The Beautiful and the Cursed

by Page Morgan

  She slammed the cover of the book she was skimming and then jumped out of her crouch as a loud crash echoed it. Ingrid faced the door, expecting someone to come charging in, but no one appeared. The crash had sounded like it came from the floor below. Perhaps even from the second level, where Mama still sat with Chelle in the parlor. She thought of her father and Grayson. What if the crash was a signal from Chelle?

  Ingrid opened the door and peered into the hallway. It was so quiet she began to wonder if she had heard a crash after all. She decided it was best to err on the side of safety, so she started toward the servants’ door Rory had led them through. She had barely made it halfway down the hall when indecipherable shouting shattered the silence.

  Ingrid took a panicked glance behind her. The door to the library was too far away, but there was another, closer one off to the left. She went for the handle, twisted, and let herself in. A few lightbulbs overhead hummed with power, and thankfully, no one was inside.

  The shouting continued, and Ingrid was frozen with indecision: Should she go into the hallway and risk running into someone? Or stay here and risk having her father discover her gone from the parlor?

  She needed better options.

  A chill ran through her, lifting the small hairs on her arms and neck. Whatever this room was, it was cold. At least ten degrees cooler than the hallway. The room was a laboratory of sorts, with long metal tables, microscopes, beakers, and machines that Ingrid couldn’t begin to identify. Along one of the walls were two rows of wide, square, steel-fronted doors, each one nearly as tall as Ingrid, and with a combination lock. There had to be at least ten of these doors in each row.

  She had to leave and make her way back down to the parlor. But those steel doors were too curious to ignore. Ingrid crossed the room, walking around a table strewn with tubes and piping. Each steel square had been engraved with a number, and in the center of each combination lock, there was a little temperature gauge. Inside one, an arrow trembled toward the negative-twenty-degree-Celsius mark.

  Ingrid regretted putting her finger to the steel door the second her skin came into contact with it. It was freezing. She pulled her hand back, now even more curious. What could the Alliance be keeping inside such cold compartments?

  She didn’t have time to investigate any longer, though. She heard footsteps coming from the hallway, and as she went to the door, heard Rory’s harsh whisper: “Lady Ingrid?”

  She whipped the door open and came face to face with him and her sister. He frowned, looking over her shoulder into the odd laboratory. “I didna say ye could go in there.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just that I heard a crash and loud voices, and … didn’t you hear them?”

  Rory shook his head. “The fifth floor is insulated better than the others—it’s where we train, and we tend to make a lot of noise.” He looked again into the cold room. “Come.”

  Gabby remained unusually silent on their return to the parlor. She met Ingrid’s questioning gaze with a small shake of her head. Something had happened. And she was the wretched sister who had let Gabby go off alone with this bulging, dagger-strapped stranger. Had Rory made some sort of pass at Gabby? They took the narrow servants’ stairs to the parlor, where Rory stopped at the door and listened. The room sounded quiet enough. Rory whistled lightly and the door winged open.

  “Hurry!” Chelle growled, and Ingrid and Gabby toppled inside. Chelle slammed the door in Rory’s face just as the parlor’s main door flew open.

  Lord Brickton was the first to enter, followed by Grayson, then Carrick Quinn, and last, a bloody-nosed Nolan.

  Gabby surged toward him, but their father blocked her path. “Gather your things. We are leaving.”

  The charade had most definitely ended.

  “What has happened?” their mother asked, rising from the sofa, right where Ingrid and Gabby had left her.

  Carrick worked his hand into a fist, curling, then uncurling each knuckle. “Nothing but a little bit of Scottish discipline. My apologies again, Lord Brickton.”

  Ingrid and Gabby stared with open mouths. Carrick had hit his own son? Nolan pressed the sleeve of his dinner coat to his bloody nose. Strands of black hair had fallen into his eyes from the tussle with his father.

  “Well, you don’t have my apologies,” Nolan said to Lord Brickton before turning to Gabby. “You don’t need surgery, lass, and you shouldn’t listen to anyone who tells you different.”

  “It is none of your concern!” their father shouted.

  “You have no idea how wrong you are, do you?” Nolan threw back.

  Gabby’s face flushed crimson. The veil of her hat obscured most of her scarring, but there was a small line near the corner of her mouth that stayed white. Ingrid felt her eyes water for her sister, who was no doubt festering with humiliation.

  Their father practically ran Grayson down as he barreled through the door out into the foyer. Lady Brickton quickly followed her husband, failing to make the necessary compliments about dinner and their hospitality. Gabby fled the room next, unable to meet Nolan’s gaze again. Grayson took Ingrid’s arm as she approached the door, and pulled her to his side.

  “I’m glad that’s over,” he mumbled as they all hurriedly wrapped themselves in cloaks and gloves. The footmen who had appeared at dinner had mysteriously disappeared.

  “Are you?” Ingrid whispered back. “I thought you rather enjoyed ogling Nolan’s dear sister all evening.”

  Ingrid felt a strong pinch just above her elbow and jumped away. “Stop it!”

  “You stop it,” Grayson jested.

  He was smiling. For the first time in a very long time, her brother was smiling.

  Perhaps dinner at Hôtel Bastian hadn’t been a complete failure after all.

  Gabby lay in the dark with three layers of blankets piled on top of her. She couldn’t get warm. Her whole body shook, though she wasn’t sure if it was with nervousness, rage, or mortification. All three could sum up how she was feeling.

  The tall case clock at the top of the rectory stairs rang the hour: two in the morning. She was certain no one but her was awake to hear the chimes. Nolan was supposed to have come to her room two hours ago to train, but after the debacle at dinner that evening she wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t shown.

  He, Papa, and Mr. Quinn had been discussing her face, how ugly and pitiful she was. Her father had refused to recount what exactly had occurred, but he’d said the boy was insolent. Nolan had been rude and arrogant, and Carrick had interfered when Nolan had rushed at Lord Brickton. And now Nolan had a broken nose and absolutely no invitation to call on the rectory ever again.

  It was a disaster.

  Gabby tossed in bed, rolling to her side and propping her head on her elbow. Nolan’s bloody nose and her father’s wounded pride weren’t the only things keeping her awake. She kept seeing the mercurite-dipped darts in that horrible case in the weapons room. They’re for killing gargoyles, Rory had said. The ease with which he had said it had stolen from her the next sensible question: The Alliance kills gargoyles? Instead, she’d stared at him, dumbstruck.

  The waxing gibbous moon reflected off the panes of Gabby’s single window. She had kept her curtains open, liking the silvery light. Hoping, just a bit, that Nolan would come. But she’d given up around one o’clock and had stripped herself out of her dinner dress and bodice and put on her nightgown. Maybe it was for the best that Nolan hadn’t come. If killing gargoyles was a requirement for being an Alliance member, Gabby wasn’t sure she wanted to be Alliance after all.

  So of course, that was when she saw the shadow at her window.

  Gabby sat upright in her bed, clutching the covers close to her. The shadowy blob split, becoming arms, a torso, and a head. Nolan. He struggled for balance on the narrow beam outside her window.

  She didn’t have time to dress. Gabby pushed the blankets back and flew to the window, pulling the panes inward. Nolan was alone on the ledge, chest heaving from the climb.

&n
bsp; “Where is Dimitrie?” Gabby whispered, remembering the gargoyle’s promise to fly Nolan up.

  “It doesn’t matter. Stone blocks make for easy scaling,” Nolan answered softly, still clinging to the window frame. He raised a brow. “That doesn’t mean my arms aren’t tired.”

  Gabby leaped to the side and let him come in. Nolan’s feet touched the floor and the wooden board creaked with his weight. They both cringed.

  “If my father discovers you in here … ,” Gabby said, closing the window.

  “Haven’t you heard? Pistols at dawn have fallen out of fashion,” Nolan replied with his usual cocky grin. The moonlight showed purplish shadows under his eyes.

  “If your father knew—”

  “He’d break my nose again?” Nolan teased. When Gabby didn’t laugh, he sighed. “I’m sorry I’m late. I had to wait until he was too tired to rail at me any longer.”

  She crossed her arms. The loose cotton against her skin made her wish she’d stayed dressed.

  “In case you weren’t aware,” Gabby said, biting back a grin, “you’ve completely ruined any chance at winning my sister’s hand in marriage.”

  Nolan stepped out of the moonlight and deeper into her blackened bedroom. “You know that wasn’t going to happen, lass. My da’s just grasping for ways to tie Ingrid and Grayson to the Alliance.”

  “Vander is Alliance,” Gabby said, though guiltily. Ingrid would be furious if she knew Gabby was playing matchmaker.

  “He’s not from a root family, like mine. He’s first-generation, and to a lot of Alliance, it makes a difference. To me, as long as Vander saves my life now and again, we’re square.”

  Gabby wasn’t in the spirit for his sarcasm. She went to her bedside lamp. “I need to ask you something.”

  The flare of light reached his face. She saw the bruises then. A crescent beneath each eye and one humped across the bridge of his already crooked nose. He was still startlingly handsome, though. Two black eyes only enhanced his devilish looks.

  Nolan wrapped his hand around one of her bedposts and waited for her to speak.

  “Have you ever killed a gargoyle?”

  He lifted his chin. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “I saw the mercurite-dipped weapons the Alliance keeps on hand. I know what they’re used for.”

  Nolan pushed off the bedpost, his fists clenching. “Rory took you to the weapons room.”

  Gabby might have felt remorse for exposing someone else, but not Rory. He was more than capable of holding his own should Nolan confront him.

  “Have you?” she pressed.

  “No.” There was just enough of a twinge in his voice to tell her there was more to that one-word answer.

  “But?” she pressed.

  He exhaled a long, husky sigh. “Gabby, there’s more history between the Alliance and the Dispossessed than you know about yet. Things are stable now, but it wasn’t always that way.”

  “You were enemies?” she asked.

  “It was hundreds of years ago. The Alliance didn’t know what the gargoyles were. They thought they were demons and hunted them as if they were.” Nolan sat down on the edge of Gabby’s bed. “For a long time, we didn’t even know they shifted form. For decades—for whole generations—there were battles, all waged at night when the Alliance and the Dispossessed could move about without being seen. Then, during one of them, an Alliance healer was attacked. In a desperate attempt to defend himself, he broke a bottle of mercurite against the gargoyle’s scales. He saw what it did. From then on we knew that what healed us harmed them.”

  Gabby sat down, careful to keep a decent distance from Nolan. She remembered the confessional booth and her pathetic lack of willpower.

  “But then in the sixteenth century, a gargoyle and an Alliance member did something no one else had done before: they spoke. Once they did, once they knew the other’s purpose, that’s when the peace began. But it’s still tenuous, and history tends to repeat itself. You know that, Gabby. That’s why we keep mercurite weapons under lock and key. The closer we allow the Dispossessed to get, the more dangerous it is for us. We won’t allow our numbers to be obliterated, as we almost were before.”

  She’d had no idea. She’d assumed, of course, that for quite a while the Alliance and the Dispossessed had been creeping toward friendlier terms, but she hadn’t imagined they had ever hunted or killed one another.

  “The summit in Rome,” Gabby said, shifting toward Nolan. “The Alliance members in favor of forcing gargoyles to register and adhere to Alliance law want to use the threat of mercurite weapons, don’t they?”

  Nolan closed his eyes and rubbed them.

  “In short, yes. I can’t manage explaining the long answer right now.” He leaned back, eyes closed, until he was fully reclined on the pink coverlet.

  “Do you get to cast your vote?” she asked. “Are you for the regulations?”

  She knew Chelle was. The girl had no reservations when it came to expressing her contempt for the Dispossessed. But Vander and Nolan hadn’t let on as to where they stood.

  He stared at her where he lay. “The Directorate weighs everyone’s votes. And yes, I’m for the regulations.”

  It wasn’t what Gabby wanted to hear.

  “But why should they adhere to your rules when they aren’t Alliance? They’re of the Angelic Order, Nolan. They’re not yours to command.”

  “Not all gargoyles are like Luc,” Nolan whispered. “There are some who wouldn’t bat an eye when it came to harming a human who didn’t belong to them. They’ve committed crimes against humans in the past, Gabby. People I know—people you know—have been hurt by them. You know what they’ve done. They’re all murderers. They weren’t decent men in life, and an eternity of enforced service isn’t about to change them.”

  She knew about their crimes. She also knew that they had already been judged and punished accordingly.

  “It isn’t right.”

  “It’s a complicated matter. Even the Directorate had to postpone the summit talks. They couldn’t reach a majority agreement.” Nolan stretched his arms back, a forearm coming down over his eyes. “How did we get onto this subject? I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this. You could be a spy, for all I know.” He peeked out from under his arm. “Lie down with me.”

  Her body tensed and sent her flying to her feet.

  “Not like that,” Nolan added with that maddening grin of his. “Didn’t I promise to be a gentleman? Just … lie beside me for a little while.”

  Gabby glanced at his warrior-like figure, his long black coat fanned out under him like wings, glints of silver peeking out from hidden sheaths. His faded canvas trousers had been tucked into a pair of tall Hessian boots. The temptation to crawl beside him and let him hold her was almost irresistible.

  But he was in favor of making gargoyles slaves to the Alliance. Disappointment was a sharp blade. Impossible to ignore.

  “Not a chance. We’ll fall asleep,” she said, her voice shaking. “My maid will find you here come sunrise and I’ll be ruined.”

  Nolan lugged himself up, his wicked smile even wider. “I’ve never ruined a lass before.”

  He was entirely too dangerous. Gabby moved away from the bed.

  “I don’t think this is going to work,” she said, and the words seemed to snuff out Nolan’s charm. He suddenly looked concerned. “The training. Here, in my room. The floors are too old and creaky. We’ll be heard.”

  He relaxed. “Then it’s the perfect place to train. Hunting demons is about stealth. You’ll acquire it all the better if we manage to practice right under your parents’ noses without being discovered.”

  She had backed up to the window while he’d been whispering. The wind leaked through the gaps and gusted against her nightgown. Nolan followed her. She could smell the wintry night air that clung to his coat.

  He wanted to kiss her. His eyes gave it away as they kept skittering down to her lips. He took her chin with his thumb and foref
inger and then cupped her scarred cheek. Nolan said nothing as he dragged his hand down to the curve of her jaw, along her neck, and to her exposed collarbone. His fingertips traveled along the lace top of her nightgown, his touch leaving a needful burn in its wake.

  But they still hadn’t spoken on the other important subject that had been keeping her awake.

  “I don’t want the surgery.”

  Nolan didn’t flinch. She wondered what it would take to surprise him.

  “You don’t need it,” he replied.

  “But the scars,” she started, determined to be honest. They were alone, in her bedroom, and she was in a nightdress and barefoot. If she couldn’t be honest now, when could she? “They’re ugly. Don’t tell me they’re not.”

  “I think you know me well enough to know I won’t lie to you,” he said, tucking a few strands of loose hair behind her ear. “Scars aren’t pretty. I’ve got plenty of them myself. What they are is a story, and each one is a record. Each one’s a victory. When I look at your scars I remember how close you came to being taken from me. And then I remember that you weren’t. That makes it my victory, in a roundabout way.” He leaned closer and rubbed the tip of his nose against hers. “And I think you also know me well enough to know how much I love my victories.”

  She did know him. At least, she’d thought she did. But she kept seeing the polished pewter darts and daggers. Nolan was a good man; she couldn’t imagine he would use them to drive gargoyles into submission. But even good men could be wrong.

  Gabby turned her cheek and reached for the latch. She swung the window open for him. “Be careful” was all she managed to say. Nothing clever or alluring. She wasn’t feeling either of those things just then.

  Nolan handled the snub with his usual pride and climbed onto the sill. He paused, as though he might say something more. But then he lowered himself, scraping lightly against the stones as he scaled the rectory before hopping to the ground and walking away.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  He probably should have gone back inside, straight into Gabby’s room, and punched Nolan Quinn in the jaw. Crouching near the stables, Grayson had seen Nolan cross the churchyard, pick his way up the side of the rectory, and slip inside his little sister’s room with all the stealth of a bandit.