by Kat Ross
Catherine de Mornay had thick brown hair that she wore in a loose chignon. A velvet gown of deep purple clung to her generous curves, its appeal only enhanced by the high neck.
“Mr. Lawrence,” she said coolly.
“Catherine.” Alec tried on a smile. “It’s good to see you.”
“You ought to have sent a note,” she said. “I might not have been home. Or I might have been otherwise occupied.”
“But you are home.” He held her eyes. “Will you invite me inside?”
She waited just long enough to make her point, then stood aside. Alec took his hat off and entered the well-kept brick townhouse. He stood in the front parlor, unsure if he should remove his coat.
“If I’m disturbing you, I needn’t stay.”
“It’s fine. Would you like a drink?”
“Some tea, if you don’t mind.”
Catherine laughed, a rich, hearty sound Alec had missed very much. “I’d almost forgotten how few vices you have, Mr. Lawrence.”
“Alec. Please.”
She grinned. “I prefer to call you Mr. Lawrence. It’s such a proper English name. Although I doubt that you’re an Englishman, despite your addiction to tea. May I take your coat?”
“I’ve got it,” he said, hanging it on a hook by the door. “You make the tea.”
He sat down in the front parlor. After a few minutes, Catherine returned with a tray. She poured the tea and settled herself into an armchair.
“How’s Sarah?” he asked.
“Much better since you visited. Whatever you did worked wonders. She’s still in hospital, but the doctors expect her to make a full recovery. They’ve never seen a case of consumption pass so quickly.”
“I’m very glad,” Alec said, although he’d known the child would survive. He’d given her some tablets for the doctors’ benefit, but it was a subtle weave of elemental power that had cleansed the sickness from Sarah’s lungs.
“You haven’t come to see me since. I think I know why.”
She’d always been direct. When she admitted a few months before, as they lay tangled together, that her eleven-year-old daughter was dying, Catherine’s eyes had remained dry. Even then, she hadn’t wanted his sympathy. Just someone to listen.
“Catherine—”
“You think I’ll feel I owe you a debt.”
Alec said nothing.
“I’m a free woman, Mr. Lawrence. The way I conduct my affairs is my own business. And while I am grateful for whatever you did for Sarah, it has nothing to do with us. You enjoy the pleasure of my company, and I happen to enjoy the pleasure of yours. Is that clear?”
“Yes. I’m sorry for assuming otherwise.”
In truth, she was entirely correct. Alec felt some of his tension dissipate. Catherine de Mornay made a handsome income from her gentleman callers, enough to live independently in this house and decide who she chose to entertain. She lived life on her own terms, and would despise him if she thought he pitied her in any way.
Catherine smiled and kicked off her slippers. “Now that that’s out of the way, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask. Where were you born, Mr. Lawrence? Your grammar and idioms are impeccable, but your accent….” She frowned. “It’s not quite French or Italian. Certainly not American.” She blew on her tea, the steam blurring her features. “Let me guess. Say something.”
Alec took a sip of his own, felt the warmth blossom in his belly.
“I can smell your perfume.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I’m not wearing any perfume.”
“Your soap, then. Something with lilacs.”
“You have an excellent sense of smell. I bathed hours ago.”
Alec was distracted by a brief image of Catherine washing her long hair in the tub.
“I thought you were guessing where I’m from,” he reminded her.
His hostess closed her eyes. “There’s a softness to your vowels. Almost musical. Someplace warm, I think. With palm trees and white sands.” Her green eyes flew open. “I’ve got it. One of the Colonies. The West Indies?”
What would she think if he told her the truth? That he was born in a desert prison more than three hundred years before the infant Christ took his first breath?
Throw him out on the street, if she didn’t call Bedlam and have him committed.
Alec smiled. “You’re right. My family is from St. Kitts.”
“How exotic.” She studied him for a moment, then set her cup aside. “Your hair is quite disarranged, Mr. Lawrence.”
“I’ve been working in my laboratory all day. I tried to make myself presentable, but I can see I’ve failed miserably.”
She scrutinized him. “The frock coat is elegant, but the hair simply won’t do. Would you like me to comb it for you?”
Alec let her take his hand and lead him upstairs to her bedroom. Heavy drapes covered the windows. The décor was expensive and tasteful, like Catherine herself. He was aware she had other rooms where she sometimes entertained other gentlemen. But this was her bedroom. He knew because there was a framed photograph of Sarah next to the ornate four-poster bed. She was a solemn child, with her mother’s dark good looks.
Alec had visited Catherine four or five times in the two years since they’d met at one of Vivienne’s parties, and she’d always brought him here. He found it touching.
“Sit, please,” she said, patting the bench of a vanity.
Alec sat down facing an oval mirror. He rested his cane against the table. Pots and brushes crowded the polished surface, although Catherine wore little make-up. She picked up a silver comb and began running it through his hair, still slightly damp from the mist outside.
“Most men like to look at themselves,” she said, smoothing a lock back from his forehead. “You never do. Why?”
“I’d rather look at you.”
Their eyes met in the mirror. The comb paused, then continued its journey around his ear and down the back of his head. Alec closed his eyes. Her fingertips brushed his nape, just above the starched collar of his shirt.
“There’s something different about you, Mr. Lawrence. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” She felt him tense and laughed softly. “I don’t mean you frighten me. You don’t in the least. Well, I suppose I’m not sure what I mean. Just that you seem like a person with secrets. Are all gentlemen from the Colonies so enigmatic?”
She cupped his cheek and he rested it there for a moment, smelling her lilac bath soap and the pleasantly bitter hint of tea on her breath.
“I don’t think so.”
“How sad for the ladies. Say something else. Recite some poetry for me.”
Catherine knew she could make him say anything she pleased. And she found it romantic that he knew so much verse by heart. Volumes and volumes.
Alec thought for a moment.
“Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily’s leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said:
I wist not what, saving one word – Delight.”
Catherine laid the comb down. “That’s lovely.”
“The man who wrote it was a tortured soul.”
“It’s still lovely.”
“Yes.”
“Did you choose it because you’re a kindred spirit, Mr. Lawrence?” The question was spoken lightly, but there was an intensity in her expression.
“A tortured soul, you mean?” He laughed. “Not like Swinburne. I don’t wish to be flogged, thank you.”
Catherine didn’t smile. “Who is she, Mr. Lawrence?” she asked quietly.
The sudden change of topic caught him off guard.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
She didn’t answer. Alec turned hi
s face so his mouth pressed against her palm. She slid her hand to the curve of his jaw, lifting his chin.
“No one, Catherine.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She turned her back on him. “Help me with my buttons.”
“Perhaps—”
“No. I’m being ridiculous.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t leave. I want you to stay.”
Alec used the cane to lever himself to standing. One by one, his nimble fingers undid the long row of tiny pearl buttons. Catherine wore no corset beneath. The smooth lines of her bare back unfurled before him like a gift.
He kissed the skin behind her ear. “You’re very beautiful, you know,” he whispered.
She turned and helped him take off his shirt and waistcoat, running her hands across the plane of his chest. She’d never asked what was wrong with his leg. How he’d injured it. Alec was grateful for that.
“You’re beautiful too, Mr. Lawrence,” Catherine said. Then she noticed the shiny pink scar tissue on his stomach. Her breath caught. He kissed her before she could speak.
When he pulled back, they looked at each other. Catherine’s gaze was steady. She would not ask about this either. She would let Mr. Lawrence keep his secrets, as she kept hers. He kissed her again before she could change her mind.
Her gown fell away, puddling in a velvet shadow around her bare feet, and for the first time in many long weeks, Alec forgot about Vivienne, and dead things that still walked, and the endless river of time he drifted in. There was only Catherine, and the faint smell of lilacs.
He left her sleeping hours later, and he left a stack of bills on the vanity. If she’d been awake, she might have tried to stop him. Or she might not have. One couldn’t be sure with Catherine De Mornay. But despite her great affection for him, Alec would never presume to think he was more than a client. Truthfully, he didn’t wish to be more. Anything else was impossible.
He let himself out and returned to St. James Place. It was quite late, but the lamps were still burning in the front parlor. Vivienne lay on the carpet in her silk dressing gown, listening to her new phonograph. She rarely opened a book, but she loved music. The tinny strains of Handel’s Israel in Egypt broke the silence.
“Where have you been?” Vivienne asked, as if she didn’t know.
“I went for a walk.”
“And how was your walk?”
“Invigorating, thank you.” He tossed his coat on the sofa. “The Gate in Hyde Park is still locked. I checked.”
She gazed up at him, head leaning on one hand, her expression unreadable. Alec waited to see if she would pursue it. His relationship with Catherine was none of her business. Vivienne had made her choice a long time ago. He understood and respected it, but he wouldn’t live like a monk.
“Hand me my Oxfords, would you?” she said.
Alec spotted them on the mantel. He watched her flick the lighter, felt the pull of the tiny, wavering flame. If he ever grew tired of life, he knew how he’d choose to end it.
“A message came from Blackwood while you were out,” Vivienne said. “They found Dr. Clarence.”
“What?” He stared at her. “Where? We need to—”
“His body,” she clarified. “Fished it out of the Mersey River up north. Throat slit.”
“Self-inflicted?”
“Appears that way. The daemon has moved on, Alec. Taken someone else. Could be anyone. Man, woman, child.”
He sat down on the sofa. “Damn it.”
“Yes. Cyrus has agents watching all the Gates. They’ll be ready if he shows up. But at least none have been opened. Not yet.”
“The daemon would need a talisman. As far as we know, ours is the only one in existence.”
“As far as we know.”
“If his victim was reported missing, we might be able to track him that way.”
“Blackwood’s already looking into it, but Lancashire is a big county. It could take weeks to cover.”
Alec felt a wave of weariness wash over him. His brief respite with Catherine had been a balm, but such moments were always temporary. He hadn’t yet healed, not completely, and needed more rest than usual. But it wasn’t just physical exhaustion. It was a sickness of the soul that weighed on him now. A fear that their best efforts weren’t good enough, and never would be.
“I’m going to bed,” Alec said, grabbing his cane. “We can talk about it in the morning.”
Vivienne blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.
“I’m going to find this daemon and I’m going to kill it, Alec,” she said. “If it’s the last bloody thing I ever do.”
He heard her softly humming along with the Oratorio as he climbed the stairs.
11
Thursday, December 20
Alec woke to a landscape of white. Snow had fallen during the night. Across the street in Green Park, children in bright mittens and scarves screamed and waged war with each other. He splashed his face in a basin, then went downstairs and let the cat inside. She arched against his leg.
This particular cat never made a sound, unless she was hissing at one of the neighboring bulldogs. She didn’t believe in mewling for her food like other cats. But the significant look she cast at the hall leading to the kitchen indicated that Alec should fetch her something as she had been out in the cold all night.
He obeyed, thinking he might make himself a pot of tea. He still felt strange asking Quimby to carry out such simple tasks. Alec wasn’t used to having servants. He preferred to do for himself, even though he knew Quimby found it a bit scandalous that Alec refused a valet to dress him. Apparently, it simply wasn’t proper that an English gentleman should button his own trousers.
But Alec wasn’t a gentleman, and he wasn’t English, and he wouldn’t put up with it.
The grandfather clock in the hall issued ten chimes. Quimby was usually polishing the silver in the formal dining room around this time. He’ll never know I snuck behind his back….
Alec heard voices as he approached the kitchen, which lay at the rear of the house. One belonged to the cook, a sweet woman of middle age who lived in Camden Town. The other was deeper, a rich, silky baritone. There was a moment of silence, then mad giggles from the cook.
Alec pushed open the door. Mrs. Abernathy was kneading dough on the counter, her plump arms floured to the elbows. Seated with his long, booted legs sprawled beneath the well-worn wooden table, the Marquess of Abergavenny, Viscount of Nevill and master of Eridge Castle spooned jam into his mouth with boyish glee. He had dark blonde hair and eyes so electrically blue they were almost unsettling to look at.
He spun in his chair as Alec entered, the smile dying on his lips.
“Where’s my wife, you cad?” he demanded stonily.
The cook stopped kneading, looking between them uncertainly. Alec blinked. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. The Marquess roared with laughter. He bounded to his feet and seized Alec in a bear hug. Nathaniel Cumberland had the broad shoulders of a boxer and Alec found himself enveloped in damp wool that smelled of wood smoke and horses.
“By God, Alec, does everyone sleep all day around here? I’ve been up since five-thirty, and waiting for you to come down since seven.” He returned to the jam, pulling out a chair for Alec. “Since you won’t visit for Christmas, I had to take a trip to London.” He waggled his thick eyebrows. “Viv’s letter piqued my curiosity.”
“Hold on, Nathaniel. I have to feed the cat.”
Alec found a bit of ground meat in the icebox and put it in a bowl. He set it next to the table. A black streak arrived on silent paws, pushed it around for a minute, then began to eat.
“How about a big bang-up breakfast, Mrs. Abernathy?” Nathaniel said, flashing his trademark lopsided grin. “Eggs, toast, bacon, kippers, the whole lot? I’m starving.”
The cook brightened. Vivienne existed on coffee in the mornings, and Alec never asked Mrs. Abernathy to make anything at all. If he was hungry, he usually bought a hot pie on the way to wherever he was go
ing.
“A ‘course, my lord.” She made a shooing motion. “But you mustn’t hang about in here. I’ll ring Mr. Quimby when it’s ready.”
Even Alec knew most cooks wouldn’t talk to a marquess that way, but most marquesses weren’t Nathaniel Cumberland.
“Splendid!” Nathaniel gave the spoon a last lick. “How I’ve missed your strawberry jam, Mrs. Abernathy. Nectar of the gods.”
The cook blushed and waved her rolling pin at them.
They passed Claudine on the way to the conservatory. She gave a curtsy when she saw Lord Cumberland, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground despite his warm greeting. Vivienne refused to talk about Claudine’s past, but Alec could guess some of it. It was clear she feared men. She probably had good reason.
“I’ll tell Lady Cumberland milord is here,” Claudine whispered.
“Tell her she’ll miss breakfast if she doesn’t rouse herself,” Nathaniel said with a laugh. “Party last night?” he asked Alec with a knowing wink when Claudine had gone upstairs.
“Not exactly.”
Alec wasn’t sure how much he should say. He was still adjusting to this surprise visit. Nathaniel knew about ghouls, of course, and the S.P.R. But he didn’t know Alec wasn’t human, or any of the rest. He seemed to think they hunted the undead for the fun of it, which, to Nathaniel, made perfect sense.
“Don’t hold back on me, Alec. You’ve got that look. The one you wear when you’re trying to decide which lie to tell.”
“Unfair. I’ve never lied to you.” Which was true, mostly.
“Another ghoul at the palace?” Nathaniel asked with unseemly hopefulness. “That poor woman.”
“Worse.”
“Worse?” The marquess rubbed his hands together. “How perfectly awful. Let’s hear all about it.”
Nathaniel stretched out on one of the extra-long couches, hands interlaced behind his head, while Alec produced a version of events over the last five days that omitted how badly he’d been hurt on the tower and a few other minor details. He laughed long and hard when Alec described his luncheon with Lady Frances Hake-Dibbler.