by A. G. Howard
His face opened on the childish rumination, an expression so rare and lovely I paused to admire him. “This gazebo was here so long ago? Did you not have it built after you acquired the land?”
“No. It’s always been here. Though I carved the symbol on the entrance and added the fountains.”
“So you came with your father? Merril? During your childhood? I thought he had just one job for Lord Larson. The one where he first met your mother, before you were born?” My stomach jittered to brook such an intimate subject. “Might I ask, how is it that he never ran across her again?”
The viscount’s face closed to me then, as if I’d drawn the shutters with my brazenness. He pressed a fist to his lips and I scolded myself, remembering how sweet and tender they felt upon mine. How could I have used my mouth for so insensitive a question?
He dropped his hand. “My father received a letter of Gitana’s death from Aunt Bitti upon my mother’s passing. Lord Larson commissioned him for a project thereafter. My father’s talents as a clockmaker were becoming well-renowned, and he was in high demand. Larson had a special request. He wanted a geometric clock to set upon the turret of his country house—wanted it to be the first of its kind, the largest one in all of England; he was willing to pay Father ten times what he made on his mantle clocks in a year. So we came throughout my youth to work upon it. Larson invited us only in the fall. Made it easier for my father to agree to it, as he knew the gypsies mined only in spring and summer, and he couldn’t bear to see them—to be reminded of her.”
I fought the tears burning my eyes. “You mean to say, you and your father missed Chaine by a mere turn of the season … year after year after year?” The profound tragedy pierced my heart. Hawk would be devastated.
I could never tell him.
The shadows had returned to the viscount’s eyes tenfold, so intense and dark they seemed to bleed from his pupils and infiltrate his irises. He took a place beside me on the bench, propped his elbows on his knees, and looked up into the sky.
We sat silent for a while, as I couldn’t bear to hurt him anymore than I already had with my questions. He harbored such obvious guilt for Hawk’s mistreatment. But try as I might, I had too many other questions that would not be contained.
“How did you ever find your brother?”
Lord Thornton faced me. “Our aunt. She confessed everything to Chaine after they escaped Tobar. Chaine was fourteen then. He spent the next five years searching for us with only our surname to go by. Unfortunately, we were abroad for some time for Father’s health. But finally, Chaine found us … just after Father and I settled at an inn in Worthington.”
I leaned forward, filled with hope. “So … Chaine and Merril met before his mind went lapse?” I thrilled at the thought of having something positive to relay to Hawk.
Jaw clenched, the viscount skated a finger along his thigh then let it drop to the bench between us so he could etch something in the dust of snow. I couldn’t watch his doodling for fear I’d miss the answer to my question.
“No. I met Chaine first, and was so shocked upon seeing him—upon our likenesses—we both worried how it would affect Father, for he had already begun to slip. My brother and I spent half a year getting to know one another in secret. I helped him refine his English and learn the ways of nobility, and he taught me Romani and how to read the lines of an open hand. By the seventh month, we came up with a plan to give Father the news. Together, we painted the portrait of mother hung upon the wall in your chamber—I filled in the colors, and Chaine used his memory for the lines, since I had never seen her. Then we brought the portrait up to Father’s room in the inn, to give him the gift from both of us. But Father’s vision and mind were already too frail. He at first thought the portrait was Gitana’s ghost, sitting before him. Then to see Chaine and me standing side by side next to it, he assumed the oddities a result of his failing eyes. Our voices, speaking to him simultaneously, well … it merely confused him more. He was convinced he was seeing double. He couldn’t grasp it. So, to keep from upsetting him, we hid the portrait and visited him one at a time from that day on. We allowed him to think we were the same man.”
The heaviness in my chest sucked the breath from me. “So … he never accepted he had another son?” I worded my question with care so the viscount wouldn’t know I had overheard the conversation in the sanatorium.
“Only by making up a fantasy in his head … that he had married Gitana and they had two boys. Me, and a younger one. A baby he had never seen. In his delusional world, Gitana and he were married for years. She broke their vows while pregnant with their second son, and went back to Tobar, leaving Father heartsick for his child. A child he wants me to find.”
I swiped away tears with my glove. Now Merril’s erratic rants made perfect sense. Why he called Gitana a whore … why he thought she would come back to him to reunite their family. Poor, confused old man. I wished to ask Lord Thornton why he didn’t sing to his father anymore, as it seemed it might make Merril happy. But I could never explain how I knew such a conversation had taken place.
Lord Thornton stopped drawing in the snow and caught my hand as I brought it away from my eyes. “Thank you for your compassion. I apologize for Father’s behavior the other afternoon. You need never go with me to see him again. I know how unsettling it must be for a lady, to visit a place like that.”
“But I should like to go with you again.”
His lips parted slightly, as if awed by my words. “Truly?”
I squeezed his hand. “Yes. I very much like your father. And I like spending time with you … no matter where we are.” I smiled at the confession. At last I could admit how fond I’d grown of his company over the past few days.
The man seated beside me was generous to his servants, a caring and responsible son to his father, a kind and witty friend to my uncle, and attentive to me. Even when busy with Manor or money matters, he always made time to take me on a pleasant walk through the gardens, or sit with me in the drawing room as I stitched a hat, or visit my boutique and help with the placement of our merchandise. Not to mention his wit and often profound insights. For the life of me, I could not see this great flaw of his—the erratic temper.
The viscount nudged his knee against mine to recoup my attention. I glanced up at him.
“I’m not sure what’s to become of Father now.” He studied our entwined fingers. “He appears to be getting worse.”
I’d seen the look he gave the nurse when the old man spoke of the “other” guest. Guilt resonated within me, a gnawing desire to tell Lord Thornton his father had indeed sensed someone there. That he wasn’t crazier than they thought. But I had no proof; and I would do nothing but risk losing Lord Thornton’s faith in my own sanity, unless I could convince Hawk to reveal himself to his brother. Perhaps their gypsy aunt would help me, if I could garner a moment with her.
I curled my fingers tighter around the viscount’s hand, tried to gather the courage to ask him why his aunt was here and if had to do with Larson, when he stood abruptly. “I think I hear Enya approaching.”
He limped to the other side of the gazebo and gathered his cane, dropping his hat to his head. Then he held out an open palm. “Even if I’m mistaken, we should seek her out. She mustn’t go beyond the walls of the Manor. The horses all know their way, even in the forest. But just on the other side of that rise …” He pointed to a hill in the distance covered with fir trees. “There are decaying mines and hidden springs she might fall into.”
I thought upon Hawk’s fallen corpse somewhere out there, alone and abandoned, and my heart ached.
As we started away from the bench, my hand in Lord Thornton’s, I glanced over my shoulder once more to imprint the image of the gazebo in my mind, so I might never forget my first tangible kiss—flesh to flesh.
From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the picture the viscount had etched in the snow on the seat, drawn with precision and mastery.
It was a bird wi
th a broken wing.
Chapter 29
Truth is the safest lie.
Jewish Proverb
“You are sure a sound came from up there?”
I stood on my bed in my chambers—half-dressed in my sleeveless chemise and pantlets—staring at the domed ceiling alongside Hawk. Once more, my ghost was insistent that the townhouse had an attic. I still thought it impossible, due to the shape of the plaster above us.
His eyes grew round and he pointed toward his mother’s painting. “I hear it again. Over there this time. Almost as if it’s in the wall.” Sunset had fallen, and being on the east side of the house, my room grew dark. To compensate, the servants always had a fire burning in my fireplace by mid-afternoon.
The flames reflected along the walls and Gitana’s image in shimmering slices of light. My attention caught on the symbol camouflaged in the portrait’s background. The symbol it shared with the gate. I rubbed the locket beneath my chemise’s low ruffled neck, considering what the viscount had told me of the rune’s meaning.
An entrance to another world.
Hawk frowned at me from our perch atop my bed. “Why did you not tell me he said that?”
“You were too busy throwing a tantrum over the kiss.”
Cursing at the reminder, Hawk drifted off the mattress and stationed himself at the portrait, waiting for me to join him.
When we had first returned from horseback riding, Enya came upstairs to help me freshen up and dress for lunch. During the meal, Lord Thornton apprised me we would take supper with the investors in the evening so he might make introductions. Until then, he suggested I spend the afternoon resting in my chambers.
I had undressed and laid my gown aside to keep it fresh for another wearing, but instead of resting, spent my solitude with Hawk, relaying all I’d learned at the gazebo. Everything slipped out … even those things I feared would hurt him most. Yet his grief over lost moments with his brother and father during his childhood paled when my mind tripped across Lord Thornton and me dancing. Hawk’s temper had burst asunder upon realizing we’d been unchaperoned and shared a kiss.
He had leapt onto my bed and stirred all the pillows into a frenzied tornado. Two came within inches of the fireplace, nigh bursting into flames. One hit Hawk’s flower. Thankfully, I’d locked it within its new terrarium, so it was unscathed.
I stepped over the pillow pile to join him beside the portrait, at a loss. “Why is it,” I asked, “that I can’t stay on the good side of one of you without offending the sensitivities of the other? Are twins always so competitive?”
Hawk glared at me. “How would I know, Juliet? I remember none of it. I respect the way he cares for Father, and the way he runs this estate. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand back and watch him seduce you. One wink of his lashes and you become a puddle of wantonness at his feet.”
I ran my hands along the right side of the frame to redirect the anger rising to rosy-hot swirls along my cheeks. “Oh, how I wish you were flesh.”
Hawk’s head dipped down, so close his breath would have singed the shell of my ear. “You do, aye? So you could stop using him as a substitute? So you could kiss me instead?”
“So I might slap your arrogant face.”
Hawk’s chin set to iron, and I worried he was about to unleash another room-rocking tantrum, when my fingers passed the left side of the frame where curved, metal ridges met the wall. I gasped.
“What?” he asked.
I blindly ran my fingertips across it again. “It … it feels like hinges.”
Our gazes met and all of his jealousy melted away. “A door. Brilliant, dear brother.”
It impressed me as well. Such a cunning ruse. The burnished frame curved out so wide it hid this anomaly from the wary eye. Only by feeling behind could someone find it.
“So …” Hawk backed up, expectant. “Where there’s a hinge, there’s an opening. Search for a latch on the right side. What are you waiting for?”
My heart knocked in my chest. What was I waiting for? Acknowledgement that all of this time, my chambers and privacy had been at the mercy of an old woman on the other side of a hidden doorway. I didn’t want to face such a truth. Everything I’d experienced with Lord Thornton today—the admiration and trust he stirred in me, my ever growing fondness of him—it all grew ugly and withered in light of such a secret.
To think he would allow his aunt to spy upon me …
Hawk clucked his tongue. “Are you listening to yourself? Do you forget how you spied upon her? Stole from her. From him as well?”
My cheeks flamed. “Under your advisement! Every dour turn my morality has taken has been by your urging. You were my mentor in sin and skullduggery.”
He grinned, a teasing lilt to his brow. “And an excellent student you’ve been.” His gaze ran from my sleeveless chemise to my pantlets, reminding me of our many moments of sensual play. “Come now, China Rose. All is fair in love and war. I love you to the point of pain … and though it is at war with your nature, you’ve proven yourself a fine accomplice in the arts of pleasure and plundering. Some part of you must like it, to be so adept at it.”
With his dark, unruly hair … his open shirt and furred chest … with the smug gleam blinking out at me from sable lashed eyes … he looked like the devil himself. I had to admit, I did like it. I liked it more than was good for me.
I flushed and glanced down at the floor.
“Ah, just once, to see that blush in the full glory of color,” he whispered. His fingers rippled the ruffle at my décolleté. “My brother has no idea how fortunate he is.”
Envy pocked the statement, and that familiar twinge I despised gnawed inside my belly. Unrequited, unanswerable desire for the boy who had saved me in the mines. For the man who had sought me till the day he died.
Before my despair could get the better of me, I ran my hand along the frame’s right side, nudging my fingertips into the space where it met the wall. I dug deep until a cold, metal clasp met my fingers about midway down. Pressing on it, I felt a click. The frame jerked out and slapped my leg, unable to fully open for my body.
“Move over,” Hawk pressed, but I stood firm, one hand banked on the wall.
A stench drifted through the cracked door—a combination of musk and old cabbage—carried in by a cold gush of air that stroked my upswept hair like a demon’s caress. Chill bumps raised across my underdressed flesh.
My pulse rocked at the base of my neck. Opening the door a smidge wider to spread some light upon the surroundings, I peered within. A stone staircase wound in circular ascension, disappearing as it rounded the domed obstruction of my room’s ceiling. Hawk had been right all along. The staircase led to a fourth floor on the other side of my chamber, in the part of the house where the ceilings became level.
I swallowed at the lump in my throat. “I should get dressed first.”
“No time,” Hawk answered. “Enya will be back soon to help you prepare for supper. I’ll take the lead, assure no one is there.”
I bit my lip and opened the door as wide as the frame would allow. “It’s quite dark.”
Of all the dreams I’d had of the afterlife, nothing compared to this. I sensed something foreboding about this darkness and the secrets it hid. Beyond even death. Something monumental waiting to be overturned, that could alter my world forever.
Hawk swept around me and stood on the first step, slathering the wall and stone with his soft, greenish glow. “I will be your light, China Rose.”
Staring at the winding steps, I craved the soothing comfort of contact, like when Lord Thornton took my hand in his.
Sadness bridged my and Hawk’s gazes. “I would give anything to hold your hand,” he murmured. “But you’re brave. And I’m here, in spirit.”
I took the first step, my bared feet chilled by the stone’s iciness. Each step grew easier. In short time, I found myself at the top of the flight with my ghost, standing outside a closed door. To keep myself from fleei
ng back down the stairs, I forced my hand to grasp the knob and turn it.
“It’s unlocked,” I said to my accomplice with surprise.
On Hawk’s instruction, I cracked it ajar first. He slipped inside and I watched through the slight opening as he drifted around the room to assure no one hid within.
“No one’s here. Come in.”
The door creaked, a stutter lost on my deaf ears that rushed through my palm. As I stepped in, a glut of spices accosted my nostrils along with the scent of dog.
The windowless room was cool but not cold, and larger than I had envisioned. It appeared to take up the ceiling space of two chambers. Another door sat diagonal from where I stood. Though closed, I suspected it led to a stairway and the grounds outside.
“Do you recognize these?” Hawk stood beside two trunks, lending soft light to our surroundings.
I nodded, running a finger along the trunks from his Aunt Bitti’s tent in the forest. Her pots and dishes littered the floor in one corner, along with her knife and three spoons made of bone. At another corner, her thin mattress waited, covered with the hand woven rug.
She even had the shallow three-legged iron pot, and judging by the coke within, used it as a fireplace still, just as in her tent. Why would Lord Thornton force her to live up here in such sparse conditions, when he lived below like a king?
“Not that I should wish to defend him in your eyes”—Hawk stood at the opposite wall where Bitti had piled her books—“but I imagine she chooses to live like this. She’s accustomed to moving constantly. For anyplace to feel too much like a home would be an aversion to her lifestyle.”
Hawk’s explanation rang true to the man I had come to believe Lord Thornton was.
Upon a table in the room’s midst, I found an opened book written in the gypsy tongue, and a small wooden box. I called Hawk over to translate the pages as I worked off the box’s lid.
“It’s some sort of summoning spell,” he said of the script. “For a fallen spirit tied to the earth.” He paused, his voice wavering. “A spirit which cannot leave.”