In the daylight, Caradon’s residence on Shepherd’s Lane did not look as imposing. Zan opened and closed her fists as she stood in front of the door, feeling a bit of temper boiling just beneath her skin. Opening and closing her hands again, the gloves began to feel strange as her fingers and nails shimmered between wanting to become paws and claws and remaining human hands.
After Del’s fitting at Danaides, the oppressive feel of inevitable confrontation began pounding at the back of her head. It was like a headache, except it wasn’t the pounding of nerves, but the pounding of blood, a low roaring in the distance and the slightly itching sensation of the change just under her human face. So she pleaded a headache and told her friends that she would be going home. Del told her to lie down, to take a nap, to not do anything strenuous, and especially not to go down to the laboratory and to tax her brains by doing experiments. Sabina only looked at Zan meaningfully. Perhaps she knew what Zan was about.
Zan had called a hackney and had told the driver her home address as her friends saw her off, but before the vehicle reached Warden Street, she had directed the driver to change direction—to Shepherd’s Lane. Now, Zan stood in front of Caradon’s lair, half wanting to storm in and half wanting to flee. As she stood there, she thought she detected the faint stirring of a curtain in one of the windows. She straightened her spine. She was not going to let him see her weakness in this. She would be both firm and furious. She had never asked to be followed and he had never asked her if she had wanted to be.
She steeled her own nerves as she listened to the dull throb of her own pulse and knocked rapidly, three times. The door opened revealing Caradon’s butler.
“Good day. I’m Miss Hu. I’m here to see Mr. Caradon.”
The butler gave her an impassive glance and then moved out of the doorway as he gestured for her to come in side. “Mr. Caradon said that you might come by.”
“He did, did he?” Her own pulse quickened. So he had anticipated her. Was he so arrogant that he believed that he knew her every mood, her every thought? And was she surprised at this? No, not really, she told herself. She knew he was waiting in his study for her. He was ready for whatever she would say—just that she knew that he would tail her every move regardless of what she would say or shout or rant at him.
As a courtesy, the butler knocked on the door at the end of the hall. There was no audible response that they heard, but she could feel the quickening of the energy currents in the hallway, tugging at her elbows and shoulders. The butler opened the door for Zan and she stepped through into Caradon’s study which was filmy with drugged smoke. The door behind her suddenly closed and Zan whirled around at the sound of the slam. For a long moment, she stared at the seam between the door and the wall.
“Miss Hu, you came to speak with me?”
She turned her head and finally noticed that Caradon was indeed in the room, sitting at one of the two armchairs facing the cold fireplace. On a nearby table was the bronze pot with the smoking resin. The smoke curled and wafted along the swirling energy spiraling around his feet and knees. His head rested on the back on the armchair, dark hair spread, mused, along the chair’s dark green fabric. His eyes glittered as he watched her slowly turn her body toward him.
“You’re completely cracked, aren’t you?” she said.
He straightened in his seat and leaned forward until a lock of his hair fell over his forehead, slightly shadowing his gaze. He was only wearing a shirt and dark waistcoat that matched his trousers. One button was undone on his collar and a black tie dangled on his fingertips. His lips curved.
“You are cracked. Isn’t it too early in the day to be doing this?”
“Too early or too late?” he replied. “Actually, it doesn’t matter, does it? I came here, straight after your escapade, waiting for you to come here, to give me your lecture, but you’re as wily as any fox. You’re not so good as you thought foxes had symbolized, are you? You waited and took your time coming here. Meanwhile you moped, letting your anger simmer.”
She took a step toward him, fists clenched. “You think I’m just like any other female of your acquaintance—falling into whatever you say? I did not ask to be followed around the city like an errant child. And you did not ask me if I wanted to be. For your information, I did not stay at home ‘moping’ as you say. I had an appointment. I had obligations to attend to. I’m not letting something petty stop my life. If anyone is moping, it is you, Caradon. Look at you, slouched on that chair like a despot. Where are your obligations?”
“My business? I have associates who help me with the details. And for your information, Miss Hu, Zan, I am not cracked.” He stood up and involuntarily she took a step back. The smile turned into a lethal grin and somehow he pounced, leaping from the spot in front of his chair to a point near the door. She gasped as he caged her up against a book shelf with his arms. His nose nearly touched hers. “I’m actually quite lucid.”
“You’re mad,” she whispered.
“I’m not mad in the way you are thinking of.” He tilted his head so that his breath grazed the side of her jaw. She edged backward, feeling the shelves and the books dig into her spine. He pressed against her, his chest against her chest, his leg against her dress, forcing its way between her thighs. She clawed at the shelves behind her as she breathed in a lungful of his scent and his mouth found its way to her ear. A small, mewling sound forced its way through her throat as a wet tongue traced her earlobe.
“Get off me.”
The tongue retreated at the small, faint voice. “Are you sure about that?” he said in her ear.
She shut her eyes in defeat. I don’t know. It depends on what you’re planning to do to me.
Something that you would like?
He moved off her and stood about a foot away, watching the expression on her face, a curious mixture of relief and disappointment. She looked up at him and tried to move away from the bookcase, but abruptly she halted. Her right wrist was tied securely to a metal hoop screwed into the bookcase by a black tie. For a moment, she glared at the black tie on her wrist and then at his empty hand. She looked up at his face and there was something dark in his gaze that sent her heart pounding.
“What do you think you’re doing?” With her left hand, she tried to loose the knots, but the fabric wasn’t budging.
“Introducing a bit of restraint. Haven’t you ever heard that restraint is one of the marks of civilized beings?”
“Or debauched ones. According to my uncle, restraint was required to prevent oneself from lapsing into instinct and animal desire. I would think he meant mental control, not physical.”
“Some restraint can repay you with ample rewards.” Caradon reached out to still her fingers that had begun clawing at the knots. “Don’t do that. The more you struggle, the tighter they become. Those are sailor’s knots—I doubt that you would be able to get out of them yourself.”
“Then you undo them since you put them there in the first place!”
“No.” He began pulling off her gloves and dropping them on the floor between them. He used a fingertip to trace her itching nails. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin. Then he raised her free hand, palm up, to his mouth. She took shallow breaths as they watched each other while his tongue darted out to trace the lines on her palm. “What do you like, Zan? Do you like this?”
She felt a flush slowly creep up her neck to her cheeks. “We should be talking about why you feel so compelled to follow me around the city. You’re only my patron. Patrons are supposed to be only worried with the results of my experiments, not the minutiae of where I run my errands. We’re supposed to be talking about why I don’t want you to…”
“To what?” A lump formed in her throat preventing her from speaking as he smiled into her palm. “I want to follow you. I’m interested in what you’re doing. What is wrong with that? However, I’m not quite sure what you are hiding from me. Definitely something about your uncle’s work, but I’m not quite sure what. Don’t you trust your patron?”
“Trust you?”
“I haven’t wished you any harm. Far from it.”
“Then what’s this about tying me up to your bookcase?”
“I want to please you.” His mouth briefly touched the inside of her wrist before he reluctantly let go of her hand in favor of running his fingers up to her elbows, then her neck. He tilted her head back slightly and put his nose to the base of her throat. She felt him breathing against her skin.
“Please me? You seem to be pleasing yourself.”
“Then what do you want me to do?” he murmured.
“Well, for one, you could just…”
“Put my mouth here?”
Her next words disappeared from her head when his mouth moved on her throat.
“Or here?”
He lifted his head and she had a brief glimpse of the crinkle at the edge of his eyes before his mouth touched hers. A flood of thoughts and sensations flowed through her mind, but the flow went too quickly for her to catch any one of them. All she felt was heat and energy concentrated on the bit where lip met lip and where his tongue insinuated itself into her mouth.
Something pounded at the back of her mind. And then there was a voice in the distance that seemed to say, “Mr. Caradon?”
After a long second, he finally took his mouth from hers and the sudden empty air between them felt cold and lonely. She pressed her lips together as he turned and looked at the butler at the door. The old man looked at his narrow-eyed master and the young woman tied to the bookcase. The butler quickly looked elsewhere when a frown creased Caradon’s forehead.
“A message recently arrived, sir. From Captain Isidro Ramon of The Conquistador. He wishes to deliver his quarterly report.”
Caradon shook his head. “Did the messenger say that The Conquistador just arrived?”
“Yes.”
“Send a message to the captain that I will meet him at the docks on his vessel for the report later this evening.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the butler left, Caradon prowled toward the chair at his desk where he had left his coat. As he put it on, Zan said, “Aren’t you going to release me, Caradon?”
“I have half the mind to leave you there so you won’t cause more trouble with yourself,” he said. But he moved to undo the knots. Briefly, he put the scrap of fabric against his nose, and then put the tie on himself. “Hm. At least it has your scent now.”
“You’re mad,” she said, but without any of the former angry heat, as she picked up her gloves and shoved them back onto her hands.
He ignored her comment. “I believe I’ll take you home now before your staff and your friends wonder where you’ve been. It is on my way to the port.”
“Why are you going to the port?”
“You heard the message. I’m going to see the captain of The Conquistador.” At her inquiring expression, he clarified, “It’s one of my cargo ships, not some battleship for the Queen’s navy.”
“It’s a very odd name for a cargo ship.”
“Don’t ask me why it’s named that. Come on. I’ll call my carriage to take you home, if that pleases you.”
She slanted him a glance as she exited his study and breathed in the clearer air out in the hallway. “And what if it doesn’t please me?”
“Then I’ll walk you home.”
“That’s quite a ways walk from Shepherd’s Lane to Warden Street,” she remarked in a serious tone. “I don’t suppose you would be able to keep up. Excessive walking would ruin your expensive shoes. Perhaps the carriage would be a better idea.”
In response, he wrapped his fingers around her right wrist and gently squeezed. His expression was equally as serious. “But I don’t care very much for my shoes.”
