Harry had studied his mouth, since she'd said what she said about it. Looked at it every angle in the mirror, and he couldn't see it. It was just a mouth. Same one he saw every day shaving. But if she liked it, if she thought it was "perfect," who was he to complain?
He led her toward the stairs. He wanted her in his bed and not just once or twice. The rest of his life might do.
"You don't need any more power over me, you brute." She gave his arm a feeble punch with her free hand and had to grab for her cloak as it began to slip. "You are already quite irresistible enough."
"Good." He winked at her, determined to keep things light. Elinor was so skittish, but maybe she wouldn't run if he shared a few home truths with her, lightly. "Evens us up a bit, then, since you know you got me twisted right round your finger."
"I know no such thing!" But she laughed, so it was all right.
"An' who was it said I should be 'ead of council?" Harry kept them moving, right past the landing and on up the curve of the stairs.
"Greyson Carteret said it."
He gave her a look and she laughed again. "He said it after you did. You said I should do it an' look where I am now."
"As if you didn't want it. You know you did." Elinor poked him in the side where he was ticklish.
He dodged out of her reach. "Well, yeah, I did. But if you said somebody else--if you wanted it, I'd've stood aside." He kissed her hand as they reached the top, making a tease of it. He wasn't the hand-kissing sort, so teasing was natural. "I'd do anything for you, Elinor."
That stopped her cold, right there at the top of the stairs, and she stared at him. Maybe he hadn't kept it as light as he should have. But he meant it. He wouldn't back away, now he'd said it.
"I believe you," she said after a long moment of staring. "I must be mad for believing it, but I do."
"Good." He nodded once, setting seal to the matter, then tugged on her hand, urging her down the hall to his room.
Her faith in him aroused him more than he thought possible, and it was all he could do to wait long enough to get her someplace private. The instant his bedroom door closed, he had her pinned against it, kissing her. He could not get enough of her, never would. He had become an addict, like one of those creatures in the opium dens who shook and screamed when deprived of their drug. He craved her presence, but instead of stealing his sense and strength, she made him stronger, better.
He spun her around and blinked at the absence of buttons. She laughed, a merry little chortle, and turned to face him again. "This dress buttons down the front."
She shoved at his jacket and he tore it off, tossed it across the room, following it with his necktie. Elinor started to work on his shirt buttons. "Race you."
"No fair." Harry got busy on the thousands of buttons closing her dress. "You have more." Maybe only hundreds.
"Yes, but you have a waistcoat. And trousers." The twinkle in her eyes as she looked up had him fumbling buttons.
"Not fair," he growled again. Particularly since what he uncovered was so distracting. He flicked a finger across a nipple and her fingers stumbled.
"Do we really want to play that game?" Elinor raised an eyebrow as one hand trailed lower, toward the cockstand straining his trouser buttons.
He never would get her buttons undone if she touched him there, and he wanted her naked. Wanted them both naked. He caught her hand and set it back on his half buttoned shirt with a wordless growl. She laughed again, and they each concentrated on the task at hand.
They--oh, all right, he kept having to stop and caress and explore what he uncovered. Elinor did too, but he was always the one who cracked first. She could be very single-minded in pursuit of her goals. And she wore more layers to get through, which meant he was starkers while still stripping corset, pantalettes, shimmy, and stockings off her. Not that he particularly minded.
It also meant that he was stupid with lust by the time he did get her peeled bare, given the way Elinor kept touching and stroking and squeezing. Even there. Especially there. He tried to hold back. Truly. He knew women liked it slow, liked to be coaxed and kissed into frenzy. Elinor certainly did. But tonight, when he tried to slow down and ply her with kisses--they'd somehow made it into the bed by then--he discovered that Elinor was already in a bit of a frenzy.
What else would you call it when she hauled him up by his hair from kissing his way down the sweet softness of her stomach toward her nest and wrapped her legs around his hips? Then insisted, "In, now."
He obeyed. Hadn't he already said he'd do anything for her?
They strove together, thrust and rolled and caught at each other with hands and even teeth. If the bed hadn't weighed as much as a locomotive, it would have banged against the wall. As it was, they nearly wrestled the mattress to the floor.
A long while after, they lay boneless and brainless, panting for breath. And a longer while, once Harry rolled to the side for fear of crushing her.
"Ow," Elinor said eventually. She turned to her side and raised up to look down her back.
"Ow?" Harry forced himself back from the edge of sleep. "Are you hurt?" He was getting cold. The blankets and coverlets had hit the floor, if the mattress had not. One of them would have to get up to retrieve them.
"I think I got a splinter--or something--in my bottom." She twisted herself, trying to get a look. "I can't see it. You look."
Gladly. He grinned and ran his hand over her round cheeks. "O' course."
"Ow! Stop that. You're driving it in deeper." She swatted at him and rolled to lay flat on her stomach. "Get the lamp."
Harry looked round for it. The only light came from the fire across the room. The lamp on the side table was nowhere to be seen. "I think we broke the lamp in all our bumping round. It wasn't lit, so that's all right, but it ain't there. Hold on."
He grabbed his dressing gown and went off the other side of the bed from where the lamp should have been to go fetch the candle kept burning in the hall. The broken glass and tipped-over base glittered in the candlelight when he returned, confirming his guess. The base was on the floor, but some of the glass was on the table, which meant some could have gotten into the bed. He wouldn't have noticed. He didn't think he'd have noticed anything less than losing a finger or toe. If Elinor had been as swept away as he was...
"Likely it was glass that got you," he said crawling onto the bed, "not a splinter."
"It feels like a splinter."
He could hear the pain in her voice and hated it. "Easy, love. I'll get it."
He lifted the candle and saw the problem immediately. Didn't look too terrible. A drop of blood was just beginning to trickle down her hip. He caught it and tasted it. Tasted like blood. Not awful. Not particularly tasty either.
"Is it bleeding? Be careful with the blood, Harry. Get a handkerchief to clean it. We'll have to burn it after.
"Right." But what if he didn't? What if they mixed their blood? He knew Grey and Pearl had sealed her apprenticeship at the beginning by mixing blood. If he and Elinor did, it would bind them closer, wouldn't it? Maybe even start him down the road to familiar? He'd drunk her blood, done it again just now. She'd tasted his, too, but apparently that wasn't enough to make a familiar.
"Are you going to get the splinter out?" Elinor shifted position.
"Yeah. Just tryin' to get a look at it." He shouldn't. He wouldn't. It would be a betrayal of her trust to mix their blood without her knowing.
"Let me get the 'andkerchief." He had one in the side table drawer, he thought. And if he accidentally put his hand in the glass there-- No. That wouldn't be right.
The cloth was where he expected. He really should brush the broken glass off the table so they neither one forgot and put a hand in it. He used his hand to brush it off. He didn't want to get glass on the cloth before he touched it to Elinor. The glass didn't cut him. He was glad. Really.
Carefully, he blotted up the fresh trickle of blood on her hip, trying not to push the glass sliver deeper. He needed better light to see it. He reached for the candle on the table and caught a bit of glass he'd missed on the side of his thumb. He plucked the tiny bit out and stuck his thumb in his mouth before taking another look. Not bad. Not bleeding. He sucked on it again.
"I'm going to try to get it out now, all right?" He gave her a friendly pat on the opposite hip.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Elinor accused, her voice muffled by the mattress and her arms where her head was pillowed.
"Not at all." He moved the candle in close. "Not much," he amended. "I don't like you bein' hurt. But I 'ave to admit, I don't mind the close inspection."
He thought he could get it out with his fingernails, now he got a good look at it. The sliver was small but visible, and hadn't been driven completely beneath her skin. He changed hands on the candlestick and went after it. He could feel the glass grit between his nails. He pulled, and it came. All of it, he hoped. He'd had glass splinters and wooden ones break off and leave part behind.
"Did that get it?" he asked, flicking the glass to the floor with the other shards. "Can you still feel it?"
"It still hurts. It did stab me, you know." She scowled at him one-eyed from the shelter of her folded arms.
He rubbed his thumb one way over the tiny wound, then back the other. "I can't feel anything more."
"I don't either."
"Bloody hell." He hadn't meant to. Honest and for true, he hadn't--but his thumb was bleeding. His own sliver must have been deeper than he thought. Elinor's tiny cut had bled more when he pulled the glass out and it mixed--his blood into hers, hers into his. Such a tiny bit. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference.
"My bottom requires cursing?" Elinor rose on an elbow to look at him full on.
He opened his mouth to explain, to protest his innocence, and the magic hit.
The attack slammed into Elinor, and she screamed. Harry threw up a shield and the magic struck at him too, air locking down around his head in an attempt to cut off his breathing, while alien magic--conjury and wizardry both--went searing through his flesh and bones.
"Profundo!" He focused his magic through the word, shattering the attacking spell and setting the air free to flow. Elinor took a great breath, sending relief through him. He didn't have to break a separate spell around her.
She cried a liquid phrase in her spell-language. The pure magic in the attack slacked off. Harry used the respite to haul magic out of every place in his room where he'd stored it--out of every stone and metal item, from his hairbrush and shaving cup to the split geodes lined up on the mantelpiece. They weren't mere toiletries or décor. He spoke another word, and the shield he'd already built clanked like iron around them.
"Your hand!" Elinor held hers out to him. "Give me your hand."
He had it clasped in hers before she finished speaking, using his grip to pull her into his arms. He settled her in, back to his front, making himself her armor. Magic surged between them, dizzying him for a moment before it settled. Higher, as if its resting point had risen.
The attack returned, more ferocious than before, angry and bitter and full of self-righteousness. Harry didn't know how he could tell that, but he could. Elinor bolstered his shield, but they were only two. Far more magicians were arrayed against them, and the magic got through, battered them. He shouted at the pain, wrapping himself--his magic, his will--around Elinor, taking it on himself to protect her. The vicious attack had enough magic to kill them both, likely would have, had they not been able to tie their magic together.
But such an attack could not be sustained at that level. The enemy, whoever they were, had enough power for a fast, targeted strike, not a siege.
Elinor caught hold of Harry's magic. It startled him. He didn't know she could do that, but if she wanted it, she could have all she wanted. He poured it into her, somehow. She caught hold of the attacking magic. "Hold tight," she said, and they went flying across London, following the path the magic had taken to come to them.
It wasn't him, exactly, flying this way. More like his magic, but he could sense things through the magic, see where it was going. It felt odd. Like he was a burr stuck to a sock.
The trail they followed shuddered, broke apart, and Harry lost his telescope view. He sent a spell chasing along the rapidly disintegrating path, grabbing Elinor's burr-magic to speed it along faster than the trail vanished. When the spell reached the end, it would shake the air and should stun only those who'd sent the magic against them.
When the spell was sealed and sent, Elinor popped out of his embrace like a cork out of a bottle. She punched his arm, hard. "What did you do, Harry Tomlinson?"
"Me?" He rubbed his sore arm. What was she on about? "I didn't do nothing. That was somebody else attacked us, which you ought to know."
"Not that. Your magic. Our magic. We shouldn't have been able to do that, blend it. Not like that. What did you do?"
"I didn't mean to, I swear." Would she believe him? She had to. "I just--when I picked up the candlestick, I got a splinter myself. In me thumb. Not bad enough to bleed, I didn't think. But it did. And when I was pullin' the sliver out o' your bum--"
He made an apologetic face. It had been an accident. Thinking about it wasn't the same as doing it. "It mixed. I was about to tell ya when the magic hit. But--it worked out, didn't it? Without the mixin', I don't think we'd've made it through. Not that last attack. Maybe not either one."
"Bloody, bloody hell." She slumped back onto the bed. "That's why you cursed, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Harry reached out. She was too far away to take her hand, so he took hold of her foot, rubbing his thumb gently across her arch. "I swear it was an accident, Elinor. But is it really so awful? Truly and honestly? We're good together. Why shouldn't we be familiar?"
"I don't know. It just--seems wrong." She frowned at him. "You have your dressing gown on." She looked cold.
"I went out in the hall." He rolled to the edge of the bed, but all the covers had been knocked off on the side with the broken glass. "Here." He gave her his dressing gown and fetched the lap robe from the chaise longue near the fire to wrap around himself, trying to think how to convince her this was all for the best.
"I don't understand why you would think it's wrong," he said, climbing back onto the bed. He leaned against the headboard and patted the space beside him, inviting Elinor to join him there.
She stubbornly shook her head, staying where she was, down by his feet.
Harry sighed. Stubborn could be carried too far. "We need to be worryin' about who attacked us and why, not about whether or not we should be familiar."
"I know who attacked me. The wizard's guild. Or most of them. And it's you who will be my familiar, not both of us familiars."
"I dunno. I think it goes both ways, at least some. I used that burr magic of yours that latched onto them to send a concussion spell after 'em." He leaned forward, folding his legs out of the way. "And it wasn't just wizards that attacked us. There was conjury and alchemy in there too. They attacked the both of us, Elinor, not just you."
"They attacked you because we were together. They wouldn't have touched you if I'd been alone." She crossed her arms and glared at him.
"You think so? 'Cause I don't. Maybe they wouldn't 'ave attacked me tonight if we 'adn't been together, but an attack on me was inevitable. They don't love me any more than they do you--but more than that-- If anything happened to you, do you think I'd just sit on me arse moaning 'alas and alack, Elinor's gone away'?" He went over onto hands and knees, stalking her across the mattress.
"Oh, no, me love. Anything 'appens to you, an' I'll be tearin' London apart to find the ones who done it. And then tearin' them apart with me bare 'ands." He wasn't surprised to hear his old accent rise up on his temper. It usually did. "It's all I can' do not to go roarin' out of 'ere this minute to rip at 'em, and that's only 'cause I won't leave ya. Not alone."
"Well, of course you won't go alone. I'll be with you. It was unconscionable--it is mutiny to launch a sneak attack on the properly appointed magister of a guild, much less the duly chosen head of the Magician's Council. We cannot let this challenge go unanswered." She moved as if preparing to slide off the bed and Harry pounced, hauling her into his arms.
"I don't give a bloody damn that you're wizard's magister," he snarled. "An' even less that I'm council 'ead. I want to kill those bastards for hurting you because you're mine. My woman, my familiar, an' if you know wot's good for ya, my wife."
The minute he said it, he knew he'd made a mistake. A gigantic one. But she'd driven him to it, with her insistence on maintaining that artificial distance between them, claiming that he was important to her only as head of council. And now he'd said it, he didn't know how to back down. Every word he said was true. She just wasn't ready to hear it yet.
She drove an elbow hard into his gut, loosening his hold enough she could scramble free. "I am not your woman, Harry Tomlinson." She scooted off the bed, fortunately off the foot, away from the broken glass on the side nearest the door. "I am no one's possession. I belong to myself alone."
"Mind the glass--"
She snatched up her shimmy and dragged it on. "I will never, ever become a plaything for any man."
"That's not wot I meant--" But he might as well give up. She wasn't listening. Wouldn't listen. Still, he had to try.
"I am not marrying you." She wriggled into her pantalettes, a far too tempting sight, and went hunting for her corset. "I will never marry. I've told you this before, but you didn't listen. You never listen."
"That's not true. I listen." He watched her stomp around, worried she might stray into the broken glass. "I don't understand what I 'ear a lot of the time--" He picked up his dressing gown from where she'd tossed it and put it on. Her corset was half under the chaise. He'd seen it when he went for the lap robe.
"That's because you don't listen."
"It's because your explanations don't make sense." He handed her the corset and waited while she got it hooked in front, then began pulling the loosened laces snug. "Why won't you marry me?"
"Because for a woman, marriage is incompatible with magic. I've told you this, Harry."
"And I still don't understand why. Why is it incompatible? Not marriage in principle between two hypothetical people, but you marrying me. What's incompatible about that? What makes you think the two of us can't make it work?"
She stared at him, mouth open as if to argue, but said nothing.
"Even before we got to be lovers, we were practically livin' together." He lifted her dress off the mound of petticoats and separated the petticoats into their individual layers. "Arms up." He settled the first layer, warm flannel, over her head and left it for her to button in place.
"Yeah, you 'ave your flat." He put the second petticoat in place. "But you only sleep there. Most of the time, you don't even drink your morning tea there. You come over 'ere for breakfast and stay past supper. Lately, you don't always sleep there. What do you think marriage is going to change? Ready for your dress?"
"I don't know," she snapped. "I mean--yes, give me my dress. And I don't know what marriage will change, but I know it will. It always does." She put her head through the opening and her arms in the sleeves, then backed out of his reach to button up the front. "Even if the husband does not turn tyrant--which is a rare event--even if he does not change, the wife often does, losing her interest in things outside the home as her children arrive. Which is as it should be. But that will not be me."
"You think us not marrying will stop us from startin' a baby?" Harry looked up at her with raised eyebrows from his stoop to collect her stockings.
"That's beside the point. The point is that I do not belong to you. I am my own person and I intend to stay that way. Nor do I want a familiar. I am unmixing our blood."
"No." Harry didn't know much about sorcerers' familiars. Neither Jax nor Grey had been particularly chatty about it. But he did know that choice was a factor.
"You can't stop me." Elinor snatched the stockings from his hands and sat down on the end of the chaise to put them on.
"Maybe I can't. Maybe I can. You chose to use my magic with yours and now that you've done it, I ain't goin' to let you back out. I don't know if I can stop you unmakin' wot you made between us, but I know I'm not just going to roll over and bare my throat."
"I'm not trying to cut your throat, Harry."
"No? Sure feels like it."
"Feelings have no part in this. It's about independence and being who I am. It's about deciding what I want and taking the steps necessary to achieve that goal."
"With no room to change your mind, even if it's possible you can 'ave everything you want and more besides, if you go at it a different way?" Harry needed to dress before she finished. What had he done with his smallclothes? He gave up looking and got a fresh set from the wardrobe.
Elinor had found one garter but not the other. He wasn't helping her hunt anymore, at least until he had his shirt and trousers on.
"I know what I'm doing," she snapped. "I neither need nor want anything else."
"That's a steamin' pile o' shite," Harry snarled, buttoning up his trousers. A clean shirt was needed as well. The broken lamp had crashed near his other. "There's somethin' between us, and you know it, even if you pretend it ain't there."
"Lust, Harry. Lust and magic and nothing more." She shoved her foot in her shoe, her garterless stocking trailing down over it. "Easily dissolved."
Was that all it was? Harry stared at her a moment before stuffing his shirttails in his trousers and hauling his braces up over his shoulders. Did it matter? Elinor was his, and a man protected his woman. "That's why we're getting' married." He threw on his waistcoat and found stockings and shoes.
Elinor tried to walk out with unbuttoned shoes and stumbled when they slipped off her feet. She sat back down and wrestled with the buttons. "We are not getting married."
"Yes, we are." He got his half-boots on and his waistcoat buttoned before she conquered her shoes. "One way or another, we are."
"No, we are not." Still working at her shoes with one hand, Elinor extended the other toward him and closed her fist, like she was catching hold of something. Much like he'd captured his accidental fire in the tower cell. She yanked and the little cut on his thumb began to bleed.
Harry could feel magic shifting inside him and he grabbed hold. He licked his thumb and put pressure on it, hoping he could stop the bleeding. "I won't give you up."
"I reject you, Harry Tomlinson." She pulled harder, and he hung on by figurative fingernails and sheer force of will. "I do not want you as my familiar."
"Too late." The strain of holding on showed in his voice. He didn't care. "You asked for my hand and I gave it. I shared my magic with you gladly. You an' me--we worked together as sorceress an' familiar and I won't give that up. I ain't lettin' go."
Her pull on his blood--or maybe on her blood inside him--began to hurt, a kind of tearing inside him, but it wouldn't make him give up and let go. "I ain't lettin' go," he growled, his voice harsh with the pain. "You'll 'ave to tear me apart to get your blood back."
With a growling shriek of frustration, Elinor released her hold. "I hate you."
The words speared him worse than her pull on his blood. "No, you don't." He hoped he was right. "You're just pissed 'cause you can't make me do wot you want."
She threw her cloak over her shoulders, one stocking still drooping over her half-buttoned shoe. "I'm going home."
"No, you're not." Harry grabbed his jacket.
"You're not my owner," she snarled, so angry Harry decided it would be smarter not to take her arm.
"No, I'm not. But I ain't lettin' you go off alone after an attack like that. We're goin' to Carterets' so Grey can roust out his Briganti, an' we're goin' to find Norwood so 'e can call out the rest of 'em, and we're goin' to find out who's behind the attack." He held his bedroom door open for her.