The Architect of Song (Haunted Hearts Legacy Book 1) (24 page)

His lips tightened, a reaction so slight, I almost missed it.

“I will tell you what I can,” he resigned, and I realized my precarious grasp for tangibility had coaxed him into answering my question.

I held my breath, waiting.

“Larson wanted a rare clock my family owned. I used it as my ante. As for my”—he cringed— “past reputation, I’ve abandoned that lifestyle. I have interest in only one woman. And your dowry has nothing to do with that.”

Hawk’s earlier warnings shook me from my trance. The grand Lord Thornton had almost seduced me with his pretty words. Pushing his palm from my face, I stepped back, nearly toppling as the petticoats gathered around my shins. He reached out to steady me, but drew back at my angry scowl.

The maids approached, no less than a yard away now.

“I know what I am to you,” I whispered, careful not to use my vocal cords. “Kind Lord Thornton and his charity bride. What but a saint would overlook her deafness and want her despite it? I must wonder, will you display me in your dungeon alongside your mutant exhibits?”

His face paled again, but only for an instant. An angry blush replaced it, spurred by his hot Romani blood, darkening his skin so that the storm-cast quality to his eyes brightened in contrast to a steel, glossy gray. “What I do in that dungeon is no concern of yours.” He leaned closer. “Least not yet.”

I feigned a laugh, though inwardly, the subtle threat rattled me to the bone. “Do you not see the folly of your plan? I’ve experienced society’s prejudices. I’ve worn their chains most of my life. They will not embrace you as a saint for marrying me. They will deem you a fool.”

The expression on his face flickered between anger and frustration. “My brother was obsessed with finding a maiden he met once when she was a child; in all of his twenty years, he’d never been with another. He was saving himself for her, waiting for when she came of age. Many thought him a fool for such blind fidelity.” His long lashes lowered, as if it vexed him to speak of Hawk. “But the girl shared a piece of his past,” he continued. “She provided light in the midst of an inconceivably evil darkness. It burned her image into his brain … and altered his future. I could never have imagined a woman worthy of such reverence. Yet I’ve found you to be captivating and courageous, worthy of all that and more. Not despite your deafness, but because of it. If that makes me a fool, I will proudly wear the title.”

The beautiful sentiment spun webs of contrition around my heart. I glanced over my shoulder. The maids were a few feet away, coming up the path.

After pausing to gather my wits, I turned back to the viscount, but he, his clothes, and his cane had vanished somewhere beyond the honeysuckle copse, leaving nothing except the basket of flowers as a reminder of our time together. Trembling, I placed his handkerchief upon the bench and pondered over the mysterious man who owned it.

The sense of being watched unsettled me. I pulled down my veil, picked up the basket, and fell into step with the maids, clutching my abdomen to disentangle the knots of confusion inside and lock them away. For once I arrived in my chamber I would be with Hawk again—the broken child who rescued me in his youth, the man who saved himself for me in his adulthood, and the ghost who had grown so possessive he would leave no thought unturned regarding the long hour we’d spent apart.

I removed my hat as I stepped into my room, and set the new pot and the bucket of soil on my floor. There was no fire in the fireplace, nothing at all that resembled warmth—an iciness accentuated by Hawk’s absence. Yet I procrastinated reviving him. I needed to be alone for once. To work out my thoughts without anyone else in my head.

What had Lord Thornton meant, when he said the dungeon wasn’t my concern—
yet
? Were those medieval torture devices mere pieces in a collection, or tools for some twisted sense of sadistic pleasure he liked to use upon the women he bedded? My gut clenched.

The man who sat with me, patiently and gently wrapping flowers so as not to break their stems or crumple their petals … the man who seemed to have an affinity for animals and nature and children … was he capable of such demented cruelties?

I patted the bruise on my cheek, remembering how tender he was when he soothed it. How full of wonder he looked after we touched.

He baffled me. On the one hand, I felt a connection with him, an inexplicable kinship. I felt as if I
knew
him—understood him on some deep level. Perhaps due to the physical hindrances we had in common, or to our shared affinity for creating things with color and texture. But on the other hand, he frightened and infuriated me.

A desperate, thudding sensation awoke behind my sternum, and I reminded myself none of this mattered. I was still in control. I wasn’t going to wed him. I would never have to know who he truly was.

So why did I
ache
to know? Why did I want to feel his touch again?

A chill seeped into my bones. In the soft afternoon light, my turquoise ceiling swelled overhead, a rolling ocean of gloom waiting to crash down upon me. Craving the security Hawk’s presence always provided, I tucked the locket beneath my bodice so it touched my flesh.

He didn’t appear.

Hawk?
I called to him in my mind. Was he so angry and hurt he refused to return? Was that even possible?

Tears sprung to my eyes. I surveyed my surroundings through the blur. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. The spiced aroma of his flower still filled the room. It sat on the Secretaire, all eight petals shimmering in place. In fact, it appeared to have flourished since I last saw it. No new petals, but the ones remaining seemed perkier.

Then I noticed that something
had
been disturbed. The dead petals I’d left sprinkled upon the bureau were gone.

“She must’ve taken them with her.”

My pulse leapt at hearing Hawk’s voice. “Where are you?”

“Hiding.” With a rustle beneath my bed, my ghost rolled out from under the frame. “Thanks to your Judas kiss, I was forced to perfect a new trick today.” He stood, dusting himself, though nothing clung to him. It was all for show.

Unable to face his wounded frown, I focused on his muddied boots as they tracked toward me. At the last moment, he spun and appeared beside the double doors across the room—this burst of speed another new trick he had learned.

“You cut me, Juliet.” The betrayal in his voice grated within my ears, like a fork digging away at the tenderness. “You know how I hate the darkness.”

Tears burned behind my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall. I was tired. Tired of apologizing. Tired of having my every thought measured and scrutinized. “You are in my head. Always in my head. It is unfair. I can’t read
your
mind. We are unequally yoked. There shall be times when I need to think or act separate from you. Please understand.”

“I understand. I understand my brother is weeding his way into your sympathies.”

I stared at Hawk’s hand where he swung his pocket watch. Before I could stop it, the image of Lord Thornton’s rough palm touching my cheek flashed through my mind. My attention slid back to Hawk’s feet, but it was already too late.

“What happened between the two of you today?”

I kept my eyes averted. My mind blank.

“He may be able to touch you,” Hawk growled, “but he can’t put a dent in the cold silence that once encompassed every minute of your life. Despite that he’s an architect, he cannot build a bridge of sound for you. Only I can.”

I snapped my chin up. “I know that!”

“Then why are you falling beneath his spell?”

I clamped my teeth, my hands working at the pleats in my dress. I couldn’t even explain to myself what sort of hypnotic power the viscount held over me. I moaned, wishing to change the subject.

“I can help with a subject change.” Hawk wore a new expression, edged with cruelty. “I looked this time, while in my hell. And there was a sliver of light, just enough to see a skeleton. Every bit of skin eaten away by rats. Its bones pitted with holes; its clothing consumed by worms. It was me, Juliet. Me, in a state of decay.”

A sob stung in my throat like a swarm of hornets, just to imagine such horror. I clutched my neck. “Dear Lord. I-I’m so sorry!”

“You are correct. Our love is indeed unbalanced. For how can a woman respect a man she has so much power over? At the drop of a petal, you can castrate me. Cut me out of your life and leave me helpless on my knees in the throes of Purgatory.” He studied me, his voice pinched with agony. “I understand you need time alone. But for me, being alone is nothing but darkness and disorientation. If I could but remember what it’s like to live and crave a peaceful solitude.” His eyes saddened. “If I could but
remember
.”

Sympathy rushed through me. Even should he remember what it was like to live, he might still have this fear of solitude after all the loneliness and terror he had suffered in his childhood—a facet of a personality molded and shaped by a tortured past.

Hawk regarded the floor. “You think me repulsive and needy.”

Every part of me longed to touch him, hold him. “I think you brave, beautiful, and broken.” How could I not, after he saved me during his fractured childhood? After how, as a man, he had searched for me? After all he had sacrificed to find me?

At last, the familiar light ignited in Hawk’s eyes, a scintillation of curiosity. “What sacrifice? What did you learn today? Was it about the humidor?”

I paused to glance in the mirror, considering how to present all that his brother had told me. “Your name is Hawkings. Chaine Hawkings. Hawk is a sobriquet.”

He moved to the bed and sat. “Go on.”

“Wait.” My hand swept across the bureau’s smooth surface. “
She
who?”

His brow furrowed. “Pardon?”

“When you first reappeared, you said
she
took the petals.”

He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. “That would be the gypsy. My aunt. She was in your room.”

Aunt Bitti … here on the estate?

I wavered, my legs as insubstantial as softened butter.

Hawk pointed to the bureau’s chair, insisting I sit. “So what do you think of your sainted Lord Thornton now?”

Trying to settle my stomach, I smoothed my skirts around me on the cushion. “I never thought him a saint. Far from it.”

Hawk leaned on his elbows. His expression was haughty.

“Why would your aunt be here? Your brother met you after you were adults. I assumed he didn’t know of her since he couldn’t access your grave.”

“Apparently he knows her quite well.”

“How did she get into my chambers? Miss Abbot gave me the key.”

Upon this, Hawk sat up again. “I’m sure your viscount has an extra key, which he gave to Aunt Bitti. What I wonder, is
why
she was in your room.”

“The journal!” I leapt to my feet and tumbled over my petticoats to get the trunk. Pushing aside some clothes, I found the book in its secret compartment, safe. Relieved, I glanced up at Hawk where he sat on the mattress, still balanced on my knees and the balls of my feet. “So, you saw her?”

“She evoked me when she touched the flower,” he said. “Before she could see me, I dove beneath the bed, watched her from there as she stroked the petals.”

“The withered ones?”

“No. The flower itself, on the Secretaire. I read her thoughts. She remembered the plant from my grave and wanted to take it back. So I coughed. It must have startled her, for the darkness banished me when she released the flower. Upon my return, you stood at the bureau, and the withered petals were gone.”

I shook my head. What purpose would Lord Thornton have for bringing the old woman here? Unless, since she was his aunt, too, he felt responsible for her somehow. Otherwise, why would he hide her in this holiday escape where a plethora of upper-crusts would soon be hob-knobbing and gaming? Were she discovered, it wouldn’t bode well for his reputation, or his Manor’s success.

Perhaps Hawk had been mistaken who the visitor was.