The Deepest Night Read Free Page A

approached.

Chapter 2
    “Miss Jones,” Armand greeted me, winding his way through a strand of whispering beeches.
    “Your Grace,” I answered.
    “Not quite. That’s still my father.”
    My eyes had adjusted to the night by then, and I was able to make out the pale folds of his scarf, the ghostly outline of his face and hands against his linen duster.
    He would have driven from his mansion on the mainland to as far as the island bridge, then walked the rest for stealth. I wondered that he hadn’t gotten hot in that coat.
    “Your … lordiness. Whatever you are now. I don’t know the proper address for a marquess, I suppose.”
    “Lord Sherborne,” he supplied smoothly, coming close to the rowan. “Or simply my lord . But you can call me sweetheart .”
    “I don’t believe I will.”
    His teeth flashed in the gloom; I’d made him smile. “We’ll see.”
    Armand had nearly everything in the world he could possibly want. He had money, social status, and inhumanly good looks. His family owned the castle and the island the castle sat upon, along with most of the mainland nearby. He lived in a monstrosity of a manor house perversely named Tranquility, a few miles inland. He was intelligent, brooding, and dangerously magnetic in that way somehow unique to young men born to power. He’d been booted out of Eton twice and I still couldn’t think of a single girl at Iverson who wouldn’t give her right arm—or, more specifically, her left-hand ring finger—to him at the drop of one of his expensive hats.
    Especially since his older brother, the previous Marquess of Sherborne, had been so accommodating as to go and get himself killed in the war. So the future Mrs. Armand was guaranteed a duchess’ coronet.
    I used to think it was selfishness or just boredom that had him constantly showing up at Iverson to seek me out. The desire to rebel against his father and Westcliffe and all the sticky spiderwebs of rules that entangled us both. I was hardly a seemly companion for the son of a duke, and everyone knew it, especially me.
    Then we’d found out. About being dragons, I mean. And about how it would be in his nature to hunt me like this till the end of time.
    I don’t which of us was more appalled.
    But Armand’s drákon blood was thinner than mine, and his powers were only just emerging. He couldn’t Turn to smoke or dragon yet, so at least I had the advantage over him there. He knew if he pushed too far, I’d Turn and leave.
    “Bloody dark,” he commented, settling down beside me. He was holding something bulky in his hands.
    “I hadn’t noticed.”
    “Really?” He stilled. “Is that a dragon trait? You can see in the dark?”
    Now I was the one smiling, though I was glad he couldn’t tell. “No, my lord. It is bloody dark.”
    “In that case …” He rummaged through the bulky thing, and suddenly I smelled cheese and salty olives and bread and smoked fish.
    “Good God,” I said, my mouth beginning to water. “Did you bring a picnic?”
    “A small something, perhaps. And …”
    And a lantern, as it happened. He struck a match; the delicious food scent was briefly overwhelmed by sulphur, and then the amethyst shadows retreated against a small yellow glow.
    “That’s better,” he said.
    I drew my knees up to my chest. “Someone might see.”
    “Who the devil,” Armand responded cordially, replacing the lantern’s glass, “is going to see all the way out here in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night? I’m not going to attempt to eat Russian caviar in the dark, Eleanore. It stains. And this is a new coat.”
    “Very well.”
    He sent me a glance from beneath his lashes. With the light cast up from below, he was all stark jawline and cheekbones and diabolical dark brows. I saw the dragon in him then as clear as could be. Only his eyes were reassuringly familiar: rich cobalt blue, the color of oceans, of heaven’s heart.
    “Hungry?” he asked, soft.
    There was an implication