Page 56 of Reap & Sow

“What were you expecting, a jester’s outfit?” He slipped the glasses down his nose. “Something low-cut and outrageously lacking in substance?”

“I’d wear it well regardless.”

Her confidence was entirely contrived. She wasn’t sure Kit knew that, for his pupils bloomed large at once. “No argument there, darling.”

The rumble in his voice sent her heart stuttering. Eda scrambled to rebalance the equilibrium. “Keep your perversions to yourself.”

“If you keep bossing me around, that shall become impossible.”

Her flush must’ve been apparent from a hundred paces; she spun away. Pull it together. Entertaining the flirtations of the demon who’d taken fifty years off her life was a truly tragic state of affairs.

Eda ducked behind an abandoned horse cart at the end of the alleyway to change. Kit stood guard. She was fully prepared to throw a shoe at him, but he did not peek.

Everything fit perfectly. Like a new skin, celebrating the lines of her body rather than hiding them away, and her chest swelled with the rightness of it. She felt…confident. Eda ran her hands over the waistcoat; the idea that he knew her measurements by eye was not flattering, she told herself. If he’d paid such close attention, it was because he was an awful lecher. She considered calling him such to his face when she emerged, old clothes abandoned.

His expression stopped her.

It was a brief thing, flitting away in an instant. But Eda saw. The slackening of his mouth. A warmth softening his eyes. Kit cleared his throat and slid his glasses back in place. “Shall we?”

They journeyed farther into Bellmoor Heath. Kit led her to the recessed gatehouse of a stately courtyard, guarded by high walls. Beyond, an ornate fountain gurgled among neatly maintained plants and flower beds, overlooked by a building that enclosed the garden on three sides. It was all dark stone and proud casements, three stories high. Timber-framed, with brick between rather than willow and plasterwork. Exactly what she’d expected of a High Governor’s abode.

“What now?”

Her only answer was a slow blink of feline eyes before Kit slipped through the gate. Eda hovered uncertainly, glancing about. She wore the mantle over her new cloak, her hood pulled up as far as it would go, but it was still unnerving to be left alone on the street.

Kit disappeared into pruned rosebushes beneath an open window. A second later, a little black mouse scurried over the sill.

She waited. Flexed her fingers over and over, as though she could shake the trepidation out. It was luncheon, wasn’t it? Eda imagined Kit transforming in an explosion of black smoke at the governor’s dining table, his wife and children falling out of their chairs in fright.

No such chaos came. Instead, the front door opened. A doorman hurried across the courtyard. Eda prepared to bolt, but the young man only unlocked the gate. He glanced about in confusion. His eyes faltered as they passed over her, then slid right off. “Miss…?”

She cleared her throat. “Hello—”

“Saints be good! Where did…” He flushed. Wide eyes scanned her in astonishment. “Er, that is—come on in, miss. The master is waiting to receive you.”

She thanked him, conscious of the way he gave her a wide berth as he led her through the front doors. Eda fumbled to unhook the chicken foot, letting the mantle fall free of her shoulders. Kit had been quite insistent on that. She held it bundled to her chest as the footman guided her into a lavish tiled foyer, then up a curving double staircase.

They stopped at a door beneath two rearing unicorns upon the lintel, carved from handsome cherry wood. The footman bade her enter. Inside, all was lushly furnished in warm, inviting hues. She hardly noticed.

Abelard Wolfram was glaring straight at her.

“This is her?”

It took Eda a moment to realize he was speaking to Kit. The demon languished against a window to the left. Milky daylight illuminated his hair and shoulders. Dust motes danced. Were it not for those molten eyes of his, he might have been a saint from a templehouse fresco. “Abelard, meet Eda Shaw.”

The High Governor stood at his desk with crossed arms. He stared hard at Eda, then Kit, then back again.

He was unassuming in looks. Eda had seen Wolfram before at a distance, for he frequently oversaw public events, but up close he was nothing like she’d imagined. Middling of height with graying hair, the governor was handsome—if not a little worn. Lines about his mouth and eyes suggested a lack of sleep, but his blue gaze was sharp as he assessed her. Cunning.

“It’s an honor, sir,” Eda managed. She clutched the mantle like a shield. She was a wanted woman, and if anyone had the power to send her directly to the hangman’s noose, it was him. I have to trust Kit. He wouldn’t bring me here if he thought I’d be in danger.

Wolfram ignored her. He poured himself a glass of amber drink from a decanter. “Bad enough that you come to my home when I expressly asked you not to, Kit’rath. Now you bring an accused murderer along.” His voice was level in that diplomatic way of all politicians. Something harder lurked beneath. “My children play just outside.”

Kit glanced out the window. “Your two youngest, no? Hyacinth and Faron.”

Wolfram’s grip tightened on his glass. “You bid me allow the girl entrance. I have done so. Now you will do me the courtesy of explaining what this is all about.” He noted Kit’s beautiful jerkin. “You’ve helped yourself to enough of my resources of late.”

That explained the tailor’s tab.