Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,170

Then I lift onto my toes to battle his dominance with a will of my own. Strong fingers press into my flesh like he’s physically torn between tossing me down on the mattress and throwing me over one shoulder to steal me away from London for good.

In the end, he tears his mouth away with a strangled grunt, his flame-blue eyes glittering with primitive hunger and something . . . sweet, tender. He is both the warrior who murdered all to find me at Broadmoor Hospital and the man who begged me to touch him when he thought that he’d never feel me again.

“I love you without mercy, Rowena Carrigan,” he growls, lifting each finger from my skin with purposeful intent before stepping back, “and I want nothing more than to bury myself inside you and forget the world exists. Right now, though—”

“We need Margaret.”

His nod is sharp. “Bring me to her.”

We find Mags in the greenhouse.

With dirt dusting her knees and an assemblage of potted flowers scattered around her, she looks like nothing like a queen and every bit the girl that I met at Dunrobin Castle years ago. Spotting us, she strips off her gloves and throws them down beside her. “I asked Gregory for one orchid and I’m pretty sure he cleared out every nursery in London.”

That’s Gregory, all right—always going above and beyond.

As if remembering all too well when Gregory shoved him from the Palace’s roof, Damien brushes his hand over the small of my back. “I didn’t realize that you garden, Your Majesty.”

Margaret sits back on her heels and balances her hands on her upper thighs. “I kill things, Priest. Everything I touch, everything I’ve ever loved, will inevitably die by my hand.”

Like Clarke.

Empathy is a vice-like grip around my heart, and Damien must sense the tension radiating from me because the hand on my lower spine smooths up and down over the scars from Buckingham Palace. There’s no pain, not anymore, and I find sanctuary in the caress.

“And the orchids?” he asks the queen.

“Sometimes I like to pretend that I’m not a curse to all living things.”

Bloody hell. “Mags, you’re not—”

She cuts me off with a small jerk of her chin. Then, to Damien, she says, “I’m assuming you’re here because you want help swaying over the MPs.”

I blink, asking, “How did you know?” in the same breath that Damien deadpans, “You overheard me talking with my brothers.”

“Three Priests frowning under one roof? Not at all suspicious.” Her smile is stiff as she climbs to her feet and thwacks away some of the soil from her knees. “I may be sheltered but no one should ever call me naïve. No, all I needed was one look at the lot of you arguing to know that my fate was once again up for debate. And, as usual, I wasn’t given a seat at the table to make my own voice heard.”

“There’s no way that you could have . . .” With narrowed eyes, Damien looks from the orchids to Holly Village. It takes me a full five seconds to realize that he’s staring, hard, at the annex connecting the greenhouse to the house’s kitchen. “You’re more devious than I ever gave you credit for, ma’am.”

“Devious . . .” A floater skates by, and I shake my head to clear my vision. “Wait. You sent Gregory to buy you orchids so that you could listen in on Damien and his brothers?”

“Not one of my finer moments,” Margaret mutters, “but desperate times and all that.”

I don’t know whether to applaud her ingenuity or feel pity for the flowers in question. Margaret’s thumb is decidedly black, and she’s failed at gardening more times than she’s ever succeeded.

“Then there’s no point in rehashing everything you’ve already overheard.” Damien’s hand falls from my back as he steps forward, his brawny frame treading carefully on his weakened leg. “Confronting Carrigan in Westminster, of all places, is the very definition of insanity. We all know it. But this may be our only chance to—”

“I saw you at St. James’s.”

Damien’s shoulders visibly tense. “Sorry?”

“You told my father that you suspected someone of wanting to murder me, the same as someone assassinated Evie.” Her blue eyes slip my way, lingering briefly on my face, before returning to Damien. Her mouth firms into a thin line. “And he tossed you out on your arse for it.”

The unexpected confession is a one-two punch to the gut.

One glance at Damien tells me he feels the blow too.