Lightning Unbound: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 1 Page 23

Stretton took the tale. “I spent some time with George recently. I thought it would do him good to talk to a social equal, and in any case, I enjoyed his company.” He shrugged off her exclamation of surprise. “I went this morning to his room to find the footman unconscious and your brother gone. They have taken nothing else. There was no attempt at concealment and no note. James knows nothing. He was struck from behind.”

  “Do we trust him?” Faith appreciated James’s efforts, but perhaps it was too convenient, too useful to find him at hand when she needed him.

  Gerard nodded. “He was born on the estate. His family is in our service. James has too much to lose to allow his loyalty to stray. I believe he would have gone with George had he known of the plan, rather than let them leave him behind.”

  It was good enough. Stretton continued his narrative. “Boscobel is missing. Lady Deborah stayed at the ball last night and is not yet back.” He exchanged a wry look with Gerard. “She over-imbibed rather freely, I fear. I kept her company, but I didn’t notice until too late. Likely she’s still sleeping the effects off.” Seemingly reminded, Stretton reached out to the decanter that never lay far from his elbow. Glancing at the others, receiving their refusal, he poured himself a glass of wine. If she didn’t know his secret, Faith would have suspected him of being hopelessly addicted to wine. Perhaps in a way he was.

  A knock sounded at the door and at Gerard’s soft “Come,” a footman entered with a note on a tray. “We discovered this in His Grace’s study. It is addressed to you, my lord.” Faith felt Gerard’s effort to behave normally. He took the note from the salver. The footman bowed and left.

  Gerard snapped the seal and opened the paper. He read the message aloud.

  My son.

  You did not listen to me. I cannot allow your defiance, so I have decided to make you see reason. Fordhouse is in my care. He will come to no harm if you remember your duty to me and do as you are bid. There is nothing wrong in that, is there? You were my right hand for years, until this woman came into your life.

  While you cannot marry in the eyes of the world, you can do this for me. Put your wife aside, at least for now, and sire me a son. I want an immortal, a son with no taint of red blood about him. I have chosen your mate. I have found your Juno. It is not much to ask of you, is it? Then you may live your life as you choose, with your woman, in the knowledge that only after you are gone will my plan come to fruition. Why should you care, then?

  My ambitions are not selfish and personal. I know what is right for this world. A single ruler, someone to guide it in benevolence and peace, someone to bring this place and its people to true greatness. You believed in that, once. Gerard’s voice broke, but he cleared his throat and carried on. I will fade from the world. You may say I died, and inherit the title. After you are gone, I will return, with your son. A month of your life. That is all I wish for. In return, you may have this boy back unharmed.

  Together with your sister. I have her too, and you know I will make good on my promises. Think about it, Ellesmere. I want your answer by nightfall.

  White faced, Gerard looked up. He didn’t look at Faith. He didn’t need to. She held her breath, holding the air deep inside her, feeling her diaphragm push against the pressure. She needed all her control, all her wits.

  “He’ll kill him. He’ll kill them both.” Gerard’s voice sounded the vicious truth. Faith shivered, and despite the others in the room he lifted his arm to her shoulders and drew her close to rest against him. Faith accepted the comfort, trying to give him hers in return.

  “If he does that, we’ll punish him so severely he’ll wish he were dead, too,” Stretton said, his voice carefully neutral. “Have you any suspicion who Juno could be?”

  Gerard’s mouth firmed. “Manningtree’s girl. Remember that my father said he had her in mind for me? He and Manningtree have been thick as thieves for years. It would explain why he hasn’t pushed me to marry anyone sooner. But how could she be Juno? She’s just turned eighteen”

  “Juno died in the explosion,” Stretton said. “If she was reborn into another body that night, Boscobel could have kept the child secret and waited until Manningtree’s wife was ready to give birth once more.”

  Faith swallowed. “And murdered the first child at the point of the baby’s birth?”

  “Yes.”

  Faith didn’t have a word for worse than diabolical.

  “How could he do this without our discovering it?” d’Argento asked. “We removed his powers, as is our right. He couldn’t have regained them without our knowing.”

  “Someone else is helping him,” Gerard replied, his voice a dark rumble in his chest. “There must be, or we’d have felt something, a disturbance. I’m linked too closely to my sister for someone to take her without me sensing it.”

  There was a short pause. “Of course you’re right,” d’Argento said tonelessly. “I know of some of our kind in London; I will check on them.”

  Stretton nodded. From her refuge of Gerard’s shoulder, Faith watched. They seemed to withdraw from their bodies, their eyes going blank and unblinking. It was unnerving, the way they sat so still. Stretton had a glass in his hand, but he had gone. All that sat before her was an empty husk, something that held the vitality of the man when he chose for it to do so. Faith swallowed.

  Within a few minutes, both returned. Stretton blinked and lifted the glass to his lips, finishing it in one draught. He shook his head. “The ones I know are where they should be, doing what they should be doing. I can discover no sign of any conspiracy.”

  D’Argento shook his head also, regaining his senses. “Nothing.”

  “Someone who kept himself carefully concealed, then, like my father,” Gerard said. He was as disturbed as she was by what they had just seen. Time to reflect on it later, after they had recovered her brother. She dared not consider the alternative.

  “What will he do?” she asked. “You know him best, Gerard. What will he do to them?”

  Gerard answered immediately. “He won’t hurt them except as a last resort. He is unlikely to harm Deborah, but he is capable of it. He despises Fordhouse but wants his influence, his vote in the House. The vote he is particularly interested in isn’t for another week.”

  “He can enthral Fordhouse and control him that way.” d’Argento’s silvery voice came as though from a distance, but strengthened fast. “He has the power, as we all have, of enchanting him, making him believe he is doing it of his own free will. I suspect that is how he intends to win his vote. What’s it for? What will he gain?”

  Gerard sighed heavily. “I had never considered it a threat before, but it is. He wants to change the law so that every man of property has to appoint a guardian, in case of unexpected illness or disease. Until recently it seemed a practical proposition, tidying up the law.”

  “Dear God.” Stretton breathed the words softly. “It’s the first step.”

  “In what?” Faith found herself saying, realizing at the same moment what he must mean by it. She heard her terrors spoken by someone else, out loud.

  “It means he can set a series of guardians. Lawyers, relatives, people not in the public eye. People who can appear from nowhere, given a suitably careful background. People who have the power to control the most powerful in the land. His first scheme was only a partial success. I should have known he would not rely merely on one plan to attain his ends.”

  “The Act must be defeated,” Stretton said. “Once he is elected Leader, perhaps even First Lord of the Treasury, he can appoint his own ministers.”

  “He wants complete control,” Faith breathed.

  A sharp breath from Gerard made Faith turn her head to see him bite his lip. His eyes flashed anger. “I should have known. I should have guessed.”

  She put her hand over his. “Who could know? Who could guess this? He distorted your reality, Gerard. He made you believe the logical, instead of the possible.”

  “He always was a subtle man.” D’Argento sounded bi
tter. “He had thirty years to subvert his son. Thank God he failed.”

  Faith was no longer shocked by the realization that Boscobel could use people so coldly. What her father did in anger with immediate results in mind, Gerard’s father did in cold, calculating ambition. The man wasn’t mad. He had done it before, and before his son and their colleagues had defeated him, but only after a long struggle. He could do it again.

  They had to stop him.

  “We’re working in the dark,” Stretton said. The stopper clinked as he drew it from the decanter to pour himself another glassful. The sun, streaming in through the window, caught the facets and sent a shard of light across the ceiling. Faith blinked, but with a twist of his wrist Stretton cut off the light, and it was gone. “We always did, where Kronos was concerned. He makes his plans in secret, then executes them without mercy. We must stop him now, before he grows any more powerful.” He lifted the glass, the ruby liquid glittering as he lifted it to his lips.

  “We have to recover his hostages and discover his colleagues. Unfortunately, he knows who we are. I know of others, but they are too far away to be of much help to us now.” D’Argento smiled grimly. “Most of the most powerful of our kind were destroyed thirty years ago. We are still looking for them. Even if we found them they would be of little use today. We need help, today. Now.”

  “He never keeps important information written down,” Gerard said.

  “He always did that,” Stretton said gloomily. “He never forgets.” He lifted his head, meeting Gerard’s gaze. “You know we may have to kill him?”

  Gerard nodded, not looking away. “I will not do it, but I won’t defend him if it becomes necessary. I would rather not see it, though.”

  “We won’t do it unnecessarily. We prefer to punish.”

  Faith thought of Prometheus, of Laocoon, of Tantalus, and shivered. She’d rather be dead than have any of those fates imposed on her.

  “Then it’s agreed,” Stretton said into the stillness of the room. “We will pretend to agree to the plan and go along with it. You will go and meet your father, Gerard, keeping your mind open to us, only to us. Can you create layers yet?”

  Gerard lifted a questioning brow.

  “Can you keep one layer, one channel private, for us alone?”

  Gerard glanced at Faith and she blushed, biting her lip. “I can,” he said, a trace of warmth in his deep voice.

  “Good, then do that. I will go with you but not enter the room. I have servants I can station around the building, men who can discreetly watch the house, wherever it is.”

  Faith received a jolt from somewhere, an unexpected surge of understanding. It was the first time George had communicated with her like this, and it was totally instinctive.

  “I know where they’re holding George,” she said into the hushed silence. “I can see it as clearly as if it’s in front of me. A series of pictures.” She turned to Gerard. “I didn’t know he could communicate like this.”

  “In extremis, everyone can.” Stretton said. “Where is he?”

  “They took them to our old lodgings in Vinegar Yard, near Bedlam. They did something there, I don’t know what. I can only see the places. But they moved George.” She swallowed. “He’s back in Bedlam.”

  “We need to go. Now.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Vinegar Yard stank. Not as bad as Bedlam, but close. Inside the coach it had been muted, a smell one could breathe through, but once the door was open the stench swept in like a physical presence. It was heavy with decay, overlaid by the tang of the condiment that gave the place its name. Behind one of the tall buildings lay a warehouse where vinegar was stored, and vats left open to finish the process that turned wine into vinegar. Gerard choked down his gorge and waited for the footman to drop the steps, descending and offering his hand to Faith, to give her one last kiss.

  “How did you manage to live here?”

  Faith smiled at him, bringing purity to hell. “You get used to the smell. After a week or two you hardly notice it.”

  Gerard stared doubtfully around and realized why Faith insisted on wearing a plain old gown she’d bought from the maid. Anything she wore would be ruined by contact with the floor, the walls furred with green moss, running damp and noxious fluids he would rather not investigate further. He had donned a simple country outfit and now had doubts it would survive the day. He would explore possibilities here, and Stretton would go on to the place where he ruled, with Faith. His father came here for a reason and Gerard needed to find out.

  Stretton was dressed for show. He stood out in such a dismal place, leaning out of the coach window, his grey eyes brightly assessing the crumbling buildings. “I would find followers here, if I had a mind for it.” He sighed. “Sadly, that urge left me many years ago. It makes me wonder what exactly drives Kronos, why he should crave for power after so long. Let’s go, shall we?”

  “Go,” Gerard said to his wife. “Fetch Fordhouse home.”

  He watched the coach rumble out of the square and turned to face the buildings before him. He could feel a presence here, even through the miasma that surrounded the place as thick as London fog. His father was here.

  Vinegar Yard lay on the opposite side of London to the fashionable West End, its opposite in other ways. The houses were tumbling as they stood, great gaps in the slates open to the elements, crammed next to each other like a slavering crowd at Tyburn on hanging day. The heavy pall of smoke hung heavier here, as though banished to the poorer quarters of the city. Smuts fell on his coat, greasy black soot staining his clothes, turning him into a suitable inhabitant of the area without him having to do anything to aid it.

  “Come.” Gerard glanced behind to the two plainly dressed, burly footmen who accompanied them. “Stay outside the room, while I go in. Don’t allow anyone to enter or leave without my say-so.”

  There was no such thing as house numbers or names. Faith’s erstwhile London residence was at the top of a house at the corner of the Yard. She’d given him a mental image of it earlier, so he knew where to go. Peeling green paint adorned a door permanently ajar on crooked hinges. Gerard shoved at it with his shoulder and heard a satisfactory crunch as the bottom hinge parted company with the rotting wood.

  He saw the footman’s brief surprise that he should vent his fury on such an undeserving object. He shrugged. “Better if the thing was out of the way. We might have to leave in a hurry.”

  The men followed behind Gerard, stepping in his steps, mimicking the way he hopped from one stair to another, sometimes using the centre of the tread, sometimes the edge. Another gift from Faith, who’d told him which steps were rotten and which safe.

  She had been right about the smell, he realized when they were two floors up. It had receded to the back of his senses. It was still there, but muted, so he could detect any change, but it no longer lurked at the centre of his consciousness.

  Gerard felt uneasy, unsafe so high in a building that might collapse under his feet at any moment. He turned his head at a sound from behind a closed door. This door seemed surprisingly sturdy in the middle of the dereliction.

  Gerard led the way. The door was new, the doorway cut to fit it. He lifted his hand and knocked, although their approach must have been heard. It would be pointless to try to hide it.

  The door opened. Gerard went through. He stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.

  Horror struck through to his heart. How could a pearl like Faith have borne living in this place? How had she kept her beauty, her sweetness here? He knew she rested in his mind, reading his thoughts, because she was always there. He sensed her amusement.

  The room boasted two windows, both relatively clean. Faith must have done her best to keep this place, her private space, as spruced up as she could. Light filtered in, but the windows were low dormers, so the corners of the room lay in permanent shadow.

  “Gerard!” The cry came from the far side of the room. Gerard’s heart turned over at
the sound of his sister’s voice, and in a few short steps he was by her side.

  He knelt by the chair where they had secured Deborah. Her hands were lashed behind her, her feet bound together at her ankles. A small table stood by the chair, a glass of small beer and a tin plate bearing only crumbs mute witnesses to the paltry diet. “I’m here now, Deborah. Did they hurt you?”

  Dried tearstains on his cheeks were swept away by fresh ones when she wept for joy to see her brother. “No, Gerard, they said you’d come to me. Have you come to take me home?”

  A pang of sorrow swept through Gerard when he realized that while he made love to his wife his poor sister waited in an agony of anticipation.

  Faith’s voice murmured into his mind. Don’t feel guilty. None of this is your fault.

  That’s a matter of opinion, he responded.

  Without you, we wouldn’t have any hope at all.

  Thank you. He looked forward to resuming the demonstration of his gratitude at another time.

  “Deborah, did they hurt you?”

  Deborah gave him a watery smile. “I’m all right.” Gerard took in the pallet and the rumpled but clean bedclothes, mute witnesses to the basic amenities they’d given her. A screen in the corner heralded the meagre toilet facilities. All this must have revolted Deborah’s fastidiousness. She seemed undaunted, his Deborah to the last, head held proudly high, appearance pin-neat. A highbred aristocrat in a hovel. He wondered what Faith would have been like here.

  I fitted in nicely.

  You tried to. The first time I saw you I knew you belonged somewhere else.

  With you. The statement came with a hesitation, as though she had tried to choke it off.

  Yes. With me.

  Unlike her, his tone was firm and sure. She said in his mind. We’ve arrived.

  Go carefully.

  The other occupants of the room stood silently, watching the loving embrace of brother and sister. Gerard belatedly turned his attention to them.

  His father watched him guardedly, his usual expression of disinterest firmly in place. By his side, another man, glaring at Gerard. Manningtree, an earl, until recently abroad. An old friend of his father’s. Perhaps another Titan. With a daughter Gerard was to impregnate.