Transmuted (23 page)

I was one of habit, and when that was stripped from me, of a fierce drive for independence.

I would not play at the cruel villainess for pleasure, as she did.

Up here, surrounded by the glitter of the gala, by the tittering of the girls as the master of the house came forth to ask them to step inside for a turn on the floor, it seemed surreal to picture the lady as I knew her.

All I had to do was close my eyes, and I recalled the sheer enjoyment upon her patrician features as she drew Black Lily’s blood, demanded that the sweet cry for her.

A few moments later, and my friend had lain, empty and still, upon the floor. Osoba had killed her, but it was this so-called lady that had hurt her first.

The fine hinges of my fan bent under my closed fist.

Ashmore’s hand came to rest at the small of my back. Though I could not feel the warmth of it through the many layers of my formal attire, I felt the pressure.

I trembled.

Lady Sarah Elizabeth’s smile was a forced thing, calculated to the extreme. “Walk with me, my lady.”

It was not so much a request, but because it would allow me the opportunity to shed this manic fury growing within me, I swept aside my voluminous skirts and obeyed.

I was aware of Ashmore and Piers walking some paces away, following with care, but not so close as to provide discourtesy.

Were we truly companions, the lady would take my arm in hers. She did not.

Nor was I inclined to allow it.

We moved further into the terrace, which was rather emptier than it had been. The cool air felt delightful upon my skin, and the faint shine of the moon above touched us with a hint of silver. Clouds masked it often, but the lanterns remained strong. They frolicked and danced over us in leaps of gold.

“You have some great gall,” said the lady amiably at my side.

I favored her with a smile of utter arrogance. “Yes, I do.”

She furnished upon me a delighted curve of her own. “I so despise you,” she said sweetly, voice to a murmur.

“Rest assured,” I replied in kind, “the feeling is mutual.”

“Excellent.” Her pace remained languorous as we approached the balustrade. “And what are your intentions?”

“Why, my lady,” I replied with such innocence that I watched her smile cramp. “Whatever do you mean?”

She halted by the rail, a wide stone affair that was common to such open terraces, and faced me direct. “Do not playact the virginal maiden with me,” she hissed, venom replacing spun sugar.

Despite myself, despite the presence of my escorts affording a close but courteous privacy, I shuddered under the force of it.

Whatever I had done to earn her rage, it seethed within her.

My snobbishness faded. If my stays would have allowed it, I suspect I might have slumped.

I was tired.

No, this was not strong enough a word. Truth be told, all at once, I was exhausted.

This world, this finely shaped prison with its elaborate bars and complex demands, was not mine. It drained me to walk the steps I had once known by heart.

I had no patience left for it. Perhaps, in the end, all such desire to belong had been buried with my late husband. Anything left was simply echoes—scars that came from lessons hard learned.

Would Fanny ever understand?

I would ask her. And if she did not, then I would ask her forgiveness.

As for this farce between Lady Sarah Elizabeth and I, there was no more patience left. I was done with it.

“What will you do?” I asked, losing all shred of warmth. The candor of my approach took her aback, for her eyebrows winged upward and her mouth pursed. “Will you claim that you saw me upon that stage,
Peashoot
?”

I’d learned the pet name from Lady Rutledge, who was companionable with the lady’s mother. My use of it earned me a vicious glower.

I afforded her no opportunity to retort.

Regardless of my intention—irrespective of all the years I’d spent behaving this way, speaking that way, avoiding such scenes because it was expected of me—I no longer cared.

None here was family. None save perhaps Lord Piers, and he was rake enough to walk between worlds without fault nor fail. Ashmore cared less for the Society he’d abandoned than I. He could easily travel again, should it come to it.

I cut the lady off with a simple flick of my blackgloved fingers. “Do tell them,” I said flatly, “and I shall ensure that more powerful sources know all about your behaviors below.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

I leaned forward so that it seemed to onlookers that we might be putting our heads together to gossip. She held her ground, pride paramount, and I lowered my voice to a malevolent whisper, “Try me, and I’ll ensure your fiancé’s family has you
examined
before the wedding day.”

It was, I knew, a cruel thing to say, for no matter what the state of her virginity was, an examination would be a terrible slight to her pride—and her family.

The unfortunate truth was that a single word from the right person would be enough to force the issue.

She blanched so white, she may as well have become a ghost on the spot.

I patted her cheek with a gentle hand. “Stay out of my affairs,” I warned quietly, “and I shall remain out of yours.”

“You are abominable.”

“Coming from such a fine lady as you,” I replied, “it means nothing. Tell me, have you offered shelter to the Karakash Veil?”

Though she could not hide her surprise, I did not read within it any measure of guilt. Not when it closed so swiftly into marble arrogance. “You will learn to fear me,” she warned.

I smiled with all the promise of violence my role of collector had taught me. “Your kitten claws are made of glass.” Because I could not help myself, I added sweetly, “Peashoot.”

Without further ado, I gave her my back. I felt no risk, for we were amidst the Society that so constrained us both. The difference between us being this: I was done with it.

I wanted nothing more to do with any of this gilt and glitter, and if that cost me everything, then so be it.

Ashmore and Piers watched as I strode towards them. A question appeared in the earl’s features, but Ashmore was not so ignorant.

A faint smile touched his mouth, warmed his eyes. Amusement, perhaps, and more than a bit of understanding.

Lady Sarah Elizabeth seized her skirts in both hands and left, with so much huff and bustle that I knew it as much for show as it was to escape.

Perhaps I frightened her.

Of course, this was
her
gala. And her pride was not so fragile that she would allow herself to flee when provoked.

These reminders came to me too late.

I had forgotten what it was to face an opponent whose vanity was as strong as the mind that allowed her to balance between two worlds—just as I had. To be a very pillar of Society, and at the same time, secretly partake of those violent indulgences that the Menagerie furnished.

She was not the sort to address her opponent without a plan.

I should have thought more of the lady.

Within a few minutes’ time, the doors closed one by one behind us. As three young men stepped out onto the terrace, clad in the finery of the peerage to which they belonged, I understood my oversight.

They were dressed as lords, and carried themselves as gentlemen, but to my surprise, each carried a small tube; slender in design, easily hidden in the inner pocket of a coat, and two pale in color and one near black.

Lordlings, yes, but more. Second and third sons, all three familiar of face but lacking in any name I’d cared to remember.

Society collectors.

And I the disgraced countess with notice on her head.

Bloody well done.

“Ashmore,” I called, warning rife in a name.

He turned on cue, and Piers, unaccustomed to raised voices at a function, asked, “What is—?”

A question gone unfinished. As two of the young men in their finery raised the tubes to their mouths, I twitched my skirts up and sprinted towards my friends.

Chapter Twenty

The terrace was large and well-lit, but compared to the brightness of the ballroom inside, it would look dark and dreary from the window. As it would be quite rude to be caught staring through glass when one’s company was in the other direction, I did not expect any to see the fuss kicked up outside.

Should someone come, what would they possibly do? So rigid were the strictures of Society that even whispering about a lady in widow’s weeds locked in combat with three gentlemen would be dismissed out of hand as wild fancy.

In this manner, such things worked in my favor.

Ashmore was faster than I, and closer to the earl; thank whatever gods of science or reason might be watching. No sooner had one of the gentlemen taken a deep breath than my tutor’s agile mind had drawn a conclusion and launched into action.

Piers, standing as tall and straight as any earl would, seemed intent to force answers from the young men, yet his attempt was suddenly aborted as Ashmore leapt in front of him.

Both men staggered, collapsed in a tangle of formal black attire and no small amount of uncivility strangled by impact with the stone.

For my part, I darted left, as quick as the heavy mass of my gown would allow.

At the same time, a peculiar sound dotted the terrace’s atmosphere—a sort of
pff, pff!
And then a third, belated from the rest.
Pff!

That each tube was pointed in our respective directions registered, but as I felt no pain anywhere, nor any other sign of attack, I did not pause in my assault.

Society collectors. Those young lords and sons of wealthy tradesmen who thought it quite a lark to be caught up in a fashionably dangerous occupation. Them what claimed collector above the drift were little more than frippery and show, partaking of such notices that targeted the well-heeled.

It was all for the distinction of collecting, but never so dangerous as to place them against true quarry. Matters of wealthy debt were common.

And, naturally, any bounty that might pit these conceited pretenders against a disgraced countess with a price upon her head.

Them what didn’t know my identity above and below the drift might be forgiven for assuming said countess to be harmless. These gentlemen were not prepared for my return volley.

That I ran for them was a thing they found amusing, for I saw two of the gentlemen exchange knowing grins and a bit of acknowledged arrogance—as though they expected this to be all too easy.

That I was forced to seize as many of my skirts during my sprint was awkward for me, and bemusing for them, for those same two appeared to hesitate at my suddenly flouncy approach.

“What the
hell
do you think you are doing?” thundered Lord Piers behind me, assuring me that he was quite well—and quite above the Society collectors that challenged us.

The third young man had kept his focus sharp on them, and he fumbled in his pocket for something. A weapon, perhaps.

As for the bloke nearest me, he was not so tall that I labored to reach his open jaw with the toe of my black slipper. My foot collided with the somewhat receded profile of his chin, his teeth came together with an echoing crack. The pale tube flew from his nerveless fingers, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

He did not fall to the flagstone so much as deflate.

The other gentlemen paused; very likely wondering between them what on earth a countess had just done to their mate. Unfortunately for them, that left the second of them within my grasp.

He earned a face full of my fan, closed for impact and snapped like a ruler on an errant pupil’s knuckles.

If a fan’s rap was designed for flirting, this young man in his black and white finery would never flirt again.

He splayed a gloved hand over the white welt left on his cheek, stumbling away from the other two with a shaken, “How dare you?”

“I bloody well dare,” I snapped back, and stepped over the fallen so-called collector. “Who sent you? Where’s your notice?”

The third, much calmer in demeanor, seemed the intellect of the operation. He noted Ashmore, regaining his feet, which was not so worrisome to them what did not know my tutor’s true nature. However, the full stature of the earl behind him bore too much standing to ignore.

And then there was me—a widow in voluminous black, heavy crape glittering under the light. Supposedly a mere countess, but who had quite dropped one of his party, and wounded the second.

I did not begrudge him the order to retreat. “Go,” he barked.

In the lantern light, his pomaded hair gleamed like a citrine caught in the sun. His eyes met mine briefly, but it was confusion I read within the blue depths, not anything brighter.

Seizing his mate by the arm, the Society collector tucked the tube he carried into his jacket and hauled the red-faced gentleman at his side towards the wide stone steps at the far end of the terrace.

“Halt,” Piers began, but I saw no reason to give chase. Neither did my tutor, who placed a hand upon the earl’s arm.

“Let them be,” I called back. My skirts rustled heavily as I turned to scrutinize the unconscious lordling at my feet. He had not fallen gracefully, his arms splayed and legs wide as though he were a caricature. His mouth hung open.

For a moment, I worried that he might have fallen too hard—or that I might have introduced him rather too forcefully to the boot, as it were.

Ashmore approached, rolling back his shoulder. A fine stain of grit dusted his elbow and one portion of his fine black coat. “You were rather quick,” he noted.

I accepted the compliment for what it was worth. “They were unprepared for a direct confrontation.” I would have crouched by the prostrate form of my would-be assailant, but quite frankly, the corset I wore squeezed all efforts out of me.

It was bad enough to labor to breathe in such restriction.

Piers, for his part, stalked with keen-eyed interest to the pale shape of the flute-like armament the man had wielded. “What the devil was that all about?”

Around us, the air remained quiet, only slightly tinted by the orchestral accompaniment caught behind the closed doors. It was only a matter of time before a too-warm guest wondered at the closing and resolved the predicament.