by A. G. Howard
Lord Thornton’s eyes narrowed. “You heard her? You mean you read her lips. As smoky as that tavern was, I would think it difficult to cipher one’s words with any certainty.”
The tables were turning on me. “S-someone relayed me what she said.”
The viscount nodded. “Ah.” He crouched to capture the butterfly at my feet with all the grace and deftness of a hungry wasp. He stood and held the insect to his cheek by its fragile legs—careful and studious—letting its wings whisper over his skin. I feared he was going to crush the helpless creature.
His lips moved again, stealing my attention. “Your translator wouldn’t have something to gain by spoiling your image of me, would he?”
“No. He—”
“He,” the viscount interrupted. “So, it was a man. A rival.”
My knees locked beneath my heavy petticoats. I’d been caught in my own trap.
Lifting his hand, my host set the butterfly free. It fluttered away, dancing on the breeze. His expression was pure smugness. “I don’t tolerate sharing, Miss Emerline. Your uncle mentioned no affiliations with other suitors.”
The crass assumption burned my ego like a brand. “You mean to say, that because I am deaf, you imagined no one else could ever want me.”
The viscount regarded my features. “Not at all. In your sixteenth year, you caught the attention of two men. One retracted his interest the moment he realized you were deaf. He feared you would taint your offspring. He was unworthy of you. I hope you know that.”
Again, my host confounded me; not only with this intimate knowledge, but by the empathy emanating from those silent words.
“And the other man?” Lord Thornton pressed. “Your uncle never told me what happened with him.”
I wanted to lie. But something about Lord Thornton’s tender expression, something about the way he had patiently helped bundle my flowers and watched Mama’s bluebirds in quiet thought and retrospect, coaxed the truth from my lips. “I managed for four months to sustain the illusion I could hear. He became besotted with me and offered his hand in marriage. Wanted me even after I confessed the truth. But I turned away the proposal.”
“Why?”
How could I tell this stranger that the thought of being intimate with a man without the ability to hear our shared breaths, the rhythm of his heart pounding inside my ear, or the moans of our pleasure, both frightened and embittered me?
My tongue ran across the back of my teeth. “I ended our courtship without any explanation. If I refused him a reason, why would I offer you one?”
The viscount’s demeanor changed from sympathetic to resolved. “Your secret beau—this cad who speaks ill of me—would do well to be warned. I’ve no intention of losing the battle for your hand.”
“You mean the battle for my dowry.”
He scowled. “Stop telling me what I mean. You read lips, not minds.”
I struggled for the upper hand. “If I’m to uphold this farce as your intended, I would like to meet your father. Where is he? It is rumored he went missing when you sold his estate to buy this one.”
Paling to a white that rivaled the honeysuckle petals around us, the viscount took two steps back and slumped onto the bench, barely avoiding the basket of flowers we’d gathered.
I almost pitied him, to be so defeated by my accusation.
“I didn’t buy this estate with my family’s funds,” he said at last. “Father went away on holiday to escape debtor’s prison. To save our family’s name, I challenged the prior owner of the mines, Larson, to a game of cards at the tavern.” His teeth clenched. “The humidor was one part of the wager. But there was a deed within. The land that you’re standing upon … this Manor of Diversions … it is my winnings.”
Chapter 19
To whom you tell your secrets, to him you resign your liberty.
Spanish Proverb
As I stood staring at the viscount’s lips, wondering if I’d misread them, Hawk’s observation from earlier resurfaced in my mind. He had mentioned a sealed envelope beneath the cigars in the humidor.
It was the deed to this land.
The maids were leaving the herb enclosure. Their timing annoyed me. I wasn’t ready to go. The viscount wanted me to believe he was a hero … that he had saved his absent father’s reputation with a game of cards. Yet there was more to this story.
“You had nothing to ante,” I baited. “You said your father was bankrupt. And from what I understand, your gambling had a hand in that.”
His jaw, a blurred haze beneath the honeysuckle’s canopy, appeared to spasm. He stood and my heart hammered a staccato rhythm at how large he appeared. “Enough of this dance. My past conduct is none of your concern, Miss Emerline. Unless you wish to divulge your past to me as well.”
“I am a deaf milliner. What part of my past could possibly interest a grand viscount such as you?” I blinked against the glare of sun behind his solid form, knowing I fanned a flame, but somehow unable to stop myself.
He leaned in, his shadow imprisoning mine. “Let us start with the time that you spent with my brother.”
I licked my lips, my tongue turned to sandpaper. From the corner of my eye, the maids paused on their trek toward us to talk to the gardeners. A rash change of heart overtook, a plea that they would hurry and rescue me. I had no explanation as to how I would possess intimate details about a Romani man who would’ve been eight years my senior. “Why do you presume I spent time with him?” I stalled.
Lord Thornton’s hands twitched at his sides, as if he thought me some enigma whose meaning was just at his fingertips. Either that, or he wished to strangle me. “You called out the name Hawk. To acquaintances he was Chaine Hawkings. Only his closest friends shortened his surname thusly.”
I knotted the handkerchief in my hand, wondering upon the discrepancies. In Hawk’s journal, his name was Chaine Kaldera. So, he must’ve changed it to Hawkings upon his escape from his father. That could explain his tombstone. And the weathering of eight years could’ve worn away most of the letters. Unless his nickname had been used.
Did Lord Thornton bury him? Or, perchance their Aunt Bitti helped arrange the burial. But the viscount didn’t know her. If he did, then why had he been locked out of his brother’s grave that day in the cemetery?
Curiosity made me bold. “I want to know how Chaine died.”
An annoyed wrinkle formed above Lord Thornton’s brow. “And why should I tell you?”
“As the little girl in the mine … as the child he saved. He would want me to know.”
The viscount’s defensive scowl softened at my words. “He died out here. In the mines. An accident.”
My heartbeat leapt into my throat to have my and Hawk’s suspicions validated at last. It was unbearable, to think of him dying in the same place he’d endured such torments as a child. “So … where are his remains?”
Lord Thornton glanced at his palms. “His body was never found. Some servants saw him fall through a decayed scaffolding.”
“I should like to interview them.”
“They were employed by Larson. They no longer work here.”
“Could you offer their names?”
“I have none to give you.” That hardness in his brow returned, impenetrable.
The maids resumed their stroll in the distance. A suffocating weight heaved upon me—either the humidity, the sun, or my emotional turmoil—and I turned on my heels, determined to meet up with them and escape.
I inhaled sharply as Lord Thornton snagged my elbow. He coaxed me back into the copse’s obscuring depths, standing behind me, close enough the wool of my skirt clung to his trousers. His warm palm glided down to my wrist—his thumb heavy against my pulse point.
I struggled to breathe, as helpless as the butterfly that he earlier pinched between his fingertips. I couldn’t face him, unnerved by the feel of his breath at my ear, his lips whispering unreadable words.
My wrist chilled as his hand moved to my chin. He slanted m
y head, leveling my eyes to his mouth.
“What did I just say?” he asked.
His insensitivity stung like a slap. My eyes burned as I refused to answer.
“Only in this is your infirmity a downfall,” his lips said. “For you become a victim when you must rely upon another’s paraphrasing of unreadable conversations. Trust no one but yourself. Even the most honorable man might lie to gain advantage over another.”
Was he speaking of himself? Or his assumed rival?
He began to release my chin but I shifted my body around to face him and spread his fingers to cup my cheek, holding him there, not yet ready to give up the reality of his touch.
His lips tightened, a reaction so slight, I almost missed it.
“I will tell you what I can,” he resigned, and I realized my precarious grasp for tangibility had coaxed him into answering my question.
I held my breath, waiting.
“Larson wanted a rare clock my family owned. I used it as my ante. As for my”—he cringed— “past reputation, I’ve abandoned that lifestyle. I have interest in only one woman. And your dowry has nothing to do with that.”
Hawk’s earlier warnings shook me from my trance. The grand Lord Thornton had almost seduced me with his pretty words. Pushing his palm from my face, I stepped back, nearly toppling as the petticoats gathered around my shins. He reached out to steady me, but drew back at my angry scowl.
The maids approached, no less than a yard away now.
“I know what I am to you,” I whispered, careful not to use my vocal cords. “Kind Lord Thornton and his charity bride. What but a saint would overlook her deafness and want her despite it? I must wonder, will you display me in your dungeon alongside your mutant exhibits?”
His face paled again, but only for an instant. An angry blush replaced it, spurred by his hot Romani blood, darkening his skin so that the storm-cast quality to his eyes brightened in contrast to a steel, glossy gray. “What I do in that dungeon is no concern of yours.” He leaned closer. “Least not yet.”
I feigned a laugh, though inwardly, the subtle threat rattled me to the bone. “Do you not see the folly of your plan? I’ve experienced society’s prejudices. I’ve worn their chains most of my life. They will not embrace you as a saint for marrying me. They will deem you a fool.”
The expression on his face flickered between anger and frustration. “My brother was obsessed with finding a maiden he met once when she was a child; in all of his twenty years, he’d never been with another. He was saving himself for her, waiting for when she came of age. Many thought him a fool for such blind fidelity.” His long lashes lowered, as if it vexed him to speak of Hawk. “But the girl shared a piece of his past,” he continued. “She provided light in the midst of an inconceivably evil darkness. It burned her image into his brain … and altered his future. I could never have imagined a woman worthy of such reverence. Yet I’ve found you to be captivating and courageous, worthy of all that and more. Not despite your deafness, but because of it. If that makes me a fool, I will proudly wear the title.”
The beautiful sentiment spun webs of contrition around my heart. I glanced over my shoulder. The maids were a few feet away, coming up the path.
After pausing to gather my wits, I turned back to the viscount, but he, his clothes, and his cane had vanished somewhere beyond the honeysuckle copse, leaving nothing except the basket of flowers as a reminder of our time together. Trembling, I placed his handkerchief upon the bench and pondered over the mysterious man who owned it.
The sense of being watched unsettled me. I pulled down my veil, picked up the basket, and fell into step with the maids, clutching my abdomen to disentangle the knots of confusion inside and lock them away. For once I arrived in my chamber I would be with Hawk again—the broken child who rescued me in his youth, the man who saved himself for me in his adulthood, and the ghost who had grown so possessive he would leave no thought unturned regarding the long hour we’d spent apart.
I removed my hat as I stepped into my room, and set the new pot and the bucket of soil on my floor. There was no fire in the fireplace, nothing at all that resembled warmth—an iciness accentuated by Hawk’s absence. Yet I procrastinated reviving him. I needed to be alone for once. To work out my thoughts without anyone else in my head.
What had Lord Thornton meant, when he said the dungeon wasn’t my concern—yet? Were those medieval torture devices mere pieces in a collection, or tools for some twisted sense of sadistic pleasure he liked to use upon the women he bedded? My gut clenched.
The man who sat with me, patiently and gently wrapping flowers so as not to break their stems or crumple their petals … the man who seemed to have an affinity for animals and nature and children … was he capable of such demented cruelties?
I patted the bruise on my cheek, remembering how tender he was when he soothed it. How full of wonder he looked after we touched.
He baffled me. On the one hand, I felt a connection with him, an inexplicable kinship. I felt as if I knew him—understood him on some deep level. Perhaps due to the physical hindrances we had in common, or to our shared affinity for creating things with color and texture. But on the other hand, he frightened and infuriated me.
A desperate, thudding sensation awoke behind my sternum, and I reminded myself none of this mattered. I was still in control. I wasn’t going to wed him. I would never have to know who he truly was.
So why did I ache to know? Why did I want to feel his touch again?
A chill seeped into my bones. In the soft afternoon light, my turquoise ceiling swelled overhead, a rolling ocean of gloom waiting to crash down upon me. Craving the security Hawk’s presence always provided, I tucked the locket beneath my bodice so it touched my flesh.
He didn’t appear.
Hawk? I called to him in my mind. Was he so angry and hurt he refused to return? Was that even possible?
Tears sprung to my eyes. I surveyed my surroundings through the blur. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. The spiced aroma of his flower still filled the room. It sat on the Secretaire, all eight petals shimmering in place. In fact, it appeared to have flourished since I last saw it. No new petals, but the ones remaining seemed perkier.
Then I noticed that something had been disturbed. The dead petals I’d left sprinkled upon the bureau were gone.
“She must’ve taken them with her.”
My pulse leapt at hearing Hawk’s voice. “Where are you?”
“Hiding.” With a rustle beneath my bed, my ghost rolled out from under the frame. “Thanks to your Judas kiss, I was forced to perfect a new trick today.” He stood, dusting himself, though nothing clung to him. It was all for show.
Unable to face his wounded frown, I focused on his muddied boots as they tracked toward me. At the last moment, he spun and appeared beside the double doors across the room—this burst of speed another new trick he had learned.
“You cut me, Juliet.” The betrayal in his voice grated within my ears, like a fork digging away at the tenderness. “You know how I hate the darkness.”
Tears burned behind my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall. I was tired. Tired of apologizing. Tired of having my every thought measured and scrutinized. “You are in my head. Always in my head. It is unfair. I can’t read your mind. We are unequally yoked. There shall be times when I need to think or act separate from you. Please understand.”
“I understand. I understand my brother is weeding his way into your sympathies.”
I stared at Hawk’s hand where he swung his pocket watch. Before I could stop it, the image of Lord Thornton’s rough palm touching my cheek flashed through my mind. My attention slid back to Hawk’s feet, but it was already too late.
“What happened between the two of you today?”
I kept my eyes averted. My mind blank.
“He may be able to touch you,” Hawk growled, “but he can’t put a dent in the cold silence that once encompassed every minute of your life. Despite that he’s an a
rchitect, he cannot build a bridge of sound for you. Only I can.”
I snapped my chin up. “I know that!”
“Then why are you falling beneath his spell?”
I clamped my teeth, my hands working at the pleats in my dress. I couldn’t even explain to myself what sort of hypnotic power the viscount held over me. I moaned, wishing to change the subject.
“I can help with a subject change.” Hawk wore a new expression, edged with cruelty. “I looked this time, while in my hell. And there was a sliver of light, just enough to see a skeleton. Every bit of skin eaten away by rats. Its bones pitted with holes; its clothing consumed by worms. It was me, Juliet. Me, in a state of decay.”
A sob stung in my throat like a swarm of hornets, just to imagine such horror. I clutched my neck. “Dear Lord. I-I’m so sorry!”
“You are correct. Our love is indeed unbalanced. For how can a woman respect a man she has so much power over? At the drop of a petal, you can castrate me. Cut me out of your life and leave me helpless on my knees in the throes of Purgatory.” He studied me, his voice pinched with agony. “I understand you need time alone. But for me, being alone is nothing but darkness and disorientation. If I could but remember what it’s like to live and crave a peaceful solitude.” His eyes saddened. “If I could but remember.”
Sympathy rushed through me. Even should he remember what it was like to live, he might still have this fear of solitude after all the loneliness and terror he had suffered in his childhood—a facet of a personality molded and shaped by a tortured past.
Hawk regarded the floor. “You think me repulsive and needy.”
Every part of me longed to touch him, hold him. “I think you brave, beautiful, and broken.” How could I not, after he saved me during his fractured childhood? After how, as a man, he had searched for me? After all he had sacrificed to find me?
At last, the familiar light ignited in Hawk’s eyes, a scintillation of curiosity. “What sacrifice? What did you learn today? Was it about the humidor?”
