by Emily Larkin
Lady Ware hugged her back, and then pushed her gently but firmly out into the corridor. “Go help your Mr. Reid.”
Letty hesitated, and turned back to her. “What gift did you choose?”
“Not the one I’d planned on choosing.” Lady Ware smiled wryly. “Go! Your Mr. Reid will be waiting. I’ll tell you it all when I see you next.”
Chapter Forty
Reid was indeed waiting for her upstairs. “There you are!” he said, with a look of relief. “Are you ready to leave?”
“Yes.” Letty donned the traveling cloak Eliza held out. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp. I have two cousins?
Reid said in a low voice: “It worked. The pawn shop. Thank you for suggesting it.”
“Good.” Letty looked at the card Lady Ware had given her. I have two cousins.
Houghton came striding along the corridor. “Everything’s loaded, sir.”
“Excellent,” Reid said. “Let’s be off.”
Letty glanced up distractedly. “Gratuities?”
“Done,” Reid said.
The dazed distraction gave way to jittering exhilaration as Letty went down the stairs. She had two cousins. Flesh-and-blood cousins. Cousins who shared the same secret heritage. Cousins who’d met Baletongue and chosen Faerie gifts.
Excitement fizzed in her veins, bright and effervescent. This is how a champagne bottle feels when it’s shaken. The excitement mounted with each step that she took, pressure building inside her, bubbles hissing and humming and popping and sparkling. By the time they descended the final flight of stairs, she felt as if she might burst.
I have two cousins!
They stepped outside into cool, gray daylight. Two post-chaises-and-four were drawn up, ready to depart. Letty opened her hand again and looked at the card tucked into her gloved palm. Lady Anne Ware. Woodhuish House.
What gift had Lady Ware chosen? What gift had Countess Cosgrove chosen?
Belatedly, she realized Reid was talking to her. “I beg your pardon?”
Reid narrowed his eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I’m . . .” Letty looked down at the card again. Cousins. Excitement jittered and sparked in her blood. She felt it burning in her fingertips, felt it tingling on her scalp. It fermented in her chest in great iridescent bubbles. I shall burst if I don’t tell someone.
But there was no one she could tell.
She glanced at Reid—the strong cheekbones, the silver eyes, the stern jaw. Reid was a man who could keep secrets.
Letty turned impulsively to Houghton. “Sergeant, there’s something I need to tell Mr. Reid. Something of a . . . a confidential nature. Would you mind traveling with Eliza and Green for the first stage?”
Houghton’s eyebrows lifted. “Not at all.”
Reid’s eyebrows lifted, too, but he said nothing until they’d climbed into the post-chaise. “What’s this about?” he said, settling on the seat opposite her.
It was almost impossible to sit still. Euphoria bubbled in Letty’s veins. She opened her hand again and stared at Lady Ware’s card. Should she tell Reid?
“Letty? Is something wrong?”
The words brought her head up. Reid had used her first name, something he rarely did.
Letty took a deep breath, trying to quell the jittering, bubbling excitement. “If I tell you something, will you promise to never tell another soul?”
Reid’s eyebrows twitched upwards. “I promise.”
Letty had the sensation that she was poised on the edge of a precipice, arms outstretched. She inhaled another breath, felt a moment of trepidation—and took the leap. “You know my knack for hearing lies? Well, it’s not really a knack, it’s a gift from my godmother. My Faerie godmother.”
Reid’s expression didn’t alter dramatically, he made no exclamations of shock or disbelief, but Letty saw his blink of surprise, saw his shoulders stiffen, saw the muscles in his face tighten fractionally.
She plunged into explanation. “You see, a long time ago—centuries ago—one of my ancestors earned a Faerie gift, and it was passed down to her daughters, and to their daughters, and all the way down to my mother, and then to me, and on my twenty-first birthday, I was allowed to choose a gift, and I chose hearing truth from lies. I couldn’t hear lies before then. You could have told me as many lies as you wished and I wouldn’t have known!”
Reid was staring at her as if she’d transformed into one of the ostriches in the Royal Menagerie.
Letty hurried on. “It’s the same gift my mother had—she advised me to choose it because of the fortune—and I didn’t make my début until I was twenty-one because before then I’d have probably married the first fortune hunter I met because I couldn’t hear his lies.
“And today, at the hotel—not fifteen minutes ago!—I met someone else who has the same Faerie godmother, and . . . and I’ve never met anyone else, other than my mother, and it’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me!”
She tried to read Reid’s expression. Skepticism? Wariness? Worry? He thinks I’ve gone mad.
“I know it sounds preposterous and impossible, but think, Icarus! I can hear every single lie. That’s not natural! It’s not humanly possible! It has to be magic. There’s nothing else it could be!”
She thought Reid was leaning fractionally away from her, as if he’d found himself trapped in the post-chaise with a lunatic.
“Ask me about it, Icarus!” Letty said urgently. “What do you want to know?”
Reid stayed silent, eyeing her.
“Ask me!”
For a long, terrible moment she thought he’d ignore her request, and then he moistened his lips and said, “Why twenty-one?” She could tell from his voice—cool, carefully neutral—that he didn’t believe her.
Letty clutched Lady Ware’s card more tightly, aware of a sinking feeling in her stomach. This hadn’t been a good idea. Better to have stayed silent and burst than to have Reid look at her like this.
“There are three different lines of descent,” she told him. “One from each of my ancestor’s three daughters. The women in my line receive their gifts on their twenty-first birthdays. Lady W— The person I met today received hers on her twenty-fifth birthday, which means she’s descended from a different daughter.” The blood connection she and Lady Ware shared was extremely tenuous—but they were still cousins.
Reid’s expression was singularly dubious.
“What else would you like to know?” Letty asked desperately. “Ask me!”
“When did this ancestress of yours live?”
“About five hundred years ago.”
“Letty . . .” Reid took a deep breath. “If this woman lived so long ago, and if all her descendants have a Faerie godmother and can do magic, then hundreds of people across England would have magic. Thousands of people. There’d be magic everywhere.” His tone was very reasonable, patient, almost gentle. “Your mother was mistaken.” He didn’t say—You are mistaken—but it was clearly implied.
“It’s direct descent through daughters only,” Letty said, her desperation congealing into a sick sense of dismay. He isn’t going to believe. “My mother was the only daughter of an only daughter of an only daughter. That’s why I never knew of anyone else like me.”
Reid sighed. “Letty . . .”
“It’s true, Icarus! I’d show you Baletongue if I could, but she only comes once, and only then if we’re alone.”
Reid’s expression became even more skeptical.
Letty hurried on: “No one knows her real name, but we call her Baletongue because she’s so baleful. She’s got the blackest eyes and sharp teeth like an animal, and she’s quite dangerous! She tricked my great-great-grandmother into choosing a gift that sent her mad.”
Reid’s lips compressed fractionally.
He thinks I’m mad, too.
“What would make you believe?” Letty said urgently. “There must be something! Tell me a hundred things, and I’ll tell you whether they’re true or
not—and I’ll get them all right! Please, Icarus!”
A thought flickered across his face. She could almost read his mind. I’ll prove to her she’s wrong. He sat up slightly on the seat. “My grandfather was a twin.”
“True.”
“My father was a twin.”
“True.”
“Two of my brothers are twins.”
“False.”
“Ah . . . my oldest brother’s name is Zeus.”
“True.”
“His daughters are twins.”
“True.”
“Their names are Andromeda and Pandora.”
“Andromeda is true, Pandora is not.”
“Their names are Andromeda and Persephone.”
“True.”
The post-chaise rattled out of Exeter. For the next two miles Reid told truths and lies until Letty’s ears were ringing. Finally, he ran down to a halt.
They sat in silence, eyeing each other. Reid’s expression was deeply dubious.
Letty leaned forward. “It’s not natural, Icarus. Is it?”
Reid glanced away from her.
“It’s not natural!” Letty persisted. “Is it?”
He looked out of the window for a long moment, and then back at her. “No,” he admitted.
“But you don’t believe it’s magic, do you?”
Reid blew out a breath. “I don’t know.”
It was the truth, and better than an outright No.
“You don’t want to believe.”
Reid looked at her for several seconds. “No. I don’t.”
“Why not?”
He looked away, grimaced. “I don’t know. It’s . . .”
Letty waited silently.
“It’s challenging,” Reid said finally. “It turns everything I believe in upside down. I’m not comfortable with it.” He met her eyes.
Letty bit her lip, and looked down at the card she still held in her hand. It was limp and creased. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you. I was too excited.” Some secrets were meant to stay secrets. She had allowed euphoria to overwhelm good judgment.
“If . . .” Reid paused, and then continued slowly: “If what you have told me is true, and if you have just met another person like you . . . then I understand your excitement.”
Letty lifted her gaze. Contrition washed through her. He was happier not knowing. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and she changed her seat, sitting on the squab beside him and slipping her hand into his. “Forget I told you.”
Reid uttered a dry laugh. “Forget? Jesus, Letty, it’s not the sort of thing you forget!”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, even more contritely.
Reid sighed, and he pulled his hand free and put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. “It’s all right.”
Letty leaned her head against his shoulder, and listened to the very faint bell-note in his voice. It was all right, just.
Chapter Forty-One
Okehampton was a small market town on the edge of Dartmoor. The posting inn was unable to accommodate them, but the innkeeper directed them to another establishment, with dormer windows beneath a peaked roof, and ivy growing up its walls.
Reid pulled out his pocket watch, and gave a grimace.
“Go to the receiving office,” Letty told him. “I’ll see us settled in here.”
Reid glanced at her, but didn’t argue.
Letty watched him stride away, and then turned back to the landlord. “May I look over the rooms, please?”
The Sleeping Mallard was smaller and quieter than the posting inn, and enchantingly quaint. The largest bedchamber at the back had a pretty view over an orchard, some pastures, and a river. Adjoining it was a chamber clearly intended for a servant, small and plain and with a bare minimum of furniture.
Letty eyed the door that connected the two rooms. “My husband shall have the large bedchamber. I’ll take this one.”
“This one?” The landlord, a Mr. Thackeray, blinked his surprise. “But surely—”
“I like the view,” Letty said. And that door. She wouldn’t have to worry about not hearing Reid cry out.
The rooms allocated, Letty went down to the kitchen to discuss a dinner that wouldn’t require the use of a knife. Mrs. Thackeray was as amiable as her husband, and more than willing to modify her menu.
Reid returned twenty minutes later, with the news that Colonel Cuthbertson had a house on the moor. “A good five miles from here,” he said, shoving a hand through his hair. “We wouldn’t get there before dark.”
Letty heard this news with relief. “We’ll go first thing tomorrow morning. Is he at home?”
“Yes. His groom rides in to pick up the London papers each day.”
They ate a quiet dinner. No one spoke much. Letty had little appetite. The elation of meeting Lady Ware had totally evaporated; in its place was an anxious dread.
“Do you think it’s him?” she asked. “Cuthbertson?”
“Yes,” Reid said. “I don’t know why he’d do such a thing—but I think he did it.”
“Perhaps he told several people, like Dunlop.” Perhaps this wasn’t the end of Reid’s quest, but merely a way station.
“Cuthbertson? No.” Reid shook his head. So did Houghton. “He gossiped about women, not military matters.”
Letty looked down at her dessert. Then we are very close to the end.
She couldn’t have Reid; she knew that. She’d always known that. She was reconciled to it. But she wasn’t reconciled to Reid’s death.
How do I make him want to live?
She glanced at Reid, at Houghton. The two men seemed more alike than ever this evening, both monosyllabic, both grim.
Houghton understands the importance of tomorrow’s confrontation in a way that I can’t. He’d been at Vimeiro. He knew Cuthbertson. Perhaps he’d even known the murdered Portuguese scouts.
But there were things she understood that Houghton didn’t.
Letty listlessly stirred her curd pudding with her spoon. How do I make Reid want to live?
* * *
That night, Reid slept for less than two hours before falling into his nightmare. He woke fighting, not crying, to Letty’s great relief. The blind berserker madness, she could cope with; the terrible, anguished tears were almost unbearable. When you cry, Icarus Reid, I bleed.
She plumped up his pillows, straightened his bedclothes, gave him a quarter of a glass of brandy and a teaspoon of valerian, and settled herself cross-legged alongside him on the bed. Reid didn’t suggest that she leave. “When the Persian commanders and crews saw the Greeks thus boldly sailing . . .”
At the end of the first paragraph, she took his hand. Such a large, warm hand—such strong, lean fingers.
She found herself glancing frequently at him while she read. The single candle painted huge hollows beneath his cheekbones. Reid might be listening to her voice, but she didn’t think he was listening to the words. His gaze was distant, as if he looked at something beyond the bedchamber, and there was a small frown on his brow. He’s thinking of Cuthbertson. But when she paused to turn the page, Reid said, “Have you told anyone else what you told me today?”
Letty glanced at him, surprised. “About my Faerie godmother?”
Reid gave a tiny grimace, as if the words Faerie godmother pained him. “Yes.”
“No. Only you. Although . . .” She looked down at the page, not seeing the words. “I did tell Julia and Lucas about my gift. Sort of. I did what I did with you today—which was foolish, but it was the day after my birthday, and I was so excited . . .” Excited that she could finally make her début, excited about the prospect of love and courtship and marriage. More fool me. “But I didn’t tell them it was magic; I said it was a trick I’d learned. I didn’t quite dare to tell them about Baletongue. I thought they’d think I was mad.” She glanced at Reid. “Like you did.”
Reid said nothing, but the faint twitch of his lips was wry.
Letty waited a
moment, in case he had more questions, then looked back at the book.
“What magic can she do? This woman you met.”
Letty glanced at him again. “I don’t know. We spoke for less than five minutes.”
Reid frowned. “You’ll meet with her again?”
“Yes. As soon as I can.” Once you and I have parted and I’ve gone back to being Letitia Trentham.
“Is it safe?”
“Of course it is!” Letty managed a smile. “She’s not a monster, Icarus. She’s a perfectly respectable woman.”
Reid’s frown didn’t ease—but he didn’t ask her to reveal Lady Ware’s name.
Letty looked back at Herodotus, blinked several times, inhaled a steadying breath, and read another two pages. Reid’s eyelids drooped lower and lower. His hand grew limp in her clasp. If she read much more, he’d be asleep. Letty released his hand, closed the book, and placed it on the bedside table. “Icarus?”
Reid’s eyelids lifted. His eyes focused slowly on her face.
Letty gazed at him. She had the sense—even more strongly and urgently than she’d had last night—that time was running out. Tomorrow Reid’s quest ended. Tomorrow everything changed. Tomorrow she could find herself in a post-chaise heading back to London—without Icarus Reid. She had to grab what she could while she could, even if it meant being brazen and bold. Even if it meant saying and doing things she ought to be ashamed of. She felt Julia at her shoulder, heard her whisper in her ear: Do it, Tish.
“Icarus, please let me kiss you the way Tom was kissing Lucas.”
Reid winced, closing his eyes. “Letty . . .”
“Please, Icarus.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek lightly, kissed his jaw, kissed the corner of his mouth.
Reid sighed. He turned his head on the pillow, his mouth seeking hers. His hand found the back of her head, cupping it gently.
They kissed, their lips clinging together. I love you, Icarus Reid.
“Please,” Letty whispered against his mouth. “You don’t have to reciprocate. Honestly!”
“Yes, I do,” Reid said, and then he kissed her some more, and said, “All right.”
