“Old enough, Tori darling,” he whispered for her alone. Then he danced his fingers through the streak of silver at his temple. “I like it. Makes me appear older than my years, handy on occasion. Nothing so remarkable as your wild tangle, curls fighting to escape those distressingly feeble arrangements. If anxious Agnes can’t assist, you’ll not find a maid at Harbingdon who can. Make you disappear and appear on the other side of the estate, maybe, but construct a simple coiffure? Alas, we’re not equipped.”
Her hand rose to smooth her hair. As if she could help that the strands were as unbiddable as her nature and that neither she nor Agnes was skilled enough to confine them. With effort, she tore her gaze from the reclining boor taking up too much of the sofa’s acreage and focused it on Lord Beauchamp. “You mentioned providing insight, my lord?”
Julian stared at the penknife he smoothed his thumb over as if he sought to polish it to a high sheen. When he lifted his head, her breath caught at the intensity of his expression. “I see visions when I touch objects. Visions of someone who touched the object previously. A day or a week before, I have no choice in the visitations. Vivid, often disturbing scenes best left unobserved. This gift has complicated my life beyond what I’d wish on anyone, changed it beyond what I’d planned. As yours likely did, my mystic ability started when I was too young to realize I should hide it, and when I exposed it, my father reacted, shall we say, violently. So I ran to Seven Dials, the nastiest slum in London, where I knew I would become lost. Our butler had grown up there, and I never forgot the stories he told me about the place. How you could disappear, never to return. How you could become another person.” He tipped the penknife the hulking brute’s way. “Humphrey found me, saved my life truth be told, and a year or so later, I found Finn, his gift making him notorious in a hellhole where no one wants notoriety, a gentle boy swimming in a sea of sharks. I don’t think I’m telling you anything he hasn’t, which in itself—I dare say your appearance at Harbingdon at all—is most unusual.”
Her attention shifted to the gentle boy, but he’d closed his eyes. Although she knew he was listening from the pulse drumming a fierce beat just below his ear, a delicate spot she had the sudden urge to press her lips to. When her lips had never traveled beyond a man’s mouth—and she’d never wished them to.
Julian placed the penknife on the window seat with almost solemn reverence, a dull click that resonated through the room like a church’s bell. “I’ve never encountered an object, not once in my life, without images—soft and muted or fantastic and grotesque—storming my mind. More vivid than any painting I can create, and trust me, I’ve tried. Laid out what I see on canvas as a way to expunge the illustrations from my mind. This has happened every day, with every touch, every doorknob, every spoon, every teacup, except for four instances.” His gaze circled back to her, blazing with enough emotion to send her to her knees had she been standing. As outlandish as it seemed, he looked like he wanted to drop to his knees himself. She’d suspected this man to be taciturn when he was anything but. “Four instances when you and I have shared the same space.”
“Blasted, bleeding hell,” Humphrey growled and shoved to his feet, stalking to the sideboard situated at the back of the library. “I had a deadly feeling about this summer.”
“Calm down, Rey,” Julian murmured. “This could be a very good thing.”
“A fine predicament is what it is. We’ll need an army to fortify the estate because once they find out about her, we’re at war. You’d better get word to Fireball.” The carafe clinked as he poured, the glass smacking wood after he drank. Apparently, the startling admission meant morning refreshments would be served, at least to handsome beasts who rescued viscounts from rookeries and genuinely detested the occult but chose to live amidst it.
Victoria frowned. “Fireball?”
“The Duke of Ashcroft,” Finn replied from his drowsy repose. “A story for another day.”
Ashcroft. She flinched, kicking her puzzle book beneath the table, so bewildered her teeth were beginning to ache. “I’m not doing anything to weaken your ability, my lord. I’m simply...being. My parlor trick involves stealing time. Brief, insignificant spans of time. I make people forget trivial events, often things they’ve seen me do that I, in all honesty, shouldn’t have done.” She felt Finn’s searing gaze strike her, the judgmental oaf. “I present a change of plan when it suits, paltry misdirection. I persuade people to take certain paths, a harmless nudge.”
“My lady, misdirection appears to be your side gift. However, your main one is astounding in our world, and as you’ve just entered it, I understand your lack of awareness. You see, you’re not weakening my ability, you’re halting it in its tracks. Not to sound disrespectful, especially in front of my cherished wife, but if you were a timepiece, I’d never remove you from my pocket. Around you, I am ordinary. As it is, I’ve spent two mornings in a dining area not of my choosing but one that brings blessed relief from the constant visions. Have you not noticed the crowd in there, servants and family at one table? Have you seen that happen at any aristocratic home in England? Scullery maids and the lord of the manor dining together? But I can’t deny them what is so wonderfully rejuvenating to me as well. You diminish the chaos in their minds, if not outright erasure. That is your gift, one that places you in grave danger should our enemies ever, ever know of your existence. And someday they will, make no mistake.”
“What enemies? I have no enemies.”
Julian flipped the penknife to Finn, who caught it with a one-handed snatch. “Leave it to you, boy-o, to bring home the second most obstinate woman in England. As it seems I’ve failed to convince her, Piper darling, queen of obstinacy, you’ll have to try.”
Victoria scowled as Finn slipped the penknife in his pocket without meeting her gaze. The graceful cur was doing nothing to save her from this interrogation when she’d protected him earlier.
Piper staggered to her feet with assistance from her husband. “Excuse me, everyone, while I roam the room. I can’t sit for long periods without my back spasming, because he or she is a very, very active babe.” She laid her hand over her rounded tummy and smiled, her eyes glowing as fiercely as the emeralds in Victoria’s favorite brooch. A family heirloom sold long ago to pay one of the many creditors pounding on their door.
Victoria settled back with an inward sigh, and an acknowledged cautionary prickle dancing along her skin. She would leave this library with more understanding than she’d ever been granted about herself if she let them continue. But did she genuinely want to understand? Why change her life over a chess move employed to divert select interactions, an innocuous exchange always in her favor? Altering little except to postpone a marriage she didn’t want. Hide reckless kisses she’d mistakenly thought would ease her loneliness. Buying time by stealing it. Why complicate the future with talk of blocking supernatural gifts and being someone’s shielding pocket watch when she could muddle along with some normalcy, the ordinary life Julian Alexander spoke of with such reverence.
This entire country sojourn was inviting the abnormal into her existence.