The Violet Hour (4 page)

I shake my head. “Not formally. Unless you consider his chastisements an introduction.”

LeFroy laughs again and gives a tiny bow, which looks ridiculous against his dirty work clothes. “Pardon my rudeness.”

“Miss Allegra Teagarden, may I present Mr. Brighton LeFroy.”

A barking scoff from the brass section bade us all turn. Marietta has arrived in a poofed-pink-gown, which looks every bit as bulky and uncomfortable as she does. “Stay away from him, Allegra. I told you, he’s a witch.”

LeFroy’s eyes narrow and harden to blue ice and he tips his hat. “Good day, Ms. Teagarden. I have loads of work and toil before I might return to churning my brew.” His eyebrows raise and waggle at Marietta.

“Joke all you like, Mr. LeFroy. I know you work the devil’s magic on that blasted isle,” Marietta calls to his retreating form.

“Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” he mutters, his words getting lost in the wind.

My eyes leap between the back of his head and the isle in the bay.

A small, desolate island rambles out of the water like a rocky fortress. Thick overgrown trees make it impossible to see past the shoreline.

He lives there? Alone?

My scalp tingles with an ominous prickle.
Why is a man so obviously educated, here? Working for that beast of a man?

“Why, indeed. Why are you?” I murmur quietly. Secrets. He has secrets.

Musicians now pour into the tent, taking their respective places in the rows.

Silas parts the fluttering tent door, his eyes evaluating the situation in one fell sweep. They focus and narrow on Jonesy, still not in his seat.

“Percival Jones, I believe you are almost late.”

Jonesy’s dark eyes flash with anger, but he crams his lips together. He is a prisoner to the park as well. To Silas.

“Coming.” He takes his seat beside me in the orchestra row.

Sarah is already departing, her long-legged pace almost comical as she tries in vain to appear nonchalant.

Silas takes his place by Mr. Plimpton, the conductor—who is now self-consciously rubbing his hands over his substantial middle.

Silas possesses a talent for making people recall their flaws, which he then molds, shapes and displays for his own personal use—like some detestable potter of imperfection.

Silas raises his hands and the musicians immediately quiet.

“The riverboat cruise was a tremendous success. Thanks in large part to your accomplished execution of the music, and our new fireworks display. I’ve already received a flood of new reservations, and the guest house is booked through fall.” His eyebrows pull together in disdain. “The rich must have their amusements. And good thing, as it keeps us all in gold. In these tense times-people are hungry for distraction. I want suggestions on how to keep the music fresh? I’m feeling the symphonies going stale.”

Mr. Plimpton’s cheek twitches, but he holds his tongue. The man is a most excellent conductor, a
maestro
, and Silas is tone-deaf.

Jonesy murmurs, “He always knows best. Whatever the subject, he’s an expert.”

Silas turns sharply. Tone deaf, but with apparently sharp ears.

He barks, “Mr. Percival Jones. Might you have a suggestion on how to better the show? Perhaps adding
stilts
for all musicians to wear?”

A few idiots chuckle and I shoot them a death look.

Jonesy doesn’t flinch. He is a small man, but darkly handsome. He glares back at Silas with an unwavering gaze.

Silas resumes his droning and I feel Jonesy relax. But his arm, touching mine, still quivers with rage.

Jonesy suddenly interrupts, “Perhaps it’s merely time to change the music. Mr. Plimpton is excellent, but our instruments itch to play something new.”

Plimpton smiles in gratitude and nods his ascension.

Silas’s glare tunnels onto the pair of us and all else falls away.

“Thank you for that fawning review,
Mr. Jones
. We shall consider it. Perhaps
I
will choose the music.”

Not a word is spoken, but every chair in the orchestra shifts as the apprehension rolls back the rows in a collective wave as buoyant as the nearby surf.

A flash of color in the distance quickens my heart. My eyes flick, searching for the familiar red crest of the uniform, but it is merely LeFroy’s striped balloon, waving in the sea breeze.

I swallow, trying to regain composure.

I think of the soldier, sent from father.
So close…too close
.

I scratch under my wig, fidgeting.

Jonesy smirks and tips his head, indicating my tilted hair.

I readjust it and sigh. I doubt my disguise will conceal me much longer. My fingers stray to my singular earring, which I’d mounted as a pendant around my neck.

I lovingly trace the magnolia, a gift from my mother.

My nanny related she’d scoured the countryside for a silversmith capable of such a delicate hand.

I’d worn the set every solitary day since she passed. Since she left me.

My eyes fill. Only one earring remains. I’d lost the other in my mad-dash escape from father.

“A masquerade!” I blurt.

Every musician in front and behind turns to stare as my face threatens to burn to ash.

Silas stares. The orchestra holds its breath.

He smiles and the relief about me is palpable. I almost hear muscles relaxing.

“Yes. That is a
most excellent
suggestion, Miss Allegra. A masquerade. For musicians and guests alike. I like it.”

He stalks off, waving his hand, calling over his shoulder. “Carry on, Plimpton.”

Excited murmurs course through the crowd as Plimpton taps his podium for order.

Jonesy leans over. “The world might be ending.”

“What?”

“Silas uttered a compliment. You best be careful, deary. I believe that dragon fancies you.”

I shudder, thinking of the wildness of Silas’s eyes, hoping Jonesy is wrong.

But he rarely is.

* * *

A fortnight later

My stomach knots beneath my hand as I wander along the rocky shore. The sun is saying its good-byes, disappearing in a final reddish-golden slip below the horizon as the crying gulls overhead seem to lament its return to bed.

“This is madness.”

The hem of my dress skims the top of the white-frothy shallows and I gather it with both hands, carelessly exposing my ankles.

“Where are you, Brighton?” I murmur quietly.

A spout of water explodes heavenward from the surf, raining down in a million tiny circles. A dolphin rises to the surface, expelling air from her blowhole. She clicks and another slices through the water beside her.

I sigh. Mr. LeFroy has been conspicuously absent. As if our teasing conversation had prompted him to avoid me.

Over the past weeks I’ve only seen him twice. Each time he was enroute across the bay to the jagged isle he apparently calls home.

I’ve taken to stalking this moonlit shore, staring at it from across the ever-choppy waves.

Something
about the isle is amiss.

My stomach tightens as a flash of heat -lightning paints the sky.

The air seems to
shrink
, growing close and dense, as if I am
breathing in
the warm shallows at my feet. The warming on my chest returns and I scratch it.

The dolphin’s issue a final chastising click and plunge beneath the waves, leaving me alone. As if they know
something
approaches.

As if they are far smarter than I, quickly plunging to the safety of the depths.

I hold my breath as my eyes transfix upon the stony isle.

Thunder rumbles.

The island
shimmers
.

Like the heat at high noon.

I blink, pressing the heel of my palms to my eyes, shaking my head.

They pop open wide and I long for a spyglass. I vow to buy one.

Heat wafts from the isle in wavering fits and starts. It
blurs
and
solidifies. Blurs
and
solidifies,
before my eyes.

I hear my gasp as if from another’s mouth.

I pace, splashing back and forth through the shallows; the water lapping up, over, and into my boots. My eyes transfixed upon the craggy rock.

There is more to come. I know it. Every night I come.

And every night I question my sanity. Almost a one-way ticket to Bedlam.

The island grows brighter and I freeze, and drop to the shallows, vaguely registering the pull of the waves against my knees. A warm tingle begins upon my chest.

Lights.
Tiny, twinkling, myriads of lights, move in clusters like tiny fairies across the rocky isle’s shore.

My hand shoots to cover my mouth. Their movements are erratic. They are most definitely alive. But what, what could they be?
Fairies?

I snort aloud.
I don’t believe in make-believe creatures.

“Fireflies?” My lips twist angrily. “This is madness. I must know.”

The creatures flit in a congregation toward a tree and spiral down its trunk in a helix of white light, which blinks on and off at varying intervals. Like some ethereal natural lighthouse.

Something in the patterns of the light jar loose a memory. My father’s finger, tap-tap-tapping.

The blood in my veins goes cold as the rain, just beginning to fall.

“Is that. Is that Morse code?”

I falter upright and as if struck headlong and drop my dress back into the surf. A gull screams and scolds directly overhead as Goosebumps explode across my chest.

Cats.

A herd of them. Too close to the shore to be natural.

Their calls rise every second, carrying across the bay like a mewling nursery of newborn babes.

“Oh. My. Word.” I am rooted, awash in the surf, as the growing tap-tap-tap of rain on the top of my head increases.

The lights dart from the tree and hover directly over the cats.

One large Tom stops his caterwauling and playfully bats at the circling light. The light dips and splutters, flying crazily as if stunned.

The lights dance into a circle, and descend upon the two large felines in the center. They…

I slump back into the surf; the water sloshing over my thighs.

The creatures wrap about their necks like a collar borne of light.

My heart catapults, beating my ribs to a pulp.

I shake my head in disbelief. “This is unnatural. So unnatural.”

Out in the bay, another eruption of mist from a very large blowhole. A whale is hovering about the isle, meandering in the bay between it and my shoreline.

Are the animals drawn to him?

The thought of his beautiful blue eyes, which somehow seem both melancholy
and
hopeful, and the playful smile he gifted me when he forgot himself. Forgot to be sad.

“Brighton. What
are
you doing out there?” I whisper.

The urge to know grips my chest, tightening it.

I look left and right, searching for a dingy.

“Allegra?”

I jump at the voice, and spin to see Sarah trudging across the sand dunes toward the shore.

“Oh my stars, what
are
you doing in the water? You’re utterly drenched? And it’s raining. Have you gone mad?”

Yes.

Sarah’s wide eyes meet mine ad she hovers along the waterline. She hesitates; walking forward and retreating back with the tide’s rhythm like a skittish heron.

I stand as torrents of water cascade from my hemline. “I. I.”

If Sarah saw…
I feel the distinct need to protect him
.

The vision of pitchforks and lanterns and hanging invade my mind’s eye.

It was no longer Salem, but
this level of oddness
would most surely have inquiries and consequences.

Sarah’s eyes steal to the isle and mine follow. I open my mouth, ready to explain away LeFroy’s damnation.

But it is dark. No cats. No lights. Nothing but a glowering crag in the water.

Her eyes turn away, satisfied.

“Silas has come with a surprise. Hurry. You are a mess!”

I walk, and drip, toward Sarah, still reeling.

As I follow her up the path through the sand dunes, one repeating thought echoes,
Is he a witch? Am I smitten with a witch?

Chapter Four

“Allegra, you must try it on.” Sarah’s face pinches with awe and concern.

Silas looks like the cat that has eaten an aviary of canaries. “Yes. I spared no expense. For either of you.” He is utterly pleased with himself.

I lift the masquerade gown to hold it gingerly against my chest. It
is truly
magnificent. The bodice is an imperial violet, overlaid by black lace, gathered to the hip by a sunburst yellow bow.