Her mouth pinched. Then, as she glanced at me, I was surprised to find something like regret shaping her brow, her eyes. “Once. A very long time ago.”
“What happened?”
Her jaw firmed, as near a scowl as I’d ever seen on the lady’s visage. “A final note, as you are to be my daughter-in-law in a few short hours.” I waited, held myself still. “This family will not tolerate scandal. Do not disappoint me in this.”
The threat inherent in the low, chilly warning was clear enough.
She did not wait for my confirmation, sailing out with as much aplomb as she’d come in.
“Oh, dear,” Fanny sighed. She hurried to me, plucked at this fold or that bit of seam. “Never fear, you’re a bright, charming girl. She’ll come around.”
“Hurry, now,” Mrs. Booth added seriously. “We can’t be late to your own ceremony.”
I balked. “Fanny, did you know?”
She did not pretend to misunderstand. “No,” she said, and I had no reason to disbelieve her. “Remember, my dove, I was hired some years after your parents died, God rest their souls.”
Yes. God rest them.
And keep them well away from me.
Wordless, I turned and strode—“Bloody hell,” I hissed as my pace jerked too soon to a halt and I nearly pitched over once more. Reminded, I minced out of the chambers.
As much of a spectacle as the Earl Compton’s wedding would have been, it relieved me to no end when he insisted on a private ceremony.
To that end, only sixty some odd guests filled the Northampton home for the event. A much smaller number than the dinner parties and soirees I would be expected to host as countess.
I watched it all as if I followed myself, studied myself and those around me. As if it were a play.
A farce where I would turn to myself, wink and spout off a flippant soliloquy of chance and circumstance.
It did not happen.
Mrs. Booth faded away, her task as servant done. I followed my chaperone along the ornately decorated halls, so different from the exotic and foreign flavoring of my own home. Everything in its place.
Everything touched by gold.
Like me.
The butterflies in my stomach turned to lead. From lead to shards of glass.
I halted, every limb shaking. This was it. The end of all things I had imagined I wanted.
Fanny, attuned to her charge on this very important day, stopped. Turned. “Cherry, come along.”
I stared through the veiled white haze of my own vision and could not will myself to take a step.
“Cherry?”
And then a masculine voice, one that shredded through my haze of doubt and fear. “Cherry!”
I spun. “Teddy!”
“Oh, dear heaven,” Fanny sighed, and closed the distance between us as the Honorable Theodore Helmsley stepped from a shrouded alcove.
My friend was not the most handsome bachelor in Society, but his features and rail-thin build lent him character I found lacking in most of the milquetoast gentlemen of the elite. His face was comprised of harsh planes and angles slightly off-center, his nose more like a hooked blade, his build lanky. A mop of curly brown hair, cut just short enough to salve fashion’s demands yet long enough to hint at the curl within, matched his eyes.
He was striking in his formal attire, black tailcoat and white bow tie, starched collar perfect. Yet he looked drawn, and lines I had not noticed before now worked into his brow and beside his mouth.
Ignoring Fanny’s scandalized “My lord!” Teddy wrapped his arms around me, veil and gown and all.
Surprised, I returned his embrace warmly. “Teddy, I did not expect you.”
“What else was I to do? I departed Tollybridge the instant I received your letter, I only arrived within the hour.” He let me go, but his hands remained tight at my shoulders, gaze searching through the veil. “Cherry, are you sure this is what you want?”
“Did you come to attend my wedding,” I teased, “or spirit me away on your white charger, Sir Knight?”
But he did not smile at my halfhearted attempt to ease the upset I read clear as day in his eyes. “Tell me this is what you truly want.”
“Teddy.” I took his hand from my shoulder, clasped it between mine. “You know as well as I the expectations levied upon a woman of my standing.”
“Sod your standing!”
“Easily spoken,” I replied ruefully, and with no small sting, “by a gentleman whose reputation places him in gaming hells and brothel halls alike with no consequence.” I did not couch my words in gentleness.
But it was not anger I saw in his expression. “You are right, of course,” he admitted, there a quick flash of the laconic grin I knew so well. “Yet, Cherry, if it were only reputation you worried for, I would have—”
I raised my hand, covered his mouth. “Don’t,” I warned softly. “Teddy, you are my very dear friend. Have faith that I know what I do.”
Even if I, myself, could not.
His shoulders slumped. “Well.” A pause, as if he searched for words.
“Cherry, hurry!”
I smiled up at him, my darling Teddy, and assured, “Wednesdays shall continue. I shan’t let you off so easy.”
“And if that rotter disagrees?”
“He’ll be my rotter to disagree with,” I replied archly, and let him go. “Go on, take your seat else you’ll miss the service.”
Like a schoolboy chastised for stepping out of line, he tucked his hands behind him. A smile, more than a touch lopsided and not quite echoed in his eyes, pulled at his lips. With a sketched bow, a shade of a formality, he turned and made his way through the waiting entry. “Mrs. Fortescue, you look enchanting,” he murmured, pausing to offer the same formal courtesy.
She sniffed dismissively, but her eyes twinkled as she shooed him along.
It gave me the time I needed to take a deep breath. Hold it.
My nerves would not quell. The shade of white hovering around my vision was not all the lace, I was sure of it. My palms sweated; would they dampen the white gloves I wore? Would everyone see?
I flattened my palm at my corseted waist. “Breathe, Cherry,” I said aloud. “Just breathe. There’s a girl.”
Marry your earl . . .
Because the life he gifted me with his name would be one of peace and provision. Of support and care.
The kind of life I had been born to before my father’s madness took it all away.
Oh, God help me. I should have taken some of the laudanum before I left home. I should have smuggled the opium inside my reticule. I could not do this on my own.
My stomach spasmed; tingling sensations vibrated to my fingertips.
“My dove?”
I turned, met Fanny’s searching, gentle smile. What would I say?
What could I say that would not make a fool of myself, and the earl to whom I’d committed?
I inclined the heavy weight of my own head.
Taking as deep a breath as my stays allowed, I took my final steps to the garlanded entry, and whispered, “Allez, hop.”
The ceremony became an excruciating torture. Too long. Too solemn.
And then it was over. The earl raised the veil from my face, clearing my vision of the dense fog that had shrouded it for hours. A ring weighed on my finger, a beautifully elegant gold band almost too wide to sit demurely.
His lips touched mine, a chaste kiss. I forgot to breathe.
We walked out without looking right or left, as tradition demanded, yet I was aware of the eyes heavy upon me. My legs trembled.
Do not falter.
Somehow, we made it through the reception. The cake was cut, the blur of faces around me lost in a sea of tremors and nerves.
Because we would travel immediately after, Fanny took me away after the cake to dress me more appropriately for the journey.
“Where am I going?” I asked as Fanny and Mrs. Booth hurried to attend my dress.
“Nobody k
nows but the younger Lord Compton,” Fanny said sternly, “as is customary of the best man.”
“That seems—” I stopped, my gaze pinned upon the vanity I’d used only hours ago to prepare for the ceremony. “What the devil is that?”
Both of the women paused to study the display. Hairbrushes, tongs left and papers singed and discarded. Bits of ribbon.
And a single red rose.
“A gift, it would appear,” offered Fanny.
My chest tightened. “So it would seem,” was what I managed, when what I truly wanted was to grab the offending flower by its delicate bloom and crush it.
I hadn’t seen a rose for nearly a month. What did it mean?
“I understand the young Lord Compton has managed quite the secrecy.” Mrs. Booth spoke conspiratorially, her rosy cheeks gleaming, smile wide. “Not even my Mr. Booth knows where you’re going. It sounds quite romantic, doesn’t it?”
Secrecy. My gaze dragged from the flower, pinned on Fanny with barely concealed distress. “If we don’t know where I’m going, what am I to do of my night terrors? I can’t—” My sudden panic halted my chaperone, my friend, and she took my hand in hers and squeezed gently.
“Mrs. Booth made certain that all you would need is packed,” she informed me, so seriously that I breathed a touch easier for it. “Hurry, now, mustn’t keep them waiting.”
And hurry we did. Soon, I found myself outfitted in a lovely new traveling gown of dark brown poplin, bustled and corseted to within an inch of my life, with my hairpins tightened and my gloves in place. A top hat in black sat pertly upon my upswept hair, its gathered net providing a bit of pouf around the band and draped over my features.
Fanny hugged me tightly. “We’ll see you soon,” she whispered, brushing my cheek with a kiss.
“Toss that,” I ordered, a withering glance at the flower.
She only shook her head, rueful resignation. I would forever avoid her complete understanding, I think.
Then I was given no more time. Whisked away in a gondola draped by white silk and garlands, I could not help my surprised laugh as rice and satin slippers sailed after us.
The sound died as the earl—my husband—met my eyes directly for the first time in what seemed like hours.
Too much kneeling. Too many prayers.
Too much demand.
Now Lord Compton, the earl to my newly bestowed countess, sat in the back of the gondola beside me, resplendent in his dark navy morning coat, his striped trousers in charcoal and pale gray gloves. His own top hat was larger than mine, of course, and lent him a stately air.
And oh, he was handsome. With his sandy hair swept aside and his green eyes so forthright upon mine.
I stilled.
The gondolier, a proper sort that I could only assume had come from the earl’s own house, kept his focus on the canals we floated along. We were, for all intents and purposes, alone.
Finally.
I swallowed hard. “M-my lord?”
Awkward, as if even he was not sure of the formalities of the moment, he took the hand I fisted against the seat. Smoothed out my fingers and did not comment at how visibly they shook. “It is time,” he began slowly, “for you to use my name.” A hesitation, the sound of a heartbeat. Mine. Stuttered. “Cherry. My wife.”
I sucked in a shaking breath. “I . . . Of course.” I licked my dry lips; he studied the gesture. And I was not mistaken when I recognized a certain banked flame lit beneath his so-calm exterior.
He found me attractive as a woman, I recognized that. But would it help? Would it matter?
Relentless, cautious but inarguable, he drew me closer on the seat. His fingers twined with mine. “Must I be injured to hear it from your lips, my lady?”
I did not flinch, though I came close enough that I stiffened. The length of his body against the side of mine was alien. Uncertain. I shook my head, looking away, but no words came.
His gloved fingers cupped my cheek. Not the ofttimes cruel grip of Hawke’s demand, but gentler. Coaxing. I had no choice but to turn my head until I faced him.
The corners of his mouth tilted. “We are married now,” he reminded me, “and away to our honeymoon. There is no need to be quite so formal just yet.”
And with no more word than this, no more warning than the glint in his eyes, he leaned down and touched his mouth to mine.
The shudders I’d entertained all day long intensified. A flash of something almost painful seared from the inside out, and I gasped. The fingers at my cheek tightened. Loosened just as fast, and slid instead to my nape.
My eyes closed as my husband’s lips brushed over mine. As his mustache tickled the sensitive skin of my upper lip, and I inhaled the breath he exhaled. My mind spiraled.
I was married now.
I would have the rest of my life to learn how to handle the earl who had become my husband.
He did not deepen the kiss, did not plunge his tongue between my lips as I knew a truly passionate kiss would require. Instead, as if he gathered himself, he drew just far enough away that he could lean his forehead against mine.
I licked the warmth of him from my lips. “Where are we to go on our honeymoon?” I asked, my voice a dry rasp.
Again, that faint smile. That twitch of the corners of his mouth, crinkled around his eyes as they opened to meet mine. “ ’Tis a secret,” he told me.
One that piqued my interest mightily as the fog we drifted across eventually began to rise above the rim.
The earl offered me a small, familiar box.
This time, as I took the beautiful French fog-protectives from its velvet nest, I smiled. “What would you have done had I sent back your gift?” I asked, sounding much more the thing.
His mouth compressed. “I approve that you did not,” is all he replied.
I fell silent as I clipped the device to my nose.
Chapter Twenty-three
The gondola touched ground, and the driver stepped off his perch. I raised my eyebrows. “My lord?”
“We must change transport,” the earl explained, stepping down the attached ladder and offering me his hand. When I took it, the warmth I saw beneath his stiff formality removed some of the nerves I anticipated.
The fog was thick today, turning the daylight into something resembling evening. We were somewhere past the square, at the point where a gondola would bring more undue attention than not. This deep into the fog-ridden streets, it became a matter of ease, simplicity and safety to acquire a hackney or a horse-drawn affair.
“Is it safe?” I inquired, as if I weren’t capable of handling both myself and the earl, if it came to it.
We were, as I recalled, not quite mired in any one territory. The gangs wouldn’t be so close, but that left footpads or the like.
Even pedestrian traffic seemed all but nonexistent.
The perfect place for an ambush.
My mind wandered to a single red rose on my vanity, and I straightened, studying the fog with a caution bred of too many years spent within it.
“I can stay until the carriage arrives,” offered the driver, an average-appearing sort with blond hair and earnest brown eyes. His livery was much fancier than anything commonly found below.
Likely as much a target as we were.
“Thank you, Laurence, I’m sure the next transport shall be arriving soon.” Dismissed by the earl, who perhaps shared my view of the man’s monetary appeal, Laurence bobbed his acquiescence and climbed back into his gondola.
I watched him leave with some trepidation.
Then started in surprise as warm arms wrapped around me from behind. I looked down at the earl’s embrace, turned so that I could read his features. They were still so set.
So cautious.
Was it me? Was it that I was not welcoming?
I rested my fingertips on his chest; he tensed. The look in his eye suggested I’d done right by it. “Are we perfectly safe?”
“I’ve brought a pistol, just in case.” Admiration
for the man grew. “Fret not, Countess. ‘Until death do us part,’ recall? I will protect you until my last breath, as befits a countess.”
I could not help my grin. “And how long until then, my lord?”
“So eager to be rid of your husband already?” His fingers laced around me, a cage by which I would be held for the duration of our vows.
My breath hitched. My throat closed.
And a whistle filtered tunelessly through the fog.
I blinked rapidly. “Of course not,” I demurred. “How else am I to lay claim to your library of books?” Yet my gaze strayed to the fog swirling and roiling around us, coal-ridden black and streaked in yellow from the struggling gas lamps.
That whistle . . . A red rose, and now a whistle from somewhere beyond.
My heart clamored. It couldn’t be.
I pulled away from the earl, shaking out my traveling skirts as excuse. Yet I studied the street beside us as it vanished into the pea souper claiming the sound.
A whistle in the dark.
Fear drove me to take a step to the curb.
“Cherry?”
“Just looking at the view,” I lied. My eyes raked across what little there was to see. Buildings lost in the shroud, the whole of the street eaten by it. My heart shuddered in my chest.
There.
A shape. A shadow! A man’s figure, hat pulled low, coat collar turned up high.
He was back.
Worse, he knew where I was. Where the earl was.
The silhouette I studied turned, hesitated and looked over his shoulder. And that whistle, that damnable whistle!
A challenge. The murderer Zylphia and her fellow sweets called the sweet tooth for his killing of several of them challenged me. The murderer of my father.
The collector I’d thought gone in the weeks of silence.
Not gone at all.
This would not stand.
“I shall return,” I said over my shoulder, and darted into the fog.
“Cherry!” The earl’s call lashed after me, surprise, anger. I ignored it, forging through the mist with only the French spectacles to protect me.
I could handle the collector. I was a collector. Armed or otherwise, I knew how to track a man, and I would hunt this one down.
Hunt him, and then take from him my pound of flesh!
Gilded: The St. Croix Chronicles Page 29