best. But if you don’t leave, I’ll ban you, and you’ll spend the rest of your life with subpar plants. It would serve you right.”

Bran didn’t even flinch from his spot.

With a troubled sigh, Chester lifted from his wife’s mouth to glower at Bran. “Who are you?”

That’s what he’d come here to tell the man. “I should like to speak privately.”

Chester’s jaw hardened, but his wife patted his shoulder, kissed his cheek.

“I was on my way to Bloomsbury anyway. I’ll return this afternoon.”

Chester watched his wife leave then turned his steely gaze on Bran. “I hope whoever you are and whatever you want of me is worth my currently painful predicament. I’m going to have to take care of the cockstand on my own now. And I’d prefer her pretty hand to alleviate the situation. Now, what do you want?” He rounded Bran and strode out into his shop, snapping up a mister as he coasted by a table.

Bran cleared his throat. “I need your help, fire eater.”

A slight hitch interrupted Chester’s stride, a hesitation mid step before he continued down the aisle, stopping at a clump of flowers to spray a fine mist of water over them. “Ah. I see. You’re mad.” He glanced over his shoulder. “And I thought you were transcendent. But then those two sometimes go hand in hand.”

“I’m not mad.” Bran smoothed the folds of his greatcoat, still slung across his arm. If only he could divest himself of his glamour so easily. “And I need your help.”

Chester continued spraying the plants, checking the soil, testing the waxy softness of each leaf. “With?”

“I know what you can do. I saw it. The night of the fire at Lady Guinevere’s potion shop.”

Chester froze, the mister poised over a squat plant with spiky limbs.

Bran pressed forward. “I saw you stop the fire, swallow it. I saw you take all that heat and light into yourself and snuff it out entirely.”

Chester’s hand fell to the table, and he pressed both palms into the smooth surface. “You are mad. I know damn well you weren’t there that night. I would have seen you. A duke in the middle of a burning potion shop is memorable.”

“That’s because I didn’t look like this then.”

Chester swung around. “Glamoured?”

Bran nodded then shook his head. “I didn’t start out that way. I began the evening as myself. I ended like this.” He ran a hand down the length of his body. “And I want out.”