Lord Regret's Price: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 3 (18 page)

“Why would she go to the trouble of showing me the dragon and asking for help, but not directly ask me to evaluate the Emperor’s health? I have eyes. I can certainly tell he’s not well, even if I hadn’t heard the rumors.”

“He said she couldn’t ask for help because the Emperor should never be seen as weak. If news got out that he was ill, there’d be a panic.”

“Hmmm, he does have a point. When…” She started to say something but paused so long that Gil opened his eyes to search her face. She looked a thousand miles away, her brow furrowed, her lip caught between her teeth. When she noticed him looking up at her, she smoothed her face into a smile. “What are his symptoms?”

He repeated what the Emperor had told him, even though his chest ached with a hollowness that caught him unawares. There was so much of her past that she’d never shared. Couldn’t share. Did Sig know? Or did she keep secrets from them both?

“I’m assuming I won’t be allowed to examine the Emperor if he can’t even tell me in person that he’s ill. So how am I to run any tests and see what the issue is?”

Gil swallowed the lump in his throat so he could speak. “Is there anything I can do? He seems to like me well enough, and I had alone time with him last night. If I can do it again, tell me what to do.”

“I’ll give you a scanner, already programmed to run a few quick tests.” She settled on his lap, straddling his thighs so he could see her face. Solemnly, she gazed into his eyes. “You know I love you.”

“As I love you.” He stroked her back without trying to pull her closer, his voice ragged with emotion. “Yet you have secrets you cannot share. I understand.”

“It’s because I love you so very much that I can’t tell you. It’s safer for us all.”

“I understand,” he repeated, trying to keep the dull ache out of his eyes. “Sig has his secrets too.”

She cocked her head slightly. “You don’t have any secrets?”

“No,” he said without hesitation. “I had my great secret when we first met, but my life and heart are now an open book.”

She propped an elbow on his shoulder and casually draped against his chest, trailing a finger up and down the line of hair leading down his belly. “I don’t even know where you were born, who your parents are, why you became a marshal. Nothing.”

“None of that matters. There’s no great secret to be had there. I was born on Americus. My parents were colonists. My mother was from Eire and my father was a Britannian sailor who fell in love with her on the trip to the new planet. They settled in Bostonia. My father continued to work on the ships coming to and fro ports all across the galaxy, but he always came home to Mama. She was a seamstress and raised me and four other children before she died.”

Sudden emotion tightened his throat and he had to pause. Charlotte was silent, her fingers lightly tracing whorls through his chest hair, helping to settle his mind. “She was killed before the Revolution by a small gang of drunken Britannian soldiers. They caught her leaving the shop alone, late at night. I wasn’t there to protect her and she fought back. So they killed her. I joined the rebellion the very next day and after the war, I was given an appointment as a marshal.”

“An open book,” she whispered against his ear, her voice a gentle balm. “You’re a good man, Gil Masters.”

“Would a good man have abandoned his brothers and sisters so he could fight for the cause, even if it was a good one?”

“How old were they?”

If he closed his eyes, he could still see his siblings on the front steps of their tiny home as he’d walked away. “Martha was eighteen, the twins, Thomas and Matthew, were fifteen, and Sarah Elizabeth was only six.”

“And how old were you, Gil?”

“Sixteen.”

“Only a baby,” she breathed into his ear. “Don’t let guilt cut you any longer, dearest. Your sister was a woman grown and your brothers nearly so. Where was your father during the war?”

“His ship was shot down somewhere over the Bahamas asteroid belt before the war even started. I was the head of the household and I left them. I abandoned them while I went off on my white horse to avenge Mama without a care for how they’d survive.”

“What provincial thinking.”

The wry cut to her voice broke through his self-loathing and he focused on her face. Her eyes sparked with fire, even though she still lay against his chest.

“I know life was different in Americus, but your sister was more than capable of making a life for your family. I was head of House Wyre at the age of seventeen, commanding our estates and managing at least a thousand people’s livelihoods. By the ripe age of twenty-one I was already appointed Queen’s Physician. Majel herself began ruling all of Britannia when she was only sixteen years old, even if she was only Regent until her mother’s passing. I’m sure your sister managed very well in your absence, but I do take you to task for failing to contact them, if for no other reason than to make sure they knew you were well.”

He didn’t drop his gaze, although his face burned like he’d stuck his whole head in the hot water. “I wrote at first. She does know I’m well and she always insisted they were fine too. I told myself she was merely lying.”

“But you haven’t seen them in quite some time. That’s not the same as a letter.”

His heart gave a painful wrench, a hard tug toward Bostonia. “As soon as you’re safe, we’ll go back. I want you to meet them.”

She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Perhaps they could come meet us somewhere instead. I fear I’ll never go back to Americus.”

When he’d left home, he’d had a whole family waving good-bye to him. It’d been his choice to leave and not return, and nothing prevented him from going home to see them, except danger to his lady. What family had she left behind, knowing she’d never be able to return as long as Majel ruled? “Who…?”

She laid a finger across his lips. “I can’t ever go back to Wyreton, if it’s even still standing. Majel probably leveled the entire estate. I can only hope that all our precautions over the years protected our people and gave them time to escape to safety before she unleashed her wrath.”

“Do you ever try to contact them?”

“No. I mustn’t. I’m sure Majel has planted bugs on everyone and everything I ever knew, just in case they were to hear the slightest news about my whereabouts. Trust me, dearest, for the most part I have no close connections with which I yearn to converse. She who knew me best is the one who would kill me. The rest know me well enough to know I’m well and it’s best to pretend they never knew me at all. I had no siblings, just a distant cousin who might have taken over Wyre if Majel allowed the Duchy to remain.”

“You never checked to see what retaliation she might have done?”

Charlotte turned her head, averting her face. “I was too afraid to see the damage. In my mind, Wyreton is still well. My cousin rules the House in my stead. I prefer to imagine them all well, rather than dispersed to the winds or charred to the ground.”

With her head turned aside, he noted some bruises on her throat. Fingerprints. Chilled, he tried to keep his voice light as he stroked his fingers lightly over those marks. “Maybe next time you decide to bring out the flail you should wait until I’m here.”

She turned her head back, eyes narrowed but not enough to hide the fire smoldering in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was desire at the thought of him participating…or anger. “Are you interested in sitting on the receiving end? Or merely jealous?”

“I’ll try anything you’re interested in at least once. And I’m not jealous, dearest, only concerned. He could hurt you badly.”

She shrugged off his concerns and settled back against his chest, tucking her head up beneath his chin. “No he won’t. He’d never hurt me.”

Gil held his tongue. Any protests he made would only sound as though they came from jealousy, not concern for her safety. She didn’t believe Sig would ever hurt her.

Let alone kill her.

The thought made him clutch her tightly enough she made a low sound of protest. Loosening his arms, he kissed the top of her head. She didn’t want his protection. She didn’t believe she needed it. But he’d have to talk to Sig about this, one way or the other.

Hopefully Sig wouldn’t decide life would be easier if only one of them sailed with Lady Wyre.

Chapter Thirteen

For the first time that he could remember in a very long time, Sig wasn’t perfectly dressed.

His shirt was wrinkled and looked like he’d slept in it for days. He hadn’t bothered to tie the neck shut, let alone to knot a cravat, and he’d accidentally separated one of the sleeves from its seam in his efforts to free himself last night.

Last night.

He shuddered at the memory and paced faster, as though he could escape.
There’s no escaping. I can’t escape myself.

The images and emotions were engraved in his brain, a blazing path of agonizing pleasure he didn’t want to ever follow again, but knew he would. He couldn’t stay off that path, even though it led into the darkest, wildest part of himself.

When he’d first awakened, all he could do was marvel at the silence in his head. Peace. For the first time in weeks, he felt good. Relaxed. Calm. He didn’t feel the burning itch to move, to scan his contacts mercilessly, anxious for that next contract. The next challenge. Maybe Charlie had been right. Maybe he didn’t need to take a life when that darkness began to slide over him.

Maybe all he needed was a little pain.

But then he’d seen the bruises. He must have gripped her throat at one time, hard enough he could see exactly where each of his fingers had lain on her fragile skin. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried not to see. Not to remember. But those marks blazed in his mind. All too easily, he could see the tilt of her head, his thumb forcing her chin up and aside to bare the carotid artery.

If he’d had a blade, would he have put it to her throat?

I can’t take that risk. I love her too much.

“You’re up and around early.”

At the woman’s voice, Sig whirled around, cursing himself in every language he’d ever learned across the galaxy. How had he allowed someone to sneak up on him?
I’m losing my touch.

Dowager Empress Cixi inclined her head. He forced himself into a stiff, formal bow. Behind her, several attendants lined the path, awaiting her every need, whether to assist with her royal train or…

To run to her enemies with every whisper that passed her lips.

Sig knew the political game all too well, even before he’d met Charlie.

“I’m pleased to find you so easily,” Cixi continued. Sig fell into step beside her. At last. Here was his contact. Relief swept away the boulders of guilt and worry suffocating him, at least for now. He had somewhere to focus all his energy.

All his self-hatred.

His mouth twisted into something he hoped was a smile and not a miserable snarl. “Who’s the mark?”

Cixi blinked at him with such genuine shock that he smoothed his face, afraid he’d already given away too much. “You’ll have to tell me.”

Fury pulsed through him.
God, I’m sick of politics. I’m sick of waiting. Just tell me whom to kill so I can leave this wretched place and put as many planets between Charlie and me as possible. Before it’s too late.

Hardening his face to granite to keep his thoughts as hidden as possible, he finally forced out, “Beg pardon?”

“I assume someone has contracted your services to assassinate His Majesty. I want to know who. And then, my dear Lord Regret, I’ll double your exorbitant fee to have you kill the person who dares even think to touch the Son of Heaven.”

His anger faded at the prospect of earning twice his fee. Plus he rather liked the young Emperor, and he couldn’t fault a mother willing to hire an assassin to protect her son. Unlike his own mother who’d rather have hurt him herself. “You’re correct that I have been offered a contract. However, I have confirmation of neither the mark nor the contractor. I thought you were my contact, Your Majesty.”

Cixi gave him a wry smile. “Technically I am, then, but only once you receive the original orders.”

“Perhaps you could give me some ideas of who might want your son eliminated?”

Her smile sharpened, her eyes flashing like daggers. “Take your pick. Prince Gong would benefit the greatest. It could either be him or half a dozen of the ministers who believe he might be easier to manage.”

Sig neglected to mention that he suspected the hirer had been female. “Easier to manage than the Emperor? Or you?”

She examined her hand as though she’d never seen it before, drawing his attention to her long, lacquered nails. She could slit a man’s throat with those talons. “I’ve made no friends while ensuring my son retains his throne. If the price is a long, hard life alone as the reviled, sharp-tongued harpy hiding in the shadows, then so be it. I’ll do anything to keep my son in his rightful place.” She pinned Sig with her glittering eyes.
“Anything.”

He had to admit that he found the Empress Dowager interesting. A formidable woman was the ultimate challenge. She was clearly warning him, but perhaps not exactly as she intended. If she wanted Charlie to heal the dragon to keep her family in power, then she wouldn’t have hired the black assassins in the market. Yet that didn’t mean Cixi meant them well, either, just that she intended to get what she wanted first.