Page 94 of The Duchess Curse

Bran followed her inside and took up sentry in the old, familiar corner he always used to lurk in, and she slipped behind the desk, eyes brimming with tears. Everything smelled of sawdust and paint, but once all the plants and ingredients were moved in, it would smell of soil and sunshine.

She sat slowly, sweeping her hands across the silky smooth top of the desk, pausing at the far right corner where there was a little golden perch shaped like a tree branch for Artemis.

Finally, she looked at Bran, wiping a tear off her cheek. “How did you… Last time I was here it was an empty lot. Not even the remnants of the fire remained.”

“I own the building. Always have. Everyone in this row pays me rent, including you.” Another secret, she’d never forgive him for. Even though resentment had begun to feel like absolution.

“I wanted you to be somewhere safe,” he said. “I wanted to know you could trust your neighbors.”

“I hate you.” But she said it with a watery laugh and a wobbly smile.

“I know.” No smile on his lips. No laugh parting them. “It has taken alchemists and woodworkers working round the clock, but they finally finished. You can re-open as soon as you finish the queen’s potion.”

She chewed her bottom lip. “Can I? I’m a duchess now. Everyone knows. Before, I had the benefit of mystery.”

“Now you have the benefit of novelty—a duchess potions mistress. And you have the protection of the Braxton name.”

“Yes. Perhaps.” She rose. The chair wasn’t as comfortable as before. The desk wasn’t quite at the right height, either. As she wandered back into the shop’s main room, she touched everywhere she could—every corner of every worktable, every shelf, the walls, even the floor right in front of the door. She walked the balcony that circled the room and visited the stillrooms lined there.

Her Shadow followed, as he always did.

The shop was perfect, absolutely perfect, but she left sooner than she should have. She locked it up tight and stepped back to look up at it.

“You hate it,” he said, standing beside her.

She shook her head. “Not even a little bit.”

“You wanted to pay for it yourself, I know. But I’ve brought you so much pain, I wanted to… I know it doesn’t make what I did right. Think of it as part of my atonement. The next time you open this shop, it could be without a lying Shadow right behind you. You could be entirely free of me this time. From me. From the curse, or whatever you want to call it.”

She looked up at Bran, putting the shop behind her. “Thank you.” No idea what else to say, everything within her a storm, a discordant orchestra, and she couldn’t pick one melody from another. “I’m tired. Can we return home?”

He smiled, the tiniest lift at the corners of his mouth as he slipped his arm around her shoulders and bundled her into the waiting carriage. When he sat next to her on the forward-facing bench, she moved abruptly to the opposing one.

“I need some space.” she said.

He nodded. And the coach rumbled forward.

“I really am grateful.” She fidgeted with one fingertip of her glove. “I had quite forgotten the shop what with everything else.” That helped her identify a note: guilt. The shop was her life, her purpose. It was who she was. It was Lady Guinevere.

But living in Mayfair, teaching the ladies, sleeping every night with the duke, she’d begun to feel more like the Duchess of Braxton than Lady Guinevere. She woke up every morning eager first to see what pleasures Bran’s body could give her, then wind her way down to the conservatory to work in peace until Bran slipped in to ask her some question or escort her somewhere. Dinner together in the pale yellow cast of evening candlelight, then back to bed, where her husband exhausted himself to please her.

The plain truth—she was pleased. With him. With this quieter, purposeful life. She’d found a little heaven outside her shop and found a little hidden corner of herself, too, one she’d buried long ago with her love, her first husband, her hopes.

Bran cleared his throat. “You do not have to remain in London if you do not want to. You can go anywhere, be anyone. I’m only trying to make up for my wrongs.”

In the shadows, he seemed almost to disappear, to become a part of the night, and that made her heart ache. She liked him solid and gruff and so close she could touch him any time she wanted. In all her years alone, there had been no one to touch. No hugs from the cook or housekeeper. Only Tommy had dared, furtively and sparsely before he’d died, and she’d married Handsford, and he hadn’t wanted to touch her either. He’d patted her head or hand and left her to read his books. And when she’d cried at night, she’d done so into the embrace of her own arms.

Lady Guinevere—she’d been alone, too, even with a shop brimming with employees and customers. She couldn’t touch them, and they couldn’t touch her, and her personal guard—well she knew better. So she’d folded herself into her own arms again and again and told herself it was better that way.

Now she knew better, knew not being touched was a kind of little death.

Bran’s touch was a miracle, her first gulp of air after existence at the bottom of a touchless, soundless sea.

She moved across the gulf of space between them, lifted her skirts and straddled Bran, laying her head on his shoulder as his arms came around her, making her feel small and safe. This—having the right to touch, to be touched, over and over again, knowing that if she reached out, Bran would always reach out too, save her, pleasure her, challenge her, tease her…

It was too much emotion all at once. She couldn’t limit it or shape it or ignore it, couldn’t tame it or even name it. Didn’t want to. Not yet.

So she lifted her head and cupped his face.