Page 20 of My Fae Lady

Rook Manor answered with a groan and a rumble of boards that vibrated the earth under my boots. The heavy doors flew open, and the house coughed out the old coach Giselle had been tinkering with in her workroom days ago. Only now it was weighed down with trunks and boxes.

“There is no horse,” I said, leering at the old thing with its patched wheels. The house had given it a fresh coat of varnish, but its age was quite clear.

She beamed at me. “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“I would have gone with ‘useless,’ but by all means, call a carriage we can’t move wonderful.”

She chuckled, the sound so soft it seemed to float around my ears before bouncing off the surrounding trees. “It moves by magic, of course.”

“You created a spell to pull the carriage?” More clever magic from a quick mind. If she weren’t so infuriating about manners and propriety, I might spare a moment to allow myself to be impressed.

“I modified a messenger stone. Since it was already spelled to go from one location to another, I merely had to tweak it so it followed the roads instead of flying through the sky. Of course, it only works in Faerie, so we’ll have to hire a team of horses once we reach the border.” Her eyes rounded in glee, the color a soft burgundy.

If I let her, she’d go on and on and on about the magic, I’d wager. My lips twitched at her display. Such enthusiasm was an unnatural thing to behold amongst the fae and quite contagious, apparently, but I righted myself quickly.

I scratched a talon through my hair, counting the items of luggage strapped to the carriage. “How many trunks do you need?”

“I only have two trunks. The third is yours, though we’ll be picking up most of your clothes in town,” she said.

“There are more than three trunks strapped onto the carriage.”

Giselle started to reach for the cabin door and froze. “Those are hatboxes, not trunks,” she said over her shoulder.

I scratched another claw through my hair, though the gesture failed to ease my confusion. “Do you plan to wear half a dozen hats per day?”

“Each box only holds one hat, Lord Sylvan . . . Oh and one more thing,” she said, pulling something from her reticule. She slid the mystery item into the buttonhole at the top of my coat. A flash of inky black and iridescent teal caught the corner of my eye.

Feathers.

My feathers. I didn’t like being separated from them, and she knew it. What was she up to? My gaze narrowed to suspicious slits.

She’d rolled a few of the plumes into the rounded shape of a rose and fastened them with a pin, making a rough sort of boutonniere. Giselle ran her palm unabashedly down the lapel, flattening it. A tension between my shoulder blades—a tightness I hadn’t realized was there until it lessened—eased suddenly.

I blinked at her. She was close enough I could have set my chin on the top of her head if I wanted to. “What is this?”

She tugged at the edges of my coat, further straightening it, forever attempting to smother any speck of disorder she spotted. “Don’t you recognize your own feathers? Don’t worry. I didn’t harm your waistcoat. These had fallen out naturally.”

“Of course I recognize them,” I grunted, unsure what to do with this strange act of thoughtfulness. She fought to smooth another stubborn wrinkle out of the wool, and I caught her hand in mine, squeezing gently until she stopped fussing with me.

Her eyes lifted, icy indigo that quickly softened into pale blue. She shrugged. “You seemed to need them. A waistcoat of feathers isn’t proper attire for the human realm, but this will do. Now you’ll have what you need.”

I squinted at her. “What are you after?” The words came out more ragged than I had intended.

She tried to pull free of me, but my grip tightened further. “You already know what I’m after. A fake husband. Have you truly forgotten why you’re here? Did you hit your big head against the lintel on the way out the door while I wasn’t looking?”

I certainly hadn’t forgotten a thing. The bargain was a daunting band of ancient magic, tethering me to this strange woman who made absolutely no sense. It poked at me as restlessly as a starved mosquito.

I felt it, then, tightening around my heart. Squeezing it. The pulse at my throat pumped in petulant protest.

Giselle was beautiful because of course she was. The fae were often beautiful. The world at large was full of countless pretty immortal faces.

Giselle was fierce. Of course she was. The Seelie were often cunning and fierce and unwavering in their resolve.

These things didn’t move me. Frankly, these things made her mundane.

What I could not make any peace with was this strange kindness in her. The world was not full of that. Certainly mine wasn’t. The fae were not kind. Bartons were especially ruthless, and this lady wasn’t supposed to be any different. Her care would ruin me. It had to stop.

I would smother it like she did my wrinkles if I must.