Lord Regret's Price: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 3 (19 page)

He had a feeling it was going to be very difficult to escape from Xuanyuan, even if the mark didn’t die by his hand. She was the kind of woman who’d have him do her dirty work and then sell them to the highest bidder.

“I wanted to ask your forgiveness for my comment last night.” She stared at his chest a moment and then averted her gaze. “Evidently I upset you and that wasn’t my intention at all.”

It took him a moment to remember what had been said. It was like everything that had happened before Charlie used the flail on him had been wiped from his mind. Finally he remembered the way Cixi had looked at him at the dinner, like she knew the secret needs that he himself didn’t even understand. Let alone acknowledge.

“I came to the Xianfeng Emperor’s harem when I was just a slip of a girl,” she said lightly, still avoiding his gaze. “If you’re not familiar with Zijin marriages, let me simply say that I didn’t see my husband very often, and once I bore him a son, not at all. It’s a very lonely life.”

Sig didn’t know what to say. “Honestly, Your Majesty, I’d already forgotten it.”

Her shoulders went rigid and she jerked her head around to glare at him, her eyes as hard and cold as his when he intended to kill. Too late, he realized that he’d probably insulted her most grievously. “Forgive me—”

She cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. “Indeed, it’s better forgotten. Let me just say that I’ve seen the way you look at Lady Wyre, and for a moment, I wished I could have had a man look at me with such hunger and violence. Have a care to keep that rage well leashed before you seriously hurt her.”

Mouth gaping, he stared as she glided back toward the palace, her attendants streaming by in her wake. She had indeed seen that darkness twisting inside him, the very thing he tried so hard to hide. Who else could see it? Did Masters sense the fine line Sig walked each and every time he went to her bed?

As the last attendant hurried by, he noticed a small, folded piece of paper on the ground.

He’d swear it wasn’t there before. He picked it up. On the outside, a swirling, elegant
R
. He scanned the retreating group, but no one hesitated or looked back. Cixi hadn’t hired him for the original mark, yet one of her people must have left the note for him.

He unfolded the note, unsurprised to see no name but the familiar Imperial dragon emblem. Sighing, he tucked the note into a pocket. The mark at last, but now he needed to discover the identity of the hirer so he could kill him or her instead.

If his instincts were correct and the contractor was female, then there were only three women it could possibly be who were powerful enough in the Imperial family to believe they could pull off an assassination of this caliber. With Cixi eliminated, it could only be Ci’an, Princess Rong’an or the absent Empress, Lady Alute.

If he listened to court gossip, the Tongzhi Emperor cared enough for his wife that his mother had resorted to separating them, which probably meant the woman had gained too much power. Cixi had put a stop to it by banishing the young lady to the farthest reaches of Xuanyuan. What reason could either of the other women have to murder their brother or adopted son?

Surely Cixi had the most to gain in personal power if her son was eliminated… If, and that was a big if, she was able to keep the throne and rule herself.

His caller buzzed. Distracted, he accepted the call before he noticed there was no calling signature.

Queen Majel smiled at him. “Hello, my Scorpion.”

First her rich voice sheeted his skin with ice. The last person he’d ever expected to call him was the Queen. Then that nickname hit him square between the eyes and he couldn’t breathe. It felt like she’d struck him upside the head with a sledgehammer.

Scorpion. The name his House had earned long ago while in service to House Krowe.

“I’m pleased you accepted my call so readily. I was afraid I’d have to threaten you in a message, Scorpion.”

He flinched again at that word, unable to hide his emotions. Unable to flee his past.

Queen Majel smiled wider, a shark smile of pleasure and enjoyment with each blow she struck to his soul. “Are you secure?”

Numbly, he looked about the park. No one else wandered the awful blue-green grass. She couldn’t have timed it better unless she’d bugged him somehow.
For all I know, that’s exactly what she’s done.

He shivered and gave her a jerky nod.

“Good.” Her face hardened, still beautiful but now iron forged in the smithy to something terrifyingly brutal and determined. “You’ve failed me, Scorpion. Whatever would your dearly departed mother say?”

“How…” His voice quivered. He cleared his throat roughly and forced the words out even though it felt like he’d swallowed razor blades. “How have I failed you, Your Majesty?”

“The elimination of my greatest enemy,” she said chidingly. “Yet your failure will suit my purposes now.”

He took a deep breath and held it for a count of ten. Then he released it, letting all the tension flow out of his body. He’d been waiting for this call for years. Truth be told, he’d almost despaired that it’d ever come. He slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his coat, wrapping his fingers around the locket he’d carried with him since he left Britannia for good. At last, he could end this long, bloody charade. He could end it all.

“I never accepted any contract on Lady Wyre and I never shall. Let alone from
you
.” He paused deliberately, withholding her title as long as possible. He had a death wish, but he had much to accomplish before he could indulge it.
I have to make sure Charlie gets out of this alive.
“Your Majesty.”

“Have you forgotten our
arrangement
, Scorpion?” The Queen’s eyes flashed and she spat out that word like a curse. “I suppose you might have been too young when you left Londonium to understand the ramifications of your title.”

“That title has never been mine!”

She leaned forward, pinning him with her glittering eyes. He didn’t remember her eyes being so black and shiny. They didn’t even look real, more like shards of obsidian glass. “You inherited that title with your mother’s death, along with all duties and responsibilities for House Tudor.”

The secret he’d tried so hard to forget. The name he’d hoped Charlie would never hear. Never associate with him. “My House died with Queen Elizabeth I.”

Queen Majel tsked like he’d failed an important history lesson. “You know very well that House Tudor didn’t die when they lost the throne. The least my House could do was allow her House to continue in her memory.”

“So you could blackmail and humiliate us for generations,” Sig replied bitterly. “We’re forced to do your dirty work behind the scenes while you go about ruling the Empire.”

He’d only been thirteen when he’d stowed away on a ship and left Britannia forever, but he’d known the shame of growing up a Tudor. They’d ruined the country and lost the throne, and no one in Britannia would ever let them forget it.

Everyone hated Tudor, with reason. Though it’d never stopped all the grand lords and ladies from attending Mother’s parties in hopes they’d catch a glimpse of the next horrible crime she’d commit for Krowe. Of course it helped that Tudor always served the best wines and the finest foods, with the most luscious young people to serve, sweet and ripe for the picking.

No one threw a drunken orgy like Tudor.

She smiled. “Of course. Hence the title. You’re the Queen’s Scorpion, last living Tudor, and it’s time you honored your obligations to me.”

His face twisted with disgust, fury rising in him, choking and drowning him in shame. All those years he’d been forced to watch his mother, supposedly to learn the “trade” of House Tudor. Torture, blackmail, murder. More often than not, she’d used his father to show him how it was done.

“You were born a killer,” Queen Majel said softly. “Lord Regret. The galaxy’s most infamous assassin. Son of the Scorpion. It’s in your blood.”

“Along with madness, hatred, misery…”

“True.” Queen Majel shrugged. “Your line has never been considered stable or very sane. In fact, your family has always bred a very vicious line of sadism. As every male born to the line must bear the infamous name, I wonder, do you harbor that same twisted need, Henry Sigmund Tudor?”

She might as well have stabbed him in the heart and left him to stumble and fall into a puddle of blood. His true name. He hadn’t heard that name in…

“Or do you take more after your father? Incidentally, your mother failed me in that regard too. She was supposed to get an heir on that sweet golden boy and then eliminate him quickly, but she enjoyed playing with him too much. In the end, I suppose she even loved him, at least as much as it’s possible for a Tudor to love. Tell me, Henry, do you love Wyre as well as your mother loved your father? Or does your love run along the lines of Henry VIII’s? How many women have you killed now?”

He couldn’t seem to breathe. He tugged at his cravat, but it already hung loose about his neck. “Stop this madness.”

“I can stop the madness,” she agreed gently, her eyes beseeching and compassionate. Surely the biggest lie she’d ever tried to tell. “Do one simple task for me and the Scorpion title can fade away into eternity.”

“What…” His breath rasped harshly, his chest aching.
I won’t ask what she wants. I can’t.
But to be free of his past, to finally see the end of a bloody path of dirty deeds done in the shadows, captive to House Krowe’s every whim. Reviled through the ages, at last House Tudor could die out. The final blow he could deal to his mother. “I won’t kill her.”

“Of course not,” Queen Majel soothed. “I’d never ask you to do so. But aren’t you afraid in the slightest that you might very well commit that task without my order?”

His face ached from trying to keep all expression blanked.
She can’t possibly know.

“Oh but I do, dear Scorpion.”

Had he said that aloud? His head spun and he longed for escape, a place to sit down and think, away from her all-seeing eyes. Away from the bruises on Charlie’s throat. The sting of her lash that still burned his back. She was driving him closer and closer to the edge of the ravine and he feared one of them would never walk away from it.
Let it be me. Dear God, let me fall rather than her.

“I need Wyre very much alive. That’s why I cannot delay any longer, for fear you might at last execute my Royal Physician, even accidentally.”

“Alive?”

Queen Majel leaned forward and lowered her voice, even though it was just the two of them. “Alive,” she repeated. “I need her skills most desperately. No one else can help me with this matter. I must have her. Whatever happens to Zijin and this so-called Opium War the young Emperor has so foolishly instigated, she must not die.”

She knows where we are.
He tried to keep that knowledge from bubbling up like acid in his eyes. Carefully, he didn’t confirm or deny their location. It wouldn’t do any good. Either she truly did know and any attempt to dissuade her otherwise would be a waste of breath, or she was fishing for clues and his denial might confirm what she suspected. “Why would you expect trouble?”

“I always expect trouble.” She smiled but her eyes didn’t soften from that piercing glare. Maybe the blackness of her eyes was highlighted by the ebony feathers framing her face. She wore so many feathers that he could barely see the golden blonde of her hair. “Especially when they’ve already challenged my authority by attempting to bar my merchants from their markets. Then they try to assassinate the very person I need in this desperate hour. No, Zijin shall not be spared my wrath for long. I have to admit that Wyre certainly has a knack for seeking out hiding places of rebellion against my Crown. If she manages to weasel out of this net, I suppose I can just wait for her to waltz into Kali Kata next.”

If she knew about the attempted assassination in the market, then Charlie was right. Queen Majel already had spies on-site.
We’re running out of time. How much longer do we have before it’s too late to slip away from Zijin?

“Keep Wyre alive at all cost. Twenty-four hours, Henry. That’s all I need for my Ravens to arrive. Keep her alive that long and deliver her safely to my agents in Bei-Jing, and she’ll be welcomed to Londonium with all pomp and circumstance as my most honored and trusted servant. As head of House Krowe to last living heir to House Tudor and all the royal blood that lies between us, you have my most solemn word that I mean her no harm.”

“And my price?” The words seemed to tear out of his chest, leaving his lungs pooling with blood.

“I’ll erase House Tudor from the rolls. The Queen’s Scorpion shall be no more.”

What I’ve always wanted. But the cost. Dear God, the cost.
“I love her.”

Majel’s cold eyes seemed to say,
I don’t care
. “Then save her for me. Most importantly, don’t attempt to flee, dear boy. And certainly don’t alert Wyre to the impending net.”

Sig held the Queen’s gaze, even though ice pelted his spine. “For all you know, I’ve already sent her to safety.”

She laughed as though he’d just told her the most delightful fable. “I know everything.”

“You can’t…”

She slammed her hand down in a slap so vicious it cut through him like a knife. “I. Know. Everything. Despite her brilliance, Wyre has always had a weakness for fine clothes and tea. So it was safe to guess that she’d decide to take a little vacation in Zijin before sailing off into the sunset with you. However, it’s no guess that I know exactly where you are this very moment, because I
own
you, Scorpion. The day you were born, your mother planted a device in your body to mark you as Krowe’s servant. The same device she wore, and her father and grandfather before her. You see, we Krowe couldn’t trust Tudor, not completely. We had to know your every move, just in case you somehow decided to overthrow our House for the throne. This was our bargain. Live, but carry our seal—a ticking bomb, just in case—inside your bodies for all time.”