by Julia Byrd
“You needed a safe, secluded site to perform your irreligious ceremonies, and you guessed—incorrectly—that I might be amenable to your use of Maida Green?”
Juno tilted her head and looked at me strangely. The flickering light from below gave the appearance that her chin quivered. “Fine, if you want to express it that way. But as we know, I was wrong in all my assumptions about you.”
“So long as we’re clear,” I said, relieved to have an explanation for her attention. She had wanted to use the burial ground for her rites, but I had put a swift stop to it. “I shall reward your honesty by revealing an embarrassing remnant of my childhood. Come, pick up that candle and follow me to the Maida Theatre.”
Juno’s eyebrows rose. “The Maida Theatre?”
“Indeed. The finest stage in Maida House. Right through here.”
We passed beyond a plain door and entered the storage room. Near the wall were piles of trunks, crates, old furniture, a few dull paintings, and a couple of rolled rugs. But my eye was drawn past the clutter to the empty space on the other side.
At the far end of the room was a wide dais, perhaps six inches high and ten feet square. Thinking on it as a grown man, it clearly covered some structural component of the ballroom below, but as a boy, it could have been nothing but a stage. We had traversed up to the very front of the house. The large, round window that made the front façade so imposing from outside served as an excellent backdrop for our productions. Two old curtains framed either “wing” of our stage. Before the dais was a row of old chairs, centered by two larger sheet-covered seats reserved for our parents. I cringed to recall that the staff was occasionally called up to admire and applaud the little lords of the manor.
Juno gave a delighted laugh. “Ah yes, the Maida Theatre. Laugh, cry, beg for boiled sweets.”
I tipped my head. “Precisely. Joe and I comprised the entirety of the cast. Rehearsals often broke early for teatime and fights. Laborious costume changes accounted for approximately half of each production’s total duration.”
“Is that so?” She strode across the space and stepped up onto the stage. “I can just imagine you as the princess to your elder brother’s gallant knight.” Juno twitched her skirt to one side and dipped a dramatic curtsy.
“More than once. I didn’t mind, I only wanted to play with him. He was seven years older and handsome. Joe was creative, and his mind was so quick. He could memorize his lines and help me with mine. I recall an original production in which Joe played all the human roles, and I played a menagerie’s worth of animals, which I liked because I had no lines other than beastly growls and snorts.”
The stories flowed from me. I’d been keeping memories bottled for years and finally had someone who wanted to listen. I joined her on the stage as I spoke, and we looked out over our ghostly audience. She had positioned her candle on the stage like a footlight, so I placed mine similarly.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Juno said softly. “And I’m glad you had this. I’m glad you showed it to me.”
“Yes.” I couldn’t see her features clearly in the dim light, so I bent and moved the candlesticks closer together. The attic contracted to just our little glowing sphere. Then I stepped down and pulled the cover from my father’s old chair, a leather-tufted monstrosity. Father had sprawled at his ease, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles as he surveyed our work with indulgence.
“What are you doing?”
I tossed the sheet away and sank into the seat, releasing a cloud of dust, then stretched my limbs. “I realized I’ve never been in the audience at the Maida Theatre. Shall I command a performance?”
“Oh, no,” Juno said, but a girlish twirl seemed to give another answer. “We are not yet intimate enough friends for you to witness my best performances.”
Was it a suggestive joke? Juno spun across the stage, humming.
“Someday, then.” My throat was dry, making my voice rough. Surely it was from the dust.
“You truly stood here and delivered lines?” Juno asked. She planted her hands on her hips and contemplated me.
“You mean stammered my way through my lines? Yes. I was even worse as a child, as I recall it. But I was never afraid of speaking up. We must have been horribly spoiled boys, for all I remember from those early years is cuddles and treats. The doctors and worried frowns came later.”
“What did Joseph think of that? People fussing over your stammer, I mean.”
“He worried too, I suppose. He protected me for a long time, finishing my fractured sentences and speaking for both of us. Thinking back, that’s probably why the early years felt so easy. Joe watched over me.” I met her eyes briefly. Juno listened fiercely, and her attention was disconcerting. But it was also freeing. I knew I could speak, and she would hear, and she would not criticize. “When I say he took his own life, which I don’t do very often, I usually say it was because of the debts. That’s not untrue, but money comes and goes. We were not starving. Hell, I’m quite sure the marble tile in the foyer would have fed us for a year if we had sold it off.”
“But often with debt comes obligation, and then shame,” Juno said quietly.
“Yes. Joe was a luminous creature built around a hot core, and I’m not sure I ever really saw his center. Whatever fueled him burned too fast, and then he was dark. He still gave off flashes of that brilliant light, but the darkness edged out of him. I never guessed it would kill him, though. I wish I had known.”
“Hmm.” She came down and stood before me. “I doubt you could have known, Ben. I’m sorry for his despair, and I’m sorry for your sadness. But…”
I laced my hands over my belly and waited for her to speak. She eyed me from my boots to the tips of my ears. I shifted in the cushioned leather seat. There were so many things we needed to discuss, but I was content to sit and endure her survey.
“Yes?” I said finally.
“I cannot be sorry for the rest of it,” she replied. “I’m grateful to your parents, to the house and this stage, and to the doctors who harassed your poor tongue. They couldn’t have known you only needed whisky and a midnight spell. I’m glad you and your brother had those years together. I think some of his bright core shines from you.”
“I don’t ask you to be sorry for me. I’m not.”
“Good.”
“And in a similar vein, must I express gratitude to Mr. Stephens?” I asked. “For shuffling off his mortal coil, if nothing else.”
Juno laughed. “Little else, for certain. But I am appreciative of many things.”
“I know, and I admire that about you.”
“Do you?” Her eyes flashed. “I appreciate my friends, and I protect my friends as best I can. I know you visited Mrs. Pfeiffer, Ben.”
I hadn’t expected the abrupt change in topic. “I protect my friends, too, Juno. What of it?”
“I don’t know why you visited her, but she knows nothing about any of this. She is a quiet woman who is trying to live a respectable life with her husband and daughter.”
From Juno’s phrasing, I understood that Mrs. Pfeiffer did not share Juno’s unbelief. “More coincidence, I suppose, that you were in her house before the child died?”
“Do not make such an inference so lightly. If I thought you truly believed it, I would walk away now. Leave Mrs. Pfeiffer alone, please.”
“I have no reason to call there again.”
“Good. Thank you.” She smiled, the warmth returning to her expression. Juno gestured at my folded hands. “Open up, if you please. I would like to admire you from a bit closer.”
My arms spread before I even considered. “Closer than—ah.”
She stepped to one side of my feet, turned, and slid down like melting butter until she was a warm weight stretched across my lap.
My senses were overwhelmed—her sweet sage and beeswax smell, the cool muslin of her dress over the deeper warmth beneath it. My vision from the first moment I’d seen her had flickered to life. Her hair was
thick but fine, each individual strand like a thread of black spider silk. My hands wavered in midair as I hesitated. What did she intend? Was lap-sitting an invitation to touch her? Finally,, I settled one hand over her knee.
“Hello,” I murmured. “I’m paying attention now, madam, I assure you.”
All of me. Her round backside was heavy on my groin, and I resisted the ancient urge to press up against her. The last thing I needed was to offend her with unmanageable body parts. God, it was probably already too late. Breathe, Ben.
“Mmm. Then you are very holy indeed.”
That made my invitation more certain, so I filled my palm with her hip as I’d imagined. Her flank curved like it was made to fit my hand. The soft sound of pleasure she made set my blood moving. “Do you think so? None of my current thoughts are suitable for church.”
“One of the many reasons I stopped attending.” Her laugh vibrated through her spine and into my arm. Perhaps her casual impiety should have offended me, but I was distracted by her fingers on the nape of my neck. My overheated brain could scarcely string two thoughts together. Should I allow her to do this? What were we to each other? “Anyway, I came here to admire you from a better angle.”
“I accept. Proceed.” Apparently, I was allowing it. My brain disconnected from the rest of my bodily form.
“I said earlier that you had been neglected, and you disagreed.” Our faces were so close together in the darkness, I could feel her lips moving more than see them. “But I ask you, has anyone recently admired your hands?” She plucked my hand from her knee. I did not resist as she turned it palm-up and kissed the center, just below the row of rough calluses at the base of each finger.
“Erm, no.”
She carefully placed my hand back where it had been and raised hers to my face. Feeling self-conscious and raw, I closed my eyes. “The way your hair curls around your ears?” She tugged on a lock, then leaned in and kissed my ear. I shivered under her touch.
“Juno…” There was only so much admiration I could safely handle. I clutched her hip too hard and forced my fingers to loosen.
“Hush. Men think women are so different from themselves, but in some ways, we are not. I have imagined my teeth pressing half-moon indentations over the breadth of your shoulders, Benjamin Hood. Did you guess that?”
“I…” I was at a loss for words, but it wasn’t because of a stutter. Each shift of her weight was a pleasure and an agony. “Yes. No.”
Her hands dropped to the collar of my shirt. She unknotted my neck cloth, then freed the first button. My previous experiences with women were limited to a passionate but ill-advised affair when I was eighteen and a few emotionally detached assignations with a woman in the next village. Juno was an entirely new species. Her clever fingers moved to the second button. I exhaled sharply.
She bent to meet my lips, and my head drooped back to rest against well-worn leather. Her nails scratched through the coarse hair she’d uncovered below one collarbone. I kissed her in a thrall of desire and heat. Then she dragged her lips over the stubble on my cheek and touched the tip of her tongue to my earlobe.
“I want to trace my fingers from your neck to your belly until you’re quivering and saying my name,” she whispered in my ear.
I wasn’t far from that moment anyway. “You do? Now?” I rasped, setting both hands on her waist. I would slide out of the chair and let the rough floorboards put splinters in my backside if she wanted it, all my morals and trepidations be damned. I would trade my soul for a taste of her sweet, stinging torment.
“Not now. First, I want you to think about that for a while.”
Juno straightened and pressed another hard kiss to my lips. Then she wriggled free of my grasp and stood. Cold air flowed in where she’d been sitting, and I pushed my hands into my hair and groaned. It was like waking from a fevered dream.
“Sorceress,” I said. “I will think of nothing else.”
“It’s quite chilly up here. We should rejoin Everett and Sarah in the library.”
I laughed, then leaned forwards to plant my elbows on my knees. “Give me a moment. You discombobulated me.”
“You’re welcome.”
That only made me laugh harder, and Juno was giggling too as if we had gotten away with something naughty. I suppose we had. I arose and rebuttoned my shirt, then offered her my arm for the walk downstairs.
In the library, Everett and Sarah sat very straight in two ladder-backed chairs before the fire. Everett was reading, and Sarah stared into the flames. The warmth in the room was a relief.
“There you are.” Everett rose and laid aside his book. “How is the roof?”
“The roof?” I echoed, blinking.
“You were checking the roof for leaks.”
“Ahem. Yes, of course.”
Juno muffled a snort. “You are a terrible moral influence on Everett,” she said, low enough so that only I could hear it. I nudged her in the ribs with my elbow.
“The roof appears to be sound.”
“And the attic as well,” Juno said happily.
“We should be going, Everett, to allow these ladies to rest.” I glanced around at the flock of sofas and thick rugs. “I think it’s best if you both sleep here in the library tonight. None of the bedrooms are ready for guests.”
“I agree. I already found linens and blankets in the hall cupboard. Ben, may I ask you one more favor? Will you fetch an item from my house and bring it to me tomorrow? I don’t want Greeley to see me coming and going.”
“Certainly.”
She gave me a key and directions to retrieve a box from her desk, and Everett and I promised to return after dark the following day. Juno waved farewell as we entered the dark tunnel entrance. It was odd to walk away and leave her and Sarah alone in the house overnight.
Back in my little cottage, I stood at the window and imagined I could see a distant silhouette looking back at me. Venturing to Maida House created an awakening in me, although the evening had not helped me at all clarify my thoughts on Juno Stephens. She seemed certain that I did not believe her to be an infant-murderer. But how could I disregard her possible involvement? If I did suspect her, how could I be the sort of man who kissed that sort of woman? My moral inconstancy troubled me. The only solution was to find the true cause of the deaths. I had promised not to visit Mrs. Pfeiffer again, but I had promised nothing about the others on my list.
Chapter 12: Rite of Awakening
My mother deserved an explanation of recent changes in my circumstances, so I paid her a visit the following morning. Our lives were still intertwined financially and through our shared past, even if the emotional distance between us often felt insurmountable.
Still, I wasn’t craving another awkward conversation, and I had to be back at Maida Green to prepare for a funeral in the afternoon after my errand to Juno’s house. As a result, I strode to her house in some haste and rapped on the door.
The maid admitted me, and I handed off my coat and hat.
“Good morning, sir. Your mother is in the dining—”
“Thank you.” I brushed past the girl and found my mother sitting over her breakfast.
“Benjamin!” she said. “Good morning. Have you eaten?”
“Hello, Mother.” I sat in the chair opposite her and pulled the rack of toast closer. “Your orange marmalade tempts me despite my earlier breakfast at home. If you don’t mind, I’ll help myself. I only have a few minutes, but I must tell you about…”
She stared at me, her teaspoon poised midair.
“Ah.” I laid down the butter knife and folded my hands in my lap. Without thinking, I’d just spoken to her more in twenty seconds than I had in the preceding month.
“That was positively…voluble,” she said. “What on earth has come over you?”
“N-nothing. I de-decided t-to—” Her conscious regard interrupted the magic. I blew out a breath, considered my half-buttered bread, and summoned my self-possession. “I have decided, goin
g forward, to say what I want to say.”
Part of me knew I still stammered and always would, but I tried not to pay any attention to it. I had more important things to think about.
To my astonishment, Mother’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I am so glad,” she said, and she put her hand palm-up on the tabletop. I quickly covered it with mine, and she squeezed. “I have always wanted to know what you have to say.”
Her sentiment was at least a fortnight late, and possibly as much as twenty years, but nevertheless, I appreciated her words.
“Thank you.” I pulled my hand away and returned to my toast and my news. “Now, I do have something of import to relay. There are visitors staying at Maida House.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me, Mother. Do not ask me to repeat myself.”
“No, I meant—” She flushed. “Tell me you’re not serious. The house must be a death trap by now. Who is it?”
“Mrs. Stephens and…” I could not risk spreading Sarah’s name, even to my mother. “And her young friend.”
“Stephens, Ben, my goodness. No, no. It’s hardly proper, you’ve no staff there, and that woman—”
“Mother.” I waited until she met my gaze. “I’m not requesting your permission. I’m telling you because the house belongs to the Hood family, so you have a right to know the happenings. Although I have often been tight-lipped,” I said with a wry smile, “I am not in the habit of lying to you.”
She frowned. “Maida House doesn’t belong to the entire Hood family. It’s yours alone. Some distant day, I pray it will pass to your son. You must do as you see fit.”
“Thank you. I will. I hope it will be your home again soon.”
“Soon? Are you reacquiring the estate’s acreage?”
I frowned. “Not yet.”
It would be another year or two at least, the way things were going. Some plague or fever rushing through Londoners would send a flood of fees to Maida Green, but I couldn’t hope for such a thing, even if it would help my situation. You profit from the wages of death, Sarah had accused. I did, but I did not pray for it.