Page 43 of Immortal Rose

Smoke curled around us, veiling the park. Foxcourt drew in a ragged breath, and for a moment, I was sure he would find a way to slither out of answering.

“The linseed oil,” he said finally. “It was the same with Rosebourne’s coach.”

I stared at him in shock.

He witnessed it. The realization seemed to emerge with the morning. He saw Rosebourne die. And if he hadn’t . . .

We would be dead as well. I would be dead.

“The poisoner . . . it would seem they know about Immortal Rose,” Foxcourt said. “He will do everything in his power to stop you from making it, as he stopped William Rosebourne.”

I forced myself to draw in a breath. Another. The words swirled in my mind like the ash around us. The moment came into terrifyingly stark relief.

“What was that you were saying before,” Foxcourt mused as the ash whirled around him, “about being able to take care of yourself?”

“Yes, well,” I said acidly, smoothing a muddy white curl out of my face, “you neglected to mention that explosives would be part of the terms of my freedom. How easily mortal peril slips from the mind.”

“They won’t stop at explosives,” Foxcourt said, surveying the destruction around us. “So, the question becomes: Are you still willing to see this through?”

“I never give up,” I told him.

He seemed to take it as the warning it was, his lips curling.

Perhaps it was only the high-strung feeling of my blood still being up or merely the elation of having survived bubbling over like the froth of sparkling wine, but, for once, the smile didn’t exasperate me. It felt . . . intimate, almost. Something shared, rather than inflicted.

“Even if I were to say that you could walk away now and be free, with no consequences?” he said quietly, running his thumbnail along his top lip.

He had directed the question to the fallen tree beside us, not to me. And, again, I resented not being able to detect his essence. There was no way to know for certain if that look on his face was regret or guilt—two foreign emotions to a toff. To know if that door was truly open to me now to run.

I slammed it shut regardless.

“You would never allow me to,” I scoffed. “And they’ll need to do far worse to frighten me into walking away from the Rosebourne fortune.”

“You’ll inherit nothing from the grave,” he warned.

I gave him an arch look. “Then next time, you had better look under the bloody carriage before we set off.”

“Does this mean you’ve accepted that you need my help?”

Hell’s tits. That smile was lethal to virtue.

“It means I’ve accepted that you’ll serve nicely as a shield,” I said. After all, what good was pride to the dead? Better him than me. “And anyway, I’m harder to kill than you think.”

God knew Riverside had taken a stab at it, and the Brickbats had come lumbering up after it with a club. All my broken pieces had been welded back together, stronger than before. Not even Fairgate had shattered me.

The meeting point of life and death was primal instinct. Even now, it made me too aware of myself, of my body. The frazzled curls stroking my cheeks and neck, my shift brushing against my legs, the way each breath I drew strained my corset. I knew he saw all of it. And still, he didn’t look away—as if he didn’t dare to. As if a cloak had been lifted, and he was truly seeing me.

My pulse, which had finally slowed, began to climb once more, and my stomach tightened.

Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. He didn’t know me, and he never would. By this time next week, we would be strangers.

Less than a memory.

Foxcourt pulled back suddenly, letting out a deep, rasping cough. He turned his back to me, revealing his ruined jacket once more, and braced a hand against the tree that still stood behind him. Lingering raindrops glittered in his dark hair as he bowed his head, his body convulsing with each hacking breath. We wouldn’t get far on foot, and I doubted he wanted to be discovered like this.

“The horses are long gone,” I said, shielding my eyes as I stepped onto the road. The rain and mist had swept away any hint of them. I rubbed at my arms, trying to drive away the chill of the cold rain and mud. “I’ll go find help.”

We weren’t near enough to any residences for anyone to have witnessed the blast, though surely someone would have heard it.