His Wicked Sins (6 page)

Then she wondered if he was any more adept at this feat than she, if the walls he erected

were impregnable. Hers certainly were not. Though she was far better now than she had

been as a child, there were yet days that her anxious thoughts burgeoned and grew and

overcame her best intentions.

"What has set her off this time?" Mr. Fairfax tapped his fingers against his thigh, a

steady beat.

The maid made a choked sound.

"She had an awful afternoon, sir. Miss Percy could scarce settle her," she said, twisting

the cloth of her apron with a desperate wringing motion.

Beth wondered of whom they spoke.

Letting go the now-wrinkled apron, the maid dropped her hands to her sides. The white

cloth fell over her black skirt in creased disarray.

"Miss Percy says 'tis the storm," she said.

Griffin Fairfax pinned her with a hard stare, and his tone was silky soft. "Does she?"

The girl's hands moved nervously over her apron, smoothing in small, jerky strokes as

she stared down at the ground for so long that Beth thought she would not speak again. At

last, she whispered, "Will you fetch her?"

There was a terrible moment of silence, heavy with unease. Beth looked back and forth

between the two, sensing there was some undercurrent of meaning to such an innocuous

question. Mr. Fairfax looked hewn of stone, no trace of emotion to be read in his

expression or posture.

"No," he said, abrupt.

Baffled by the peculiar exchange, and made wary by it, Beth wondered at the source of

it. A memory came to her, of Mr. Fairfax offering her a ride and saying he was on his way

to Burndale Academy, and now Beth understood that his errand must have been to fetch

someone.

Someone who—according to the maid—would not come.

Mr. Fairfax looked at Beth then, his gaze fixed on her with focused intent, and her heart

stuttered in her breast. Her breath came a little faster as he stared at her, his gaze

inscrutable.

To call him lovely seemed absurdity, but it was nothing more or less than truth. Despite

the hard cast of his features, or perhaps because of it, his face was incredibly appealing,

his form equally so. She would be a liar to pretend she did not notice. To pretend that the

sight of him did not make the butterflies dance.

There, she had acknowledged it, an inappropriate fascination with this man, an

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imagined connection to him. An inexplicable urge to touch him, just for an instant. She

could fathom no reason for it, yet here it was.

The moment spun out, like hot candy pulled from the pot, and then it spun too thin and

disappeared. Beth felt the connection snap, and she was left to wonder if it had been there

at all.

His expression told her nothing.

He made a slight bow and said, "It was my pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss

Canham."

With a glance at the sky, he turned and climbed up on the curricle once more. When she

tried to catch his eye, intending to thank him for the ride, he did not look at her; instead,

he lifted the reins. Strong hands. Confident grasp. He was so brutally controlled that he

might have been held up by rods of iron.

Her body humming with sharp tension, Beth watched as the curricle rolled away and

disappeared round the sharp bend, leaving her with a puzzling sense of loss.

"You mustn't … oh … you mustn't…" A glance found the little maid wringing her

hands in distress, her gaze alternating in frantic rhythm between Beth's face and the

ground, making her head move up and down like a bobbing cork.

Beth looked to the now-empty road. A quiet distress wove through her, a wariness.

Mr. Fairfax had come to Burndale Academy, and gone, and whatever errand had

brought him here, he had not carried it out.

Because
she
had refused to come to him—whoever
she
was—and he had refused to

fetch her. Something about the entire situation was not only odd, but somehow …

dreadful.

Just as the pewter sky, and the great, looming face of Burndale Academy, and the three

dead trees that stood like the bard's three witches swaying in the wind, were all dreadful

and grim.

The maid shuddered once more, then seemed to come to herself.

"A poor welcome I've shown you," she said. "Miss Percy will not be pleased."

"I feel very welcome, thank you. There is no reason to tell Miss Percy otherwise," Beth

replied.

The maid's shoulders, stiff and tense, sagged a little. "Will you come this way, miss?"

Resolutely navigating her thoughts away from Griffin Fairfax and his mysterious

errand, Beth followed the maid up the front stairs and into the house.

Pausing, she looked around, dimly aware that the girl circled behind her, drawing into

the shadows like a wraith. The entryway was large and rectangular, with dark paneled

walls and a floor tiled in a geometric pattern of unglazed clay tiles.

There was no candle to light the way, the storm-cast gloom making the place less than

welcoming. Beth stared at the wine-red tile; the shade had never numbered among her

favorites.

A snick of sound issued at her back, and Beth looked over her shoulder to see the girl

had turned the key in the lock of the front door.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Alice, miss." The reply was whispered to the floor.

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"What of my trunk, Alice?"

"Mr. Waters will see it's brought to your chamber, miss. He's a handyman of sorts.

Keeps the place in repair. Our Mr. Waters was a sailor once. He says he has seen the

whole world…" Her voice trailed off and she shot a quick glance at Beth. "He'll see your

trunk brought to your chamber before the rain comes."

My chamber.
That was a pivotal point that had drawn Beth to the position of teacher at

Burndale Academy. She was promised a room of her own rather than one to share. A true

luxury. Many positions required the teachers to share rooms, even beds.

Beth knew her numerous limitations far too well to imagine she could have borne that.

She could just imagine what a fellow teacher would think if Beth bolted upright in the

dead of night to light every candle in the room and throw the window open wide.

"Thank you," she said as Alice sidled past her.

They continued along a wide hallway, the walls bereft of adornment, the floors barren

of carpet, more of the same red tile, the color reminiscent of dried blood. Again, Beth had

the impression that Burndale Academy was chill and forbidding, and she felt a momentary

pang of homesickness. A deep breath and a silent admonition chased those feelings into a

corner. There was no sense wishing for what was no more.

Her home was gone. The little house with its sun-dappled garden was lost to her family,

and the small, dingy flat they had been forced to was no more a home than this unfriendly

place. Except that her family was there in that flat, their good society creating a home as it

always had, regardless of how stained the plaster walls or how threadbare the carpet.

Pressing her lips together, Beth reminded herself that she—and her annual income—

were now their best hope for survival. She thrust aside her sad musings and hastened her

steps to catch up with Alice, who moved like smoke through the shadowy hall.

There came a loud clap of thunder that made Beth gasp, followed by an oppressive

quiet, undisturbed by echoes of children's voices or squeals of laughter. That quiet

weighed upon her, and she walked a little faster, following the maid down the dim

passage.

The only sound was the tap-tap-tap of Alice's shoes on the wood, and Beth's a heartbeat

behind.

* * *

Flipping open the lid of his ornately carved pocket watch, he looked at his keepsakes,

his treasures. Pretty golden locks of hair. They were his. His to touch. His to fondle. Soft

and silky and smooth.

He had long ago torn out the workings of the watch to make room for these things of far

greater import. The watch was quite full. Soon, he would add another trophy, and the time

would come to remove some of the older ones and put them in the special box on the

shelf. The box with the little bones. Such tiny bones.

Fat drops of rain touched his cheeks and brow as he turned his face to the wind. With a

grunt, he lifted the reins and set the horses to a fast pace. He had no wish to be caught in a

downpour with cold, wet rivulets snaking along his back, his neck, wending into his boots.

Rain had been his mother's weather. The rumble of thunder had set her on edge, tensed

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her shoulders, frayed her temper. She would tug strands of her long, curling blond hair

from the knot at her nape, and her lips would move in silent recitation. Those had been the

days he kept quiet as could be, hushing his brother, hiding them both away in an unused

bedchamber or the attic. Sometimes they hid in the shed by the woods. Sometimes they

found a small cupboard to wedge their bodies into, or a chest.

Invariably, his mother found them, and then she would fetch the strap, a belt, a wooden

paddle. Once, she had used the leather bellows from the fireplace simply because it was

handy. The leather had been dotted with iron studs.

She was dead now. They were all dead. His mother. His father. His brother. And so

many pretty girls.

But not Sarah. Trusting Sarah, who had been bought with a handful of trinkets.

The rain was good for something. It would wash away the sticky mess she had put in

her hair. Sadly, that would wash away her curls.

No matter. No matter. Her hair was straight, but silky smooth and a nice, shiny gold.

He smiled as he thought of touching it. Cutting away another lock for his collection.

Cutting away parts of her and listening to her muffled screams.

Anticipation ratcheted through him as he thought of touching her. Stroking her. Hurting

her.

He took a deep breath, and another, dragging his excitement under control, pulling back

the urge to go to her now, to do the deed quickly and feel the rush of power, of lust, of

aching, luscious release.

Slowly, slowly.

Long ago, he had possessed no finesse, killing them too quickly. There had been that

time in Stepney, the tavern just off Ratcliffe Highway … and another in Covent Garden.

He shook his head, appalled that those memories were painfully humiliating still. Such

ineptitude. Like a green lad with his first woman, he had not held himself in check, had

not known how to savor the experience.

Now he did his hunting much closer to home, took his time, enjoyed every nuance of

the act.

Enjoyed their terror and their torment, those soft, sweet girls with their pretty gold hair.

He took the turn at a breakneck pace. The high, two-wheeled little carriage rocked to a

halt as he sawed on the reins, and the grim sky broke open just as the stable boy rushed to

his side.