Black Soul, White Heart (Black Hat Bureau 3.50)

3

Keep your head down. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your opinions to yourself.

That was the warning John greeted me with after the horror of my appearance sank in.

But this patron made it hard to obey him, and besides, I had never been good at obedience. Still, I was in quite enough trouble, thank you very much, without compounding it by costing the family money.

“I heard a rumor,” the stranger continued on, as if he had every right to ask whatever he pleased, “that the Winterbournes will soon have cause to celebrate.” He lifted a sprig of rosemary from a bin and twirled it between his fingers, releasing its bright scent. “A wedding, I believe.”

“You’re mistaken.” I was grateful for it too. “The Winterbournes aren’t expecting the family to swell anytime soon.”

Not until my next birthday, which was months away, thank the goddess.

Time enough for one gasp of freedom before a wedding vow choked the oxygen from my lungs.

“Perhaps I was wrong,” he allowed. “Except I heard mention of Charles and the girl.” The way he said the girl, as if it pained him to ask after her, perked my interest. “Amalthea.”

But then his meaning sank in, and Meg and I burst into laughter, clutching our stomachs and whooping at the mental picture. Our families were tolerant, far more lenient than most, but even they might arch an eyebrow should I decide to wed Meg while she maintained the guise of a man.

Though, now that I thought about it, what better way was there to secure both our futures? I would be granted the independence of a married woman, and she would be validated as a virile man with a wife at home. Our covers would be secure with one another, no need to explain messy details like witch or warg to any future lovers.

Hmm.

Perhaps I ought to consider being a lawyer’s wife.

“I’m single, I assure you.” Meg wiped tears off her cheeks. “I love Amalthea, I do, but as a sister.”

“There’s nothing romantic between you,” he pressed, voice coarse as shale. “You’re only friends?”

Unable to curb my tongue, I heard the question as if someone else had asked it. “Why does it matter?”

“It doesn’t,” he said, cold seeping into his tone. “She doesn’t.”

Temptation and I were on a first-name basis, and I caved to the desire to know this man’s face, the better to imagine smashing my fist into his jaw for his impertinence.

I raised my head, locked gazes with him, and an exhale punched out of him as if I had indeed struck him.

His eyes were chocolate brown, the bitter kind requiring a connoisseur’s palate to appreciate. But his hair was golden, curled in natural ringlets, and might have saved him from appearing so severe, had his mouth not gotten involved. His lips were cruel slashes across his face, matching the words he flung like daggers eager to draw blood.

For all his talk of the girl, he was my age. A boy. On the cusp of a life in his sole control. I envied him that. Just as I envied Meg. But today’s rebellion had taught me for certain I was a failure as a man. I had been left to my skirts and corsets for too long.

I moved wrong. I spoke wrong. I even gestured wrong.

Sadly, I was best suited to the role of…girl.

Which worked out rather well for me, considering the interest sparking in me over this boy.

Every scrap of common sense cautioned me against him, yet every fiber of my being leaned toward him.

“Amalthea,” he breathed, confusion softening the lines of his face. “I didn’t…” His gaze dipped down my outfit. “You’re…” He stepped back, stumbled, as if an unseen force had shoved him. “Pardon me.”

Pivoting on his heel, he turned and left as if a pack of slavering wargs were chasing after him.

“What did you do?” Meg eyed me with respect. “He all but sprinted out of here.”

“I didn’t do anything.” I worried a button on my coat. “He knew my name.”

“He knew more than your name.” She scoffed. “He was fishing for information on you, on us.”