Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles Page 3

  His back stiffened in my embrace. “The hell you say.”

  It had not occurred to me that Ashmore wouldn’t know the good monsieur for what he was at a glance.

  While it was not Ashmore who had plucked me from the monsieur’s grasp at the tender age of thirteen, his staff—those in his employ, and he had many—had done all the work to extricate me from the show that had exploited my talents for so long. I had always known that Fanny maintained constant communication with my absent guardian, reporting on my every move. Ashmore knew a great deal of things about a rather large number of people, but it placated me somewhat that Marceaux’s involvement here seemed to be something of a surprise to him.

  I could not help a chuckle. I did my best to stifle it, but it came through as I said, “That was Monsieur Marceaux, in rather more flesh than I had imagined him.”

  He blew out a breath that hissed between clenched teeth. “I thought him like as not left to hang by an overeager crowd by now.”

  “I’d entertained the hope,” I agreed in wry tones. “At the least, I wonder if his bantling band was all nicked.” While he’d care little enough if his criminal children were all rounded up by the jails, he himself had always been too clever for catching.

  Yet for all his cleverness, I could not imagine what it was that brought him to this place. Marceaux was in comparison to Hawke little more than a salesman selling farcical fancies. There were no circumstances under which Hawke would give up his decadent domain willingly.

  I would stake my life on this truth.

  Ashmore’s fingers came to rest beneath the heavy twine of hair that was not mine, gentle and firm. “We can still stop this.”

  I met his eyes, though they remained difficult to see beneath the brim of his fashionable and rakishly tilted top hat. Formal attire, though not as fine as what Society would demand, suited him. The greatcoat he wore against the cold made him look quite dashing.

  It hid a brace of pistols I had not been aware he owned until I’d watched him strap them on.

  My dear guardian turned tutor was not the enigma I once thought him, but steadfast and loyal. I admired him for that.

  That I was many generations removed from his blood could be the reason I remained so stubborn. Such obstinacy appeared to come by legacy. “I won’t stop,” I said. “I am here to rescue Hawke.”

  “Even should he refuse?”

  “He will have to tell me so,” I declared, not for the first time. I would not be dissuaded until Hawke looked me in the eye and rejected all I wanted to give.

  Ashmore’s fingers tightened gently upon my nape. It was a silent signal of understanding, one that suggested his sympathies did not follow all that far behind.

  He knew what it was to be bound, unwillingly or otherwise, to another.

  For too long, I had been little more than the daughter of Society’s beloved darling, Josephine St. Croix, and a genius doctor they called Mad St. Croix with good reason. I had been held to the standards of my angelic mother and found wanting.

  I had fallen so far in disgrace, that even my mad father might be something of a pillar of sanity beside me.

  Only I—only we, Ashmore and I—knew the truth; that my mother was the barmiest of the two, and whatever seeds of instability had been sown within her chosen husband, she had driven them to blossom. Madness devoured him, vengeance consumed her, and in the end, I was nearly sacrificed upon her selfish altar so that she might live forever.

  A feat Ashmore was closer to than she would ever be.

  I had foiled the schemes of my parents. Ashmore—despite, or perhaps because of his torturous love for her—had ended Josephine St. Croix’s threat with his own hands, absolving me of the responsibility that might have broken me forever.

  I already bore the stain of murdering my rival, a man who had always been my friend, and putting to rest the soul of my father, who had long been tormented by his pitiable existence.

  This was a mutual burden of silence that I could not reveal to the Society matrons who would never find me anything but wanting.

  I had no life in the places I had known. Not anymore. My well-heeled world was stripped away, leaving ruin and grief in its wake. This place, this existence within the streets of London below and the choking fog that stifled it, was all that I had left.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The only truth I could count upon was that of the alchemical arts I had once disdained, and the journey that I had begun when Ashmore offered the teaching.

  My tutor’s mouth, softer than one might expect in so aristocratic a face, quirked, though in resignation rather than humor. “I acknowledge your determination, Marie.” I barely refrained from wrinkling my nose at him. “If that bastard of yours is not under that canvas, where is he?”

  That was too pointed a question. Hawke wasn’t mine. And even if rumor had him filially a bastard, I had no time to debate the finer points of possession when it came to Micajah Hawke. “That’s rather something of a problem,” I murmured, glancing in either direction from within the cover of Ashmore’s embrace.

  No shadows loomed from the path, though footsteps occasionally rustled slowly by. There were other paths, especially behind the hedges nearby, and I had no doubt a couple strolled arm in arm somewhere beyond—searching for a suitably dark patch, naturally.

  I could picture the workings of this late night pleasure garden so easily, for it came with years of familiarity, but I could not shed the feeling that something did not operate quite so smoothly as it should.

  The whole felt off-kilter. Different. Like a tea that tasted black and bitter when one expects three lumps of sugar.

  Beyond us, rising like a jewel in the dark, the circus tent glowed eerily crimson. Stained, likely, by the blood my young associate, Maddie Ruth, had claimed spilled there night after night.

  The girls what come back from his shows are bleeding, some broken so awful, they won’t talk of it.

  She’d been speaking of Hawke, but I had little doubt this report to be entirely accurate. Especially now that Marceaux had come to roost. If Hawke had been stripped of his role, then perhaps not all of what Maddie Ruth had described could be laid at his feet.

  The thought gave me some hope. The Menagerie had taken on a patently sinister edge, one that had little to do with the thrill of discovery and everything to do with death.

  If Hawke was entirely to blame, I wasn’t certain how to reconcile that with my intentions.

  “He could be anywhere,” I said slowly, frowning at that glowing jewel I feared so much, “especially if Maddie Ruth’s report is true. His boarding was in the manor across the grounds, but I don’t believe the Veil would lock him there.”

  “You think him locked up?”

  “Cage the one called Cage?” I asked with a lift of my eyebrows, and Ashmore inclined his head at the irony of it. It was exactly the sort of punishment the Veil would consider just. “There’s a prison in the opposite direction,” I continued, tilting my head to the left. “I’d found him there once.”

  Freed him, only to be used and discarded within the same night.

  “There’s also the Veil’s meeting hall,” I said firmly, thrusting such thoughts aside, “but I don’t know why he’d be there.” Or why Hawke had chosen to remain within, shirtless and bathed in a heat that had caused his skin to glisten and shine.

  The first of those moments wherein I thought something wrong with him.

  And wrong with me.

  It seemed there was no part of this Menagerie that did not evoke a memory of the man who had imprinted himself upon me.

  This was the sort of thing one took laudanum for.

  I blew out a hard breath.

  Ashmore studied the grounds over my head. “If I suggest that we split up, will you get into trouble?”

  “Perhaps.” Though I hoped not. “Shall I suggest we meet after a brief measure near the sweets’ halls?”

  “What are you about, minx?”

  “Informati
on from the only source likely to remain discreet enough for my purposes.” I had no choice but to be careful. Flailing selfishly had only earned me this current set of trials. I thumped him once upon the chest, and stepped back. “I’ll go visit the girls. You come find me soon.”

  “Why them?”

  “Because of all who operate within these walls,” I said, smoothing my borrowed hair, “’tis the sweets that know the most. By and large, them what pay for a bit of flesh tend to assume open legs mean closed ears.”

  It was too dark to know for certain, but I thought I saw Ashmore’s cheeks redden.

  He was, for all his advanced years, a gentleman.

  We parted on an agreement, and I made my way through familiar paths. The midnight sweets had once considered me something of a mascot—a female collector bold as brass, eager to take on a domain dominated by the men they served.

  That friendship had cost them in blood and numbers. I was not certain I’d receive a warm welcome—or that they would not turn on me in their anger, and such a thing would be understandable. I took a risk.

  When Maddie Ruth had come to me during my convalescence, she spoke of darker deeds than what even I had come to know from the Menagerie. Sweets came back injured, some did not return at all. This was a shoddy way to treat a commodity, and that was the first inkling I’d entertained as to Hawke’s safety. I thought Hawke might truly be in trouble, for he had never been one to ill-use his wares.

  Devil or serpent, tiger or ringmaster, Hawke was in all things a man of business, and without flesh to sell, there would be no coin to accrue.

  Hawke understood the precepts of running such a scheme.

  Marceaux, on the other hand, tended to fritter away commodities, for there were always those willing and able to take the place of a nicked child or a maimed performer.

  I did not know how the old man had come to the Menagerie, or what brought him to settle, but I suspected the Veil paid him handsomely to do what he did best.

  Circus arts could be taught, and those who took to it well were rewarded. Those that did not were sacrificed in the rings—a calculated fall, a knife gone awry.

  A tumble without a net.

  Fear gave the rings a bite that in turn infected the audience.

  Blood sport was an amusement old as time, far back as decadent Rome, and Marceaux had always had a finger on the pulse of an audience’s dark delights.

  The paths split, and though I wanted to step foot into the rough lawn and beyond the hedges, the gown I wore would only get in my way. I hurried, eyes sharp for those who might question my efforts. The sweets’ quarters were restricted to Menagerie staff only. The girls needed somewhere to sleep; I had slept there many a time myself.

  Yet it was not peace and footmen I saw as I approached the brightly lit refuge but a bevy of creatively clad figures milling about in front. The air was cool enough for me to wince in sympathy for the girls forced to wear such revealing attire, but a large fire had been stoked within a gilt cage, and this sent orange and yellow fingers across the whole.

  Men lingered here, and some women gowned for an evening out. I hesitated at the bend of the path, studying this unusual tableau with more than a little surprise.

  How much had changed in a season?

  Enough that the sweets’ quarters were no longer off limits to patrons. Brats younger than the usual fare wore scandalously thin attire and served libation to the lounging guests who ogled them openly.

  Frankly, too much had been allowed to change.

  I patted my hair, made sure the wig remained in place, and summoned all the bravado I would need to forge my way in this new and decidedly revolting manner of life.

  Hawke had never allowed children into the sweets’ purview. The only ones I had seen were them what took care of the grounds; honest labor for a dishonest employer.

  My stomach twisted as I approached the scene, passing a young girl who couldn’t possibly be more than twelve years of age. Another looked fourteen, a little rounder in the cheek and the bosom, whose delicate layers of clothing would have been sheer were it not for the ruffles strategically placed.

  I searched the faces as I smiled in reply to various trills of welcome and comfort.

  Seven sweets of appropriate age. Eleven that were not.

  I recognized none of them.

  A small hand slipped into mine, and I looked down to find a young child in something approaching Roman attire smiling up at me with coquettish delight.

  I took in large eyes framed by kohl expertly applied, a berry-stained mouth, and a knowing in the shape of it that broke my heart.

  A boy. One of several, to boot. Though Maddie Ruth had warned me, the reality of it was so much worse. What in the name of all that was reasonable had happened to this garden?

  “Wine, mistress?” asked the boy, with the faintest leavings of a rural assignment in his dialect. “Grapes, peeled as you watch? We’ve something for all, and all for you.”

  The suggestive leanings in what I imagined to be a phrase drilled into the youth’s repertoire proved too much for my bile. I stopped in place, tugged my hand free, which earned me a pout that truly was stunning.

  Regardless of the changes I did not like, regardless of what monster had been left in charge, the Menagerie still had an eye for beauty. The boy was a doll, perfect in every way, but he was narrow-limbed and gangly as youth could be. I was taller than he was.

  I was not often taller than anyone.

  My heart ached, the fury that had kept my knees from buckling now threatened to tear free of its chains and cause an altogether different sort of scene.

  I took a deep breath. One of many this night. “I’m looking for someone,” I told him, and forced myself to ruffle his hair as though it meant nothing. “Be a good lad and fetch me Delilah, would you?”

  His head canted beneath my hand, and he rubbed against it as though he were a cat. “Don’t you like me?”

  “I like you fine,” I assured him, and because this was my role, I bent to place my lips upon his brow. His face upturned before I could right it, and his lips met mine.

  Soft, cold and tasting of wine.

  Revulsion filled me. Temper spiked.

  “Delilah’s broken,” he said cheerfully, as though it wasn’t the first he’d done so. “She’ll be right as rain in a fortnight. Will you take me instead? I can do what she does.”

  Broken, how? I wanted to know, but was afraid to ask—that doing so might tip my hand.

  Delilah—a dark-haired sweet with strong bone structure and a gift for swordsmanship—was among those who had been punished for her temerity in knowing me somewhat more personally than the others. The last I recalled of her, she had picked up one of the Chinese blades to defend two other sweets from the Veil’s aggression.

  So much of that time seemed little more than an opium dream, but I remembered Delilah still as a kind soul, a good woman with a laughing grasp of what it was to live. She had feared nothing.

  Now she was broken.

  I dared not ask who did the breaking. Not while I struggled to leash the wrath welling up from within me.

  “I see,” I said instead, and once more touched his hair. Soft, curly gold. A veritable cherub. It broke my heart that I would have to leave him. Leave them all. “Then I’ll come again—”

  “Cherry St. Croix.”

  The masculine voice, framing a name I had never dared to reveal in the pleasure gardens I’d frequented as a collector on employ, flipped anger into a fear so sharp that aggression was all I had left. I spun, heart pounding, and pinpointed the speaker with startling accuracy.

  Eyes of a foggy green, as though jade glinted under a sheer whisper of gray. Hair the color of sand.

  My late husband’s face stared out from a blur of others, painted in fire and shadow, and this time, my heart did not rise, but sank. With it, the blood from my head.

  The world tilted.

  The boy yelped, reaching to halt my errant fall, but it was
the ghost I faced that succeeded, clearing the narrow distance to wrap both arms around my waist. He held me upright despite the loss of will in my knees.

  “I’ve got her, lad,” said Earl Compton, from a mouth that seemed naked without its accompanying mustache. “Go fetch a glass.”

  The cherub left us on the fringe of the decadent firelight revelry, and I could only stare up into a face I had thought lost forever.

  His mouth hitched into a smile that was as grim as it was familiar. “You will not escape me so easily, my lady.”

  “Compton,” I croaked.

  “Now,” he agreed, and he turned us both so that the leaping flame no longer shadowed his features but lit them gently.

  Familiar though his features were, they did not wholly match those of my late husband. “Lord Piers,” I gasped.

  “So you are among the living.” Once assured that I would not fall, he let me go, but only just. I obliged his confidence by remaining where I stood—or perhaps it was his spite I obliged. The eyes he settled upon me were not welcoming, nor were they kind as they had so often been in my previous engagements with the man.

  Piers Everard Compton had always been the second son, the spare who had enjoyed his time in the gaming hells and stews of London low with great relish. I had met him once in passing within an opium den, but did not know his identity then.

  He had not known mine, either.

  Through his elder brother’s pursuit, Lord Piers had been something of an enigma. He’d liked me well enough, and had gifted me with a journal that my mother had given his own. I appreciated his friendship, and I thought him both witty and a little bit reckless.

  I had liked him easily in turn. I had thought that we might be friends.

  Until his brother—my husband—was murdered on our wedding day.

  The grief I had felt must have been nothing as to what Lord Piers had suffered. For my part, the faded remnants of it five months later had not dulled the bite.

  I looked down at his shoulder. “Please don’t call that name here,” I said quietly. Though I recognized none of the sweets, it did not mean that my name would go unremarked.