The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (22 page)

he Buckley estate was silent and dark. Chris closed the door as quietly as he could. He laid his umbrella against the wall and hung his bowler on the hat rack, running a hand through his disastrous hair. The dining room table was cleared of all dishes, but the coatroom held a very bulky and unflattering woman’s raincoat that must have come in attached to Rosemary’s governess. He looked into the parlour where he’d seen her take tea with Fernand that morning, but it was dark and unoccupied. He quietly climbed the stairs and peered into his sister’s bedroom, and he could make out her form beneath the covers, see the blankets rising and falling as she breathed in peaceful silence. He saw no sign of anyone else. Frowning, he descended once more.

“Miss Albany?” he called quietly, but there was no response.

When he looked into the parlour again, something caught his eye. A figure was huddled up on the chesterfield, barely identifiable by the alp-light coming in from the street.

Furrowing his brow, Chris pulled off his coat, hanging it with his bowler hat on the rack. Cautiously, he stepped into the parlour. He tapped the small lamp on the pianoforte—which no one had played since his mother had died—and the salamander within flared to light, its dark eyes giving him a peevish glance and its long tongue darting out. Chris gave it only a moment’s attention before turning and pacing over to the chesterfield.

For a moment, he thought there was a stranger in his house.

The woman who lay there had long, thick waves of softly curling brown hair that framed her peaceful face. No one would ever call her beautiful, but there was an austere sort of prettiness to her features that would have made any man look twice. And there was a softness, too. Around her eyes, the line of her jaw, in the way her chestnut hair cascaded over her cheek and cast her face into shadow. She was lovely.

He wouldn’t have recognized her at all if not for the shoes.

He gaped.
Rachel Albany?
It couldn’t be―but it was, for who else would be here, and who else could possibly have thought that colour was a good idea? He could see it, how her hair would look pinned back in a severe bun, how the soft, pretty lines of her face would turn hard and unwelcoming when she set her jaw, thrust her chin forward and up. This
was
Rachel Albany…or, at least, the woman Rachel Albany was underneath the one he saw every day.

As he stared down at her, flabbergasted, her eyelids fluttered open and her brow furrowed in confusion. “Where…” she murmured, throwing up one hand against the dim salamander-light.

Mortified to have been caught leering at a sleeping lady, Chris shot back up so that he was straight as a board. He hoped he was only a silhouette to her in the single light behind him so she couldn’t see the heat flooding his cheeks. “Ah, Miss Albany,” he whispered, trying not to startle her. “It’s Mister Buckley. I’m so sorry. I’ve only just gotten home now. Can you forgive me for making you stay so late?”

“Mister…” She furrowed her brow and peered up at him, stretching as she did so. She arched her back and he bit his lip. “Mister…” And then her eyes widened and she came awake all at once. She scrambled to a sitting position in the chesterfield, fingers reaching out to straighten the folds of her skirts around her. “Yes,” she said, voice still thick with sleep but schooled into propriety of her usual stilted and sensible variety. “Yes, Mister Buckley.”

She was trying so hard to claim some dignity for herself that Chris didn’t take it from her by pointing out she hadn’t in fact responded to a word he’d said. He settled down into the seat across from her. “You can leave if you wish. Thank you so much for staying as long as you have.”

Miss Albany twisted about in the chesterfield to look at the clock over the mantelpiece, and then turned back to him with wide eyes. “Yes, I should say
so
!” she said. “It was hours ago when I sat down to rest! How did I manage to…”

“I’m sure you had a very long day,” Chris reassured.

But Miss Albany was already climbing to her feet. “No, that is no excuse. I must check on my charge.” But she swayed as she stood and fell back into the chair.

Chris didn’t move to help her. It wouldn’t be proper, not when they were unchaperoned, and when his thoughts towards her had already been so impure. “I was just there,” he said, instead. “She’s fine. Asleep.”

“Yes, she spent most of the day abed. It is difficult to tell, but right now, I would hazard she’ll be fine. The few hours she was awake, she was very much her usual self.”

“That
is
a relief,” he admitted. “I’ve been thinking about her constantly all day, and if you knew what I’ve been doing all day…” And she hadn’t mentioned reporters. That was good. Of course, one day was only one day. The hounds would not lose so sweet a scent easily. And Lowry would be sniffing about before long. They would be much, much harder to turn away than mere newspapermen. But it was one last day of freedom.

Unable to help himself, Chris let his eyes run along Miss Albany again. The way she changed when she wasn’t maintaining her image of respectable solidarity was remarkable. Amazing, really. Now, when she let her guard down, the weight of her image lifted from her. Her countenance softened. Her lips became more full, her eyes less sharp. Her very features seemed to become less angular and more gently made. Her hair fell in hazy coils around her face, trailing down, making her neck seem longer and paler, resting atop the swell of her full, inviting breasts…

At the very moment Chris felt his attention focus there and heat flood his thoughts, Miss Albany quite suddenly flushed and looked away.

He blinked. And then he realized he’d never seen her categorization card. “Oh, Gods,” he gasped. “You’re a heartreader.”

Every unflattering, judgemental, and, most recently,
inappropriate
thought he’d had about her suddenly rushed to the forefront of his mind, and he felt as if he were holding a murder weapon. She couldn’t read his thoughts, no, but she could read the feelings behind them as plain as words in a book. And when the emotions were especially strong, or directed at her, they would pour in whether she wanted them to or not.

He raised a hand to press it against his eyes, face burning. He stumbled back a pace and fell into the chair behind him. He wished a hole would open up and swallow him. “Oh,
Gods
,” he repeated. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t―”

“It’s fine,” she responded quickly. For the first time, her voice didn’t sound calculated or measured. Rather, she sounded as embarrassed as he felt, and when he lowered his hand to look at her, she was not looking back at him. He could see the glow in her face despite the dim light. “There’s no need for apologies,” she said.

“I’m not―I didn’t―” He was and he did. He changed directions. “I know it’s hard,” he said helplessly. “My…my mother was a heartreader. She said those who want to know what others think of them wouldn’t, if they knew what it was like.” And then, despite knowing there was no point, he pressed on. “I just—I judge people by their clothing. It’s not you. I do it with everyone,” he insisted. “
Everyone
. It’s awful. I don’t know why I do it. I shouldn’t. Rosemary teases me for it. Olivia practically calls me an effete. I should listen to both of them. It’s the most insubstantial thing to―”

“Please, Mister Buckley,” Miss Albany turned her face to look at him. Her expression was pleading. “Really, this isn’t necessary.”

“Of course,” he replied immediately, cursing himself.

“I’d prefer Rosemary doesn’t know,” Miss Albany said, obviously struggling to recover some of her usual aplomb. “I have implied my proficiency is something passive and unremarkable—which it is. I have not lied to her. It’s simply that I find people will try and guard their feelings when they know I can sense them.” She gave him a ghost of a smile. “Which I’m sure you can understand, as you’re doing it right now.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated automatically.

“It’s through my proficiency that I am able to read my charges’ moods and anticipate their thoughts and actions with such accuracy. Should Rosemary hold herself back from me, I think the connection we’ve been able to establish would suffer.”

“She won’t hear a word of it from me,” Chris assured her. He tried to mute his embarrassment, sure it was the source of the colour that still rode high in Miss Albany’s face despite her obvious attempts to school herself and present her sensible, buttoned-down image. “Could you possibly forgive my complete lapse in courtesy?”

Miss Albany looked at him, then, really looked at him, from head to toe. He shrank back into his chair under her gaze, trying not to feel invaded by the depth of her scrutiny. It would be unfair of him to take offence. After all, hadn’t he just done the same to her, and with far more lascivious intent?

“Courtesy matters a great deal to you, doesn’t it, Mister Buckley?” Miss Albany asked eventually. She finally disentangled her eyes from him, looking down at the hands she had neatly folded in her lap.

“Yes,” he answered.

“It’s curious. Rosemary certainly doesn’t care for any of it.”

“That’s…” Chris looked away from her. He was aware of how Miss Albany had to be sensing the old scars that pulled as he phrased the answer. “Our father didn’t care much for any of it, either. And Rosemary”―his lips twisted―“does so strive to be his equal.”

“Your mother?”

“Very much like me,” he murmured. He remembered Julia Buckley sitting in this very parlour, a prettily painted cup of tea cradled in her hands as she entertained one of his father’s business associates. Her sweet smile never faltered, the perfectly measured cadences of her voice always made her guests feel welcomed and entertained, and her laughter rang through these rooms like church bells on Godsday morning. Nothing like his father, who would, by sheer force of personality, simply dominate every corner in a room without a thought for anyone but himself.

He supposed he saw things in those extremes. If he wasn’t Julia, then he was Michael.

“I just don’t feel right having offended you,” Chris said in the uncomfortable silence. When she took a very long time to reply, he finally forced himself to look up and found her staring off into the shadows of the room, her expression abstracted and her fingers now plucking absently at the folds of her skirts. She didn’t notice his attention focus on her, not even when he knew his curiosity and anxiousness rose. “Miss Albany?” he asked.

“You do press,” she murmured, and then she sighed. “If you forgive my saying something very discourteous, Mister Buckley, because it is very late and I am very tired…I find it difficult to give you the absolution you seek when you don’t
care
you thought poorly of me, only that I was aware of it.”

The wind flew out of him.

For a moment, he was positively incensed. Gods, but he felt badly enough about this as it was, did she need to make it worse? Did it matter why he’d become sorry? She should be grateful he was taking the time to offer a sincere apology to his staff at all, and―

But she was reading all of that, too.

The anger deflated and left guilt. He’d thought awful things about her. Her dress, her manner, the way that she seemed to assume authority over everything in her path. Hadn’t he just been
shocked
this morning to realize Fernand enjoyed her company? She’d sensed that. She was right. He hadn’t felt badly about any of those thoughts before he’d known.

“I hardly see what it is you want from me, then.” It sounded surly and bitter. Immediately, he wanted to apologize. Then he recalled that was pointless. Which made him only more annoyed.

Miss Albany bristled. “Perhaps simply that I have no need for empty courtesies. You congratulate yourself for saying all the correct phrases, but it’s meaningless. A facade of kindness, no more.”

“A facade of kindness is far better than honest cruelty!” Chris snapped.

“Is it?” she shot back. “Isn’t a little harsh, unpleasant honesty better than impersonal and entirely insincere smiles?”

“Would
you
prefer that? If you’re so put out because I even thought something bad, how much worse if I’d actually said it?”

“I’m ‘so put out’ because you
didn’t
actually say it!” Miss Albany shouted. Chris realized he’d stood up, then she had in response, and they now stood so closely that her angry breaths fogged his glasses, glaring each other down. Two spots of colour had bloomed high on Miss Albany’s cheeks.

Chris took a deep breath. He let it out. He was exhausted. The week had barely started and it was already one of the longest of his life. His fingers uncurled from the fists he’d shaped them into, and his shoulders lowered, the muscles between them loosening. He smoothed his features and took a step back from the governess. “I said I was sorry,” he said. Quietly, but not as calmly nor as neutrally as he might have liked. “I said it was wrong of me to think those things. If you would prefer I treated you roughly and ungraciously, that is your decision, but our situation prevents me from fulfilling your wishes. Regardless what you might think of courtesy, I want my sister to value it. I refuse to set an example for her that would encourage her emulation of my father’s behaviour.”