The Architect of Song (Haunted Hearts Legacy Book 1) (12 page)

I froze in place. Did he know of the journal? How could he? Had he found it in my room?

“When I was seeking you at the cemetery on the day you were missing,” he continued, “I went behind the hedgerows where you’d spent time alone after your mother’s interim. I saw the enclosed grave and footprints around the gate—your size. Then I noticed the dirt turned up around the headstone within.”

Blood rushed into my neck as he flicked another glance at the flower—this one meaningful and accusatory. I didn’t care. Let him think the gypsy referred to only the flower. Better that, than he know the full scope of my thievery.

Uncle’s brows knitted at my silence. “I’ve wronged you all of your life. Supporting your efforts to hide from society. And what kind of example was I? You’ve known nothing but lies and envy through me. Coveting not only Anston’s bride for my own, but his child as well. I wanted everything my brother had. And you, in your perception, knew it. Yet you never breathed a word. Always kept my secret. I suppose to build such a fortress is much easier than to break it down.”

I wanted to tell Uncle how wrong he was. How I had learned something other than guile at his knee. That the secret I kept of his sadness made me even more attuned to the value of being honest about your feelings—however society might frown upon them. And though I often hid my deafness from strangers, I faced and conquered it daily via family and clientele. But before I could speak, Uncle’s attention snapped to the door.

Chloe hobbled into the room, her tail suspended as if considering whether or not to wag. Enya sauntered in behind her, slanting a sidelong glance at Uncle on her way to answer the door.

I started to stand.

“No, sit Juliet,” Uncle pressed. “As lady of the manor, you must stay seated to receive guests.”

Guests
? All I wanted was to gather Hawk’s flower and hole up in my room for the rest of the afternoon with my ghost. I didn’t wish to welcome any unexpected company.

The door opened and a chill morning breeze ushered in a masculine aroma—rich and seductive—like almonds simmering in sweet liquor. Enya backed up to allow the visitor across the threshold.

I squinted against the sunlight beaming through the door. A man’s powerful frame towered in the opening, the shadow of his hat’s brim hiding his eyes and nose from my view.

Chloe’s reaction to our guest was unprecedented. Her entire body wagged and she licked his boots. Upon bending to pet the rapturous ball of fur, the man stood and offered Enya his hat and cloak.

His back still faced me, a sturdy line of musculature beneath a gray frock coat and matching trousers. A hint of burgundy peeked out at his neckline, indicative of a notch-collar vest. His clothes seemed carefully chosen, short of one splash of color which clashed where the cuffs of his wing tip shirt dipped out at his wrists in a periwinkle blue.

The instant Enya closed the door against the bright sun, his profile resolved to bold relief against the sapphire wall hangings.

My spine went to jelly. The angle of his clean-shaved jaw, his dark brows and exotic nose—a familiarity so startling it would’ve knocked me to my knees had I been standing.

I clutched the locket beneath my décolleté, fingers molded around the hollow, hard metal until it bit into my flesh. I didn’t notice Uncle rising to his feet, hardly felt the chill of his body’s withdrawal from my side.

It had to be my lack of sleep from all the nights spent reading the journal. How else could my eyes deceive me so?

My uncle stepped between us to shake our guest’s hand. His hair became all that was visible with Uncle blocking him. Burnt chocolate, vivid with variants of ebony and auburn—color come to life. I fondled the lace at my sleeve’s band, aching for a better glimpse.

Enya passed me on her way to the kitchen with Chloe in tow, yet didn’t even give a sidelong glance. Her brow was furrowed in either confusion or suspicion.

My focus snapped back to Uncle as he took a step to the left, at last exposing our guest in full. His gaze swept down to meet mine and I gasped, any residue of logic fading away. Only heaven could have granted a wish of such mortal magnitude.

For standing there in the doorway was Hawk—my ghost—come to life.

I leapt up and pushed Uncle aside, needing to touch our guest, to test if he was real. I stroked his face, felt the solid warmth of his cheek beneath my trembling fingertips.

He widened his eyes and removed my hand, an attempt to honor propriety. I pressed my palm instead to his chest, seeking his pulse. Upon finding it, I grew weak and my knees buckled.

He caught me against him and I clung to his shirt. His chest muscles tensed beneath my fingers. Uncle Owen was behind me, first a tap then an insistent tug, but I would not release my captive. I rested against him so the heartbeat beneath his sternum kicked hard at my jaw. His warmth and scent surrounded me, wrapped me in a moment of taste, smell, and touch so gratifying I dared not question its reality.

Uncle shook me in earnest now. Of course he couldn’t understand.
I
didn’t understand. I knew this could not be Hawk. But logic didn’t matter, for this was the closest I had ever come to touching him.

Our guest stretched me to arm’s length. His mouth became my focal point, bringing to mind the kiss I’d shared with my ghost just moments earlier—a transcendental exchange so powerful it healed me. My pulse fluttered. What would it be like, to kiss those lips in reality?

Uncle’s face intruded upon my fantasy. He used his handkerchief to wipe my tears. “Please forgive her. As I said, she’s not been herself of late.” His expression shifted from reproach to compassion. “Juliet, allow me to introduce the viscount, Lord Thornton. Here to bring us the interview of your accident in the mines, so you might read it for yourself.”

Movement at the kitchen doorway claimed my attention. Enya’s siblings stood there, giggling. The fog of delusion evaporated and an ice cold rush of reality crashed me back into the present.

I had just thrown myself at a nobleman.

The very nobleman who was bent on claiming my home.

I glared at Uncle. Color crept into his face, either spurred by his shame for my actions, or his shame for deceiving me. He had invited Lord Thornton two days early, encouraged him to impose upon our family gathering, without even warning me.

Feeling woozy, I stumbled backward. The viscount transferred his walking stick to his right side so he could help Uncle guide me to the settee.

Uncle lifted my legs, propped my lower back with a pillow, and draped the woolen throw to cover my ankles and shins. He caught my wrist where I still gripped the viscount’s forearm. I tightened my fingers, unable to relax the muscles. Regardless of the threat he presented, this man was my lifeline to Hawk. The most tangible one I’d ever had.

The viscount nodded to my uncle, handed off his walking stick, then knelt down beside me, peeling my hand free before clasping it in his own.

Up close, I noticed minor differences: miniscule smile lines around his eyes and streaks of sun-bleached auburn tipping his dark hair … exactly how my ghost would look had he aged a few years and spent time outdoors. A breathtaking figure of Hawk mellowed to another level of beauty.

I marveled at his eye color … not a winter-sky gray, but a dusky liquid gray, like shadows atop the surface of a pond—mysterious and hypnotic. A distinction in shade so minute, it might have been rendered by the periwinkle sheen of his mismatched shirt.

“It is all right, Miss Emerline,” his full lips shaped the unexpected pardon. “I understand you’ve been battling a demon.”

“Hawk …?” The name slipped out in spite of my screaming rationale.

Shock strained his face. “On my life. You knew my brother?”

I clamped my inner cheek between my teeth.
Brothers
. Of course. Twins, judging by the flesh and bone facsimile kneeling beside me. So the rumors of the viscount being an only child were mistaken.

The olive tone in his complexion was evident in the light of reality. He was a half-caste. The sole way a gypsy could come by nobility was through a father of noble English blood. But how did that pair with Hawk’s journal, and their monster of a father who tortured him in a gypsy camp each day?

The viscount’s mouth fluttered again, and I concentrated on the movement.

“Did you know him … my brother?”

I had no answer. Considering that the viscount was twenty-seven, my ghostly companion had died years ago. I would have been a youth when he passed this life. Uncle knew each and every acquaintance I’d ever made, and would’ve taken grave notice of a boy eight years my senior, sitting on the fence of my innocence.

In a desperate bid to save myself, I feigned a hacking cough that I hoped sounded enough like “Hawk” to convince our grand guest that the name had been a tickle in my throat.

My tactic proved so persuasive, Enya came rushing in with a cup of water, held up my chin, and spilled the liquid down my throat until my strangles became quite real. Fortunately, upon my recovery, the subject shifted to an invitation to our guest to break his fast with us.

From that point on, the viscount proved gracious to a fault, having the same enchanting effect on everyone as he’d earlier had on the dog. Aria fluttered up to the cage bars and pecked his finger affectionately as he fussed over her beauty. Enya’s brothers and sisters flocked around him as if he were the Pied Piper of Hamelin and they his orphaned rats.

The man even encouraged Enya’s family to sit with us at the table, a most unheard of gesture for one of his status. He obviously had a cunning perception, and intuited they were more than domestic servants in our home. The youngest children sat at the game table, while the rest of us gathered around the dining table.

Enya’s cider cakes were one of my uncle’s favorite dishes, and mine as well. No one else could coax the tiny loaves of flour, sugar, butter, cider, and pearlash to such golden perfection. Each bite, each crumb, melted in the mouth like warm, buttered brandy. Still, even with the tantalizing steam curling around my chin, I couldn’t get past the lump of embarrassment in my throat to taste anything.

I’d caressed a complete stranger’s face, a viscount’s no less. Even worse,
I had nuzzled his chest
. I was a disgrace, confirmed by Uncle’s effort not to meet my gaze as he sipped coffee and nodded at the viscount’s words—words I couldn’t bring myself to try to read. I couldn’t look at our guest at all. I could hardly stay seated in my chair.

I wanted to be with Hawk, sharing my discovery. If I had managed to snag a petal earlier, he would be bearing witness to this momentous occasion.

I nudged my spoon into a dish of custard to scrape nutmeg freckles off the surface. From beneath my lashes, I chanced a glance and found our guest laughing with Uncle. The men were hitting it off as if they were old acquaintances.

The viscount caught me gawking and offered a charming, confident smile. My wrist jerked and the custard plopped from my spoon into my coffee. Enya frowned, mopping coffee driblets from her forehead.

Biting my lip, I dipped a chunk of cake into the small, black puddle swirling in my saucer. I wished Hawk were here, filling me in on everyone’s conversations.

I missed him. I missed his chuckle. The way he clicked his teeth together when he pondered something deeply. The way I always felt at ease and accepted around him. I missed his teasing touches along my blankets and skirt hems. But most of all, I missed his songs.

A sharp jab in my ribs jolted me back to the present. I glared at Enya and her bony elbow. Grimacing, she gestured toward my uncle.

“Are you finished, Juliet?” he asked. The color in his cheeks indicated he had been trying to get my attention for some minutes.

I nodded, though made sure he felt the heat of my anger. He had sprung the viscount on me, and was as much to blame for the earlier fiasco as me.

He offered an apologetic smile. “All right. Let us retire to the parlor to read the interview.”

My empty stomach flipped at the thought of facing the childhood memory I’d suppressed for so long. Yet another uncomfortable challenge to face on this day of farcical fate.

Uncle wiped his mouth and stood. The viscount did the same, bragging over the quality of Enya’s meal until her face deepened to the shade of a radish.

After Uncle offered his elbow to me, the viscount followed us back to the sitting room.

Uncle seated me at the settee. Our guest took a winged chair across the room and regarded Hawk’s flower on the table next to him. My heart bounced into my throat. He must know by now I was the woman spying upon him at the grave, and that I’d stolen the flower.

How could he not, as unusual as it was?

He looked away, reposed elegance with his cane propped between his knees, then said something to Uncle who nodded and retreated to the kitchen once more.

Casting a fleeting glance my direction, the viscount drew out a graphite stick wrapped in a handkerchief from his jacket’s flap, along with a rectangle of parchment. Deep in thought, he scribbled for an interminable span of minutes. Being an architect, I assumed inspiration hit him at inopportune moments so he kept writing tools on hand.