Will frowned, wondering if she meant to be sarcastic. “Blast it, Lili, I don’t blame you. How on earth could I? I should visit you here more often than I do.”
“I wouldn’t say that it was anyone’s fault. You have made it clear that I’m welcome to visit you whenever I please. It has been my decision to remain here most of the year. Though I must admit, you have hardly been pressing in your invitations.”
“I don’t mean to press you now. But I wish you would consider it.” He captured her hand and raised it to his lips. “You are my best friend, Lili, and I don’t mean to neglect you, but it is—difficult—living apart.”
She began to look flustered. “That’s very sweet of you, Will. I’m not reluctant to visit you in Hawkesbridge, but have you considered that a month or two of my company might eventually strike you as—tiresome? You do grow so easily bored.”
Will shook his head, regarded her with a puzzled frown. “Bored with you? You are practically the only person who never does bore me.”
It seemed, somehow, like the right moment to act, so he leaned over, drew her into his arms, and kissed her full on the mouth. Something fluttered inside her chest, he could feel it, something responded. For one giddy sweet moment, he allowed himself to hope that it would be different this time.
But as he drew away, a shiver passed over her and she averted her face. “Wilrowan,” she said breathlessly, “you will blow out the candles before you come to bed?”
“Of course,” he said, with a disappointed sigh. It was almost—but not quite—enough to cool his ardor. “The gods forbid that I should ever offend your modesty, my dear.”
11
Mid-morning found Will and Lili at the breakfast table, carefully polite. They had been spared the company of Lord Brakeburn and Allora, both early risers, and the tea, cutlets, toast, and chocolate were consumed with a liberal seasoning of silence.
Will brooded amidst the willow-ware teacups. A man was at a distinct disadvantage wooing his own wife. He had an uneasy feeling he had made a fool of himself the night before. “Thank you, Wilrowan, that was really very nice,” Lili had declared, just before falling asleep. It had stung then and it stung now, in the cool light of morning.
Watching her narrowly across the breakfast table, he wondered (not for the first time) if his Lili concealed, under that gentle exterior, rather more of spite than she ever let on. Certainly, the girl he had married had been spirited enough—in fact, she had been most damnably outspoken. He cringed inwardly, remembering their first—no, their second meeting.
“What on earth are you doing in my bedchamber, Mr. Blackheart?” Lili had said. A thin girl in a white nightdress, she seemed to Will remarkably self-possessed for a sixteen-year-old virgin faced with an intruder in the sanctity of her bedchamber.
The widowed Lord Brakeburn had rented a house in Hawkesbridge for the summer. Unfortunately, it was a house located too near the university; the street on which it stood was frequently the scene of spirited encounters between the more reckless students, the Watch, and occasionally the City Guard. This was the first time, however, that a disturbance below had extended to the upper floors of the house.
“I beg—I beg your pardon,” Will managed to stammer. “It seems I have mistaken the house. I can only imagine what you must be thinking, but indeed, Miss—I regret to say that I don’t recall your name, though you seem to know mine. Have we been properly introduced?”
“Yes, we have been introduced, though I’m hardly surprised you’ve forgotten the occasion,” she responded tartly. “And of course you’ve mistaken the house. I never imagined for one moment you intended to climb through my bedroom window!”
Will was ready to sink through the floorboards. “Shades of Darkness!” he exclaimed. “Miss Brakeburn, isn’t it? I didn’t recognize you in your nightdr—that is, under the present circumstances.”
Whether it was the white nightrail or the fact that he faced her on her own ground, she was certainly very different than he remembered her. More attractive, too, than she had appeared at a ball two months previously: over-corseted, hardly able to breathe, awkward in the wrong color, the wrong gown.
“I would be happy to leave by the same way I came,” said Will. “But as you can see, it’s a long drop. I’m always very well going up, but when I have to descend—”Just then, there came a loud pounding on Lili’s door and the voice of her father demanding to be let in. Apparently, one of the servants had seen Wilrowan climbing the wall and alerted his master.
Will darted toward an open wardrobe, but Lili put out a hand to stop him. “If it is all the same to you, I’d rather not be discovered with a man cowering inside my closet!” She proceeded to unlock and throw open the bedroom door, admitting her father and the two servants with him.
“Mr. Blackheart was just leaving, Papa. It was all a mistake,” she said calmly. “He had somebody else in mind when he climbed through my window.”
Will did not think it worthwhile to mention that he had actually been escaping from the City Guard, after an evening devoted to mischief and mayhem with some of his less savory friends. He simply bowed and took his leave, before the astonished Lord Brakeburn collected himself sufficiently to utter a single word.
But Lord Brakeburn clearly had the advantage of him six weeks later, when he summoned Wilrowan to his house in the country.
“I had imagined you—not precisely a gentleman, after our previous encounter, but at least above disgracing my daughter by speaking so freely of an incident that could hardly add to your own credit,” Brakeburn said sternly.
“I beg your pardon,” said Will, taken most profoundly and completely by surprise. “I’ve not said anything to anyone. As you say, it’s not a story in which I appear, sir, in any flattering light.”
Brakeburn appeared to unbend. “Perhaps I have misjudged you. Perhaps one of the neighbors chanced to witness your entry through Lili’s window. In any case, the incident has created a scandal. My daughter is in hysterics, her reputation in shreds, and she is likely to die of the disgrace, unless you agree to do the honorable thing.”
There had been a great deal more, all along the same lines, until Will, horrified by what he imagined must be Miss Brakeburn’s situation, horrified, too, that he had brought the whole thing about by his irresponsible behavior, finally broke down and agreed to marry her. Little did he know that Lord Brakeburn’s daughter—far from submitting to a bout of hysteria or threatening to perish from the disgrace—was being subjected to similar pressure, told she was endangering a young man’s “brilliant academic career,” warned that Will stood in danger of being disinherited by his grand relations, unless she allowed him to redeem himself. Allora was not there to advise her, and Lili was vulnerable. Will had been vulnerable, too, far too ashamed to consult his distant, uncaring father, or his formidable grandmother—and by no means as sophisticated and worldly-wise as he liked to pretend.
So they had married at the tender ages of sixteen and seventeen. And neither one of them learned, until it was much too late, that Lord Brakeburn had deceived them both: the incident in Lili’s bedchamber was known only to themselves, Lord Brakeburn, and the two servants. For the Brakeburns had money, an ancient name, an almost equally ancient estate—but nothing to compare with the wealth and influence of the Rowans, the Krogans, and the Blackhearts. Lord Brakeburn had simply been unable to resist the prospect of such a brilliant match for his bookish daughter.
It was unfortunate that Brakeburn had failed to look beyond the dazzling name and inquire more closely into the character and habits of his prospective son-in-law.
Will continued to study his wife across the table, remembering that other Lili: so exasperating in her fearless honesty, yet so fresh, so natural, she had won the heart right out of him before he knew it. She had accomplished that, in fact, while he was chasing other women. But when had that Lili gone away, to be replaced by this handsome, composed young woman, friendly yet somehow distant?
Mechani
cally, Will lifted his cup to his lips, swallowed a mouthful of tea without tasting it. No wonder life was so flat and stale. The women he knew in Hawkesbridge disgusted him: a collection of shallow, mercenary schemers, empty-headed dolls, and jaded voluptuaries. His pursuit of them had taken on an air of desperation. And the only woman he really wanted was the one he could bed whenever he chose—but who continually frustrated his attempts at true intimacy.
One of the servants slipped into the breakfast room and discreetly deposited a letter on the table at Will’s elbow. Sipping his tea, continuing to mull over his dreary prospects, Will did not notice at first. But then something about the letter—the pale blot of sealing wax, the musky erotic scent wafting his way—intruded into his thoughts.
He stared down at the folded slip of paper, with deep loathing in his soul. The direction was written in a flowery feminine hand—could it be that Eulalie or one of the others had been brazen enough to write to him here at Brakeburn Hall?
“You have a letter. Who is it from?” Lili’s voice was casual and unsuspicious.
With the greatest reluctance, Will gingerly picked up the letter and was relieved to recognize Dionee’s cypher impressed on the wax. “It comes from the queen.” He took up a butter knife and pried loose the seal, unfolded the paper and sustained another shock. The sheet was absolutely blank.
“Is it bad news?”
“It’s no news at all.” But then he recognized the scent of Lady Krogan’s perfume. Remembering Dionee’s penchant for melodramatics, he reached out and moved one of the silver candlesticks closer.
Exposed to the flame, the invisible ink slowly appeared. Will blew on the paper in order to cool it. The message was brief, but undoubtedly in Dionee’s style. Return at Once, she had scrawled. O Will, Will, Something so Dreadful has Happened, I cannot Describe it to You. I need You here NOW!
“It is bad news,” said Lili, reading his face as he read the letter.
“It is probably nothing more than some nonsense of Dionee’s.” Yet even for Dionee, the tone was rather frantic. Will felt his spirits sink even further. “For all that, I hardly see how I can safely ignore it. I’ll have to return to Hawkesbridge immediately.”
He spent the rest of the day on horseback, snatched a few hours of sleep at an inn, wrapped up in his riding cloak by the fire in the coffee room. He woke after midnight, called for soup and a tankard of spiced ale, swallowed them hastily, and rode on toward Hawkesbridge.
Wilrowan entered the ancient city just after daybreak, when the gas lamps were winking out, one by one, when the water-carts made their first appearance, and gardeners came out to gather up dung from the streets. Fog from the Zule had seeped into the narrow lanes and alleys, mixing with smoke from the coal fires being kindled in kitchens throughout the town, making the way dim. Will’s grey mare shied at something moving in the shadows. Keeping his hands on the reins, he slid down from the saddle and, picking his way carefully, led the weary mare uphill toward the palace.
Harsh voices of ravens sounded overhead. A flock appeared out of the mist, circling just above the housetops, all calling out at once. It was hard to make sense of the clamor in his head, the confusion of sounds as the birds continued to wheel in the clammy air.
Then one of the ravens came swooping down and landed on the empty saddle.
“Gods!” said Wilrowan out loud. So it was more than Dionee’s usual mischief after all.
The raven flew off his shoulder and disappeared in the fog overhead.
At half past seven the Volary was already stirring. Coachmen, grooms, chair-men, and link-boys swarmed in the courtyards nearest the stables. A line of wagons was rumbling through the back gate: greengrocers, butchers, bakers, and confectioners. Smaller tradesmen pushing wheel-barrows full of crayfish, oysters, cabbages, eels, and round yellow cheeses jockeyed for position by the kitchen door. Inside the palace proper, the halls resounded with the quick patter of running feet, as valets, hair-dressers, barbers, and maid-servants bearing pots of chocolate and plates of buttered eggs scurried from one bedchamber to another, trying to meet a hundred different demands at once.
The queen’s maids-of-honor had gathered in a nervous group outside her bedchamber door. Ignoring their questions, since they were unable to answer his, Will impatiently pushed open the door and entered the candlelit room beyond.
Inside, the songbirds were ominously silent in their silver cages. Dionee was pacing, half frantic, still in her satin corset and ruffled petticoats, only partly concealed by a flowered silk shawl thrown carelessly over her shoulders. Apparently, she had been up all night without completely undressing or brushing the powder out of her hair.
At the sight of Wilrowan, she burst into tears, cast herself into his arms, and wept all over the shoulder of his riding cloak. He did his best to calm her: smoothing her tousled white curls, kissing her on both wet cheeks, whispering he knew not what words of comfort in one tiny ear.
“O Will, my Will, I have been so wicked—so wicked. And Rodaric will never forgive me when he learns the truth.”
“What have you done, Dionee? Tell me what it is, and I’ll make it right if I possibly can.”
She heaved a tremulous sigh and tried to speak, but choked on the words. Realizing that it would be impossible to get anything useful out of her until she calmed down, he gave her a little shake by the shoulders, then put her aside.
There was a silver flagon on a lacquer tea-table, and a pair of crystal goblets. Pouring poppy-water into one of the glasses, he sat Dionee down on a bamboo chair by one of the potted shrubs and instructed her to drink. When she seemed able to speak, he sank down to his knees on the floor at her feet. “I shouldn’t even be here. Blast it, Dionee, you’re only half-dressed. Tell me quickly what you have to say to me, before we cause a scandal between us.”
She leaned wearily back in her chair. “Non-nonsense. Everyone knows you are as near to being my brother as it’s possible for anyone but a brother to be.”
“Yet for all that, I am not your brother.” The Mad King of Rijxland, so rumor had it, was cohabiting with his own great-niece, a scandal that had titillated the continent for almost a year. Will had no idea whether the story was true or not, but if even that fine old gentleman was vulnerable to gossip, what might the Hawkesbridge tittle-tattles make of this?
“But let us be calm, let us be sensible. Tell me why you sent for me and why two of my men are dead.”
The queen began to sob, so loudly he was obliged to shake her again. “It is too late to be calm or sensible. Or—no, perhaps it isn’t. Providing you can get the Chaos Machine back again, before Rodaric learns it is missing.”
Will sat back on his heels. He sent a silent plea for patience up to the flaking painted sky twenty feet above. “You are not making any kind of sense. Recollect that I have no idea what you have done, and tell me your story from the very beginning.”
Dionee tried to compose herself. “You know, at least, what the Chaos Machine is?”
Wilrowan nodded. It was one of the curiosities in which the Volary abounded: a miniature device much like a clockwork orrery, consisting of five tiny jeweled spheres and four figures of the elements which rotated around each other inside a rock crystal case in a
complex and apparently random pattern.
“Well, I—I suppose it seems like a silly prank to you, but I smuggled the thing out of the palace the day that I went to the ambassador’s fête. You may wonder why I chose to take such a childish toy with me, why I—”
“I wonder,” said Will, “why you dared to take anything half so rare, half so valuable. That ‘toy,’ as you call it, is the only one of its kind in the world. Nobody knows when or how it was made, the metal is an unknown alloy, and as for the value of the diamonds, rubies, and emeralds—Darkness, Dionee! What were you thinking?”
“Lord Vault is a connoisseur—he collects these toys. And it was his birthday; I thought he would be amused.”
“And was he amused?” asked Will, in ominous tones.
“N-no. He was as shocked as you are. Though really, it’s not as though the thing were actually, useful, or that Rodaric hadn’t a thousand such knick-knacks and curios besides. Why this one should be locked up year after year, in a secret cabinet, so that nobody ever sees or plays with it—”
Will experienced a sinking sensation. “That is hardly for you or I to say, since the object in question isn’t ours. Or Rodaric’s either. Like everything else of value in the palace, the Chaos Machine belongs to the people of Mountfalcon.”
Dionee heaved another tremulous sigh. “It doesn’t belong to them now.”
Will passed a hand over his face. “Are you trying to tell me that you mislaid the jewel?”
Dionee stiffened. “Do you think I would be so stupidly careless?” Will forbore to answer that question. “I kept it safe inside my muff the whole time—” He groaned inwardly. Ladies were always hiding their money and jewelry inside their muffs, a trick known only too well to thieves.“—and I never let it out of my hands. But on the way back from the fête, my carriage was stopped by disgusting f-footpads, who took the muff, the little orrery, and my diamonds as well.”
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