In truth, I sensed a friendship forged between Lord Piers and my tutor, and this pleased me.
Hawke sat at another table with Communion, both heads bent together as they discussed whatever it was a once ringmaster and London street crew leader might discuss. Both wore faces carved with intensity, but I did not fear the topic at hand. Neither seemed to be overly tense.
Zylphia sat between them, gesturing as she spoke. That neither intimidated her was one of many reasons I so respected her.
Like myself and Hawke, she had been bedridden for some time, and we had all been concerned for the child she carried.
The life force that had been stretched taut between us all, that had bolstered all of us and allowed us to break the alchemical shackles forced upon us, had tapped into our very hearts.
Such things might affect us in ways we had not yet come to understand.
All that said, that I could sit here among those I called friend and feel a sense of peace was something I was not yet used to, and had not yet figured out how to address.
As if he understood, Ashmore reached out with an ungloved hand and covered mine upon the table. “So, you finally mastered the third Trump,” he said, low for the sake of the topic.
At the other table, Hawke’s eyes lifted to us. Held, a razor sharp awareness filling every part of his body.
I was well aware Ashmore knew that too.
His lips twitched.
“Is that praise for the student,” I asked lightly, “or praise for the tutor?”
“Can’t I praise both?” said tutor replied, and I laughed, a little surprised by how easy it came.
I turned my palm under his and clasped both my hands around his fingers. “You gave your strength to me,” I said, humor fading. In its place, love. “When we needed it most, you were selfless. Thank you.”
“Vow or not,” he replied, warm brown eyes a little more hazel than I recalled them prior, “I was honored that you reached out.”
I leaned forward, the ends of my singed curls falling about my chin. I’d managed a plait, but there was just no helping the layered remains. My brow furrowed deeply. “Are your eyes different?”
“Perhaps.” He touched my cheek with gentle fingers. “I believe we’re all a little changed, minx.” His expression turned rueful as a low sound filtered from Hawke’s table. “Perhaps you should refrain from giving Hawke any more reason to doubt me.”
I glanced over my shoulder to find all three at his table watching me, each with varying shades of exasperation.
I grinned most cheekily.
Zylphia nudged Hawke with the heel of her hand. “Just remember that you asked for it.”
“I have never,” Hawke replied flatly, “askedfor it.”
Ashmore made a sound caught between a laugh and snort, muffling it quick behind his hand.
Ishmael looked up at the ceiling, as though finding an interest in the boards set above.
Again, my eyebrow climbed high.
Hawke mirrored it, his eyes pinned on mine.
I blinked. Then, frowning, I touched my own eyebrow. “How did I learn to do that?”
Zylphia rose, an arm tucked under her belly. Her skirts swished as she crossed the floor. “You,” she said over my head, pausing at my chair. A hand came to rest on the back of it, but she leaned comfortably against me—a thing that she had grown used to.
It seemed not so long ago that she had refrained from casually touching, as though unwilling to cope with what she was forced to pursue as a sweet.
I smiled up at her.
Her gaze focused on Ashmore. “You going to tell her?”
“Tell me what?” I asked.
Communion sighed, carefully leaning back in his chair. It creaked alarmingly. “It’s all over my head.”
Hawke said nothing. I suspect, were I to look, that he delivered Ashmore a glared challenge.
My tutor raised his hands in surrender. “What happened,” he said, looking fully at me, “will leave scars.” I nodded, already aware, but he added quickly, “Not that kind. I mean to say that the bonds forged between us will not fade so easy. As you drew our strength, we each gained something from you. And,” he finished with a wry twist to his lips, “each other.”
This seemed like a matter of balance.
“Hawke’s…” Ashmore hesitated. “Let us call it discrepancy, has been softened by us. We steady him, as he emboldens our resolve.”
I glanced at the man in question.
He watched us with an inscrutability that was as part of him as the color of his skin, the river of blue in his left eye.
All he lacked were the accoutrements of his ringmaster finery, and it was as though the intervening months had not occurred.
Only that wasn’t right either.
I stood up, rounded Zylphia. “Is it true?”
Again, his dark eyebrow climbed. “Do you doubt any of us?”
I shook my head hard. “Never.”
Hawke stood with agile grace. “Do you regret it?”
I laughed, then clapped a hand over my mouth.
Behind me, Ashmore said with the same tone he utilized when he exasperatedly rubbed at his face, “And she’s gone.”
I would address him later. Would address Zylphia’s rueful, “Can you blame her?” another time.
Communion left the table as I passed it, and I was dimly aware of his low rumble as he said, “I’ll send a carrier to the house.”
As I approached Hawke on steady feet, all I could think of was him.
Was he cured, then? Was that the secret? All Hawke had needed was the influence of souls as strong as his.
The phoenix, the tiger, and were this a Chinese tale, that would make of Ashmore the wise sage.
Hawke caught my hands. Raised one to his lips. The burn of his kiss upon my knuckles, mercifully free of all the burns I’d thought I’d collected, sent a shiver all the way to my toes. “Is there anything left to say?” he demanded, low and dark against my skin.
Tears filled my eyes. I shook my head.
“Poets,” sighed Ashmore behind us, the weight of his sardonicism rolling off us both. “When you are done mooning,” he added louder, “there are arrangements to make.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
We could not remain in London.
I pressed upon Piers the retrieved Koh-i-Noor, requesting that he return it to Lady Rutledge—and in so doing, I conspired to introduce him to the life of an agent of the Crown. I had no doubt that the lady would make use of his cleverness.
“What will you do in America?” the earl asked me, looking down from his perch upon the waiting gondola.
I smiled. “I have friends there,” I said. “’Tis only been six years. I hope to find them.”
“And then?”
I could only lift my shoulders in wordless uncertainty.
“I will see you off,” he promised, and took his leave.
As for the rest of us, we lingered only long enough to see to the funerary rites of Frances Fortescue, interred in the plot beside her late husband. It had been many years since they had been together. I knew she would want to be nowhere else.
I hoped that my dearest Fanny had found a measure of peace.
As I wept over her grave, it was Hawke who held me. Patient, steady and infinitely kind in his silence.
It did not hurt any more than the loss of her company already required. I had learned something of blame. I would always feel a measure of responsibility, but I knew that Fanny herself would have boxed my ear if she caught me wallowing in guilt.
Though I mourned, I could not help but feel as though she remained with me. Knowing what I had learned of the scars left by Caeles-Isis, I felt more gratitude than I truly did feel pain. Whatever ghosts watched over Zylphia through her heritage, I felt an odd disquiet that suggested I had been included in her protection. And with it, Fanny’s eternal love. What Zylphia felt, she did not share. But she often found reason to touch me—upon the arm, the shoulder. Th
e cheek. As though she gained reassurance from it.
Ashmore put his multitude of allies to work, maintaining a level of anonymity as we conspired to draft our plans. Through Ashmore, I learned that Uriah had been murdered by his own so-called court, led by Meriwether. The temptation of immortality had proven to be too great a lure for the cunning jester.
I still didn’t know everything that had caused my tutor to be known to Leopold Uriah, but that Ashmore grieved in his own quiet way for the boisterous man’s loss was apparent. Unfortunately, the remains of Uriah’s followers were a difficult lot, and word came that they blamed Ashmore—and by extension, me—for Uriah’s murder. Underground justice was no less painful than what the Menagerie had engaged in.
I had no desire to continue a life on the run.
Nor did I want to return to Society.
The former was exhausting. The latter meant I could not have Hawke.
As my mother did before me, I would choose a man of lesser station.
Of course, had I any inkling to abandon Hawke now, I had no doubt he would hunt me down to the ends of the earth.
So it was on my twenty-first birthday, a bright spring day, that we gathered, a ragged bunch of unusual ilk, upon the upper platforms at the West India Docks. I wore traveling attire of middle-class wealth, simple cottons and a wide-brim hat, in deep mauve in honor of my lost Fanny.
At my side, Hawke fooled no one in his trousers and jacket, thin necktie and appropriate traveling bowler. He should have looked quite respectable, and for all that, every time I set eyes upon him, I wanted to laugh.
The third time he caught me peeking, he cupped my chin in hand and tilted my face up.
“What is so amusing?” he demanded.
I leaned against him as men hooted and called from the sky ship currently loading. We may be above the drift, but dock workers the world over would never change.
I smiled up into his mismatched eyes. “As fine you look,” I said huskily, “I think I prefer you barefoot and in your shirtsleeves.”
His lips hovered a breath above mine, rubbing them with every word. “We are going to the Americas, are we not? I shall be the savage for you.”
My heart fluttered.
“Please,” Ashmore interjected, “wait until we are not standing in full view of others.” I turned, my petticoats flouncing some, as I leveled my most haughty stare upon my tutor.
At his elbow, Lord Piers failed utterly to mask his humor.
“I will,” the earl said, approaching me with a wary eye on Hawke, “miss you the most, dear sister.” He bent to give my cheek a kiss. “My mother sends…” He paused. Then, with a crooked smile, “She sends her regards.” Which was all I could expect, and perhaps a great deal more than even expectation allowed.
As my mother before me, I chose a man whose role in Society was much lesser than mine. I would give up all for him.
The difference, as I saw it, was twofold: I neither cared what Society thought, and had no desire for station. The marchioness’s kindness, therefore, did not sting, no matter what words she might have couched said regards in.
I had no ill will left. I squeezed Piers’ arm in a gloved hand. “If you are ever nearby, do come visit.”
“I might just do that,” he replied, winking. “Should you ever find yourself alone, remember me fondly.”
Hawke stepped close enough that his chest all but glued to my back. “That’s enough, Compton.”
If the earl beat a bit of a hasty retreat, his laughter said he didn’t take it to heart. “Write,”
he called over his shoulder.
I promised that I would.
Ashmore clapped Hawke on the shoulder. “Relax, old man.”
“Who are you calling old, Folsham?” Hawke growled.
Like dogs around a bone.
I abandoned them all for the couple who waited at the far edge of the docks. Zylphia and Communion stood together, not wholly touching but so obviously united that it brought a tide of affection with it. The sunlight poured over the busy docks, turned her eyes the same color as the sky and just as warm.
“Are you certain I can’t convince you to come with me?” I asked, not for the first time as I took Zylphia’s outstretched hands in mine.
“I won’t say I know what the future holds,” my friend replied, her lovely mouth caught full in a smile. “But I have family there, I think. Perhaps when this little one is older.” A heavy hand clasped my shoulder—most likely there because my traveling hat would not allow Ishmael to pat my head, as was his wont. “You be good, girl.”
A man of so few words, and so much said within.
I knew that Zylphia wouldn’t come without Ish, and Communion couldn’t abandon his Bakers, few as they had become.
It hurt to be so separated, but I understood.
I turned a warm smile to them both. “If you ever need anything at all, you send word.”
“Promise,” Zylphia replied.
Ish squeezed my shoulder gently, his version of the same.
“Boarding,” called a man in uniform from the deck of the sky ship bound for America.
“Now boarding the Winsome Dove, at your leisure, ladies and gents!”
Zylphia blinked tears away. “Go and be happy, cherie. Remember we are always together.”
I kissed her cheek, then tugged Ishmael down by the shirt collar to deliver him the same. If his skin were any lighter, I suspected I’d see it blush.
“Safe travel,” he rumbled.
“Cherry,” Hawke called.
I turned, clapping a hand to my hat as a stiff breeze rolled across the fog at the lip of the docks. It tugged at my skirts, brushed over my cheeks and bore with it the acrid sting of the peasouper I’d spent so long in.
A bit of it stung the eyes. Or so I’d claim if anyone were to call me on the tears within. Ashmore waited at the top of the rope-lined gangplank leading to the ship that would propel us into our new lives. Hawke waited at the bottom, his gaze tipped to the sky. As I passed Piers, he caught my hand, lifted it to his lips in affectionate courtesy.
Genuine affection filled his fog-green eyes.
“I will miss you,” I told him. “Give my best to Miss Turner.”
“I will,” he said, and let me go as the bells upon the Dove rang out.
The name of the ship gave me great comfort, for I likened it to Fanny’s own blessing. Capturing my skirts in hand, I hurried to Hawke, and with him, up the gangplank. Gathered upon the deck, the passengers who had all booked passage to the Americas clustered together. I made my way to the front, the rail polished to a warm gleam and the whole of the docks spread out before us.
At my left, Hawke wrapped an arm around my waist.
At my right, Ashmore braced one gloved hand against the rail and smiled out over those who’d come to bid the ship bon voyage.
Standing not far from each other, Lord Piers tipped his hat in silent farewell whilst Zylphia waved like mad—Communion lifted a broad hand, but kept a wary eye on her balance. I touched my lips with my fingertips and cast the kiss out to them all.
When the ship started to move, aether engines warming up with a bone-deep thrum of power, I grabbed the railing and leaned against Hawke.
He held me close to his side, saying nothing as I watched the docks—and those I loved upon them—get smaller and smaller.
In time, Ashmore sighed and said, “And so do we travel the world. I’ll meet you at the dining hall for supper.”
The other passengers drifted away, off to visit their cabins or see to whatever entertainments the magnificent Dove offered.
Hawke dropped his chin to the top of my head. “Are you prepared?”
I smiled out into the cloudscudded blue of the world I had never before seen. “Perhaps.”
“Then, Miss Black,” he said, turning me in his arms, “let us make of ourselves something peculiar.”
I laughed. “We are already a disgraced countess and a ringmaster stripped of his gardens.
He touched my lips with two fingers; a sort of kiss that could be delivered in full view of the busy crew. The bit of devil blue in his eye flared with intensity, and a hunger that would never abate. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I look forward to see what will happen as I fall even farther.”
Oh, sod the crew. I reached up and clasped his face between my gloved hands, pulling him down for a kiss as thorough, as hungry, and as bloody well inappropriate as he had ever given me.
The whistles and cheers of the men who manned the ship rang in my ears, burned as a flush on my cheeks.
Hawke’s laughter, a chuckle as rich and deep as the force of his will, slipped over me. “If you’re going to get embarrassed,” he said against my ear, “don’t do it.”
I ignored that, stepping back with a haughty sneer. “I am going to my cabins.” He caught my arm ere I stepped far, tucking me more firmly against his side and matching his pace to mine. “Our cabins,” he corrected, with a thread of challenge that dared me to argue.
Smiling, I did not. Ashmore had booked us passage as husband and wife, under an assumed name. Just in case our various opponents—the Society collectors, the Underground, or unknown allies of the Veil—might have greater reach than we expected.
Through corridors and past other guests, we strode arm in arm. As he opened the door to the suite Ashmore’s man had booked for us, Mrs. Booth looked up from the dresses she was in midst of organizing.
Her smile beamed ear to ear as Booth limped carefully in from the adjoining door, his posture stiff to ensure he did not worry his wounds. “Little miss,” he said by way of greeting, affection in the words. “Leviticus will be up for supper.”
With his arm broken and mending slowly, Levi could not continue his trade. The boy had abandoned it in hopes of gaining fortune in America.
I knew that hunger too well to talk him out of it. If I had anything to say, he’d be successful.
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