Dearly, Beloved (36 page)

“Did Suzanna speak to you the other night?”

Careful not to move my eyes, focusing intently on the beaded Oaxacan-print curtains hung in my mother’s favorite carriage, I told the truth. “No.”

Lady Elsinore Mink—legally, my mother—regarded me shrewdly through the short veil attached to her hat. Her hands moved in brisk, nervous ways that made her look as if she sought to gather the world in and make it worry with her. “Choose your words carefully, girl. I heard some of the servants talking last night as if Suzanna had, and I
will
find out the truth. I will not be disobeyed.”

I didn’t need this. I had bigger things to worry about. “Suzanna has never spoken to me. A few nights ago someone entered my room and put my washing away. I hardly remember who comes and goes. They’re your servants. You won’t let me have my own.”

Mother huffed musically and turned to look at her companion, Miss Prescilla Perez. They were both brunettes with high curls and beauty marks, nearly twins. “You see what I have to live with.”

“Hush, Ellie.” Prescilla regarded my mother with large, tender black eyes. “Hush, darling. It’s that house. It gets to you.”

“I
hate
Éclatverre,” my mother agreed, her voice rising an octave, before turning back to me. “You
know
what will happen if I catch you in a lie.”

Finally trusting myself to look her in the eyes, I turned from the window and said, “If Suzanna said anything to me, she will be turned out without a reference. She’ll never find another household position in the Territories again. She will be forced to pursue work as a barmaid, or marry a goatherd, or do one of a thousand other shameful things.” And because I meant to guard her against that fate, I did the only thing I could do—try to get the dogs off her trail. “As for myself, Mother—”

“Don’t call me that,” Lady Mink snapped. “Don’t you ever call me that!”

One figurative creek forded, the scent weakened, I hushed. I didn’t even bother to act as if her words surprised or hurt me. She’d long ago lost the power to hurt me. Now she had only the power to embarrass me in ways that told me she’d never mentally progressed beyond her own time at St. Cyprian’s, and was slowly losing even that as I grew closer to accessing my trust fund and a husband and was more often seen in public. The ancient carriage sent for me at school, my attic bedroom, and the vow of silence her servants had to take were the final remnants of it; the NVIC interview she’d forced me to do following Dearly’s kidnapping had probably been her last big hurrah. Lord, I hated to think I’d ever shown my face on television, like an
actress
. Only the fact that I’d spent that time humiliating Dearly made up for it.

What was it I’d said that had incurred such a punishment? I believe I called Miss Perez “an opportunistic, money-grubbing cathouse reject.”

So, all things considered, it’d been completely worth it.

The carriage rolled on, turning to the east. We were on our
way to spend the afternoon with the de La Moscas. I wasn’t much looking forward to it, but at least it would be a distraction from my maddeningly quiet, bejeweled mobile phone. I had to talk to Michael before he did something truly stupid. The gridlines of every calendar I looked at now reminded me of crosshairs.

“Do not embarrass me today,” Lady Mink said, whipping out a black lace fan and fluttering it madly before her face. “Or so help me, I shall have the shop shut up, and you won’t be permitted to go there anymore.”

Hoping to enrage her to the point of confusion, I said, “You do, and Father will come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

“Don’t speak so to the lady,” Prescilla said, leaning in dangerously close. “You forget your place.”

Smiling sweetly at her, I went mum. I could think of a thousand things to call her, as usual, but I wasn’t willing to go
that
far for a mere maid.

I had standards, after all.

Lord Alberto de La Mosca was Attorney General of the Territories. His country estate, Willowshire, was a Georgian re-creation of yellow stone surrounded by terraformed fields of willow trees and cork oaks.

We were received in the grand drawing room by Lady Louisa de La Mosca. Although middle-aged, she was younger than Lord Alberto by a good twenty years. The portraits of her in the long mirrored hall did not match her feature-for-feature, indicating nipping and tucking, or perhaps something more.

My mother and Miss Perez were entertained by her. I was left to deal with her two girls, Opalina and Yaeba. They were children, and I found myself less than enchanted by their antics.

“Did you hear about Hettie Schloot?” Opalina leaned close to me. She was thirteen, and eager to seem worldly. She already
wore her black hair up and her skirts to her ankle, which I found extremely odd.

“No. Who’s Hettie Schloot?” I sipped my tea, my mind elsewhere.

“A girl from town. Family has money, but no station. Linen drapers.”

“Then
why
would I have heard anything about her, pray?”

“Because of what happened to her face!” Yaeba squealed. She was nine, a creature of freckles and gapped teeth.

“No, I want to tell it!” Opalina said, glaring at her. When Yaeba demonstrated her submission by sipping her cup of hot cocoa, her sister continued, “She was out walking with her dead cousin last night, and the Murder saw them. And whoosh! Out one of them flew, and slashed her face for it. They say she looks like Frankenstein’s creation now, with all the stitches.”

Only years of practice with arm control kept my saucer from clinking against my cup. Carefully, but quickly, I decided on a course of action. “
Who
did this to her?”

“Oh, don’t you know about the Murder?”

“No,” I lied. “Who are they?”

Opalina glanced down the room toward the adults. From what I could make out, they were talking about winter fashions. Satisfied, the girl whispered, “They’re young men of the aristocracy, reclaiming the streets for the living. Making the dead sorry they ever set one foot outside the grave.”

Yaeba found this description hysterical. I, myself, went stiff. “Aren’t they afraid they’ll get caught?” I wasn’t quite sure what I was fishing for. Michael had yet to give me any details; he had only confirmed my suspicions. He’d natter on for hours about the exploits he’d
seen
, but he was now infuriatingly silent when it came to his own plans. Often my texts went completely unanswered—like today. It was starting to drive me mad. I’d had a chance to listen, and now I cursed myself for not taking it.

“They wear masks and change their voices. To look like carrion crows, feasting on the dead. They don’t share names. They meet in different locations and communicate via real paper letters that can be burned.”

That was more than I’d gotten from Michael. “How do you know all this?”

“My brother tells me.” Opalina giggled, officially the creepiest sound I’d ever heard.

I managed a smile for her. “Fascinating.”

“Isn’t it just?” She launched into a similar piece of gossip. I tuned her out halfway, my imagination spinning. Was their brother one of them?

There was only one way to find out.

“Pardon me,” I said, rising. “I’m afraid I must visit the powder room.”

“Oh, it’s down the hall, on the left,” Yaeba said. “Do hurry back. I think Mama means for us to play croquet outside. The field is finally dry.”

“I should like nothing more,” I assured her as I hurried away.

My guardians turned to look at me as I passed, sending me warning glances. Lady de La Mosca caught sight of me and swallowed her tea, calling out, “Miss Mink, dear girl! You must play! We have the new pianoforte, and oh, you play like an—”

“She does not play for anyone,” my mother interjected. “She does not like to show off. The more accomplished the girl, the less you should see of it.”

Curtsying to Lady de La Mosca, I mumbled something polite and continued on my way, seeking out the powder room and then locking myself inside. There, I sank to the marble floor in front of a wall-length, gold-edged mirror, my heart pounding.

Maybe I didn’t need Michael after all. If he’d ever talked to his fellow Murder members as he talked to me that first night, maybe they would know what he had planned. If Opalina was right, they
wouldn’t even know I was asking after
him
, just a particular
plan
. Gathering information that way might actually be safer than continuing to hound him, all things considered.

But why was I doing this? Why the urge to chase this particular dragon? I hated zombies, I despised Dearly, and I still had nightmares about the night I’d had to put my faith in Roe. And frankly, now that I knew that every word he’d spoken that night in my house was true, I was terrified of what Michael might do if he figured out my real intentions. Really terrified.

So
why
was I doing this?

Looking into the mirror, I met my own gray eyes. Thirteen years ago, when Lord Mink found me nestled between my parents’ dead bodies, my eyes had been blue. Sightless, but deeply, deeply blue. I had a photograph to prove it, a single faded photograph I kept in a safe deposit box registered under a pseudonym, never to touch Lady Mink’s hands. It was a little bit of my identity she could never erase, a window onto my past that she could never close. They had taken me from my birthplace, given me a dead girl’s name, fortune, and gray eyes, but they couldn’t kill the old me completely.

There was my answer.

Moving fast, I arranged myself. I pulled the sheer scarf out of the V-shaped neckline of my blue dotted Swiss visiting dress, revealing a bit more skin. I bit my lip and pinched my cheeks, then climbed onto the sink and removed one of the frosted glass shades from the gas lamp above it, helping myself to a bit of the lampblack gathered within. With this I made my lashes darker, a little bit longer, holding my bangs out of the way.

Then I went in search of Rupert de La Mosca.

Rupert was nineteen, and apparently had nothing better to do with his time than supervise a trio of servants as they set up the
croquet course for his mother on one of her visiting days. This told me all I needed to know. I caught sight of him through a set of French doors during my explorations, and stepped outside.

Noticing my approach, he stopped tossing the blue ball from hand to hand and bowed slightly. He was an ugly brute, with a bulbous, squashed nose and piggy blue eyes. “Miss … Mink, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Forgive me, I didn’t know you were out here.” I curtsied before drawing closer, hoping my heartbeat wasn’t audible. “Is the field ready? Miss de La Mosca mentioned playing a round, and I thought I might check and save everyone the bother.”

“I guess so.” He looked me up and down. “Fan, are you?”

“I have a mania for games of all sorts.”

“I bet you do.” He whipped the ball at the court, chuckling lightly when it bounced up and bopped one of the servants in the chest. He returned to the patio and from the back of a white wrought-iron chair picked up a green velvet jacket that had seen better days.

“So, how have you been spending your time since the Apocalypse?” It was simple enough to think of things to say. A lady had to know how to entertain, carry a conversation, collect needed social information. Really, this was no different.

“Is that what you call it?”

“Among other things.” I folded my arms behind my back, lifting my chest slightly. “You must be terribly busy. Are you not reading for the law?”

Rupert pulled his jacket on somewhat forcefully. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, your father—”

“Is very busy. As am I.” He brushed down his sleeves. “You’re a girl. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being a pest,” I said. “And I do believe you are right—well, when it comes to other girls. I’ve always found
the company of young men to be so much more stimulating than the company of young ladies.”

Rupert raised a brow. “Oh?” he asked, every suggestion in the world contained in a single sound.

“Of course! Men lead such interesting lives.” I needed something to do with my hands, and went for the rack of mallets, selecting the red one. As I hefted the thing, I decided to go for it. “For instance, your sister was just telling me about a certain group of young men, the marvelous things they’re doing.”

“Like what?”

I took a practice swing. “Punishing those who deserve it.”

That got his attention. He came closer to me, and I could smell some sort of strong, nauseating soap—or ghastly cologne. I wasn’t sure which. “What did she tell you?”

Affecting perfect innocence, I looked into his eyes and said, “Only of a girl in town caught with her dead relative, and some zombies overtaken on the streets.” I laughed. “The gall of them, wandering about as if they had any right to exist.”

The words were easy to say, for on the surface I meant them. Rupert didn’t respond right away. I breathed through my mouth until he did. “At least one pretty girl knows the correct way to think.”

“You flatter me.” Doing my best to act as if the idea had just come to me, I ventured, “Speaking of which … no. It’d be silly.” Hanging the mallet up again, I indulged in a sigh. “And it’s clear you can’t tolerate a girl’s silliness. I ought to go inside.”

“I can tolerate it when it amuses me.” Rupert smirked. “What is it?”

“Well, there’s this girl I have a long-standing feud with. I have it on good authority that she not only has her eyes on a dead boy, but that she lives with the dead,
eats
with the dead. Why, it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of. And I was just wondering—do you think those who’ve been punished are picked
at random?” I let my eyelashes flutter upward. “Or do you think someone might … put in a word for them?”

Rupert’s smirk melted away. “What would possibly make you think I know anything about that, Miss Mink?”

Flicking a sausage curl over my shoulder, I wracked my brain, trying to figure out how to put it. “I don’t
think
anything. I’m just saying, if this group does exist, I could use—”