Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles (12 page)

I felt very much the intruder. Maddie Ruth shuffled from foot to foot, her wide brown eyes filled with sparkling awareness of the whole.

“I...see,” said the bewitched earl, and this time—though I smothered a chuckle—it was Maddie Ruth’s muffled laughter that broke the spell.

A fascinating color darkened Adelaide’s cheeks as Piers turned back to the mantel and said only, “Be careful, Miss Turner. Our engagement is not yet at an end.”

“Of course, my lord,” she said, and winked boldly at me behind his back.

They left together after Adelaide furnished the younger girl with a lovely cloak, arm in arm as bosom companions might. They did not choose the back exit, but the front; hidden in plain sight.

When silence once more filled the home, and the bustle of Limehouse outside thrummed in counter, I stared down into my cold tea and did not know how best to broach all that I wanted to say.

The first I’d ever made the young lord’s acquaintance, he’d danced with me at the same ball I met his brother—the soiree that culminated in a cut direct from his mother. Such was the foundation of our relationship, his family and I.

I could never say for certain what it was that drew Compton’s attentions to me, and surely the meddling of my chaperone had helped matters along. Soon enough, I found an earl readily at my arm.

Was it truly so difficult a choice to marry him?

I thought it to be, once. Even as Lord Piers made an effort to befriend me, to soothe my rocky path in his lady mother’s sight, I debated this topic fiercely with myself.

The only conclusion I held now was that I had done that family a terrible disservice, and could not blame Piers his icy regard.

I did not know how to make it up to him. Words felt so brittle under the weight of such a loss.

The painted wooden clock affixed to the wall behind me ticked and tocked, a sonorous beat that tapped out the measures of this silent dance.

“What happened to you after the wedding?” When he finally spoke, it took me a moment to understand that what he truly asked.

I could not face him, knowing I would only see his back. “Do you favor honesty, Lord...Earl Compton, or is it pretty lies you require?”

“This sardonicism—”

“No,” I said firmly, raising my head. “There is nothing sardonic about my query. You are an earl, no thanks to me, and in this moment, I am not a countess. I am not an heiress, nor your brother’s widow. I am only a woman laboring to undo that what she wrought.”

“You are wrong,” he said tightly, turning away from the warm flame to pin eyes like jade ice upon me. I had thought him stern before, but that was nothing as to the harsh planes grief and shuttered intensity carved upon him. “You
are
my brother’s widow, make no mistake. Every action you take, every choice, carves another wound into this name you carry.”

“That is not so—”

His fist came down upon the mantel, silencing me as the delicate
objets d’art
arrayed upon it rattled and clinked. “The
truth
you so cleverly ask me to demand of you is one you do not even recognize yourself. Do not think yourself inured to my anger.”

It was not until the tea within my clutched cup rippled and danced did I realize how badly my hands shook. Tightening my grip did nothing to salve the tremors.

Weary though he might be from a night spent with his mistress’s charms, or perhaps from the hells he favored, he was no less forceful for it. Pricked by the uncomfortable needles of his raw honesty, I could only fall silent as he stabbed them again and again into my vulnerable conscience.

“Cornelius chose you.” His voice came strained, as though filtered through incomprehensible anger into reason. “He wed you, despite all arguments to the contrary, and you could not even arse yourself to be at the funeral.”

My lips twitched at the escaped uncivility, but humor was the last of my feelings. “You are right, of course.”

“Do not,” he cut in harshly, slashing a gloved hand through the air. “You will speak when I am done. For months, I have borne the burden of my family’s guilt, stood silently for them when they mourned my brother’s untimely passing, and now you will bear mine.”

I wanted so badly to look away from him, to drop my eyes and save myself the painful arrows of his anguish.
Because
I wanted it, I did not.

I watched him and said nothing.

He began to pace, as I had often done in my wilder moments without opium to ease my state of being. “Why you?” he demanded. “Of all the pretty fillies vying for an earl’s hand, why did he choose you?”

I had no answer for that.

He reached the far end of the parlor, turned and glared at me. “Do you know what it is you have done?”

“I do,” I said quietly.

“No,” he retorted, “you do not. You have not visited a house in mourning, you have not worn the trappings of a widow, you have not sat in painstaking silence at a breakfast table straining under the weight of an absence that
should not be
.” He took three strides in my direction, caught himself and changed the angle so that he strode past me.

The lump in my throat hurt.

“My father behaves as he always has, but he’s withdrawn deeply from all but matters of Parliament. He does not reach out to Mother, who is too proud to ask.”

This I understood, for appearances were paramount in all matters above the drift. I had thought myself the unwilling heiress to these things, and now I understood how little I’d been affected by it.

For all my gilded cage above, I had been permitted remarkable freedom.

As gently as my trembling hands allowed, I set tea cup and saucer upon the table. “Earl Compton—”

“
Do not call me that.
”

If I had ever thought to hear the sound of heartbreak, I never could have imagined it to come from Piers Everard Compton.

The denial echoed so deeply as that I often utilized myself, and the ravaged rasp of his voice so keenly felt, that I could not stop myself even by way of reason. As my already weakened heart fractured, I stood, ignored all signs of warning, and crossed the parlor to wrap my arms around the young lord’s back.

He jerked once, arms stiff as a board and back steeled, but he did not pull away. He did not deny me.

In truth, as my cheek came to rest between his shoulder blades and my arms tightened at his waist, the earl lost his silent war.

A sob racked his lean frame.

I clung to him with all my might. Though I knew his pride would take something of a beating for it, I did not gentle my embrace—would not allow him to think himself alone. My own tears echoed the sorrows of a family I could do nothing else for. I could only encourage him to weep as I wagered he had not allowed himself to prior.

He and I were remarkably the same. I had drawn comparisons once given our shared predilections for the smoke, but it had never occurred to me until now just how similar I might be to my late husband’s wayward brother.

The shoulders before me slumped, and steel flowed to salt and fatigue as Piers turned in my grasp. I braced for a push, a wresting away. I opened my mouth to form the apology I thought might suit my temerity, but he freed his arms, breath shuddering out, and caught me close.

A glimpse of his features, reddened and raw, damp with tears, silenced any protest I might have made—not that I’d thought to try. That his mouth twisted into a mask of fiercely contested sorrow told me that this fall from lordly grace was long overdue.

Perhaps the same could be said for me. I’d already broken a too-long dry spell during my convalescence, and now it seemed that tears came all too easy. Yet there was something different about this moment.

Perhaps it was that of all who could offer comfort or sympathy, none quite lived the loss of Cornelius Kerrigan Compton as he and I did. We drew from each other the poison we had both resolved to preserve.

And for all that, my pain was so much smaller in scope than that of a brother who had shared a lifetime.

I let him cling to me as I held him tightly, rubbing his back as he sobbed in mingled fury and grief. One hand cradled the back of my head, practically cocooning me within his embrace, for I was too short to allow him to hide his face against my neck as I imagined Adelaide would permit.

I hoped that from here on out, he might show her this side of him.

The tears I cried vanished into his coat, and I cried them silently lest I jar the moment into self-conscious regard. This time was not mine to indulge.

After some long minutes, when Piers could once more regain himself, his grip across my back eased. I took a steadying breath; he did the same.

When his hands came down on my shoulders, I was prepared for the abrupt manner in which he distanced himself from me. Embarrassment colored his features, as the sudden loss of composure softened the stern lines that did not wholly suit him. “That—That is, your pardon...” He patted at his coat, only somewhat absently.

I suspect it saved him from having to look me in the eye.

He had no handkerchief to use or to offer, for he had already left it in my care. I had not the presence of mind to bring it with me when I was so unceremoniously carted out of my home.

I caught his searching hand between mine. “Lord Piers,” I said, “I can’t ask you to forgive me. I cannot forgive myself,” I admitted, earning a sharp look. “But please believe me when I say that I spent every waking moment after my lord’s death seeking revenge.”

Piers’s eyebrow twitched. “Did you acquire it?”

“Did I acquire revenge?” When he nodded, I smiled tightly. Even I knew how grim a slash it looked. “I did.”

“Who was it?”

My fingers tightened, and he clasped his other hand around mine. I could not tell him the truth, that it was the third son of Viscount Armistice Helmsley the Third that had committed such a horrendous act. In the name of love for me, no less.

Teddy had always been my friend, my steadfast supporter during the many balls and soirees of a Season. I had no doubt that given the hedonistic nature of the viscount and his sons that Piers himself had known Teddy well.

I did not want to smear that. To cost Piers reason to doubt his judge of character the way I had come to doubt mine.

So I said only, “A collector.”

He looked down at our clasped hands. “Is he dead?”

I swallowed hard, forced the lump back before it burst. “He is.” By way of a railway train, no less. Unlike the specters of my parents, I did not expect Teddy to rise again. Not from that.

“Good.” The strength with which he squeezed my hand ached, but I didn’t believe it on purpose. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “it is better this way.”

I had no credible words with which to argue, so I did not try.

“Will you return to Society?”

Wincing, I disengaged my hands from his and pulled up the too-long hem of my borrowed dress. “What would you prefer?”

He had the grace to avoid a lie. That he had to think about it was telling.

I returned to my seat, and the cold tea I drank nonetheless.

“I think,” he said thoughtfully, “that
you
would prefer to settle affairs with the Menagerie.”

“I would.”

“Do these matters involve the Karakash Veil directly?”

“Yes,” I said, unsurprised by his knowledge of the enterprise. Lord Piers had been among those considered peculiar enough to be invited to the Menagerie’s most decadent events, after all. Hawke had even offered to forgive Piers’s debts in exchange for my vow never to return below.

Did he owe the Veil as I did?

Not that many could owe quite as I did. At worst, the young lord owed coin.

“Mm.” Piers crossed the parlor once more, but only far enough that he might fold his lanky form into a chair. He had always been less broad than his brother, though perhaps that came from the smoke. Certainly it had done me no favors. “Ashmore is the name of your guardian, is it not?”

I froze.

This time, when he laughed, it did not cut. “His barristers are engaged with ours in the matter of your marriage. Honestly, Cherry, if you want to be free of all of this, I cannot see what it serves you to deny the title my brother bestowed.”

I flinched, hiding it behind a careful sip of my tea. “I suspect your mother would not like that. And really,” I added quickly when his nose wrinkled in preamble, “I just want my fortune back so that I can...”

“What?” he asked, not unkindly. “A woman alone?”

I was not so certain that
alone
was what I wanted anymore.

I looked away.

Lord Piers took pity on me. “Ah, well,” he said, waving it all away. “Prepare a contingency, my lady. I fear your case does not bode well.”

“Why?”

“There is some legal question as to the state of your, ah...” His mouth pursed for delicacy’s sake, but his eyes glinted. “Innocence.”

I bolted upright, as though my spine turned to an iron rod. “
What?
”

He raised his hands. “I am simply sharing that what I know. If your guardian’s barristers choose to pursue annulment, you will be asked to verify the state of your purity to an attending physician.”

Given the sudden heat infusing the whole of my head, I had little doubt the often hedonistic lord understood.

He was not so much a gentleman that he would let it lie. “Given your rather fair skin has turned the color of your unmistakable hair, shall I assume my brother’s charms ensured this evidence is no longer, ah, in attendance?”

Not entirely correct. I was no virginal miss, but it had not been to Compton’s favor. I could not say so, not to the man’s own brother.

I already felt the villain in this production.

“You,” I said, raising the fragile tea cup to my face as thought it might provide shelter where there was none. “You shut your gob.”

His laughter bore no sympathy. On the other hand, it did not sting as it had.

A certain truce found in a moment of shared grief.

His amusement faded, leaving him looking all the more weary for it. His pale eyes, so like his mother’s and brother’s, half-masted; though I wondered at the thoughts such a languid expression masked.