Hold Your Breath 02 - Unmasking the Marquess

by K. J. Jackson

  Killian’s hand paused for just a moment, and then he continued setting pieces, not looking up at her. “It is. It is actually a good thing it is being played with. It has been much too long since it was last used. My maternal great-grandfather carved the pieces, since he couldn’t afford to pay for a set. I never knew him. But my grandfather taught me to play using this set when I was very young.”

  “Your mother did not come from money?”

  “She did, actually. My grandfather was very poor as a child, but he made a fortune in shipping. Even with that, I still remember him telling me this was his most prized possession. He died, fortune lost, by the time I was five.”

  “Then I do apologize. I did not mean to impose on something so valuable to you. Perhaps you have another set in the house?”

  Killian shook his head. “No. I am glad you wanted to use it. I doubt my great-grandfather spent the time carving it to have it sit, gathering dust.” He looked at her directly, catching her gaze, his brown eyes flickering heat. “Your hands on it please me.”

  Reanna dropped her head at his words, heart speeding and throat instantly thick. This was a mistake.

  She fidgeted with her pieces, lining them to perfection in their boxes. She had completely underestimated what he could do to her with one look. With a few words.

  Remember the pain. Remember. She needed to not do this. Not be near him. Not now. Just as she opened her mouth to tell him, he interrupted her thoughts.

  “I am sorry I disappeared again for a few hours earlier. It took longer than I had intended. I wanted to settle some things with the orphans.”

  Reanna’s head snapped up. “What have you done?”

  He blinked hard, head cracking back at her accusing tone. “Everything I hope you would approve of. I had sent word to have Miss Melby and Miss Collier hire four more staff yesterday. I wanted to check on their progress. Along with giving them both a healthy increase in pay. Miss Melby is handling the household staff, and after my run-in with Miss Collier, she seemed like the likely person to be in charge of the children while you are away.”

  Reanna immediately regretted her snap. “Oh. Thank you. Miss Collier is the perfect person. I do not even like to tangle with her. But I am not sure if…I am trying to be very careful with the money allotted to me from the trust.”

  “I did not want you to worry about what was happening at the Brook Street home while you are here. Nor do I want you to ever have to worry about money for those children again. Whatever you need. Whatever they need, it will be made available. Without question.”

  Reanna eyed him. He truly did look like he was telling the truth. Maybe she could believe him about this one thing. She nodded, letting a slight smile break. “I did not intend on needing your assistance with them, but thank you. That does ease my mind.”

  “Good. Your move.”

  Sixteen moves in, Reanna set her bishop down. She looked up to see Killian eyeing her.

  “Tell me of your mother. I know she died young.”

  “She did. I was four.” Reanna shifted awkwardly. “I have very little recollection of her.”

  “Do you know anything about her? Do you look like her? Have her temperament?”

  “I only know what my aunt has told me. I understand my mother and aunt were great beauties in their day. So I am not sure how much I actually look like her.”

  Killian’s hand paused, rook in mid-air. He looked up at her sharply. “You are beautiful, Reanna. How do you not know that?”

  “No. I...” A blush crept up her neck as she shrugged. “I apologize for my lack of grace at the compliment. You are the first person to ever speak those words to me.”

  “I find that hard to believe. You never had a suitor in the country? Never a rogue stable hand trying to catch your eye?”

  Her head shook. “No. Father requested I mostly stay indoors. I never knew many people in Suffolk. A nanny. Then a governess and a tutor, and a few elderly neighbors, that was all.”

  “No one your own age?”

  “No. Even our staff was older.” A frown creased her face. “Was that odd? I never gave thought to it.”

  Killian’s eyebrows settled from their arches. “No odder than anything else, I suppose.”

  She nodded, her eyes falling. “Now I think…I know…I was just alone.”

  “I know the feeling.” He set his rook in place. “Your turn.”

  Reanna eyed the board. She had already worked five moves ahead, and as long as Killian kept playing to her strategy, she didn’t need to think. But she did need to stall. Best to make your opponent think you’re struggling, when possible, per Evans advice.

  She fingered a pawn she wasn’t about to move. “My aunt would never discuss it directly, but I gathered that although the Vestilun sisters were beautiful, there was very little money in the family to back their looks. My aunt alluded more than once to trading her beauty for money. She married an elderly viscount that died within two years. But I do not know about my mother’s circumstances when she married my father. Father never discussed my mother with me, and Aunt Maureen’s least favorite subject was my father.”

  “She does not care for him?”

  “An understatement. She hates him. Still, to this very day. Hates him with a passion. She looks like she wants to spit every time he is mentioned. But I do not know why. Just one more thing I do not understand.”

  “What else do you not understand?”

  Reanna moved her fingers from the pawn and picked up a knight, rubbing her thumb over the nub where a nose had existed long ago. She set it in place, then looked up at Killian, eyes slightly narrowing. “Sometimes, I honestly feel as there is a whole world around me that is happening, spinning around me, and I know nothing about it, much less how to navigate it.”

  Killian coughed, looking down and hastily grabbing a pawn. He plopped it down in the nearest square.

  “Before I came to London, I thought my life normal. I could not imagine much more. But then I got here, and all of this.” Her hand swept wide. “There is so much. And then Holloton, and then the Visper children, and then the castaway London children. All worlds I had never known existed. So much of it is cruel. I am stumbling through all of it, and it makes me wonder what else I cannot imagine.”

  “If you are stumbling, you are the most graceful stumbler I have every witnessed,” Killian said, his brown eyes sincere. “Your lack of knowledge is a gift. It lets you see things for what they are. You see things that are not right, and you want to fix them, Ree. No hesitation.”

  The blush returned to her cheeks.

  “It is actually quite remarkable. You are quite remarkable.”

  She looked down, avoiding his eyes. She had no idea how to accept Killian’s words. Looking at the board, she realized he had just made an oddball move with his pawn. She reworked her next moves.

  “What about your father? What is he like?”

  Reanna didn’t look up, concentrating on the board. “He did not spend much time at the country estate in Suffolk. He prescribed what I should learn, what I could read. He fed and sheltered me. We never spoke of much past my studies.”

  “Do you like him?”

  She paused, tilting her head up as she gave the thought serious consideration. “I guess. My life was lonely. I did not know it then, but I do now. He was never mean to me. But at the same time, he never regarded me that much. It is probably why I did not recognize—”

  She cut off her own words when she realized what she was about to say.

  “What did you not recognize?”

  She shook her head, eyes dropping from him.

  He sighed. “It is why you did not recognize that I did not regard you. We were together, but I did not regard you. Is that what you were going to say, Reanna?”

  She looked up, meeting his eyes. “It was rude, I should have held my tongue better.”

  “No. No you should not have. Your tongue is fine, Reanna. You were only speaking the truth, and I do not nee
d to be protected from the truth. I did that to you. It was my rudeness, not yours. I am sorry. For everything. Everything. From here to eternity, I will have no deeper regrets than what I did to you.”

  “Please, Killian, no more apologies. They only serve to bring forth in my mind events I would rather not dwell on. Past that is too painful.”

  For a moment, he looked like he was going to speak, but then he gave a slow nod, eyes landing on the board between them.

  The remainder of the game was played in silence.

  ~~~

  Reanna lifted the silk shawl from her shoulders, letting her arms feel the warmth of the sun’s rays as she scanned the gardens surrounding her. Perfectly tended high evergreen hedges lined the walk, dropping every few steps for views into rectangular beds of roses, hollyhocks, and peonies, many just starting to bloom.

  In a break from their usual daily schedule of chess in the afternoon, Killian had suggested she sit outside in his gardens. He had even promised to bring the chess set outside, so they could play in the fresh air.

  Her feet had been healing well, and she was down to a layer of thin gauze over the scabs after the last week and two days. Every one of those days, Killian had come to his room in the afternoon and played chess with her until darkness settled.

  Killian was good—just as good as Ruperton and Evans—and they had, thus far, split their matches evenly. After losing the first two matches to him, she had been surprised when she had finally beaten him. He seemed to take it as just a matter of course. He played very differently than Ruperton and Evans, and she was enjoying the challenge of learning his thought process and then applying it against him.

  He never demanded conversation from her. He happily answered questions and would entertain her with stories. And he would slip in questions about what she liked, what she thought, but only after Reanna initiated the conversations.

  But he never put any pressure on her for anything more. Never, except for the three words he left her with every night.

  “I want you.”

  Every night. Even on those nights that their games went into the wee hours, he would set the table aside, and move to sit next to her, his face close enough she could feel his breath on her skin. He would never touch her. Never ask for more.

  Just those three words.

  “I want you.”

  And then he would stand and leave. No pressure, just as he promised. He would tell her what he wanted her to know—and then leave.

  Every one of those nights, Reanna had to close her eyes to him, head down. Fighting with herself to not look at him. To not crack open the well deep inside where she knew she had hidden all her love for him. For who she thought he was.

  Her mind ruled her life now. Not her heart. She continually had to remind herself of that.

  Reanna leaned back on the bench, tilting her face to the early summer sun, as sweet honeysuckle danced along the light breeze to her nose. She hoped the kids were outside at the park by her aunt’s home on a beautiful day like this. A day where everything seemed right, even though much of it was wrong—and only because the sun was shining, brightening the soul.

  Killian was right about getting her out of the house. He had helped her hobble down the stairs and out to the wrought iron bench in the middle of the gardens, then had disappeared, leaving her to her thoughts. Within an hour outside, she felt like a new person.

  Mind thankfully blank for a change, she watched a snail make a slow trail across the cobblestones that lined the garden path. A familiar voice startled her, a voice she had missed terribly, and it came from around the corner of the evergreen hedge.

  “Lady Ana. Lady Ana.”

  “Thomas?” She started to stand, then sat back down. Her feet were still too tender for real steps. So she settled for sitting on the edge of the bench. “Thomas is that you?”

  He rounded the corner, full run, and spied her. Without hesitation or warning, he jumped into her lap. She didn’t even note the pang of pain the jolt sent through her feet. Thomas was worth any pain.

  She clasped her arms around him, squeezing him hard. “Thomas, my dearest, how I have missed you. Are you alone?”

  He pulled back from her grasp to look up at her face. “Just me, today, Lady Ana. We all miss you terribly, but Lord Southfork said only me today. Maybe others tomorrow. Not too much at once he says.”

  Killian rounded the corner at the last of Thomas’s words, and he stopped at the evergreen border, arms crossed along his chest, watching the scene.

  She looked over Thomas’s head to Killian, tears brimming on her lower lashes. “Thank you.” She said the words, but knew no sound made it past her choked throat.

  He gave one nod, smile on his face, then took a step back and disappeared around the corner of the hedge.

  Her eyes swung back to Thomas, and she couldn’t resist clamping him hard in her arms again. He took it for few seconds, hugging her back, and then wiggled free, settling himself on his knees next to her. He kept a hand on her arm, though, and Reanna squeezed it, not letting it go.

  “How are you? What have you been up to? How are your brothers and sisters and the others?”

  “Good. Learnin’. And the others have been learnin’ too—the old-enough ones, that is.”

  “Learning? Who is instructing you?”

  “Lord Southfork got us a tutor. Said we had some catchin’ up to do. He didn’t like the first one he got though, said that one went out-of-place with us, so he got us a new one. Which is good, ‘cause that first one sure liked how his ruler snapped.”

  Worry sank into Reanna’s stomach. “But the second tutor—is he all right? Is he being gentle with all of you?”

  “No ‘he.’ His lordship got us a lady instead. She’s nice.”

  “So Lord Southfork has met her and approved of her?”

  “Sure. He’s been watching. He’s been coming ‘round every day.”

  “He has? What does he do over there?”

  Thomas shrugged. “Talks to us, mostly.”

  “Do you mean to Miss Collier and the staff he hired?”

  “No. To us. Talks to them a bit, but mostly talks to us. Those that are old ‘nough. He says I would make a good captain.”

  “A captain?”

  “Yep. He says I’m a good leader. So I would make a good captain. Or solicitor. He said I would be good at that too, ‘cause I take care of the others so well and I’m smart. I like captain better, though. Sounds like more fun, being on a ship and all. He said I could choose what I wanted. But schoolin’ first, he said, either way.”

  Reanna nodded, mouth slightly ajar in wonder. “I think he is right. You would be wonderful doing either of those things. How has the learning been coming along?”

  “We have lots of ladies there now to help us, so I don’t have to do as much. His lordship said that should give me lots of time to get to the learning. I like the numbers so far, but not the writing so much.”

  Reanna smiled at Thomas. He looked ecstatic at getting the chance to properly learn. Hiring a tutor had been on her list to get done, but in all honesty, it would have been another month or two before she could have found one she could afford. Killian had already gone through two in a matter of days to find a proper fit.

  She took a deep breath, letting a good portion of her worry dissipate.

  “Tell me, what are all the children doing today?”

  “They went to the park. But I wanted to come here. You are much better than the park, Lady Ana.”

  Reanna couldn’t resist snatching him and giving him another hug. He exaggerated a sigh, then giggled—not seeming to mind too much.

  “All right, then. You must tell me everything that has been going on. I miss all of you so much. So I want every detail.”

  ~~~

  Killian rounded the corner of the evergreen hedge after sending Thomas in the carriage back to join his brothers and sisters. Reanna and Thomas had chattered for hours, their laughter floating up from the gardens and in
through the open window in the study.

  Eyes seeking her out, Killian took a deep breath, hoping to not be greeted by disappointment. He had hated to interrupt them, but he also knew Thomas’s younger siblings were somewhat lost without him around. Especially with Reanna not in residence.

  She turned to him just as he started down the path to her, the light in her eyes not waning when she saw him.

  She beamed. He would do this every day if it meant she would look at him like that.

  “Thank you. Thank you.” Her hand went over her chest. “I needed that. I miss them so much.”

  “Good. I was afraid it might just make you sad.”

  “Oh no, that made me happy—stop. Don’t step on the snail.”

  Killian looked at his feet. A hair in front of his right boot, a thumb-sized snail slugged a trail across the cobblestones to low mounded grass. Killian looked up at Reanna, smirk raising his cheek.

  “Thomas and I have been watching him. He has been working on crossing the chasm for some time. I do not wish him squashed. I want him to make it, as I rather hope he will succeed.”

  Killian stepped past the snail and sat next to Reanna on the bench, smirk still in place. “God-speed, then, little snail.”

  Reanna laughed and swatted his arm. It was just flicker of a movement, but it was her, voluntarily touching him without reservation. He would take it.

  “I would have brought Thomas by earlier, but I did not want him to see you hostage in bed, feet under the bandages.” Killian leaned back on the bench, his elbow resting along the top line of it. “He is the oldest little boy I have ever met, but he is still little, and I did not want him to be scared if he saw you unable to walk. I imagine he did not even notice your feet today.”

  Reanna shifted on the bench to look at him, head tilting, errant dark curls from her upsweep touching her shoulders. “No. You are right. He is unusually brave, but he can still get scared. I never would have made it to London without him.”

  Killian’s head shifted down, eyes trained on the snail.

  “I am sorry, I did not mean to mention—”