Page 5 of Immortal Rose

“Of course not, sir,” I told him, straining to find that tone that made men believe they’d won your fancy. “But I must sell my wares if I’m to eat. I know you understand this, being a man of trade yourself—that every coin must be precious to you.”

“Not so precious,” the man said quickly, unable to help himself. As always, the newer the money, the more desperate they were to flash its shine.

Arabella subtly knocked a hand against my leg, stifling a laugh with a cough.

“Chest complaint,” she explained when he cut her a suspicious look. “Mayhaps yer in need of something splendid as well, being a man of means and all? Found this in the River Temese just this week past. A right treasure, it is.”

She tapped a gnarled finger on a handsome new addition to her offerings: a silver card case. After a moment’s hesitation, the man took it, holding it up to the pale moonlight for closer inspection. I fought a grimace as he turned it over, revealing the crest engraved there.

He tossed it back onto the table with a noise of disgust. “The Duke of Weston threw his card case into the river, did he?”

Arabella rose to her full, diminutive height, her blue eyes piercing within the sunken contours of her face. “Probably got bored of it and wanted to use the gold one. Yer the one high in the instep, ye explain it to me—”

The man’s top lip curled into a sneer as ugly as the rest of him. “You are a thief!”

Lovely. That drew a handful of eyes from the nearby tables.

“And yer at the Midnight Market,” Arabella snarled. “If ye want virtue, get yerself to church.”

I placed a quelling hand on her arm, my smile rigid. We were women of business now. Women of business swallowed their spleen and smiled. They did not insult the night’s only potential customer, no matter how badly he deserved to be diced by a former doxy’s wickedly sharp tongue.

“What she means is that the Midnight Market offers a variety of goods you won’t be able to find anywhere else,” I said. “Including, of course, that special perfume you had your eye on.”

The man’s dark gaze turned appraising. I resisted the urge to shift my shawl higher. Not an ounce of the rusted scent of guilt or even tear-salted desperation. Those were the easiest emotions to play through to a sale. Instead, the man’s annoyance slowly spiced with a cinnamon zest that signified nothing good. Nothing good at all.

His top lip curled again as his gaze finally drifted up over my face to my hair. My chest clenched as he took in the strips of white streaking the otherwise strawberry curls.

My resolve hardened once more. If I had paid the price for the creation of the perfumes before me, he could pay for the use of them.

“How do I know it does what you claim?” he asked. “You could be selling me a load of rotting dreams.”

He couldn’t smell the honeyed swirl of magic I’d blended into the rose and lavender oils, of course, or feel its warm effervescence humming within the brown glass of the apothecary bottle.

“Would you have come without being certain?” I asked, trying for flattery. “You strike me as a gentleman who goes to great pains to ensure he isn’t cheated. I presume you heard about my work from another pleased client?”

I’d been too careless, that much was clear now.

“My wife was a client of Rosebourne’s,” he admitted after a moment. “God rest his soul.”

My lips compressed into a hard, flat line. Or roast it in the fires of hell, preferably.

“Year after bloody year, I paid dearly for a perfume to . . . enhance herself, only to have the supply cut short,” the man continued bitterly. “She heard of you from another lady she paid a call to.”

Unexpected, that. They might not have been Patricians, but they were high enough in society to have been allowed access to the perfumes hidden at the heart of the House of Rosebourne.

“As a client of Rosebourne’s, you know how rare such a perfume is then,” I said. “There are so few fairyborn left in the world, and fewer still who know how to harness the forbidden gifts. Surely your wife’s happiness is worth a mere three silvers?”

“And she would only need to add a drop of her blood to ensure its . . . effects?” he asked.

“If she would like only her appearance affected in the eyes of others, yes,” I answered.

He took the small bottle from my hand as I offered it to him. I was close—so very close. His scent was turning bittersweet, like grapefruit. Acceptance. I nearly had him.

In the end, men were simple creatures. They wanted to feel as though they were getting away with something.

“If you’d like Blooming Beauty, I’d be pleased to gift you another of my scents, called Diamond of the First Water,” I said, stooping to retrieve a small flacon from the basket at my feet. “It is a lovely blend of orange blossom—”

“Does it contain magic as well?” he interrupted, snatching it from my hand.