Page 175 of Immortal Rose

It wasn’t, damn it all. She couldn’t give more of herself, not after Hugh had already asked so much.

But it was too late.

Hugh pulled Viola toward the door, nausea souring his stomach. They needed to leave. Now. Before Greystone’s club porters took her and slit his throat for good measure.

Greystone, however, did not require a blade to cut Hugh to the quick.

“You might have my daughter, Foxcourt, but I know what Glenmoor is holding over the King’s head,” he called. “I only wonder if you’ll be able to discover it in time to stop what’s coming.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

We surfaced from Ardent’s as if rising from the murky depths of the River Temese.

I eagerly gulped down the cool Linden night air, inviting the smog and animal droppings and reek of unwashed bodies to drive out the last of the incense’s heady magic from my blood. I felt exhausted and exhilarated.

But more than anything, there was tremendous relief. As if I were taking the first true deep breath of my life, after not having realized how shallow the rest had been.

It was over.

I had faced the monster who had haunted my every step, my every choice, year after year, and I had exorcised that terror from my soul.

It had been as though I was meeting half of myself for the first time. All the greed and self-interest and pride and grit that Mama had lacked—the part of myself that I had never liked but had kept me alive.

Hugh’s hand closed around mine as he hurried us through the men milling outside of the club’s main entrance. He didn’t speak at all as he scanned the street.

My cheeks flushed as glimmers of memory surfaced, my body still thrumming with wild longing. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to bank the embers of desire the memory stirred. My skin clung to his touch possessively, refusing to relinquish the sensation. Thoughts arrived and flittered away like feathers as I touched my kiss-stung lips.

“Hugh—” I began.

“Not now.” The traces of tenderness I’d felt within his arms had faded, and all that was left was steeled purpose.

To my surprise, he’d been hunting not for a hack, but for Foxcourt House’s unmarked coach. We located it three streets away, near the Bend—the famous street of lively shops that ran perpendicular to what had once been the old bank of the river. Cartwell spotted us first, waving an arm through the darkness.

We hurried over to it, and without preamble, Hugh opened the door and quickly handed me in. I collapsed against the seat, the last of the golden pleasure fading.

Hugh took the seat across from me, widening the gulf between us when, no more than a half hour ago, we had nearly been as close as two people could be. Even now, I felt the emptiness I’d begged him to fill. Even now, I was mortifyingly desperate for him.

Hugh rapped on the ceiling, ensuring the window between him and Cartwell was well and truly shut before he turned to me again. The anger in his face set my teeth on edge.

“Why in God’s name would you ever agree to do a favor for that man?” he snarled, ripping the mask from his face.

“Because it’s the only way to get the oil quickly,” I answered, sliding off my own mask. “You said it yourself—everything hinges on the completion of this perfume. It will be close, yes, but if the King can hold out through tomorrow, we’ll have Immortal Rose to him by the next morning. What otherwise would have been his final morning.”

Hugh reeled back against his seat, looking as though he was struggling to master whatever words were threatening to explode from him. “I didn’t—it wasn’t meant to be at such a cost to you, damn it.”

“Every perfume comes at a cost to me,” I reminded him.

The last threads of his composure seemed to hold, but only just. His eyes flashed dangerously.

“Where is that ruthlessness?” I asked him. “That willingness to see this through at any cost?”

He seemed taken aback by the question, as though he hadn’t dared to ask it of himself. “I’ve let you become far too entangled in this—”

“You’ve let me?” I echoed in disbelief.

“To owe something to a man like that—bloody hell, Viola.” Hugh raked a hand through the thick hair I’d mussed. He’d lost his hat somewhere between when I’d basically crawled up his body in the hall and when we’d been discovered.

God. The mortification was late in coming but no less powerful. Of all the people to witness the tail end of our . . . activities . . . it had to be him.