Whisper the Dead (The Lovegrove Legacy) (28 page)

His blue eyes never left hers, as he bowed over her hand and brushed his lips softly over her knuckles. “Thank you, Gretchen.”

She had to clear her throat to find her voice. “You’re welcome.”

He opened the curtains, glancing out into the sunlit street. The light and bustle seemed like an intrusion. “I’ll take you home. …” He paused, looking out the window and swearing softly. “Change of plans.” Gretchen leaned forward to see what had alarmed him, but he pulled her back. “Don’t. You mustn’t be seen.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Are you worried for my reputation?” Her wits must be addled by seeing a man turn wolf and back again, because for some strange reason she found that sweet.

“Of course,” he replied. “But that’s not all.”

“There’s worse for my reputation than open graves and wolves and naked men?” She sounded as dubious as she felt. The tips of his ears went very red. And that was sweet too. Bloody hell. She cleared her throat decisively and determined not to be such a flibbertigibbet.

“What do you mean, Tobias?” His eyes touched hers when
she spoke his given name. She smiled ruefully. “You’ll say I ought to call you Lord Killingsworth, but I think we can dispense with the usual courtesies, wouldn’t you say? Considering?” She couldn’t help but notice the wolf fur sticking to the seat. “What is it?”

“I told you that the wolf families prefer to keep to themselves.” He pulled a wooden wheel from his pocket. It looked like it had once belonged to a toy cart.

“Yes.”

“For reasons of security, you understand.”

“I can’t see how it’s so very different than being a bone-singer or one of those women who sword-dance.” Truth be told, she was rather jealous of them.

“Believe me, it’s different.” He snapped the wheel in half and thumped on the roof again. “Faster, Hale!” he shouted through the paneling at the driver. “There are men who call themselves Wolfcatchers. Their sole pursuit is to hunt us down for our pelts because they allow a witch with no shape-shifting ability to transform.”

“But that’s barbaric!”

He nodded grimly. “There’s magic in bones and teeth too. It happens more often than you’d think. So I’m afraid you’ll have to come home with me.”

She was instantly burning with curiosity to see how he lived. “Of course.” She hoped she hadn’t betrayed her indecent eagerness.

“I’ve spent the night recovering from wolfsbane poisoning,” he explained. “And the same man who attacked me is following
me still. You will have my wolf scent on you, Gretchen. And they will come for you as well, if they catch it on you, if only to discover my identity.”

“I would never tell them,” she replied quietly.

“They are not gentle in their persuasions.”

When the carriage turned left, Tobias reached for the door handle. “It’s here. Are you ready?”

A glance out of the window showed that they weren’t in a residential area. “For what exactly?”

“We have to switch carriages,” he explained. “I called for a second one with that wheel charm. We’ve a system of summoning and escape routes in place. Any Wolfcatcher will follow the first carriage, while unbeknownst to them, we ride away in the second.”

When he pushed the door open, the sound of the wheels rattling and the wind snaking into the sudden opening was deafening. The carriage rolled along at a great speed, parallel to another unmarked carriage. “This one’s too easy to track now that it has the scent of my change on it. And we can’t afford to delay,” he said. “Not for a single moment.” He watched her carefully, as if he expected her to fidget with nerves. “Can you manage?”

She just shot him a haughty glance and braced herself in the doorway. “This is nothing. I fell into an open grave, remember?”

“I’m not likely to forget.”

The ground was moving at rather an alarming pace beneath her. If she slipped, she’d get trampled under the horses behind her. If she didn’t crack her head open on the cobblestones first.
Pebbles and dirt sprayed up between the two vehicles, stinging when they hit her ankles.

“Never mind,” Tobias said behind her, his hands on her waist to steady her over a bump in the road. The carriages diverged for a moment. “We’ll stop. It won’t take that long. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Gretchen shook her head, remembering running across the rooftops with Moira. How different was it, really?

Which gave her an idea, actually.

She turned back, shoving the cushion off the seat. Tobias blinked at her as she lifted the wooden board off. She secured one end at the edge of the door and waited for the carriages to align again. When they were as steady as they were likely to get, she dropped the board between them, creating a bridge such as the one Moira had made for Godric.

“Let me test it first,” Tobias said, sounding reluctantly impressed. He braced himself with one hand on each side of the opening, stepping out with his right foot. He gingerly applied weight, the wind tangling his hair and plastering his shirt to his side. Gretchen held her breath. “It holds,” he shouted back, but his voice was snatched away by the rattling of the wheels.

She stepped up, dragging her gaze away from the uneven road beneath them. Tobias was lodged halfway in the second carriage, his leg hooked inside to secure him in place as he reached for her. “Look at me,” he called out. “Only at me.”

His eyes held her fast as any rope. There was confidence and strength in his face, under the haughty politeness that she now knew hid so many wild secrets. It was the secrets that made her
trust him. She stepped out into the buffeting wind as the carriages lurched over the street. His hand closed over her wrist, warm and steady, and he hauled her inside.

The carriages parted way and she fell against him as they leaned sharply to the right, compensating. The wooden seat board fell into the gap and broke into pieces. A coachman shouted abuse, yanking on his reins to avoid the sharp fragments.

She was still in the circle of Tobias’s arms. She seemed to be spending an awful lot of time there recently. She pulled back, embarrassed, and he released her abruptly. “Won’t someone have noticed that?” she asked, to cover the awkward silence. “It was hardly subtle.”

“The board, certainly, but not us. They’ll think it was a broken panel or a package that wasn’t properly secured to the roof,” he replied as she sat down. “There’s an illusion charm that fools the eye into thinking this carriage is wider than it actually is.” He noted the houses and the black iron scrollwork fences. “It won’t be long now.”

“Did we lose them?” Gretchen asked.

“Yes, I believe so. Still, I’ll have a bath drawn for you to wash off any of the wolf on you. We have charms we wear as well, of course, but with the magic being so unpredictable in London lately, it’s best we err on the side of caution. It may take some time to find a charm that works well enough to keep you safe. You may have to stay the night.”

“If you show them to me, perhaps I can help,” Gretchen offered.

He looked at her consideringly. “I hadn’t considered that.
Whisperers are rather rare.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt and she caught a flash of the bronze skin of his throat. He pulled a thin strip of leather from under his shirt. “Iron and metal interferes with the magic,” he explained, showing her the smooth birchwood pendant. “Only natural items tend to work for shifters, and for wolves especially.”

She leaned closer, until his shadow fell over her. She ran a finger over the disk, following the sigil inscribed there. It looked like a combination of ancient runes. “It’s soaked in moonlight for three nights,” he continued, his voice slightly hoarse. She felt his breath on her cheek. “And rainwater gathered in a wolf-shifter’s paw print. That water can change a human into a wolf.”

“What does it do exactly?”

“It’s meant to cover our scent and confuse a Catcher’s tracking. We also use a drop of a human witch’s blood on the back.”

“Sounds messy for you,” she teased, but there was no rancor to it. “What happens if you lose your charm?”

“Some of us have the symbol tattooed on our skin.”

She was suddenly wildly curious to know if he had such a tattoo and where it might be placed. “Can’t you use the Fith-Fath spell Emma uses to make her antlers invisible?” she asked instead.

He shook his head. “It’s not strong enough to hide a full shifter from Catcher magic. That’s the trouble. They have as much magic as we do.”

His house was in Berkeley Square, not far from her own parents’ mansion. It blended into the neighborhood, being
neither demonstrably larger nor smaller, more beautiful nor less. It had fashionable fanlight windows, flagstone paths, and what looked to be extensive gardens at the back. A footman waited just inside the gates to lock them shut behind the carriage. As she emerged into the daylight, Gretchen half expected it to be nightfall already. It seemed impossible that so much had happened in less than an hour.

Tobias’s brother rushed toward them, his jaw set angrily. He looked to be about the same age, but he had none of Tobias’s refinement. He wore trousers and scuffed boots and a belt with loops to carry daggers. “What—” He broke off, noticing Gretchen. “Who the devil are you?”

“You’ll keep a civil tongue,” Tobias said mildly, but the ice was back in his voice.

“I can’t believe you’re courting at a time like this!”

Tobias’s cheeks went a dull red. “I assure you, that’s not the case.”

Fighting an absurd twinge of disappointment, Gretchen smiled. “Your brother doesn’t care for me, actually.” She tilted her head. “You’re a wolf too, I assume?”

“Ky, this is Lady Gretchen Thorn,” Tobias said drily as Ky goggled at her.

“You told her?” He gaped.

“I had little choice,” he answered.

“I saw him change shape,” she explained. “He couldn’t very well pretend it never happened after that.”

If anything, Ky looked even more stunned. “You wore the wolf?”

“Not now, Ky,” Tobias said sharply. “Let it go.”

“Are you—”

“Tobias is right.” His mother descended the front steps. “This is hardly the place. Though I can assure you, we will be discussing it.” She wore a dark blue morning dress with little embellishments. She was tall and elegant and Gretchen instantly knew which parent Tobias took after. Although he had nothing of the savage glint in his mother’s pale blue eyes. Ky submitted, which would have surprised Gretchen if she hadn’t felt like she ought to submit as well, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong yet. The countess was impressive, to say the least, even without the faint scar on her upper lip.

“Who was it then?” Ky barked. “Who dosed you with wolfsbane?”

“I don’t know,” Tobias replied calmly.

“As if I believe that. The Carnyx told me you wouldn’t speak of it last night. I want a name.”

“And I want a cup of coffee,” Tobias returned without inflection.

“You could have died.” Frustrated, he jerked a hand through his hair.

“Let’s take this conversation inside.” It was an order, not a suggestion, and the countess turned away with every expectation of being obeyed. She wasn’t disappointed.

Barking greeted them from the other side of the door. When it opened, Gretchen was enveloped into a pack of enormous wolfhounds and mastiffs. Her familiar bounded out of her body in a streak of light and raced in mad, delighted circles. She slid
Tobias a sidelong glance, wondering if she was breaking some sort of witching etiquette. Probably. Why change now?

But Tobias’s mother only laughed.

“Oh, I like this one, Tobias,” she said. “She has animal spirits.”

Godric could understand why Moira preferred the rooftops.

He was above the worst of the city—the disconcerting odors, the mud, and the dust of road construction. He was so high above, in point of fact, that his knees felt decidedly jelly-like.

He might enjoy the view, but he didn’t care for the height. His body knew perfectly well what it would do should he fall from such a distance. Despite logic reminding him that there was a railing between him and gravity, a cold sweat tickled the back of his neck. His wolfhound-familiar flatly refused to step out of his body. He had only a few inches of whiskey left in his flask and he couldn’t even drink it. He was several stories up and he was sober.

All for a girl.

A mad, surly girl who would as soon chuck him over said railing as smile at him.

He’d tried every romantic spell he’d come across, had risked his neck delivering red roses over the rooftops hoping she’d find them; he’d even walked the goblin markets three nights running hoping to see her. Instead he’d been bitten by a carnivorous cabbage, drank enough black ale to have him seeing spots, and lost his new pocket watch to a Rover built like a bloody bull.
And here he was, once again on a rooftop, sacrificing the last of his whiskey to the gargoyle beside him so that it wouldn’t eat his face off.

He felt a faint shift in the air behind him. Had he found her at last? He forced himself to turn slowly when all he wanted to do was whoop with joy. Gentlemen ought not to whoop. He was certain it was one of the many rules his mother enforced. His rules were extensive and bothersome; Gretchen’s rules were epic. The one time their mother had tried to write them all down, Gretchen had burned the resulting tome and nearly started a house fire.

But here he was, far outside the realm of rules and responsibilities, alone with a girl he barely knew but already loved. “Moira,” he said. “Finally.”

Only it wasn’t Moira standing behind him after all.

It was a ghost.

The gables shimmered through her. Godric sucked in a breath and it iced his throat.

“Bollocks,” he muttered, a far cry from the poetry he’d memorized for Moira, even though she didn’t seem the type to like poetry. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do to prove your love? Make an ass of yourself? And how better than with a sonnet?

He wanted to be anywhere but here with another ghost staring at him with hopeful, hungry eyes; but his training as a gentleman forbade him to do anything but bow a polite greeting, even to a dead girl.

She smiled faintly, her long curls so pale he could barely see
the ends where they turned to snow. There were dark smudges of bruises on her wrists and red welts on her collarbone. A small white mouse perched on her shoulder. He assumed it was her familiar before she even raised her left palm to show him her witch knot. She beckoned him forward. He groaned. “I’d really rather not.”