Mad for Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 2 (10 page)

Her heart felt lighter than she could ever remember, and she smiled back. He held out his arm with a flourish and she laid her hand on it so he could lead her from the grotto. He was right. It was time to stop hiding in corners and face the world. “How soon can we be married?”

“If I get a special licence, as soon as a week. I’ll speak to your mother tomorrow and ask her if I may address you. While we wait for Kentmere to return, we may come to an informal understanding. I expect word from d’Argento any day, and we will wait for your brother to return home.”

Sighing, Aurelia accepted that would be the best course. But she wanted it
now
. Everything, before it was snatched from her grasp. Before they reached the footman, waiting stoically at the end of the path, not standing where he could watch their activities, she turned to face Blaize and reached for the pin. She’d stuck it through one of the ribbon bows that fastened her bodice, behind the ribbon so it couldn’t be seen. The diamond was a large, fine one that would be recognized easily. She pulled it out and handed it to him.

“My mother says I can’t accept this from you. It shows too much partiality. The reason she allowed us this meeting tonight was so I could give this back to you.”

He nodded and closed his hand around the hand holding the pin. “She’s right. But I will have the stone set in a ring. For you. When you look at it we can remember how you came into possession of it. Our first encounter. Not our last.”

“No,” she agreed, while the breeze gusted against her cheek, ruffling her hair, and the birds set in cages around the gardens chirped merrily. “Not our last.”

But if Edmund took too much longer, she’d force the issue.

Chapter Seven

Far too early the next morning, Blaize’s valet informed him he had a visitor. “I don’t suppose you can put him off?” he asked wearily as he swung out of bed.

“No, my lord,” Gates said lugubriously. “He says he will wait. He also bade you not take too long.”

“That would be the Duke of Lyndhurst.” After a sleepless night, he’d have appreciated a few hours this morning. Gods needed their sleep too, especially when they resided in the bodies of mere human beings.

As he downed the first glass of wine and let the intoxication recede, Blaize wondered how Aurelia would take his explanation. Would he have to leave off the drink for a day to prove it to her? Not without sending someone, preferably d’Argento, to handle him. D’Argento was one of the few people who could reach him when he was in full Bacchus mode, but he wasn’t here. He would just have to persuade her another way.

What would it be like to make love in that state? He’d never done it. The two women he’d lost before hadn’t wanted to see that side of him, so he hadn’t had the opportunity. But he sensed a recklessness in Aurelia that called to him at a deep level. He wouldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t.

The thought made his cock rise. Not surprising since sexual excitement was also part of the state. He poured another glass and tossed it down, then let Gates help him into his robe. If Lyndhurst called this early, he’d have to accept him as he was.

He ran a brush over his hair, decided to leave his wig until later and went downstairs to the breakfast parlour.

Thankfully his cook had brought in some food and laid it over the spirit burners on the sideboard. Blaize put down his glass and picked up a plate. Lyndhurst was already sitting at the table, fully dressed for the day, damn him, and tucking into a hearty plateful of his food.

Blaize took his breakfast to the table and found the teapot.

Lyndhurst nodded to the discarded glass. “You’re not drinking more? Hair of the dog that bit you and all that?”

They were alone in the room. “You know why I drink.”

Lyndhurst shrugged. “I know you’re Bacchus. But what good would knowing do if I didn’t get to tease you from time to time? Does it have to be wine? Bacchus is intimately involved with the grape and wine. Isn’t brandy grape-based?”

Blaize put down his tea dish. “I have to drink, preferably wine. It works better than anything else. A bottle a day, usually, although more works just as well. Like mortals, but in reverse. They drink to get drunk. I drink to get sober. I wake up drunk.”

Lyndhurst gave a low whistle. “Of course I know the Bacchus myths. Some of them, anyway. The name is the same in Greek as in Roman. Unless you count Dionysus.”

“He’s someone else.”

Lyndhurst nodded. “So the godhead is old.”

It was Blaize’s turn to nod. “Older than most. You are Mars, and your origin is Ares, but the spirit of war is older. Mine is older still. It’s from a time when rationality was not rated as an asset, when divine frenzy was to be striven for. A similar god appears in many cultures and old stories. I seem to have been everywhere at one time or another.”

Lyndhurst actually stopped eating. “That must make life difficult.”

Blaize shrugged. He filled his fork with fresh, fragrant scrambled egg. “It’s something I’m used to. Much of society considers me a heavy drinker, but you’d be hard put to find anyone who has seen me drunk. I choose not to appear that way, although I can feign the condition well enough.” He cocked his head on one side, regarding Lyndhurst quizzically. “Do you have nothing? A curse you have to bear?”

Lyndhurst considered, then picked up his cutlery again. “A few things. A quick temper, but who’s to say I wasn’t like that to start with, before the god invaded me in the womb? I do have a battle frenzy, but I find that more useful than anything else, particularly in my profession. My old profession,” he concluded in a melancholy tone. “But I have no idea which parts are me and which the god. Who will ever know?”

That was true. And it tortured Blaize. The god had usurped a baby, taken over what it was meant to be and perverted it. He never knew how much of him was from his nature and how much from the god. There was no difference between them now, but once this body had originated as nature intended, in a woman’s womb.

He could not accept that fate, as so many of his kind did. Perhaps because his curse was so conspicuous, something he had to cope with every day.

Lyndhurst finished his plateful and leaned back, watching Blaize eat. He poured himself a coffee, something Blaize didn’t generally order with his breakfast. Which reminded him of something else. “And who said you could enter my breakfast parlour and make free with whatever you found?”

Lyndhurst gave him a lazy smile. “I did. I explained you’d asked me to breakfast because we had matters to discuss.” He laughed. “What, you meant to eat in a solitary state and make me watch? I don’t think so.”

“What are you doing here?” Blaize asked bluntly. Even with the wine inside him, he felt like hell. He resented the way Lyndhurst had dragged him out of bed. He didn’t have any appointments until much later in the day, one of them being the all-important meeting with Lady Kentmere, and he’d hoped to catch some serious sleep time before then.

“I came to make you see sense,” Lyndhurst said blandly.

After a knock on the door, a man entered with the card Blaize had been waiting for. When he’d got in last night, he’d sent a note to the dowager, requesting the honour of a meeting with her today. She’d replied with a civil note inviting him to tea at two.

With any luck, he’d be bound to Aurelia by this afternoon. He’d be officially contracted to marry her. When the man sitting opposite him discovered that, Blaize might well get to see the battle frenzy for himself. How could he resist?

“Good news?”

He folded the note carefully. “Definitely.”

Lyndhurst quirked a brow in query. The gesture made him look angrier, even though Blaize sensed no temper in him. Sighing, he gave in to the inevitable and told Lyndhurst his news. “I’m marrying Aurelia as soon as d’Argento finds her brother. Being Mercury, he can spirit him home when he’s located him, so it could be earlier than anyone thinks.”

He was mildly disappointed when all that happened was a deeper frown and blacker eyes. “You’re taking this a little too far. Remember, you’re enchanted.”

“I am, thoroughly. And I’m telling you, I don’t care.” Leaning forward, he faced Lyndhurst directly. “I am alive for the first time in many, many years. I don’t care how that happened. I want it and I’m taking it.” That was the whole truth.

Lyndhurst met his gaze, glaring with a fury that Blaize hoped might lead to some damage. He relished another fight with the man. D’Argento always refused to fight him, even when Blaize was at his most capricious and annoying. He’d tried often enough. Revenge had driven him for the last thirty years. This time he might, just might, have something for himself.

Nonchalantly he reached for the toast.

Lyndhurst made a sound of exasperation which Blaize heard with deep personal satisfaction. He enjoyed riling this man, except it was too easy. Unholy glee that had nothing to do with his godhead spiralled through him. Besides, the man deserved it for waking him so precipitately.

Blaize eyed the sideboard, which still offered a reasonable amount of food. If he went for another helping, the kitchen staff would have to make their own breakfast.

Lyndhurst got to his feet and took his plate to the sideboard, where he helped himself to a chop and the remaining eggs, then added a couple of kidneys for good measure.

“Planning a siege?” Blaize enquired when he returned to the table.

Lyndhurst frowned in incomprehension.

Blaize nodded to his plate. Lyndhurst’s face cleared. “Ah. Old habits. Sometimes you don’t know where the next meal is coming from. I know those times have gone.” He paused, laughed. “No, that’s not true. I just like food. Like eating.”

Grinning, Blaize applied himself to his eggs and toast.

For a few minutes, silence ensued except for the occasional chink of dish against saucer or fork against plate. It appeared that both gentlemen had a decent appetite. Or that Lyndhurst wanted silence. Blaize could wait. In the meantime he enjoyed the fresh tea and the hot food.

Eventually Lyndhurst cleared his plate for the second time and took a deep draught of coffee. Then he put his dish on the saucer carefully, giving it a small twist until it was arranged to his satisfaction. Blaize knew why. Having a dislike of over-elaborate china, his breakfast set consisted of plain white porcelain with a Greek key pattern in gold around the edge of each piece. That dish had a mismatched pattern. The painter had made a mistake and Blaize liked it. Perfection made him uncomfortable.

Obviously Lyndhurst felt differently, because he’d just moved the faulty pattern out of his sight. Blaize leaned back, wondering if it was worth picking up the folded newspaper that sat on the sideboard, freshly pressed and ready for him. “You know why they press newspapers before they bring them up?”

Lyndhurst shot the paper a look of disparagement. “Because the pampered nobility can’t bear a crease in the newsprint?”

Blaize gave a short laugh. “Because the heat sets the print and we don’t get black fingers from reading.”

“You’d be surprised how black your fingers can get from using black powder,” Lyndhurst replied promptly.

A weary sigh was Blaize’s response. “Give it up, Lyndhurst. I’m older than you—by hundreds of years, I’d guess—and I’ve been in more wars than I care to remember. None of them left me with any sense of anything but futility and waste. Nobody gains from war.”

“That’s your considered opinion?”

“After a great deal of practical demonstration, yes. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, when a force is attacked by another and it’s defend or lose. But nobody gains in the long run. We all suffer. Just think of all the ingenuity that goes into developing a new firing mechanism, or undermining a fort, wasted when the fort explodes and takes all those clever engineers with it.”

Lyndhurst shrugged, and Blaize knew why. He’d kept away from the previous incarnation of Mars. That previous Mars had been too keen to rush into battle. Unfortunately conflict excited him. It was his nature, not something he could help. But he could control it. He prayed Lyndhurst would be the controlling type. His army experience might help. In these straitened times for immortals, he needed discipline, most especially of the internal, self-controlling kind. They all did. Which meant that Blaize’s special trick, his frenzy, went against everything he was thinking. Sometimes he had to stop thinking.

But not now. “You don’t think we’re at war with the Titans?” Lyndhurst said coolly.

“No. They’re at war with us. And the rest of mankind. The only difference is that mankind doesn’t know it. They want to rule everyone, just like the old days.”

“Which of course you remember,” Lyndhurst interjected.

Blaize went along with the folly. “Naturally. I remember too many things, Lyndhurst. And, most of all, that nothing makes sense. Believe that and you hold the world in your hand.”

Lyndhurst gave him a quizzical look. “I don’t begin to understand you. But that isn’t the point, is it?”

Blaize lifted his napkin from his lap and carefully placed it on the table by his plate, the crumpled linen a challenge to Lyndhurst’s orderly nature. “I am aware. Tread carefully, my friend. Lady Aurelia Welles is not under discussion. I told you my intentions as a matter of courtesy. I do not invite your opinion.”

“You cannot marry her, Stretton.” Wearying, how the man insisted on having his say anyway.

“Can I not?” He raised an insouciant brow, aware that would incite Lyndhurst further. “Tell me why.”

“Because you can’t live a life under enchantment.” Lyndhurst, still sitting perfectly upright, while Blaize had allowed himself to lounge, glared at him.

Blaize met his gaze, held it, and for an instant, let that part of him show through that he usually preferred to keep hidden. “Tell that to Circe. I don’t have to be mad myself to drive others mad, you know. I can do it temporarily, or I can scramble your brains permanently.”

“Do not marry Lady Aurelia.”

“I’d like to know what business it is of yours.”

Lyndhurst gave a “give me strength” look that Blaize rather liked. “With Jupiter weakened by his lack of knowledge and his recent illness, we Ancients need you.”

“Do not concern yourself with Jupiter. Give him a little time with his bride.” So far nobody had discovered exactly where Gerard was with Faith and his father. Not at the family seat of Hill House, that was for sure. Blaize would rather keep it that way, even from so-called allies like Lyndhurst. They needed time and peace and quiet. And after the ordeal Gerard had suffered, he deserved it, too. “They are guarding Kronos. I have him neatly boxed and tidied away as long as the shell of the body he occupies holds out. I was careful to leave him in good physical shape.”

“Fair enough.” Lyndhurst could understand that, of course. Battle tactics included distraction and misleading. “I’ve kept quiet the last thirty years while I learned how to cope with my gifts. I had to learn who and what I was in solitude. The army proved a good escape and a training ground.” He leaned forward, dark eyes intent, meeting Blaize’s gaze fearlessly. “Lady Aurelia and her mother are in a conspiracy together.”

Blaize thought of a counter-argument. “If Aurelia is part of the dowager’s plan, why has she not trapped more immortals already?” They would have come to his notice if they’d have made any major conquests before.

“She’s not the dowager’s dupe. You are smitten, Stretton, and she will take you and destroy you. We can’t afford that.”

Blaize allowed his lip to curl. “So you’ll save me from myself?”

“Something of that nature. Yes. None of us are above the plotting of Titans.”

Blaize shook his head. “If you try to cross me in this, I will fight you. Once you get me out of my corner, you will be sorry for it.”

“We know her mother contrived to be present that day when the gods were destroyed. We know Kentmere is the result. Is d’Argento safe searching for him on his own?”