Transmuted (20 page)

And with it, that old, familiar demand for something to ease it.

Even acknowledging such a thing within the privacy of my own thoughts was enough to cause my salivary response to increase. I swallowed hard, but my throat began to ache.

I flattened one hand against the structure of my thick corset.

“Cherry.” Ashmore leaned across the narrow divide, his knees bumping my skirts, and covered my hand with his. It was such an intimate gesture that anyone else might have seen more than what it meant.

I was altogether too familiar with my tutor’s antics to think the same.

He worried, and he reminded.

The warmth of his hand seeped into mine, and with it, my resolve to behave as though naught was amiss faded. My mouth turned up into a rueful smile. “I have,” I said softly, a mite uncertainly, “performed in front of jeering crowds. I have hunted quarry in the blackest of night, and traversed the Underground without fear.”

My tutor listened in silence, his eyes lacking the judgment I expected to see in all else above the drift.

His hand, firm against mine, trapping my fingers against the plats of my corset, remained steady.

“And for all I have danced with the very Devil in the darkest places,” I said on a shaking laugh, “I still thirst for a draught to soften my approach.”

“Is it a fit of nerves,” Ashmore asked, “or does it revolve around your re-introduction to the Northampton family?”

I closed my eyes. “Is it any difference?”

“Perhaps.” He released my hand to lean forward, cupped my cheek. “You need no draught, minx, only resolution. This, I promise, you will receive.”

Could he promise that it would not hurt to do so?

Because I knew that he could not, that it likely would, I did not ask. Taking a deep breath, I nodded to indicate my effort and forced my attentions to the sights beyond the paned glass.

May sunshine had turned London above to glass and glitter, tracing the manicured foliage allowed to flourish in careful plots and causing the narrow walking bridges spanning each canal to gleam. It was almost one in the afternoon, a decent time for calling.

I could only hope that Lord Piers had arranged matters appropriately.

Chapter Seventeen

Like many young lords of a certain age and temperament, Lord Piers Everard Compton claimed for himself a home away from the estate he would one day inherit. Located in the well-heeled but less grand Eaton Square, it provided a measure of privacy for the young earl that he would not find in the much more exquisitely landed Belgravia.

That the upraised Eat on Square was remarkably close to Fanny’s Little Chelsea home, were one to discount the nature of the climb, was an irony I had not seen fit to think too hard about.

As our gondolier navigated us down the narrow lane that led to the earl’s private town home, I watched as we passed similar structures faced with white stucco. They were remarkably clean, pure as glass with the sun shining down. Only the passing clouds mottled the finery of the display.

When the gondola eased to a halt, and the bump that gently jarred us signified that it had come to a full stop, I flattened both hands against my bosom and took a slow, deliberate breath. “For all intentions, the show must start here.”

Ashmore peered outside the curtain. His humor, framed in the slant of his mouth, echoed in his voice as he noted, “It seems Compton has made sure of his part.”

I did not know exactly what this meant until the door to the coach atop the ferry opened, and Ashmore stepped out to offer a hand to me. As I ducked under the low frame, blinking rapidly to combat the suddenness of the daylight, two rows of servants—three each—sank into bow or curtsy.

In the center, his handsome features wreathed with wretchedly obvious enjoyment, Piers spread wide his arms and said, “My dearest sister, what a delight you are!”

To find myself engulfed in a hug by a man who looked overly much like his late brother was jarring enough. To have his voice low in my ear was the last straw. “I expect a full explanation once inside.”

Under the guise of returning his embrace, I seized the flesh of his side and pinched hard.

Stifling a laughing curse, he abruptly let me go.

“You must be quite exhausted,” Piers said, pitching his voice so that it could be heard. “Come, dear sister. Ah!” He caught himself ere he turned away, offering a hand to Ashmore, who watched in silence. “Ashmore, is it? I was beginning to doubt your existence.”

An outright falsehood, given they had already met—if passingly.

My tutor, once my guardian and much longer accustomed to the mores of this world than I, clasped Piers’s hand in his, offering a short bend as he did. “My Lord Compton.”

“Tosh, none of that,” Piers said lightly. “I get enough of it when I’m among the rest. While here, I implore you both to make yourself comfortable.”

“My dear brother, you are too kind,” I said, smearing the compliment with an overabundance of gratitude.

His eyes, so very much like his brother’s in color, narrowed. Like fog and jade, I always thought. Yet unlike his brother, Lord Piers betrayed a wealth of emotion within his. Severity was never his suit nor his calling, for all he was forced to take the mantle now.

“Come, come,” he said briskly. “There is refreshment waiting.” He led us between the servants, each who uttered a variation of welcome to the countess I did not feel like.

All wore a black band upon the arm, to match that sewn around Piers’s sleeve. The servants would do so until Piers ended his observance. While the constraints for men who mourned were much less stringent, he was as yet unmarried, and so likely mirrored whatever length of mourning as his mother engaged in.

If the marchioness held true to custom, she would be in second mourning now. Unlike myself, who was expected to observe deep mourning for a full year, she would keep to such observance for half of a year. Three months of second mourning was allowed her, wherein she would be expected to entertain callers and make the rounds to those who offered condolences whilst in isolation.

That meant a sharper obstacle, for while she could now visit—and, if she observed proper etiquette, attend social functions—she would see my antics as further affront to the memory of her firstborn.

A butler of thick black hair and a full mustache greeted us at the door. He took Ashmore’s outerwear and hat, and summarily dismissed himself when Piers seemed content to show us the way.

The home he had claimed for himself was not nearly so large as his father’s estate, but much larger than the Cheyne Walk home I had occupied. It was richly appointed, though with a strong masculine hand.

When he finally chose to marry, he would either make of this a place to install a mistress—and I thought of his current girl, Miss Adelaide Turner, who would no doubt earn a great deal of gossip were she to live here—or dispense of it entirely.

Piers commented on this facing or that fixture, speaking easily and with charming accord. Once installed in a parlor whose wealth and color put to shame my current abode, each of us furnished with tea, the façade the earl wore eased.

“There is no doubt there will be gossip on the morrow,” he said, sprawling into his chosen chair with none of the finesse expected of a marquess’s heir. “The question will be how much gossip you wish to accrue.”

Ashmore sipped from his cup, rolled the flavor on his tongue a moment, and then nodded as though satisfied. “You have taken to Oriental teas.”

The earl studied him. “I have.”

“I enjoy them, myself.” Ashmore did not sit, but stood nearest a wide window, framed with heavy drapes of deepest heliotrope. “Have you been gifted the opportunity to appraise the quality of tea made of Kashmiri saffron?”

The earl’s gaze turned to me, one sandy eyebrow arching in deliberate query. “Is he boasting,” Piers asked outright, “or merely curious?”

I spread my hands. “I am not so gifted in such matters to assume either,” I replied, just as forthright as the question demanded. “But I will say that Ashmore is a miraculous creature, fraught with surprises.”

Ashmore allowed this exchange without comment, taking his tea with all apparent interest.

Piers’s mouth hutched at one corner; a faint sign of deep amusement that was so like his brother’s. He braced his elbows upon his knees, cradling his saucer between his hands, and said to my tutor, “I have not, but I do enjoy the saffron tea that I have tasted.”

Ashmore nodded, as though Piers had said something remarkably profound, and said, “I shall ensure you get the opportunity, then. It is a dark shade, similar to these drapes, but with a reddish undercarriage that speaks of deeply rooted flavor.”

Rather much like both men in my company; deeply rooted something or other, anyhow. I leaned slightly towards our host. “He means to make of it a gift. Let him, he enjoys such things.”

“Then I will thank you for the offer,” Piers said graciously. “Yet why am I seized with the feeling that by doing so, I have committed to some great blunder?”

I chuckled, earning a half-smile from the earl. “Because you are wise in the ways of matters beyond Society,” I said ruefully, “and no doubt gifted with a bit of fog-sense of your own.”

“Ah! To business.” Piers set aside his saucer, returning it to the silver tray left for such a thing. The curl plaguing the front of his sand colored hair was the same as his brother’s, inherited from his father by all appearance. Like Ashmore, and most fashionable men, he tamed it with pomade. It seemed slightly longer than when I’d seen him last.

He was due for a trim.

Ashmore, for his part, continued to enjoy his tea, although he focused much of his attentions on us. We had agreed that I would do much of the talking. Lord Piers might not wholly forgive me for my role in his brother’s murder, but he had in turn betrayed my trust to the Veil.

I hoped that we maintained this cautious level of balance from now on.

To that end, I spun for him the tale of the last hours of the Midnight Menagerie, of the vanishing Ferrymen, and of the siblings who maintained one face—until now.

While I had assured Ashmore that I would be careful, I was very much aware of his focus upon me as I glibly avoided such topics as beastmen, alchemy and sorcery.

All Piers needed to know was that the Karakash Veil, in a final bid for power, had made his way above the drift.

A furrow formed between his eyebrows. “What does the Veil intend?”

“I am not sure,” I said, only partially a fib. While we could not be certain what the Veil’s end goal was, we knew
ours
: capture. I felt it best to leave Piers entirely out of everything else.

It was not that I didn’t trust him. Not so much, anyhow. More that I wished to save him from the burdens such knowledge forced upon one. He had already played witness to a battle of alchemy and sorcery, though I suspected he had been more than a little gone on drink or smoke at the time.

He had not gone out of his way to ask me of such things, and I had carefully avoided the threshold.

“However,” I added, because a strength of purpose was required, “we know that the Veil has allies among the peerage, and that he may be using them for protection and a source of wealth.”

“Wealth,” Ashmore interjected mildly, “that can be utilized in any number of ways.”

“A thin enough motive,” Piers noted.

I tipped my head. “You have seen for yourself what terrible things the Veil can cause to happen. How many of your peers do you wish to see caught in the Veil’s bloody games?”

“I could name a few,” Piers said without pause, but his smile edged into a dry slant as he leaned back into his chair. “All right, let me see if I’ve this all figured out. You, dearest sister, are intending to flaunt yourself around as bait for the Veil—or his chosen protectors,” he added when I opened my mouth.

I closed it, gave a nod.

“In so doing,” Piers continued with steady regard, “you expect my reputation to bear the brunt of these efforts.”

“Unlikely,” Ashmore said, earning him a raised eyebrow of such lordly disdain that I was reminded abruptly of the false challenge Ashmore had issued him in the past.

Lord Piers had been rather soused at the time, and on the verge of announcing my presence to the Menagerie. Ashmore’s challenge quite bemused the earl, but the result had lacked blood. I was grateful for such favors.

Ashmore did not flag beneath such prideful disdain. With some centuries underneath his standing, the young lord’s stare likely mattered not at all.

“No doubt you will earn a few sidelong comments,” Ashmore continued, setting his cup down into the saucer with nary a sound, “but it is far more likely that the lady will earn the worst of all Society offers.” His eyebrows, copper bright against his pale features, knotted. “What is your true concern?”

As Piers sat in silence, I linked my fingers upon my lap and said softly, “I believe I might know.” When the lord’s foggy green eyes turned to me, I offered what kindness I could in a smile. “Your fear your mother’s response.”

Pride was not a thing to which Lord Piers was easily suited. His shoulders slumped, deflated by my insight. “She has only just begun to visit again,” he admitted. “I am concerned for her health.”

“I have no intentions to face your mother,” I said. When his chin snapped up, argument clearly ready upon his lips, I asked more firmly, “Can you say for certain that were I to do so, it would solve anything at all?”

I did not often think of the marchioness as a woman of flesh and soul. She had never been anything more than nasty in temperament to me. That her son had married me had created a certain ceasefire in immediate surroundings, but she had never warmed—and I had not attempted to bridge that gap.

On the advent of his murder, all such hopes were lost.

As dreadful as I felt, I could not imagine what terrible grief the marchioness had endured. For this reason, I thought it best to avoid her at all costs.

Piers did not seem to agree. However, he bit off whatever it was he’d intended to say and substituted a sigh of overly dramatic hue. “Very well.”

I straightened, gratitude and relief shaping my smile. “You’re certain?”