Page 20 of Immortal Rose

I said nothing. I’d learned long ago to keep my feelings inside, where they couldn’t be used against me.

“William Rosebourne died four nights ago at Fenwick’s, his member’s club,” the man said into the silence. “Someone placed an explosive beneath his carriage.”

I knew, of course. The broadsheets had screamed of it for days, venturing theory after theory of who might be responsible. A rival he’d put out of business, one could assume, but Rosebourne had thrice as many enemies as I had years.

It didn’t matter to me who had done it, only that he had gotten what he deserved at last.

“Why are you here?” I asked quietly.

“I have a task that, regrettably, only you can perform,” he said, “and so, I have a proposition.”

I leaned against the chair, my fingers knotting together painfully over my chest. “I assume this task is a perfume?” I asked finally. “One involving some magic, or else you wouldn’t be here, desperate and pretending otherwise.”

His eyes narrowed. Good. Aside from Sweetie, annoying him was one of the few weapons I had left available to me, and he was making it too easy.

“Yes. One I can speak of only if you agree.”

“If I were able to create a magic perfume—a fact that has yet to be tested at trial,” I began ingenuously, “I would never agree to the creation of one that would harm another, nor would I agree to one that comes at too high a cost to myself.”

He drew back against his own seat then, the tension in his jaw emphasizing its sharp line. “Not even for a full pardon from the King upon the perfume’s completion?”

I launched myself to my feet with such force I nearly overturned the heavy chair into the fire. “You are—you are a fork-tongued serpent. Lying and—”

He held up a silencing hand. “I never lie, Miss Lockwood. I only use shadows to disguise the truth. This is your best—your only—opportunity to gain your freedom. Should you choose not to move forward after hearing the particulars of the task, I will return you here posthaste. And, believe me, I will take the utmost pleasure in doing so.”

“Prove it then,” I said.

He stared at me as if I’d spoken the ancient fairy tongue.

“Prove that you have the power to take me from here,” I said. “Or am I just meant to accept the word of the man responsible for my arrest?”

“So cynical,” he said, with something like approval.

“No, cynical is keeping me here for two nights to ensure I understand the consequences of refusing you,” I said. “Prove to me that you have such power over the King that he would agree to this scheme of yours.”

His brows rose again. Clearly, he’d thought me a feather wit, as malleable as clay, ready to be shaped by his hand. But his pride had met its match in mine.

“Well?” I prompted.

I could tell I’d surprised him—pleased him, even, which was the more wretched realization. Before that moment, his every smile had been mocking, meant to disarm rather than reassure. Now, however, it felt genuine.

“As the lady commands,” he said sardonically, reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket once more. He left a folded document on the table for me and sat back again, crossing his ankle over his knee in a relaxed posture. “A document legally releasing you into trusted custody, ready to be handed to the prison governor.”

Feigning nonchalance, I took it in hand and turned away, refusing to let him see that I needed to shut my left eye to read it properly. The elegantly penned lines echoed his claims, but there, at the bottom, was a signature I never would have expected.

“The Earl of Foxcourt?” I said derisively. It was an ancient title, one with connections to the King’s own family. But even that dissolute rake would have balked at being made to host a criminal under his gilded roof. “He can’t have agreed to this . . .”

A soft chuckle drew my eyes up.

“Oh,” he said softly, “but I already have.”

I saw then what he meant by disguising the truth in shadows—leaving out crucial details or prettying them in such a way I wouldn’t think to question them.

“Hilarious,” I told him coldly.

“I assure you, Lockwood, there is nothing hilarious about any of this to me,” he answered. “Here are your choices: you can sign that document and leave this place, or I can send you back to your cell, where you will rot for however many months it takes for the courts to bring you to trial.”

“And you will not get your perfume,” I reminded him.