His gaze dropped to her mouth, his own lips parting slightly. Her face lifted closer to his, her breathing coming quickly now. She wanted to know what it would feel like to put her lips against his, to press against him.
She whispered the truth, “The scent…it was following me.”
“Perhaps you should think twice about carrying the bait on your person next time.”
“No, I—”
Just then there was a terse knock on the door.
Melusine shot backward, rapping her shoulder blades on the headboard. Amusement once again lit Levi’s eyes. He did not move from his spot next to her on the bed, just turned as the door opened.
Sir Edwin Aldridge stepped over the threshold, his face darkening for a moment as he took in the two of them, then smoothing out to its usual unemotional perfection. “I thought I heard something. Miss Doré has finally awoken, then.”
“And it seems there’s been no damage to her sprightly personality,” said Levi, a half smile on his face.
At that Melusine found her acid tongue again. “Kindly go to hell, Mr. Cannon.”
By now Edwin was standing next to the bed, opposite Levi. He looked at Melusine’s arm and her exposed leg, his top teeth raking his bottom lip as he did so. She tugged at the blanket that had fallen to her knees and pulled it to her chest. “Your personality may have stayed intact,” Edwin said. “But it seems your perfect canvas of skin has been marred.” His mechanical fingers ran along her upper arm, leaving an icy trail in their wake. “Does it hurt?”
“Not really.” She didn’t want him to know how much the lacerations burned.
Edwin nodded, his gaze still stitched to her bare skin. “Well, then. The two of you can get directly back to work. You’ll need to in order to pay for my ruined submersible.”
Levi held up his hands. “That was collateral damage. With a beast that size—”
“I allowed you to use it. Not destroy it.”
“Touché.” Levi laughed. “However, Sir Aldridge, either you want the monster caught or you don’t. We agreed on a price.”
Edwin sighed and moved to the window to pull back the curtain. The setting sun was turning the sky a deep orange. “I entreat you to stay here tonight, Miss Doré. Mr. Cannon has already been staying in one of my guest suites, but as you know, I do not lack room.” He eyed the compress in the bowl. “I have automatons who are skilled in the art of healing. A messenger has already been sent to your boarding house, Miss Doré, so Miss Steed knows you will not be back there tonight.”
A protest hung from Melusine’s lips; she did not enjoy having decisions made for her. But the soft horsehair mattress and featherbed underneath her promised a good night’s sleep for once. Her own mattress was straw, and rather lumpy.
When she didn’t object, Edwin nodded. “I have a dinner engagement, but my staff will see to it you both are taken care of. You’ll be fed and I will make my carriage available to you. I want you to find that monster as soon as possible. It has ruined two of my schooners and now my submersible. I will tolerate it no longer.” He dropped the curtain, his blue eyes meeting Melusine’s. “I will not tolerate anything that has a hand in my or my business’ demise.”
He left the room as quickly as he entered it, an automaton rolling in directly afterward to help Melusine into clothes. Levi slipped away and Melusine took off the nightdress, allowing the clockwork maid to help her into a gown that must usually have gone on the automaton itself. It was a simple navy silk that fell just off the shoulder, the bodice laced tight. The skirt was massive, and Melusine refused to wear the steel-caged crinoline or the petticoats the maid offered her. Even though the room was warm and the gown heavy, Melusine’s body shook and shivered. She told herself it was due a draft of cool air on her skin, but part of her knew better.
Edwin suspected something. And he was watching her.
Dinner found her and Levi at opposite ends of a long table, china bright and shiny under the gas lighting. Automatons in expertly tied cravats served them roast beef and baby potatoes and the plumpest strawberries of the season for dessert. The only sounds were the scraping of forks on porcelain and the crackling of the fire. Edwin always had a fire going, even in the hottest of weather; Melusine had insisted that the servants let it die down while their master was not there, but the heat was long in leaving. Sweat beaded along her brow and between her breasts. The silken material of the gown clung to her skin where it hugged her upper arms. Thankfully, her shoulders were bare and every once in a while she felt a wisp of a breeze come through the open dining room window, cooling her off and easing the stinging of her scratches.
When they finished eating, she intended to go directly back to her room. But before she said goodnight, Levi grabbed her elbow and steered her to the parlor. He headed directly to Edwin’s liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of greenish liquid.
“Absinthe?” He poured the liquid into a glass then sat a lump of sugar on a slotted spoon. On the cabinet was a massive polished silver absinthe fountain; Levi turned the spigot and chilled water drizzled slowly over the sugar and into the glass. Once the drink had gone from a clear emerald to an opaque lime, he turned to her, eyebrows lifted. “Or is la fée verte too much for a delicate woman such as yourself?”
She held out a hand, the abraded skin of her arm tearing at the movement. “Bite your tongue, Mr. Cannon.”
She waited until he’d poured his own glass, then they both held up their drinks and nodded “cheers.” She swallowed the bitter herbal liquid, a delectable warmth slithering down her throat and into her belly.
The parlor was decorated in burgundy and gold—velvets and brocade as well as clockwork items that ticked and hummed on the mantelpiece. She’d been in here all too many times with Edwin. All too many times, she’d had to tell him she had no interest in men and marriage. That she had no interest in love. The room had always seemed small and confining, and she’d had difficulty breathing in here.
She glanced over at Levi and realized she still had difficulty breathing, but for entirely different reasons.
He settled onto the love seat and motioned for her to sit on the deep red velvet next to him. When she did not move, he said. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. You have my word.”
The silk of her skirt rustled as she moved towards him, the many folds of the fabric occupying all of the space between the two of them on the small couch. She shook her head. “How do women wear these contraptions daily?”
Levi chuckled. “And it seems as though you are missing some essentials; most gentlewomen in the latest fashions have difficulty sitting down.”
A small smile tugged at Melusine’s lips. “I admit I left the crinoline untouched. It looked more like a torture device than an item of women’s clothing.”
“Regardless, you look lovely.”
She glanced at him and his eyes caught hers. She no longer felt the pain in her arm and thigh. She no longer felt the oppressive heat of the fire. Instead, she felt weightless, as if she were floating. She took a sip of the absinthe, its intensity burning the back of her throat.
“We’ll need to get that Siren Eel soon. Who knows what or who it will attack next?” Levi lifted his glass and emptied it in one swallow. “The damned beast should have done its job eight years ago and fed on the sirens back then, when they filled the waters of Lake Michigan with their foul presence.”
Melusine stared down into her glass.
“My very first kill was a mermaid,” Levi said.
Her skin prickled and it was as if her lungs froze inside her. “Yes. I know…it was in all the broadsides at the time.”
The Cannons were already well known back then, their fortune from a budding airship company already making them one of the richest families in the country. That the youngest of the clan went off to the middle of the lake armed with nothing but several harpoons and a desire for revenge was nothing short of scandalous. That he succeeded in killing an entire pod of mermaids and coming out unscathed wa
s nothing short of miraculous.
“Amos, my brother, was hot-headed and full of himself and too mouthy for his own good. He was also Pa’s favorite. But I loved him. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone more. I was small when Ma passed away, and Pa…” He shook his head and walked back over to the bar to fill his glass once more to the top.
“Those creatures took him from me. But they kept him alive long enough to suffer. You know how they say you can hear the ocean when you put a shell to your ear?”
Melusine nodded, though he wasn’t even looking at her now. He was looking at the ghosts of his past.
“It works for the lake, too, though shells are much harder to find. But put one to your ear and you can hear the merpeople’s songs.” He sat back onto the loveseat. He rubbed a hand over his face and then through his hair. “I, however, heard my brother’s screams. That is, until they decided to eat his tongue.”
“Dear God.” Melusine tried to ignore the sharp pain piercing her chest. No wonder he hated fin people.
His voice lowered, its tone flattening as if he’d said or read his words a thousand times. “Human tongue is considered a delicacy for merpeople. Sirens find it not only succulent, but valuable; it adds to the power of their voices. And their voices are what lures one in. For a mermaid, man is her prey. Seduction and song are her weapons.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He looked at her now, his eyes caramel in the dim light. “What was your first monster, Miss Doré? What did you first slay?”
She looked away from him to the gathering night outside the window and let the truth fall from her mouth. “My father.”
Silence. Then, “Your father?”
“I told you before there is very little difference between monsters and men. My father was the worst kind of monster, the kind who preyed upon his own daughters.” Melusine’s voice trembled. “Ori and Tina were smaller, weaker than I. I couldn’t let him continue to hurt them.”
Louisiana had left its damp imprint upon her; no matter how many years she’d hidden away in Chicago, her history would not let her go. She wrapped her arms round her middle as she remembered.
The key to the bathing room hung from a white loop of ribbon upon a small hook on the wall. The night it all happened, Melusine wiggled the ornate silver stick in the door to make her mother think she was locking it. She slipped the white ribbon over her wrist. Then she waited.
Mother was well into her ritual, the water sliding over her naked body like a silver skin, when Melusine saw the doorknob turn. Her heart lodged into her throat, fear and anticipation nearly strangling her. Then the door swung open, and there was Father, his huge frame filling the doorway.
The candle flames flickered in the draft and Mother turned around. It was as if her face melted, horror pulling her skin and mouth down. “NO! You cannot see me!”
His eyes were lit with lust and he strode forward. “Oh, Pressine. You’re so beautiful—”
He suddenly stopped and took in a deep, raspy breath. He shook his head, as if trying to clear his vision. Mother’s hair thinned to a fine cap, her peachy cheeks now sallow, the bones in her body protruding and evident under a waxy casing of skin.
“Pressine?” Father narrowed his eyes at her. “What…why…who? You are not the woman I married. Where is she? Where is she, you old maid?”
“Ely…it’s me. I’m the same. Please, look. Look closer.” Tears ran down Mother’s face. She began to sob, her body shaking so that the water sloshed over the sides of the tub. “Please,” she begged him. “See me as beautiful.”
It was then that he took in the odd-smelling candles and herbs. Then that he saw the pile of bones, the bowls filled with animal toes and teeth. “No,” he said, under his breath. Then louder, “You’ve been tricking me! You’ve put a spell on me!”
He pushed at the copper tub with all his might and it tipped onto its side with Mother in it. She lay on the floor, her body flopping like a fish as she sobbed. Father brushed a long arm along the sideboard, knocking everything—from powders to animal parts to soap–onto the ground. Ori and Tina slid back into the darkness of the corners of the room, but Melusine stood in the middle, waiting.
Waiting for his eyes to bleed.
It didn’t happen.
Mother insisted Melusine clean up the bathing room while her sisters got ready for bed. Mother watched, her arms crossed, wearing her hatred like a fancy feathered hat. “I will come up with a new spell,” she spat. “He will love me again, you’ll see.”
“He’s a monster—”
Her mother’s palm stung against Melusine’s cheek. “Go upstairs. Leave me now. I will imagine a way for you to pay for your error.”
But when Melusine opened the door to the bedroom, he was there, hurting Tina and Ori.
A blistering rage erupted inside Melusine, the fire of it smothering any other emotion. The key from the bathing room was still on the ribbon around her wrist. She ran at Father, brandishing the key like a weapon. She drove the sharp end of it into his eyes.
He howled and rolled over, grabbing her and throwing her to the floor. His heavy body pinned her down. Father’s eyes had finally bled but it did not affect his strength. Melusine writhed around under his grip, trying to reach her nightstand for the knife she carried into the bayou when with her mother. It was just out of reach.
Then a delicate white hand took it off the stand for her, and set it into her palm. Tina. She stood shaking, her face wet with tears.
In one strong thrust, Melusine planted the blade into her father’s heart. He fell on top of her, the hilt of the knife digging into her shoulder. She shoved her father’s body off of her as her mother ran into the room. When his head rolled to the side, she could have sworn she’d seen a forked tongue slip out from between his lips.
Pressure on her arm shook her from her memories, and she blinked herself back to the present. Levi had inched closer to her, and was slowly rubbing the skin of her good arm, his thumb catching in the ribbons round her wrist.
The ribbon from the bathing room key…and the ribbons that she’d tied on after, one for each evil being she’d taken from this world. Then another for the moment of guilt that followed.
“When was the last time you saw your sisters?” Levi whispered.
Tears stung her eyes. “I was fifteen.”
“Then you came to Chicago.” He reached up and tucked a length of hair behind her ear, his fingers dropping down and caressing the line of her jaw down to her chin. “And changed everything.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The moment you set foot here, the city lit up.”
“That may have been when they installed the streetlights.” Melusine kept her voice light, but her heart had picked up pace.
“Perhaps,” Levi agreed. “Or, it may have been that a young girl started livening up the Chicago streets with spitfire and charm.”
“Aha. And you expect me to believe the Great Levi Cannon took more than a passing glance at that homeless guttersnipe?”
“I’d been working up the courage to talk to her without getting shot right when Amos…” He let his words trail off then traced her lips with his forefinger, his face close enough to hers that she could smell the absinthe on his breath. “Over the years, I wondered if she would have ever paid me any mind.”
“She noticed when you left town. She missed that handsome boy with the crooked smile who left too many coins in her basket.”
Levi was now sweeping his lips lightly against hers, barely making contact. “She missed the boy or the coins?”
“Both. But when they met up from time to time years later, the boy couldn’t stand the sight of her—”
He rested his forehead against hers and looked directly into her eyes. “On the contrary. That boy drank in the sight of her. But she was angry at the world…not to mention rumor had it she was being courted by Sir Edwin Aldridge. The boy had to protect his heart somehow.”
His words poured over her
like a deluge of ice water. The injury had to have been to her head as well, for there was no other explanation as to why she found herself getting affectionate with Levi Cannon. She abruptly stood, nearly knocking Levi to the floor. “Sir Aldridge and I are not courting.”
“Of course. I would never have—”
She hurried to the door, panic making her voice break. “And no man, no man will ever have my heart!”
But as she ran upstairs to the guest room, she worried it was too late.
Chapter Six
The clocks in the bedroom all rang at exactly the same moment. Ten o’clock. Melusine ripped the gown she was wearing in her haste to get out of it. Her own clothes were drying on a screen in front of the fire. She slipped the corset back on, nearly burning herself on the metal lining. Her trousers weren’t salvageable—ripped to shreds, they reminded her of the clothing she’d worn that first year she was in Chicago.
The steel-caged crinoline the automaton maid had wanted to put on her stood like an enormous bell next to the large armchair. But the maid had also left a pile of petticoats, and now Melusine grabbed a ruffled one and pulled it to her waist. It would be too long to run in. She searched wardrobe shelves and yanked open dresser drawers until she found a long pair of scissors. She cut away two of the six tiers of ruffles so the makeshift skirt came to her knees. Her boots weren’t completely dry—water still wet the toes and arch—but she laced them up and headed to the bedroom door, already wondering if she could beg a few coins off of Edwin’s staff to pay for a coach home. She just needed to find an employee that was human.
She opened the door and stood face to face with Levi. His hair was in disarray, as if he’d been running his hands through it, and there were slight shadows under his eyes. A thread tightened in her chest, making her ribs ache.
“Have I offended you somehow, Melusine? I certainly—”
She pushed past him and started down the stairs. “Excuse me, Mr. Cannon. I must be leaving now.”
Falling in Deep Collection Box Set Page 109