I swallowed back my misery, and nodded. “There is no other decision to be made. I will go and see to your sister’s freedom.”
“No.” Jack grabbed me as I marched resolutely past him. “I’m not going to let you sacrifice yourself.”
“There is no other way,” I said, warmed despite the chilly knowledge of what would transpire.
“I love you, Tavy,” he said, his forehead against mine as his arms wrapped around me in a steely embrace. “I love you with all my heart.”
“You love your sister, too.”
“I love you both. I want you both in my life.”
Tears pricked at my eyes. “You don’t know me, Jack. There are things about me that would change your mind. I’m not who I seem to be. You must believe me that it’s best this way.”
His arms loosened, his voice oddly without emotion. “You’d rather die than spend your life with me?”
“No, oh no,” I wailed, flinging myself onto his chest, kissing his neck. “But there are things I’ve kept from you—secrets, things you don’t know about me—”
“Stop it,” he said, shaking me. “Do you think I’ve told you every little thing there is to know about me? Learning about each other is going to be one of the delights to come, Tavy. And I fully intend for us to have that.”
His jaw set, he pulled me down the stairs to the front door.
“There’s no time,” I protested.
“Yes, there is.” He searched the street for a cab, didn’t see one, and, with my hand firmly in his, proceeded down the street to a busy intersection. Five minutes later we were in yet another of the steam carriages that jetted about London at the legal limit of two miles per hour. “Now, tell me about this person who we’re going to see, and why you think the only way you can save Hallie is to sacrifice yourself.”
I fought my inner demons for a second, then turned around in my seat and yelled a new direction to the driver. I had to yell it twice, since the sibilant hiss of the steam coming from beneath the carriage was enough to mask our conversation.
“Did I hear you right?” Jack asked as I sat back in my seat. “You want to go to a palace?”
“There is only one person who can save your sister now—the emperor. It is to him we must plead our case.”
“But . . .” Jack’s brow furrowed. “Didn’t you say that you and he used to be together? Why would you think he’d want to kill you?”
“We were together.” I smoothed my gray leather gloves over my fingers. “We were until he discovered something about me, something that changed our relationship.”
“What was that?” Jack asked.
I shook my head. “I will tell you that later. For now, you must simply know that our parting was not . . .”
“Amicable?” he suggested.
“That would be an understatement. William allowed me to leave and, for the sake of what we once had, appeared to forget about my existence. But it was made very clear to me that should I push myself upon his notice again, I would pay for what he viewed as the gravest of crimes.”
Jack fought with his curiosity for a few seconds before nodding. “All right. You may think I don’t know you, Octavia, but I have faith in your character enough to let you tell me whatever it is you have to tell me in your own time.”
I was touched, very touched, warmth swelling over me at the gesture of belief. “Thank you,” I managed to say.
“So you think that if you go to the emperor and ask for Hallie’s life, he’ll release her, but what—put you in prison in her place?”
“Quite likely.” Or worse.
Jack made a face and held my hand. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t go against William, Jack—he’s the emperor,” I said, unable to keep from laughing at the obstinate expression on his face.
“Says who? There’s more than one way to skin an emperor, Octavia, and I mean to show you just that.”
I eyed him. He spoke with determination, his jaw set, his gaze resolute. All warning signs that he had some plan in mind, a plan that would quite likely spell his own doom unless I did something to avert that. “I hope you don’t intend on doing anything foolish, Jack. As I said,
I am not in favor, and I would have absolutely no influence on anyone should you run afoul of William.”
“You just get us in to see him, and leave the rest to me.”
“Yes, well, getting in to see him isn’t the problem.” I glanced out of the window. The crowds had been building on the sidewalks, several people deep by now—citizens of the empire who clutched little flags bearing pictures of the emperor and the duchess, and who were willing to endure a long wait just to glimpse the emperor and his bride as they passed on the way to the cathedral.
“I take it you have a way for us to get in?”
“More or less. There is a well- hidden secret gate to the gardens. Only the imperial family and one or two trusted retainers know of it. I gather it was put in place in order to provide an exit should an emergency occur. William showed it to me when I was a very small child. We will hope the way to it is clear.”
“You know, in my world, the queen lives in Buckingham Palace,” Jack said as we drove slowly toward Kew Gardens. We passed a bystreet that I recognized, and prayed Jack wouldn’t.
“Really? How very odd. I don’t believe William has ever even been in Buckingham House,” I said, patting his knee so he’d stop looking out the window. He obliged me by waggling his eyebrows. I smiled at him, catching the sight of the freshly erected gallows in my peripheral vision. “Emperors have always lived in Kew Palace. It’s actually a very nice palace as a grand house goes. Not too large, but warm.”
“If I ask you how you met the emperor, will you be able to tell me?” he asked, the smile still in his eyes.
I let my gaze drop. “I was lost. I ended up in the garden. William heard me crying, and came to investigate. He was only a few years older than me, and had escaped his tutor for a little illicit tree climbing in the back garden.”
“And your parents never came forward to claim you?” Jack asked, his face now full of sympathy.
“No. The emperor, William’s father, tried to locate them, but was not successful. We’ll get out here, I think. We have to go to the very far end of Kew Gardens. I’ll tell the driver to stop.”
The gardens were thankfully not very occupied since most people were on the streets, so it didn’t take us long at all to get to the distant corner that touched on the high brick wall marking the boundary between the palace gardens and the public garden. I stopped at a distinctive yew bush, once cut in the shape of a topiary, but now sadly grown out so its former shape was almost unrecognizable, and counted out seven paces. After a quick check to make sure we were unobserved, I pressed the twelfth brick from the bottom, and was rewarded with a dull grinding noise.
“Push,” I told Jack, putting both hands on the wall and heaving.
Jack did likewise, and the wall sagged inward a few inches.
“I’ll be damned. There is a secret gate.”
“It’s more of an opening than a gate, and it feels like no one has used it since I was a child. We’ll have to widen it more.”
Five minutes’ work gave us a gap that was big enough to allow us to slip through. We put the wall back into place before hurrying along the tall yew hedge.
“Jack, I should warn you—”
“I know, I know. Let you do the talking.” He sighed. “Some day we’re going to go back to my world, and then I’ll get to boss you around.”
“I’m not bossing you. I’m simply requesting that you let me handle the situation with the palace, since I am more familiar with it. And as for returning to your world—”
Jack’s hand clamped over my mouth as he pulled me more or less into the yew hedge. Just as he did so, I heard feminine voices. On the other side of a short brick wall that designated what was referred to as the children’s garden, a small gaggle of women strolled. We could just see their he
ads and shoulders as they perambulated the pathways. The woman in front was familiar to anyone who had read recent newspapers, or attempted to purchase a tea towel.
I turned my head and put my mouth next to Jack’s ear. “That’s the duchess.”
“I gathered as much. What are they doing out here?”
I listened to their chatter for a few minutes. Before I could comment, a footman approached and informed the duchess that she was wanted. She and her ladies-in-waiting followed him back to the palace.
“That was close. But it does bring up a point,” Jack said as we emerged from the hedge, brushing twigs and leaves and small insects from our persons. “Just how are we going to get in to see the emperor if there are all sorts of people running around inside?”
I took the hand he offered, plucked a beetle from his hair, and pulled him a few yards down the hedge before stopping and scrabbling in the dirt at the corner of the hedge.
Jack whistled as I peeled back a bit of lawn and revealed a brass ring set into a flat stone.
“You don’t think a palace as old as this isn’t riddled with secret passages,” I said, moving back to allow him to pull up the trapdoor.
“I’m so glad I’ve never been one to scoff at a cliché,” he grinned, grunting as he strained at the stone.
I pulled a small narrow cylinder from my bag, shaking it several times. A dull glow emanated from it, not as bright as an oil lantern, but providing enough light to see by.
“I don’t believe it. You have glow sticks?” Jack asked as I crawled backward down the unevenly cut stones that led into the earth.
“I have no idea what that is. This is called a ghost lantern. It’s made by exciting particles of aether. As they rub against each other, they release a bit of energy which manifests itself in light. They don’t last very long, but I remember my way into the emperor’s suite well enough.”
Jack lowered the trapdoor over our heads as he followed. The passageway was exactly as I remembered it—close, smelling of earth and damp and things long dead, the air musty and thick. It made me nervous to feel so buried beneath the earth, but I held the ghost lantern aloft and took comfort from both its gentle glow and the feel of Jack’s hand on my waist.
“I’ve never been in a secret passageway before. I think the only thing this adventure is missing is a trip to the dungeon.”
“I fervently hope we shall not be forced to endure that,” I said, my voice sounding as muffled and flat as his. “Now, let me see. . . . There should be some stairs to our left soon, and then . . . ah yes, there they are.”
After sloping slightly downhill, the passage changed from earth walls and floors to ones of stone and wood.
“I take it we’re in the palace now,” Jack whispered as I held the light up on the narrow stone staircase that melted into the darkness on our left.
“Yes, although you don’t really need to whisper until we’re outside of the emperor’s chamber. The walls are stone on the lower levels, and quite thick.”
The glow from the ghost lantern was enough to warn the things that lived in the passage of our coming, so luckily, we did not see any of the occupants, although we noted signs of their demises. I do not have an undue aversion to rodents, but neither do I seek their company, and for that reason, I made a bit more noise than I normally would have as we made our way up two flights of narrow, ill-cut stone stairways, and down a passage so narrow that we had to walk in single file.
“The opening to the emperor’s bedchamber should be somewhere along here,” I whispered, pressing the dark wood panels. “There is a panel that is hidden beneath a tapestry that slides . . . Ah, here it is.”
I pressed the wood inward and up. It gave way a few inches, sliding along an invisible track in the paneling with only a whisper of sound.
The tapestry smelled as musty as the passageway when I pushed it aside and peeked out into the room. Sounds that had been muffled by it were only too clearly audible as I stared in horror at the sight of a man standing at the end of a bed, a pair of legs clad in stockings wrapped around his hips.
Jack was close behind me, obviously about to follow me into the room. As I hurriedly dropped the tapestry and stepped back into the passage, he grunted in pain. I put my hand over his mouth to warn him before sliding the panel back into place.
“I’m sorry I stepped on you,” I whispered once it was closed again.
“Those boots have damned deadly heels,” he said, hopping on one foot as he pulled the other out of his shoe and rubbed the toes. “What’s wrong? Isn’t he there?”
“Erm . . .” I shook the ghost lantern again and set it on the ground so I could examine Jack’s foot. “Yes, he’s there.”
“Ow. Stop moving my toes. I think they’re broken.”
“They’re not broken, just bruised. And I do apologize about stepping on them. I had no idea you were that close behind me. Here, let me wrap them together. That may ease the pain somewhat.”
Jack sat on the ground, his foot propped up on his knee, as I pulled a handkerchief from my bag, using it to bind his abused toes together.
“OK, if he’s there, then why didn’t we go in to talk to him?”
“He was busy.” I pulled his sock on, and assisted him to slide the foot into his shoe.
“Busy with what? Octavia, we have”—he pulled out his pocket watch and tipped it so the face caught the glow of the lantern—“slightly less than two hours before my sister is hanged. I don’t care if he’s busy. We have to save her now.”
“I can guarantee you that if we were to talk to William now, we would not receive any favor from him. In fact, quite the opposite.”
“Why? What’s he doing?”
I coughed and brushed off my skirt. “He’s just . . . busy.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Jack muttered, pressing against the panel.
“Jack, no—” I clamped my lips closed as he slid it open again, my hand on his arm as he shoved aside the tapestry and looked into the room. I averted my gaze.
Jack pulled back, slid the panel home, and gave me a sour look. “What sort of a man bonks his bride hours before the wedding?”
“Evidently one who couldn’t wait. Unfortunately, that is exactly what we will have to do.”
“I agree that interrupting him while he’s getting a jump on his honeymoon isn’t a good idea, but we don’t have time to sit around and wait for him to finish. And I’ll be damned if I let my sister hang because the emperor is too busy getting it off to save her.”
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “I don’t see that we have any other choice. We’re just going to have to wait for him to finish.”
“Well, how long will that take?”
“How on earth do you expect me to know that?” I asked.
“You’ve slept with him. You must know how long he takes.”
“As long as is needed,” I answered somewhat waspishly, I admit.
“Great.” Jack slumped against the wall. “So we just sit here and wait for him to finish.”
I took his hand. “We can check on the . . . er . . . progress periodically. Until then, we can talk.”
“About what?”
“Whatever you wish to talk about. What interests you?”
“You.” He sounded cross and irritable.
I smiled in the almost darkness. “What else?”
“Making love to you.”
“I agree that’s a subject I am most interested in, as well, but hardly suitable for our location.”
Jack turned to look at me, the petulant expression fading into something that made my belly suddenly feel warm. “You think not? Then let’s can the talk and just do the deed itself.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “You want to make love here?”
“Sure.”
He started unbuttoning his trousers.
I gestured toward the walls. “But this is a filthy passage. There are rats here.”
“Not around us. Tell you what,
I’ll volunteer to be on the bottom. You can climb on top.”
I was about to refuse, as any sane woman would, when he pulled me down onto his legs, and nuzzled my cleavage. “Jack, no, we shouldn’t. Really, we shouldn’t. This is a secret passage, not a bed.”
“Sweetheart, there’s nothing I want more than to get into your secret passage,” he mumbled into my breasts, pulling aside my blouse, corset cover, and chemise to reveal a breast. I shivered at the combination of the cool air of the passageway and the heat of his mouth as it descended upon my flesh.
“Your double entendres . . . oh, yes, please, right there . . . leave much to be desired. . . . Could you . . . ? Thank you. My breasts get jealous if you pay attention to only one of them.” I clutched Jack’s shoulders and gave in to my inner wanton, arching my back as he moved over to the other breast, laving it with the same sweet heat that threatened to set all of me alight. “No, no, Jack, we must stop. This isn’t right.”
Jack looked up, grinning, the ribbon from my corset cover clenched between his teeth. “I know. It’s very dirty of us, isn’t it?”
“Dirty isn’t so much the word as unwise,” I said with dignity, or as much dignity as one could have when one’s bosom was bared and slick with moisture.
“Come on, Octavia. Let go of that reserve. I guarantee you’ll enjoy yourself if you do.”
“We are in a filthy secret passageway, just a few feet away from the emperor. I don’t know why this makes you quite so determined to make love, but I assure you, it’s not a setting that arouses me in the least,” I said, aware that I sounded prim and prudish, but clearly, someone had to keep her head in this situation.
“Oh really?” Jack’s mismatched gaze positively glittered with wickedness as he flicked his thumb over my bare nipple. “So that doesn’t do anything for you at all?”
“No, of course not.” I cleared my throat as I pulled up my chemise, inwardly cringing at the patent lie.
He raised both eyebrows at my nipple. It was beaded and tight and rosy, and looked very much like a nipple that had been pleasured within an inch of its life.
I cleared my throat again. “I’m a little chilly, that’s all.”