Page 19 of Immortal Rose

“Have I passed your test?” I asked coldly.

He braced an elbow on the arm of the chair and his chin on his fist, studying me. “Yes, I suppose,” he said, infusing the words with a warmth that didn’t match the sharpness of his gaze. “What can you tell about me, I wonder?”

The bastard knew, as he’d known nearly everything else about me, that I couldn’t scent him. There had to be a reason for it—magic, most likely. He was using some relic that protected him from fairy magic.

“You smell of horses and deceit,” I lied, unwilling to let him win.

He mimed being shot in the heart. “Sour milk, then?”

I couldn’t help my surprise.

“Your grandfather accused me of the very same,” he explained.

“He’s not my grandfather.”

“Not in the present tense at least,” he agreed. “He was, however, wasn’t he?”

“He was never my grandfather, as you well know,” I ground out. “He disinherited my mother.”

“His only child,” he said. “His sole heir. He never had another, legitimate or otherwise. What could have possibly caused such a rupture?”

“You are looking upon her,” I told him, the words brittle.

“And there was never any hope of reconciliation in all this time?” He clucked his tongue. “In truth, I cannot help but wonder if she was the one who chose to leave—and that, rather than humiliation, was what angered him enough to destroy his own legacy.”

Mama’s desperate face flashed in my mind as I ground out, “I assure you, there was no choice in the matter.”

There never was for a woman. William Rosebourne had chosen society’s acceptance over his own child, who, until that fateful mistake, had been the perfect, gentle, obedient young lady.

His ink-dark brows rose, just that little bit. “Were you aware that he told the whole of society she had died of gray fever? There was a funeral at Saint Bartholomew’s. No expense was spared. Rather shocking, wouldn’t you say?”

Disgust curdled my empty stomach once more, and I barely got the words out. “I am aware, yes. He aspired to be one of you—became one of you. In the eyes of the Patricians, shame is the only crime that cannot be overcome. A diseased branch of a tree must be excised or else the whole of it will rot.”

“And yet, here you are.”

“Here I am,” I echoed caustically.

With agonizing slowness, as if relishing every prolonged moment of my discomfort, he placed the flacon of Blooming Beauty on the table between us, then another just beside it. The second flacon was no bigger than the length of a finger, the vessel simple in its shape. If not for the rose stopper, I might not have recognized it as a bottle of Rosebourne perfume at all.

A deep ache stole through me at the sight of it, and before I could stop myself, I snatched up the Rosebourne bottle and threw it into the fire. The flames burned a blinding blue, hissing and heaving as they devoured the magic. The stranger’s gaze never left mine.

“There’s no need for dramatics, Lockwood,” he said.

“I have not yet begun to show you dramatics, sir,” I vowed.

“Settle your feathers,” he said. “I had to be certain you possessed the family gift.”

“Gift.” I licked my dry lips. “How interesting that it becomes a gift when it is attached to the Rosebourne name, but it was only ever a crime when associated with Lockwood.”

“Were you under the impression that life was a fair game?” he asked.

“No, but I thought—” I clamped my jaw shut.

It was galling, all of it. The way the King sent his soldiers to rip relics out of the hands of families who had need of them, while the Patricians were allowed to keep them locked in vaults. The way anyone with a drop of fairy blood had been shunned until their line died out entirely—and yet, for decades, they had simply averted their gazes and held out their hands for their bespoke Rosebourne perfumes. And all the while, everyone else in the kingdom struggled and toiled and died, with only whispers and rumors in the scandal sheets of the magic that still existed outside of their reach.

The fairies and their old gods had left the shores of Albion centuries ago, driven out, it was said, by the rise of men and their new conquering faith. Any magic threatened the great balance of life, the divine right of the King to rule, and the hierarchy of our society said to be ordained by God himself.

“You thought what?” he pressed, looking curious now.