Sparks of Light

by Janet B. Taylor

And I turned to stone, because I knew that rider. No one on this earth moved with the same graceful fluidity.

  “Bran.”

  Phoebe squeezed my arm and bounced on her toes beside me. “Told you he’d be here soon.”

  Collum muttered under his breath.

  A few yards from our little group, two enterprising newsboys darted out between a couple of the wagons and dropped to their knees, snatching up handfuls of the stray pickles that had rolled down the street toward us.

  “Dammit!” Collum cried, already running as he shouted. “Stop!”

  Collum bolted down the narrow alley between the stalled conveyances. Bran’s mouth dropped open when he saw the oblivious kids directly in his path. Collum reached the boys and grabbed the backs of their jackets to haul them aside. But the boys scratched and spat, unwilling to let the brawny stranger manhandle them away from their prize.

  It was too late anyway. The spirited horse had no intention of slowing. Collum and Bran had time to exchange one look before Collum yanked the boys against his chest and dropped to his knees, curling his body over them both.

  Bran’s gaze skipped left and right, but there was no way out. Only feet away, he jerked up hard on the reins. The gray responded with exquisite execution and soared up and over the huddled threesome.

  “My God,” Jonathan breathed. “Magnificent.”

  Phoebe gasped. “Whoa.”

  Bran shot a look over his shoulder. Collum rose, and while the newsboys dashed off, cursing him, Bran’s head dropped in obvious relief.

  Jonathan turned to Mac in alarm as Bran cleared the wagons and steered the horse toward us. “I say, is that man intending to run us down?”

  Mac chuckled. “Not us.” He jutted a chin in my direction as he and Jonathan scooted to the inner edge of the sidewalk. “Just her.”

  The dusky animal threw up its head, barely skidding to a halt before Bran was off its back. Eyes wild, cheeks red with cold and exertion, he gripped my shoulders.

  “Hope!” Panic hoarsened his voice. “Are you all right? Were you hurt? Why is there blood on your face? God’s sake, someone talk to me, please!”

  Shaking, my chin quivering like a kid who’d lost her mom at the mall, I looked up at him.

  “Hey, Bran,” I managed. “You’ve got some gunk on your cheek.”

  He stared down at me, his gaze unwavering as he swiped at his face and rubbed thumb and fingers together. “Hothouse tomatoes, if I’m not mistaken. Shame, really. Tomatoes are quite costly this time of year.”

  “Yeah. Shame.”

  My voice cracked, and with a moan, Bran crushed me to his chest. I could barely breathe, but this confinement I did not mind. Wool scratched against my cheek as I burrowed into him, breathing the spice of a cedar chest and damp wool and a citrusy bite of some nineteenth-century soap. But beneath all that lingered a hint of apple and the fresh, cold aroma of an icy forest.

  His heart was in jackhammer mode beneath my ear. Despite the cold and fog and passersby who clucked their tongues, I could have stayed that way for the rest of my life.

  When Bran eventually let go and stepped back, I became suddenly and acutely aware that beneath Collum’s coat I wore only a shabby smock. My hair looked—​as Nurse Hannah had once declared—​like cats had been clawing at it, and my frozen feet were caked in filth. I hadn’t bathed in two days and . . . Oh God, I needed a toothbrush.

  That slow grin appeared, and I wanted to sink beneath the crust of the earth. As an unfortunate blusher—​no graceful rose-tinged cheeks for this girl—​my face and neck heated up and I knew that now, adding to the entire Hope Walton wreckage, my face was turning into an appalling patchwork of red and white blotches.

  “Okay,” I said. “You can stop staring. And I know it’s bad, so you don’t have to lie.”

  “All right.” Bran’s head tilted as if giving my appearance a thorough inspection. He spoke very seriously, but his eyes were gleaming like sunlight through stained glass as he said, “Hmm. While I do admit you look a bit like something my dog once dragged from the shrubbery . . . I believe I can bear it.”

  He kissed me then, and if it had been dark, the stars would have fallen from the sky to shower us in their silvery light.

  Behind us, someone groaned. Pretty sure it was Collum.

  “So-o,” Phoebe said. “This is sweet and all, but could we maybe get out of the rain sometime today?”

  She was right. In the last few seconds the mist had thickened into a drizzle. Funny. I hadn’t even noticed.

  Collum gave Bran a guy chin bob. “Nice jump.”

  Bran nodded. “Thanks. And I appreciate the intervention. Murdering innocent children was definitely not on today’s agenda.”

  Mac clamped Bran’s shoulder as he and Jonathan hurried past, collars raised against the dampness. “Good show, son,” he said.

  Phoebe bussed Bran’s cheek and trotted after them. I started to follow, but my feet—​apparently having decided to abstain from any kind of forward motion—​stayed in place. I toppled forward.

  Bran caught me before I could face-plant into the pavement.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to coax my now thoroughly numb feet to just move already.

  “Begging your pardon, milady.”

  In a perfect imitation of a medieval nobleman, he scooped me up and deposited me on the horse’s back. I was shuddering now with wet and cold and okay, the fact that Bran was here.

  He leapt up behind me, unbuttoned his wool greatcoat, and wrapped it around me on top of Collum’s. I nestled against his chest, luxuriating in the combined warmth.

  “All things considered,” he said, “I generally find the horse a more expedient mode of transportation than crawling down the sidewalk.” As we trotted off through the slowly clearing traffic, I felt his chuckle rumble against my back. “Except when on a boneheaded mare who decides she is the one in charge.” Pressing against me, he called over my shoulder, “Run loose like that again, you mad beast, and it’s straight to the glue factory for you. And trust me when I say in this age that is no idle threat.”

  The horse turned her huge head and eyeballed him as if to say, Sure, dude.

  Bran sighed theatrically. “Women.”

  As we trotted through the streets of late Victorian New York City, Bran’s arm tight about my waist, I began to relax. Though I could no longer feel my feet and lower legs, the rest of my body grew toasty as he cuddled me close.

  The shakes subsided, and my blood began to race as his fingers traced along my waistline through the thin material.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly near my ear.

  “Hmm?”

  “I should have been there.”

  “Oh,” I muttered, sleepy. “’S oka—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “It is not. And I swear that if I hadn’t known you were in the best of hands I would never have . . . Well, it’s difficult to explain. You see, Gabriella and I had to . . .”

  I stiffened, and my body twitched away from his. The coat dropped to puddle at my waist.

  “Oh, no. No,” Bran hastened to add. “God, no! Don’t—​don’t pull away. It isn’t like that at all. Please, allow me to explain.”

  After a moment, I let him settle the coat around me again, though the blissful warmth had faded and I was now wide awake.

  But the truth was, I didn’t want to be that girl. Jealous. Spiteful. Despising the only person who watched Bran’s back when Celia was around. Gabriella had covered for him so he could spend time with me. And she hated Celia almost as much as I did. I shoved the green-eyed monster way, way down and let myself relax back against him.

  Bran started to speak, but had to pull up short to avoid running down three children, dressed to the eyeballs in expensive school uniforms, who darted out into the road before us. Their frazzled nanny trotted in their wake, pushing an old-fashioned perambulator. When I saw a baby’s chubby fists wave up from inside her snug conveyance, I was surprised at the sudden and fierce l
onging for my sister.

  I miss you, Ellie.

  I cleared the obstruction from my throat as Bran put his heels to the horse. “So,” I said. “What happened today?”

  What was more important than rescuing me?

  “We were preparing to leave for the institute when I received a message from Gabriella that said Blasi was looking for me. I didn’t want to leave, Hope. But Mac and Phoebe convinced me I had to maintain my cover. God, you don’t know how hard it was not to storm in there after you.”

  No, I thought. You don’t know how hard it was.

  “I had to pretend I’d been holed up in a . . . in a brothel,” he said. “It was the only thing I could say that Blasi would believe.”

  We rounded the corner. The carriage was parked just this side of the Waldorf near a service alley. As they spotted us, the others climbed out and gestured for us to turn in there. Bran trotted the gray swiftly toward a servant’s entrance and hopped down before the others reached us.

  “I want you to know that I’ve never been so afraid in my entire life,” Bran said, his eyes locked on mine. “I couldn’t survive it, Hope. If something had happened to you, I—” He shook his head, for once unable to summon the right words.

  From my perch on the horse’s back, I stared down into the face of the boy I’d loved since I was four years old. All his native cockiness had vanished, leaving only guilt and misery in its wake.

  “Please forgive me,” he whispered.

  In answer, I jumped down into his arms. He held me so tight. As the others bustled down the alley, I pulled back. Searching the blue and green eyes I knew so well, I decided to shove the last, niggling seeds of doubt far beneath the surface of my mind. I would allow them no light, no air. I would let them suffocate and fade forever from my mind.

  Whatever happened, he’s here now. We’re together, and that’s all that matters, right?

  Chapter 36

  OSCAR TSCHIRKY MET US AT THE DOOR.

  “Mr. MacPherson,” he cried, and quickly escorted us out of the rain and through a humid, bleach-scented laundry to the service elevator. “Oh, I cannot tell you of my relief upon receiving your message just now. I only pray you can forgive me for asking you to enter this way, instead of welcoming you in the lobby proper. I was, of course, only thinking of Miss Randolph’s comfort.”

  The Waldorf’s employees were so well trained, the young elevator operator didn’t so much as flinch when I entered wearing little more than a man’s coat. With my bare feet and sodden, stringy hair, I must’ve looked exactly like what I was, an escaped mental patient.

  “Oh, my dear Miss Randolph.” The little maître d’hôtel bowed low before me. “I was so grateful to hear of your recent, ah . . . liberation. Of course, the news of Dr. Carson’s criminalities had already begun to spread even before this morning’s events. Several of New York’s best have gone to retrieve their beloved family members, whom they entrusted into the doctor’s care in good faith.” Oscar Tschirky tsked. “I do hope the fiend is punished to the full extent of the law.”

  Bran wrapped an arm around me while Mac put in, “Please excuse Miss Randolph, as she’s feeling a bit peaked just the now.”

  Oscar nodded, obviously dying to know what exactly had occurred, but entirely too polite—​or good at his job—​to press any further.

  At the door to our suite, Bran tugged me a few feet away. “Listen,” he said. “You need to know that there’s something else going on. Something to do with Blasi. I don’t believe my mother or Flint was aware of it before they sent us, and I’ve no proof as of yet, but something feels off.”

  From my bedraggled hair to my stinging feet, exhaustion sang inside me. The hotel’s long, carpeted hallway seemed to expand and contract, and I was struck suddenly with the oddest certainty that we were all inside the belly of a great ship. Outside these walls, a mighty storm bore down upon us, intensifying with every second. Waves slammed the hull again and again and again, and I knew there was no way we’d ever outrun the deluge. I closed my eyes as the seemingly solid floor beneath my feet began to dip and sway.

  Waves and waves and more waves slammed into me on a rip tide of exhaustion.

  I keeled to the side, and Bran caught me, his brows low . . . worried . . . as I snorted. “My luck it’s the freaking Titanic.”

  “Hope?”

  I waved it off. “Nothing. Just tired.”

  “What are you talking about, Cameron?”

  My eyes shot open. Collum stood to one side, his voice raspy as he asked, “What feels off ?”

  To his credit, Bran didn’t hedge. “I’m not certain. Not yet anyway. All I know is that Blasi has been acting very strange. Very secretive.”

  “And?” Collum asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine at this point, mate.”

  An itchy, uncomfortable silence stretched between the three of us.

  It was Bran who had the willingness to break it. “I have to go,” he said. “As I’m supposedly debauching myself at some seedy underground gaming establishment in Hell’s Kitchen at the moment, it wouldn’t do for one of Blasi’s people to step off the lift on the wrong floor and see me going in or out of this suite. According to Oscar, no one knows or will know that you have returned. Still, I can’t imagine it will take much for word to spread.”

  “Yeah.” I glanced over at the open door where, bless Oscar’s heart, it looked as if half the Waldorf staff was lined up preparing to wait on us. “I bet the whole hotel will know soon enough.”

  Collum’s steady hazel eyes bored into Bran. “You’ll be attending the soiree tonight, I understand?”

  Bran nodded. “Yes. Blasi managed to secure an invitation, though I do not know how. He’s hoping to get Tesla alone.”

  “Then we’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t.”

  Collum stalked off into the suite. Shaking his head, Bran watched him go. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.” He looked down at me, smiling. “The old boy does grow on you, doesn’t he? Like a fungus. Or a particularly mealy wart.”

  A chuckle whuffed from my lungs. “He does.”

  Bran’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and I blinked as a wisp of memory floated up.

  After slipping his mother’s medallion over his head, the little boy had taken her hand. He never cried as they ran deeper and deeper into the forest. But his blue and green eyes had looked so sad. After hours in the cold, the little girl wanted to comfort him. When she saw a cluster of snowdrops near the log they huddled beside, she had plucked one and handed it to him. The little boy had gazed down at the delicate white blossom for a long time. And when he looked up at her, his eyes had crinkled at the corners as he gave her a tremulous smile.

  “Bran?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry about your mother.” My voice broke. “Your real mother. In the institute, I—​I remembered what happened to her. I remember when you took this from her.”

  I slid a finger beneath the leather cord and tugged it free of his shirtfront. The worn silver medallion felt warm against my palm as I clutched it tight. “I’m so sorry,” I repeated. “If my grandfather and I had never come to your village—”

  Bran tilted his forehead against mine. “Shh,” he whispered. “None of that matters now. And if you’d never come, I would be nothing but dust in some forest grave. Your bones would lie in some ancient churchyard. We never would have met. Don’t look back, Hope. Never wonder. That path is closed to us now. But this one is just beginning.”

  His breath warm against my lips, he whispered, “Now get some rest. I will see you tonight, no matter what. And Hope, promise me you’ll be careful, all right?”

  Trying to be flippant, and failing miserably, I said, “You too.”

  Bran’s fingers slid into my hair as he kissed me. It was a soft, sweet kiss that was over way too soon. Though not so soon that I didn’t feel the hunger waken and stretch inside me. Not so soon that I missed the growly moan that
rumbled through Bran’s chest where it pressed me against the wall. Panting, he cursed under his breath as his hands trailed down my arms. He pulled away. In his absence, cold rushed in. By the time my eyes fluttered open, he was gone.

  Inside our suite, a phalanx of servants waited to cater to our every need. The moment we entered I was draped in thick, warmed towels and whisked off to the elaborate bathroom. Before I knew it, I was stripped and immersed up to my chin in a clawfoot tub full of scented, steaming water.

  While one maid worked lather into my ratty hair, rinsing it with cool rose water, another worked on my scraped and battered feet.

  After helping me into an embroidered dressing gown and matching slippers, Lida, a round-faced, Prussian girl sat me in a low chair and combed sweet almond oil through my tangles. Lethargy dragged at me. In a half-fugue state, I drifted in and out as warmth from the fire soaked into my bones. Every once in a while, the image of Carson’s ice pick would glint over me and I would jerk upright, a scream trapped behind my teeth.

  On a stool behind me, the sturdy Lida hummed quietly as she combed and twisted, combed and twisted, drying my hair into gleaming ringlets that flowed down my back like twirls of obsidian. With a final murmur of satisfaction, she arranged the mass of it on top of my head and secured it with a few jeweled pins. She passed me a silvered hand mirror. “Does miss like?”

  Curls she’d artfully left unpinned brushed my cheek and tumbled down my back. I smiled, barely recognizing myself. “Yes, thank you, Lida.”

  She picked up my filthy hospital smock with thumb and forefinger. “Is miss to be wishing this is washed?”

  “No,” I told her. “Miss is to be wishing that is burned.”

  Lida nodded. “Yes, this I would be wishing too.”

  Mac had dismissed all the servants by the time I entered the living room.

  “How can you even think of not telling the man?” Phoebe, ensconced in a robe of heavy silk the color of aged ivory, perched sideways on the couch with her feet tucked beneath Doug’s thigh. But her face was hot with anger as she snapped at the freshly shaved Collum.