Chain of Gold (12 page)

“Wrong with you?” he repeated. “There is nothing wrong with you. Everything you say is true, and I am a fool for not having thought of it before. All I can do is swear to you that you will never lack at any social event in future, someone to stand up with or dance attendance on you. You might not credit it, having met Thomas and Christopher and Matthew, but they are quite popular. We can make you the toast of the season.”

“Really?” she said. “Thomas and Christopher and Matthew are
popular
?”

He laughed. “Yes, and I can make you a further promise as well. If I offend you again,
I
will wear a truly frightful gown to the next significant social gathering.”

“Very well.” She put her hand out. “We can shake on it like gentlemen do.”

He stepped forward to shake her hand. His warm fingers curled around hers. His lips, slightly curved, looked incredibly soft. He appeared to be searching her face with his gaze; she wondered what he was looking for.

“James,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Rather than you wearing a frightful dress,” she said, “perhaps there is another way you could help me.”

“Anything.” He had not let go of her hand.

“You could tell me which of the young men of the Enclave are eligible,” she said. “If I had need of—of marrying, which of them are kind, and would not be terrible company.”

He looked stunned. “You cannot get married—”

“Why not?” She drew her hand back from his. “Do you think I would be an undesirable match?”

He had gone a strange color; she had no idea why until she looked behind her and realized that a carriage had just drawn up near the folly.

The carriage's doors were painted with the four
C
s of the Shadowhunter government: Clave, Council, Covenant, Consul. Matthew was in the box seat, reins in hand, the wind blowing through his blond curls.

Behind him, laughing, was Matthew's brother, Charles, and beside him, Grace, in a straw bonnet and a blue dress trimmed in matching Cluny lace.

Cordelia glanced back at James and saw something in his eyes flicker—a sort of dark light behind the irises. He was watching Charles help Grace down from the carriage. Matthew was scrambling out of his driver's seat, leaving the reins loose, casting about for his friends.

“What is it between you and Grace Blackthorn?” Cordelia said quietly. “Do you have an understanding?”

“Understanding” was something of a broad term. It could mean a secret engagement, or as little as a declaration of serious romantic interest. But it seemed to fit as well as anything else.

The odd light was still in James's eyes, darkening their gold to smoked glass. “There are those close to me I would give up my life for,” he said. “You know that.”

The names were unspoken but Cordelia knew them: Lucie, Will, Tessa, Christopher, Matthew, Thomas. Jem Carstairs.

“Grace is one of them,” said James. “We are neighbors in Idris. I have seen her every summer for years. We love one another—but it is a secret. Neither my parents nor her mother are aware of our bond.” He lifted his wrist, the bracelet there gleaming for a moment
in the sun. “She gave me this when we were thirteen. It is a promise between us.” There was an odd distance in his voice, as if he were reciting a story he had heard, rather than recalling a memory. Shyness, perhaps, at revealing something so intimate?

“I see,” said Cordelia. She looked over at the carriage. Ariadne had come up to Charles and they were greeting each other; Grace had turned and was gazing toward the folly.

“I had thought we would not go to Idris this year,” James said. “I wrote to Grace to tell her, but her mother kept the letter from her. We were each left wondering at the silence of the other. I only discovered she had come to London yesterday, at the ball.”

Cordelia felt numb. Well, of course he had run off, then. Every summer he had seen Grace save this one; how he must have missed her. She had always known James possessed a life she knew little of with his friends in London, but she had not realized how very much she didn't know him. He might as well be a stranger. A stranger in love with someone else. And she, Cordelia, the interloper.

“I am glad we are friends again,” Cordelia said. “Now you must wish to speak to Grace alone. Just signal her to join you here—everyone is distracted. You will be quite unnoticed.”

James began to speak, but Cordelia had already turned and made her way back toward the lake and the picnickers. She could not bear to pause and listen to him thank her for going away.

Lucie didn't blame Cordelia for wanting to tell James off; he'd been terribly rude the night before. Even if a girl was just your friend, you shouldn't leave her in the middle of a dance. Besides, it gave the Rosamund Wentworths of the world too much scope for nasty gossip. She reminded herself to tell Cordelia about what had happened to Eugenia Lightwood as soon as they were alone.

In fact, there was a great deal she wished to discuss with
Cordelia when they were alone.
Last night I met a ghost that no one else could see. The ghost of a boy who is dead, but not quite dead.

She had opened her mouth a few times to mention Jesse to James or her parents, then decided against it. For a reason she couldn't quite understand, it felt private, like a secret she had been charged with. It was hardly Jesse's fault she could see him, and he
had
saved her all those years ago in Brocelind. She remembered telling him that when she grew up, she wanted to be a writer.
That sounds wonderful,
he had said in a wistful tone. At the time she'd believed he was stricken with envy about her glorious future career. It was only now that it occurred to her he might have been talking about growing up.

“I see Cordelia is returning,” said Anna. She was leaning back on her elbows, the sunshine bright on her dark hair. “But without James. Interesting.”

Anna, like Lucie, found everything about human behavior interesting. Sometimes Lucie thought Anna ought to be a writer too. Her memoirs would be sure to be scandalous.

Cordelia was indeed making her way back toward them, stepping carefully between the brightly colored picnic blankets. She sank down beside Lucie, fanning herself with her straw bonnet. She was wearing another ghastly pastel dress, Lucie noticed. She wished Sona would let Cordelia dress as she wished.

“Did James get what he deserved?” Lucie asked. “Did you keelhaul him?”

Cordelia's smile was bright. “He is thoroughly abashed, I assure you. But we are good friends again.”

“Where is he, then?” Thomas inquired. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and Lucie could just glimpse the edge of the colored ink design on his left forearm. It was unusual for Shadowhunters to get tattoos, as their skin was so often Marked by runes, but Thomas had done just that in Spain. “Did you bury his body in the park somewhere?”

“He went to speak to Grace Blackthorn,” said Cordelia, selecting a bottle of lemonade. Lucie glanced at her sharply—she herself had only realized the night before that the girl James was in love with was Grace, not Daisy. She hoped she hadn't put silly thoughts into Cordelia's head by rattling on in the park about how James might be in love with her.

Cordelia certainly didn't seem bothered, and she'd brushed off the whole idea in Kensington Gardens. She probably thought of James as a cousin. It was certainly a setback to Lucie's hopes. It would have been delightful to have Daisy as a sister-in-law, and she could not imagine that Grace would be delightful in the same way. She couldn't recall ever having seen her smile or laugh, and she would be unlikely to be charmed by Will's songs about demon pox.

“I didn't realize she was here.” Christopher helped himself to a sixth lemon tart.

“She is,” Matthew said, appearing out of the thicket of parasols and picnickers. He slid gracefully into a sitting position beside Anna, who glanced at him and winked. Matthew and Anna were especially close: they enjoyed many of the same things, like fashionable clothes, disreputable salons, shocking art, and scandalous plays. “Apparently, Charles promised last night to bring her here in our carriage. We had to detour out to Chiswick to fetch her.”

“Did you get a look at Lightwood—at Chiswick House?” asked Thomas. “I hear it's in utter disrepair.”

Matthew shook his head. “Grace was waiting for us at the front gates when we arrived. I did think it a bit odd.”

Chiswick House had once belonged to Benedict Lightwood and was meant to pass to his sons, Gabriel and Gideon. Everything changed after Benedict's disgrace, and in the end the newly named Chiswick House had been given to Tatiana, even though she had married a Blackthorn.

Tatiana had famously let the place fall to pieces—perhaps
because after Jesse had died, she had not felt there was anyone of Blackthorn blood to whom the house could be left. Grace was Tatiana's adopted ward, not her daughter by blood. When Tatiana died, the house would pass back into the hands of the Clave, who might even return it to the Lightwoods. Tatiana would probably rather burn it down than have that happen.

Jesse had said that both his mother and sister could see him. How strange that must be, for him and for them. She recalled the night before: Jesse saying that death was in the ballroom. But it hadn't been, she thought. There had been a demon occurrence in the city, but it had been handled easily.

But what if he had not meant death was there last night? What if he had meant that a greater danger surrounded them all?

Lucie shivered and glanced down toward the lake, where everything was comfortingly ordinary—Charles and Ariadne chatting with Barbara and Oliver; Alastair skipping stones across the lake with Augustus Pounceby. Rosamund and Piers Wentworth looking smug about something. Catherine Townsend sailing a small boat with remarkable skill.

She heard Cordelia, beside her, murmur to Matthew about how it seemed as if it might rain. A few dark clouds scudded across the sky, casting shadows across the silvery surface of the water. She caught her breath. She was imagining things, surely—the reflections of the clouds could not be getting thicker, and darker.

“Cordelia,” she whispered. “Do you have Cortana?”

Cordelia looked puzzled. “Yes, of course. Under the blanket.”

“Reach for it.” Lucie rose to her feet, aware of Cordelia drawing her shining gold blade without another question. She was about to call out when the lake water burst apart as a demon broke the surface.

“That was Cordelia Carstairs,” said Grace. She had approached James when he signaled, but had paused a few feet away, her expression troubled.

James had rarely seen her in the sunlight; she reminded him of a pale, night-blooming flower easily singed by the sun. Her hat shaded her eyes, and her ivory kidskin boots were planted in the long grass. He had always wondered that Tatiana bothered to make sure Grace had well-made and fashionable clothes when she cared about so little else.

“Yes?” James said. It wasn't like Grace to be jealous, and he wasn't sure that she was. She looked worried, but that could be many things. “You know the Carstairs have long been my friends.” He held out his hand, the silver bracelet on his wrist sparking in the sun. “Grace. You are far away, and we have been far away from each other long enough.”

She took a step toward him and said, “Do you remember when you told me all about Cordelia? That summer after you had the scalding fever?”

He shook his head, puzzled. He remembered the fever, of course, and Cordelia's voice through the dizziness. She had been kind to him, though he did not recall telling Grace about it. “No,” he said. “Not specifically, but I have always told you everything, so it would hardly be surprising.”

“Not just that she was with you when you were ill,” Grace said. “But about
her
. About Cordelia.”

“About Cordelia?” He lowered his hand, recalling Brocelind Forest, the light filtering down through the green leaves, the way he and Grace had rested in the grass and told each other everything. “I do not think I know that much about her,” he said, realizing with an odd pang that it was true. He supposed he could tell Grace that Cordelia had asked him to help her find an eligible man, but for some reason, he did not want to. “She and her family have always
been reticent. Lucie knows her much better than I do. I do remember a time.…”

“What is it?” Grace had come close to him. He could smell her perfume as she looked up at him: it was always the same scent of violets. “What do you remember?”

“Lucie fell from the side of a cliff once,” he said slowly. It was an oddly dim memory. There had been a field of daisies—Cordelia had been very brave—it was how she had gotten her nickname.
Daisy.
“In France. Cordelia was with her. It would have been a bad fall, but Cordelia caught her wrist and held on to her for hours until we found them. I'll always be grateful to her for saving my sister.”

It seemed to James that Grace relaxed slightly, though he could not have guessed why. “I'm sorry to have interrupted you with your friend,” she said. “It's just been so long since we've been alone.”

A strange pang of something like unease went through James. “You had wanted to meet Matthew and Christopher and Thomas,” he said. “I could take you.…”

She shook her head, and he was struck as always by her beauty. It was cold and perfect—no, she was not cold, he reminded himself. She held herself tightly closed, for she had been hurt badly by the loss of her parents, by Tatiana's whims and cruelty. But that was not the same as coldness. There was color in her cheeks now, and her eyes glittered fiercely.

“I want you to kiss me,” she said.

He never thought of saying no.

The sun was bright as he reached for her, so bright it hurt his eyes. He drew her toward him: she was small and cool and slight, delicate as a bird. Her hat slipped from her head as she tilted her face up toward his. He felt the rustle of lace against his hands as they circled her waist, and the cool, soft press of her lips against his.