“Incredible,” Julian said from his place beside Finn, shoulder wedged against the window frame, folio balanced on his arm as he scrawled notes across the page. “I don’t even get the sensation of a vision from this pencil until she’s more than a hundred yards away. She and Piper made it to the garden before the images starting floating in. So faint I could almost overlook them, and I had half a dozen people touch it at breakfast, something that would’ve had me retching in the rubbish bin on a normal day after holding it this long. The most curious element? It seems to draw nothing from her to impede our gifts, like she holds them off with a sword that weighs less than a feather.”
“Minnie was able to perform while in the same room. Remember her giving Lucien the cookie? Different effects on different abilities.”
“True enough,” Julian agreed and scribbled another note. “We’ll test everyone on the estate. Distances, interpretations of potency. She and Piper, for instance. One gift strengthens, the other calms. How do such divergent abilities work together?”
Finn shrugged, the occult not nearly as interesting to him as it was to his brother. The chronology was Julian’s religion. What was fascinating to him at the moment was watching Victoria hold her arm aloft for a passing butterfly to land upon. Her smile could light the darkest of souls should one tear down the walls and let her in. “Test her with Simon. It should be interesting. Can Lady Victoria’s fantastic gift repel the haunts? They seem to multiply with every year that passes. I think they talk amongst themselves and decide Harbingdon is a nice place to visit, then they never leave. God, would it be wonderful for Simon if they’d leave him for even a moment.”
Julian flipped a page, paused. “You test her with Simon. He’s your boy. Always has been. Attached at the hip since we dragged him here. Or in the past six months, did you forget that fact?”
Finn muttered an oath and turned his back as Victoria struggled to pull Piper to her feet, their warmhearted laughter trickling in the open window. Not a surprise they’d become fast friends as both were obstinate and attracted to trouble. Nevertheless, he’d no time to stand there mooning over a woman plainly out of reach. There were letters to translate and invoices for the gaming hell to pay, enough work to keep him sequestered in this library, should he be hiding from anyone, which he was not, for days. “Broach the subject with Si. He’s a bit perturbed with me at the moment.” He extracted his penknife from his waistcoat, slid the blade beneath the envelope’s seal and shredded, relishing the obliteration.
Julian’s stinging gaze landed on him. Suggesting there was discord in the Alexander household was like waving a crimson flag before a papa bull. “Meaning?”
“Meaning he wants to live in London. With me. Above the Blue Moon, where he’ll graciously ignore the women and the drinking, all for peace. From you.” Finn dropped to the worn leather chair behind the desk and gave a halfhearted salute with the penknife. “Congratulations, Jule. You continue to suck the sunshine out of your brothers’ lives, one cloying gesture at a time.”
Julian hummed beneath his breath, signaling advice was about to be offered, a marked expectation of obedience attached. “I don’t usually get involved in your liaisons. Except for the one with the Earl of Kilmartin’s daughter. Couldn’t just stand by and let that work itself out.”
“How was I to know she’d brandish a pistol? And proceed to shatter every window in the earl’s ballroom shooting at me?”
Julian glanced out the window and closed his eyes—still testing the visions he was receiving from the pencil against how far away Victoria stood. “You don’t have to tell me anything, boy-o. The broadsheets described the destruction in detail, ink bleeding over every society matron’s fingers the next morning. We can only thank God Lady Esmerelda has horrendous aim, and Baron Fredricks was besotted enough to marry her the following week.”
“I paid for every window from my funds.”
Julian laughed then for some bloody reason, tapping his pencil against his knee in time to an internal clock. “Your adventures have kept me young, Finn. Should I have desired a quiet life in the country with my beloved wife and babies.”
Finn released a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Piper’s never given you a peaceful day in your life, and she never will. But you love her too much to notice. And speaking of serenity, who’s on the docket to arrive this week?”
Julian had the good grace to flush, halting the tapping of his pencil. “A young groom from the Marquess of Ardmore’s estate. His communication with animals is unparalleled, but he’s being thrashed daily by the villagers because he made mention of his gift. There’s scant information about such a talent in the chronology. Most intriguing. We have Piper to help him, and maybe now Lady Victoria, too.”
Finn looked to the wiry mutt who never strayed more than ten feet from Julian. Henry lifted his head, yawned, then let it fall back to his crossed paws with a contemptuous sniff. “Superb. I can’t wait to finally find out what he’s thinking.”
Julian sank into the chair across from him; a gleaming mahogany battlefield laid out between them. “Lady Victoria’s talent is inconceivable, so formidable it makes Piper’s look dull in comparison, a statement I never thought to hear myself make. Especially when I wondered, to the depths of my soul and back, if I’d be able to protect her. Now there’s another. A blocker, which I didn’t even believe existed.” Julian trailed his finger over a drop of dried green paint on the desk. “Until someone from the other side infiltrated the League last year, a man we had no knowledge of until he arrived here seeking asylum, I thought we might be safe for longer. For my lifetime and yours. For Lucien’s. But now…”
Finn directed a veiled glance to the envelope he clutched—sent from a Parisian friend of the League with deep-seated contacts in the supernatural world, a man who’d had word of menacing rumblings—hoping Julian didn’t see the tremor travel down his arm and into his fingers. “You’re going to propose she marry Ashcroft.”
Julian braced his forearms on the chair, set to rise. “She must be further from the house than I thought if you’re able to dip back into my mind. Let me check on the distance so I can note—”
“Jule, I can’t read anything.” Finn tapped the envelope against his head. “And no blinding headache trying not to. Trust me. They’re giggling by the fountain, dreaming up mischief. Their thoughts, and yours, are closed to me.”
Julian settled back, frowned. “Then, how did you know?”
Finn unfolded the letter and smoothed his palm over it, diving into the lines of text. French came easily, too easily he thought. He woke from dreams with the language heavy on his tongue, spilling from his mind like an overfilled mug. “It makes perfect sense. Ashcroft makes perfect sense. Title. Money. Protection. Everything she requires. And when she sucks the fire from his fingertips the first time”—Finn made an inelegant crease in the foolscap, barely containing the twist of irritation the purposely suggestive words sent through him—“he’ll throw himself at her feet in supplication. Even if he has to give up the opera singer, reported to have the most talented lips in London, by the by. A wonder he hasn’t burned down his Mayfair townhouse.” Finn smiled but kept his eyes on the page. No need to invite Julian into whatever might be written across his face. “You just know he’s caught more than one bed on fire.”