Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

I woke refreshed as I had never been, though a dull headache thrummed at the base of my skull and echoed low in my back. It did not seem to impede my ability to move, but I did remember the feeling from those long months wrested from the tar.

The only curative I knew was more tar, and so I resolved to ignore it and focus on something else.

To wit, whatever it was that had woken me.

The chamber remained dark, though a glow beneath the door suggested light had been lit beyond. A masculine murmur seemed little more than a muted purr, but the sound of the door opening and closing once more jarred me upright.

Was that Communion?

Surely not. Not only would his voice like as not rattle the girders of any home he entered, but he’d be rude indeed to leave without seeing me.

Of course, I was asleep.

Frowning, I plucked a similar wrapper to Zylphia’s from its peg upon the wall by my bed and hastily drew it on. The act set fire to my injured shoulder, and I winced as I cradled my arm.

It felt rather unusual to be wearing the layered luxury of a fine nightdress again, especially since I’d spent months in borrowed clothing, and that hastily altered. The feel of the soft linen felt rather unfamiliar.

Leaving the somewhat unwound mess of my plait to hang at my back, I hurried out into the hall.

Booth’s uneven step halted on the stair nearby. “My apologies for the disturbance, miss,” he said, bushy eyebrows threading together.

“What is happening, Booth?”

His mouth, deeply lined, shifted into a downward curve. “With any luck, nothing to be too concerned about. The physician assures us that it will pass.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “Who is ill?”

“Mrs. Fortescue is mending,” he said firmly. “Mr. Ashmore is with her now.” He must have read the dismay upon my notably pallid features, because he completed climbing the stair and passed me with a murmured, “If you’d care to see her?”

“Yes,” I gasped, and gathered the frothy spill of wrapper and nightdress in both hands to follow. My bare feet padded against the carpet aligned in the narrow hall, and I realized as my toes tingled that it was cold. I’d forgotten slippers.

Booth paused outside the door and tapped gently. It was Ashmore’s voice that murmured, “Come.”

Booth spread a gloved hand over the panel—always proper, even in the dead of night—and opened it for me.

The light from the hall did not reach so far, but Booth’s lantern offered some. At least enough for me to cross the threshold and be greeted by the warmth of a small brass stove.

The room was small but comfortable; Fanny had never taken to overly large sleeping quarters. Her bed was layered with thick blankets, pillows propped up behind her, and though the whole was not all that big, it made her look terribly frail.

Or perhaps it was her slightness of stature that made the bed look large.

There was a great deal more white than iron in her braided hair. Blue veins stood out from the pallor of her skin, and dark speckles dusted her marbled hands where they folded over the sheets. She rested against the mound of pillows, framed by the headboard carved of wrought iron behind her, and looked like a skeletally thin version of the stern-faced widow I’d once known.

Yet as her tired, pale blue eyes fell upon me, all the careworn lines and morass of creases that settled into her face softened into a smile. “There, my dove,” she said, lifting one such thin hand.

Her voice rasped where it had not before.

Ashmore stood by as I crossed the room and knelt beside my dearest companion’s side. “Fanny,” I warbled, barely in control of my tears. “What’s this about feeling unwell?” I sniffed mightily as her hand, thin and dry like parchment, caressed my cheek.

Her eyes nearly vanished beneath a crinkled pinch of lines. “Oh, there’s no call to worry about me,” she said, slowly but with the same matter-of-factness that I expected of the woman who had taught me all I’d needed to survive in a society that did not care for me. She patted my cheek. “I’ll be right as rain before you know it, and you’ll curse the pianoforte scores I’ll have you practicing again.”

I laughed, but softly so as not to damage the serenity of the chamber. Ashmore watched in silence, for his was a demeanor of deference, and he understood that what I felt.

If I was to have no mother, I could do no better than Frances Fortescue at my side.

No longer tired, pains forgotten, I claimed the chair Ashmore placed for me and spoke of nothing in specific with Fanny as she lay in convalescence. Once in a while, she would lift a hand as though to ensure that I truly was there, and I always took it in mine.

When she winced, an occasional flinch as though something hurt, I lifted worried eyes to Ashmore, who only shook his head in calm reassurance and returned to the leather-bound volume he held in his lap.

Dawn was not all that far.

Eventually, Fanny slipped into a steady slumber.

“I’ll stay for a while,” I whispered.

Ashmore touched my shoulder once more, tender assurance, and said, “Don’t do anything rash.”

My smile twisted. “Even if I wanted to,” I said sadly, “I wouldn’t know where to begin.” There was no alchemical compound I knew of that could fight age—save that what Ashmore had utilized in his own long life.

Fanny was a widow, though she had no children. Even if I could convince her, she had no means to extend her life using progeny she never had.

Of course, I knew enough about my dear companion to know she never would allow it.

Ashmore bent to press a kiss upon my head, an oddly paternal gesture for what we had already shared in our past, but I appreciated the intent.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said. “There’s things I need to acquire in order to create your preventative and unbind the contents of that flask.”

He spoke of a draught meant to ensure one did not get with child after a night spent in fornication. It was the sort of sensible thing a mind of intellect would consider, and it bemused me that I’d forgotten.

Worse, that I considered briefly denying it.

What madness possessed me? Was it that I looked at Zylphia and found her impending motherhood to be something to envy? To want?

Of course it was only right that I take the draught. I had no true desire for children, and even if I did, now was not the time to conceive one. Not when a war loomed in the streets I occupied, and my life remained claimed by the Veil that wanted to end it.

What was more, I had no right to bear Hawke’s child without his knowing. Such an act would be akin to a betrayal. I couldn’t do it.

I scrubbed at my face and managed, “Yes, all right.”

Ashmore studied me for a long, uncomfortable moment. I fought not to squirm.

Whatever it was he weighed within himself, it did not culminate into a topic of pursued conversation. “Get some rest, if you can,” he ordered, but gently, and made good his departure.

I remained at Fanny’s side and watched her sleep.

* * *

When dawn had come and gone, slipping faded fingers of faded light under the heavy curtains masking the single window beside the bed, I left my post. Fanny slumbered peacefully, easing the tight knot of worry that had come to settle in my breast.

We were far enough from the deepest fog that I wondered how close to a rise in the boroughs we might be. Some areas of London low, like the Philosopher’s Square, tended to be less fog-ridden in comparison.

Wherever we were, it seemed likely that a shift in the air might soften the coal-ridden haze, and that assured me that we were far from the East End I had made my haunt.

It was early yet, much earlier than I was accustomed to, but my staff were civilized sorts. Mrs. Booth had like as not been up with the sun, and her man was already dressed in the severe black attire of his station.

No matter that the house had been shifted below, Booth was a man who took his role seriously.

The
step-thunk-step
of his pace echoed hollowly in the home Ashmore had made for them all.

What I found most interesting was the lack of rigid severity in this house away from Chelsea’s bohemian demand. Though Booth and Mrs. Booth had not changed their way, they also did not appear to mind when I sat at the table wearing my nightdress and high-necked wrapper. My hair was left half-tumbled, for it hurt to lift my arm to tend, but Booth did not so much as flick a disapproving glance at my attire.

I was bemused.

More, I was legitimately concerned. As he placed a tray at my elbow, I took the opportunity to stare hard at his features. They had not changed overly much from my memory, and I was relieved to note this. Broad of feature, strong-nosed and possessing of a leonine head of wild white hair, he had always struck me as the epitome of a gentleman pirate.

He did not suit this home below the drift, but then, many a lady might have let him go for lack of a leg. He’d lost it in service to Her Majesty, and I loved him all the more for it.

Booth had been something of a father figure, in my limited understanding of the role, and he had always subtly indulged my fancies. Mrs. Booth was the sterner of the two, but they were a childless couple, and I had long recognized the forbearance with which they treated me.

Fanny, content to play the villainous tutor in my fanciful turn, never interfered in such things.

It had taken me a long time to come to terms with the truth of my existence above the foggy drift. Booth and his wife, Fanny, even Betsy—who had left for a safer home in her husband’s Scotland village—had all been more of a family than those of my blood.

Relief caused my eyes to well over, and there Booth’s calm façade cracked.

Concern replaced gentility, and he plucked from his pocket a handkerchief. “There, now, miss,” he said softly. “None of that.”

I warbled something wordless into the cloth I brought to my face, shaking my head.

Booth set out the repast his wife had prepared, silently allowing me to come to grips with the sudden burst of emotion.

When I was no longer in danger of imminent loss of composure and faculty for intelligent discourse, I blotted at my eyes and took a steadying breath.

Booth poured my tea. “Sugar, miss?”

“No, thank you.” The rich aroma of the black tea wafted up from the delicate tea cup, patterned with roses in shades of dusky pink to mauve. Gold glistened in delicate accents, and I cradled the saucer in hand as I smiled at it. “I thought all of these were meant to go to His Lordship.”

Booth’s pale eyes twinkled as he replaced the tea cozy. “We furnished Lady Northampton with a list of all items,” he assured me, and did not say what I quickly surmised.

Like my tears, my laughter came rather more freely than perhaps once I had allowed it. There was no opportunity to demurely hide it, and it ended on a snort when it caught me by surprise. “You devilish things,” I chuckled.

“I’m sure I’ve no idea what you mean, miss,” he replied, oh so seriously but for the devil in his eye. “May I acquire for you anything else?”

Given the meal placed before me, I couldn’t think of anything in particular. It was similar to the plate Mrs. Booth had made for me the night before, and my stomach growled hungrily for it. Booth, bless his gentility, did not acknowledge the uncomfortably loud demand. “I believe I have all I need,” I told him.

He bent at the waist, acknowledgement of my care, and took the tray back to the kitchens, where I imagined Mrs. Booth worked.

I ate quickly, and pondered what this new development now meant for me.

I wondered how easy it might be to simply remain where I was—not a countess, not a collector, not a circus creature but simply Cherry St. Croix.

But then, what
was
Cherry St. Croix?

A scientist? Not for too long.

A Society heiress? Not since my disastrous marriage.

A sad, sober invalid desperate to stay hidden from the sight of those that wanted her dead?

I sighed as I saw to my meal. That latter seemed far more the thing, and I didn’t like the way it made me feel like a fox caught in a hunt.

I ate all that I could, happy when I felt contentedly full, and drained the last of the tea from the pot. It had cooled, but the flavor remained strong, and a bit on the tart side.

The dining room was not large, but it was comfortable. The table could seat four, and while there was no fireplace, another brass stove warmed the air. Fanny had exercised her fashionable sense here, as well, and the walls were papered with a delicate pattern that included gilt in the edging.

Despite the change of location, I had a rather persistent suspicion that Ashmore had given Fanny free reign in her spending.

A home, though it did not soar above the fog as our previous.

Fanny would no doubt agree that I could do worse than Ashmore by way of lifetime companion. He provided well, cared for the people I cared for. Thought in ways similar to me.

Times like this, I remembered what it was to be ill-treated by Hawke. Such meandering paths turned Ashmore into something of a white knight out of storybook in comparison.

Wholly unfair of me.

I could not help who it was I obsessed over.

“I will not call it love,” I insisted to my plate, and Booth’s irregular step hesitated at the door. Another pot waited on a small platter, balanced with ease in his gloved hands.

He still knew me. My tastes might have altered some, but I adored my tea.

“Another pot, miss?”

“Please,” I said, flushing deeply. Had he heard me?

He exchanged the pot, but did not immediately leave. His gaze remained on the table he tidied around me. “You have a furrow between your brows,” he informed me solemnly.

I reached up a finger to smooth the line that had definitely formed. “Do I,” I replied, but it lacked the lilt of a question. “I suppose I must.”

He hesitated, my plate in hand, and I knew he must be weighing the bounds of propriety with that of years of knowing. “The missus has been worried for you,” he finally said.

I frowned into my refreshed tea. “I am sorry, Booth.”