Gilded: The St. Croix Chronicles

by Cooper, Karina

  My corset was tight enough to give my bell-shaped skirt a dramatic flare. The bustle drawn tight at the waist and gathered into a shimmering mix of diaphanous pink and mauve ruffle offered an extreme bit of feminine flirtation, which I rather wryly tolerated. I pitied anyone behind me, for I knew the crystals hanging from the bustle were blinding in the right light.

  Yet the split down the front ensured it by no means was a proper skirt. The mauve-ruffled petticoats I wore to give it sway and shape were likewise split, allowing my legs from the thighs to my knee-high tooled boots to be ogled at any viewer’s leisure.

  Regardless, I was not so bold as to go bare-legged in such vaunted company. Zylphia suggested she might; I was not a sweet, nor looking to be mistaken for one. Instead, I wore trousers beneath the skirt, fitted so well in the same mauve that they rather scandalously clung to each leg before vanishing into the boots.

  I looked as if I were a pirate princess in pink and diamonds, rather than Miss St. Croix, the only marginally proper heiress.

  I was, much to my surprise, very much not myself.

  My mask was not a full one, covering only my eyes and much of my nose. My hair, of course, was easily recognizable, and Zylphia had done a lovely series of curls and loose knots to which the large array of gilded roses could be applied.

  I felt weighed down, stuffed into place, and . . .

  And remarkably pretty.

  Yet I had no weapons, no items which I could use to my advantage. I hunted a murderer bare-handed and alone. Fanny would be no help—lovely as she was in a more subdued creation of smoke and lace, her mask a painted moue and the hood affixed to her bodice covering much of her hair.

  Zylphia dared not risk being found sneaking into such an event. And I had no Teddy for even escort.

  Somehow, I would have to find Miss Hensworth in this madness without my proper escort becoming the wiser.

  I knew she would be here, for the dean was also here. But how would I find her?

  Fanny did not speak as we stepped into the ballroom proper. She must have been quite overwhelmed; I could not tell beneath her costumed finery. Yet her hand on my arm tightened as even I was forced to stare.

  Trees had been somehow moved inside. The massive ballroom King’s College boasted for events such as these had become a garden, with a screen of black night and glittering stars overhead. Pocket watches by the hundreds sparkled in the trees like ornaments, some copper, some gold, some silver or brass.

  “Good heavens,” Fanny gasped, and I followed her gaze, up into the very heights of the ballroom.

  A sky ferry. Lady Rutledge had somehow managed to include a sky ferry into her event, and the dean had allowed it. It hung from supports, a beautiful thing of brass polished to perfection, wooden beams, and a gasbag made of some kind of pale linen shot through with gold. Even as I watched, the flames beneath the bag sparked blue.

  As if that weren’t surreal enough, I saw men and women soaring across the ceiling in shimmering gold ribbons. They spun and danced on air and webs, graceful as birds, agile as spiders.

  Circus performers.

  Lady Rutledge had brought the Menagerie to London proper.

  A knot formed in my belly. Hard and tight and anxious.

  “Pardon,” shouted a man who blundered by me, his voice distorted behind his mask. I saw nothing but black and white, and eyes sparkling from too much drink, perhaps. Or too much heat.

  Fashionably late though we were, the event was already a crush.

  A masquerade has different rules; ones that are closely mirrored by the Midnight Menagerie below. There are no identities for the evening, no requirements but that the barest forms of propriety be considered. To that end, I escorted Fanny to a likely knot of women wearing costumes slightly more subdued, and waited until she found a friend.

  I patted her hand. “I should find the earl,” I said, my mouth close to her ear.

  She nodded. “Be a good girl, then, and—” She caught my arm. I could all but picture the frown on her stern features. “Do not do anything we will regret, do you hear me?”

  “Absolutely not,” I assured her, lying through my teeth. Even now, I studied all who passed by me, frittered around me. Many costumes revealed a portion of faces, hands, arms.

  I would search for the one that did not.

  Digestion. All scientific medicinals took time to reach full potency. Such was indicated by the absorption rate displayed by my glove. It was possible that Miss Hensworth had taken the term literally, for no other method I could envision based on the working formula would work nearly so well. How long had she been drinking the concoction?

  Miss Hensworth needed to be stopped.

  I left Fanny in good company, threading my way through the crush of people. I heard many conversations, some that told me exactly who spoke. But I also heard so much more, and the sheer anonymity of the event did not make things weigh any less.

  At each corner of the ballroom, I found garden hills, covered in flowers and occasionally springing forth another strange little clock. At the top of each hill, a brass cannon. I wondered what it would shoot, if anything.

  Glass windmills and beaten silver devices that spun around and around in dizzying patterns dotted the crowd. Over it all, the occasional whoosh of the sky ferry’s aether engine warming up, and a glint of gold as aerialists danced their airy dance.

  I forged my way through a small knot of gentlemen all wearing the same long-nosed mask, and did not pay much attention to the long golden device one held to his mouth until it blared out a sound that rebounded through the already noisy ballroom.

  I flinched, spinning around with my shoulders tight, raising a hand to my ear as the cacophony bounced back in a flurry of wild echoes and raucous laughter. The men hooted and hollered, passing the noise-making device to one of their own.

  I shook my head as I backed away from the oddly sinister-looking mask each wore.

  Started as my back collided with a solid, unyielding warmth.

  “I am sorry, I—”

  Hands fell to my shoulders. “A dance,” came a voice that curled like a velvet promise against my skin.

  I stiffened, turned in a frothy confection of pink and mauve, but my masked gentlemen only took my gloved hand in his and led me the few paces to the floor. Without waiting for denial or protest, I found myself expertly inserted into the spiraling, graceful display of iridescent color.

  I stared through the awkward confines of my mask at the man who towered above me.

  His mask, unlike mine in its glittering pink and pearlescent design, was stark in its simplicity. Solid black, lacking gilt or shine, it covered more than half of his face, leaving only his mouth and square chin free.

  His hair was black, queued back into a straight fall past his shoulders, and his costume much less pretentious than even mine. He wore simple black from head to toe, eschewing the proper white shirt, formal tie and gloves for the ebon color.

  But his eyes. They met mine without fear or artifice, and I set my jaw as a river of blue flame in brown gleamed like the aether fire above us.

  My feet, habitually taking the steps required of the waltz I found myself in, took a misstep. I opened my mouth; his hand splayed across my lower back, pulling me all too closely against his powerful body, and guided our turn across the floor.

  My words dried, my tongue suddenly clumsy.

  “I was under the perhaps mistaken impression that all ladies in London could dance,” Micajah Hawke taunted softly.

  My skirts swirled around his legs, an intimate tangle that made it abundantly clear how trousers provided so little barrier between bodies such as ours.

  I gritted my teeth. He did not know who I was. He could not.

  Zylphia had sworn to it.

  I forced my lips into a smile and met his gaze direct. “You have unfortunately found the exception to the rule, if such a rule is to be had.” Small talk. Charming conversation.

  These were things expected of a lady
upon the dance floor.

  I would have preferred to take a knee to his most vulnerable flesh and leave him gasping on the floor.

  Hawke and I were not friends.

  But this lady in pink and crystal had no call to be so rude, and so I swallowed the urge and smiled prettily and counted the beats until I could be free.

  “Never fear,” he said, his palm pressing all too intimately low on my back. Sweat gathered there. Bloomed across my shoulders, mercifully bare beneath the crystalline net. “You have other talents.”

  Another misstep; one I caught myself and righted without help. Or, I hoped, revelation of my dismay.

  What did he know?

  “I’m sure,” he added after a moment’s study. His gaze was lazy, his smile mirroring that laconic indulgence I so often had seen when he performed for the crowds.

  The last I’d been so close to see it, he’d fondled a sweet’s breast in a steam-filled room of debauched men and women playacting at Roman bathhouse.

  My skin heated.

  “You are too bold, sir,” I snapped.

  He did not let me pull away. His grip tightened, until my chest was pulled against his and I could see each tiny pore where he’d shaved the bristle of a day’s work from his strong, swarthy jaw.

  Micajah Hawke was temptation given flesh, and he bloody well knew it.

  I was better than his simple creatures. I was not his pet.

  His mouth lowered to my ear. Relief that he only meant to whisper filled me as he expertly navigated our path through the swish and swirl of beautifully tailored skirts and streamers.

  Until his breath touched the sensitive skin there. His chuckle was as dark as his reputation. “I beg a bargain.”

  I nearly laughed outright, breathless though I remained. The ringmaster of the Menagerie did not beg for anything. “Be careful what you bargain for, sir, for these are not your usual grounds.”

  “Careful what you taunt me with,” he returned in the same soft, nearly inaudible tones. Personal tones; a lover’s whisper, a seductive command. “My grounds extend farther than you’d like . . . Miss Black.”

  My foot caught in his. I lurched, sucked in a breath as I jerked away, but he did not allow it. Skillfully, impossibly expertly, his foot eased from under mine, stepped between my legs and pulled me upright before any could see more than a brush of bodies, a dip of a hand where there needn’t have been one.

  Clever snake.

  “How do you know?” I demanded when I’d once more found the rhythm. “Was it that I recognized you?”

  He did not answer me; he rarely bothered. “I come with a bargain,” he said again, “and you will do well to hear it.”

  “What choice have I?” I nearly spat the words from between my teeth. “I am trapped in a waltz that will not end with a man who does not belong here.”

  “Any more than you belong below,” he retorted, a markedly accurate taunt that lanced through me like a knife. Though he held my hand as proper in the dance, his other left my waist to cup my chin. Fingers hard, devilishly handsome features implacable as I knew him best. “Listen to me, Miss Black, and then you may sling your insults from a safe distance.”

  “As if I require your permission.”

  His teeth flashed, an even white gleam. “All my pets require my permission.” His grip tightened, and I winced beneath the sudden pain of it. “Marry your earl, Miss Black.”

  I sucked in a breath. “What do you know of it?”

  “More than you’d like,” came his oh-so-infuriating reply. “Marry him, and I will forgive all debt to the Veil.”

  “But why?” The words escaped me, torn from me in the midst of the cacophony of the dance, the masquerade, my thoughts.

  His offer.

  “That is not for you to know,” he said, and let my chin go. It ached, even as I wrenched back a step, forced distance between us as was proper.

  His smile was lazily lethal. Dark as sin.

  The bloody ringmaster always was.

  My gaze narrowed. “What is the catch?”

  “You give up the life of a collector.”

  I had expected prevarication. A tease. Perhaps even a price of gold or jewels.

  This . . . this command, this order delivered with precise intent, each word clipped, stole my thoughts.

  Hawke’s smile destroyed what little mind I had left.

  The light reflected off his golden skin, turned him dark as a Gypsy and even more mysterious for it. I stared into eyes cut by the swath of blue, bottomless and unreadable, and could find no answers.

  Only the promise, dangling between us.

  “Swear it, Miss Black.” A command, as aristocratic as any I’d heard above. His fingers curled around the upper portion of my arm, crushing the sugar-spun sleeve of my gown. “You will stay in London above, marry your landed earl, become a countess.”

  I looked away. “Why?”

  “Swear it, or I shall be forced to act against the Northampton family.”

  That garnered my attention as little else could. “What? Why?”

  “You aren’t the only toff whose luck fails within the Menagerie,” he said, watching me intently. “Many vices come with a price too great for its purchase.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Lord Piers.” When he only inclined his head, my fists clenched into pink tulle. “You wouldn’t!”

  “I certainly would.” This, I believed.

  “Why tie my fortunes to his?” I demanded. “Why lose two debts in the space of one event?”

  “Marriage is its own price,” came his cryptic response, and I gritted my teeth as heat filled my cheeks.

  I had no choice. To be free of the Veil. Free of the debt the Menagerie held over me.

  Free of Hawke.

  And to free Piers from a terrible burden.

  “Let me think on it,” I said tightly, then snapped when he said nothing, “You ask me to enslave myself to free myself, Hawke. Give me the courtesy of time.”

  He studied me for a long moment. Took his fill of me, of what he could see beyond the mask shrouding much of my face from his view. The music rose and fell around us; the dancers flitted by. I did not realize we’d stopped until he let me go.

  For a long, aching moment, I held his gaze.

  He’d saved my life. Wicked as the devil and just as sly, he’d nevertheless come to me when I needed help the most and done what he needed to see me survive it.

  Micajah Hawke had been the closest thing to a lover as I’d ever had. Not in spirit, but in flesh, and it meant something that he’d done so.

  Was the angel I did not know better than the devil I intimately did?

  I opened my mouth; he shook his head once. A silent, imposing command. His fingertips touched my cheek. My mask.

  I closed my eyes as they skated, soft as silk, just under the very edge of it.

  “You have this night to consider,” he whispered, his breath hot and spicy fragrance suddenly thick in my nose. “And a champion,” he added wryly, a breath later. “Farewell, Miss St. Croix. Once you capitulate, I will not receive you again.”

  I started, turned to find a figure in pale gray and blue bearing down on me. His gaze, shrouded by the pearl gray mask he wore, seemed as near to violence as I’d ever seen it.

  Earl Compton could not hide behind a mask. No more than Hawke could.

  “Are you well?” he demanded as he came to my side. “Did that man put a hand on you?”

  That man?

  I looked behind me, but Hawke was gone. “No,” I murmured. “No, he did not.” Not really. “ ’Twas only a dance, albeit the sort one expects in a masquerade such as this,” I added with a smile I didn’t genuinely feel.

  “Then if you are feeling gracious,” he said, his mustache shifting with his crooked, even somewhat abashed smile, “I would claim a dance.”

  A dance?

  I blinked rapidly, my head clearing as if from a fog. Suddenly, the noise splashed down upon me like a terrible, heavy wave. I clut
ched at his arm as I staggered.

  “Miss St. Croix?”

  This time, it was no dark angel’s voice in my ear, but that of an alarmed earl. Concern filled it, his fingers tight around my upper arm where moments before another man had held me.

  I took a juddering breath. Let it out on a breathless laugh. “I am sorry,” I managed, shaking my head. “All is well, I am quite all right. Everything is just so . . .”

  His arm slipped around my back, carefully moderated support, and he led me from the ballroom floor. “Frenzied,” he supplied. His firm mouth slanted in rueful understanding. “Do you require air?”

  Air. A breath of fresh air, cold and lanced by rain as it was, would be welcome. I began to nod, and then hesitated as I spied a tall woman in brilliant violet and copper holding court. Lady Rutledge was impossible to miss, even beneath a powdered wig whose towering curls and structure held a birdcage.

  With a live bird within. How . . . surreal.

  Lord Compton followed my gaze and could not help a chuckle. The sound loosened a certain anxiety in me.

  “There is a clock affixed to the base of that cage,” he murmured in my ear. “And a bird that I would swear sings out every three minutes precisely. Did you wish to go see?”

  “No, no, there will be time later to . . .” I stared as a figure pushed by us. Garbed all in black and white, with a full-featured mask that glittered.

  “Miss St. Croix?” The earl touched my cheek. All but forbidden under normal circumstances.

  And shocking enough that I found myself leaning into it. Into him, his taller form and steady figure a comfort against the chaos around us.

  His hand, hesitant, crept to my waist.

  His eyes met mine through our masks. Yet he said nothing. Neither inquiry nor reassurance.

  A prickle of awareness mingled with the heat battering at every inch of my skin. My nose twitched. Faint, but insistent.

  I felt too crowded. Too trapped, claustrophobic in the extreme. I needed air.

  Yet I didn’t dare step away from this oh-so-cautious embrace.

  Was this how it could be?

  Lady Rutledge’s laugh suddenly climbed above that of the others, and I realized—remembered—what I should.

  “Too short,” I murmured, my eyes widening in rapid realization.