Gilded: The St. Croix Chronicles

by Cooper, Karina

  “I mean,” she was already asking as my thoughts drifted, “have you considered what would come of your other life if you are wed?”

  “Of course I have,” I snapped. The retort escaped before I realized another figure now filled the parlor entry in the corner of my vision. I started guiltily; too late.

  “That life,” Fanny said determinedly, closing the distance between us and cupping my cheek in one hand, “will be over, and soon.” Her gaze fell on Zylphia, haughty as only Society could be to a servant. “And I’ll thank you to get back to your duties.”

  “Yes, madam,” Zylphia murmured, bobbing a partially formed curtsy. But the lingering question in her vivid eyes haunted me as she vanished into the kitchens, making for the washing tubs in the basement below.

  My fingers twitched. It weighed on me, how much I wanted a draught to soothe my fraying nerves.

  Fanny patted my arm and said cheerfully, “Fret not, my dove. All will proceed smoothly, you’ll see. Nerves are expected.”

  “Expected of what?” I demanded.

  My chaperone would not engage me. Fuming, I watched her as she walked away, as determinedly ignorant of my attempted unrest as a satisfied cat upon her own territory.

  If she ever suffered a drastic change in her lot, Fanny would make a disastrous fortune-teller. Her words of comfort turned instead to a taunt that came on a harmonic warning.

  It was only just after teatime. Seated in the parlor, Fanny knitted quietly in her favored armchair, the fire sparking brightly beside her. She’d complained of chill, and I knew we’d the house funds to maintain a steady supply of coal for the burning, so I kept the flame stoked for her.

  The tea cart was only just cleared away and a book cradled in my hands when the mellifluous chime of my doorbell sang sweetly. I didn’t start; a credit I gave to the mildly entertaining book I idly read. It had been at least two hours since any caller, but I’d already developed the knack for ignoring the sound.

  A shame, for I loved that doorbell. According to Fanny, my father designed the system—a complex pulley to trigger a set of carefully balanced gears and strikers against a row of delicate bells inset in the attic—and had it installed to please my mother.

  They say she smiled each time a caller came, for there were days when the pretty melody would not be heard at all.

  My mother had lost much favor when she married Abraham St. Croix.

  I envied her, sometimes. Silence, I was learning, was becoming an extremely valuable commodity.

  Step-thunk, step-thunk. Booth’s uneven footsteps traveled down the hall. I turned another page, a silly bit of Gothic fluff from my own collection, and did not look up as he passed through the door.

  He cleared his throat. “Her Ladyship,” he intoned, not a single syllable out of place, “the Marchioness Northampton.”

  Fanny’s gasp emphasized the sudden energy in both of us as we both surged to our feet. The book tumbled from my hands, fell open to the carpet in a flutter of pages. “My lady,” I said, propriety at least hammered that far within me, “welcome to my home.”

  The marchioness did not look impressed. Neither in the cursory glance she gave my not inelegant parlor, nor in the following scrutiny leveled upon me.

  I couldn’t entirely blame her. Lady Northampton was a fashionable, graceful creature, no matter where she chose to go. Whether in taffeta and silk in a ballroom or, like now, wearing sage green linen trimmed and patterned by lovely darker green velvet, her winter coat firmly in place and a matching top hat perched jauntily upon her upswept hair, she looked the very picture of Society at its finest.

  A right thing, for the Marchioness Northampton had always been looked to in fashionable decree.

  Her gaze through the dark green netting draped from the brim of her riding hat was not kind. Nor did it allow me even a shred of uncertainty as to her thoughts on her son’s proposal.

  Suddenly, I felt myself to be a very small, insignificant thing indeed.

  “I will take up precious little of your”—her gaze dropped to the book upon the floor, contempt clear within—“obviously valuable time, Miss St. Croix.”

  Dry mouthed, I nudged the book under my settee with one foot, even as I gestured to my now-vacant seat with a—dear heaven, I only just noticed—bare hand.

  “Please, take your leisure, my lady,” I managed, the very picture of polite, save my forgotten gloves. I must have taken them off for tea and left them draped somewhere. In this room? Where? If they were left in sight, that would only take the prize, wouldn’t it?

  “Would you care for a cup, my lady?” asked Fanny, setting her knitting down in her also abandoned chair. Her expression was oddly set; one part uncertainty, one part determination. Every bit the very picture of model civility.

  “No,” the marchioness said, flicking that icy stare to my chaperone. “You may leave us, Mrs. Fortescue.”

  There was no argument to be brooked in that clear dismissal.

  When Fanny looked at me, one gloved hand curled in her rust-colored skirt, I nodded slightly. This would be worth hearing, I was sure, even as my stomach clenched in nervous anticipation.

  I thought I knew the subject she would broach.

  Her son must have made clear his intent to his lady mother, as well as my own chaperone. With a proposal extended, the fate of her family now rested on me. No gentleman could back out of an engagement without terrible scandal to the lady involved, and I knew enough of the earl that I was sure he’d never do so, even if he did come to his senses.

  Was that why his lady mother was here? To convince me to turn him down?

  Did she know I already had?

  The marchioness circled the settee, inspecting it with obvious disdain before sitting. As Fanny took her leave—I would wager my next few grains of opium that she would not go far, and rather expected Mrs. Booth to do the same—I took the seat beside the marchioness, smoothing my green plaid skirt. Today, I’d paired it with a simple brown silk blouse and matching linen jacket. I thought I looked fetching this morning.

  Now, I was positive I looked more the dowdy spinster beside the marchioness’s fresh glow.

  “I shall make short work of my intent,” Lady Northampton said, studying me with abject dislike. She was too polite to ever say so, but I knew the signs. Had always known them. “I am prepared to sign over to you a moderate sum, Miss St. Croix.”

  And just like that, I was shocked into stillness. I stared at her, searched her perfectly arranged expression for any clue that she jested, yet saw only the same iron-clad determination that so shaped her son’s features.

  When my silence did not give her what she expected, her eyes narrowed.

  I found my voice. “My estate,” I said quietly, when all I wanted to do was find that bloody Gothic book and fling it at her, “is in excellent health, my lady. Money is the very least of my concerns.”

  “I see.” The entire frigid north seemed weighted in her voice. Her chin rose, back ramrod straight. “What will it take? Name your price, I am capable of affording a princely sum.”

  Crass. And she knew it, the marchioness did. Yet she persevered. As mounting anger overcame my shock, my hands laced tightly in my lap and I could not tell if the heat in my cheeks came from fury or from the fireplace. “What is the result of this princely sum?” I inquired tightly.

  There, a flicker of satisfaction. And of outright condescension. She expected me to take her offer, the money-grubbing unfortunate soul that I was. “You will inform my son that you will not, nor will you ever, marry him. Today,” she clarified flatly, “now, via letter that you shall give to me.”

  I swallowed hard. My fingers trembled, I locked them tightly together. Mirroring her rigid pose—because anything less would reveal the turmoil juddering through me—I met her eye to eye and asked without art or malice, “Why do you hate me so?”

  She blinked those so-familiar eyes. Once. Surprise?

  Her nose turned up. “Breeding always tells, Miss St.
Croix.”

  My mother.

  Lady Rutledge had once informed me that the marchioness retained no love for Josephine St. Croix.

  And yet again, I found myself painted with my mother’s colors.

  My jaw set. A surge of anger—of hurt, if I were to be honest—replaced my fear. “I see.” Clearly, whatever malice she carried for my mother now fell to me.

  I would have no part of it.

  Or, rather, I would do my part well. “I must disagree,” I replied, rising. The words came from me without conscious approval; I also made no effort to halt them, for the venom sprung full-formed in my heart.

  “Oh?”

  I stepped back, as clear a dismissal as I could suggest in posturing alone, and explained evenly, “Your son is kind and honorable. He is, as you well know, the very model of civility.” I smiled. It was mostly teeth, I know. “In short, Your Ladyship, he is nothing like you.”

  Had I slapped her outright, I would never achieve the same expression. Shock, I read, as if I were the first to refuse to be cowed. Or perhaps she had not expected spirit from a St. Croix. Foolish woman.

  She would get that and more.

  “I am very busy, and although I had not delivered a formal acceptance to your son,” I continued, deliberately turning the knife I’d delivered, “I believe I shall pen one up immediately.” The skin of her eyelids tightened, a marked flinch. “I understand that you may wish to withdraw your financial support. Not to worry,” I continued, with a gay bravado that I did not feel, “my estate is perfectly capable of handling matters. Good day, my lady.”

  The Marchioness Northampton weighed me for a long, silent moment, all but bristling with fury. I half expected her eyes to turn slitted like a snake’s as she finally rose, smoothed out her coat, and sailed past me. The breeze of her departure was as frigid as the woman herself.

  I heard Booth’s step out in the foyer—he’d waited like a good man—but I did not relax until I heard the front door close.

  I sagged suddenly, clutching the table set in the center of the parlor and rattling the salver with its pile of cards.

  Fanny’s skirts whispered behind me. “Oh, dear,” she said quietly, making no attempt to disguise that she had listened. Likely through the far door. “You have made an enemy of that one.”

  An enemy too well-bred to return my insult direct. I would feel this one later.

  “Perhaps,” I said, looking up and pushing my wilting figure from the supporting table. I raised my chin a notch. “But I will not allow her to bully me any longer.”

  Fanny said nothing.

  She did not need to. I knew exactly what kind of feud I’d only just cemented as my own.

  I made my excuses and walked sedately out of the parlor, up the stairs and into my bedroom. I shut the door with trembling hands.

  My knees gave before I reached the bed. I sank to the floor, every particle of my body vibrating with mounting hysteria. As I reached for the decanter upon my nightstand and uncapped its topper, it rattled against the rim of the flask—a crystalline chime that sheared through my nerves.

  The edge touched my lips before I recalled that there was nothing left.

  A pit opened wide inside myself; fear, anger, frustration. Need. I feared it would devour me whole.

  The decanter fell to my lap, my fingers clenched tight enough around it that the edges pressed into my flesh.

  I shuddered. For the first time, the only time I’d ever managed to be as forthright as I relished in my collector’s role, I’d faced down the Marchioness Northampton. I could not be bought.

  Not, at least, by the likes of her.

  It was something. I wasn’t sure what, even then, but it was something.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next three days turned into a blur I couldn’t remember even if I wanted to. Soiree after soiree, luncheons in pretty rooms with faux picnic atmosphere, teas and of course, the fittings. They all stacked atop one another, obligation after obligation.

  On the sixth of October, one of the better known gossip rags caught wind of the marriage dance vainly enacted by Earl Compton. The impertinent paper printed the details—many made up, near as I could ascertain—and was then mirrored by other newspapers in town, resulting in even more cards. Letters of interest, sycophants who smelled fresh blood and were eager to be the Judas goat to my would-be titled lamb.

  Maybe some were well-meaning. Some perhaps genuinely cared to meet the woman who had cracked the earl’s shell, or so the papers claimed—after all, he’d resisted the trap of matrimony for so long.

  I couldn’t even begin to guess. All I knew was that time passed in a series of small productions—events where I playacted the part of a Society miss, smiled and curtsied and did everything in my power to avoid the topic of marriage until I could return home. And then I acted that of the dutiful charge. Though I was genuinely happy to see my chaperone walking about in a state of near-constant bliss, it wore on me. Tore at my nerves until I could not sleep more than an hour, maybe two at best.

  I had no time for mysteries. None for trips below—and no clues to make them for. There were no new articles, not even letters of suffrage from Miss Hensworth to amuse me. Even the Ripper had gone quiet; and there’s a sad state of affairs, when I must turn to a murderer to provide for me an escape.

  I sent Zylphia into the fog to learn the outcome of Mr. Pettigrew’s investigation, but she returned empty-handed. There were no clues, no evidence at all.

  All I had was the knowledge of Miss Hensworth’s previous letter referencing the master of admissions and her removal from the Athenaeum. It was a frail link, yet on a thready hope, I quietly sent Levi with my card, asking Miss Hensworth to meet.

  When Levi returned, he admitted to finding no sign of the lady.

  “Did you leave my card?” I asked.

  “In the post box, miss,” he swore earnestly. “Just like you asked.”

  “Was it full?”

  He scratched the top of his head, beneath his cap. “Now that you mention, miss, no.”

  Good. That meant she was still about, somewhere. Once I located her, I would have answers.

  Three dead. Even if this weren’t part of Lady Rutledge’s game, that bit of wisdom had certainly applied: The longer I waited, the more would die.

  On the fourth day, the invite I’d been dreading most delivered Fanny and myself to the Northampton estate. The dinner invite came complete with the combined efforts of my chaperone and the damnable persistence of an earl. The weather had taken a nasty turn, pouring down rain by the bucketful. It hammered against the window, coloring the conversation at the long, filled table with a sonorous drone that worked its way into my skin and dragged like iron nails.

  On edge as I was, it took every ounce of concentration to make artless conversation with my table companions on either side.

  The earl was one.

  Shortly before the last course ended, he bent his head to mine and whispered, “Make your escape in half of an hour. I’ve something to show you.”

  My eyebrows very nearly winged their way right off my brow. “Truly?”

  When he raised his eyebrows in subtle reinforcement, I nodded to show I understood, and turned back to the table to find his younger brother, Lord Piers Everard Compton, watching me.

  A mystery, this young man. Perhaps my age, perhaps a shade older, he nevertheless had developed quite a reputation as an inveterate gambler and rake. The gossip columnists loved him; as, I was quite sure, did the ladies above and below the drift. I knew for a fact he was no stranger to the midnight sweets.

  The younger Lord Compton was handsome enough for it, with the family golden hair a shade darker than his brother’s, and cut shorter as fashion strictly demanded. His sideburns were impressive, shaping his lean jaw and barbered to perfection. He lacked the icy polish of his eldest brother, yet utilized a certain urbane air that reminded me sometimes of him.

  But unlike the elder, the younger maintained a diss
olute demeanor that usually involved a rakish smile, at least when directed at me. There was nothing subtle about his wink.

  I barely caught myself before I pulled a teasing face in return. I was not unaccustomed to the games men played—a girl did not grow up in the circles I had without learning a thing or two about holding one’s own weight among them—but I would not dare risk accusations of flirtations with the earl’s own brother.

  Dinner finally closed. After the requisite parting of the sexes—women to the parlor, and gentlemen to the study for brandy and cigars; I would have given my eyeteeth to be included among the latter—I was all but climbing from my skin with curiosity.

  And with that prickling, barbed anxiety pressing outward from my skin.

  After dinner, there was the musical selection. This was much less painful than the ladies’ gathering. Fanny did her best by me, but I felt frozen out by the marchioness and her salon, even as they deliberately included me into their circle.

  There was inclusion, I thought, and then there was that point where one realized one wasn’t a part of a group, so much as held as an example by them.

  And not a flattering one.

  The chance finally came for me to make my escape. It came, to my surprise, on the arm of my Lord Compton’s younger brother. “Have you seen the courtyard from the windows?” he asked, bending slightly so that his voice would not overpower that of the rather talented Lady Sarah Elizabeth.

  Beautiful and the voice of a songbird. If I were ever required to stand in a parlor and sing, I would shoot myself with Ashmore’s dueling pistols first. I could play marginally on a small sampling of instruments, but I had nothing near my mother’s reputed talent.

  “No, my lord,” I said, eager to escape this festering knot of cold study and judgment.

  “Excuse us, won’t you, Mother?” continued the charming young lord. “I would like to give Miss St. Croix a glimpse of your pride and joy.” And then, a grin, that cheeky rotter. “Your other pride and joy, that is, for she has already met Cornelius.”

  Bloody hell, I thought slowly as the marchioness inclined her head. For although I was used to the frigid wall she insisted be erected between us, I would never have expected to see that glint of affection as she looked upon her youngest son.