The Fading Dusk

by Melissa Giorgio

  He scowled, finally looking up. “Yes. Yes! It bothers me! Is that what you want to hear? I hate that despite the fact that I’ve proven myself again and again, he still won’t listen to me. He thought he knew what was best for you, but he was wrong.” He stepped closer, and I could see the fire burning in his dark eyes. “Over these past two weeks, I got to know you, not Paranby. Yes, he knew you longer, but he never bothered to know the real you, the fiery spirit that resided in my prison and nearly drove me insane!”

  “Excuse me—” I started to protest.

  “Each time I had to lie to you, it was like I was driving a rusty nail into my heart.” Leonid’s chest was heaving as he poured his soul out to me. “I hated it, Irina, I hated it! I didn’t want whatever we had growing between us to be built on lies. I didn’t want you to stand there and look at me the way you are right now, like I’ve betrayed you!” Leonid paused to run a hand through his hair, his eyes searching my face. “Please don’t hate me.” He reached for me, not touching, and I ached to close the distance between us, to feel his fingers on my skin. “I couldn’t stand it if you hated me.”

  “I don’t hate you,” I answered truthfully. “I’m hurt and confused, but time is too short. Life is too brief; I can’t waste it on hate.” I didn’t add that I was incapable of hating him. At one time, I thought I did, but that was before he’d proven himself again and again.

  I was angry, yes, but after my conversation with Parnaby, I knew where to direct my fury. Not at Leonid. Never at Leonid.

  Leonid blew out a long breath, sadness settling on his face once more. “You’re right about that.” He was, no doubt, thinking about Vernen, as was I. We stood in silence, missing our friend, when Leonid let out a low growl, startling me. “You’re right, Irina. Why am I wasting time when I should be doing what I want to do?”

  Without warning, Leonid closed the distance between us. Seizing me by my arms, he pushed me up against the wall and pressed his lips against mine with a fiery passion that nearly consumed me. For a moment I froze, but then instinct took over, and I kissed him back just as fiercely, sliding my hands up so I could thread them through his soft, thick hair. I’d been aching to touch his hair from the moment I’d first met him; it was still damp from his bath and curled slightly at the tips. Leonid crushed my body with his, burning me wherever we touched. His hands moved to my waist, gripping tightly as he parted my mouth with his, deepening the kiss. I moaned softly in response, and just like that he pulled away abruptly, taking a few stumbling steps backward as he panted heavily.

  His raised a hand to his lips, his eyes glowing with a ferocious intensity. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Leonid’s words were like a slap in the face; I recoiled, gasping slightly. Hadn’t we just come to an accord? Was I always completely misreading everything everyone said and did? “Of course not,” I said, my voice bitter. “You mustn’t sully your virtue with a girl from the slums.”

  Leonid gaped at me. “What? No! I just meant, because of Aden—”

  “Why are you bringing him up at a time like this?!”

  “Because of what he did to you,” Leonid said. “And now I’m doing the same thing.”

  “Leonid, you fool, I want you to kiss me.” I swallowed hard. “At least, I did until you said you shouldn’t have.” I didn’t believe his excuse about Aden; hadn’t I kissed him back passionately enough to convince him that I wanted to do this?

  “Irina, it’s not because you’re from the slums,” Leonid said. Again he ran a hand through his hair, mussing it even further. “That’s never mattered to me, and it never will.” He spread his hands out to the side. “You think this is me? That I belong in this gilded birdcage, with all of its sparkling finery?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. It was a lie; I couldn’t picture Leonid ever living in a place like this and being happy. But I wanted him to hurt, like how he just hurt me.

  “Well, it’s not,” he told me. “I’m like you, Irina. The slums run in my blood as well.”

  I stared at him in amazement.

  “My mother came from the slums.”

  I SHOOK MY HEAD, CONVINCED I hadn’t heard him correctly. “How is that possible?” People from the slums didn’t live in glittering mansions.

  “She worked here, as a servant,” Leonid explained. “She was originally from the slums, but she and her sister—my aunt—crossed over to Way when they saved up enough money from their jobs. My mother was a washerwoman, my aunt, a seamstress.” He noticed my astonished expression and smiled sadly. “Yes, they managed to escape the slums.”

  “That’s unheard of!”

  “Fighters, both of them. One night my mother was heading home when she crossed paths with my father. Literally. She was racing home, as it was her night to cook and she didn’t want a scolding from my aunt, and when she rounded the corner, she crashed right into him.

  “My father took one look at her and fell in love.” Leonid paused to take my hand and guide me over to the couch. I stretched my wounded leg out in front of me, shifting the fabric of my pants away from the bandage in hopes of dulling the ache. Leonid took a sip from his glass before speaking again. “Knowing he’d spend the rest of his life regretting letting her get away, he offered her a job on the spot—earning triple what she was earning as a washerwoman.” His hand found mine again, intertwining our fingers together. Something delicious and warm began blooming deep in my stomach, and I leaned my head against his shoulder as I listened.

  “She refused, of course,” he said with a chuckle that vibrated across my skin.

  I scoffed. “Of course she did! A job offer isn’t exactly very romantic, Leonid!”

  “Oh, so you weren’t seduced when I asked you to become a spy?” he asked, nudging the top of my head with his chin.

  I snorted. “Definitely not.”

  He laughed again. “Anyway, my father asked her again, and again, and finally, she said yes.”

  “What changed her mind?”

  “My aunt, for one. The money was a lot—more than they’d ever manage to save up. It was a guarantee that they’d never have to return to the slums.”

  “Did your aunt come with your mother, too?” I asked.

  “My mother wanted her to, but my aunt refused. She’s even more of a free spirit than I am,” Leonid explained. “She wouldn’t have seen a home; she would have seen a prison filled with fancy things.”

  “I can understand that.” I angled my head back so I could see him. “So what happened after she moved here? Did they get married?”

  Leonid shook his head. “Marriage? To a woman originally from the slums? The great Ezra Ashton would never stoop so low.”

  “But—”

  “My father was—is a fool, but he would never damage his reputation and status for love.”

  I was starting to understand why Leonid lived in a prison, why he sought to escape his father’s home.

  “He didn’t marry her, but he did bed her.”

  I fought—and lost—against a blush that stained my cheek. “And that’s how you were… I mean…”

  He chuckled at my discomfort. “Yes, Irina. Nine months later, and there I was. And everything was fine, for a few years. No one seemed to mind my father’s bastard son, not until he went and got himself married to a proper woman from Rise. Penelope, my stepmother, is a jealous, hateful woman. She looked at my mother and saw a woman capable of stealing her husband away. Even though their affair had ended—my father’s choice, not my mother’s—I was the living proof of what had happened between them. What she believed could still happen.”

  I was horrified at the turn his story was taking. I’d thought Leonid lived in the mansion with his parents, but his father’s wife was his stepmother? What had happened to his mother, then? “But your mother—she wouldn’t go back to your father, would she? He used her!”

  He nodded, his eyes steely. “She never would have taken him back, even if he threw Penelope out and pleaded for her forgiv
eness. But that would never have happened. Remember what I said about my father. Reputation and status meant more to him than love.”

  “But this is family!” I couldn’t understand it, not when I’d grown up with so few people in my life.

  “It didn’t matter,” he said. “When Penelope demanded he throw my mother out of the house, he listened. She wanted us both to go, but with me, he refused. Mother didn’t want that; she wanted to take me with her. She knew Penelope had no love for me, and she imagined I’d have a horrible life growing up with that woman as my stepmother. I can still hear my parents fighting over me.” His face clouded as he relived the moment. “My father won in the end, of course.”

  Feeling sick, I crossed my arms over my stomach, squeezing tightly. I pictured a little Leonid being torn from his mother and tears sprung to my eyes. “That’s horrible.”

  “Heartbroken, she returned to her sister in Way. We were allowed to visit from time to time, but after Penelope had my brother, my mother was banned from the house altogether. I wrote all the time, and she wrote back until one day… her letters stopped.”

  My mouth went dry. “What happened to her?”

  “She vanished.” I was about to interrupt, but Leonid wasn’t done. “One day, she simply didn’t come home from work. My aunt combed the streets of Way for her, but she was nowhere to be found. It was only weeks later that we found out what happened to her, and only years later, when I was a soldier, that I found out the whole truth.” He let go of my hand to rub his face. “Irina, this isn’t easy. If you don’t want to hear it, I understand.”

  It took half a heartbeat for me to make up my mind. “I-I want to know.” I needed to know.

  He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees as he stared straight in front of him. “Over the years, my father had given her trinkets. Jewelry, things that belonged on a rich noblewoman, not a washerwoman, was what she thought. My aunt suggested pawning them, but she never imagined my mother would venture into the slums, alone, and at night. I think she was desperate for money. I think she planned on selling it all at once, then taking the money and moving to Rise, so she could see me. She missed me, you see…”

  He was blaming himself. Whatever horrible thing had happened to his mother, Leonid blamed himself. I boldly placed a hand on his back and he leaned into my touch.

  “She was attacked. It was a group of men—they stole her jewels, and then they…” He trailed off, his body shaking under my hand. “I tracked them down later, all six of them, and made them tell me what they did to her before they killed her.” He choked on a sob. “It was horrible.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, tears running down my face, tears for a woman I’d never met, but still cared for all the same.

  Leonid looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes bright and rimmed in red. “This is why I’m so protective of you, Irina. Why I lost my temper when I saw Aden forcing himself on you. He probably would have stopped, but all I could see was the same thing that happened to my mother happening to you, and I lost it.” He turned his body so he could cup my face in his hands and wipe away the tears that trickled down my cheeks. “And then I shoved you against the wall like that—”

  “I told you,” I said, my face burning, “I wanted you to kiss me like that.” Mortified, I snapped my mouth shut before I said something worse.

  He arched an eyebrow. “Did you, now?” Before I could answer, he was capturing my lips with his again, one hand still holding my face while the other reached around to remove the clip from my hair. As my curls spilled down to my shoulder in fiery waves, we kissed slowly, but with just as much passion as before. Breathing hard, Leonid broke away, his eyes darkening with desire. “Don’t you dare think you’re anything less because of where you were born, Irina. My father and stepmother from Rise? They’re the worst type of monsters that exist. All right?”

  I nodded. “As long as you never push me away like that again.”

  He gave me a slow, lazy smile. “I’d have to be an idiot to do that.” Reaching for a curl, he wound it around one long finger. “I keep thinking you’re this fragile thing, like a glass figurine that belongs in a locked cabinet, when you’ve proven time and again that you’re not.

  “You’re not fragile,” he said passionately. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

  “I’m not strong,” I insisted. “I’m terrified, Leonid, of what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t want to di—”

  With a growl, he said, “You are not going to die, do you hear me? I won’t ever let that happen.” He grabbed me by the waist and started to slide me into his lap, but paused when he saw my pained expression. “What’s the matter?”

  I pulled at the fabric on my pants, trying to jerk the material away from my bandage. “It’s bothering me.”

  He watched me for a moment before nodding slightly. “Come with me.”

  TAKING LEONID’S HAND, I FOLLOWED him through the hallways of his home until we came to a room with the door closed. He pushed it open to reveal an elaborate bedroom with a four-poster bed that was probably bigger than my entire room back home. A large gilded mirror took up one wall, with a long dresser covered in perfume bottles and cosmetics strewn neatly below it.

  “Whose room is this?” I asked, turning around slowly in a circle.

  “My stepmother’s.”

  I halted in my tracks. “Are you sure we should be in here?”

  Leonid smirked. “No, but do you think I care?” Still holding my hand, he guided me over to a walk-in closet, pulling open the double doors to reveal a rack full of beautiful gowns in every color imaginable.

  I sucked in a breath. “Leonid, no—”

  “You said the pants were bothering you,” he replied softly. “So pick anything you’d like, anything you’d feel comfortable in. Everything in here is brand new. She only wears her dresses once.” He planted a kiss on the back of my hand, making my insides dance in delight. “I’ll wait for you next door. Take all the time you need.” He left without another word.

  I turned to the dresses, breathing in deeply. The air smelled faintly of flowers; probably one of her perfumes, I reasoned. I reached for the nearest dress, a dark blue sleeveless gown, my fingers halting before they touched the silky fabric. Finery like that didn’t belong on someone like me. I let my arms drop, my hands curling into fists.

  “I would have liked to have seen you in a dress.” His eyes had been so dark when he’d said that, focused entirely on me as if he’d been trying to picture me dressed up, like a fancy lady from Rise. I wondered, my body growing hot, if he would push me against the wall and kiss me passionately again if I put on a dress. It was equally exciting and frightening, how much I wanted him to.

  I began thumbing through the rack, but my heart sunk when I got close to the end. Nothing was for me. I’d end up tripping over the train and making a fool of myself…

  At the very end, a flash of white caught my eye. Pushing a yellow ball gown aside, I saw a silky nightdress hanging on the last hanger. I held the dress up to my body; the length only came to mid-thigh, well clear of my bandage. As far as comfort went, it’d be perfect, but did I dare dress myself in something so revealing?

  I undressed before I could change my mind, sliding the soft fabric of the dress over my head so it rippled down over my body. Slipping my arms through the thin straps, I smoothed the material and turned to face the mirror.

  I looked away quickly, my heart pounding. I’d thought I had looked more grown up earlier, in the fancy sweater and pants, but now with my lips swollen from kissing Leonid, and my hair mussed from where he’d run his fingers through it, I looked… wild.

  Alive.

  Vernen, I thought sadly, you would be so mad if I just walked away right now, wouldn’t you? If I put my pants and sweater back on and hid somewhere… You knew, maybe before even Leonid and I did, what was blossoming between us.

  And you’d want us to be happy.

  Glancing back at the mirror, I
gave myself a nod of encouragement before I left the bedroom. The room next door was another grand sitting room—how many did one family need? A fire was blazing in the fireplace, throwing flickering shadows against the wall. Leonid sat on a pile of furs in front of the fire, holding a glass filled halfway with an amber liquid.

  “Leonid?”

  He turned, took one look at me, and proceeded to drop the glass onto the fur. Swearing sharply, he snatched the now-empty glass up, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket so he could blot the stain. When I stepped closer, he held up a hand. “Wait, Lark, don’t—”

  I froze. “What’s the matter?”

  “What’s the matter?” He rubbed a hand across his face. “You can’t expect—I mean, you come in here dressed like that and…”

  I glanced down at myself, my face turning red. “Is it that awful?” I pulled at the hem of the nightdress nervously. Maybe I should have worn one of the ball gowns after all, I thought desperately, wondering if it was too late to hide.

  “Awful?!” Leonid approached me, cautiously, like I was an angry, growling dog ready to bite. “There’s nothing awful about, about this!” He gestured to me, his eyes continuing to stray to my legs as if he couldn’t help himself. “This might be the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life, in fact. I…” Leonid swallowed hard, finally looking me in the eye. “I’m not that strong, Lark.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “Then why am I imagining myself doing unspeakable things to you right now?”

  My heart did a jittery sort of flutter. “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh.” He looked as nervous as I felt. Taking a deep breath, he said, “No, it’s all right. I can behave. Come sit down before you freeze.” Leonid tugged me toward the fireplace, covering my entire body with furs.