by A. G. Howard
Heat spread from my chest to my neck and cheeks. “Perception loses clarity when diluted by emotions. As proven by how I’ve been blinded to your more loathsome aspects up to now by my loneliness and grief.”
His jaw muscle clenched. “Is that so?”
“Augh! No, it isn’t,” I retracted, at a loss for how to salvage this. “I only embraced Lord Thornton because I wanted him to be you with such fervor, I convinced myself it was possible. That somehow, heaven had heard my plea. It was not his arms holding me. In my mind, it was yours.”
“Ah.” He turned his back, shoulders rigid, as if to resist knocking more things off my desk. “That makes it all the better. At last you’ve found an earthly vessel of me, to pour all of your unmet desires into. And he’s wealthy to boot!”
My heart twisted in agony. I sat on the bed’s edge clenching my temples, as exasperated as him. “Please stop. You saved me when I was a child. Then you came again on my darkest eve when Mama died, an answered prayer. To hear the sound of a voice. To have music in my soul night after night. And your laughter like rain. Heaven sent you. Each time I awake in the morning to find you sitting by the window, I’m assured of it. Why would I want an ordinary viscount, when I have my guardian angel with me always?”
Hawk looked down, engrossed in a keen study of his eternally muddied boots.
I slapped at the moisture gathering on my lashes. “Do you truly think me a scarlet strumpet who constantly craves the touch of any man?” I waited an interminable few minutes for a response. His silence pierced me through.
I stood, suppressing my tears, and worked at the necklace that draped my collar bones, determined to draw the locket out from beneath my corset and cast it across the room.
“Enough, Juliet.” Hawk turned on me in a blink and nudged my shoulder, knocking me off balance. I plummeted to the mattress on my back. He leaned over me, one knee propped on the bed’s edge. “Enough …” His voice softened to silk.
I imagined his shirt raking my collar bones as he propped his elbows on either side of my head, his chest mere inches from mine.
His handsome face—a pearl against the thick, dark strands which framed him like a mane—held intense concentration as his hand opened across my décolleté. The pressure upon my bodice flattened the locket until the hard, warm metal indented the flesh above my sternum. My breath hung.
“You are no strumpet,” he whispered, so close I could breathe him in if I but tried. “You’re the purest, most compassionate and courageous lady ever to grace the earth. At my behest, you faced your mother’s grave the day after you buried her. You nigh fell to your death descending an icy tree. And you braved a gypsy camp to steal a book. You were even willing to go to another town and face a castle full of snodderies for me. Dare say, not another person in this world would go to such lengths for a lost spirit.” His glowing gaze encompassed me, from my hair tangled in a knotted, itchy mass beneath my nape, to my bodice where his hand still wrinkled the fabric. “God grant me pardon for needing you so. You deserve more than I can ever offer in return.”
His outstretched fingers twitched—a shift in position that furrowed the fabric so it bunched around my breasts and ribcage like a passionate embrace. I gasped at the sensation.
I could feel him … or at least feel my clothes responding to his touch.
Mesmerized by my response, his gaze grew potent—determined. He moved the bodice again, maneuvering the wrinkles so they clustered around the curve of my right breast, pinching and binding with delicious friction.
I arched into the forbidden sensation. Wonder and fascination lit his face with every response he evoked.
“Can you feel me?” I asked, though it felt more like a plea.
His lashes lowered. “No. I feel only the fabric’s resistance—and even that is illusory.”
My eyes stung. How unfair, that he could give me such pleasure, yet glean none for himself.
“But Juliet, I delight in pleasing you.” His other hand tugged a trail of pleats across my ribs. “You, brimming with life, and me, the residue of a life gone by. I suppose, to never experience how you would feel beneath me is my penance for loving a lady beyond my station.”
My heart leapt. After all these years of silence, I had resigned I would never hear those words spoken by a man. “You … love me?”
“I would pledge it body and soul, but …” His forefinger glided through the back of my hand. “I suppose one has to take a phantom at his word.”
At a loss for any words of my own, I sorted through my myriad feelings. Did my heart belong to a ghost?
We shared all the characteristics of secret lovers.
Our worlds revolved around one another, yet we lived on separate planes. We planned for stolen interludes—relished any intimacy, however fleeting. Each morn, his was the first face I longed to see; and each night we were together in my dreams. His words both guided and cut me to bleed, yet his songs healed my soul.
And his kisses … purest magic.
He was kind, witty, and brave. More than anyone I’d ever met. A miracle, considering all he’d endured as a child.
Yes. I loved him—as a ghost, as a friend, and as a man. So much that it lit a fire in my heart.
Hawk eased to the mattress beside me and I turned toward him. His face held an arrested expression, as if stunned by my confession.
I would’ve thought you would know before me.
“How?” he answered my unspoken observance. “When you didn’t know yourself until this moment?” His brilliant smile could’ve blinded the sun.
I reached out, fingers passing through his face. He blurred like a reflection in a puddle. When he resolved to perfect, youthful clarity, I dropped my arm back to the bed.
Unlike his brother, Hawk would never age. If he somehow remained with me and I lived to become an old maid in the eyes of the world, he would be forever beautiful and young while I became wrinkled and frail. I shook my head, overwhelmed by the differences between us, differences I didn’t wish to confront.
In that moment, I missed the complacency of make-believe.
Hawk clucked his tongue. “Sweet Juliet, have you not heard of the China rose’s most fascinating characteristic? Surely your mother told you.” He coaxed me to lie on my back again. His face hovered over mine, hands denting the quilt on either side of my head. “Your kind is the only rose that grows more vivid and fair with each passing year. Ask any botanist.”
Caught between a smile and a sob, I yearned to welcome him into my blood.
His attention shifted to the locket beneath my neckline.
“Spurn the petal, Hawk. Kiss me … inhabit me.”
He moaned, a raw and hungry sound. Then our lips melted together, and our spirits fused once more.
December dawned—glistening with snow and ice—and our move to Worthington was well underway.
I had lied again to Uncle, allowing him to contact Lord Thornton of my interest in his marriage proposition. After the trial period, if the viscount or I decided we weren’t suited for marriage, he would give me a full six months to move out of the house that he would then own.
I wasn’t going to make any effort toward the relationship, and had already made peace with losing my parent’s estate—though it broke my heart, and deepened my disdain for the viscount. But my priorities had shifted. My ghost was more important than any material possession would ever be.
This trip was a means to an end. To allow Hawk a chance to meet his brother and to find out more about the gypsies who worked for Lord Larson, so he might face the monster who had tortured him in his past. Most importantly, to give him closure per his body’s final resting place.
“You don’t have to be a martyr for me.” Hawk said one afternoon as our departure crept ever closer. “I’ve decided I don’t wish to know. Any of it.”
He was lying. For although he was a spirit, he was first and foremost a man—plagued with the inability to come forward physically as a rival for my hand
.
“Hawk, my heart is devoted to you. This arrangement is fiction tantamount to any play. And it’s only for a month. Remember that.”
“Only one month,” Hawk grumbled. “It will be the longest four weeks of my death.”
During the final days, preparations consumed every waking hour. We spent mornings washing, folding, and packing, while afternoons entailed moving Enya’s family into my estate. This had been my idea, as it seemed absurd for them to remain in their drafty shack during winter when my house would be standing empty and unused.
It was also my way of thanking Enya for agreeing to come to the manor as my lady’s maid.
In the evenings, Uncle and I refined the merchandise which would soon line the shelves of our lavish boutique. As we worked side by side, he would glance over with a look of contentment and pride I hadn’t seen since Mama’s death. Guilt consumed me—knowing how temporal and false its foundation was.
After such frenetic days, everyone fell into their beds to let sleep swallow them. Everyone but me. For nights belonged to my ghost.
No longer satisfied to sit by the window while I slept, Hawk snuggled next to me atop my quilt. We conversed for hours—crafting intricate fairytales in lieu of the marriage and future we could never attain.
“Three children,” I teased, well knowing he wanted five. “Three and no more.”
“No. Two sons, and a trio of girls with their mother’s beauty and compassionate nature.”
“I’m afraid that will never do. For our sons will look and act just like their father. Strapping lads with laughing gray eyes who tease their sisters mercilessly. It would be difficult for any girl to maintain compassion while being tortured thusly.”
“Oh, ha. If the girls are anything like their mother, they’ll be well equipped to hold their own in a war of pranks.”
Our musings always ended on those bittersweet notes … Hawk and I imagining the lively capers of our children. Then laughing until we cried.
On cloudless nights, moonbeams reflected off the snow outside and filtered through the curtains to gild Hawk’s form in silver-blue light. His soft-glowing stare resonated within me, so intense and ardent, that I swore I could fall into him, skim his blood. Our emotional connection had never been stronger; but I coveted the physical touches deprived us … ached to feel his flesh against mine—man to woman. To experience sensations I had never known.
When my soul grew heavy with need, Hawk would hum a seductive tune while binding my gown to friction in sensual and forbidden places. He taught me the things I craved to learn of pleasure. Yet his ethereal body suffered in absence of the same.
I could not even offer the spirit-kisses that would grant him bliss. Fearing his flower might lose some petals in the move, I held tight to the fifteen we had left.
Departure arrived on the wings of a wintry Monday morning. Fog blotted the dawn to a dank, pinkish-gray while a moderate snowfall clustered the tree branches and frosted the grass.
Lord Thornton stepped into the parlor to greet us all. He wore a double breasted vest and pants the same metallic silver as Hawk’s petals. A tombstone shirt—such a bold lime green it burned the eyes—peered out from the buttoned neck of a bright red cape. In the few weeks since his visit to my home, he had grown a soft bur over his mouth and chin once more. The whiskers complimented his olive complexion with an austere sensuality, though I put such thoughts from my mind, feeling Hawk’s possessive glare on my back.
Before Lord Thornton retreated outside to help load the wagons, Hawk paused beside his brother, measuring himself against him. There they stood, head to head, the nobleman and his gypsy doppelganger, fascinating me with their likenesses and differences.
The viscount had brought his finest carriages teamed with high stepping strawberry roans, black-stockinged bays, and dappled mares to ensure our portage would be stylish and comfortable. Bundled in our coats and caps, Enya and I were led to an exquisite berline.
A lemon-yellow gilded the carriage’s frame and doors while its trim and spindled axels shimmered with a lilac hue. Complete with crimson velvet squabs, lilac damask curtains, and navy pin-striped paper on the interior compartment, it reminded me of the viscount’s own style … elegant and polished, yet jarring in its tonal severity.
Once Enya and I were settled inside with furs draped from our waists to our feet, Hawk took the seat across from me. His broad shoulders slumped, forearms propped on his thighs so the ruffled sleeve cuffs hung down to the top of his shins. He studied his muddy boots, quieter than I’d ever seen him.
I clutched his flower’s pot in my lap and silently bade him not to doubt my love. A mere viscount could not replace the man whose voice had illuminated two of the darkest events in my life.
Hawk attempted a smile.
I lifted the mourning veil to the back of my cap. Forehead pressed to the chilled window, I watched the six tigers load trunks onto a covered fourgon, tucking as much of our cargo within the servants’ seat box as possible to save room for the crates of potted plants used in Uncle’s dyes and my hats.
After fastening extra canvas sheets in place to shield the plants, the bird cages were loaded—with utmost care under Uncle’s supervision—into a long and spacious britschka converted to a sleeping carriage with raised sides and full coverage hood. The viscount wrapped furs around each cage, providing my pets added insulation for the six hour journey.
Upon completion of the loading, Uncle climbed into the berline with us.
The viscount headed the caravan, perched on the fourgon. With one flick of the reins, the horses tromped over my past and pressed hoof prints into the blank, white landscape of my future.
Chapter 14
Nothing is as burdensome as a secret.
French Proverbs
What should have been a half-day trip stretched into late afternoon due to snow-packed byways. We stopped several times so the tigers could warm up in the cabs and so the horses’ half-frozen hooves could be scraped clean with knives.
Toward the end of our journey, one of the strawberry roans lost a shoe. We pulled up to a tavern and stable—an ivy-wreathed oasis that cut through the fog along our route. The swinging sign above the door touted: Swindler’s Tavern. Lord Thornton, none too pleased with the location, stepped inside to ensure there were tables to spare for an early supper while the blacksmith tended the roan.
As we shivered on the porch, Uncle asked the coachmen about the safety of the establishment, but no one knew who owned it; for years the tavern had been run by an anonymous proprietor who’d never been seen. Before the viscount returned from inside, a crowd of rowdy men gathered behind and rushed us through the door.
Within the establishment’s stone walls, a mingling of licorice, maple, and fruit flavored smoke tightened my throat and blurred the lit sconces beneath each high, dusty window. I could no longer see anyone’s faces clearly. Were Hawk not at my side offering insights, I would have been lost once more to isolation.
The group of coachmen separated to search for the viscount as Uncle, Enya, and I waited next to the bar. Two drunken nobles seated on tall chairs cast furtive glances our way. Between smoking a cheroot and flirting with the serving matrons, one of them said something unreadable to Enya and me. My uncle looped both of our arms tight and Hawk stepped in front of me, his jaw clenched in rage.
Uncle said something back to the man who started to stand, unsteady in his drunkenness. My uncle was still at a disadvantage with his crotchety back. I searched in desperation for our coachmen.
I had just captured the eye of one and waved my arm when Hawk shoved Uncle’s would-be opponent. The man slipped backward and dropped his cheroot into his companion’s mug of ale. The glowing end stifled to a thin trail of muddied ash. Both men stepped up to Uncle, their faces twisted and red. I tried to intervene, but the taller one grabbed me around the waist and held me tight against him—a manhandling so intimate my skin crawled. His hot breath slithered down the nape of my neck, reeking of liqu
or.
Hawk shouted in anger, thrusting forward. At that moment, the viscount appeared, his silver ensemble and red cape cutting through the smoke like a bloodied blade. In a flash, he broke the man’s grasp on me. Using his cane, Lord Thornton knocked my attacker off balance and pinned him to the floor beneath the heel of his twisted foot. He yelled something unreadable and the veins in his temples bulged and throbbed—an echo of his violent outburst at the cemetery played out in full color.
Chaos erupted. The other drunk launched a fist at Uncle, but Hawk shoved his arm aside. A third nobleman jumped into the mix and a bar fight ensued with Hawk afloat between participants. The stench of spilled ale and testosterone-laced perspiration made me choke. Enya and I joined hands and ducked through the flailing fists and arms with Uncle in tow. Lord Thornton appeared and grasped my elbow. I strained my neck to find Hawk, but he was lost amidst the brawl. The viscount escorted us to some tables in the far corner where the smoke thinned to a soft haze.
My entire body trembled on the aftershock.
Lord Thornton knelt down and resituated my skewed hat—a gentle, attendant gesture. “Did that man hurt you?” he mouthed, his countenance dark with fury.
I shook my head, dazed. After assuring that Enya was all right, the viscount stepped away. Uncle informed me our host went out to the stables to see to his horse. A clammy sweat enveloped my skin and Uncle held my hand as I trembled. Hawk wandered to our table—hair tousled and shirt rumpled.
There you are. I scolded him. Do not frighten me like that again!
His head cocked. “That cad begged a lesson in civility, Juliet. No man speaks such filth to a lady—whether she can hear him or not.” Straightening his shirt lapels, he gestured to Uncle. “He was right to stand up for you. I just wanted to give him a little help.”
My heart swelled on a strange mix of emotions. To think my mud prince had defended Uncle Owen as well as my and Enya’s honor. But he wasn’t the only one who’d stepped in.