Page 4 of Dance with the Dragon Duke

“My mother was my father’s mistress,” she said in the lilting accent of the Seelie from the north—immortal descendants of elves and fae. “She died in childbirth. The Duke of Easton never did a thing for me growing up. I hardly knew the man, but then he went and shocked us all. Though he barely acknowledged me in life, he claimed me in death. He named me his heir.”

“But there are stipulations.” His breath misted in the cold he barely felt against his thick skin. He was accustomed to a father who always added stipulations.

Tomorrow nodded. She hugged herself in his coat as fat snowflakes broke apart in her white hair, dampening it. “I suppose he wanted to make sure I was proper—proper by mortal standards. He was only a little bit fae himself. He lived a long while, but he wasn’t immortal, and time caught up to him. Now my inheritance remains in trust. The lands, the houses, the wealth—I can’t touch any of it unless I marry a man of title.”

“And you think I’m the right one for the job?” He repressed the urge to scoff. She was hurting, and he didn’t intend to disparage her.

Tomorrow stared down at the toes of her boots, which peeked out from her gray skirts. The hem soaked itself in the gathering snow. “If it helps, I’m quite sure we won’t actually have to go through with a ceremony. The last time I spoke to the executor, he was content with a written engagement agreement signed by a magistrate, but he won’t be easily fooled. He’s the noble sort, and he intends to honor my father’s wishes. We would need to make a few appearances out in society so that our whirlwind romance appeared convincing.”

“I don’t know how good I’d be at playing a pretend betrothed.”

“We could figure that out together.” Under the gas lamp, her copper eyes burned red. The color reminded him of sunrises on a stormy day, dark clouds set aflame. “I need someone likeyou. Someone big and befuddling. Someone who will make my enemies think twice before coming for me again.”

“Enemies?” Sweet little women who radiated syrupy goodness shouldn’t have enemies. He had enemies. Heaps of them. He’d left them all behind when he abandoned the Unseelie provinces in search of amity in River Row.

He deserved to have enemies.

Her cheeks colored, and he couldn’t be sure if it was from shame or from the cold. “I hesitate to speak an ill word against my father’s family, but . . .”

Family was sacred to the Seelie, Dark recalled.

“You’re in danger,” he guessed. It made sense. It explained why she kept a room at the Gilded Boot but never participated in the revelry.

Her next breath escaped in a whoosh. She nodded. “The day my father’s will was read turned out to be the worst of my life. I’ve been living in fear ever since, dodging the next in line. If you’ll help me, I’ll give you half. Half of everything that’s coming to me.”

He should send her away, Dark thought. He should put her back inside, turn her down right now before she got her hopes up. Couldn’t she sense that he was trouble? He attracted it. Danger clung to him, stalked him like a starved predator, and it was always the people around him, the ones who were most vulnerable, who ended up eaten alive. Never him.

“Go back inside,” he said curtly, and her shoulders noticeably drooped. “I’m not saying I won’t help you,” he added because the look on her face made his heart squeeze painfully. She had a soul-shattering frown. “But I need to think on it a while.”

Tomorrow’s chin trembled, and if he thought his chest had hurt before, it took another pounding then.

“I can understand that,” she whispered, “but you need to know I can’t give you much time to ruminate.” She swiped ather cheek, vanishing the tear that had leaked from the corner of one expressive eye. “I don’t know how much time I’ve got before they win and steal my inheritance, but it can’t be long now. They won’t just give up, and I’m out of hiding places.”

Dark didn’t know what to say to that. It bothered him, watching others hurt, especially if there was something he could do about it, but what if his attempts to do something in this case only brought on more trouble? What if the danger that shadowed him got her instead?

It wouldn’t be the first time.

She turned to leave, then her boots caught on the walkway like she’d had a change of heart. “I wasn’t going to burden you with all the melodrama that is my life right now, but I think I’m finally too desperate to cling to any shred of dignity I might have left.”

Dark’s brow furrowed.

“They poisoned me,” she said, the words husky leaving her lips. She reached up and tugged on a lock of her hair. “I used to have a braid so long I could sit on it, but then I was named as heir to the Easton duchy and my cousin, Glen Freest,poisonedme. I lost most of my hair. Nearly lost my life too, but my grandmother sold her orchards to buy expensive tonics and spells from the fairies to help put me on my feet again. And that was just the first time.”

Heat speared his chest, and his hands flexed at his sides. “They poisoned you twice?”

She shook her head. “No, I mean, it was only the first attempt on my life. I had to leave the Seelie Provinces after the third. I was making my grandmother unsafe. Now I need to collect what’s coming to me so I can reclaim what belongs to her and stop those greedy sons of bitches from taking more of what they don’t even need.”

“It’s my understanding that the laws of the Lunar Court are fairer than they are in the mountains where I’m from,” Dark noted. The Unseelie favored conquest over succession. If someone bested a lord in battle, then they’d shown themselves as more fitting. It was often how titles were passed on if the heir wasn’t as strong, but that wasn’t the way here.

“Oh, we tried the law,” she said sourly. “As soon as I came to, I shouted about who’d poisoned me. We talked to every constable who’d listen.”

“I take it they didn’t see things your way?”

“They did at first.” She kicked the heels of her boots together, knocking the building snow off them. “Then some chap who looked a little like my cousin showed up out of nowhere and confessed to injecting me with this horrid concoction. The stranger was thrown in prison, and suddenly the man’s family had enough money to move out of Dimmet Street, but I can’t get the constables to see the payoff for what it was. Glen has everyone believing that I was mistaken about him. That I was delirious from being ill so long. It doesn’t help that I’m not from this province originally and Glen is. Now the Freest family hires out for their evil, and I’ve had no peace ever since.” Her jaw clenched, and she shivered in the cold wind that had stirred up around them.

Peace. The word scratched at Dark more deeply than anything else she’d shared. He knew that desire. He longed for rest himself. Longed for a time when he didn’t have to watch his back or sleep with one eye open. But the riches she offered him weren’t the answer to that. In his experience, title and wealth tended to bring about more of the same. It wasn’t her promise of half her inheritance that made him interested.

It was her.

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