Chapter 14: The Garden Gate
The cold from the garden seemed to have seeped into her bones. Selina walked the final blocks to Carrow House mechanically, her mind replaying the night on a frantic, broken loop: the click of the lock, the warmth of Burke’s body against her back, the damning sheaf of papers, Gibbons’s shuffling steps, the brutal finality in Burke’s voice when he spoke of his brother. A living death.
The opulent tranquility of Mayfair felt like a mockery. Carriages rolled past, their windows glowing with interior lamplight. Laughter spilled from a nearby townhouse where a soirée was just winding down. She was a ghost moving through a world of solid, untroubled things.
She pushed the heavy black gate open, its familiar whine usually a comfort. Tonight, it sounded like an alarm.
“You walk too quietly for a lady of society. It’s unnerving.”
The voice came from the shadows just beyond the pool of light cast by the lamp above her door. She jumped, a hand flying to her throat, before the figure resolved itself. Burke leaned against the stone pillar, arms crossed, looking for all the world as if he’d been waiting there for hours.
“You followed me,” she said, accusation and relief warring in her whisper.
“I let you get a head start. Consider it a professional courtesy.” He pushed off the pillar and took a few steps toward her. The golden light caught the planes of his face, softening none of its sharpness. “And I couldn’t, in any conceivable good conscience, let you wander home alone after what we just did. Even Mayfair has its shadows.”
“I had my lock picks,” she retorted, the brittle humour a defence. “And a strongly worded diatribe prepared for any footpad.”
He let out a genuine laugh, short and surprised. “Of course you did.” He nodded toward the small beaded bag dangling from her wrist. “Do you always carry them? In there, next to your smelling salts and dance card?”
“One must be prepared for the many dull moments of a ball. Picking the lock of a retiring room window is often more entertaining than a quadrille.” She tilted her head. “And you? Do you always carry a camera? In the event a picturesque vista or incontrovertible evidence presents itself?”
“A man of many interests,” he said, his smile fading into something more contemplative. He moved closer, until he stood just on the other side of the wrought-iron gate. The scent of him—night air, wool, and that faint, clean starch—cut through the sweet honeysuckle. “What you did tonight, Selina.”
He used her Christian name. It hung in the cold air between them, a intimacy more shocking than their earlier proximity in the study.
“It was necessary,” she said, her voice weaker than she intended.
“It was masterful.” His gaze was unwavering. “I’ve worked with professionals—men who’ve cracked safes from Milan to Moscow—who don’t have your instinct. That wasn’t research. That was… fluency.”
She had no answer. Praise for her secret skill was a language she’d never heard. She looked down, suddenly fascinated by the intricate scrollwork of the gate latch. His hand, still clad in black leather, came up and covered hers where it rested on the cold iron. The contact was electric, a jolt that travelled straight up her arm.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured.
“It’s cold.”
“It’s not the cold.”
She dared to look up then. His face was inches from hers, separated only by the bars of the gate. It was a bizarre, poetic cage. He was outside. She was, technically, home. The boundary felt laughably thin.
He leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. She didn’t. His lips brushed the shell of her ear, his breath a warm caress that stole what was left of hers.
“I find you,” he whispered, the words vibrating through her, “infinitely more dangerous and compelling than any thief I have ever pursued.”
A violent, delicious shiver racked her body. It was absolutely not from the cold. It was from the sheer, terrifying truth of his statement, and the darker truth that she revelled in it. This was a different kind of manuscript, and she was no longer just the author scribbling in the dark. She was deep in the prose, the punctuation, the thrilling, unforgiving plot.
His gloved thumb stroked the back of her bare hand, a rough, deliberate motion. “The Greymont reception is in three days. He’ll make his move then, during the distraction of the French ambassador’s toast.”
“What’s our move?” she asked, the ‘our’ feeling both natural and monumental.
“We let him begin,” Burke said, his eyes gleaming with a predatory light. “We watch. And at the precise moment he believes he’s succeeded, we take it all from him. Not just the bonds. His confidence. His legacy. We use the game he taught me, and we play it better.”
He finally pulled back, though his hand remained atop hers, pinning it to the latch. “Can you be ready? Can you be,” he searched for the word, “you? The you from the study?”
The woman who saw rooms as weaknesses. The woman who was not afraid. Selina drew a slow, steadying breath, the night air chilling her lungs. The fear was still there, a chattering thing in her ribs, but it was now fused with a sharp, exhilarating purpose.
“Yes.”
He nodded, a satisfied, almost grim smile touching his lips. “Then I’ll see you at the Greymont. Wear something dazzling. And,” he added, his tone shifting to something lighter, almost teasing, “leave the lock picks. I’ll provide the tools for this particular dance.”
He lifted her hand, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he would kiss it. Instead, he just gave it a slight, firm squeeze, released it, and melted back into the shadows from which he’d come.
Selina stood there, the impression of his glove still vivid on her skin, the scent of honeysuckle suddenly cloying. She looked at the grand, familiar facade of Carrow House, a place that had always represented a certain order, a predictable sequence of days. It felt like a painting now. Flat. A backdrop.
Turning the latch, she stepped into her garden, closing the gate behind her with a definitive clang. The sound was not an end, but a beginning. The story was waiting, and for the first time, she had no idea how the next chapter would end. She only knew she had to live it.