Binding the baron, p.1
Binding the Baron, page 1
BINDING THE BARON
ALCHEMY OF DESIRE
BOOK I
CHARLIE LANE
Copyright © 2025 by Charlie Lane
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
Charlie Lane asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. Charlie Lane has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
No part of this book was created using generative AI technology, and the author allows no part of this work to be used for the training of generative AI technology.
First Edition
Editing by Krista Dapkey
Cover art by Selkkie Designs
Formatted with Vellum
For Brian, who keeps my cold bones warm.
And for any woman who’s ever felt lost.
CONTENTS
Content Notes
Terminology
1. London’s Most Popular Potion
2. A Cup and a Curtain
3. A Happy Family
4. Nickleby House
5. A Room with a View
6. A King
7. The Allure of Iron
8. Almost
9. The Gift
10. An Invitation
11. Lovely to Lure a Man to His Death
12. Gentlemen Callers
13. Bound by Iron
14. One Foggy Morning
15. Found
16. Everywhere All at Once
17. Honeymoon Hideaway
18. Discovery
19. The King Calls
20. A Beautiful Path
21. Stepping Into the Light
22. Lightning Strikes
23. Temple in Ruins
24. The Tower
25. Strange Bedfellows
26. Meet the Marchioness
Epilogue: A Series of Fortunate Events
Author’s Note
About the Author
Historical Romance by Charlie Lane
Victorian Fantasy Romance by Charlie Lane
CONTENT NOTES
On page: physical violence against women, suicidal ideation, discussion of suicide, use of potion without consent, death of loved one.
Discussion of / off page: death of a loved one, emotional abuse, substance abuse.
NOTE: Any historical figures featured on the page, while inspired by actual people, are creatures of my own historical interpretation. Any actions they take or beliefs they hold are the product of my own imagination.
TERMINOLOGY
Transcendents: Titled men and their families, aristocrats, the peerage—dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons. The titled men possess the talent of glamours, which passes from eldest son to eldest son upon the death of the current title holder. They inhabit West London as well as their country estates spread across England.
Alchemists: Laboring men and their families. The men possess the ability to shape the metals of earth using their own body heat and flames from a fire. They are inventors and scientists, and they inhabit East London and Manchester as well as other burgeoning industrial and mining towns.
1
LONDON’S MOST POPULAR POTION
April 1837
The potion shop in Finsbury Square demanded attention. No matter it was exactly the same size as the surrounding buildings, it felt bigger. Same style as the others, too—each building rising toward the sky in red brick and white stone. Fan windows, bright doors, well kept, and well ordered.
And yet it seemed to wink. To laugh. If it were a girl, it would throw its head back with a toss of the hair and a hearty guffaw as all the other buildings—staid men of a certain age with receding hairlines and even more vanishing senses of humor—looked on with upturned noses and shirt points picking at their whiskers.
Was it the windows, pristine and glinting in the late morning sun? Behind the glass, vines and leaves crowded the space, obscuring whoever might be bustling about in there. Those vines slithered as if living. The plants rustled as if breathing. And the sign above the door swung in the wind, its gold lettering playful yet solid: Lady Guinevere’s Potions. The words seemed to say, Trust us. There is no problem too dire it cannot find remedy beyond this door.
Diana hoped so. Hope had led her here, though she’d never before been east of St. Paul’s. East London—alchemist territory. Few members of the transcendent ton wandered there purposefully. No wonder fear held her feet fast.
But Alchemists were merely men, scientists, laborers. Their unmatched skill with metals a trade they’d labored to learn. Impressive, but not dangerous.
And the entrance to the shop—yellow and bright and harmless—was merely a door! Not… not Charybdis or Morgan le Fay. Though whispers shifting from lips to ears across ballrooms suggested the scandalous Lady Guinevere herself, owner of the winking shop in question, could claim that historical witch as an ancestor. Witchery ran in the lady’s veins, they said, and bubbled in her potions.
Impossible. Morgan le Fay had been transcendent, one of the few women to possess magic before it had coalesced in the veins of men alone. Besides, only those with titles held true magic. Men with titles. And most agreed Lady Guinevere was nothing more than a marketing scheme. She was likely a plain old Jane or Susan, a Miss Smith. But the owner of the first potion shop, the only potion shop, in London would need a flashy moniker, so she’d created one for herself.
Nothing to fear here, yet…
Diana took a shaky step backward toward the clopping of hooves behind her. Horses, phaetons, carts, and hacks taking Londoners every which way.
While she had nowhere to go.
Except for inside the shop.
With a breath that strained the buttons of her pelisse, Diana opened the door and stepped inside. She saw only a glimpse of her reflection in the window, but it was enough to startle her. Not the one was familiar with. Her new appearance was just one more thing to get used to in life after her grandfather’s death. She inhaled, exhaled, and let the merry tinkling of bells breaking above her head as she entered the shop banish the distress shivering down her spine.
The yellow door closed with a soft click behind her. Her first breath was a revelation. Lavender. Lemon. And something spicier than both. One inhalation of the shop air banished London from her lungs. Other scents too, so many she could not disentangle them. Hints only before they whisked away—bergamot and mint and ink and wine. The smells of winter and summer, of autumn and spring. In this shop, sunshine had a scent, as did laughter and grief.
And love?
She’d soon find out.
“’Scuse me, miss.” A woman in a starch-white apron carrying a steaming teapot gently nudged her out of the way, disappearing between two large ferns at the side of the shop. Was there a door there? No outline or frame announced an exit. No tapestry hid one. But then… where’d she go? Potions were not real magic.
But the shop seemed to sing with it.
“Pardon me, miss.” Another apron dashed past her.
Diana ducked out of the way, fighting for space amongst the others. Half of those in the crowded shop were dressed like the woman with the teapot, in white aprons and yellow gowns, hair piled simply, neatly atop their heads, gold chatelaines at their waists. The tiny golden spoons and knives, scissors, thimbles, and other implements Diana could not identify, jingled when they walked. They must be the potions mistresses, outfitted with the tools of their trade.
The other half were, like Diana, dressed in unremarkable walking gowns and sturdy boots, clothes meant to make them disappear. They were women in need, customers and clients. Desperate? Like Diana?
For the love elixir.
Diana had considered making her own. She’d even found a recipe in the back of an old history book. Kitchen Spells for Household Management in Fifteenth Century England. But she’d not felt like finding and crushing a mouse skull. She shivered. No thank you.
“Can I help you, miss?” A potion mistress stood before her, hands clasped behind her back, the dark, curly knot atop her head slightly askew, like her grin. Her pink gown was soft against her brown skin, and her gray eyes were kind, clever.
“I… I a-am looking…” Her voice sounded so small, terrifyingly hesitant. She despised it. Had the years really ground her down so thoroughly? She cleared her throat, stood taller. “I am looking for Lady Guinevere.”
“They all are. But she’s rarely here, ya know. Don’t you worry, though. We’re all thoroughly trained and wouldn’t be working here if we didn’t possess our own talents for brewing. Follow me.”
Talents. No one used that word for those who could brew potion. That word was reserved for the transcendent ton, those titled men with the world in their magically charged palms and the titled women who birthed them.
Trained. Another odd association. Were they really? Potion work was usually handed down from mother to daughter, a sort of kitchen skill, a hobby akin to needlework, something to keep bored fin gers busy. Certainly not something to be studied and perfected. Everyone knew that. Except, it seemed, this potions mistress.
“I’m Miss Maple.” The woman stepped behind a long table that spanned the width of the room every inch of it cluttered with bowls of brass and silver, gold and stone. Wood, too. Pestles filled in the crevices between bowls, and plant remnants hid the rest of the tabletop. “You do not have to tell me your name. Most would rather not.” Palms slapped on the table on either side of her body, weight leaned into them. “What can I do for you?”
Even if she had asked for her name, Diana would not have given it. The ton would eviscerate her. Lady Diana Chester in search of a love elixir. For whom, they’d want to know. Her betrothed? A lover?
The ton would get it all wrong.
“I would like”—she licked her lips, the words difficult to push out—“I w-wish to procure a love potion.” What she really wished for was something to strip a person of transcendent powers. But magic passed through the blood could not be taken away. Except through death. Even if such a potion existed, use of it would be considered treason, would end with her neck tight in a noose, her feet and skirts swinging. Peers did not suffer threats to their magic, their blood, their privileges, their lives.
“Of course, miss. We specialize in it, as I’m sure you know. Other women claim they know the secret of the heart, but they are wrong. Lady Guinevere, however…” She raised a hand and trailed it along the fronds above their heads, plucked one, long and thin with tiny, heart-shaped leaves. “Only she knows the truth. And she’s taught it to us. Easy to make as pissing in a pot. Oh.” Wide eyes, smile faltering. “I’m not supposed to curse. Apologies, miss.”
“That is quite all right. Are you going to use that? In the potion?” Diana gestured at the heart-dotted branch waving in Miss Maple’s hand.
“Yes, I am.” She dropped the plant in a gold bowl. “But before I can get going for good, I have to give you the lecture.”
“Lecture?”
“It’s policy, miss.” Miss Maple pulled herself up tall. “Lady G’s love elixir is not permanent. No potion is. Its effects remain only as long as the potion does. In your body, that is. Once you piss it out—blast. Once it leaves your—”
“Yes, I understand.” It was the way of all potions.
“But also, miss, it will not be real love. Real love cannot be bottled, you understand. The love elixir merely activates the physical reactions of the body, makes ’em bigger, makes ’em so big you cannot contain ’em and you think you’re in love.”
Diana raised a brow. “Not real love, then. A mere trick. A swindle.”
Miss Maple grunted. “You can leave, then. Lady G doesn’t need your blunt.”
“No, no.” Scholarly skepticism fled when confronted with retreating opportunity. “I’ve heard enough—gossip, you see—to know… I need hers.”
“Then as I was saying, you’ll think you’re in love. That is until you—”
“Piss it out.”
“Precisely, miss.” Miss Maple grinned. “Now, tell me about the man you wish to love you.”
“Oh, I do not want him to love me.”
Miss Maple’s jaw unhinged then cranked slowly back into place. “But… then who?”
“Anyone, really. Anyone but me. Can it be done?” She’d spent the first thirty years of her life with her cousin, Apollo, and she would not spend the next thirty as his wife. She suppressed a shiver. She could not marry a man she considered a brother. Never mind making an heir with him. Even if he were kind to her, she’d never be able to look at him without seeing the little boy who’d tried to live in the stables for an entire summer because he’d wanted to be a horse. The young man who’d spit in her glass of champagne just to be churlish. The confident rake who ignored her as much as possible. She didn’t fool herself she could marry for love one day. Not now. Any husband, Apollo or otherwise, would discover her secret as soon as she lost control. In the throes of passion, she might… let everything slip. Diana would not risk it. Sexual pleasure was not worth her life.
Miss Maple snorted. “Can it be done? Lady G can do anything. Le Fay blood in her veins. I still need to know about the fellow. Each elixir is tailored to the victim.” A chuckle.
Victim. Yes. Quite. “He and I… we’ve known each other since childhood.”
“Familiarity. Hm.” Miss Maple began to rattle the bottles on the table, searching, snapping up a small vial, purple and plump. “Ah. Here.”
After a moment of trying and failing to read the minute words inked onto the bottle label, Diana said, “We are set to wed this Season. I have asked him to delay, to abandon the union entirely, but he refuses.”
“Controlling. Yes. Where is…” Miss Maple fingers wiggled above the crowded table. “There it is.” She set a bowl of seeds next to the purple vial. “What else, miss?”
“I tried to convince him he might fall in love one day. Not with me, of course. I tried to show him he would regret shackling himself to me, but—”
“Stubborn arse.” Miss Maple laughed, but there was not even a single note of mirth in it. “I know right where that is.” She reached up and broke off a vine from a low-hanging plant—dark green, thick with large leaves.
“He is, yes. I want to show him he’s wrong. With the elixir. I want to convince him he’s capable of loving.” Maybe if he thought himself in love, he’d second-guess his determination to wed without it.
Miss Maple’s eyes on her were hard and cold, gray, clouded marbles. “Is he in love with you now? Any chance of it? Any at all?”
“None.” As children they’d been friends, playmates. But now he was bitter and dismissive. And some days she saw worse in his eyes—cunning and machinations.
“Then why is he so set on wedding you?” Miss Maple waggled her brows. “Are you an heiress? Are you”—her gaze flew to Diana’s belly—“in the family way?”
“No. It was my grandfather’s dying wish.” You must marry her, Apollo. Swear it! Diana’s future sealed with his final words. No. She’d avoid it if she could and apologize to the man in the afterlife. “Will it work on a man who cannot love?”
Miss Maple gave another snort. “They always say they can’t love. That’s fear talking. A bad past sometimes that shuts off that bit of themselves. They can. But it might hurt him. Or he’ll get it wrong, think it indigestion or lust.” Miss Maple searched the table, her hand hovering, then lowering for a grape, green and wrinkling. “Now, miss, tell me about his looks. That’s important, too.”
“Tall. Lean. Brown hair, blue eyes. I suppose he looks a bit like me. Our fathers were twins.”
More ingredients gathered and settled in the ever-growing pile. “Anything else?” Said as she perused the table, tapping her chin.
“He’s confident. In an overbearing sort of way.”
“Typical.”
“Preening, too.”
“That all?”
Diana inhaled roughly. Something told her she could not hide the truth here. If she did, this reckless and likely foolish plan would not work.
“Also…” She hesitated. What she wanted to say a mere feeling. He’d done nothing yet. But she needed to say it, to let someone else know.
“I am concerned he might grow violent.” She said it quietly, trying to sound matter-of-fact instead of afraid. He’d been so wild lately, so unpredictable, chafing as much under his deathbed promise as Diana but refusing to give it up. He used to be jovial, teasing and droll. Now he came home smelling of opium, face sunken and shoulders bowed.
