Chain of Iron

She was his wife, and she was adorable, incredibly desirable. He had never wanted anyone like this. Half out of his mind, he moved his lips across her jaw, down to her throat. He could feel the beat of her pulse, inhale the scent of her hair, jasmine and rose water. He kissed his way down, teeth grazing her collarbone; his lips grazed the hollow of her throat—

She drew away swiftly, scrambling off him, her face pink, her hair tumbling freely down her back.

“That was very instructive,” she said, her calm voice at odds with her flushed face and rumpled dress. “Thank you, James.”

He let his head fall back against the headboard with a thump. He was still dizzy, blood slamming through his veins. His body ached with unexpressed desire. “Daisy—”

“You should sleep.” She was already gathering up Cortana, already sitting back down in the chair by his bed. “You must, in fact, or we will never know.”

He struggled to regulate his breathing. Bloody hell. If she were anyone else, he’d have said she’d intended this as revenge: his body felt ravaged by wanting her. But she had settled herself calmly in her chair, her sword across her lap. Only the slight disarrangement of her hair, the red marks on her throat where his lips had been, showed that anything had happened.

“Oh,” she said, as if just recalling an item of shopping she’d forgotten. “Did you need your other wrist tied as well?”

“No,” James managed. He was not about to explain why further proximity to Cordelia seemed like a bad idea. “This is—fine.”

“Do you want me to read to you?” she said, picking up a novel from the nightstand.

He nodded very slightly. He was desperate for a distraction. “What book?”

“Dickens,” she said primly, opened the volume, and began to read.

 

Thomas was buttoning his coat as he crossed the kitchen—dark, now, as midnight had come and the place was blissfully free of domestic staff. He had crept out of the drawing room without the others noticing, caught up as they were in their chatter and card games. Even Christopher, on watch by the door, hadn’t noticed as Thomas had gathered up his gear jacket and bolas and crept down the hall.

Feeling rather proud of himself, he soundlessly unlatched the back door to the garden and threw it open. He had just slipped outside into the chilly darkness when a light flared in front of him. The burning tip of a match illuminated a pair of sharp blue eyes.

“Close the door behind you,” Anna said.

Thomas did as requested, silently cursing himself. He could have sworn that ten minutes ago Anna had been asleep in a chair. “How did you know?”

“That you’d be sneaking out?” She lit the tip of her cheroot and tossed the match. “Honestly, Thomas, I’ve been waiting for you so long out here I was afraid my waistcoat would go out of style.”

 

“I just wanted some air—”

“No, you didn’t,” she said, puffing white smoke into the frigid air. “You had that look in your eye. You’re going to go out and patrol alone again. Cousin, don’t be foolish.”

“I have to do what I can, and I’m of better use out there than I am in the drawing room,” Thomas said. “James doesn’t need five of us to make sure he doesn’t leave the house.”

“Thomas, look at me,” she said, and he did. Her blue gaze was steady. His cousin Anna: he remembered when she had worn petticoats and dresses, her hair long and braided into plaits. And always in her eyes a look of discomfort, of sadness. He remembered, too, when she had emerged like a butterfly from a cocoon, transforming into what she was now—a vision in gleaming cuff links and starched collars. She lived her life so boldly, so unapologetically, that sometimes it made Thomas’s stomach hurt a little, just to look at her.

She laid a gloved hand on his cheek. “We are special, unusual, unique people. That means that we must be bold and proud, but also careful. Don’t think you have so much to prove that it makes you foolish. If you must patrol, go to the Institute and ask to be assigned a partner. If I discover that you are out on your own, I will be very angry.”

“All right.” Thomas kissed the palm of Anna’s gloved hand and returned it to her gently.

She watched him with troubled eyes as he scrambled over the back garden wall.

He had, of course, no intention of seeking a patrol partner. He disliked misleading Anna—but this madness of James’s had to end. James was one of the best, kindest, and bravest people Thomas had ever known, and for James to doubt himself like this was painful—for if James could doubt himself like this, what did it mean for those like Thomas, who already doubted themselves so much?

He was determined to put a stop to it, he thought, as he strode out onto Curzon Street, deserted under the moon. He would find the real killer if it was the last thing he ever did.

* * *



“After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that while all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did not change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened my eyes in the night, and I saw in the great chair at the bedside, Joe. I opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smoking his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cooling drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe’s. I sank back on my pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me was the face of Joe.”

 

James did not know how long Cordelia had been reading: he had kept his eyes shut, his free arm flung across his face, willing himself to sleep. But sleep had not come. It seemed an impossibility. He could not stop thinking of Cordelia, though she was beside him. Of the feel of her, her heavy hair gathered in his hands, her body against his. But not just of that—memories of all their minutes together came like flashes of lightning, illuminating the darkness behind his eyes: the nights they’d spent game playing, the times they’d laughed, exchanged glances of understanding, whispered secrets. The bracelet on his wrist felt as heavy as a two-ton weight. But you love Grace, whispered the unwelcome voice at the back of his mind. You know that you do.

He pushed back against the thought. It was like pressing on a bruise, or a broken bone. He had kissed Grace that day, but the memory of it felt faded, like old parchment. Like the shadow-memory of a dream. His head throbbed, as if something hard were pressing at his temples; the voice in his mind wanted him to think of Grace, but again he pushed against it.

He thought of Daisy. He had missed her when she was gone; when he woke this morning, he had thought first of her, of laying his troubles before her so they could be shared and sorted out together. That was something more than friendship, and besides, friendship did not make you want to seize someone the moment you saw them and ravage them with kisses.

But he owed Grace. He had made promises to her for so many years. He could not recall specifically what they were, but the certainty was as real as an iron bar rammed through his heart. He had made them because he loved her. Loyalty bound him. His wrist ached where the rope crisscrossed her bracelet, sending a cold pain up his arm. You have always loved Grace, came the voice again. Love is not to be abandoned. It is not a toy to discard by the roadside.

You have never loved anyone else.