Gilded: The St. Croix Chronicles (26 page)

The earl’s stance shifted. “My brother, always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong,” he added, with the affectionate if reserved air of an elder sibling, “found this in here. He insisted it be given.”

It was clear that though there were rumors of argument and ill-temper between the sons, they were affectionate, as well. A sort of . . . bond I wasn’t sure I understood. I had no siblings, after all.

“My brother is not particularly convinced this will matter,” Piers said jovially, “which allows me the indulgence of being all the more determined to give it. I expect it to intrigue as much as it did myself.”

“Just give it to her,” the earl muttered, his expression so tense that I did laugh, and muffled the sound behind my gloved fingertips when he stiffened.

“You are terribly apprehensive,” I accused lightly. “Should I be wary that this gift will bite?”

Piers offered the book, his barbered chops gleaming as they tilted somewhat with his smile. I took it carefully. “My brother is always apprehensive, Miss St. Croix. And proper, and cautious, and—”

“Not likely to fritter away his money on habits and ill-fated hobbies,” interjected the earl ominously.

The smile died from Piers’s expression. Turned, instead, to a rueful slant, and that twinkle. “Consider yourself warned,” he whispered, and turned. “Cornelius. Don’t keep her long, or the gossips will talk.”

“Don’t you dare leave—”

I stared after Piers, left holding the proffered tome as my reputation’s chaperone left me alone with the man who insisted that I require in him a husband.

Lord Compton did not swear, but he stiffened even more and thrust his fingers through his hair. “That ill-behaved child.” He turned to me, his jaw tight. “We must depart immediately, before anyone comes looking.”

Why? Why did I find this adorable, rather than the vexation it should have been? Perhaps because my reputation wasn’t as valuable to me as it seemed to others.

I caught his arm as he half turned.

He stilled.

Suddenly, the tableau in the library was not the kind that should have been allowed. Would not have, if Piers had not wandered off so suddenly.

We stood surrounded by a sea of books, two separate beings bound only by my gloved fingers upon the sleeve of his dinner jacket.

Yet the very undercurrent this mild touch sparked seemed to crackle like lightning. Like the promise of energy, that warning hum as a mechanical device charged.

Again, I remembered that I did not find him deplorable. Without the promise of matrimonial chains, I found him quite likable, indeed.

He did not look at me. He did not have to. I did not know what he looked at instead, but I know what I saw. A fine man, an upstanding man, worried for my reputation even as he arranged this illicit meeting to show me that he listened. That he heard me.

Slowly, his hand covered mine on his arm. Warm. Strong. “You wanted books,” he said quietly.

“I did.”

“I wanted to show you that you would not be without.”

My fingers ached against the book I held to my bosom. “All I require is polish, is that not so?” I couldn’t help myself.

Now, he looked at me. Turned so that he faced me direct. A soldier, I thought, an admiral facing one of his own. He’d done well for himself in Her Majesty’s Navy. I could not recall what rank he’d served under, but I know he’d been admired for it.

“You are wild,” he said, his tone even but not sharp. “You travel alone where you should not—”

“Like the Philosopher’s Square?” I interrupted, gratified to see him blanch. Seizing the opportunity, I pressed, “Rumor often places you below the drift, my lord. Why should you be free to wander such places and I cannot?”

Pure disdain colored his features; turned him into the near mirror of the marchioness. Yet as I glared, suddenly filled with the frustration of too many secrets, too much wanting, I realized his was not disdain for
me.

A trick his lady mother had not refined.

“You will be a countess,” he told me, unbending now. Yet, he did not let my hand go. “A countess has no call for traveling to such dangerous and ill-reputed streets.”

“What if I want things?” I demanded. “Books, materials only found in the shops there?”

“What manner of things cannot be found along the shops catering to King’s College?” he asked shrewdly.

I did not answer, setting my jaw in obvious obstinacy.

He met my unyielding glare with his own implacable regard. “Then I will have them fetched for you,” he replied, a thread of heat in his voice now. His eyes. Anger? Or frustration.

“Why do
you
go?” I would not give in. I could not admit that I had run into him myself outside that opium den last month, but I needed to know.

Did he share my taste for the stuff or not?

He looked down at me, mouth set into a thin, disapproving line. Finally, he let go of my hand. Allowed me to pull it back, wrap around the book whose cover lacked a title. “There are . . . secrets to this household,” he said after a long moment. “My brother has . . .” A pause, and I saw the fight in his eyes.

His brother.

The inveterate gambler, and . . . opium user?

“I often must go after him before he spends too long among the degenerates below,” he confessed quietly. “When he falls prey to his own weakness too often, he is exiled to one of our rural estates, allowed to dry.”

Forced to remain sober, I’d wager.

The thought sent a frisson of fear through me. To never have laudanum again? Would that be the price of any proposal tendered?

The earl caught my hand, pressed my palm fervently in all that was allowed between us. “Promise me that you will not go below again,” he said, not so much a question as a command. One I recognized, and bristled under, yet . . . Yet I contemplated it. “I know you are a woman of your word, Miss St. Croix, a rare thing. Say it, say you’ll have me and all that I offer, and I shall do everything in my power to make you happy.”

I bit my lip.

Books. A home. A
place
. These are things Fanny had always told me I needed. I had ignored her. I had a home, didn’t I?

But . . . what kind of home was it? Not really mine. Even once I inherited it, what did I plan to do?

Leave.

Here, I had a future, didn’t I? To wake up secure, warm. Cared for.

To know that my family, my staff, was safe.

All I needed was to refrain from going below. To leave the life of a collector; a life often fraught with danger and discomfort.

I could avoid the Veil for certain. Couldn’t I?

Somehow, I wasn’t so positive that the Veil would forget my debt so easily.

“I . . . I need time to consider,” I whispered. It was not a no. Not this time.

Was he wearing me down, or was I really looking at the life laid out before me?

He bowed, formal. Stiff. “I understand. Your parents left you alone too early.” I blinked. “I know you will make the right decision. You
will
learn to trust me.” He let go of my hand. “I shall send a maidservant to escort you back to the music hall.” He stepped around me, stopped halfway to the door and turned. “I hope you enjoy my brother’s gift, Miss St. Croix. And . . . and mine.”

With that, he was gone, and I was left staring blankly at the book between my palms.

Trust him. In many ways, I believe I did.

Absently, I opened the book, searching for a title page.

Instead, I found a handwritten note within. In lovely, elegant script so much more polished than mine, I read,
For my dearest Almira. Love, your Josephine.

What?

No . . .

What?

I could not even begin to make sense of it.

My mother. The marchioness. Gossip had always claimed them enemies. Why, the marchioness
hated
me. She loathed me!

What on earth could possibly link such foes?

Trembling, I leafed through the pages of the handwritten journal I found a collection of symbols that took the remaining breath from me.

A triangle. Three circles, a fourth in the middle.

Alchemy
.

How? Why? This made no sense!

I spun for the door, but stopped before I took even a step.

What would I say? Who would I ask?

Who knew that my mother was as involved in the so-called art as my father became?

My father.

When I’d met him in Woolsey’s guise, he’d called Josephine
the best of us
. Us.

“My lady?” A maid, barely a blur in my racing mind.

Not the university, as I’d thought then.

A society of some kind. A salon that included women. It had to be. A club? A meeting place. Something! The marchioness had been part of it, then?

“I can escort you, if you’re ready,” said the hesitant maid, and I strode for the door, beating down a wild rush of exhilaration—of hurt and anger and outrage at this revelation. I could not follow any clues now. I had to return to the soiree, listen to the skin-peeling melodies of my peers, and force myself to be patient.

But I would find a moment. And when I did, I knew who to ask.

Lady Rutledge had already known.

I was convinced of it.

Chapter Nineteen

I
t seemed an eternity before I was allowed to escape to the uncertain sanctity of my own home. When I did, I found more than simply peace and quiet.

I found my crystal flagon filled with a fourth of jewel-bright ruby liquid. A card had been propped against it, one of my own. Zylphia’s distinctive hand scrawled a note across it:
Take in moderation, as needed.

The gesture, thoughtful even as it seemed something I should be ashamed over, made me smile.

I read late into the night. Much of the pages made no sense to me, but I could not stop. These were my mother’s words. My mother’s handwriting. I had never been so close to her as when I held that book.

Studied its writings.

Much of it was, near as I could fathom, simple speculation. Much of it was philosophical—an interesting series of theoretical and moral conjecture, flavored heavily by the concept that all things were bound by aether.

A theory often passed among scientific circles as the intelligent hypothesis. Yet the dates upon these entries came earlier than most.

Had my mother shared these theories?

Had she been among these intelligent minds when postulating them?

And if so, why in the name of all things holy did she dedicate this journal to the marchioness? Her enemy?

I fell asleep with a draught of laudanum that night, cradling the book.

For the first time in many days, I awoke feeling not as if I’d been beaten, but with an energy that I’d been lacking for too long. Although the return of my morning headache signaled a need for care, I nevertheless was awake when Zylphia tapped upon my door.

“I’m to remind you of Lady Rutledge’s masquerade,” came her greeting. “Fanny was extremely intent upon it.”

Lady Rutledge’s masquerade came once a year, always the talk of the Town and often the reason much of Society remained in London later than the Season. The lady did not leave London like much of the elite, and did not much mind those who did.

Yet I considered it a play, a subtle indication of how much power Lady Rutledge truly wielded.

Unlike most soirees, hers was not closed to those who were not titled or landed. In truth, the yearly event was often filled to the brim with the most ornate creatures—men and women masked and bedecked in outlandish garb, each invited out of some unknown formula. None knew exactly how she comprised her guest list, or what qualifications she demanded. In many cases, the location would vary. This year, she held the lavish event in King’s College.

The dean was all too happy to offer the college grounds for the last great event of the year. He was nobody’s fool, and he knew quite well whose families his pupils came from. Society demanded much of a man in his position, and so the college retained grounds for soirees, balls, events to keep him circulating among the elite.

A clever business.

I had, in the past, received invites. I had never gone, sure that I would be out of place—a creature to point at and whisper over. Mad St. Croix’s daughter. Yet when the summons came last month, shortly after being introduced to the lady herself, I’d decided to hedge my bets entirely and go.

Fanny wasn’t convinced; she didn’t like events that turned into a crush, and this one would be that and more. At the time of the invite’s receipt, I wasn’t positive of the intent behind my going.

I knew now that I would seize the opportunity to speak to Lady Rutledge and the dean about my suspicions. Or, rather, perhaps only to the lady and allow her the trial of maneuvering the dean.

Professors were dying. If I were Miss Hensworth, and in fact murdering those who stood in my way as my theory suggested, I would target the dean next.

She was a smart woman. I was sure she’d do the same.

Still, of all the events I’d been invited to, this one piqued my interest. Lady Rutledge’s set seemed geared more toward intelligent thinking and scientific interest than the frankly useless claptrap spouted off by most of London’s elite.

Zylphia rolled my hair into three elegant knots and pinned them in place. It was fetching enough, and would do until we prepared for the masquerade.

“Cage sends his regards,” she said offhandedly as she cinched my corset tight.

My breath whooshed out. “Oomph! Charming,” I managed. “I assume . . . gracious, Zylla . . . you did not tell him of my engagement?”

“Of course not.” She tied off the stays, tugged them hard to be sure they’d hold. “If anyone knows your identity, I haven’t said a word about it.”

“Thank you.” I took a testing breath, winced. “You’re meaner than Betsy was.”

Amusement flashed in her eyes. It sobered, as did her expression. “What will you do about your mysterious murderer, then?”

I turned, then, perched upon my vanity seat as she fetched my rose day dress. The stain had been removed, thanks to Mrs. Booth’s expert hand. “I don’t know,” I said honestly, rubbing at my waist idly. The brocade corset was rough against my palm. “I believe the strongest candidate is, in fact, Miss Hensworth.”

“Why?”

A fair question. “At least one professor was directly standing in her way,” I pointed out thoughtfully. “Professor MacGillycuddy allowed no women into King’s College. Lambkin took on the role, yet it’s possible that he believed the same. To that end, he, too, must go.”

Zylphia nodded, but cautiously. “It’s speculative.”

“Of course. But let me pose you this,” I said, eagerly warming to my subject as she helped me step into my skirt. “Say you have dispatched two men, only to find the real obstacle is another entirely. What would you do?”

She didn’t take long to consider. “Having killed two, I would feel a third is rather easy pickings.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“But it’s still speculative,” she told me. I knew it, but what else had I to go on? “What of the earl?”

I blinked. “What of the earl?”

“Marriage is a different world, you know.”

“Do you speak from experience?” I asked, but she only smiled—a quiet thing, something weightier than I had ever seen upon her lush, exotic features—and said instead, “If you marry this earl, you cannot continue as you are.”

This caught me, even more than the presumption of my interest in marriage. “As I am?”

“Your laudanum,” she clarified, buttoning me into the gown.

“No one will care that I drink it for my night terrors,” I scoffed.

“Not that.” As Zylphia smoothed my dress, ensuring she did not meet my eyes in the mirror. “I mean the rest of the time.”

I stilled.

How did she know? I’d done for years without Betsy catching on.

“I have seen many a good soul lose themselves to the smoke,” she said, awkward now, yet no less sincere for it. “I would not see you go the same way.”

Lose myself? I wouldn’t. It wasn’t so bad as that. At least I wasn’t eating it by the cube, as the Turks were known for. “You worry too much,” I said, forcing cheer. I caught her hand and added with a grin, “Besides, I’ll have you to help me, won’t I?”

“Will you?” Zylphia removed her hand from mine, yet not unkindly. “Go on, then, breakfast is waiting for you.”

I obeyed, rubbing the back of my neck as I did so. Doubt weighed upon me.

Why was it that part of my house was so blissful and happy about the hope of marriage, yet the part from below the drift remained so skeptical?

Why did both parts of me feel the same?

I found both the
London Times
and the
Leeds Mercury
waiting for me at the table. Fanny, as well, though she only gave me a brilliant smile and chirped, “Good morning, my dove.”

“Good morning, Fanny,” I replied dutifully. “You look well.”

“Just wonderful. Are you quite prepared for Lady Rutledge’s masquerade?”

If the many, many hours of fittings I’d endured meant anything, I was. I said as much, only in much more polite terms, and picked up my paper as Booth filled my plate with his wife’s handiwork. “Thank you, Booth.”

“Of course, miss.”

ANOTHER WHITECHAPEL MURDER.

The headline seized my attention. I stiffened, excitement and dismay curling through me, warring for supremacy over the other. Another murder.

Not the sort I was looking for, mind, but gruesome and tragic all the same.

I read the article in the
Times
, and found my appetite wholly diminished by the end. “Jack the Ripper has struck again,” I said, frowning. “That makes the seventh murder in the area.”

The details in this one were gruesome indeed. The victim, Mary Kelly, had been brutalized terribly after her throat had been slashed. A messy, ghastly end. The article spared no ink for the tale, and I did not share the details. Not with my chaperone, who would like as not faint.

“Dreadful,” Fanny said sadly, shivering in shared sympathy for the departed. “Just terrible. I do wish the constables would capture that beastly person.”

“As do I,” I murmured, surprised somewhat to find such ready conversation on the subject. Fanny often did not share my love of the morning papers.

Perhaps the subject of Jack the Ripper had finally infiltrated even the most delicate sensibilities. The murders were real and very present. If the amount of ink given to the news was any indication, the doxies’ plight seemed to resound much more strongly than the fateful deaths of two professors.

“It’s a wonder he hasn’t been caught yet,” she continued, her frail fingers curling around her teacup. I set the paper down, head tilting as I studied her somber expression. “With as many police as I’m sure must patrol those streets.”

“Not as many as you’d think,” I said before I thought, and watched her flinch at the pointed reminder of my habits. “Still,” I hastened to add, “I imagine it’s only a matter of time. This so-called Ripper can’t possibly get away with this any longer.”

Perhaps I would see about a bounty myself.

Promise me
, the earl had demanded, and I shook my head hard.

Fanny sighed. “One might wonder if this monster were invisible to the searching eye, the way he carries on.”

“Fanciful,” I replied with dry amusement. “Why, I—”
Invisible.
I froze, words only half formed on my lips.

“Cherry?”

I saw Fanny, saw her thin gray eyebrows knot and lines form between them. Saw the way she stared at me in mingled surprise and concern.

Yet I didn’t linger there.
Invisible.

An empty dress. A figure cowled and then gone.

Why didn’t I think of this before? I’d spent all bloody night reading my mother’s blasted journal. Notations had been scarce, only enough to illustrate this point or that hypothesis, but I’d seen the same symbols.

What had my mother’s journal included? Of course:
ppt
, a notation for preparation.

My brain turned over and over, gears spinning in place, working, smoking with the effort.

“Prepare the formula,” I murmured, and if what I recalled of the notations was correct, it involved a process of distillation. Aether, water, fire, a Star of David. The star . . . Mr. Pettigrew had made clear that such symbols no longer meant what religion and order had assured.

The star . . . meant . . .

I bolted upright, upset the table and caused the china to clink merrily. Both papers slid to the floor. “Imbibition,” I said, suddenly and without further preface. “Zylphia!” My voice rose, loud enough to send Fanny into fits of indignation.

“Cherry St. Croix, we do not—”

I waved her into silence. “Zylphia,” I called again, rounding the table. “Get down here this instant!”

“Is all well, miss?” Booth’s baritone echoed from the far entry, his eyebrows mirroring the shape of my chaperone’s. Worry. I engendered a lot of worry in my staff, I realized.

I waved at him, not so much dismissal as an indication for patience, and caught the edge of the entry as Zylphia’s step pattered down the stairs. As her white-capped head cleared the rail, I pitched my voice to carry. “Zylla, have you my gloves from the day I visited Mr. Pettigrew?”

Her eyes rounded, wild blue flowers in the dark frame of her skin. She seized the railing, bent over it to talk to me directly. “Er, which . . . ?”

“The last,” I said impatiently. “When he was murdered. Have you laundered them?”

“No,” she replied, and then looked beyond me and hastily added, “miss.”

I had no time for it. “Good, fetch them.”

“They’re in the rag bin,” she explained, and hurried down the steps. “They were quite ruined.”

“Hurry,” I urged, and turned back to the breakfast table to find Fanny watching me with unconcealed displeasure.

I couldn’t take the time to argue with her. “I promise this will soon be over,” I said instead.

This seemed to mollify her. At least a little. “Once you are wed,” she told me, quite firmly, “all this will stop.”