Two
“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Claire said from beside Marcus’s shoulder. Marcus didn’t take his eyes off Cecelia, except for a moment when he looked down at his sister. Her eyes twinkled with merriment.
“Shut it, Claire,” he growled. Cecelia was beautiful. Tall and willowy, with hair as black as night and eyes as blue as the sky.
Claire looked up at him, her head cocked to the side like an inquisitive puppy. “What’s the matter, Marcus? Is something wrong?”
“Claire,” he warned. God, his sister knew how to get his blood boiling. She always had. Sophie was the sweet sister. Claire was the nuisance. He pitied Lord Phineas, because he would have to put up with her sharp tongue for the rest of his life. Marcus, on the other hand, did not have to.
“They make a lovely couple, don’t you think?” she asked. The corner of her mouth tilted up, but then she composed herself.
Allen held Cecelia much too close to his person for Marcus’s comfort. And she looked up at Allen and smiled. That was his smile, damn it all. It was not meant for another man. “Lovely,” he replied, as soon as he realized she’d asked for his opinion.
“If they decided to marry, I wonder if we could bring her father from the land of the fae to this world so he could give her away.”
The idea of Mr. and Mrs. Hewitt coming to the other world to sanction a marriage between Cecelia and Allen was enough to make his heart leap. But that could never happen. Marcus wouldn’t allow it. Marcus grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing footman and tossed it back in one big swallow. Then he scowled down at Claire. “You are not amusing.”
“I don’t intend to amuse you, Marcus. I intend to help you.” She patted his arm.
“I don’t need any help.” He took another glass from a waiter and drank it quickly.
“If you didn’t need help, then the woman you love wouldn’t be in the arms of another man, you idiot,” she snapped. “You need help. Lots of help.”
“Did you ever stop to think that I might not want your help?”
She shrugged. “All the time. I just don’t care.” She smiled widely at him. What a pain in the arse.
“Mind your own matters, Claire,” he warned.
“Or what?” She made an O with her lips and then pressed a finger to them. “Or you’ll be angry at me? Frankly, Marcus, I don’t give a damn if you’re angry at me. Because you’re about to let the love of your life walk right into the arms of another man. You’re practically shoving her at him.”
“She’s not the love of my life,” he grumbled.
She said one word. “Liar.”
“Stop it, Claire.” He was ready to beg for her to desist at this point. It hurt too damn much to talk about it.
“Did you receive news of a mission today?” she asked.
He patted his coat pocket and nodded. “Do you know what it’s about?”
“The Earl of Mayden has been spotted.”
Marcus’s heart stopped. The Earl of Mayden had nearly killed Claire the year before. “Where?”
“In France. Apparently, when I shoved him into the painting, I put him right in front of Sainte-Chappelle.” She shrugged at what must have been his perplexed look. “What of it? I liked painting the windows.” She waved a hand in dismissal. “He was penniless and more than a bit mad, but he has made do. We’re to take a trip to Paris to ask around and see if anyone knows his whereabouts.”
“You have time for a trip to Paris?” She had twins, for goodness’ sake. And a husband she hated to leave.
“It’ll only take a few hours. We can walk through the painting I shoved him through months ago. Then we can come back the same day.”
Sometimes Marcus forgot that his sister could walk into paintings. If the painting was of a real place, she and anyone who touched her person could walk into the painted area and actually be in the physical location.
“Will it just be the two of us?” he asked.
“Three.” She pointed a finger toward the dance floor.
“Absolutely not,” he barked. He had no desire to be in such close quarters with a woman he couldn’t have.
“I do not assign the missions, Marcus,” she reminded him. “The Trusted Few do.”
“They need to unassign this one.”
“I highly doubt that will happen.” She looked quite pleased with herself. “She’s the only one of us who speaks French. We’ll need her.”
Marcus already needed her, though not for the same reason as Claire.
***
Cecelia closed the door to her chambers and sagged heavily against it. She wasn’t made for this way of life. Her feet protested the fit of the crazy other-world slippers that had pinched her toes all night. And her head positively ached with all the pins her maid had stuck in her hair to hold it in place. She began to tug her gloves from the tips of her fingers and crossed the floor.
A rap at the window jerked her from her misery. She sighed heavily as she opened the window and threw open the shutters. Milly climbed over the sill and landed on her short legs with a thump. “What are you doing here?” Cecelia asked.
Milly put her hands on her tiny hips. “What am I doing here? What am I doing here?” She shook her head and climbed onto the bed. She crossed her short little legs and rested her chin on her palms and gazed at Cecelia. “How was it?” she blurted out.
Cecelia shrugged. “Fine.”
“I have been with your family for centuries,” the garden gnome began.
“I know, I know.” Cecelia held up a hand to stop Milly’s diatribe. She knew it was coming. She mocked Milly’s tiny voice. “I’ve been with your family for centuries. I’ve brought you missions, followed you on disasters, and taken care of you when you needed help.”
Milly sniffed. “The least you could do is tell me what happened.”
Cecelia scoffed. “As though you weren’t watching from the bushes outside the ballroom window.”
“I couldn’t hear anything from out there,” the gnome admitted with a grin.
Her merriment was contagious. A grin tugged at the corners of Cecelia’s lips, too. Then she heaved a sigh. “He acted like I was an old acquaintance.”
Milly had been with her family since long before Cecelia’s birth. Every fae family had a garden gnome who was assigned to the household. They ran errands, helped with missions, and carried missives to and from the land of the fae. So Milly knew all about Cecelia’s relationship with Marcus. Or her former relationship.
“I met Marcus’s brother,” Cecelia finally said. The gnome wasn’t going to go away. Not until she got some details. “He asked me to dance.”
“And what did Marcus think of this?”
“I think he positively hated it,” Cecelia said, finally feeling a buoyancy of spirit. “He hated every second of it. And he hated it even more when Allen asked me to take a drive with him in the park tomorrow.” It was terrible to be happy about making the man jealous. But she had made him jealous. Hadn’t she?
Milly waggled a finger at her. “Don’t cause problems between the two of them. You won’t like what will happen if you do.” She drew in a deep breath. “He obviously cares about his family.”
“What he feels for his family is obligation.”
“And you don’t like that, I suppose?”
“They are not his family. His family is in the land of the fae. His family was supposed to include me.” Her voice cracked on the last comment, and she forced herself to steel her spine. She flopped down on the bed. “What am I going to do, Milly?” she asked. “I’m stuck here all by myself until the next moonful.”
“It’s better than being at home with your father, isn’t it?” Milly asked.
It was. It so was.
Milly reached over and pushed Cecelia’s hair back from her forehead. “You’re going to go for a ride in the park with a handsome man.”
“He is handsome, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Sinfully,” Milly affirmed. “He reminds me very much of Marcus.”
Cecelia growled. “You had to go and ruin it for me, didn’t you?” She threw a pillow at Milly’s head, and the gnome scampered across the bed and over to the window. She threw open the sash and waved at Cecelia. “Have a good time on your ride in the park,” she said. But then she stopped. She pulled a rolled-up piece of parchment from her décolletage. At the disgusted shake of Cecelia’s head, Milly shrugged and said, “I like to keep my hands free.”
“What is this?” Cecelia took the parchment and began to open it.
“A plan to thwart your revenge against Marcus, I believe,” Milly said. But then she sobered. “It’s a mission.”
“But… but…” Claire sputtered. “I’m on holiday.”
Milly shook her forefinger at Cecelia. “You’re in the land of the other world until the moonful. You’re not on holiday.”
Cecelia harrumphed. “What’s the mission?”
The gnome glared at her.
“I know you read it.” Claire tossed the parchment onto the bed. “Tell me what it says.” Milly couldn’t keep herself from reading the missives she carried back and forth.
“You’re to go on a mission tomorrow.” She shook a finger at Claire. “No rides in the park with the younger Thorne.”
“What kind of mission?”
“Do you remember last year when Claire threw some earl into one of her paintings?”
Cecelia vaguely remembered it. The man had been missing ever since. She nodded.
“It’s imperative that he be found. He’s a danger to everyone.”
“Who’s my mission partner? Claire?”
“Yes…” Milly said the word slowly.
Cecelia watched Milly closely, narrowing her eyes at the gnome in warning. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“Nothing,” Milly clipped out. She held her hands up as though in surrender. “Not a thing, I swear.” She probably had her toes crossed. Garden gnomes could do mad things with their toes.
Cecelia shrugged. She didn’t mind spending the day with Claire. “This mission will be dangerous?”
Milly nodded. “Very.”
“I’m surprised they’re not sending a man with us.”
“They are.”
Cecelia’s head spun to look at the gnome. “Who?” she asked.
Milly ignored her and kicked at the floor with the toe of her wooden slipper. “You haven’t heard word that Ronald is about, have you?” she asked without looking up at Cecelia. Her voice was quiet. For some reason, she didn’t want Cecelia to know that the answer to her question mattered.
“If the Thornes are about, Ronald is about, I guarantee. Why? Did you need him for something?”
Milly scoffed, looking down at her fingernails as though they held the secrets of the fae. “I don’t need him for anything,” she said, her tone flippant.
Either Milly had more than a passing interest in Ronald or she wanted to distract Cecelia from her questions. Cecelia narrowed her eyes at the gnome. “Tell me who the man is who’s going on the mission with us.”
But Milly threw herself out the window. Cecelia supposed she would find out who it was tomorrow.