Fascinated (30 page)

T
here was no more time to waste. After he had secured Alicia’s solemn promise that she would rest, and eat a proper meal, Carstairs returned to his own room to change his shirt and coat. He paused only to send Luddington down to have phaeton made ready and brought to the front.

Even so, by the time he reached the door in the nameless alley near St. Paul’s, it was already full dark. Carstairs tossed hat and stick aside in the tidy parlor and strode directly through into Captain Smith’s office. The captain was at his desk, hunched over a book the size of a world atlas with a magnifying glass held close to his eyes. The strongbox holding the Hartwell amulet also waited on Smith’s desk, a stark reminder, if he needed one, of the seriousness of the situation.

Without looking up, the captain waved Carstairs toward the chairs by the hearth. Carstairs moved aside, but did not sit. He was too filled with energy. The carriage ride had been delay enough.

Alicia loved him. He was certain of it now. It remained only for them to resolve the crisis of her family. Then they would be able not just to be together, but to marry. It was startling to feel the change within him. He had eschewed marriage, even long term connection for much of his life, but all that had changed. It had changed the moment in Alicia’s arms when he felt her final release. She had flown as much to freedom as to ecstasy in his arms, and the whole armor of his heart which he had so carefully constructed over the years had crumbled in the blink of an eye. He loved her and he would love her, and if this was his famed recklessness emerging to take charge, so be it. He would marry Alicia, freely and gladly and life would begin again for them both. It would not be easy. He still must obey the dictates of his duty, but they would find a way. Alicia already had shown him that together, they could do anything. Neither the power of the Fae, nor the malice of one old woman, would stand between them now.

Smith muttered something under his breath. He laid a silk ribbon down to mark the page where he had been reading and closed the creaking covers. Only then did he lean back and give Edward his full attention.

“So, my lord. What have you learned?”

Carstairs told him. He laid out the whole history of Alicia’s family and the reasons for her enchantment that they had discovered. By the end of the story, his optimism and energy had sunk deep enough into anger to leave him shaking.

Get a hold of yourself.
Carstairs clenched his fists behind his back.
You’re giddy as a schoolboy, and it will not serve.

If the captain noticed Carstairs’s lack of composure, he gave no sign. He was looking sourly at the strongbox instead. “Fool’s gold,”
Smith muttered. “I’ve been seeking to understand an enchantment no human could duplicate. Well, there’s some comfort in it. I had thought my powers failing me at last.” He touched his quizzing glass where it dangled from his watch chain. “But, that is neither here nor there. We must make plans. The Fae cannot be allowed to recapture of Alicia Hartwell.”

Carstairs nodded. Alicia had escaped the Fae King not once, but twice now. At the very least, it was an effrontery for which the Fae would seek revenge. At the worst, it made her an obstacle to be swept aside.

“We must send her abroad.” Carstairs had spent the entire journey here preparing himself to speak those words. The idea of parting from Alicia, even temporarily, was painful, but if it kept her safe…

“It’s too late for that,” Smith’s words cut across his thoughts. “The Fae King’s marked her now. He will be able to follow her anywhere in the world, and when he finds her, he will strip her mind bare of all she knows, of you, and of the Service.”

Carstairs went still. “But she knows nothing.”

“Are you sure of that, my lord?” asked Smith quietly. “Are you absolutely sure?”

He had no answer. He had been bound up in considerations of Alicia’s safety. He had not let himself see beyond that. Certainly not to the possibility that her struggles with the Fae could constitute a threat to the Service, not once he’d become certain she was a victim of the king’s plans rather than a participant. Carstairs let his mind range back across the conversations he’d held with Alicia about the Service. There had not been many. “I was careful,” he told Smith. “But now that we know she’s innocent of deception, she can be brought more fully into our confidence and given the
option of entering into the Service herself. That will protect both us and her.”

“That will not be possible.”

“Why?” he demanded.

Smith did not reply. He just lifted his quizzing glass and regarded Carstairs steadily through its sparkling lens. A furious outburst rose up in Carstairs’ throat, but he managed to check it. He forced himself to pause, and to look at circumstances as a trained agent, not as a love-struck boy.

Alicia remained in danger. If that danger had been only from her family, that would have been easily overcome. But she was sought after by their greatest enemy. A lesser Fae they might have trapped and dealt with, but this was the king. His power was far beyond anything Edward had ever faced. It would be disastrous if the king were able to capture Alicia. Her mind and heart would be laid as bare to him as a woman as it had been as a child. She would have no secrets, no volition. She’d become just one more of his tools, or toys.

It could not be allowed to happen. Not for the sake of the Service, or of the Crown. And not for Alicia’s own sake.

“What must we do?”

“I think you know.” Smith laid his hand on the strongbox.

Carstairs’s heart stopped within him. A dozen protestations formed in his mind, but he could not shape a single one out loud.

“Thanks to your discoveries, we now know this amulet will hide a soul, even from their king,” Smith said. “While Alicia wears it, she will remain undetected. What the Fae cannot find, they cannot steal.” The captain paused. “I have never been more sorry in my life, Carstairs, but it is the only way.”

Carstairs heard Smith’s words. He understood them. Their
logic was plain and simple. But at the same time, they were like a death sentence delivered from a judge in the high court. No. It was worse, for it would condemn Alicia to a living hell. He thought of her uncles in their study, with their blank, listless talk and their empty hearts. They at least had no memory of freedom to torment them. Alicia had tasted what it was to be fully herself. He had helped give her that freedom. How could he take it away again?

“But you don’t know what it does, sir—what it did—to her,” he croaked. “It hid away all her feeling, her heart, her passion…”

“Would you rather she be killed? Or given over to the mercies of the Fae? Those are our other choices.”

Edward felt the room and its environs receding. It was as if he stood outside himself, looking on the anguish on his own face.

“No, sir.” His hand gripped the back of the chair beside him as if he meant to rip the wood in two. His captain, the man who had trained him, who had all but raised him, was giving an order and for the first time in his life, he did not want to obey.

It was then Carstairs saw the weakness in the Service’s defense. It was himself. His heart. Edward had sworn over Nick’s grave he would never fail in his duty again. Since then, he had sacrificed others to the cause and seen his fellows do the same. They were at war. It was necessary. He never permitted himself to doubt this. But now, after priding himself for having dedicated his life entirely to duty, he had tossed the certainty of his role in the Service to the four winds. He’d done it for Alicia and Alicia’s love. He had been warned, and warned again that he was in danger from his own feelings, and he had not listened. He did not want to listen now. He wanted to shout and curse, blow the captain down like he would a lazy man on watch. He wanted to march from this place to his home, to sweep Alicia up in his arms and bear her
away. The service and the Fae and the whole world could go straight to the Devil as long as she was safe and with him.

He could go to the Devil too, because in the riot of his own mind, he could still see thing clearly—Nick, dying amid the wreckage of the plush back room in the Bella Sognore club. If Carstairs turned away from duty now, even for Alicia, Nick died for nothing.

“If you cannot do this, I will give the task to someone else.” There might have been some sympathy in the captain’s voice, but it was difficult for Edward to hear over the roaring of his own blood in his ears.

“No, sir. If it is to be done, I will do it. I…I will need a little time, however.”

Smith lifted his glass again. Edward stayed where he was, letting himself be examined. Slowly, he became aware of how much his fingers ached from clutching the chair back. He lifted his hand away and wiped his sweating palm against his breeches.

“There isn’t much time, Edward,” said his captain softly. “The wards on your house are very good, but they will not stand up to an assault from so much power.”

“I know that.” Carstairs hung his head. Anger and fear had burnt out in him. He felt hollow, as if the next strong wind would blow him away. “It will be done before sunset tomorrow.”

Smith regarded him for a moment longer and then lowered his glass. “Very well. You may have until then. I will contact you if anything changes.”

“Yes, sir.” It was a dismissal. He should leave now, but he could not make his feet move. “Sir?”

“Yes, Carstairs?”

“I would like to continue to care for her. Afterward.”
After I
lock her heart away from her. After I condemn her to the mist and the cold.

The lines on Smith’s face deepened. “I can see no reason why you should not. She will need someone.”

“Thank you, sir.” Carstairs was able to move again. Not easily. The weight of what he must do pressed down and made him clumsy as he started toward the door.

“Edward,” said the captain behind him.

“Sir?” Carstairs stopped, but did not turn.

“This is no fault of yours.” Smith paused and added more softly. “Neither was the death of your brother. That was our enemy’s doing, as is this.”

Carstairs bowed his head. He tried to accept those words, but he did not have the strength. He had never had his strength when he needed it most. Still, he made himself nod, and walked out of the office. Automatically, he picked up hat and stick as he passed out onto the street.

Sometime while he was inside, it had begun to rain. Fat, heavy drops splashed against the cobbles, and drummed against his scalp, but he seemed lack the ability to lift his hand and place his hat on his head. Rather, Carstairs stood in the middle of that anonymous street with it dangling from his fingers.

He would give Alicia one more day. It was all he had. He would make that day a feast for the senses he must then smother to keep her safe, to keep the Service safe. It would be filled with all the forms of pleasure it was in his power to procure. Maybe that would ease the cold of the mists, and be some comfort when he raised the walls once more around her heart. It would not have to be forever, he told himself. One day, when the Fae were finally defeated, Alicia could be safely freed again. He would make sure
it was not forever. He would fight them all to the last drop of his blood. He would never stop. Alicia would be free again.

Carstairs looked up at the sky, letting the rain run down his cheeks and wash away his tears and the fragments of his shattered heart.

Oh, God, forgive me for what I must do to her. God help me for what I’ve become.

Moving like an old man, Edward lowered his gaze toward the stony streets and walked away.

E
dward did not return to the house that night. Instead, he sent back a note, which Alicia read over beside the library fire while heavy rain pummeled the windowpanes. The missive told her Edward had met with his captain, and that there were arrangements he had to attend to personally without delay. He urged her to rest, and assured her he would return as soon as possible.

Alicia found herself remarkably unperturbed. Indeed given all the new information they had acquired, she had thought something of the kind might happen. The idea of more inactivity chafed a bit, but the truth was, she was so exhausted by the riot of changes that had occurred since her engagement ball, a night of respite from action and new revelations seemed a welcome prospect.

Mrs. Talbot helped her get ready for bed. Alicia slept soundly and woke the next morning feeling much refreshed. Mrs. Talbot, however, was not entirely convinced and insisted on bringing up Alicia breakfast on a tray. Being waited on like this was an
unheard-of luxury, but rather than protest, Alicia made up her mind to enjoy it. When she had finished the jugged kippers, coddled eggs and buttered toast, she allowed the housekeeper to help her to dress and do her hair. She felt like a queen, giving instructions and having them carried out. No. Better. She felt like the mistress of the house.

Was it possible this who she was to be; mistress of Edward’s house? Lady Carstairs in truth, not just for convenience’s sake? No. She must set that aside. With so many dangers and so much uncertainty still swirling around them, it was trivial and self-indulgent to be thinking of marriage and housekeeping. She was involved in a larger battle, and now that she had been made aware of her duty, she would not fail. She would learn to use her powers in the service of Crown and Country. She would free her family and stand for her people. All the rest would follow in its own time. She could wait. After all, she had the important fact in her hand now. Edward loved her. He loved her as she loved him.