So Still The Night

by Kim Lenox

  He snatched his hand away and fisted it into a ball. “I want you to tell me.”

  “I didn’t love him,” she declared. “And for your information, I don’t love you either.”

  “You don’t?” He lifted his hand toward her temple.

  She smacked him away and scrambled down the stairs, into the street. With a hitch of her skirts, she clambered into the hansom. On entering, she spoke to the driver.

  Mark climbed in after her and dropped down beside her. His weight sank the bench, and Mina bounced into the air.

  She snorted. “You’re jealous. I like it.”

  “I’m not jealous.” He wasn’t jealous. He didn’t get jealous.

  Oh, God. He was jealous. His head buzzed with hatred for another man, all because that man had . . . oh, his thoughts blurred over the whole horrible picture of the two of them together in some dark mountainside tent while her damn father snored, oblivious, in the next tent. Like an ill-behaved, pouting boy, he wanted to grab either side of his top hat brim and pull the whole blasted thing down over his head and smother himself on his envy. He hated the weakness. He hated the whole damn idea of her with someone else. God, he’d never acted so stupidly before.

  Women. Pah. Who needed them?

  He did. Dammit, he needed her.

  “Where are we going?” he asked sullenly. His hand slid to her thigh. She smacked him again.

  “If my father’s run out of money, he may very well have returned to London. And if he has, I think I know where he might go to get more.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a man in the East End. He collects things.”

  “Things? What sort of things?”

  “You’ll see. If he’s still there. I don’t know. It’s been a long time.”

  He sat beside her, rigid and silent. Her hand curled over the rail at the side of the bench. Tension radiated out of her. He’d made her angry. Of course he had. He’d made himself angry as well. The hansom clattered through traffic and a dense haze of dust and heat, halting and stopping at least a thousand times before at last the vehicle drew up in front of a warehouse.

  “You can wait here if you like,” said Mina.

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “Just keep your hands in your pockets, if you will,” she instructed, unlatching the door, and climbing down without waiting for the driver. “No punching anyone.”

  He followed her around the back of the warehouse, and up a staircase to a second-floor entrance. She pushed a little black buzzer. They waited in silence, but no one answered. She jabbed the buzzer again. Nothing.

  “I don’t hear anything,” she said. “Maybe the buzzer doesn’t work.”

  Mark pounded on the wood with his fist. That didn’t bring anyone either. Twisting the knob with both hands, Mina gave a stiff shove. A look of surprise lit her face when the door opened.

  “Let’s go inside.”

  “Oh, I agree.” His eyebrows went up. “I like going uninvited into strange East End warehouses where no one answers the door. The only things better are abandoned houses and crypts, both of which, as a matter of fact, I’ve visited over the last several weeks.”

  She glanced at him, amused, which Mark took as an exceedingly good sign that she would forgive him for pounding on Maskelyne. Now, if he could just keep himself from hitting anyone else or losing his mind to Transcension, he might have a chance at more lovemaking tonight.

  “Oh, yes,” Mina breathed. “This is still Mr. Thackeray’s warehouse.”

  Mark’s eyes widened. Ancient Doric columns leaned into the corners—five of them, from different periods and locations about the world. He could tell by their sizes and textures. Mr. Thackeray apparently also had an interest in exotic animals. As they made their way toward the center of the warehouse, Mark tapped a stuffed polar bear in its chest. He wiggled the yellowed fang of a mountain lion. More animals perched on shelves all around the warehouse. Two flying machines, with wings and motors and flaps, dangled from the ceiling.

  Mina pointed into the shadows, toward a huge white and gilt carriage. “That was always my favorite. I used to pretend I was a princess while Mr. Thackeray and my father worked out whatever business they had.”

  Mark stooped, lifting the lid of a battered sarcophagus.

  Mina continued on. “Mark? Are you coming?”

  “Just looking to see if it’s anyone I know.”

  Suddenly, a sound drifted out from the darkness . . . a low, tortured moan.

  Mina froze. “Did you hear that?”

  “I did.” He did. And he didn’t like it. He sidled past a barrel full of horseshoes to reach her side.

  She called, “Mr. Thackeray? Is that you?”

  Something flew at them from the darkness—a huge, openmouthed ghoul. Mark grabbed Mina and shoved her behind him. A skeleton veered over their heads, pedaling a bicycle.

  Skeletons. Severed heads. Dammit.

  Heated blood fluxed beneath his skin. His eyes turned.

  “Willo-mi-na Lim-pett,” bellowed a talking severed head, high on the wall. “Welcome to my phant-as-magori-ummmmmm.”

  “Wait a minute.” Mina gripped his arm from behind. “I recognize that severed head. That’s Mr. Thackeray.”

  She bounded past him, toward a wooden partition. A suspicious sliver of light emanated from between the hinged panels. Mark pursued her. If Mr. Thackeray were indeed a talking severed head, he might have to go back on his vow not to punch anyone. Mina sidled into a box formed of large mirrors.

  “Mina,” Mark warned.

  But then he saw them. Two booted feet jutted up, attached to skinny ankles, which were only half concealed by droopy red stockings.

  “Mr. Thackeray?” Mina inquired.

  “Could someone help an old man up?” a voice shouted.

  Mark patted his pockets until he found his spectacles and quickly slid them up his nose. He clambered forward, and pulled—yes—an old man out from a padded box cut into the floor.

  The aged fellow’s hair, however, remained a rigid gray flag atop his head, the unfortunate effect of gravity and too much grooming ointment.

  “How’d you like the show? I purchased the entire inventory of an old Cheshire phantasmagorium and have only just now got the magic lantern to work. Thing didn’t come with instructions. Unfortunately, I’ve got to be upside down for the image to appear right side up.”

  “Please allow me to introduce you to my husband, Lord Alexander.”

  “Oh, good gracious. You’ve wed.” Thackeray squinted. “Congratulations.” He bussed her on the cheek and reached for Mark’s hand. “Congratulations. Er . . . what’s wrong with your eyes, young fellow?”

  “Nothing serious, just a . . . sensitivity to light.”

  “Ooooh.” His lips squished together, and he pressed his index finger against them. “I’ve got some special spectacles that might do a better job than yours. Come along. Come along.”

  They followed the old man through leaning stacks of dusty encyclopedias. Mina turned back to Mark. She tapped at her eye.

  What is it? she mouthed.

  He slid the spectacles down his nose. Her mouth fell open.

  Oblivious, the old man trundled along. “I buy lots of things. Lots of interesting, valuable things. Things people don’t want anymore. Like the phantasmagorium. What fun! But young people these days just aren’t impressed by such outdated technology. They’re always off, onto the next flash in the pan.”

  He led them into an office, crowded wall-to-wall with boxes. A mountain of papers in every shape and color obscured the desk. He pulled a drawer and rummaged.

  “No. Not here.” Sinking to his knees, he crawled under the desk. “Ah, here they are. Come here, young man.”

  He held up a narrow wood box, open on both ends. Eyeholes had been cut into the front, and were covered in green glass and vertical slats. He murmured, “Ingenious. An ingenious invention.”

  Mark wondered if he ought to b
alk. Refuse. Even run. He glanced to Mina, and she smiled encouragingly. Apparently, she thought it best to humor the man, and he supposed he ought to trust her. He did, after all, wish to please her after he’d gone and made such an utter buffoon out of himself over Maskelyne.

  Thackeray’s gray hair-flag wobbled as he went up on his toes and lifted the box up up up. . . . Mark closed his eyes and bent at the knees to facilitate the bestowal of the dusty contraption onto his head.

  Just like that, everything turned a soothing green.

  “I believe if you wear these spectacles for the next . . . oh . . . four to five weeks, your sensitivity to light ought to be repaired. I wouldn’t even take them off to bathe or to sleep, if I were you.”

  Mina covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes sparkled with . . . well, something beyond amusement. Mirth. Mark’s tension eased, and he smiled as well.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Thackeray,” Mina said tenderly. Mark could tell she held a real affection for the man. No telling what bizarre contraptions she’d been forced to suffer in the past. “I suppose you’re wondering why we’re here at all.”

  “Well, no . . . I hadn’t really. It’s nice to have visitors every once in a while, for no reason at all.”

  “I do have a reason.” Her expression grew serious. “I’ve come to ask if you’ve heard from my father.”

  “Your . . . father.” He scratched his chin.

  “Yes.” She bit into her lower lip. “I wondered if he might have come here trying to sell anything.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “That would be difficult being that he is deceased, wouldn’t it?”

  Disappointment weighed like stone in Mina’s chest. “Yes, I—I suppose it would.”

  Mr. Thackeray hummed a tune. He searched his desk, finding a pencil and a sheet of paper. He scratched out a few words. He held them up, so that they both could see.

  Yes. Yes. Yes. Alive and well. Selling things. Lots of things.

  Mina smiled, relieved to her toes. She and Mr. Thackeray had played this game when she was a child. He would tell her one thing—such as I don’t believe little girls should have sweets—and then he would write out silent instructions on where to find the candy. She also suspected the game was a method of getting around whatever vow of secrecy her father had sworn him to. Mr. Thackeray smiled at Mina, perhaps a bit guiltily.

  He disappeared, again, under the desk. When he arose, he held a wooden box, which he ceremoniously opened: a dark, leathery thing nestled in blue velvet. Mina leaned closer. A mummy’s hand.

  Across the desk, Mark’s shoulders drew together in a wince, and he rubbed his wrist.

  Mina took up the pencil and scribbled, Where is he?

  More scratching.

  Don’t know. London. Somewhere.

  “Well, then, since you haven’t seen him, I suppose we should go and let you return to perfecting your phantasmagorium display.”

  They made their way across the warehouse.

  “Come back soon,” Thackeray called as they made their way down the stairs. “I’ll run the whole show for you.”

  The door shut.

  Mark followed her down the stairs. “Do you think he’s watching from a window, or can I take this thing off my head now?”

  Mina snorted behind her gloved hand. “We’d better go all the way to the hansom. You don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  The driver stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “It’s all right,” he called to the man. “They are an ingenious invention.”

  Once they’d climbed inside, the driver tapped the horses, and the vehicle got under way. Mina turned to him. She lifted the box and stared into his eyes. For a moment he thought she’d kiss him, but . . . she didn’t.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Thank you for what?”

  “For being so sweet with him.”

  He grinned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m coming back for the full phantasmagorium show.” His smile faded. “Provided I last that long.”

  Why had he said that? He hadn’t lost confidence, hadn’t lost hope.

  Mina patted his hand. Her patting disturbed him. Mothers patted. Sisters and fond friends patted. Lovers did not pat.

  “You are going to last that long. My father is here, Mark. My father is here, in London, with the scrolls. We’re going to find out everything you need to know about that conduit of immortality, and then we’re going to get you fixed right up. Righter than rain. We’ve just got to remain visible, so he can find us.”

  The rest of the afternoon was spent in the West End, in Mayfair, with Mina’s grieving uncle and cousins, who conveyed that the authorities wished to retain Lucinda’s body for further postmortem examinations. Given that the police surgeon leaned toward a final conclusion of disease, in the interest of science and public health, Trafford had agreed.

  Due to the circumstances, and his lordship’s wish for privacy, there would be only a private memorial chapel service for the countess, for attendance by her immediate family. Because the girls were still too distraught, Mina assisted her uncle in writing letters to their relations and friends, near and far, relaying news of his wife’s death. Trafford also shared his plans to take the girls to his Lancashire estate for the three weeks following the service. The city, and all its attentions in the wake of his wife’s death, proved too much for him to bear.

  Mina, for her part, could not shed the lingering guilt that she’d brought the misery upon the family, that she was to blame for Lucinda’s recruitment and death. When evening drew on, she and Mark returned to the Savoy, where they arrived to more flowers, and more messages. They read through them over a supper of cold chicken and salad, sent up from the hotel kitchen.

  Mina frowned over the stacks of cards and torn envelopes. “There’s nothing here from my father.”

  Mark closed the newspaper. There’d been no mention of more body parts being discovered along the Thames.

  “Don’t fret,” he murmured. “News of our wedding came out in the paper only yesterday, and Lucinda’s obituary is there today. He’s going to see everything. He’ll make contact. What sort of father wouldn’t?”

  Mina smiled hopefully. “You’re right, you know. I’ve been so angry he abandoned me on that mountain, but . . . he only did what he thought he had to do to keep me safe. I don’t think he ever considered they would come after me.”

  “I don’t either,” Mark responded, but his thoughts were already on the darkening sky outside their window. Instinct compelled him to go out into the city, to spend the night on the streets, sending out his feelers in search of the professor, or taking stock of whatever evil he could find. Once the house was finished, tomorrow perhaps, he could leave Mina under Leeson’s protection. But for tonight, left with no other interesting options for passing their time . . . his internal male clock counted the minutes until he could seduce her into their hotel bed.

  A knock sounded. Mark stood up from the table and answered the door. A handsome youth in full royal livery stood on the other side.

  Mark returned to Mina with a large square envelope, and a broad smile. “Delivery by equerry.”

  “A royal equerry?” Mina jumped up from the chair to touch his arm. “Open it. What does it say?”

  Mark lifted the flap and removed a thick card from inside. As he read, a slow smile curled his lips.

  “What is it?”

  Betwixt two fingers, he rotated the card toward her.

  Her eyes quickly scanned over the Royal Arms . . . Ascot . . . admit Viscount and Viscountess Alexander.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Her eyes widened. “The Prince of Wales has invited us to Ascot?”

  “Not just Ascot, darling,” he murmured. “To the royal box.”

  Her face lit up. “Do you know the prince?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “You suppose.” She squeezed his arm. “Is it acceptable for me to attend? I’m in double mourning now. For my father
, and for Lucinda.”

  “So am I. I’m your husband. But people go to Ascot in mourning. Just don’t make a spectacle of yourself, dear.” He grinned.

  She bit her lip. “If you’re certain. I would love to attend.”

  “We can’t get more visible than the royal box at Ascot. We’re certain to be mentioned in the papers.”

  “You’re right.” She touched her fingertips to her hair. “But I’ve got to get a nicer hat.”

  “I’ll buy you whatever you want,” he promised huskily.

  “I’ll go to the shops tomorrow. And actually . . . I’ll send a note to Astrid and Evangeline, and invite them to go with me.”

  Mark made a face. “Why, when they’ve been horrible to you?”

  “Not horrible. They’re just spoiled. They’ll need additional mourning clothes before they travel to Lancashire. I’m their married cousin and closest female relative. It’s only right that I see that such details are attended to.”

  “You’re too kind.” He came closer and rubbed his hands along her arms. “But that’s what makes you special. That and you’re so damn pretty.”

  “I’m glad you think I’m pretty.” Her cheeks brightened. She wavered somehow. Ultimately she crossed to the table where she picked up her book. “I think I’ll read for a while.”

  Read? Mark frowned, bemused. Who wanted to read when there was bed?

  Flipping the cover open, she said, “Mark. I hate to tell you this.”

  “What is it?”

  She turned the book toward him. “I think the hotel has mice. They’ve eaten half the pages of my story.”

  Ah, damn. Selene had been here, nosing about. Just his luck she had decided to feed her word fetish as well.

  One step carried him to her. “I’ll talk to D’Oyly Carte.

  “Since your book is ruined . . .” He stroked her cheek, then tilted her face up.

  She exhaled . . . and turned her face aside.

  “Mina . . .”

  He’d sensed her reluctance. He had known something was wrong. She shook her head, and backed away from him, until her shoulders touched the wall.