A Breath of Frost (13 page)

Penelope snorted. “Right.”

“I
told
you he wasn’t interested in me.”

“Then why did he keep staring at you?”

“He’s a Keeper,” she replied. “He was probably trying to figure out how to lock us all up before the tea is served.” She snuck another glance at the window, wishing she could see more than just the reflection of the candles and the glowing glass globes of the lamps. As always, Aunt Cora had lit every bees-wax candle she could find, just to prove she could afford it.

“I think the hairpins are working,” Penelope assured her. “Anyway, no one would dare interrupt an Aunt Cora soiree, not
even scary magical knight-types.” Aunt Cora believed in the social graces of polite society and she expected her guests to do the same. The only ones who ever gave her trouble were her own family.

“No one’s coming for us,” Gretchen agreed. “Shame, really. I tied a small dagger above my knee, just in case. It took forever to secure it properly. Stocking ribbons aren’t very practical.”

“I’ll remember that.” Emma couldn’t help a smile.

“I couldn’t find anything about Keepers or ghosts in father’s library,” Gretchen added.

“Me neither,” Penelope said. “Though I did notice all sorts of strange things I’d never seen before. Iron trinkets and the like. Even the potpourri
Maman
makes isn’t like other potpourri. It’s full of salt, for one thing.” She tapped her left palm. “And this strange symbol. It’s embroidered everywhere, now that I know what I’m looking at. I tried to see her palm as well for the knot, but she was wearing gloves this morning. And the only reason she let me come here at all is because she seems determined to keep me in crowds of people.”

“Are we sure the Keepers are all that nasty?” Gretchen wondered.

Emma remembered the starkness in Cormac’s eyes. “Yes.”

“Well, I reckon they bleed like any other man. Oh Lord,” she added, taking a fortifying sip of champagne. “Here comes my mother. Perhaps they could come take us away right now.”

The cousins pasted identically innocent smiles on their faces as Lady Wyndham sailed gracefully in their direction. Only they could see the martial glint in her eye. It was nearly as sharp
as the prisms shooting off the many ropes of diamonds around her neck. “You three ought to be mingling.”

Gretchen rested her chin on her hand wearily. “I’ll need some cake first to give me the strength. Why can’t we sit around and drink port and tell bawdy stories like the men do?”

“Do not disgrace me,” her mother said. “Many of these ladies have perfectly suitable sons.”

“I’ll need sweet ices and black coffee as well as that cake,” Gretchen muttered.

“Aunt Cora, what lovely gloves,” Penelope interrupted hastily before a proper row could ensue.

“Thank you.” Aunt Cora was briefly distracted, though still clearly dubious.

“I adore the embroidery,” Penelope continued. Since she was the only one who appreciated needlework, and did her own without whining about it, Aunt Cora was mollified. Her elbow-length gloves were edged with embroidery in a pale orange, to better match the striking tangerine walls of the drawing room. Black basalt urns decorated the tables and crowned the carved mantelpiece. “May I see them?” Penelope pressed. “I should dearly love to duplicate those doves.”

“I suppose,” Aunt Cora sniffed, reaching for the ribbon that secured her gloves. Emma leaned forward slightly to get a better look. It was clear Penelope was trying to see if their aunt had her own witch knot. Half the women in London could have them and they’d never know it beneath all those gloves.

The men chose that precise moment to rejoin the party, led by Gretchen’s father. They certainly looked cheerful, with eyes
slightly too bright. Cormac glanced at Emma but he chose to sit with Daphne and Lilybeth. The dove-gray of Cormac’s waistcoat was arresting against the black of his jacket and his hair. Emma tried to pretend he clashed horribly with the tangerine walls. He didn’t.

Lady Cora promptly forgot her gloves and turned a welcoming smile on the others. Within minutes the housekeeper had brought in a cart laden with tea, coffee, seedcakes, and jellies. Footmen circled with yet more glasses of champagne and claret.

“Now what?” Gretchen groaned when her mother came their way again. “I’ll never get any cake.”

“I’ve just had word that the opera singer’s carriage broke a wheel and so she will be late. Penelope, you will favor us with your playing in the meantime.” It was not a request. Penelope’s talent at the pianoforte was already talked about.

Penelope crossed the room to the pianoforte, where two candles had already been lit on either side of the sheet music. She’d play for her aunt, but she’d choose her own music. These insipid songs would not do. She needed something with more fire. Her first selection had lumps forming in more than one throat, moody tragic passion trembling on every note. The second piece woke the inebriated old duke snoring in a gilded chair near the back door. He spilled his drink all over his silk pantaloons.

Since the ladies were all smiling, Lady Wyndham accepted her husband’s hand to lead the first impromptu dance. There was, of course, nothing impromptu about it, but the innocent deception added to the mystique. Everyone would politely
pretend the floor hadn’t already been cleared to make space for the quadrille.

Cormac stood up with Daphne and a young man whose name Emma had forgotten led Lilybeth to the floor. At the end of the country dance, Daphne smirked at Emma over her shoulder.

Penelope’s eyes narrowed before her fingers hit the keys again. Music swelled through the room, soft as water.

“She’s playing a waltz.” Gretchen grinned behind her plate of biscuits. “Mother will have fits.”

Most of the young ladies of their acquaintance wouldn’t be allowed to dance the waltz. It was considered risqué, to be held so close in a gentleman’s arms. On the other hand, a hostess knew when a small scandal elevated the reputation of her soirees. Lady Cora inclined her head just barely, and couples began to gather.

“I didn’t know my mother had it in her,” Gretchen said with surprised approval. She closed her eyes briefly. “She’s diabolical,” she added as a gentleman, obviously prodded by Lady Wyndham, approached Gretchen. He bowed over her hand. “Oh, very well,” Gretchen said, dragging him onto the floor. His new shoes slid on the perfectly polished parquet floor and she had to steady him.

“I say, your cousin is enthusiastic.” The young gentleman had sidled up so quietly Emma didn’t notice him until he was practically pressed to her side. His breath was pickled in brandy and he kept staring at her cleavage through his monocle. “Fancy a dance?”

She gritted her teeth. “No, thank you.”

“Come on, what’s the harm? Especially when the very proper Lady Wyndham approved it.”

The very proper Lady Wyndham was also watching them carefully. She widened her eyes at Emma. Emma pretended not to notice. When her aunt set her glass down, Emma knew she was doomed. She couldn’t turn down the dance if her aunt interfered. It would be considered rude. Though, for some reason, her companion’s perusal of her décolletage wasn’t held to the same standard.

“I …”

“I’m afraid Lady Emma promised this dance to me,” Cormac cut in smoothly, claiming her hand and twirling her away before the other gentleman had a chance to protest. His palm was warm and gentle on her lower back. She felt the heat of it through his gloves and her thin dress. She had to hold onto his shoulders as the room spun around her. She’d never actually danced the waltz before. What if she trod on his foot?

Wait. It would serve him right.

She really
must
remember that.

“That one was a Keeper,” he told her.

“So are you,” she felt compelled to point out.

“Yes, but he’s drunk and not very good. Your hairpin will keep him befuddled for now.”

She nearly froze, but he kept his arms around her, leading her through the dance. She could smell his sandalwood soap. “Why doesn’t it work on you?”

“I already know what I know,” he said quietly. “Anyway,
they only work on a single Keeper at a time. It would never hide you from an entire unit.”

“Then why haven’t they come yet?”

His smile was crooked. “Because they’ve been distracted by a murder and opened gates to the Underworld. But you’re being watched, even now. That opera singer’s carriage wheel was no accident.”

Emma frowned. “What do you mean?”

“She’s not known to us. She could be a warlock, or someone you’ve hired to help you escape.”

Emma grew cold, glancing again at the windows. “That’s who’s been watching me this whole time. The Order.”

“Of course. You’re wise to stay among other people. But I wouldn’t let your guard down just yet.” His voice was a whisper tickling her ear. She felt it in her knees. She hadn’t noticed but he’d circled them around to the doors that opened into the garden. In the whirl of couples, he tugged her outside into the privacy of the shadowy patio.

“What are you doing?” she asked, instantly defensive. She glanced wildly about for other Keepers, half expecting him to turn her over to men with chains.

Instead, he only closed his hands around her shoulders and dragged her against his chest. His eyes burned with a dark emotion that made her mouth dry and her throat hot. She could only stare at him, eyes wide. “Emma, if only you knew.”

She didn’t even have a chance to ask him what it was she was supposed to know.

He bent his head and kissed her, his mouth sliding over hers
until her lips tingled. He tasted like honey wine and she felt instantly drunk. Her head swam and her breaths were small burning embers in her chest. His hands roamed over her back, fingers gliding up to dig into her hair. When his tongue touched hers, she was sure his hands were the only thing holding her up. There was no thought, no past, no future, just his mouth.

The kiss was wild and desperate and more delicious than a hundred iced tea cakes.

Until he pulled roughly away. His hands were still gentle on the exposed skin of her arms between the top of her glove and her beaded sleeve, but his breath was violent.

“Damnation,” he said, his voice dark and agitated. “I can’t do this.”

And then he was gone, leaping the stone balustrade and stalking across the dark lawns.

Even without magical powers
, mothers were terrifying creatures.

When Cormac stumbled home at four o’clock in the morning, his mother was waiting for him in the upstairs hall. The light of the lamp she held flickered on her face. “Cormac, you’ve mud in your hair. What on earth have you been doing?” She paused. “Never mind, I don’t wish to know, actually.”

He blinked at her owlishly. “How did you know I’d be here instead of my apartments?”

She smiled gently. “Talia told me, of course. She seemed to think you might be distressed.”

He leaned against the newel at the staircase, suddenly exhausted. He’d done everything he could think of to forget about Emma.

Impossible.

He’d visited White’s, his club, and gambled for hours. He’d
seen a country estate, luckily not his own, lost on one bet of cards. And then he’d walked all the way home from Covent Garden, half hoping a thief would be foolish enough to accost him. He could have used a spot of violence. He felt sure his sister Talia, in addition to knowing his whereabouts, also knew just how much of his brain was occupied with forbidden and dangerous thoughts of Emma.

Proving his point, and the general shrewdness of mothers, she smiled again. “There were some lovely girls at the soiree this evening. Before you disappeared.”

He tried an air of nonchalance. “Is this one of those speeches about matrimony?”

“You’ve time enough for that, darling. You’re still young yet.”

“I’m telling Primrose you said that.” Primrose was only a year younger and was feeling the pressure to find herself a husband.

“It’s different for girls.”

“And I’m telling Colette you said
that
,” he teased.

“Emma is a lovely girl,” was his mother’s reply. She looked at him the same way she’d looked at him when he’d been four years old and had broken his favorite wooden shield.

And he was very much afraid he would end up breaking Emma as well.

He felt the color drain from his face. “What?”

She touched his cheek. “Don’t fret.”

He wanted to point out that he was a man of nineteen and men didn’t fret, but she was right. “Does Father know? Or the Order?”

She pursed her lips. “Of course not. He wasn’t there to see you tonight.”

He sat on the top stair, leaning his head back wearily. “So it’s obvious?”

“Only to me, dear,” she assured him. “A mother knows these things.”

“Then you also know it’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible when it comes to love.”

She was a romantic, and she always had been. “This isn’t one of your novels,” he said.

She ignored him. “I looked her up in the
Witch’s Debrett’s
.”

He groaned. The regular
Debrett’s
was used to record the lineages and titles of the aristocratic families of Britain. It was the bible of matchmaking parents. And parents being parents, there was a secret version entirely dedicated to witching families.