Page 29 of My Fae Lady

“A bride and a home worth living in,” I told him. It was never wise to lie outright to a very old fae. They had a knack for spotting dishonesty.

“That so?” His spine pulled up straight. “I sense you’ve been alive for centuries. Why this bride? Why now?”

I glanced over my shoulder. Giselle spoke to her friend in the lobby by the entrance, and Caro responded, gesticulating animatedly, rustling the feathers of her dark blue wings.

“It’s her kindness that attracted me to her,” I admitted. “Have you noticed that her eyes are a shade of blue when she is kind? Her eyes are often blue because Giselle is often kind.”

Mr. Hilferty scoffed. “I wasn’t aware the Unseelie were attracted to such things.”

“We aren’t. I certainly wasn’t, but then she was gentle with me when she didn’t have to be,” I said, letting every bit of truth seep from my tongue and into my words.

A small smile played across his thin lips. “I knew Giselle better when she was a girl. She was kind then, too. Very sweet and very curious. Her father and I worried that it would not serve her well as she aged. The fae frown on weakness and take advantage of it when they see it. I’m glad to know that we were wrong on that front.”

A pit formed in my stomach then. For a very brief moment, the reality of what would come after I was successful here had eluded me. She hid it well, but Giselle was kind, and what I had planned for her was not. Because I was none of those things, not gentle, not curious, not sweet. I was all fae. I snatched up my water glass and drank more deeply from it than was proper.

“Are you all right?” the former magistrate asked as I guzzled the drink.

“Nerves,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “It’s my wedding day.”

⊱❀⊰

We were married just outside the closed courthouse, in front of a bronze sculpture of a human soldier stepping on the back of the neck of a fallen Unseelie warrior, his wings turned down around him in defeat. A uniformed guard frowned at us from the court’s locked doorway.

“I’m very sorry about the venue,” Giselle whispered at me, nibbling on her cheek. A cold wind picked up around us, and the sky threatened rain. “I’d say it was only coincidence that Mr. Hilferty selected that spot, but . . .”

I snorted at the sculpture where we’d exchanged our vows. “At least they let him keep his wings.”

The indigo in her eyes softened. She took my arm in hers and squeezed it comfortingly, and then her friend Caro was at my side, having come from signing our marriage license as a witness.

“A word please,” she hissed in my ear, tugging me sideways with a deceptive strength her light form hid well. When we were at a polite distance from the others she continued to hiss at me, “I know who you are, and I know all about Gremyl Woods. And though I don’t fully understand why Giselle has chosen to put her trust in you of all people, I can’t deny that she has very few options here. I won’t be blowing up her plans, since I don’t see the sense in it, but that doesn’t mean I trust you!”

I blinked at her. “Is there a point to this tirade, or . . .”

“I’m getting to it,” she said gravely. “Just know this: if you do anything—and I do mean anything to harm my dear Giselle—well, I know exactly how to find the rarest poisons in the human realm and in all of Faerie and I won’t hesitate to make expert use of them. You won’t know when it’s coming. You will never know peace if you wrong her!”

I grinned. It was wolfish and unexpected, stretching my lips and filling my cheeks. I liked this Caro woman. Underneath all her fine clothing and starched collar, she was still Unseelie. She hadn’t let the humans of this place take that from her. “I hear you.”

“You had better,” she said, wagging her finger in my face. “Because not all of those poisons kill quietly in one’s sleep. I know poisons that cause eyes to boil and balls to shrivel and—”

A bark of laughter erupted from me.

“I’m not joking!” she said through gritted teeth, and her midnight-blue wings quivered around her.

“I believe you’d do it. I do,” I said soothingly. “You can rest now knowing that I have been successfully and skillfully threatened into my best behavior.” As the words left my mouth, my smile faded, and that annoying knot of guilt returned to my stomach.

I shoved that feeling down deep. I’d stomp on it if I could. It wasn’t fair that I should feel remorse for simply wishing to reclaim what had always been mine. It was a shame that my plans would disadvantage Giselle, the only Barton in the wide world who didn’t deserve it. Finding her attractive was simply a complication. One I could easily avoid once my home was returned to me properly.

“If it’s Douglas you’re worried about, you need to hurry to Windonbury now, and that’s not a trip I’d risk in a vehicle as old as that coach. And with rain coming, you’ll want to take the longer route in case the river floods,” Mr. Hilferty was telling my new bride as I returned to her side.

“I was thinking the same thing. We’ll need a larger team of horses to make it in time,” Giselle said. “Caro, will you—”

“I’m on it,” Caro shouted. Arms outstretched, she turned and leapt into the air. The beat of her wings stirred up a gale that nearly blew off my top hat.

“It’s not a very romantic way to spend a wedding night, rushing by carriage to Widonbury in this weather,” Mr. Hilferty said apologetically.

“Better than being homeless,” Giselle said, and I slid an arm around her because I still had a part to play, and in this we were in full agreement.

We would not be homeless—I would not be homeless.