Page 4 of My Fae Lady

Unseelie bargains were a risky business. I had thought to limit the number I entered into, but perhaps that had been a mistake.

The house creaked, and a mug of chamomile and lavender tea materialized on the desk. I wrapped my hands around it, not caring that it had left a ring on my final letter. “Thank you,” I told House, leaning back in the chair and closing my eyes. I inhaled the steam coming from the tea, the aroma alone enough to calm me. “I’ll find a way. No matter what, I’ll find a way.”

There was another creak, the groan of wood moving and settling, then the sharp rap of knuckles against the door.

“Barton! Open up. You want my help? You can’t leave me outside.”

I recognized the voice, though the deep timbre was nothing like the scratchy horror I had expected. I jumped to my feet, my relief too strong to allow room for any fear. It didn’t matter whom Lord Scratch had brought to be my bridegroom; after we married, we’d part ways. I could put up with whomever it was for that long.

“I’ll go to the front door,” I told the house, not wanting to let my guests directly into the study. First visits went best when Rook Manor behaved according to normal rules, with hallways and doors that always led to the same place. Not that I’d ask for such aloud. I knew the Unseelie magic infused within every stone and plank of this place would take delight in tricking my guests if I said such a thing.

Best not to scare off my fiancé before I even met him.

With that in mind, I smoothed my skirts, though there wasn’t enough time to put my hair up. If my husband-to-be spent most of his time in Faerie and not among the humans, he wouldn’t recognize my loose locks as a sign of dishabille. At least I had donned a serviceable dress of pale blue with a wide indigo belt this morning, though I had expected to have time to change and prepare myself before meeting with Lord Scratch and the man he brought.

“Barton!” The knocking came again, this time with a screech of claws furrowing into the wood after each rap.

He was mauling my house! Forgetting about looking respectable, I ran out of the study and directly into a broad chest covered in feathers. One tickled my nose, and I stepped back, sneezing. “Did you scratch my door?”

No wonder Rook Manor ignored my request to meet the stranger at the usual front door.

Lord Scratch flexed the fingers of the offending hand, a glint of sharp talons there and gone before I could be certain what I had seen. “I am here at your request—no, your demand—and this is how you greet me?”

“I came to you in order to save Rook Manor, not to turn it into splinters.”

“The house is fine,” he said with a dismissive flick of that same hand. Feathers fluttered where they were attached to his coarse waistcoat, the inky black barbs glittering with an iridescent sheen. “Now let me in.”

I looked past him and realized he was alone. “Why are you here?”

“You set the terms. I am merely fulfilling them so we can finalize our bargain.”

There was no binding in place between us yet, but our previous discussion had created a slight tether. I felt it pull taut at his words, and sucked in a breath. If it felt that strong now, when either of us could still choose to walk away, how much stronger would it grow once we finalized the bargain?

Not that I would agree to anything until I’d inspected the man Lord Scratch intended me to marry. I met his eyes, the hazel irises formed not of a color between brown and green but a slow transition of one color to the other from the pupil outward. “Did you forget half my directions? I see no potential bridegroom here.”

“Am I invisible, then?”

I blinked, horror-struck, certain I must have heard him incorrectly.

Three

Sylvan

⊱❀⊰

I waited for the lady to respond, tapping an elongated claw impatiently against the wooden frame of the door. The oak was thick and textured to resemble the bark of a great tree. Rook Manor didn’t seem very grand from the outside, with wide rustic windows and ivy that overwhelmed its walls, but its magical chambers expanded indefinitely within its borders.

Under my feet, the flow of wild magic was weak and distant, like a leaky tap. I’d tried to awaken it further, scratching at its wood, but it had barely stirred at my call. An orderly Seelie essence overwhelmed my senses in its place, a heavy helping of floral fragrances that brought to my mind an image of lilies floating in a placid shallow pool of crystalline waters.

“You need a man willing to marry you in name alone,” I said, trying to pull her from her dazed state. “I’m a willing man, Barton.”

“I didn’t know you meant you!” she snapped. Her Seelie eyes went a vibrant shade of emerald in her anger.

“Who else did you think I meant? You saw where I lived and even expressed concern for me fitting a small child into my tree. Did you think I had a full-grown man tucked away in the trunk somewhere?”

“I don’t know!” She threw her hands up. Her mahogany hair curtained her shoulders, the only part of her that was untidy. I liked this small bit of disorder to her otherwise refined appearance. “I suppose I assumed you’d capture someone suitable and force him to do your bidding using whatever diabolical means were at your Unseelie disposal.”

Admittedly, that sounded exactly like something I would do, but not in this case. Not when marrying a Barton solved so many of my own difficulties. “Whom would I capture?”