Gilded: The St. Croix Chronicles

by Cooper, Karina

  Even . . . even amusement?

  Lady Northampton turned to Mrs. Douglas, effectively dismissing me from her mind and company.

  I leapt at the chance. Familial affection or not, clearly, I was not included in that attendance sheet. “Thank you, my lord,” I murmured.

  “Please. If I am any judge, we are to be family, soon,” came his all too easy rejoinder. His eyes, colored more by his father than mother, were that muddled mix between brown and green. More brown, I suspected, than the other. They also retained a disconcerting habit of twinkling, as if all the world were a jest. “You may call me Piers.”

  We would not. Yet I was tired of the constant pressure I kept myself under. “Very well, Piers,” I replied, surprising him, I think.

  His smile widened with it. “I won’t be so bold as to call you by your given name just yet,” he returned lightly, his gloved hand patting mine on his arm. “Formalities being what they are, and I am given to understand that you have yet to accept my brother’s proposal.”

  “Correct.”

  We strolled along the music hall wall, the by-now familiar patterns of gilt and red drapery passing at a moderate pace. “Good for you,” he said, rather cryptic at his approval. But his head dipped as he murmured wickedly, “Although I might slip your Christian name once and again just to watch my brother’s mustache twitch.”

  It did, didn’t it? I muffled a chuckle, swallowing it as we passed a pair of matrons whose disapproving frowns were as much a part of the societal charade as anything else. I smiled at them—a demure thing. Fanny would be proud.

  Yet when we reached the far doors, Lord Piers did not stop.

  “My lord, where are you taking me?”

  “A surprise,” came the inscrutable reply.

  I looked up at him, much taller than I, even a hair’s taller than his brother. “You are mischievous by design, not by nature,” I accused, rather baldly.

  His step did not falter as he led me to the foyer, and then up the great staircase. But his laughter fell easy and without artifice from his lips. “Perhaps you are correct.”

  “And if I am?”

  “Then my brother has a rare prize, indeed,” came the unexpected compliment. And the grating assumption.

  He paused at a large, oaken door, its carved surface blackened as if burned in place. There were no real images, just a pattern.

  “Here,” he offered.

  “What is here?”

  “Open the door and see, busybody.” But there was no sting in Lord Piers’s words, only an indulgence that continued to surprise me. What had I done to earn such sympathies from the marchioness’s own sons?

  Yet there was a challenge in the lord’s eyes, the folded arms held loosely across his chest. He leaned against the doorjamb beside me, and I tilted my head.

  “Very well.” Challenge accepted. I gripped the latch with a gloved hand, and pushed gently.

  It opened easily, without so much as a creak. Light filtered into the hall, painting my striped skirt in a splash of white and peacock blue luminosity.

  And when I stepped inside, my breath escaped me on a rush. “Oh!”

  I could not help myself. I rushed into the room, one hand tangled in my skirt and holding the fabric away from my hurried tread. I saw nothing at all, paid attention to nothing, but the walls.

  Shelves upon shelves of books. Hundreds of them, maybe more. Every wall filled to the brim with bookcases, every last surface. Only the mantel was free, and that for a hazard, I’d wager.

  Daylight, what little of it could break through the rain sliding over the tall, wide windows, painted the library in pale gray. Lamps hanging from the ceiling flickered and countered with a warm golden glow that gilded everything it touched.

  I spun, my gaze darting from one wall to the next.

  I had gone to heaven, and it was a place mad with books.

  “I do believe this was well planned, brother.” Piers’s voice seized my attention, and I turned again in a swirl of poplin and lace. My eyes were wide, I know, and my heart pounding as I followed the young lord’s gaze to the man who’d waited patiently by the large desk while I gawked and envied.

  The smile I saw on Lord Compton’s lips stole my breath. Genuine warmth. Doubt, the kind of endearing hesitancy found in a man courting, and affection he had not earned.

  My gaze flicked to the books once more.

  Maybe not earned, I admitted silently, but he was close enough to forgive the presumption.

  “It seems so,” he said, much more seriously than his brother. Piers had followed me in, but leaned now against the shelf just by the door, while the earl waited patiently, one hand resting upon the desk I could so easily picture him seated behind.

  The library, doubling as a study, was very masculine in many ways, but I could see touches of femininity in the trim chosen, the striped fabric of the upholstery, even the flowers placed at each window.

  The marchioness kept an excellent house.

  My throat closed. Nerves. So many new uncertainties.

  “I . . .” I tried again. “My lord, this is wonderful.”

  “My brother was quite sure you’d think so,” Piers volunteered.

  But my gaze remained fixed on the man who’d assured me that all I required was a little polish to be his. A little refinement.

  And in exchange, I would have this. A library large enough to put my father’s and Ashmore’s collections to shame. A man, a husband, who understood on some level what this meant to me.

  I approached the earl, and realized suddenly that while the brothers shared many similarities of form and feature, the earl did not share Piers’s easy confidence. His shoulders were tight, jaw set as if prepared for . . . a blow? Rejection, perhaps. “You appear to like your books very much,” he offered stiffly.

  I smiled, sank into as deep a curtsy as I knew. “You are well remembered, my lord.”

  When I rose again, it was to find him staring at me. Not in the way of a man who saw what he did not expect, but one who saw something I wasn’t sure I could live up to.

  A conviction, perhaps. A knowledge in his eyes that I would be everything he expected and more.

  The tremors began low in my body. But when they reached my hands, they were not pleasant, or kind. I tucked my fingers into my skirts as Piers cleared his throat behind us. “Before I lose you both to each other’s eyes,” he said dryly, “I’ve a gift of my own, Miss St. Croix.”

  A gift? I tilted my head, my gaze flicking between both men as Piers rounded me to stand beside his brother. In his hands, a thin book, no more than a journal. The leather was tooled beautifully, but worn.

  The earl’s stance shifted. “My brother, always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong,” he added, with the affectionate if reserved air of an elder sibling, “found this in here. He insisted it be given.”

  It was clear that though there were rumors of argument and ill-temper between the sons, they were affectionate, as well. A sort of . . . bond I wasn’t sure I understood. I had no siblings, after all.

  “My brother is not particularly convinced this will matter,” Piers said jovially, “which allows me the indulgence of being all the more determined to give it. I expect it to intrigue as much as it did myself.”

  “Just give it to her,” the earl muttered, his expression so tense that I did laugh, and muffled the sound behind my gloved fingertips when he stiffened.

  “You are terribly apprehensive,” I accused lightly. “Should I be wary that this gift will bite?”

  Piers offered the book, his barbered chops gleaming as they tilted somewhat with his smile. I took it carefully. “My brother is always apprehensive, Miss St. Croix. And proper, and cautious, and—”

  “Not likely to fritter away his money on habits and ill-fated hobbies,” interjected the earl ominously.

  The smile died from Piers’s expression. Turned, instead, to a rueful slant, and that twinkle. “Consider yourself warned,” he whispered, and turned. �
��Cornelius. Don’t keep her long, or the gossips will talk.”

  “Don’t you dare leave—”

  I stared after Piers, left holding the proffered tome as my reputation’s chaperone left me alone with the man who insisted that I require in him a husband.

  Lord Compton did not swear, but he stiffened even more and thrust his fingers through his hair. “That ill-behaved child.” He turned to me, his jaw tight. “We must depart immediately, before anyone comes looking.”

  Why? Why did I find this adorable, rather than the vexation it should have been? Perhaps because my reputation wasn’t as valuable to me as it seemed to others.

  I caught his arm as he half turned.

  He stilled.

  Suddenly, the tableau in the library was not the kind that should have been allowed. Would not have, if Piers had not wandered off so suddenly.

  We stood surrounded by a sea of books, two separate beings bound only by my gloved fingers upon the sleeve of his dinner jacket.

  Yet the very undercurrent this mild touch sparked seemed to crackle like lightning. Like the promise of energy, that warning hum as a mechanical device charged.

  Again, I remembered that I did not find him deplorable. Without the promise of matrimonial chains, I found him quite likable, indeed.

  He did not look at me. He did not have to. I did not know what he looked at instead, but I know what I saw. A fine man, an upstanding man, worried for my reputation even as he arranged this illicit meeting to show me that he listened. That he heard me.

  Slowly, his hand covered mine on his arm. Warm. Strong. “You wanted books,” he said quietly.

  “I did.”

  “I wanted to show you that you would not be without.”

  My fingers ached against the book I held to my bosom. “All I require is polish, is that not so?” I couldn’t help myself.

  Now, he looked at me. Turned so that he faced me direct. A soldier, I thought, an admiral facing one of his own. He’d done well for himself in Her Majesty’s Navy. I could not recall what rank he’d served under, but I know he’d been admired for it.

  “You are wild,” he said, his tone even but not sharp. “You travel alone where you should not—”

  “Like the Philosopher’s Square?” I interrupted, gratified to see him blanch. Seizing the opportunity, I pressed, “Rumor often places you below the drift, my lord. Why should you be free to wander such places and I cannot?”

  Pure disdain colored his features; turned him into the near mirror of the marchioness. Yet as I glared, suddenly filled with the frustration of too many secrets, too much wanting, I realized his was not disdain for me.

  A trick his lady mother had not refined.

  “You will be a countess,” he told me, unbending now. Yet, he did not let my hand go. “A countess has no call for traveling to such dangerous and ill-reputed streets.”

  “What if I want things?” I demanded. “Books, materials only found in the shops there?”

  “What manner of things cannot be found along the shops catering to King’s College?” he asked shrewdly.

  I did not answer, setting my jaw in obvious obstinacy.

  He met my unyielding glare with his own implacable regard. “Then I will have them fetched for you,” he replied, a thread of heat in his voice now. His eyes. Anger? Or frustration.

  “Why do you go?” I would not give in. I could not admit that I had run into him myself outside that opium den last month, but I needed to know.

  Did he share my taste for the stuff or not?

  He looked down at me, mouth set into a thin, disapproving line. Finally, he let go of my hand. Allowed me to pull it back, wrap around the book whose cover lacked a title. “There are . . . secrets to this household,” he said after a long moment. “My brother has . . .” A pause, and I saw the fight in his eyes.

  His brother.

  The inveterate gambler, and . . . opium user?

  “I often must go after him before he spends too long among the degenerates below,” he confessed quietly. “When he falls prey to his own weakness too often, he is exiled to one of our rural estates, allowed to dry.”

  Forced to remain sober, I’d wager.

  The thought sent a frisson of fear through me. To never have laudanum again? Would that be the price of any proposal tendered?

  The earl caught my hand, pressed my palm fervently in all that was allowed between us. “Promise me that you will not go below again,” he said, not so much a question as a command. One I recognized, and bristled under, yet . . . Yet I contemplated it. “I know you are a woman of your word, Miss St. Croix, a rare thing. Say it, say you’ll have me and all that I offer, and I shall do everything in my power to make you happy.”

  I bit my lip.

  Books. A home. A place. These are things Fanny had always told me I needed. I had ignored her. I had a home, didn’t I?

  But . . . what kind of home was it? Not really mine. Even once I inherited it, what did I plan to do?

  Leave.

  Here, I had a future, didn’t I? To wake up secure, warm. Cared for.

  To know that my family, my staff, was safe.

  All I needed was to refrain from going below. To leave the life of a collector; a life often fraught with danger and discomfort.

  I could avoid the Veil for certain. Couldn’t I?

  Somehow, I wasn’t so positive that the Veil would forget my debt so easily.

  “I . . . I need time to consider,” I whispered. It was not a no. Not this time.

  Was he wearing me down, or was I really looking at the life laid out before me?

  He bowed, formal. Stiff. “I understand. Your parents left you alone too early.” I blinked. “I know you will make the right decision. You will learn to trust me.” He let go of my hand. “I shall send a maidservant to escort you back to the music hall.” He stepped around me, stopped halfway to the door and turned. “I hope you enjoy my brother’s gift, Miss St. Croix. And . . . and mine.”

  With that, he was gone, and I was left staring blankly at the book between my palms.

  Trust him. In many ways, I believe I did.

  Absently, I opened the book, searching for a title page.

  Instead, I found a handwritten note within. In lovely, elegant script so much more polished than mine, I read, For my dearest Almira. Love, your Josephine.

  What?

  No . . .

  What?

  I could not even begin to make sense of it.

  My mother. The marchioness. Gossip had always claimed them enemies. Why, the marchioness hated me. She loathed me!

  What on earth could possibly link such foes?

  Trembling, I leafed through the pages of the handwritten journal I found a collection of symbols that took the remaining breath from me.

  A triangle. Three circles, a fourth in the middle.

  Alchemy.

  How? Why? This made no sense!

  I spun for the door, but stopped before I took even a step.

  What would I say? Who would I ask?

  Who knew that my mother was as involved in the so-called art as my father became?

  My father.

  When I’d met him in Woolsey’s guise, he’d called Josephine the best of us. Us.

  “My lady?” A maid, barely a blur in my racing mind.

  Not the university, as I’d thought then.

  A society of some kind. A salon that included women. It had to be. A club? A meeting place. Something! The marchioness had been part of it, then?

  “I can escort you, if you’re ready,” said the hesitant maid, and I strode for the door, beating down a wild rush of exhilaration—of hurt and anger and outrage at this revelation. I could not follow any clues now. I had to return to the soiree, listen to the skin-peeling melodies of my peers, and force myself to be patient.

  But I would find a moment. And when I did, I knew who to ask.

  Lady Rutledge had already known.

  I was convinced of it.

  C
hapter Nineteen

  It seemed an eternity before I was allowed to escape to the uncertain sanctity of my own home. When I did, I found more than simply peace and quiet.

  I found my crystal flagon filled with a fourth of jewel-bright ruby liquid. A card had been propped against it, one of my own. Zylphia’s distinctive hand scrawled a note across it: Take in moderation, as needed.

  The gesture, thoughtful even as it seemed something I should be ashamed over, made me smile.

  I read late into the night. Much of the pages made no sense to me, but I could not stop. These were my mother’s words. My mother’s handwriting. I had never been so close to her as when I held that book.

  Studied its writings.

  Much of it was, near as I could fathom, simple speculation. Much of it was philosophical—an interesting series of theoretical and moral conjecture, flavored heavily by the concept that all things were bound by aether.

  A theory often passed among scientific circles as the intelligent hypothesis. Yet the dates upon these entries came earlier than most.

  Had my mother shared these theories?

  Had she been among these intelligent minds when postulating them?

  And if so, why in the name of all things holy did she dedicate this journal to the marchioness? Her enemy?

  I fell asleep with a draught of laudanum that night, cradling the book.

  For the first time in many days, I awoke feeling not as if I’d been beaten, but with an energy that I’d been lacking for too long. Although the return of my morning headache signaled a need for care, I nevertheless was awake when Zylphia tapped upon my door.

  “I’m to remind you of Lady Rutledge’s masquerade,” came her greeting. “Fanny was extremely intent upon it.”

  Lady Rutledge’s masquerade came once a year, always the talk of the Town and often the reason much of Society remained in London later than the Season. The lady did not leave London like much of the elite, and did not much mind those who did.

  Yet I considered it a play, a subtle indication of how much power Lady Rutledge truly wielded.