The Heartbeat Thief (13 page)

“No, can’t say I have met him. A lawyer, you say? Different circle, dear. I don’t expect we will cross paths with him, unless there is a particularly large public ball. Even then, we would not be pursuing introduction.”

“But his wife…surely she’s in good society?”

“I’m sure she is, Constance. But I imagine the wife of a successful lawyer is busy entertaining with her husband’s clients and partners. London is a vastly large city, Senza. You cannot expect to know everyone.”

Senza had made several more inquiries along the same topic but, by the first year’s end, she’d neither glimpsed her married cousin nor harbored any hopes of seeing her any time soon.

Perhaps it was for the best. She would hate to don those smothering veils again.

In time, Senza knew the great city as well as she knew her home in Surrey. The newness had dimmed, so much like old snow along the roadside, muddied by days of sloppy travel. The once-bright and promising became matte-finished commonplace, every-day unremarkable. Stripped of the distractions of new discovery, Senza fell into older routines, longing for something new to stir her heart, and allowed herself to daydream about Knell more frequently.

Knell occasionally stalked the grand parties, always at an uncrossable distance from her. He was persistently across the crowded room, up on a balcony, drifting out into the gardens. She possessed an instinct to pick him out, a heightened sense of his presence, often pausing mid-sentence and turning away to scrutinize the fringe of the crowd.

Sometimes, it was just his scent she caught, a rogue fragrance that stole her breath. Other times, it was a quiet voice whose timbre plucked certain strings within her, making her momentarily dizzy with the sweet vibration. She’d catch a glimpse, out of the corner of her eye, and she’d see him ghosting along the edge of the room.

Yet, for all that she was the center of society’s world, never once did he turn his head in her direction. Their eyes never met. He never acknowledged her presence.

It curdled her blood, and sometimes the fury would grip her so terrible that she’d fist her hands and nearly—quite nearly—lose that cold aloofness that had come to define the depth of her beauty.

She had been the prize of the county in 1860. She had been the woman most pursued by every eligible man. Every evening she found herself surrounded by dozens of men and women who wanted nothing more than to be close to her, to hold her in their hungry gazes, to aspire to her hand, her friendship, her bed.

And to think, the one to whom she would give her heart—to whom she’d given her life!—would simply vanish from her world. It wounded her on countless levels, from her pride to the deepest recesses of her wilted heart.

They had shared an experience so profound that it literally transcended life itself and he hadn’t spoken to her since. Jilted, outright jilted. Had they been courting, it would have been a scandal. Had they been lovers, it would have sent her straight into tragic melancholy.

But this was worse than losing a beau or a lover. He’d separated her from the world, brought her into a stand-still picture frame of Life Once Lived, and secluded her from the tinkerings of the Universe itself. He brought her into his world, where only he existed as did she, her only compatriot. And some nights, before she shut herself down, she allowed herself to remember the last time she’d held him before flash-forwarding to the last time she’d caught sight of him, his eyes sliding over her as if she were nothing at all. A split-second of remembrance. That was all she could endure. Any longer and she’d surrender to the mercies of a terrible and desperate despair.

Senza would bite her lips and wait for the sting in her eyes to subside, before reminding herself that his attention was not the reason she chose this Unlife. She’d done all this to survive. To outlast. To conquer. And she would not let the trembling of a lonely heart conquer her, not when she’d outrun Death itself. That feat alone allowed her to lift a smug chin to the notion of loneliness.

You are of my world now.
He had told her that, the day he took her life. Just as he ghosted along the fringe of society, touching no one, loving no one, so then must she. She would strive to be of his world, alone and separate and perpetually apart. It would please him.

She hardened what she had left of her heart, forming a barrier around that fresh, tender spot that would always belong to him.

So often she reminded herself of these things that it hastened her separation from the world around her. She fed off the praise and the lingering looks of her admirers, fuel to the fires of her vanity. She grew cool and distant, arrogant and superior, characteristics that had been completely unknown in the girl before her Unbirthing. Those in her social circles marked it as a sign of aristocracy, of fine breeding.

Only she knew the truth. It was a defense. She could never again yield to the frightened girl hidden away in that deep dark corner of her being.

Mrs. Branson’s constant supervision gradually lost its comforting appeal. After more than seven years, Senza began to view her more as a warden than a companion.

Yes, she realized she still looked eighteen, and more than once Mrs. Branson’s advancing age and failing memory ensured that eighteen was all Senza would ever be. Inside, she was forty-six, endowed with a life-time of experience, inside society, outside life itself. A seed of discontent took root, and flourished as Senza grew to resent being treated like a child.

Her outsides never changed, just as Knell had promised. Senza wore a countenance of naïve contentment, of wonder, of elegance to be in London at the height of fashion. It was her role to play.

Although they spent most of their entertaining in the surrounding neighborhoods, occasionally, they would have to travel some distance to attend some fete or another. London was growing and expanding at an astronomical rate, with new money and the newly rich popping up in all sorts of places. Senza was glad of it; she had grown bored within the confines of Chelsea, having seen all there was to see. Her borders were expanding and she longed to see more of the world to which she’d belong for an eternity to come.

Senza peered through the lacey curtains of her guardian’s carriage while they rode, her chin on her fist. The world passed unceasingly around her while she sat still, posed like the subject of a painting, trapped for all time in a fresh moment.

The irony was not lost on her.

The carriage came to an abrupt stop, jostling Mrs. Branson from her doze. Her half-snore was most unladylike. Rubbing her mouth, she smoothed the front of her dress. “Where are we?”

“Mmm.” Senza slid her gaze back outside. “I’m not sure I recognize this section.”

Compared to the quiet splendor of their street in Chelsea, this area was positively a circus. People milled about in the streets, the din of their voices carrying through the padded walls of the carriage.

All manner of mankind seemed out and about: thickly-chinned men in black suits, wearing tall top hats and swinging walking sticks, women with drawn faces and untidy hair, sleeves rolled to the elbows to reveal pink-scald hands. Farmers leading pigs to the market. Young men selling papers, girls singing out wares of their own: flowers and fruit and matches and knitted scarves. Children in patched pants and caps too large to stay up over their ears darted in between the adults, all of whom seemed to have some type of urgent business, if their quick paces and lowered brows were any indication.

The sheer chaos of the crowded street pressed in at Senza, nearly upsetting her composure. Closing her eyes, she listened to the dull roar and imagined she could, for a moment, hear each of their heartbeats, pounding like the hooves of horses on the race course at Lingfield. There, out there, was life. It was living. She longed to stand in that street, feel the brush of skirts against her own, be jostled out of the way by a careless child, make every man stop in their tracks just to tip their hats at her. To be out there, in this great ocean of life, and to drown in it—

Her hand was upon the cold latch of the door. She didn’t even remember moving. The sound of heartbeats pumped in her head, thumped against her skin with a tantalizing rhythm.
Let me in. Let me in. Let me in.

She swayed, her head dizzy. A dreamy smile crept across her lips, and she suddenly grew hungry. Lately, her appetite had increased, as if the diet of pulses to which she’d become accustomed were no longer enough. Surrounded here by so many hearts, so much life—a flame ignited in the pit of her stomach.

Senza smoothed the sudden lust from her expression, knowing Mrs. Branson would remark upon it. She was in no mood for another one of her tedious lectures.

Instead, she gazed out at the masses of humanity flowing in turbulent currents through them. What kind of lives did they lead? And where could they possibly be going? It seemed an impossibility that every single person lead an individual lifetime and yet, there they were, skirts flipping at their dirty heels. Ladies of some breeding mixed with scullery maids, attorneys striding amongst butchers. Everyone, all together, like a great pot of English soup.

They arrived at their host’s home, mercifully some distance from the noisiest center of the cacophony. A towering iron-wrought fence, topped with cruel spikes separated the common from the owners of the manor, and a great topiary attempted to muffle the manor in a bubble of contrived peace.

Mrs. Branson sniffed her disdain. “This is what new money buys. Greatness where had stood shambles only the week before. Beautiful, but empty. Superficial. No history, no time-tested dignity.”

Senza only made an assenting sound. The home was lovely, no matter Mrs. Branson’s condemnations of its origins. Considering her own unique situation, Senza was much more open-minded to change and improvement than was her guardian.

New money? Good. At least something would be new, for once.

This particular soiree had been thrown in the honor of one of Mrs. Branson’s charitable cronies, most likely in the effort to curry favor and admittance to the enviable ranks of the old money circles. Mrs. Branson did not disguise the snooty contempt in her tone; if anything, she managed to attain a new level of snobbish. The
nouveau rich
hopefuls simply ate it up, doing their best to imitate her.

As typical for many charity balls, there seemed none in attendance in need of such charity. The men were sharply dressed and extravagant in their gestures, waving fine cigars and bragging about their latest financial conquests. The women were worse—they spoke too loudly, wore too much jewelry, and gossiped incessantly as if by dropping a name they proved a new level of worth in their character.

Mrs. Branson’s elitist companions endured the less-than-polished conversation with an air of ancient perfection of breeding, and provided elegant examples of how one must behave. Senza was sure the lessons would be lost on the women, who cared less for what they said than the diction in which it was spoken. She uttered a quick prayer that they would take the honest best of the lectured-upon tenets and retain the best of their own inherent qualities, if they possessed any.

She, mercifully, had been given a different purpose, and was a centerpiece to behold. A new gown had been made for the occasion, one that called upon the classic style of London, updated yet traditional. Emerald silk crepe, buttoned high to the neck, a sumptuous bustle to extend the graceful curve of her corseted waist.

New styles had been pouring in from France and beyond and everyone in attendance were intent upon dressing in the newest and the most unique. Beautiful girls, trussed up in the most current of fashion. Each gown was finer and more expensive than the rest, each coif more delicate, more—French.

Mrs. Branson was adamantly against such styles, which she regarded as clownish.
Traditional, solid, enduring
—those aspects were the definition of true beauty, she said. Miss Constance Fyne would be a shining example, a stand against the new and so-called improved.

With a painted smile, Senza took up her role at once, surreptitiously training the younger women in attendance, feeling very much like a school mistress herding a boisterous group of young children. As expensive as were their trappings, their social skills were decidedly less developed. Their voices, both in tone and diction, left much to desire. Words tumbled out of their mouths haphazardly, with no thought of incorporating wit or charm.

Worse, none at all had learned how to use a fan. The art of the fan was a delicate language to be mastered. At least one girl seemed intent on scooping all the available air in the room toward her shiny décolleté. Senza resisted a sigh and a grimace. That one had a lot of work to do.

Within the cluster of daughters and nieces of the new money crowd, a second clique seemed to exist. They created an undercurrent to the attendants, this group of young men and women did not mix with the others, and stirred the atmosphere with their sense of separation from the rest.

They moved about like a swarm, the men like overgrown children, loud and brash and very, very drunk. Their female counterparts wore lioness grins, laughing, beguiling, and encouraging their male counterparts to new heights of depravity.

And damned if each one didn’t, at some point, spy Senza. They orbited, closer and closer to her with every pass around the room, as if her gravity were too great to deny. When they entered her atmosphere, the other hopefuls were dislodged and scattered until only the rowdies remained, forming a tight ring around Senza, demanding her attention and drinking in the very sight of her.