American Squire Read online

  American Squire

  Sierra Simone

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  If You Loved the World of Thornchapel . . .

  About the Author

  Also by Sierra Simone

  1

  Few of us are lucky enough to know a real wizard.

  Even fewer of us are lucky enough to be sent on a quest by one.

  Or at least that’s what I tell myself during my endless flight from D.C. to London, and during the following train ride to Exeter, and during the long, harrowing drive while I struggle not to scrape my rental car against the hedgerows while I consult the GPS on my phone.

  I squint at the screen and then sigh.

  Somehow it’s taken me an entire hour just to make it fourteen miles.

  I sigh again, as if hedges and sheep are Google’s fault, and then toss the phone on the passenger seat. Supposedly, I’m only a short drive through a village away, but I didn’t get much sleep on the plane, and everything is starting to feel blearily unreal. I’ve kind of given up hope that Thornchapel exists at all by this point.

  All this way for a book, I think tiredly.

  If the request for help hadn’t come from Merlin and Nimue—Merlin’s new . . . well, his new whatever she is—I might have said no. The president I’d served faithfully for four years is dead, and while his successor offered me the same job, I couldn’t accept it. It feels too close to moving on, and I don’t want to move on. Not yet, not when I still feel so wrong inside, so ruined and lost.

  But when Nimue asked me to help her and Merlin, I felt a flicker of the old Belvedere. The Belvedere who could do anything and do it in trendy glasses and a smile. I said yes before I even realized I’d opened my mouth.

  I nudge the car over a bridge and into a village called Thorncombe that looks like it’s been pulled straight off a postcard. It features a stone church with a square Norman tower, an accompanying graveyard with weathered tombstones, and plenty of pubs in adorably sagging buildings. It’s only a few days before Christmas, and everything is hung with wreaths and ribbons and garlands, and it looks like one of those miniature Christmas villages my grandma likes to collect. I normally don’t enjoy things this transparently festive, but it’s strangely heartwarming to see the village all cozy and cheerful in the middle of the cold, brown wastes of the moors.

  There’s no such coziness or cheer at Thornchapel itself.

  After a sharp turn and a trip over a small ice-snaggled river, I creep down the long driveway until I encounter a stern edifice that looks older than the hills themselves.

  Crenellations chew at the winter sky like stone teeth, and the windows reflect back trees and trees and trees. It’s three stories of gray stone, asymmetrical and obviously added to over time, and there are no wreaths here, no Christmas tree beaming merrily through the front window. In a way, the lack of seasonal cheer is a relief, since there’s a possibility I’ll be staying here over the holiday and I’d hate to feel like I’m imposing on the Guest family, whom I’m told owns the estate. No, there’s just a house, and a book inside this house that’s been promised to Merlin and that is therefore my job to find.

  I park behind a narrow work van, taking note of the signs of renovation happening around the house—a big construction dumpster tucked discreetly around one side, a bucket of paint propping open the massive wooden door at the front—and then go to retrieve my suitcase from the trunk just as a sleek Audi pulls into the driveway behind me. I close the trunk lid and turn, wondering if this is the family lawyer, Mr. Cremer, who I’ve spoken briefly on the phone with.

  But when the car shuts off and its owner climbs out looking like a GQ cover, I know he can’t be Mr. Cremer. I’ve worked in D.C. for four years, and every lawyer I know looks like he’s on stimulants or blood pressure medication—or both. This man looks cold and fit and serene; a block of ice that’s been carved into a god shape, clad in a bespoke suit, and then covered in one of those expensive wool coats.

  (You know the kind: dark and long, and fitted just enough to make you want to slide your hands underneath it.)

  Paired with a gray scarf, nice gloves, and burnished leather shoes, he exudes cool elegance and sophistication; he radiates the kind of remote power I can’t help but crave like an addict.

  And his face—that face. I stop moving just to stare at it. Pale and striking, with high graven cheekbones and a haughty mouth. He’s got pearl-gray eyes, dark hair with just a breath of silver at the temples, and an expression of pure imperial arrogance as he gazes at Thornchapel. He’s Caesar standing at the Rubicon, Hannibal gazing up at the Alps. It’s an expression that says he’s ready to conquer, and conquer ruthlessly.

  I imagine that look directed at me, and heat arrows down my spine. What would it be like to be the object of his merciless determination? What would it be like to have that leather-gloved hand gripping my jaw as he forces his cock down my throat?

  Hoping he can’t see the heat in my face or the thickening behind my zipper, I give him a smile.

  And all I get is a slight nod in return.

  A couple of months ago, this would have barely registered. My job was to keep the President of the United States comfortable, informed and on task—hourly I had to face down pissy senators, angry diplomats, and worst of all, the personal aides of other world leaders. It took a lot more than a cold nod to put a dent in my smile.

  But now, with Maxen Ash Colchester dead and with me drifting from place to place with no direction and no purpose—well, this beautiful man’s dismissal of me feels like another glum nudge from the universe, reminding me that nothing matters and nothing ever will.

  My master is dead, and I’ll never get to serve again.

  2

  As promised by the dumpster and construction supplies, the inside of the house is a mess, which I can see even through my fogged-up glasses. Me and the wool-coated Ice God are welcomed by the real Mr. Cremer, a tall, reedy man with rimless glasses, who shows us to our rooms and tells us that the owner of the house will be joining us for dinner.

  “I’m happy to take possession of the book any time, Mr. Cremer,” I say, a bit hopefully, as he walks us both down to the ground floor to give us a tour. “I hate to be a burden.”

  “Nonsense,” Mr. Cremer says. “Mr. Guest is delighted to have you here. I’m certain he’ll want to hear all your stories about working in the White House. And besides . . .”

  We’re walking through a narrow corridor lined with arched windows to get to the library. It looks like something out of a monastery, as do the iron-bound doors set into the stone wall, and when Mr. Cremer pushes them open, even the Ice God next to me lets out a startled breath. Before us is the library in Beauty and the Beast, if Beauty and the Beast were set in the austere gloom of the seventeenth century. There’s countless books on sturdy, endless bookshelves, two stories of it all with plenty of ladders and clever little staircases to connect them. All the light comes from a large bank of two-story windows at the end, and the only ornamentation is the carved wood and the varied colors of the books themselves. The ceiling is so high and the room so deep that shadows curl like big cats in the corner, even in daylight.

  “The library is rather big,” Mr. Cremer states, in the bland tones of obvious understatement. “It might take you some time to find the book Merlin is looking for.”

  The ice god has wandered inside the library, but he’s not gazing at the shelves with the slack-jawed wonder I am. He’s assessing everything with a cold, calculating gaze. Every now and again, he pulls a book off the shelf to examine its condition.


  His efficiency and dismissive contempt of unworthy items is powerfully erotic. I have no idea why.

  “Who is he?” I whisper-ask to the lawyer.

  “Ah, yes. That’s Sidney Blount,” the lawyer replies. “From the auction house. He’s here to catalog the Guests’ artwork in anticipation of it being sold off.”

  Sidney Blount. It sounded like a war name to me, or maybe something out of a 1930s pulp story about a soul-deadened detective who’s forgotten how to feel anything but bitterness and lust.

  As opposed to Ryan Belvedere, which is a name that sounds happy and dutiful—at least it does to me.

  Or at least it did.

  “Mr. Blount doesn’t mind working this close to the holiday?” I ask, trying to push away from unhappy thoughts and move on to something else.

  Mr. Cremer gives the world’s smallest one-shouldered shrug, so subtle I barely catch it. “Mr. Blount’s company stands to earn a substantial amount of money from this. And my client is eager to dispatch of the artwork—it was important to his father, and so Mr. Guest is compelled to remove it from the house.”

  Even though Mr. Cremer’s tone of voice hasn’t changed, I can tell he disapproves.

  “I’m guessing his father is no longer alive?”

  “Correct.”

  I think I can picture this Mr. Guest now, thin and sour and old, the kind of middle-aged man who pins all his dead dreams on his father . . . while making all the same choices his father did. I’m already dreading having to make conversation with him, but I remind myself that I’ve dealt with worse in the White House. I can handle the mulish petulance of an old man for a few days.

  In the library, Sidney Blount is now leaning over a curio case with his hands folded behind his back. Without the wool coat, I can see how perfectly tailored his suit is, how it clings to the lean lines of his torso and hips. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, and even though I place him at about ten years older than me, in his late thirties, there’s plenty of muscle testing the seams of his shoulders and arms whenever he pulls something closer to get a better look.

  “How do you know Merlin?” I ask Cremer. It’s random, it’s such a random thing to ask, but I feel like I’ve been staring at Sidney Blount long enough for it to be weird, and I don’t want the lawyer to notice.

  “We went to school together,” Cremer answers. “We’ve kept in touch since then, and I help him look after some of his family’s property here in the UK. When he reached out to me about that book, I was more than happy to talk to Mr. Guest about letting Merlin buy it from him. And as I expected, Mr. Guest said—and I quote—he can have the whole damn library if he wants. I, of course, advised against that.”

  Sidney strides back towards us, a haughty, well-dressed silhouette with the large windows behind him framing him in pale winter light.

  “Does Mr. Guest want the items in these cases appraised as well?” Sidney asks.

  His voice is so sharp and precise that I could use it to fold shirts. I could use it to cut myself.

  I sigh. Longingly, quietly.

  No one seems to notice.

  “Just the paintings,” Cremer replies.

  “He should have all of this appraised,” Sidney says, turning back to face the room. This close, I can see the faint lines around his eyes, and the barest shadow of stubble beginning to darken his jaw. I resist the urge to shiver again; my hunger for older men is insatiable. “Your client should bring someone in to see to this library before it rots away in neglect.”

  I expect Mr. Cremer to protest, but he only gives a defeated exhale. “Yes, I’ll tell him.”

  Sidney doesn’t acknowledge this—he doesn’t seem like the type of man to acknowledge when people have agreed with him, as if he expects that as his due.

  I also have a bit of a kink for that too, if I’m honest.

  Cremer’s phone rings, and excusing himself, he leaves to take it in the hallway, which means it’s only me and Sidney left inside this moldering cathedral of books.

  I take a step forward, peering into the deep recesses made by the shelves, and consider my task. I’m very good at what I do—or at least, I was very good at what I did, before my employer and king died and I didn’t care about being good at anything anymore. Finding a book in a library should be no more difficult than getting a suit dry-cleaned with only an hour’s notice or briefing the President on a day’s packed schedule while we both jog across the tarmac to catch the car.

  It doesn’t take me long to assess the layout of the library, and not much longer than that to go through a flow-chart of options in my head about the best way to approach the search. A job well done is accomplished in the planning as much as in the execution, and even if I’m not technically being paid, even if this job doesn’t affect anyone but Merlin and Nimue, it matters to me to do it well.

  There’s a prickle of something at the back of my neck, hot and light all at once, and I look back at the doors just in time to see Sidney Blount looking away from me.

  3

  Years of sleeping only when the President slept—and often less—mean that I’m fairly energized after a two-hour nap, even with the jet lag. I shave and shower, change into a pair of chinos and a leaf-green sweater that sets off my olive complexion, and then I spend an embarrassing amount of time fussing with my hair.

  Before, in my life working for Ash, there was no time for vanity and there was no bandwidth for fashion. I had my roster of tweedy clothes, my trusty glasses, and I’m blessed with a thick flop of black hair that looks good no matter what I do. But thinking about sitting down at the table with the meticulous Sidney Blount, a man who scoffs at rare books and glares at Roman artifacts inside glass cases, has me worried that I’ll look immature or foppish or vain.

  But there’s no helping it. The hair must flop, and I don’t have the right tools to manage it. I arrange it as tamely as I can—not very—and head downstairs to dinner, where I’m greeted by Mr. Cremer and a handsome young man in his early twenties.

  “You must be Ryan Belvedere,” the young man says, extending his hand with a grin. He’s got a flop of hair to rival mine and hazel eyes like windows to summer in the midst of all this cold and damp. And his smile has an uneven hitch on one side of his upper lip, roguish and innocent all at the same time, the grin of a young man just on the verge, just at the threshold. In another year, maybe in another handful of months, he won’t be a comely youth but a man in the first flush of his power.

  And that’s not at all my type, given my penchant for older, crueler men, but my heart speeds up all the same as our hands touch.

  “Mr. Belvedere,” Cremer says, “this is Auden Guest, your host.”

  This is Auden Guest? I try to hide my shock as I shake his hand in return and then nod my agreement to his gesture at the open wine bottle nearby. I really thought I was staying at the house of a splotchy, book-hating, father-blaming miser, but nope. Just a gorgeous boy with hazel eyes and an open, crooked smile.

  “Thank you so much for allowing me to stay here,” I say as I accept the glass of wine. Our fingertips brush, and while it’s not sheer electricity between us, I still feel my cheeks warm. It’s been over a year since I’ve touched another person with more than the most perfunctory of courtesies, and even the punishments I’d come to crave at my local kink club were too hard to seek out between the hectic pace of Ash’s re-election campaign and then my grief after his assassination. I’m starved for caresses and slaps both, and tonight is the first time I’ve really felt it, felt the hunger and the lack.

  Maybe Thornchapel is stirring me awake again. Urging me back to life.

  I look up to see Sidney Blount in the doorway of the dining room, staring at me and Auden Guest. His expression is hard and cold, his eyes are like ice under a flat sky, and suddenly I know that if he snapped his fingers right now, I’d drop to my knees. Right here in the dining room, here in front of everyone. I wouldn’t even set down my wine first, I wouldn’t even mind dropping it in my haste to obey
him, in the hopes that he’d make me lick every spilled drop off the rug. That he’d punish me for the insult to my host.

  Then Sidney glances away, stepping in with his hands in his pockets and a line between his eyebrows as he no doubt catalogs the antique furniture in the room.

  There’s a difference between cruel and just plain not interested, Ryan, I remind myself. The former is one of my favorite things in the world, and the latter is something I won’t hurt myself with ever again. I’ve already spent the last four years quietly aching for the two most powerful men in my country as I watched them ache after each other—there’s no sense in starting an even more hopeless attachment to someone I barely know.

  But I still can’t stop my eyes from drifting to him as we sit and a rosy-cheeked woman named Abby bustles in with our dinner. I can’t stop watching him as he lifts his wineglass—by the stem, no unsightly smudges on Sidney Blount’s glass, no sir—and as he tilts his head to listen to Cremer or Auden say this or that. As he eats with a precision that’s as joyless as it is elegant.

  “So Mr. Cremer tells me that you worked for the former President?” Auden asks after we’ve finished with our meal, and moved on to the little apple tarts Abby’s brought in. “I’m so sorry about what happened, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I say. I’ve grown practiced at deflecting people’s condolences, because there’s simply no way to describe what Ash meant to me. It’s easier to pretend that I lost a boss and not a king, it’s easier to pretend I’m merely sad rather than completely purposeless, drifting without a master to serve.

  Auden seems to sense that there’s a conversational mire ahead and looks like he’s about to change the subject, but Sidney pierces me with his gray eyes as he leans back and asks, “And what did you do for the President, Mr. Belvedere? What was your job, exactly?”