Nine Shillings

Keeping Secrets

London - 1842

'I knew you were hiding something.' My fingers crackled with energy and I fisted my hands to smother it. 'Did you think I wouldn't find out?'

We were keeping our voices down but in the distance Edward was crying to Bran about Josef and I being angry at each other. Mary and Merry were playing sword fighting with Millie and Veronica in the garden, Mummy getting annoyed at Daddy was business as usual for them, just like when they bickered over which games to play.

He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end in a very un-Josef manner, and took a deep breath. 'You've made it clear you don't appreciate me making decisions about your future without you and -'

Edward's favourite cup fell off the table and smashed on the flagstones. We both stared at it.

I closed my eyes and imagined locking my magic in a box then opened them again. 'It's your power, do what you want with it.' I crouched down to pick up the pieces of cup and toss them in a bucket.

'The Council wanted to kill you.' He put his hands over mine. 'I almost lost you once.'

I pulled my hands free. 'You say it like I'm special to you, but you don't make me feel special when you don't share your troubles. Especially when everyone else seems to know.'

'I was embarrassed.' He sat down. 'I acted on emotion, not sense.'

I threw the last few pieces into the bucket. 'Bran has told me things that more than embarrass him and I've told him the same.' I sighed. 'I'm not angry anymore, just disappointed.'

He rested his arms on his bent knees. 'You're too young, and a woman, in normal circumstances you would never have been turned. The Council said if I signed away any future involvement with vampire politics, you'd be safe from them as long as I kept my word.' He rubbed his face. 'I only wanted to keep you safe.'

I dusted off my hands and sat back on my heels.

'It was in hindsight I realised they wouldn't have harmed you because they're afraid of me.'

'They saw an opportunity to make sure you never took their covens,' I said.

He smiled wryly. 'And I fell for it.'

'You should've told me,' I murmured.

'And how might I do that without admitting to a strength of feeling I doubted you would ever reciprocate?'

'You sound like Bran.' I got up, brushed off my trousers, and put the bucket on the worktop.

In the library Edward had settled down and was telling Bran how silly people were because they kept calling Rawr a dog when she was a wolf.

'I rule my emotions, they don't rule me,' Josef said.

'You'll have to teach me that trick sometime.' I opened the high cupboard where the secret stash of identical cups was kept out of Edward's reach, and mine.

Josef pressed against my back as he got one down for me. 'I didn't want to put Bran in the middle keeping secrets from you but I didn't mean to keep it a secret. Things were going so well and...' He looked away and offered me the cup.

'Here's where we start again.' I put my hands over his. 'Sharing troubles and decisions, not keeping secrets. An equal partnership.'

He nodded. 'Agreed.'

'I'm not going to spend the rest of my life wondering what you're hiding from me.' I took the cup and set it where the last one had been. 'I think they've missed a vital point.'

He frowned.

I lifted myself up to perch on the worktop. 'Everywhere I go people have heard of you. You're a legend, a bit of paper isn't going to negate your power.'

'Power I can't use.'

I rested my hands on his chest. 'So, you can't be seen to play politics.'

A smile spread across his face. 'Equal partnership.'

'You're lucky you have a very devious wife.'

He chuckled. 'I love you.' He cupped my face and kissed me.

I broke the kiss. 'You're still in the shit.'

'But you called yourself my "wife".'

'Like I said, devious.' I grinned, bunched his perfectly pressed waistcoat in my hands, and kissed him.

He'd been drinking coffee again and his mouth was bitter. I spread my fingers over the backs of his solid shoulders. He pressed close, kissed along my jaw and down my scarred neck. I tipped my head and smacked it against the cupboard.

'Ow.' I put my hand to the back of my head, Father Brennan had always told me I'd be punished for my sins. 'You make really solid cupboards.'

Josef touched my chin to tilt my head and check the bump. 'If I didn't you wouldn't have many bookcases left.'

I chuckled, wafted his hand away, and kissed him softly. 'Fair point.' I hopped down from the worktop. 'Now we've sorted that out, let's go sort out our son.'

Bran was sitting on the floor in the library in front of a set of curtains. 'Where's Edward gone?'

Edward was behind the curtains, giggling, with his toes sticking out. He popped his head out. 'Peek-boo.' Then he pulled the curtain back over his face.

'He's gone again,' Bran said. 'What if he doesn't come back?'

'Here I am.' Edward jumped out and threw his arms around Bran.

Bran hugged him back. 'There's my boy.'

'Muma! Dada!' Edward wiggled out of Bran's grip, toddled over to me, and stuck his arms out.

I lifted him up and he squeezed my neck, jabbing me with Rawr the wooden wolf in the process.

'Was sad but Papa said you upset 'cause Dada did dangerous thing an' didn't wanted him get hurt. Like no touching stove, is hot.'

'Your papa is a wise man,' I said.

He reached over my shoulder towards Josef. 'Cuddles.'

Josef put his arms around both of us. Bran looked up at us from his place on the floor.

'Papa, where you?' Edward said, peering over my shoulder in the wrong direction.

Bran smiled and joined in, I ended up squeezed between his and Josef's chests like a sandwich without enough filling. A manwich, I supposed.

'Snuggly cuddlies,' Edward murmured. 'Love you.' He wiped his nose on my shoulder.

I wasn't the only one who was devious.