TWENTY-THREE
I sat at the table in front of the single window in my room, writing by the waning light. The columns were already filling with numbers for the tea and gem purchases, and in the next few days, they would be joined by commissions for linen and art and candles, along with everything else that would be expected in a tea house.
I deducted them, one by one, from the coin Henrik had given me. I didn’t just need to show him that I could open the tea house, I had to show him I could run the ledgers. In that regard, for once, Sariah’s teachings were of use in this house. Watching her over the years, I’d learned how to keep books and handle trade. I’d even learned how to strike deals and talk down prices.
I eyed the stack of parchment beneath the ledger, where my handwriting was half-hidden beneath several sheets. I’d written pages and pages to Sariah since I’d arrived, but I had yet to send a single message to Nimsmire. I wasn’t even sure if they were letters anymore. The writing was disjointed and confused, broken up by stories about Tru or questions I had never thought to ask. About my parents. Henrik. Her life in this house. But the longer the message became, the less sure I was that I would ever send it.
I set down the quill and leaned into the high back of the chair, watching the street below. The lamps had already been lit, the storefronts of Lower Vale shut up tight. My all-consuming work with the tea house had won me some freedom from my uncle’s prying eyes and expectations. No one asked questions when I left the house or returned at odd hours. It was something earned, I’d realized. Henrik was giving me a length of rope to see what I’d do with it. If I wanted that rope to extend further, I needed to tread carefully.
The sound of steps trailed up the stairs and I watched the mirror, eyeing the darkness of the hallway behind me. I was beginning to recognize the sound of Ezra’s gait. It was missing the lazy rhythm of Murrow’s or the quick punch of Henrik’s. Ezra moved in a deliberate, cautious manner and every time I caught the sound of it, I instinctively inhaled, searching the air for his scent.
I’d heard him return that afternoon from wherever he’d disappeared to, but I had yet to see him. The sound of his work downstairs had filled the house, and though I’d been tempted, I hadn’t ventured into the workshop.
I watched the open door from the corner of my eye, turning slightly as his shadow moved in the hallway. I bit down onto my lip, changing my mind a hundred times before I finally said his name.
“Ezra?”
The shadow stopped. It stayed there for so long that I thought maybe I had imagined it. But then it was shifting again over the floorboards, in the opposite direction. A moment later, Ezra’s face appeared in the open doorway. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, his hair falling across his forehead. He looked tired.
“I haven’t seen you in a couple of days,” I said, closing the ledger in front of me. “Where have you been?”
He leaned one shoulder into the doorframe. “Working.” It was as vague an answer as he could give. But I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Ezra’s absence. Henrik had been asking questions, too.
The words were on the tip of my tongue—a warning. If Ezra wasn’t careful, he was going to make Henrik his enemy. Maybe he already had. And that worried me more than what my uncle had said about Ezra trying to get rid of me. The sting of him playing me still smarted, but I didn’t want him to be the recipient of Henrik’s wrath.
“Murrow says the tea house is almost ready,” he said, a little too formally. The ease we’d found with each other the night of the dinner was gone now. I supposed that was best, but I smiled unsteadily. I didn’t like how uncomfortable he looked. How uncomfortable I felt.
“It is.”
Ezra gave me a nod. “Good. That’s good.” But there was something bothering him. “I’ll have the dice for you to look at in a day or two. They’ll be ready in time.”
I nodded, unsure of what else to say. He’d put a distance between us since I’d almost kissed him and I didn’t know how to cross it. Or if I wanted to.
We stared at each other in silence and his eyes ran over my face, like he was waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, he seemed to make up his mind, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I’ll see you.” He turned, taking the last few steps to his room before the door opened and closed.
I put my face into my hands, breathing through my fingers. I had questions. Many of them. I wanted to confront him about Coen. About his plans to get rid of me. But the more I considered, the more I couldn’t deny that I was too afraid of the answers to ask a single one.
His door opened, and I watched in the mirror as the shape of him moved down the hallway. He was leaving again.
I leaned toward the window, watching as he appeared on the street below. The cold came through the glass, my breath fogging on its surface as he walked up the center of the alley with his jacket on and his cap pulled low over his eyes.
I pressed my lips together as he took the corner up the street. My jaw clenched painfully, the race of heat beneath my skin searing the way it had when I’d touched him.
I didn’t know if the difference in Ezra over the last few days was because of what had been unspoken between us or because of whatever he’d been doing at the merchant’s house. Maybe it was because Henrik was giving me a stake in the family. I couldn’t trace the line between the Ezra who had looked into my eyes after the dinner and the Ezra who was shutting me out. One moment he seemed almost jealous of Coen and the next, he was ignoring me.
My fingers drummed on the cover of the ledger, my mind turning until I finally got up. Down the hallway, Murrow’s room was dark, the candle blown out. To my left, Ezra’s door was closed, but there weren’t locks on the bedrooms. It was probably intentional on Henrik’s part, but I’d picked up on the unspoken rule that the thresholds were a kind of boundary. The first words Ezra had ever spoken to me were a warning to stay out of his room.
I touched the cold handle and turned it slowly until the door opened. My heartbeat kicked up as I slipped inside and closed it behind me. The room was dark, the curtain drawn, with dappled moonlight speckling the floor beside the made bed in one corner. A rectangular mirror hung on the wall where a shelf held a comb and a straight razor beside a washbowl. Ezra’s world was a small one. A simple one.
On top of the dressing table, the three dice still sat. I picked one up, turning it over in my fingers and feeling the grooves as I went to the wall of papers over the crude wooden desk. They were pinned with little brass tacks, overlapping like a tightly woven fabric.
I studied the writing, a subdued and practiced hand in black ink with almost no blots staining the paper. Ezra had notes on everything from accounts to commissions to ledger numbers. It was like looking at a map of his mind, and I wondered if this was the landscape behind his perpetually heavy gaze. Henrik had trusted him with the breadth of the family business, but somehow, Ezra had lost that trust. And if I was going to keep covering for him, I wanted to know why.
I opened the book on the desk, careful not to shift its position, and thumbed through the pages gently. Numbers. For Henrik, for the workshop, even some payments for the barkeep at the tavern. Nothing about Simon or anything that could be construed as a secret. It was all information I’d heard discussed at family dinners and around the breakfast table each morning.
I dropped my hands into my lap with a sigh, staring at the circle of light painted on the wall. This room smelled like him, and I immediately pushed the thought from my mind. I didn’t want to think about his hand entwined with mine or the feel of his breath on my skin. I didn’t want to think about his thumb pressed to the soft hollow beneath my wrist. But I’d thought about almost nothing else in the days since.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and stood, but my eyes narrowed when I spotted a small wooden box on the shelf beside the desk. It was closed, but a corner of parchment was crushed beneath the lid. I reached up, taking it down and unhooking the small brass latch. Inside, a stack of l
etters was filed upright, the wax seals torn open. I took them out, reading the inscriptions until I found one with a name I recognized—Simon.
The letter was featherlight in my fingers as I lifted it from the others and opened it.
Ezra,
I agree that binding our families to protect our mutual interests is wise. I think we can come to an arrangement. I have extended an invitation to Henrik to join us for dinner on Tuesday next and I expect you to attend.
Simon
My lips parted as I read it again.
Bind our families.
The letter shook in my hand as the words carved themselves into me. Henrik had been telling the truth. I hadn’t wanted to believe it. A part of me was convinced my uncle had been manipulating me to keep control of everything and everyone. But the letter was addressed to Ezra. Not Henrik. And if he was talking about marriage, he was talking about me.
I refolded the letter and slipped it into the box, closing it with the burn of angry tears in my gaze. I’d looked into his eyes and asked him if he’d known about Henrik’s plan to match me with Coen. And he’d lied.
The plan had been Ezra’s all along.
TWENTY-FOUR
The couturier hadn’t wasted any time with my request, and he hadn’t asked any questions, either. The package sat on the center of my bed, where Sylvie had left it, and I stood before the box with a hollow feeling in my chest. The only side I was on now was my own.
The house was filled with the smell of dinner and my uncles were arriving downstairs, making the floorboards buzz with their deep voices as I stared at the package. I’d paid good coin to the couturier, the last of what I’d brought with me from Nimsmire. But it felt like so much more than a garment was inside that box.
I opened the lid, unfolding the thin, delicate paper. The rich, blue tweed looked up at me and I carefully lifted the jacket from inside, holding it out before me. The fabric had been brushed smooth, the stitching flawless along the seams. It was perfect.
Beneath it, a crisp white shirt with pearl buttons was folded atop a pair of chestnut-colored trousers. I laid the jacket over my bed and unbuttoned my frock, letting it fall to the floor and not bothering to pick it up. The cold wind seeping through the single-pane window danced over my skin as I pulled on the trousers and the shirt, tucking it in neatly. The suspenders were next, sliding over my shoulders in a perfect fit, and I buttoned up the vest before reaching for the jacket.
The heavy wool hugged me and it wasn’t until that moment that I turned toward the long mirror. A shy smile bloomed on my lips, the pink in my cheeks waking as I studied the reflection. The warm colors and textures of the clothes were alive in the candlelight. My dark hair was unraveling from its pins and I pulled them out, letting it fall down over one shoulder.
I looked like a Roth, it was true. But the thing that made my boots feel glued to the floorboards was that I looked like … I looked like myself. Maybe for the first time ever.
There would be no more gowns for dinners and jewels to catch the eyes of men. There would be no more rouged cheeks and bashful smiles. I was tired of pretending.
I took my watch from the dressing table and tucked it into my vest pocket before I opened the door and went down the stairs. My steps were heavy. Sure. And when I came through the door of the dining room, the voices snuffed out like the flame on a wick, every eye landing on me.
I lifted my chin in challenge. My heart had been eaten with rage since I’d found the letter in Ezra’s room and I dared them to say something. I wanted them to.
My uncles’ eyes dragged over me in confusion as I took my place behind my chair, waiting. Murrow’s mouth was dropped open, but he said nothing, clearing his throat. It was the gaze coming from across the table that made me feel warm beneath my jacket. I willed myself to meet Ezra’s dark eyes. His hands were gripped on the back of his chair, as if it were an anchor, and his gaze trailed over my hair, down the line of me.
I didn’t look away from him, refusing to be the first to blink. I’d barely slept the last three nights, my mind pulling at the threads of everything I knew about the silversmith. It hadn’t taken long to come to the conclusion that it was almost nothing. He was a tangled knot. A figure made of shadows. And I wasn’t just finished with Henrik’s schemes. I was finished with Ezra, too.
His were the hands that had given Henrik his only chance at the merchant’s ring, and at times, I’d thought he was my only true ally in the house. But that was the foolish hope of a girl who wore a silly gown. One who laughed at dinners and charmed on behalf of others and followed orders.
I’d left that girl lying on the floor of my room along with her frock.
Beside me, I could feel Murrow watching us from the corner of his gaze. His eyes slid from me, across the table to Ezra in a question.
“Bryn?”
I sucked in a breath, realizing that Henrik was standing at the head of the table, his brow furrowed as he studied me.
“I said, what is this?” He grimaced, taking in my jacket and trousers.
I looked down at them. “They’re clothes,” I said, with more irritation than I should have.
Henrik didn’t look fazed. “I can see that. But…” When I said nothing, he rubbed across his forehead with his hand. “Bryn—”
“You want me to open the tea house?” I cut him off. “You want me to sneak into studies and pick locks and woo the Merchant’s District for you? Fine.” I could hear the words coming out of my mouth, but I couldn’t stop them. They rolled off my tongue bitterly. “But I’m not going to do any of it dressed up like a doll.”
The stillness in the room pulled like a tight string, threatening to snap as Henrik and I locked eyes over the table. I swallowed hard, my heart racing in my chest as his eyes narrowed, the firelight gleaming in them. I was angry. At him. At Sariah. At Ezra. Most of all, I was angry with myself.
But right when I was sure Henrik was going to unleash his fury on me, his head tipped back and he laughed. Loudly. The sound filled the dining room, and it was followed by that of my uncles, who leaned over their chairs, snickering.
I looked up and down the table, confused. Ezra was the only one who wasn’t laughing. His eyes were on my face, making me feel like the fire in the hearth was in my chest. Like he was seeing right through every single word I’d spoken.
Henrik pulled out his chair with the smile still plastered on his lips and he gave me an approving nod as he sat. “So be it,” he said.
I pulled out my chair warily, sitting. But Henrik’s ease had returned. “Now, tell me how it’s going.”
Still, I watched him, waiting for the mood to turn. I’d defied him. Maybe not outright, but in my own way. And it hadn’t been lost on him. But he was all smiles and ease. All twinkling eyes. Not a single one of his perfectly combed feathers seemed ruffled. And that single fact made me angrier than anything else.
“The tea house,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“It’s coming along,” I answered, still unmistakably irritated. I wasn’t sure what had just happened.
He took a sharp sip of rye. “You’ll be open in time?”
“Plenty of time.”
I’d set the opening of the tea house for six days and the tradesmen I’d hired were working around the clock to reupholster the seats and polish the chandeliers. In a matter of days, the doors would be open, and my uncle would decide whether I was worth more to him in a match or in the business.
“Good.”
The warm light shifted over Ezra’s face, making his features even more severe. The first night I’d eaten at this table, he’d been rude. Resentful. And I wondered if that was before or after he’d sold me to Simon as payment.
Simon wouldn’t give Henrik his patronage without a price, and I’d been wondering what it was. The proper, silk-wrapped niece of a powerful man was a suitable prize for a merchant with a shadowy past. In fact, it couldn’t have been easy to find a match for Coen with Simon’s reputation, merchant rin
g or no.
My teeth clenched as the knife scraped against the plate. Again, Ezra’s eyes found me from the top of his gaze. He didn’t speak a word at dinner, except when Henrik addressed him directly, but every time I felt a burn trace my skin, I caught his eyes on me. They flitted away the moment they met mine.
When Henrik was finished, he took his glass into the kitchen and Casimir and Noel followed. As soon as they were gone, Ezra dropped his napkin on the table, getting to his feet. As if he’d been waiting for Henrik to leave.
I watched him with a narrow gaze, fury fuming in my gut. He buttoned his jacket and ran one hand through his dark hair, smoothing it back, before he started for the door. He was leaving. Again. And he didn’t want Henrik noticing.
I waited for the door to the street to close before I shot up from my chair, leaving my dinner half-eaten on my plate.
“Where are you going?” Murrow spoke with a mouth full of food, his napkin clutched in one hand.
“The tea house. I’ve just remembered I forgot something.” I tried to give him an easy smile, but it was stiff on my lips.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No,” I said, too swiftly. “I’m all right. I’ll be back before the streetlamps are lit.”
Murrow hesitated before he took another bite, and I forced my steps to stay even and slow until I’d rounded the corner of the hallway. I snatched one of my uncles’ hats from the hooks by the door and slipped out into the alley, closing the door softly behind me.
The street was empty. I looked up and down until I heard the faint echo of boots and I followed them in the direction of the main street that carved through Lower Vale. When I stepped onto the sidewalk, I saw him. Ezra’s silhouette flashed before a lit store window ahead and he walked with quick steps, shoulders drawn back.
I waited three breaths before I followed, keeping close to the buildings from a far enough distance that I could duck into the shadow cast by a roof if his gaze drifted in my direction.
The Last Legacy Page 16