Dark Season (30 page)

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Ella forgot the crowd staring at her back. She forgot the heavy, hot wig itching her scalp. She forgot everything but the music. She already knew the Bach well, and she’d practiced every day since Isidore had told her about the party and explained what he wanted. But she’d never played it on piano. The strangeness of the sound only excited her. Her excitement made the notes louder; harpsichord didn’t respond in the same way to pressure. Her playing rose with her emotions, fingers moving deftly across the keys. She wondered, briefly, if she would overpower Isidore, if she should hold back.

Then the violin entered, the slow, sorrowing phrase pulling through her, turning her inside out so her softest, most vulnerable recesses were exposed to the rasping perfection of his intonation. This was his other voice, a voice she had never heard, the sound his soul would make if it could sing. Darkness audible. She ached with the resonance. It faded, and she played alone again, the notes bright, the tune steady, but somehow transformed. Waiting for the violin’s return. She felt the loss, the brightness of the slow tune she played suddenly bare, translucent. In that second, she looked at him. He stood, body angled toward her, the violin pressed between chin and shoulder. His head was tilted, lips pressed together, the shadows stark beneath his cheekbones. His eyes were open. He glanced up from the strings and saw her. As their eyes met, he moved, slid the bow, the tones emerging full, throaty, and dark, the tight gut-strings bending as his fingers traveled up the bridge. His hair fell across his forehead; his lips parted. Now the sound moved back and forth between them, the melodic lines mingling, infinitely richer, sadder, than before. She leaned closer to the keys, face turned so she could watch him, watch his lean, black-clad form curve, his beautiful hands shaping the notes, as her own hands responded and invited. Neither could overpower the other in this conversation. He sustained the slow notes until they scorched her, and she balanced him, supported his flourishes, and when the music got faster, she matched him, the notes sparkling, her ornamentation transmitting to his muscles, his body jerking, sensitized to each stroke of her fingers. He made the violin purr, bloom. She felt the urgency that throbbed in his phrasing, felt it inside her. This warmth, this intimacy—it wasn’t gentle. She was scraped raw. The black current between them, that force that flowed from him to her and from her to him—now she could
hear
it too. Now he was everywhere. Surging into her even as she invaded him. The tears she’d held back since she’d first stepped into the ballroom fell now, but she was safe. No one could see. Except him.

They played the last notes. Sound vanished, but her body still thrummed, still ached. She was afraid to move. She folded her hands on her lap and stared down at the ivory keys. She heard the coughing, sighing, shifting of the crowd behind her. No applause. She felt dizzy. The debutantes smelled so harsh, the alcohols of their various perfumes clashing in the air. She was going to faint, roll off the bench onto the polished floor. She rose. She had a role to play. So what if everyone could see the tear tracks shining on her cheeks? Let them know she was moved. Let them read the pain and wonder on her face. It would be more powerful than any claim she could make, any grand pronouncement.
I have made the connection. She is here.

She pivoted slowly. Her eyes skimmed over the silent men, the whispering coteries of women. They lit on Lord St. Aubyn. He stood in the front of the press of people—his guests—all of them properly stunned, aghast by the evening’s unexpected turn. St. Aubyn had consented to all of it, but he appeared more aghast than anyone. A muscle in his jaw ticked convulsively. Were those tears in his eyes? He looked away from her.

She had mentioned to Isidore on Wednesday that St. Aubyn’s conscience was not easy.

Have you considered Lord St. Aubyn?
she’d asked. His face had tightened.

No,
he’d said.
I’ve taken St. Aubyn into my confidence
.
Everything I’m planning happens with his knowledge.

But at Mr. Tenby’s …
she’d begun, and he’d interrupted, his voice flat with finality.

I trust him with my life.

Clearly, Isidore had trusted Lord St. Aubyn with information he hadn’t shared with her. Yet. He’d alluded to something he needed to tell her before the séance.

Not here,
he’d said, rising from the sofa, casting a meaningful glance at the open door, a door through which Mrs. Trombly might have entered at any moment.
We’ll discuss things elsewhere, later. For now, concentrate on the party.

She had. She had spent days dreading it. Dreading the moment she would have to push open the French doors and march into a ballroom filled with strangers. Her imagination hadn’t carried her past those doors. She hadn’t had the energy, the courage maybe, to begin to dread all the moments that would follow. Now it was almost over. She needed only to move from this corner across the ballroom and out into the hall. Her coach would be called. She could climb inside and sag and tremble and sob.

Stare them all down
, she told herself. She didn’t glance toward Isidore. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and swept through the crowd. People parted to make way for her.

Here it was, her dream, perverted. Her dark Season. Her London debut. She had danced in the arms of a man who held her close, as though her body were something precious he wanted to protect. She had done it dressed as a dead woman. The gown she wore, so beautiful, drew attention to the woman she
wasn’t.
The man who had taken her right hand and spun her through the steps of the waltz, whose fingertips and wrist had rested against her back, who had pulled her nearer than the dance required—he was only repeating what he had done with
her
, with his betrothed, on the last night of her life.

She made it into the hall without her tears blinding her. Mrs. Bennington was there, standing by the wide staircase. She was weeping, her small hands covering her heart-shaped face. Ella turned from her sharply, almost banged into Mrs. Tenby. The thin woman’s face was pinched with displeasure. Ella flushed with guilt. These women had been Phillipa’s friends. She bit back an apology and kept going. Other partygoers were in the hall as well, some newly arrived, handing off their coats. Didn’t anyone in London sleep? She moved toward the front entrance against the stream of latecomers. She needed to find a footman.

A hand on her bare elbow made her start. Skin on skin. She hadn’t taken her gloves from the piano bench. Isidore. He’d come up behind her. She could feel his presence.

“Jenkins is sending the coach around.” His voice came from far above. A footman appeared with her cloak and Isidore’s coat and hat. He was leaving with her. He’d never said he was going to leave with her. That wasn’t part of the plan. She didn’t speak, just stood by his side, reminding herself to breathe. The coach he helped her into was not Mrs. Trombly’s coach. It was his coach. And he followed her inside.

She fell back against the bench. As soon as the coach began to move, he slid toward her. He drew her head down on his shoulder and held her while tears leaked from her eyes, dampening the wool of his coat. It was grotesque, her crying, and ludicrous that he should comfort her. He thought she was compassionating with him, no doubt, crying for the bride he’d lost, or out of horror, knowing her murderer had stood among those elegantly clad gentlemen. She didn’t deserve sympathy. She was crying in a helpless rage, but not for Phillipa, not for him. She was crying for herself.

“Let me go.” She straightened, wobbled a smile. “I’m fine.”

“I shouldn’t have forced you to dance.” He studied her, his expression shuttered. “That much of your mourning I could have respected.”

He thought she was crying for
Papa
? Shame made her shrink. Her woe was entirely selfish. Papa was dead. She was the one doomed to live.

“But I wanted it too badly.” His voice was soft. They were together again in a tiny, vibrating box, the wet, black night held at bay beyond the windows. The lamplight gave her the golden tones of his skin, the proud planes of his face. The darkling blue of his eyes. It wasn’t fair that his face could still startle her. It wasn’t fair that his looks could lay siege to her senses.

“Indeed.” She defended herself with irony, unnerved by the intensity of his gaze. “I was the belle of the ball.” She laughed. He didn’t.

“You are the belle of the Elfin grot.” His mouth quirked. “Now I’ve heard your faery song.” He took her hand. Her fingers were cold. She swallowed at the firm heat of his grasp. He bent her hand back and spread her fingers with his, so their palms pressed together. The callus on his thumb rubbed the soft fold between her thumb and first finger.

“Keats.” She tried to ignore their joined hands.

“Her hair was long, her foot was light.” He slid his free hand into the mass of black curls anchored to her head. “And her eyes were wild.”

His hip bumped hers. Thank God for the crinolines, for all the gathered folds of silk that cocooned her. He leaned over, leaned down until she could feel his exhalation against her eyelids.

“I made a garland for her head. And bracelets too, and fragrant zone.” His breathy recitation made her shiver. She closed her eyes to shut him out.

“She looked at me as she did love … ” Her lids flew open.
His
eyes were wild as they traced her features. His lips were parted as though to utter the next line. He hesitated. He cast his gaze up as though the words eluded him.

She couldn’t stop herself. “And made sweet moan.” Too late she saw the trap. His gaze snapped back. Flared with triumph.

“Ah,” he whispered. “Did she?” His head dipped, and his lips nuzzled her throat. His teeth scraped her earlobe. The moan this elicited made him smile. She felt it against her neck. His weight pressed her back into the padded bench. She was still inside out, that was the only explanation for the intensity of the sensation. Skin couldn’t be this sensitive. Her undergarments felt as though they rubbed on raw nerves.

“Witch.” His lips found her jaw. “Fairy.”

She wanted his touch.

But he hadn’t made a garland for her head. He had given her a black wig. The wild desire in his eyes was not for her but for that black-haired girl. She did not move a muscle, but she retreated nonetheless, fighting to detach herself from her shivering skin, from the tension gathering in her belly. Somehow, he sensed it. He was still attuned to her, interpreting cues so subtle she had barely formed the corresponding thoughts.

“Where did you go?” He pulled back, eyebrows lifted in question. “You know, I could learn from you. I always escaped the hell I was in by train, by boat, by gypsy caravan.” His smile was enigmatic. He was teasing, but something deadly serious underlay his playful tone. “But you … ” His fingers laced hers more tightly. “You just … float away.”

She glanced down at their hands. His fingers were so exquisitely shaped, so sensitive, it was a shock to feel her fingers stretch to accommodate their width. They were so much larger than hers.

“Will you tell me why?” His smile had faded.

When she spoke, she found that her voice had dropped an octave. “I never had such means at my disposal. No Nile barges.” She tried to smile. “Besides,” she said hoarsely, “trains, boats … they don’t help you escape from who you are.”

His face changed. “Ella.”

No.
She pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. His mouth was soft. The breath that hissed through his clenched teeth moistened her skin.
No.
He didn’t see Ella. He didn’t want Ella. And suddenly this fact no longer caused her pain. It was the very condition of her freedom. If she wasn’t Ella, she could have him. They could press together—flesh and blood—and incarnate a fantasy, a make-believe love.

He caught her finger between his teeth, sucked it, his cheeks hollowing. The wet, gloving pressure made her gasp. She felt a twinge lower down. That night, if Phillipa hadn’t been murdered, they would have done
this.
Sucked. Stroked. Phillipa had been reckless. Passionate.

She pushed off the seat so that their clasped hands were trapped between their bodies, flattened, her wrist straining. She pulled her finger down over his lower lip, down over his chin, skimming the length of his throat. She brought her lips up to his. Surprise made him growl against her mouth. She wrapped her arm around his neck, knotted her fingers in his hair. He kissed her, devouring her with teeth and tongue. With a ragged breath, he broke her grasp and caught her face between his hands.

“Decide.” He grated out the word. “Decide now. I will take you to Trombly Place if you wish.” He left the alternative unspoken.
Or …

She could go home with him. She could share his bed.

He hovered over her, dark as shadow, but so dense, so heavy, inundating her with his heat. He smelled of smoke and peat and wool and that heady, tugging musk she couldn’t define that made her want to twine her whole body around him, to sniff and suckle, to claw at his skin until she got inside. Heaven help her, she wanted to tear him to pieces. Wild. Like a beast.
Inhuman.
She would not let Alfred’s voice intrude. There was no room for Alfred here.

She kissed him in answer. She opened her mouth, delved with her tongue. Deeply, yes. No timidity now. She wanted to force herself inside him. He yielded beneath her then pushed back, tilting her head up so he could slide his tongue over hers, filling her. His hand moved inside her cloak, working down beneath the taut red silk, stroking the slope of her breast. The roughness and the warmth of his caress made her shudder. He dragged his thumb down her cheek, along her jaw, callus scratching the flesh inside her lower lip.

Pretend.
She was safe if they pretended
.
But, oh God, the light flicks of his tongue didn’t feel like make-believe. His lips pressed against her temples, against the wet corners of her eyes, licking the salt.

She turned her face away sharply, breathing hard. Now his lips were in those shining black ringlets.
Yes.
Like that.
Phillipa’s crown of curls. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t her.
She could let it happen. She fell against the panel of the coach, the rattling cold a relief.