Shit. That wasn’t the reaction I wanted, even if they were at least partly happy tears. I kissed the corner of one eye and then the other. Then I leaned in to capture her mouth again, stroking my hand up her side.
“There’s one thing it’s missing,” I said by her ear.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“It hasn’t been properly christened yet.”
Her lips curled into a proper smile, nothing but joy in it just for this moment. “Hmm. I think that has to be because you’ve never brought me out here before. But we can fix that oversight right now.”
She caught my mouth, her hands gliding up under my shirt spreading heat in their wake, and I gave myself over to the woman I couldn’t imagine loving more.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rose
“When is that woman going toleave?” Philomena muttered. “Surely she has something to occupy herself with that will take her out of that office?”
“I can’t imagine she’ll stay in there all day,” I said, snuggling deeper into the firm cushions of one of the armchairs in the manor’s library. I was flipping through an old witching text and listening to the sounds that traveled through the open door at the same time.
The estate manager’s office was just across the hall. Mrs. Gainsley had been rustling around in there for the last hour.
“Can’t you just whisk yourself into your father’s office with that magic of yours?” Phil asked, swishing her skirts as she paced the library floor. “Why, I’d be off to Paris and, my, even the Orient in a flash if I had that kind of power.”
I gave her a wry look. “Idon’thave quite that kind of power. Teleportation takes a lot out of you. If I tried to get to Paris I’d probably end up somewhere in Idaho. Anyway, Dad had Mrs. Gainsley put some kind of magical lock on the room to make sure no one went in. I’m not sure if jumping in there might trigger it. I need her gone so I can fiddle with the spell more carefully. And I want to look in her office too.”
My last search of Dad’s office hadn’t turned up anything, after all. But this time I knew he’d be gone at least a couple days, and he’d left his computer behind. That was enough time for me to secret it away to Kyler for a proper analysis, in case he’d hidden incriminating material on there.
And if Mrs. Gainsley was helping Dad—she must be, she was the one meant to conduct my consort ceremony now—as well as Master Cortland and who knew who else, searching her work materials seemed like a good idea too. If I could ever get access to them.
Her footsteps tapped out into the hall. My heart leapt. I tensed in the chair, waiting and listening…
A door clicked shut. A few moments later, the pipes in the walls hummed. The bathroom. When the door squeaked open again, the estate manager headed straight back to her office. I suppressed a groan and tipped my head back in my chair.
There had to be something else I could do in the meantime. This might be the only day I got without Dad here. I couldn’t count on him staying away longer. I’d asked Gabriel to tell me as soon as the call came into the garage for one of the drivers to pick him up at the airport…
The cars. Dad had gotten Matt to take him out in the Bentley last night. He always took that car, whether he was driving or being driven, whenever he went out. Maybe he’d left something in it. It couldn’t hurt to check.
“Come on,” I said to Phil. “We’re going down to the garage.”
“Oooh!” Phil said, producing her fan out of thin air and peeking at me coyly over the top. “To visit that new young man of yours?”
“No, to search Dad’s car.” Although if I happened to see Gabriel, that wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing. “And I don’t think I can call that young man ‘mine.’”
“No? I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Phil said as she trailed after me to the stairs.
“So have I,” I said. “But… We kissed and he took off on me. He said he couldn’t do it.” My throat tightened at the memory. “He’s helping every way he can. But expecting him to get that wrapped up in my life… It’s obviously too much. I can’t blame him. I don’twanthim putting his life at risk like that.”
He couldn’t have been clearer in the last couple days that while he still intended to help, that was as far as it went. I could practically feel the wall he’d build around himself, keeping me at a distance. Which he had every right to.
I darted across the drive and slipped into the garage’s dim, narrow hall. The place still felt like a stable, even though it had been converted almost a century ago. The door by the Bentley’s “stall” was down at the far end.
When I eased out beside the car, in the empty spot where Celestine’s Jaguar used to be parked, darkness settled around me with the damp smell of concrete and motor oil. I left the door slightly ajar to let in a thin streak of light. It took only a snap of my fingers to unlock the Bentley’s driver-side door.
I started there, conjuring a tiny beam to act as a magical flashlight. My search under the seat turned up nothing. I moved to the passenger side, checking between the seats, in the change holder, and opening up the glove compartment. Nothing waited in there but the manual and car registration as well as a small package of those licorice candies Dad loved.
The tickle of their smell in my nose, mingling with the warm woody smell of his cologne that clung to the seats, made my heart ache. How could he be the same father who’d cuddled with me and read stories to me and snuck downstairs with me for midnight snacks? How could that man be plotting to marry me away as some kind of slave?
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to ask him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer.