A gurgling sound came from somewhere in Chase’s vicinity. Jack refused to look.
Wilde stood, meeting over, discussion done. “Do not pin your focus on something you cannot change.” He smiled briefly. “Pieces shift on the board. It is the end game that counts.”
As though she’d been waiting for it, Chase took the moment to speak up. “I’ve heard from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s staff.”
Jack went utterly cold. Slowly he turned toward her. Chase’s cameo-smooth skin glowed in the dingy office light as she looked up at Wilde. Perfectly composed. As though she weren’t driving a stake under his chin. Traitor! Outmaneuvering miss. Through a hollow tunnel of sound he heard her. “The Archbishop of Canterbury has agreed to meet with us. This afternoon, in fact.”
Bloody fucking hell.
He might have cursed out loud, for Wilde and Chase both turned with twin expressions of surprise mixed with censure. Jack cleared his throat. “Do either of you honestly believe that the Archbishop of Canterbury is murdering shifters?”
He was surprised he could speak at all, given that his heart was thundering in his throat and his insides had turned watery. He could not go back there. He could not. The ringing in his ears grew louder. “He is one of the most powerful men in the realm. Nor is he likely to even believe in supernaturals, much less know of their existence.”
“That is hardly the point,” said Chase. “He might have information, however innocuous it might seem on the surface. Never mind the fact that, as investigators, it is our duty to leave no stone unturned.”
“How very diligent of you,” Jack muttered. But he was trapped. Wilde was studying him as though he were a particularly interesting insect, and Chase was just waiting for him to further object. He did not doubt she had a store of volleys waiting to be lobbed back at him.
“It is a delicate situation,” Wilde said. “No, he does not know of our kind. Nor will he.” The fact was so implicit that Wilde did not bother phrasing it as a threat. “But since he has agreed to speak with you both, so you shall.”
Chapter Twenty
He was in a nightmare of his own making. Jack had never felt that truth more keenly than now, when bloody Mary Chase had marched them into Lambeth Palace, never mind his protests that this was all for naught. After giving him the brisk order to “go the bloody hell home if you’re so against it,” she’d ignored him.
The very idea of sending Chase in here alone curdled his insides. Cold sweat dripped down his spine and tickled the backs of his ears as they were led into a murky drawing room. The last time he’d paid the palace a visit, he’d been huddled on the stone-cold floor of the crypts, hugging that dank ground as if it were his salvation. Looking back, he could not fathom why he’d had the faith to seek sanctuary here. Nothing in his young life ought to have given him that hope. Yet he’d come. And John Michael Talent had been destroyed that dark day.
The very proper footman closed the door behind them, effectively entombing them in the drawing room. Damn it, but he couldn’t breathe in here. The room was too dark, the heavy velvet curtains drawn almost closed, a silly practice to protect the furniture and artwork. What good was art when one couldn’t see it?
Chase moved idly about the room, a rustle of satin and crinoline. She’d dressed to perfection for this meeting, the wine-colored satin of her gown stunning yet restrained. The gown offered little in the way of adornment, simply a wide band of pleating around the hem and the edges of her gathered overskirt. A nice trick to convey humility, save that the clean lines of her bodice merely emphasized her graceful curves and made a man long to linger.
The darkness here muted the golden brown of her hair, so prettily coiled at the back of her head, and turned her creamy skin a shade of unnatural white. She appeared a painting just then, only alive by the virtue of her glittering gaze.
In some sick way, he was glad for her presence. It did not make a lick of sense, but when she was near, the world was real. Not some strange play that he viewed from afar. And that gave him a certain strength. If he could face this, he could face anything. Because of her.
“Chase.” He did not know why her name slipped from his lips, or what he would even say now that he’d called for her attention.
He stiffened further when her lazy gaze settled on him. “What is it?”
Yes, Jack, what is so important that you had to call out to her? Furious heat worked over his skin, and he struggled not to squirm like a lad. Clearing his throat, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Would you like to talk about it?”