Tempered: Book Four of The St. Croix Chronicles

by Karina Cooper

  I was no longer in any hurry to prove or disprove the concept of an afterlife.

  I glared at Ashmore. “If you don’t allow me the opportunity to do something, I shall go quite mad.”

  “A state of mind you’ve only just abandoned.”

  Oh, him and his clever wit. I wished he’d do us both a service and hurl himself off the nearest balcony. I seized a pillow in both hands and jammed my face against it, shouting my exasperation. Peppered as it was with no small amount of uncivilities, I quite expected the man to be gone by the time I was finished.

  No such luck.

  He waited, tray in hand, head cocked in a way that suggested I had become a thing to study. “You have quite the mouth on you.”

  “I learned quickly,” I retorted. “Since my guardian didn’t see fit to stay at home and teach me.”

  His eyebrows came together. “Are you suggesting that had I remained at your side, you would have not chosen the path you did?”

  I glowered, holding the pillow to my chest, for all it afforded me no protection from such naked honesty. I couldn’t say for certain which path I might have taken, but the odds were not in his favor. Yet I wasn’t in the mood for fairness. “We will never know, will we?”

  “No, we won’t,” he agreed. “You were a termagant when you were found, and time has only sharpened your edges.”

  “Fine words from a man who couldn’t be bothered to look after the frightened little girl he plucked and abandoned,” I shot back, fingers gouging into the feathery padding I clutched.

  “Plucked from the hell of a sideshow circus, you mean?” His words drove a shaft of icy fear into my chest; for all my regained wits, the memories of my childhood remained vague and shadowy. Impressions, not facts. Yet I still flinched at the word circus, and my skin crawled when I thought of the good Monsieur’s traveling show.

  I feared the day his face crystalized within my memory. It would not be a good one.

  “So you say.” I blew an errant bit of frizzy hair from my mouth, made sullen by the exchange. I was angry with him, but even I could not disassociate the feelings of my forced convalescence from the memories mired in laudanum. “Go away, demon.”

  His eyes crinkled, but he did not laugh. “You are a mess, Miss St. Croix.”

  “What do you expect?” I sniffed. “You’re no lady’s maid.”

  “If I were to fetch for you tools to tend to your grooming, would that please you?”

  My scowl transformed into open-mouthed disbelief. He met my stare directly, forcing another uncomfortable blush to my cheeks. I had often accused Hawke of looking at me with an intimacy he had not earned, but this from Ashmore was all the worse—for he had earned it in altogether different ways, and his inexplicable abstinence from using it like a weapon in our battle of wills confused me.

  Not once had he pointed out what he had done—what he still did—for me.

  A part of me wished he would, so that I might reject him and his unwanted efforts entirely.

  I looked down at my knees. Although I still entertained a prickly fit of pique, I also recognized it as mulish and even thought it unwarranted. It made me feel like a child.

  Honesty suited the topic better. “It would be nice to plait my hair out of my eyes,” I admitted.

  “Right, then. We’ll see how you fare.” He left on that cryptic statement. The door closed behind him.

  I sighed.

  While I did want to fling the book I reached for against the door, that would deprive me of the chapter I intended to finish. Unwilling to spite myself to such lengths, I instead concentrated on the treatises detailing at length the various theorems that inspired Dr. Finch to formulate his conclusions on aether.

  The first of the footsteps caught me by surprise. They thudded softly, as a man’s might when he walked without haste or concern.

  I looked up, expecting to see Ashmore returning with proposed grooming items in mind, but the door remained still. Sunlight, brighter than I expected for a wintry day, streamed through the window, banishing all shadows to a muted gray haze. Ashmore had taken to leaving the curtains open, at my request. Whether day or night, I felt less smothered when I could look outside—even if the same dull heath was all that looked back at me.

  The footsteps did not come again, so I returned to my book, then peered over the top of it, raising my eyebrows when the sound repeated. Dust motes swirled in the light, drifting aimlessly across the open expanse of the room. Across from the bed, a large vanity occupied the wall, its mirror covered with a sheet to protect its finish. That the vanity was in the bedroom and not in a separate dressing room or boudoir suggested that this was not an extravagant room, and certainly not the room of the lady of the house. An armoire draped with a lovely purple cloth brought out the colors in the valance.

  All in all, hardly the sort of place in which one entertained ghostly mirages.

  I frowned at the door, which did not open. “Ashmore?” Pitching my voice to carry, I lowered my book and added, “I’m quite decent.”

  There was no response.

  Perhaps I’d only heard the vestiges of Ashmore’s tread as he passed my door. Shrugging somewhat, I lifted my book once more—propping it upon my knees for balance—and found the place where I’d left off.

  A floorboard creaked, near enough that I startled.

  The book slid to the bed, its pages rustling before the binding slapped closed. I caught the leather facing with one hand, lest it bounce, and glowered fiercely at my empty quarters.

  “If you’re playing a joke,” I warned, “I am of no mind for it.”

  The still air swallowed my annoyance. The dust motes danced lazily.

  Was I losing my mind? Certainly, I was lucid and intelligent enough to know that such things might happen for want of a draught. The need was never far away.

  I swallowed hard.

  Another creak of straining floorboards twisted my heartbeat into a frightened patter. I half-turned upon my sickbed, glared at the corner it seemed likeliest from. The room chilled around me, a wash of frigid air prickling across my clammy skin. A vein throbbed in my forehead; dull counter to my stuttering heart.

  I was not alone. I had not been alone for a very long time, but I was supposed to be free of opium’s grip—and with it, the ghosts that I’d clung to in the haze. My mouth dried and my throat burned.

  The need of the tar mingled with the fear I could not let go, and still the house groaned around me. I was already within its maw; what more did it demand of me?

  I rubbed at my eyes with a trembling hand, sealing out the light, and then staring hard into the bedroom when I thought my senses clear.

  All was still. Only the dust motes floated in serene disposition.

  When no other sounds beyond that of the subtle noises of an old home made themselves apparent, I blew out a sigh.

  This was nothing. I was only suffering from overly rattled senses, likely from remaining abed too long. Not entirely convinced by my own pragmatism, I reached for my book once more.

  With no more warning than a faint clatter, the door creaked open.

  Such was the manner in which Ashmore found me hefting my book in both hands, wild-eyed with no small amount of terror, and prepared to launch it at his head.

  We both froze, he with a wide wooden case cradled in his arms and me with my book held over my shoulder in preparation for the lob.

  Very slowly, an eyebrow crept upward.

  My cheeks turned feverishly warm. Letting out the breath I held, I lowered the offending weapon while my arms, tested for the first time in weeks, trembled.

  “I saw a mouse.” What a blatant lie.

  “I had not taken you for a female given to hysterics over a mouse.” The tenor I’d grown accustomed to had not lost its dry characteristic.

  That stung. “It surprised me,” I informed him stiffly. “I didn’t want it to climb up onto the bed.”

  His gaze scoured the room’s floor. “Siristine is an old estat
e,” he finally said, features remarkably deadpan. “Most likely any mice about are more afraid of you than you are of them.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Then my premise stands.” Crossing the room, he laid the case at the foot of the bed. “Here are the things for your grooming.” He said the word like I was a purebred in need of a good brushing.

  Given the state of my hair, he wasn’t all that far off. I left the book beside me and watched as he opened the case to reveal crimson velvet within. Laid out upon the plush material, four exquisite items caught the daylight and all but glowed in response.

  Each piece was shaped of ivory and tipped with silver, carved with such superb scrollwork that I feared to touch it, lest I mar its surface. The brush’s bristles were clean and white, the comb folded within its case. A mirror with carved handle lay face-down upon the velvet, while a small glass jar with a matching ivory and silver lid held what appeared to be a hastily gathered array of pins.

  “Oh.” It was a gasp. “So fine. I can use them?”

  “Do.” Ashmore let go of the case, clasping his hands behind him in a gesture so reminiscent of that I’d seen Lord Compton do that pain stole my breath. One hand flattened against my chest, though it did nothing to ease the ache.

  Would I spend my entire life remembering things like this? A shape of a smile, the gesture by a veritable stranger; would they be enough to send my thoughts back to those few moments with a man who had given his life for reasons unresolved?

  The muscles of my face ached with the need to crumple. I fought the urge with all I had, frightened—inexplicably so—of the thought that Ashmore might see me weep.

  Doing so in the haunting loneliness of night was one thing, but the day’s light was not a merciful host.

  He cleared his throat. “Miss St. Croix?”

  I wrenched my stare from the line of his hip, fumbling instead for the ivory pieces within the case. “To whom did these belong?” A fruitless attempt to draw his attention from my lapse.

  “Are you unwell? You’ve gone quite pale.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, then regretted my sharpness when silence fell like a shroud between us. Forcing my trembling fingers to still, I bent all my focus on the implements I would use to tame my long, snarled hair.

  It did not take me all that long to learn what it was Ashmore meant for me to understand.

  I had no more begun to work the comb through one portion of my hair than my arm started to shudder. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to pick at the knots, to strike through the hank of stubborn hair until my elbow and shoulder sobbed for mercy and my muscles gave out altogether. So afflicted was I that I barely noted the harshness of my treatment against my scalp. Sweating, winded, I flung the offending utensil to the foot of the bed.

  I had managed all of ten minutes, and that for sheer bloody-mindedness.

  Ashmore had not moved, nor had his expression changed.

  “Bollocks,” I snarled, burying my aching hands into my lap. When he said nothing, I dropped my head, blinking back tears of frustration and weakness. My hair, useless fall of matted red as it was, concealed my sight. “If all you’re going to do is gloat, leave me be.”

  A glint of silver caught the light from between the knots in my hair. The whine of floorboards and accompanying click of his shoes did not vanish into the hall as I’d expected. Instead, they brought him closer.

  The curtain of my hair swept aside beneath a gentle hand. “I am not here to gloat,” he told me, his fine voice all too serious. The man was bloody good at shedding my expectations; I’d swear he did so on purpose to spite me. He pulled my hair over my back, easing the heavy mass from my shoulders. “I only want you to understand that you are still recovering. It will take time, Miss St. Croix.”

  I clenched my teeth lest I give in to the tears his kindness engendered. Of late, the desire to do so hovered all too near the surface. “I hate it. I am not weak.”

  “No, you are not.” He lifted one portion of the matting and, much to my surprise, he worked the bristles through the ends. “If you were weak, you would be dead. Make no mistake about that.”

  My chest squeezed. “Not for lack of trying,” I whispered.

  The hair in his hand went taut, but delicately so. “True,” he allowed. I squeezed my eyes shut. “Had it not been for the wardrobe’s rotted foot, it would not have fallen, and I would not have heard the commotion. But for a bit of bad luck, you might have succeeded.” I let out a sigh.

  It was an oddly comforting thing, to have my hair worked on so. Even if it was at the hands of the man who was once my guardian. His fingers delved into the hair at my nape, separating with great absorption. This task engrossed him, leaving us each alone in silent contemplation.

  Then, a small inhalation. “Do you suppose,” he mused, “that your thoughts in that moment were genuine?”

  “Of course not,” I said, more quickly than reassuring. I held my breath again, my fingers twining tightly together in my lap. “Rather,” I said on the slow exhale, “I think that they were, then. I would never try such a thing with ulterior motives for attention.”

  The fingers at my nape stilled. Then, without comment, returned to the puzzle of my tangled hair.

  “I have no real gift in such manipulations,” I added, watching the blood leave my knotted fingers. They turned white beneath my grip. “Fanny used to despair that I’d never garner more interest than a sour word from any would-be patrons.”

  “Mrs. Fortescue is not entirely an optimist.”

  This rather matter-of-fact observation earned a throaty chuckle from me that surprised us both, I think. Again, the hands embedded in my hair stilled.

  I turned my head somewhat, peering through the untangled skeins he’d managed. Ashmore’s eyes had closed, a look of such raw emotion carved into his features that I could not understand—or bear to look. I felt as if I might have intruded upon a moment so private that he might be more embarrassed than I to have shared it.

  That I thought such things even after all he’d put me through was testament to my state of mind. I was in no position to trod upon delicate ground, not as long as I remained so fragile.

  I no longer thought of Ashmore as the demon of my laudanum-fueled visions, but I felt awkward treating him with any greater care.

  Quickly, I looked back at my hands before he caught me peeking. “Thank you for seeing to my hair,” I said, more loudly than strictly necessary. As I’d hoped, he remembered his task, and the brush once more dragged through my tresses.

  “You are now sufficiently cognizant to mind the mess of it,” he replied easily enough. No trace of that baffling emotion, no wariness, no embarrassment. It was as if I’d imagined it. “It costs me nothing to see to your comfort until you are healthy and hale.”

  A bit of a smile tugging at a corner of my mouth, I glanced sideways far as I dared and saw only the high fit of his trousers. Brown, naturally. I wondered if he possessed any other color. “Can I see the study, then?”

  Exasperation colored his tone as he said sharply, “Miss St. Croix, your lessons do not stick.”

  “Fanny used to say the same.”

  This time, I swore I heard something like a laugh—muffled too fast that I couldn’t get an ear of it. “Raise your chin,” he ordered, tugging on my hair to enunciate the point. When I obeyed, he dragged the brush across my scalp, sending shivers of pleasure though me. Then, briskly, “As weak as you are, it may take some doing. Let me consider it.”

  “Why? I can simply just go.”

  “And how will you navigate the stairs alone?” he asked.

  I frowned. “I can do it.”

  “I have no desire to put you back together when you tumble head over heels,” Ashmore told the back of my head. I did not see his face, but I heard the firmness with which he spoke, and wondered what he might do if I disobeyed. “All I ask is that you allow me the time to consider the best method to move you about without lengthening your convalescence.
”

  It was as close a commitment as I was likely to get.

  I sighed. “Very well.”

  “Thank you.”

  He plaited my hair with more skill than I expected, always remaining behind me or at the side. I could not see his face. He tied the waist-length braid off, packed the case once more, but left it upon the vanity.

  “You will tend your hair every day,” he said before he left. “It will help you regain some routine, as well as your strength.”

  “What of a bath?”

  “If you believe you are sufficiently strong enough, then we will see to it.” This time, it was he who colored—a surprising and admittedly fascinating stain of red across his cheeks. “Perhaps ’tis time I locate a companion to see you through such things.”

  I would never have accorded him the capacity to blush at such a trivial thing. He had already seen me at my most vulnerable, after all.

  Was it that I was now cognizant of his ministrations that worried him?

  “All right,” I said, yawning around the words and failing to remember to cover my mouth.

  I nestled back into the pillows, rather more fatigued than I was willing to admit. My eyelids closed of their own volition.

  His footsteps made for the door.

  “Mr. Ashmore?”

  A hesitation. “Yes, Miss St. Croix?”

  “Thank you.”

  This time, a longer hesitation. Then, quietly, “No need.” The door closed, the remnants of his renunciation hanging in the silence left behind.

  His voice had seemed so…

  What? Sad? That was ridiculous. What had Ashmore to be sad about? Disappointed, more like. His own ward had turned into a right mess, hadn’t I?

  It was time I began tending to myself. A visit to the study would be just the thing. I resolved to give him a few days, hoping to regain more strength by then, but I expected to have to bother him again about my request.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, I managed a full slice of toasted bread, though the bit of fig spread placed beside it proved too much for my constitution. I left it untouched.