Tempered: Book Four of The St. Croix Chronicles

by Karina Cooper

  So very, very easy.

  Forcing my hand from my mouth, I took in a big gasp of air, letting it out on a tight hiss from between my teeth. This wouldn’t do.

  I slid off the sofa with more energy than grace, a manic rise of ability that would not bow to weakness. My slippers clung to the thick rug, its colors reminiscent of the Oriental patterns I’d seen in my own home.

  My father’s home, I suppose. Ashmore’s.

  Now part of the Northampton estate.

  Bloody bells, was I doomed to wander as a ghost among my own poor choices?

  I seized the thick plait of my hair, tossing it over my shoulder as if by doing so, I would unburden my back from a weight I did not want to carry. My eyes darted from shelf to shelf, skimmed over the large desk and the various writing implements upon it.

  I thought of writing letters, but who would I write to? I had no knowledge of Zylphia’s living status, and even considering this stole my breath and left behind it a pain so deep that I dared not traverse those winding thoughts until I felt strong enough to try. I could write to Betsy, but she had fled my house to save her own life, and I did not begrudge her that. I did not want to drag her back into the darkness.

  “Bollocks.” I dug my balled-up hands into my eyes.

  Enough was quite enough. I turned, dropping my hands to gather the frothy mass of nightshift and wrapper in my fists. So assured I would not trip over the too-long hem, I approached the desk with grim determination. Of all who filled my thoughts, it was Fanny I owed too much to. She had raised me as her own, waited out all my tantrums, tutored me, guided me. I couldn’t bear to let her worry any longer.

  Even if my actions were so deplorable that she might hate me, at least she would know what had become of me.

  I paused in front of the mantle.

  What then? Was I not going back to London? Would I tell her nothing of my plans?

  I had no plans.

  The truth of this settled upon me slowly, like a heavy fog slipping over my shoulders, muddling my sight. I had nothing for which to plan. Aside from the expectation levied upon me by Ashmore’s care—to wit, mend so that I no longer craved the bliss—I had nothing truly to look forward to.

  My staff was gone, my family scattered.

  I had no parents, which was difficult enough a prospect for any orphan, yet I labored under the knowledge that mine attempted to murder me.

  I had no husband, who despite his flaws had thought only to protect and cherish me.

  My friends were gone, whereabouts entirely unknown, London was days away, and what waited for me there?

  I faced the fire, frowning into the snapping logs.

  The heart of the blaze burned a pure, clear blue, as powerful an intensity as the eyes of the man I’d taken as my lover. That Hawke had betrayed me, turned me out of the Menagerie after taking what little virtue I possessed, was beyond forgiving. Of all that Hawke and I had ever battled over—the nature of his usual disregard for my wants, the stubborn manner in which I taunted him—I had never thought myself vulnerable to the same charms he wielded to great effect within the Menagerie he minded. I’d fallen, as so many before me.

  Yet it was not that decision to share with him his bed—a decision that was mine in the end—that weighed upon me. I regretted nothing of the act, the understanding of torrid passions that he taught me.

  It was not his touch that I resented.

  What I dwelled upon was the highhanded manner in which he had Zylphia eject me from the Menagerie after.

  That stung, and even still, that did not hurt as badly as that final pitched battle between us. It was the Karakash Veil that had bound me, dressed me, and delivered me to him, but it was Hawke what guided the show I had become. His final betrayal was to turn me into a toy for his own iniquitous pleasures, and that of the social elite he’d invited.

  That creature, that caricature, was not the Hawke I thought I’d known. What my imagination repeatedly painted in the dark was not so much truth as a thread of it colored by the fantasy of too much bliss. I couldn’t possibly think that Hawke had become a different man.

  Couldn’t possibly, yet that was exactly what I thought. That night was the last I remembered before the hell of Ashmore’s determined care, and even those memories were shrouded in the opium the Veil forced upon me. All I knew with any clarity was that the man who gifted me to the audience was not the man I’d shared myself with. He wasn’t anything like the Hawke I had known since I was but fifteen—always cruel, but never careless.

  The rest, the oppressive heat and the wild flashes of light and color that had torn the world around me like so much tattered silk, felt too much like a dream to grasp fully. In the end, no matter how hard I thought of it, I could comprehend only one certainty: Hawke had betrayed me.

  This time, I said a word that would have earned me a fresh scolding, tearing my gaze from the fiery hearth. I’d meant to abandon the world entirely for that of the book I’d left behind, but my eyes fixed upon the cloth draped over what must be a painting.

  My head cocked. Although I lacked the skill to lift one eyebrow, I raised them both as I studied the white facing.

  What was so appalling that it must remain hidden? A portrait of my grandfather, perhaps; fat and florid, or thin like a broomstick. If his expression was sour enough, or a grinning leer, I could imagine the decorous Ashmore maintaining the shroud lest such a face promote ill humors.

  I had no such hesitations. With one hand braced high on the mantle above my head, I reached as far as possible on tip-toes. My fingertips grazed the trailing cloth. Dust drifted off the material, a faint haze gilded by the light.

  I could have made the effort to drag a chair to the hearth, but I didn’t pause to consider such alternatives, and I wasn’t certain I’d have the strength to try

  I stretched and strained, until my knees wobbled and my ankles ached. The fire hissed as a log fell apart, sap crackled and heat seared through my nightclothes. Groaning with the effort, I wiggled my fingers until the very hem of the cloth slid between them.

  “Success,” I crowed, and tore the whole of it down.

  “What are you doing?”

  Ashmore’s voice thundered across the library as the cloth floated to the ground in a cloud of dust. I almost spun like a guilty child, hands already darting behind my back, when an array of color so vibrant caught the firelight and stopped me dead in my tracks.

  For a long, tense moment, no sound interrupted that of the whisper of cloth as it settled to the floor. Even the fire withheld its sparks, chewing silently upon the charring wood and devoting all its luminescent attention to the painting above.

  I had never before seen a true likeness of my mother. For reasons I’d never understood, my father’s study had no stills of her, no paintings, not even a sketch. The closest I’d ever seen was her profile, carved into a cameo, which lacked all detail. No one had ever shown me what she’d looked like, only suggested that I favored her in face and color.

  Now, I looked up at the enormous painting, met eyes of brilliant green within a face truly elegant in nature, and recognized the pity of such words for what they were.

  Josephine St. Croix’s beauty was not a thing to which I could ever hope to aspire.

  Whatever artist had painted this masterpiece, he had poured blood and soul into the oils. Within the ornate gold frame, my mother appeared young and fresh, with soft pastels turning her cheeks to peaches and a glint captured in her eyes. She stood alone, her lissome figure draped in a gown some decades out of fashion, but so blue as to turn her skin to porcelain and her hair to that of light trapped in the finest rubies from exotic India.

  The soft curls draped over her neck carried the eye to her décolletage, as pale as moonlight. Her hands were not clasped at her waist nor useless at her side, as most artists might paint. Instead, she carried a globe of red glass in the crook of one arm, its top and sides banded by ornate reams of brass, and in the other, an astrolabe of such exquisite de
sign that I half expected it to tumble from the flat canvas.

  She looked out at me with charm, a winsome smile curving her pale pink mouth where I had expected something rather more placid, as ladies were meant to be

  Where I had often insisted that I was not my mother, I never expected to feel such hurt to learn that it was true.

  She was, by all counts and under all circumstances, a true beauty. It was no wonder Society could not let her memory fade.

  Chapter Six

  A hard hand clamped over my shoulder. “I told you to keep out of trouble.”

  I turned, surprise widening my eyes as more fury than I expected stared down at me from Ashmore’s aristocratic countenance.

  I frowned, uneasy at the force of his response. “I wanted to see what was under the cloth.”

  The fine shape of his mouth, framed but not yet hidden by the whiskers he did not tame, twitched in compressed anger. He glanced up at the painting, jaw hardening, then down at the cloth a mere tick from the hungry flame. “You could have been hurt,” he muttered, his fingers leaving my shoulder to reach instead for the fabric.

  My confusion eased. Of course, he’d be worried. I had barely managed to stand earlier, and here I was, playing in front of the hearth. I kicked one foot against the marble frame designed to keep the fire from casting sparks on the floor. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m—”

  “Just…” He tugged the cloth away, leaving it to fold itself against the desk, and rose from his stoop, his demeanor stormy. “Just go sit before you do yourself in. Obviously, I can’t leave you alone for even one minute.”

  That hurt. Apology flipped to a scowl, though I nevertheless obeyed the directive. Now that my interest was piqued, I found my energy to be remarkably depleted.

  “’Tis a good thing I’ve already arranged for a companion,” he continued, as if he were reassuring himself.

  “Who?”

  “Never you mind,” he replied, rather more stiffly than I felt I deserved.

  I stuck my tongue out at him. I couldn’t help it.

  Ashmore did not notice, returning to the tea service he’d wheeled in while I was distracted with the painting’s reach.

  I studied the bright oils filling the canvas, met my mother’s gaze with a tilt of my head. “If my father didn’t live here long,” I said, “then why is there a painting of my mother in his library?”

  “It was your grandfather’s library first, and his before that.” Ashmore’s tone hadn’t softened, but at least he’d let off the lecture. I turned in my seat to find him dropping a lump of sugar into my tea. Upon perceiving my study, he glanced at me. “You still prefer two sugars, do you not?”

  What details hadn’t Fanny sent in her letters? I nodded.

  Ashmore brought me the teacup and saucer, its lavender and rose pattern so delicate as to be nearly thin as parchment. His ungloved hands looked terribly rough against the china.

  Mine did not look any different, though not quite so worn. Whatever travels Mr. Ashmore had engaged in, he did not bear the hands of a man unused to work. Mine sported more roughage than any woman in Society, but nothing truly so obvious as the calluses of a seasoned swordsman or brawler. Even the burns I’d acquired from sliding down a rope had faded without scars.

  The cup rattled faintly in its saucer as I claimed the offering. I rested it upon my lap with care.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, looking again at the portrait. She seemed so radiant above the fire. A veritable angel, though I doubted any church would allow such a bold woman upon their walls. “Did my grandfather favor my father’s choice of bride?”

  Ashmore did not follow my gaze, busying himself instead with a wrapped parcel. “Not especially,” he replied, as brusque as if he were once more a physician or scientist gathering figures. “Your grandfather opposed the marriage of your parents.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t much care for your father.”

  “His own son?”

  Now he looked at me, confusion replacing whatever wall he’d meant to erect between us. A line furrowed between his copper brows. “You misunderstand,” he said, shaking his head and lowering the string-tied parcel to the seat beside me. “This house belonged to Mr. Hamish Pepperidge Carberry, your mother’s father. Not to St. Croix.”

  I straightened rather more quickly than the tea in my lap could forgive. As the liquid sloshed over the rim, pattering to the saucer and dampening one hand, I looked again at the painting.

  She smiled most knowingly back at me.

  “This was my mother’s house?”

  “Until your grandfather’s death, wherein it passed to your mother’s husband.”

  My wide-eyed stare turned back to him. “And you knew them both?”

  Again, a twitch at his jaw. “I did,” he confirmed.

  “And my grandfather?” Hamish Pepperidge Carberry. I’d never heard the name.

  “Just so.”

  “Tell me.” I leaned forward, hand over my tea cup lest a bit of my wrapper be caught within. “How did my grandfather die?”

  This time, it wasn’t so much confusion as mild distaste shaping that furrow in his brow now. “That’s a morbid curiosity.”

  Hardly. I ignored that. “It wasn’t bliss, was it?”

  His grimace warned me that I shouldn’t have asked. With a hand on his hip, he ran the other through his wild hair—though it already stood nearly on end. It was a fashion no longer in vogue among the young bucks of Society’s rule, but it suited Ashmore. From his rather pale skin to the overly bold color of his hair, he seemed to stand outside the borders of acceptable fashion—and did so without apparent care for the consequences.

  How nice it must be to feel so free. I had long been taken to task for my hair color, yet his was almost painfully bright in comparison and very likely had never been held against him in matters of comportment or charm.

  Compared to the painting over the mantle, the both of us seemed little more than pale imitations.

  The air swirled about us, notable most by the dust motes released from the cloth. The fire crackled in rather noisy remonstration, seemingly in order to fill the silence fallen between us.

  I knew that I should not be asking after opium in any form. I flushed.

  I did not like being made to feel so small. I most certainly did not like feeling this way over a perfectly innocent question.

  Even if it wasn’t wholly so innocent. An answer in the affirmative would suggest that my grandfather might retain a store somewhere within the home he had lived in.

  Awful. I was awful. I opened my mouth to defend my question—or to protest innocence, I wasn’t certain which might fall out—but he cut me off with a sigh. “An illness,” he finally said. “The same illness that claimed your mother.”

  I drew back as if he’d slapped me; the words much harsher than the gentleness of the tone might indicate. “Illness?” I frowned. “Not so. My mother died in a laboratory fire—”

  On cue, as if only waiting for the right key to unlock the memory, my father’s voice rose in my mind.

  You were only five. Maybe six.

  His voice had broken, then turned sharp as knives as he loomed over the table that bound me to it. I remembered pink mist, a surge of pain, an unusual feeling of separation within myself—as if I were me, and not me. He’d done that. His alchemical serum had done that, the same he’d used to ensure that I might be detached from my own body and my mother allowed in.

  Yet it was not me that he’d wept for.

  She was sick, you know. So sick.

  The preposterous ramblings of a madman.

  I shook my head hard enough to send my braid bouncing over the back of the lounger's wooden frame.

  “A weakness of the body,” Ashmore was saying, rather more crisply than the revelation warranted. He plucked free the string from the brown paper parcel. “She was beyond help when the accident claimed your parents.”

  Only one, I wanted to say, b
ut clamped my lips tightly around the admission.

  There was so much I couldn’t discern—what parts coming to me were done in a dream, and what was real. I needed to know.

  “What illness?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Such things are not for you to be concerned about,” he said flatly.

  “But what if I’m afflicted?” A reasonable request, surely.

  Ashmore left the parcel beside me, turning his back on me—and the painting he did not look at. Strange, for all it drew my eye with such bold color and warmth. “You are not.”

  “But I might be.”

  “But you are not,” he repeated, and flung a hand to the side as if he might ward off any more questions. “Busy yourself with the books in here and the periodicals just delivered from London. I don’t want any more trouble from you, Miss St. Croix.”

  I shifted, easing the saucer from my lap so I could better turn to glare at his slim back. “I could investigate the symptoms. Perhaps I might even—”

  “Leave it alone,” he cut in, so bitterly reminiscent of Hawke’s most common refrain that I felt the color bleed from my face. The room shrugged around me, pitching my belly into a cramping roll.

  Did he do it on purpose? Did he willfully embody aspects of the two men whose hurts I carried most closely, from Compton’s careful posture to Hawke’s authoritarian dictates?

  From the mantle, my mother watched with serene gentility.

  A shudder clutched at my spine.

  Of course, I was being unreasonable. Ashmore had no way of knowing anything of either man—no more than common rumor might allow. I was too sensitive.

  I firmed my jaw. “It would give me something to do,” I called after him.

  “Read the gossip columns,” he replied, a curt finality that would not be broken. He left the library before the echoes of his dismissal could die.

  I did not throw my teacup. It was far too delicate a piece, and I confess to wanting the warmth of it. Instead, I ground my teeth and ignored my discarded book for the paper wrapped stack of periodicals he’d left me.