‘Yes.’
She braced herself. There, his hands upon her shoulders, fingertips working their way under the jacket collar. Knuckles brushed against the lobe of her ear. She curled her fingers at the sensation, hot energy coursing through her veins. His breath caught for second. Had he felt it too?
He leaned in and firmly pulled back the shoulders of the jacket. The tightness of the fit drew her arms back too, as if he held her bound. She turned her head, his smooth shaven cheek so close to her lips. If she turned just a little more …
But she did not shift. Nor did he. The only motion, their breathing; two quickening rhythms blending into one.
‘Step forward,’ he finally said, his voice ragged.
She obeyed, her arms coming free of the sleeves.
She turned, but he was already walking away, head bowed. He draped the jacket over the chair, picked up the canes and slowly straightened, rolling back his shoulders.
‘If you recall our last lesson,’ he said, facing her, voice still rough, ‘the canne de combat action is always circular.’ He passed her a cane. She stared at his hand; it was shaking. ‘Our stance is not that of a fencer, but more face-on, so that we may move in any direction with speed and use our feet to kick.’
He walked towards the stuffed hessian sack, but stopped and hunched as if caught by sudden pain.
‘What is wrong?’ She stepped forward.
‘Nothing.’ He straightened. ‘Think of your hand as the turning point. The cane moves and the body follows.’
‘You are in pain.’
He shook his head. ‘Watch carefully.’
She heard him draw breath, then he pivoted across the wooden floor, the cane swinging above his head in a graceful arc. Yet there was something frenetic in his movements; a shivering tension within him like an overstrung bow. He lunged and brought the cane down in a fast low sweep that connected with a thud on the stuffed sack. It swung heavily on its chain, the force of the blow leaving an indentation across the rough cloth.
‘Recover on the front foot.’ He drew breath again, an awful rasp within it. And she could see blood seeping from his nose.
She stepped forward. ‘Lord Carlston, you are bleeding!’
‘Follow with a higher strike,’ he said, ignoring her alarm.
The veins and tendons on his neck had corded with strain. He swung the cane above his head, his movements blurring into sudden acceleration. Even with Reclaimer sight, Helen could barely follow the frightening speed of his body as he pivoted and lunged around the swinging sack. The cane struck it again and again and again, the hits so fast and heavy that the blunt wood sliced through the hessian, ripping it apart. A cloud of sawdust and wool burst out, the sack spinning wildly. The huge wooden cross dropped out, but it never hit the floor. His lordship met it mid-air with a vicious round-kick that propelled it across the room, straight towards Helen’s head.
She dived to one side, landing heavily on her knees and elbows, her cane flying from her grasp. The cross speared past her and smashed into the wall with an immense thud that seemed to shake the room. Plaster and wood exploded in a stinging hail of chunks and dust and splinters. Helen covered her head, curling up as clumps of wall pelted her body.
The salon doors burst open. ‘My lord!’ Geoffrey called. ‘My lady?’
Almost as quickly as it had begun, everything was still again. Panting, Helen lifted her head. Plaster dust floated in the rays of sunlight, the floor littered with drifts of wool and sawdust and hunks of wall. The footman coughed, his forearm against his mouth.
Lord Carlston stood beneath the remnants of the hessian sack on its chain, the broken end of the cane in his hand, blood still seeping from his nose.
‘Did I harm you, Lady Helen?’ he rasped.
‘No.’ She sat up. ‘What happened?’
‘It felt as if I had a sun within me. So much power …’ He staggered and dropped to his knees.
‘My lord!’ Geoffrey ran to him.
‘Get Quinn,’ Carlston ordered hoarsely. ‘I need to be against the earth. I need …’
He pitched forward, the footman sliding two hands beneath his head just before it slammed against the floor.
Chapter Ten
Two hours later, Mr Quinn stood before them in the drawing room. His frown and the tattoos that angled across his forehead and cheeks gave him a ferocious appearance, belied by the anxious twisting of his hands.
‘None of the energy was in him,’ he said to Lady Margaret, who sat in the largest armchair as if in judgment. ‘When I pressed him upon the earth, there was no release of power into the ground. I can feel it when it goes out of him, and I swear, nothing went.’
Helen, seated on the sofa with Delia, nodded her agreement. ‘I watched through my touch watch lens and no energy passed from his lordship to the earth.’
The support earned her a grateful smile from Darby, who stood mutely by Quinn’s side.
The big Terrene had arrived in the salon moments after his lordship’s collapse and had quickly carried his senseless master downstairs to the courtyard. The whole household had followed and witnessed Quinn grounding the Reclaimer, to no apparent effect. At that point, Lady Margaret had taken control and ordered Quinn to carry his lordship to Mr Hammond’s rooms. Carlston had roused once on the way up the stairs, grabbing Helen’s hand, then his eyes had become eerily fixed and staring. The Reclaimer fugue, Mr Quinn called it; he had seen his lordship heal in such a manner before, always awaking from the strange trance a few hours later, fully recuperated.
In the meantime, Lady Margaret had assembled everyone in the drawing room to determine exactly what had happened and why.
‘It does not make sense,’ she mused, chewing on the end of her knuckle. ‘He said himself that it was an excess of power.’ She looked at Helen. ‘That is what he said, was it not?’
‘As if he had a sun within him,’ Helen reported again.
She glanced around the circle of worried faces. It should have been her asking the questions — she was the Reclaimer — but in all honesty, it had been a relief when Lady Margaret had taken charge. The events of the day had shaken her more than she cared to admit. Lord Carlston had looked so vulnerable, so young, gathered in Quinn’s arms, senseless and pale.
Beside her, Delia asked, ‘Is that a normal way of describing the power you experience? It seems very … big.’
Helen shook her head. ‘I do not know. I have not had enough experience of it.’
Mr Hammond leaned his shoulders against the mantel ledge. ‘His lordship has had no encounters with a glutted Deceiver in the last week, or none that I know of?’ He glanced questioningly at Quinn and received a nod of confirmation. ‘So where has the power come from?’