The knife hadn’t wavered from where she held it poised to strike. Evelina’s hand was perfectly steady, but her pulse thundered like the sea in a typhoon. Her mouth drifted open in astonishment.
Doubting, hoping, she flicked her attention back to those liquid brown eyes. Yes, she knew the face, or a version of it. Same gold hoops in his ears. Same quirk at the corners of his mouth. But the strong, muscled body smelling of saddle leather and adult male was entirely new.
“Nick?” she said in a choked whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“Is that how your fine governess taught you to welcome guests?” He smiled, teeth showing white in his swarthy face.
She lowered the impromptu weapon, stepping back until the edge of the table pressed into her skirts. So it had been Nick in the corridor, frightening her half to death. He had the Blood, too, but a different bloodline than the Coopers. Somehow it had given him an annoying ability to sneak up on other people with the silence of a falling shadow. Gran had said she’d never seen anything like it—but then Nick was one of a kind.
But knowing who it had been scarcely improved matters. She kept her fingers curled around the wooden handle of the knife, if only for the feeling of something solid to cling to. Her breath was coming in short, sharp pants, but she forced her voice to be crisp. Five years. She hadn’t seen him in five whole years. It felt like lifetime.
The moment stretched uncomfortably until she saw the flicker of doubt in his eyes. In that instant, her heart cracked. She dropped the knife onto the table and stepped into him, flinging her arms around his neck as she had when she was no more than a child. He closed the embrace carefully, his touch far more cautious than his bold words. A hot ache filled her throat, yearning and sorrow mixed with dread.
And anger—because there was nothing safe or good in this reunion. All the anxiety she had felt during her earlier adventure flooded back. She would be disgraced if the household found a strange man in her bedchamber—and just as bad, her past with the circus would be revealed. There would be no chance to explain, not with her history, and Nick would be arrested whether or not he was actually committing a crime. She couldn’t count on luck saving her this time. Surely she’d used up her store for the night.
Even more dangerous, she felt a familiar ripple of energy pass between them as Blood met Blood. A hot, heavy pressure stirred inside her, calling her own magic to the surface. As they had grown older, whatever it was that made Nick unique made her own talents almost impossible to hide when he was near. Now, after so many years, the pull was stronger than ever before. In the flickering candlelight, she could almost see a silvery glimmer where they touched. Power—raw and uncontrolled. Whenever they had called it, it had slipped its leash. That was the last thing they needed now.
Evelina shivered, and as Nick ran his hands down her arms in a time-honored gesture of comfort, magic tingled along her skin. Her throat constricted with unspoken pain. The very spark that made them who they were made it incredibly dangerous to be together.
Swallowing back a rush of sadness, she took a deep, steadying breath. It had taken so long to get over the loss of him that he couldn’t—he just couldn’t be there. The sight of him brought back too much pain. She pushed him away, wanting to stop the reunion before old wounds began to bleed. “You’re damp with rain.”
He pressed a hand over his heart. “That is enough to send me away? A little rain shouldn’t frighten you. We’ve slept together under the open stars.”
She crossed her arms, keeping her embraces to herself. “I was eleven, and it was disgustingly cold. And Old Ploughman was snoring a dozen feet away.”
“Your memory lacks romance.”
“I like accuracy.” She shot the words back before the sheer physical presence of this new, fully adult Nick could cloud her mind. Her gaze roved over him, taking in the lean hips and strong shoulders, the long, lithe legs of the horseman. There was nothing of the boy left in the hard muscles she’d felt under his shirt, or in the graceful power of his every gesture. Her skin felt hot and tight, as if she’d suddenly contracted a fever.
“You pierce my heart, fair lady.”
“Rot. Don’t waste your patter on me; you’re impervious to a mere comment. I’m willing to wager you have more knives on your person than Lady Bancroft has place settings.”
He shrugged—the gesture so familiar it brought a throb to her chest. Memories crashed in, stifling in their urgency. When they had parted, Nick had been seventeen years old; she had been not quite fourteen. If she had stayed with the travelers, they would eventually have wed as surely as summer followed spring.
But that hadn’t happened. She looked at him now, wondering what he would have been like as a husband. Wondering what secrets this older Nick had hidden behind his cautious smile and those silken rags. The thought of it left her empty and aching.
“What are you doing in my bedchamber?” she demanded.
“Do you think I am here to ravish you, after all this time?”
She allowed herself a smile. His showman’s persona never quite came off with the costume. “I doubt you’ve kept the image of my pigtails and pinafore etched on your soul.”
“How little you understand me,” he said with another flash of teeth. “I was not whisked away by a long-lost and eminently respectable grandmamma. Perhaps my memory can afford to be longer.”
“Why are you here?”
“I asked for you at every stop the traveling show made, from Scotland to Dover.”
“No.” She had to deny it. She couldn’t bear the idea of him suffering anything like what she had felt. But then Nick, for all his faults—including the foolhardy bravery that had brought him there tonight—had always been loyal.
“It’s true.” He reached across the distance between them, his fingertips barely brushing her cheek. They were rough, but she didn’t flinch away. Instead, she felt turned to stone, mesmerized by his plain, almost coarse accent. No Mayfair polish here.
“Stop,” she whispered.
“I knew you would grow into a beauty. Skin like the moon and hair like a starless night, as the old song goes.” His voice was husky. “We were close once. Are you so far above me now? I suppose you are.”
As long as no one burst in and found them together. At the very least, that would send her plunging back to the mud as fast as the laws of gravity allowed. She had to make him leave.
Still, Evelina wanted to know everything. Where he’d been. If he still devoured any and every book that fell into his hands. If he had found another girl to follow him around like a worshipful duckling. She had run away to find him once, when her courage failed at the beginning of their life apart. Her Grandmamma Holmes had locked her in the cellar.
The questions jammed up, tangling her tongue. “Are you still with the show?” she managed.
He dropped his hand, a mix of irony and pride flickering over his features. “Where else would I be? I’m the Indomitable Niccolo, supreme knife man and best trick rider in all Italia.”
“You’ve never been farther south than Kent,” she said in caustic tones. And she suspected his parents had been more Romany than Italian, but no one actually knew. He’d been a foundling who knew his first name and nothing else.
“Italia plays better with the crowd. Besides, it’s no more a sham than you playing at gentlewoman. Your father was one of us.”
There it was, the betrayal. She’d left Nick behind.
“But this,” Evelina gestured at the elegant room, “was my mother’s world.” And she was caught between, half gentry and half vagabond, two halves that never knit properly together.
Nick’s gaze roved over the bedchamber, lingering long on the silver candlesticks. Instinctively, she moved to screen his view of the box. “Why are you here?” she repeated. “What are you doing in London? Ploughman’s never wintered here.” It wasn’t one of the big, famous shows. She remembered when all the performers had taken a cut in wages so the show could afford to buy the l
ions.
“We’ve been here since November.”
That meant they were moving up in the hierarchy of the circus world. That should have been good news, but Evelina’s throat tightened at the thought of her Gran, of Nick, of all the circus folk she’d grown up with being in the same city and never knowing it.
“I’ve been watching the house, wondering what was the best time to come see you, if you might be happy to see me. But then I saw you climbing a tree tonight, and I knew that at least part of you was still the same girl I knew. What were you doing, little Evie?”
The old endearment stung, reducing her back to the barefoot girl picking up pennies the crowds threw for her elders. “It’s none of your business anymore.”
His face went solemn. “Perhaps. But I saw you two days ago. In the street. I had given up hope of ever finding you. But a little silver to your groom and a gardener let me know where you sleep.”
The look Nick gave her was far too soft. She felt blood mount to her cheeks. How she had wished he would look at her like that, once upon a time. How it had finally started to happen when it was time for her to leave him. Now it was too late. “You know it’s madness for us to be together.”
“I do. I’m not stupid, Evie, but knowing you’re safe is worth the risk.”
She bit her lip. He didn’t have the right to choose that risk for her. “Are you so certain about that?”
He blinked, his face falling back to his insouciant expression. “I don’t expect you to come home with me. I just needed to know that you are happy. Is that so wrong?”
She took a breath, held it, and tried to find the right answer. “No. Are you? Happy, I mean.”
He shrugged. “You know me. I am content as long as I am the best.” He looked around the room again, as if trying to memorize it. “So what do you do with yourself now? Have tea parties? Look for a husband?”
It was a good question, and one Evelina asked herself daily. She was caught between her circus past, with its hidden magic and its poverty, and her present, with schooling and science and enough to eat. She’d thought long and hard about another option, a place where she might find a brand-new path. “I want to go to university. There are colleges for women.”
His gaze came back to her, wide with surprise. “Why do you want that?” Probably no one in his acquaintance had set foot inside a proper schoolroom, much less a lecture hall.
“I’m good at learning. I want to see how far I can go. Maybe I’ll figure out … things.”
“What for?” Nick asked practically. “What don’t you already know?”
How to be whole. In her daydreams, she had fabricated a place where she would finally fit in. There would be women like her who loved a book of chemistry more than a new ball gown, and who didn’t care where she grew up. She could study with the finest scholars. Maybe, with their help, she could crack the code to why magic worked and how it meshed with science. She could finally solve the puzzle of her own nature.
At last, she would know where she belonged. And maybe that mattered more than anything else.
The look on Nick’s face was hard to read, so she changed the subject. “I’m glad you came.”
One corner of his mouth curled up. “Is that the truth?”
“It is.” But she couldn’t tell. She felt suffocated by an emotion that was not guilt or loneliness or irritation, but a painful mix of all three. It’s not my fault that I couldn’t stay with you.
Nick watched her with eyes that missed nothing. His mouth was a flat line, with the deliberate neutrality of someone hiding pain.
Please go. She wanted to say it, but that would sever everything between them. She didn’t want that, either. Instead, she grasped his hand. It was warm and hard with calluses and the slow, languorous pulse of his power. It tingled up her arm, a sensual temptation to throw caution to the wind. It was hard to be the only one with Blood. Falling into Nick’s arms would put an end to isolation—but also an end to both their lives. “We’ll find a way to talk later, but now you should leave before you’re caught. And don’t go through the corridor this time. It’s late, but there’s a maid about.”
Nick had been staring at her hand clasping his, but now he looked up in confusion. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I climbed the wall and came in that window. I wasn’t in the corridor.”
Downstairs, a woman shrieked—a long, chilling wail of terror.
Evelina locked eyes with Nick. “Somebody was, and I think we know which way they went.”
Chapter Three
She gave Nick a shove toward the window, but he just leaned into the gesture, grabbing her wrist.
“Go!” she said, exasperation turning the word to a hiss.
“You think I’m leaving?” he growled. “What the blazes is going on out there?”
“Whatever it is won’t improve if you’re found.” Her words came out short and tight, urgency vibrating in her veins. She planted her free hand on his chest and pushed again. “And I’ll be sent packing right along with you.”
He bared his teeth. “Would that be so terrible?”
“Do you wish me ruined?” Her chances for school turned to dust?
They held each other’s glare. Evelina had to know what the scream was about, and there was no time for squabbling. Plus, she was terrified for him—far more than for herself. “It’s the only way we’ll both be safe. Nick, my conscience can’t bear it if you’re arrested when all you did was come to see me for old time’s sake.”
“Old time’s sake.” His lips curled at the last words, and he flicked a hand as if batting them away. “There’s a woman screaming downstairs. You thought someone was creeping around the corridors. I would worry about more than your reputation.”
Pounding shook Evelina’s door, making her jump. Nick pulled a knife from his belt, the blade gleaming in the candlelight. She caught her breath and grabbed his forearm, feeling the play of lean muscle under layers of clothing. “Wait here, then. Get out of sight.”
Nick didn’t budge.
The pounding came again, making the door latch rattle. “Miss Cooper?”
It was Dora.
“Who is that?” Nick whispered.
“One of the upstairs maids. Hide! Quickly!” Evelina was already in motion toward the door. When she cast a glance over her shoulder, Nick had vanished. Only a flutter of bed curtains betrayed his hiding place. Nick in my bed. Spectacular. I’ll never explain that one away. She turned the key in the lock and opened her door.
Dora stood with a candle in one hand. Her face was whey-pale, her lips bloodless. “Miss, you must come. I don’t know what to do.” The maid looked smaller than usual, as if her entire body had retracted in shock.
“What is it?” Evelina stepped into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind her. She wasn’t surprised that she was the first port of call in an emergency. Although she had little authority in the household, she knew the servants relied on her for a cool head and practical advice. That was one advantage of growing up in Ploughman’s Paramount Circus, where sword swallowing was a daily event. It tended to promote strong nerves.
Plus, the odd problem could be dealt with with by one of Gran Cooper’s spells. Not that the servants knew why Miss Imogen’s friend seemed to be able to solve the unsolvable on so many occasions; they were just grateful that she cared about their lot. But, taking her cue from Dora’s expression, Evelina was already having doubts that this situation could be rescued with a bit of herb magic.
“What is it, Dora?” she asked again.
The maid opened her mouth, inhaled, then closed it again. She gave a quick shake of her head, as if to say the words couldn’t come out. Tears were leaking from her eyes, trailing beside her pink-tipped nose.
This wasn’t getting them anywhere. “Show me,” Evelina said, wanting to get away from her bedroom and the man hiding there.
Without another word, Dora led the way toward the stairs. Once on the main floor, instead of going left to the s
tately drawing rooms, she turned right toward the main entrance and the cloakroom used to hang the outerwear of the ambassador’s many guests. Though now retired from foreign service, Emerson Roth, Lord Bancroft, still moved chess pieces around the board of the Empire’s political scene, and that required lavish parties.
They were almost to the entrance hall with its gold sconces and coffered ceiling. Evelina walked two paces behind Dora, following the silent, hunched form. Shadows dragged at the hem of her skirts, reminding her that someone—not Nick—had passed her in the upstairs corridor. There had been those hideous, dismembered dolls in the attic. And then there had been screams.
Despite her vaunted nerves, a shudder slid down her backbone. Why didn’t I at least bring along some of Nick’s knives?
Evelina hurried to keep up with Dora, who was clearly on the verge of panic. She seemed to be heading directly to the cloakroom. The door stood open, light pooling on the marble floor beyond. Outside, one of the kitchen girls sat on a long upholstered bench, placed there so guests could change their footwear.
The girl, surely no more than fourteen or fifteen, was bowed nearly double, her face in her hands. The housekeeper sat next to her, wrapped in a quilted housecoat. She murmured softly, cradling the youngster in a motherly embrace. Evelina dragged her gaze away, giving them privacy. “What happened?”
“It was Maisie that cried out,” Dora said, the statement jerking out in pieces. “When she saw what was in there.” She pointed to the cloakroom.
It was no wonder that Evelina had heard the cry all the way upstairs. The sound, far from being lost in the high ceilings, would have carried right up the stairwell. But what had the young girl seen?
Evelina realized that her hands were icy and she badly wanted the water closet.
The door to the cloakroom stood open. The moment was so silent, she could hear the faint sibilance of the gaslights that had been laid in throughout the main floor. She took a step toward the doorway when Dora touched her arm. The maid’s brow was knitted in concern. “It’s a terrible sight in there, miss. It’s … it’s …”
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