Shadowbound (The Dark Arts Book 1) (31 page)

"I don't think it's the servants. What about what Horroway said about Tremayne?"

"Certainly something to look into, but I want to establish a link between he and the Prime's house. So far all we've done is chase our tail. We know Morgana is in London and she's possibly working with Tremayne, but there's no evidence that either of them stole the relic. We need to start at the beginning, rather than look at a list of people who might, or might not, be suspects, and we need to move faster than we have been." He decided to push her a little. "One would think we were taking a scenic tour of London from the pace we've held in the last couple of days, rather than verging on the edge of certain disaster."

"I see." Ianthe's color had faded, but she sipped at her tea, thoughts racing behind her eyes as she took her hand back from him. A flare of icy gray tinged her expression: nervousness.

Come on. Tell me the truth. Tell me where you've hidden it. Or what you plan to do with it.

"Among the servants, who might have wished Drake ill or been persuaded it would be in their best interests to steal the relic?"

"None who had the opportunity or the means," she replied. "Lucien, Drake and I have been over this."

"Humor me."

Ianthe put her teacup down. "I just... I cannot think of any one of them who might have done it."

"Drake can't be so widely loved that one of them wouldn't have stabbed him in the back. After all, someone did. Just because you care for him, it doesn't mean they all do. We should draw them all in and interrogate them."

"He's a good master," she retorted. "A good
man
. They might not have meant to do it—"

"That's a rather generous assessment. There's a half dozen reasons that a loyal servant could betray his master: greed, fear... blackmail." The second he said it, his heart skipped a beat. He'd been looking at this wrong, trying to test her allegiances, but it was clear that her loyalty toward the Prime was not in any doubt.

No, but loyalty, whilst a strength, could also be a weakness.

Bloody hell.
Lucien sat frozen as every instinct in his mind detonated with certainty. Ianthe's loyalty had never been in any doubt. Even now she argued as assiduously for the man as she ever had, but what if someone was holding something over her head?

"Well, we cannot interrogate them," Ianthe stammered. "Drake doesn't want the rest of the Order to know. With the comet in the sky, if the Order even suspects he has a weakness..."

Oh yes, he'd been looking at this wrong. "Very well. We'll keep looking for the person who would most desire the relic." Because that was who was blackmailing her, he was certain.

Morgana. And Tremayne.

"Why don't we separate for the afternoon?" she suggested. "You can continue covering the hotels, while I go see an old friend of mine. He used to know Tremayne. I should stress that neither of us should engage, should we discover where they're hiding."

He didn't like to think of her out there on her own. "I don't—"

"I can handle myself, Lucien."

Ianthe never liked to be considered vulnerable, but then perhaps she did not realize that it wasn't her vulnerability that concerned him, so much as the thought of her being harmed. Right now, she was far stronger than he, but still mortal.
If something happened to her...
His fingers curled into a ball at the thought, but the piece of lilac bit into his palm. He eased his fingers, so as not to destroy it. His fingers were too big, but he tried to soothe out one crushed petal.

Well, wasn't that a bloody revelation. Lucien sank back into his seat, fingering the flower. He wasn't about to enlighten her with it. "Where shall we meet?"

"At home? For dinner at six?"

Her home. Not his. But it was starting to feel like a place that had meaning to him.

"I shall see you there," Lucien said, then stood and tucked the bloody flower in his pocket before taking himself off to go hunt for mad sorcerers. "Be careful."

"I always am."

T
HE IDEA DIDN'T OCCUR
to Lucien until he was striding past Covent Garden. He'd promised to meet up with Ianthe again in an hour, but as he turned down a familiar street, he caught a glimpse of the Phoenix Theatre in the distance, and his footsteps stalled.

Within two minutes, he was pushing his way into the auditorium. The room was silent, the stage barren. Lucien stalked halfway down the aisle, then paused, a prickling sensation tickling over the back of his neck.

He turned sharply.

Remington Cross watched him from the entrance with those dark, enigmatic eyes, his hands in his pockets. He was stripped to his waistcoat and his shirt collar lay undone, as if the man had been at repose. Lucien hadn't felt a single ward set about the place, but his presence had obviously been detected.

"Fancy seeing you here." Cross's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"A warm welcome." Lucien's lips thinned. "I'd stay to play, but I've got heavy matters weighing upon my mind. I don't have time to fence with you."

Cross's expression flattened, and for a second, it felt like he faced a tiger, lashing its tail as it considered whether to pounce, or whether to hear him out. "Ianthe?"

"At the heart of my concern. I need to ask you some questions, and I don't think I can tell you why."

"Come," the man told him, and strode toward his chambers backstage. Once there, Cross poured them both a whiskey, then nursed his own. "Is she safe?"

"I'm not certain. She's currently visiting a friend, searching for news of Morgana de Wynter and the Earl of Tremayne."

"Morgana? She's back in England?" That arched a brow. "And you left Ianthe there alone?"

"I don't think we're going to find Morgana. And... I don't think Morgana is a danger to her." Not yet, anyway. If Ianthe had delivered the relic, then Morgana might have disposed of her. That she was still alive and hunting her blackmailer meant that the deed hadn't been done yet.

He hoped.

"What is going on? I don't like the sound of any of this. Morgana's involvement in anything is bad news."

"I don't know if I trust you," Lucien replied bluntly.

"Well, that's the first sensible thing you've ever said, but then you wouldn't be here if you had anywhere else to go, would you?"

They shared a look.

"I'm not a fool," Cross murmured. "Something's stirring in the Order, and there are potent signs that something big is about to happen in London. Now you bring up the name Morgana. That doesn't ease my mind one whit. Ianthe is dear to me. I should not care to see her in over her head."

"That's the reason I'm here, actually," Lucien replied. "I don't trust the Prime, not entirely, and I have a horrible suspicion about something. If I'm right, then so are you. Miss Martin is well and truly in over her head."

"Tell me."

"Answer this question for me first: Who is Louisa?"

If anything, Cross actually paled, despite his olive skin. "Tell me." He put the whiskey glass down with a flat, ringing sound.

"
Who
is Louisa?" Lucien repeated in a softer, firmer tone. There was a feeling of inevitability hanging around him, a faint ringing in his ears. Ianthe's revelation that morning about their past dalliance had rocked him, but in the wake of realizing she was his thief, he hadn't followed that thought through to its natural conclusion.

And now it was starting to make itself known. A cold sweat sprang down his spine.

"You know her history. Tell me, did you never wonder why her father threw her out?"

Lucien scraped a shaking hand over his face. "Her sorcery, I presumed." He'd
hoped.

Cross examined a penny, flicking it over and under his fingers until it seemed like it vanished between each flick of his hand. "Ianthe's first act of Expression came when she was twelve. Her father suffered her to live under his roof for another five hellish years."

Which meant that something had happened to force Grant Martin's hand. Something beyond Expression. Louisa was the key to it, he felt.

And why did most fathers cast their daughters out at that age? What secret shame drove such an act?

"She has a daughter," Lucien blurted, and the instant the words formed, they felt like truth. The faint silvery lines about her hips and breasts had drawn his attention, but he'd barely seen her in enough light to notice if she wore stronger marks of childbirth or not. A lot of women bore faint marks gained when their weight fluctuated, or when their courses first arrived and their bodies changed. Not all of them were mothers.

Whore
. That made him flinch. Ianthe had heard that word before. Her insistence on using a sheath, her lack of experience in the bedchamber... Perhaps a pregnancy had made her wary of such consequences.

"I've never heard her speak of a daughter." The careful way Cross said it wasn't a no.

"You suspect it though?"

Cross vanished the penny with a snap of his fist. "She buys dolls sometimes, and books. She likes children's books, especially fairy tales and frivolous stories featuring princesses, castles, and knights in shining armor. That kind of drivel. Once a month, she used to take two days off to visit someone, somewhere outside of London's outskirts. I've never asked about it."

That blasted bear beside her bed. That was why she kept it.

A daughter. A daughter conceived when she was seventeen. All of the pieces of the puzzle were slowly fitting together.
You were the first man that I lay with...

No. No, this couldn't be happening. Lucien's nerves felt raw, and he pressed his face to his palms, breathing through his fingers. Jesus Christ. Did he have a child that he'd never known about?

If so, then where was she? What had happened? Had someone—Morgana—threatened to tell the world about the child? Or had she taken her?

"Are you all right?" Cross asked.

No.
No, I'm not.
After all, five and twelve equaled seventeen, which was when she'd admitted that she'd lain with him. Lucien gave a swift nod, however. There were limits to what he would share, and he needed to find Ianthe to hear it confirmed from her own mouth before he would let himself believe this.

"Well, I've shared mine," Cross reminded him.

Time to share his. Lucien barely managed to pull himself back together. "You know that we were searching for something that was stolen from the Prime's manor?"

A nod.

"I think I know who the thief is. What I didn't know was why." Their eyes met. "I think you just answered the 'why' for me. None of it made any sense, but if someone had taken her daughter—"

The color drained out of Cross's face. "You need to speak to the Prime about your concerns."

Like hell
. "And betray her?"

"If this is true, boy, then she's in more danger than either of us would like to consider."

"I'll consider it." A strange ringing sensation echoed in his ears, a certain dizziness, as if the floor had been swept out from under him by this realization. He'd thought himself alone in the world. What if he was not?

And
why
hadn't she told him?

That one, at least, was easy to answer:
You did promise her vengeance after all
...

"At least think about it. Let me know how matters advance. Ianthe is dear to me. I should not care to see her hurt, so if you need help..."

"I'll let you know. I just need to confirm my suspicions." And work out if there truly was a little girl out there somewhere who bore his blood.

T
HE DOOR OPENED
.

Eleanor barely had the strength to roll onto her side. Her hair tugged, so matted with dried blood that it had adhered to the pillow. She winced.

"If you want... another turn at me," she whispered, her lips cracked and her tongue clinging to the roof of her dry mouth, "then I'm afraid... I might not be able to oblige."

She didn't think she owned the fortitude to survive another questioning. The last time, she'd blacked out before she gave in, so focused on protecting the man she loved, that she'd bitten clean through her lip.

Light burned her sensitive eyes as someone set a lantern down in front of her. Eleanor moaned and tilted her face into the faded pillow to protect them.

"Water?" a male voice asked.

Water
. Eleanor's eyes sprung open and she reached out, her entire body trembling. The stranger had to help hold her upright as he set the glass to her lips. Her arms were still red and bloody from the barbwire lash of sorcery that they'd inflicted upon her.

Then she realized who was kneeling in front of her. "Sebastian." Eleanor's gaze darted to the locked door, then back. Surely Morgana wouldn't have dared let her son in to see Eleanor?

"How did you know who I was?" Sebastian asked. "You recognized me."

Did he not know? Eleanor searched his eyes, but there was nothing but deadness there. "You are your father's mirror."

That made him stir. Sebastian poured her another glass of water, as if his actions could hide the flash of curiosity and uncertainty she saw in his eyes. "And you are his lover?"

Eleanor managed a weak smile that split her lip again. "Yes." It was the easiest answer. How did one explain that one man could be the other half of you? "You do not know how pleased he would be to know of you. He thought... we all thought you were dead."

Sebastian handed her the glass. "Why would he think me dead?"

"Your mother left a note for him, claiming that she'd used poison to remove you from her body. There was no reason not to believe her, as there were remains, as well."

"And why would he be pleased to know otherwise?"

"W-what do you mean? Drake's your father. You do not know how much he grieved for what he thought your mother had done. He's always born the guilt of it—that if he hadn't pushed through the divorce, Morgana might have stayed her hand."

Sebastian considered her for a long moment. "They're very pretty words. Were you practicing them?"

Eleanor sat up and regretted it. Her ribs were still tender. "I know why you feel such a thing. After all, I knew your mother; we did our apprenticeships together. Not everyone sees the world the way Morgana does—as if people are an enemy to be suppressed before they can cause her harm. I know she was most likely not a kindly woman. Your father, however... all he has ever wanted is to be a father, and yet he's never had the chance. You would be a gift to him."