by Renee Peters
Her voice quieted as she spoke her confession. “I am falling in love with you, and it is not your fault. But I do not know that I can play at marriage for fifty years in such a state if I am alone.”
The stillness broke, if only in his music, into a chaotic composition that reflected the jolt of the high she had pitched him to, followed by the conflicted, rolling lows. She believed that she was falling in love with him — the thought was like sunshine pouring into his darkness, even as he struggled to process the implications of her remaining words. It was hard to hear past her uncertainty that she could remain his wife in their current arrangement.
How simple would it be to speak the words she longed to hear? But had he not already faced the fact that he did not know precisely how he felt about his Condesa?
Joanna’s gaze softened, and she managed a sad, faint smile as if she could hear his thoughts as well as his music.
“I know it was not the promise you made. I cannot hold you to my feelings. Will not. But my music will betray me even if I do not tell you.”
He tried to find the right words.
“Joanna… Cherie,” he began, “You have… changed my life. Brought light into my home even in your shadows, and you are everything a man might ask for in a Condesa.” His music wrenched in his gut. If she feared her song might betray her heart, how could he hope to hide his own uncertainty? Was it not already there in the bond unsecured between them. “I care for you deeply….”
“I said the same to a boy who was dear to me. Before Jakob,” she turned her head to the window, rubbing her arms as if to ward off a chill. “I cared for him, but I did not love him. I will not ask more from you than you are willing to give, Dorian. It has been enough. More than enough.”
He felt the twisting bite of guilt. He was as much to blame for taking her to his bed. Was it not in the passions of lovemaking that the threads of love were forged? And he had selfishly tied her to himself without giving her equal rights to his soul. If there was anyone to blame for her weakness, it was he. And yet, as he recalled her words he felt the coldness of ice begin to form a knot in his stomach.
“You say what we share is enough, Joanna — but you also say that you are uncertain you can remain my Condesa without more.” His voice was gentle, but even spoken. “It cannot be both.” His gaze touched over her features. “The fault is mine. I should not have taken you to my bed.”
“Stop,” she glanced his way again, and her fingers clamped tighter around her arms. “I came to you. You did not force me, and if you had seduced me, I am not so lacking in my own faculties that the decision of who I bed is not my own.”
There was no darkness to her words, only a vague weariness that matched the slur of her flutes. “I wanted you. I still do,” she said quietly. “If I leave your house, I will be miserable. If it is now or in twenty years or fifty when I think I cannot bear my folly. I am yours for as long a season as you will have me.”
And he was not so selfish as to use her.
He felt the strains of an elegy of his own begin to ripple across the strings of his violins. “If it were in my power, Joanna, I would free you, now. But I fear a wife publicly taken, cannot be so easily made to disappear.”
“Then I am your wife, and I am your Condesa. There is no changing my own course, and I will keep my promise not to make demands of you.” Her eyes closed again. “Your music is terrible, cher. I should not have told you my heart. But we are too late for more regrets, and I am tired.”
Dorian went to speak again, but closed his lips over the words. She had agreed not to leave him, and the selfish part of him was satisfied to know that she would still be under his roof. But she had promised not to make demands on him. Whether that was a demand on his heart or body he was uncertain.
But what he was certain of, was that he would not take Joanna to his bed again until she could be freed of her obligation to him. He owed her that much, for saving what was left of her heart.
The demand that his decision would make of himself was another consideration entirely.
Chapter 27
Four days passed in the growing shadows of the Vaughn Estate.
Joanna knew she had no one to blame but herself for her weakness, and so the first night after her return home she had stayed in her suite. On the next, she found her courage to go to his door, only to have her knuckles kissed and be bid a quiet goodnight before he turned her away.
She had promised.
There was little of normalcy that Joanna could reclaim when all that had been built between them now lay shattered at the bottom of her cliff. He reluctantly obliged her with a seat on his lap for their first effort at an afternoon reading. Then, for knowing his discomfort, Joanna had spent the next two days in a separate armchair with neither of them caring for the words she read. The music fell into an almost funeral solemnity between them.
But she had not known the true depth of her loss until tonight.
Laying in her singlet bed with her pillow held tightly against her chest, Joanna felt a strange stirring in the threads that bound her to the coven. Lian’s piano notes skittered through her veins and around each, quick step, the strum of Celia’s harps accompanied him.
The queen held her pillow tighter and felt a weight clamping down on her chest. Her throat began to close on her, and the heat of tears leapt to her eyes.
The Arch Elders’s songs began a crescendo into a storm of a duet, sending sparks flying through her blood that seemed to ignite the coven’s symphony into an explosive cacophony.
Joanna burrowed her face into the pillow and all at once the sobs broke free from her. The music of the Elders’ love song only drew her darkness and her grief to the surface and she swallowed it back into her depths.
Or tried to.
Marjolaine’s ribbon, the weak thread that bound her to her husband, the secret she should have kept, the heart she did not have. She felt her losses anew as the storm carried her to the peak of her grief and threw her down again. Joanna landed, unable to breathe, amid a million sharp pieces of herself.
The music decrescendoed and harmonized to a euphony as the coven’s symphony began to settle along stronger bindings.
Lian had secured his bond with Celia — an Eternal bond — and had shared with his offspring a taste of the power it held.
Though the world was quiet again, Joanna continued to weep.
Chapter 28
Dorian set his hat into place and spared a final look at himself in his mirror. He looked everything of a perfect gentleman, and little of a bastard who had set about to break what was left of his wife’s heart.
He would free her of the charade that now brought them only shadows where there had been light. But it had meant setting in motion that which would explain the Condesa’s retreat and eventual disappearance from society. Already the whispers had begun that the Condesa’s allergy to the sun had shown indications of developing into a worsening ailment. He had been careful to present only as much information as might account for her absence, without laying her out upon a pending shroud.
He had not been willing to present her as an offering to death, even for the sake of a charade.
The ruse had made for a boldness among the more brazen females of the ton — those who saw an opportunity to be had when a scion chose to present himself in public without the burden of a sickly wife. The Conde could not blame them for their efforts.
The taking of a Mistress was a common enough practice among mortal men, even with less contrived a circumstance than an invalid wife. Few would judge his choice to offer his protection to another. But it had made his every venture out into society somewhat of a trial to be endured — both for leaving Joanna and for managing scarcely disguised invitations.
He had not been able to bring himself to discuss the logic of his intentions with his wife.
With an exhaled chuff, the Elder removed the hat with one hand and dragged the other through the length of his locks. Turning away from his reflect
ion, he abandoned the headwear on his nightstand and stepped out into the hall.
Despite his quietness, and even though the late November sun still had not set, he heard the softness of Joanna’s flutes behind him as he approached the manor’s front door.
“Dorian.” Her voice was soft and she tilted her head as he turned to look at her. Joanna in a brown day dress with her curls loose and her flutes keening despite the softness of her smile. “Are you going out again?”
“The Prichetts are hosting their Autumnal Rout. I’m afraid I’m rather obligated to attend or suffer an earful.”
“If you give me an hour I can change into an evening dress. You have been obligated to go alone nearly every night this week.”
He tried not to hear the question that wavered in her music beneath the words.
“It won’t be necessary, Joanna.”
Her gaze shadowed, and his wife bowed her head, still smiling. “Oui. Bonne soirée, mon cher.”
The Conde felt the ache of guilt, but did little more than step forward to take her hand for a kiss against her knuckles. Of its own accord his music escaped him, brushing out across the thread of the aborted bond they shared to cradle her own until he broke contact. “Have a good evening, Cherie.”
He left her and tried not to think of the way the notes of her music clung to him like her perfume.
The Prichett’s Rout was like every other party the members of the ton hosted — a gathering of finely dressed men and women tightly stuffed into a manor. Though most of the furniture had been removed to make room for the Prichett’s guests, it appeared to have only given cause to invite the entirety of Easthaven.
Dorian moved through the press occupied with the necessity of making his excuses for Joanna’s absence, and occasionally enjoying the reprieve of moments spent in the company of the Lords whose companionship he genuinely enjoyed. They were as close to friends as he could permit himself in a world where death and memory would eventually separate them — in most instances.
“You’ll convey my best wishes to the Lady, Dorian. I’m just selfish enough to wish her a speedy recovery if it will mean having you less of a sore bear again.”
The voice carried enough arrogance to cause Dorian’s lips to twitch. Justin, Viscount of Thornton was a friend he would not be obliged to lose.
“I’m certain that they will be precisely what she needs to rise from her bed,” The Conde answered flatly. “Though perhaps bear might be doing it rather too brown, Thornton. I am not the one with a fondness for — going to extremes in my pursuits.”
That Justin was a Shifter, he had determined by process of elimination. But the man was as close with the secrets in his Aegean blood as the Immortals were with their own; no clue had been offered to his preferred second skin.
“You have clearly not spent a moment with yourself for company in the last fortnight,” the Lord drawled, flashing him a smirk below a green-eyed gaze that swirled briefly mercurial in the light of the candelabras. “Though you might need a bear to save you from your incoming trial.” Amusement tugged at the blond Lord’s lips and Dorian resisted the urge to groan. It could only mean one thing.
Ms. Nora Oliver was the product of a new money family. She had also been one of the most dedicated in her pursuit of the Conde’s attentions.
“My Lords,” she greeted, flashing a smile as she curtsied. Her perfume did little to disguise the lingering scent of fish from her father’s work, and a layer of powder did not hide the freckles across her nose. “Is your Condesa yet ill? She has been in our family’s prayers.”
Lord Thornton breathed a soft laugh before straightening to offer a courtly bow. “Ms. Oliver — well met as ever. You will pardon me if I leave you to the Conde’s kindness. I have a matter of some pressing concern to address.”
“My lord,” Nora said, and curtsied again before her eyes were upon the Conde who had been her target.
Dorian wondered briefly if Shifters could be killed by daggers of the eyes as well as they might be a stake to the heart. His own smile was cooler as he offered a shallow bow to the new arrival.
“You are too kind, Madam,” he murmured. “Unfortunately, it does appear that my wife will find herself in need of more rest than evenings on the town can afford her for some time. I shall convey your well wishes.”
“Please do. We have been fretting for her recovery. But it is good that you are out in the ton again. For a while you had quite disappeared.”
A woman’s voice cut in, followed by a scented plume of Lily of the Valley, “Well, there is little for a man to do but hover over his wife’s sick bed after all. It must grow terribly dull after a while.”
Lady Diana Wycliff, widow, settled in alongside the Conde in time with the changing of the music. Her fingers found the crook of his arm, and she turned a peach-lipped smile on the younger girl. “The Conde has promised me a dance already, Ms. Oliver. Perhaps you will find another to set your heart upon?”
Nora’s lips parted as if she meant to speak, only to snap closed under the sharper stare of the older woman. She curtsied and turned to the crowd with a final glance over her shoulder.
“You seemed to need a rescue, Lord Vaughn,” the widow laughed, and turned a languid smile up to meet him. In her thirties, Diana still held her place as a beauty among the younger women, with a crown of dark hair that scarcely showed her age.
Dorian had found her pleasant company in the past, with a sharp wit and a way of conversing that had often speared the foibles of the ton mercilessly from her relatively free perch above its constrictions.
He found it less pleasant when Joanna happened to be at the end of her spear. He was not as satisfied as he should be that his ruse had taken root.
“A perpetual need, of late, it would seem,” he admitted. “Though you have managed to oblige yourself to dance for your efforts.”
Her smile grew, revealing a brief flash of teeth between full lips.
“It is only fair, my Lord. I believe I have spared you having your feet stamped in your kindness. You were doing little else but spreading word that your wife is ill, after all.”
Her fingers slipped lower to curl into his palm, and a gentle pull led him toward the ballroom.
He fell into step at her side, aware in his peripheral vision of the rise of fans to cover the murmurs of curiosity and delighted venom that began to ripple across the surface of the crowd. Diana had never cared for being discreet in her attentions.
“Direct and astute in your observations as always, Lady Wycliff,” he answered dryly. “I find it easier to get ahead of my weather, rather than clean up after the storms.”
She offered him a thoughtful look that warmed into a smile. “Please, call me Diana — we are past the need for politeness between friends, are we not?”
He led her into the position for the beginning of the quadrille, and another waft of her perfume teased his senses. It was not unpleasant, but it was not the sweetness of vanilla and orange blossom.
“One can never have too many friends, Diana,” he answered neutrally, and lifted her gloved fingers to offer them a brief salute.
It was only a dance.
A dance with a beautiful woman who had none of the complications or expectations of eternity. Perhaps the time had come to discover if he was capable of being what he would need to be to return to a life without the French queen.
Lady Wycliff’s dark eyes sparkled with her satisfaction at his answer, and with a light squeeze of his fingers, the woman released him to curtsy.
“True enough,” she murred her eyes set upon his own. “I do try not to limit myself with friends or otherwise, Dorian.”
The music lifted, and without saying another word, the Conde swept the widow into the first movements of the dance with what felt like the eyes of the world upon them.
Chapter 29
Joanna should not have waited for her husband.
Just as she should not have crossed into the foyer to greet him.
&n
bsp; If she had done neither of those things, she would not have smelled the scent of another woman’s perfume on his suit or felt the tangle of his violins as his eyes met hers.
She had promised.
She had promised and had no one to blame but herself that she felt as if she was made of broken glass. That she felt a venom in her blood.
The Condesa closed her shawl around her and she smiled gently. “I had a card sent with well wishes for my illness and quick recovery from the Linfields. Ayla brought it with your mail and my own.”
That the well wishes would begin to trickle in, he should have expected, of course. That he would not have explained to Joanna why they would be by the time they did, less so.
The queen tried to smile. “Did you have a good night, Dorian?”
“Pleasant enough for a crush,” he answered warily as he allowed William to help him out of his coat before the butler quietly disappeared into the shadows. “Thornton sends his greetings.”
“It is kind of him. I am sure he is not so worried as the ton must be for my fragile state.”
There was venom. Not in her words, not in her tone. She had promised. But she felt it in her blood.
He flicked her a look, and the darkness of his gaze swirled briefly amber in answer to her unspoken challenge.
“It is not as if you were unaware there would be a need to explain your absence, My Lady.”
“I had no cause for absence, Dorian. You determined that I should be.”
“As is my right as your husband — until you deem it not so. Or has my understanding entirely failed me that a pretend marriage is little more than a prison for a broken heart.”
“I should not have told you.” The queen’s gaze shifted peridot before she forced her beast away. “I cannot love you less for cruelty. I cannot love you less for being consigned to your shadows. If there was a time to break my heart, it may have been before I decided you could do with it what you pleased. As is your right.”