Despite the dark, hungry fire racing to my core, I managed to glower at him. “You are incorrigible.”
Laughing, he turned me loose. “Not even one kiss?”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “Not even one word, lest it’s in answer to why you invited Larson to the Manor’s opening.”
He took off his gloves and rested his elbows on his knees so the splay of light illuminated his entire face. “Larson invited himself, just as he assigned himself an investor. He knows my true identity. He’s blackmailing me.”
This caught Hawk’s attention and he came to sit in a chair opposing us.
I regarded Chaine. “How did he find out?”
Chaine tensed. “I’m not sure. Before I won this estate from him in a card game, I learned that Larson ran a gaming hell in the Swindler’s Tavern. He’s the anonymous owner of the place. If I could prove that, and that he cheated dozens of noblemen out of their purses, I would have something to barter with.”
Hawk and I both leaned forward, as if connected to his words by a towline. “So the gambling room in the tavern—” I pressed.
“Was Larson’s snake pit,” Chaine answered. “During the gypsies’ off seasons, Larson masqueraded as a customer and used my stepfather Tobar as the card dealer and ivory turner, pretending they didn’t know one another. The gypsy could turn a hand or dice to Larson’s favor at the drop of a wager. Only the most affluent customers were invited to partake in the games, and the wealthy idiots never had a chance. To keep Tobar quiet, Larson gave him a percentage of the winnings each time. Part of my and Nicolae’s plan was to get proof of this, so we might always have a way to keep him in line.”
“Do you know how to get the proof?” I asked the question given to me by Hawk.
“No. And I could use it now, more than ever. Should Larson come forward with my identity, I’ll no longer own this place. My brother’s name is on the deed.”
“You should be wearing Nicolas’s clothes,” I said, worried. “And you should bide a stricter adherence to his way of living. You are casting suspicion on yourself through obvious discrepancies.”
Loosening the crimson cravat at his neck, Chaine propped an arm over the settee’s back, his hand just short of touching my shoulder. “I’ve been living this lie for eight years, and I’ve managed to fool everyone but Larson. People think me eccentric, with a touch of my father’s madness. In the gypsy culture, it is bad luck to wear the clothes of the dead. So upon Nicolae’s death, I had to have a new wardrobe, post haste. My aunt provided the fabrics. Then I hired Miss Hunny to sew styles befitting a viscount. And as to following his lifestyle …” Chaine’s wrist moved so his thumb and forefinger could pinch the shawl where it grazed my left breast. My flesh tingled in learned anticipation. “Would you have me romancing every woman I see? Or hold true to my heart, and desire only you?”
Hawk squirmed in his chair, either uncomfortable watching his brother’s advances or shamed by his own repute as a whorehound. Either way, I knew by the twitch in his jaw—so much like Chaine’s—that his emotions were set to kindle.
“Don’t fret,” Chaine said, reading the turmoil on my face. “I intend to put a stop to Larson’s threats very soon.”
I caught his hand. “Assure me you aren’t to kill him.”
His expression shifted from concern to malevolence in an instant. “That would be a most satisfying solution. But I can’t abandon my father. Were I to be put in the pillory, all of this,”—his sweeping gesture encompassed the Manor and the grounds—“would fall to commonwealth. There would be no funds left to oversee my father’s care at the sanatorium, and he would be sent to some bedlam within a fortnight. I’ll not have him in a place like that … thrown into a pit of lunatics and left to fend for himself.” His jaw clenched. “No. This must be handled with cunning and foresight. And a measure of gypsy magic.”
Gypsy magic.
I inhaled an icy breath. “That’s why your aunt is here.”
Chaine grinned. “Precisely. Larson has insisted on overseeing and approving every aspect of the Manor before it can be opened to the public. It is why the star tower is still closed to the guests who’ve begun to arrive. He has yet to endorse it. I’ve supported his idiosyncrasies, as this very arrogance has provided the leverage I need to silence him once and for all. Monday night, after the ball, I will take him into the dungeon.”
My stomach shuddered as I glanced at Hawk. His suspicions had been right.
“I’ve a room prepared there,” Chaine continued, oblivious to my silent exchange with his dead brother. “It’s called the Museum of Oddities. The grim theme is slated to entertain the younger men who take sport in feeding their own fears. Larson must approve of it tomorrow night, so I might open it to the public. I shall take him on a tour, alone. Within the museum—alongside several circus-macabre attractions and torture devices to set the mood—will be a gypsy fortune teller who has a penchant for conjuring ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” Blood rushed to my face. The night at the tavern, when the tigers spoke of the viscount’s macabre fetishes, the blueprints I’d seen in his room … all along, Chaine was setting the scene to trap the man who tormented him. It was never a dark indulgence, nor an exhibit. It was a brilliant ruse.
“Paranormal subterfuge,” Hawk said in my mind.
I focused on his brother. “This is why you and your aunt wish to summon Nicolas. So he might help you scare Lord Larson to silence. Because that slug played a part in his death.”
Chaine watched my reaction with interest. “The dead speak louder than the living, Juliet.”
I coughed, a knee-jerk reaction to the profound truth behind those words. “You are using your brother’s spirit in a game.”
“Game? There is nothing frivolous about this. Nicolae left me with this mess. And he asked to come back, don’t forget. I believe it may be the only way his spirit can be at peace and move on to the other side.”
I glanced sideways at Hawk—his expression a jumble of worried lines. In all our time together, never once had he and I discussed what would happen should his purpose for remaining be fulfilled. Such considerations boded a finality neither of us wished to face.
Chaine caught my hand, centering my attention on him again. “You say Nicolae has visited your dreams. Is there something you know that can help us make him visible for just a few moments? That’s all it would take. Is there anything we can—”
“Larson is on his way over!” Hawk interrupted and I reacted instantly—leaned forward and pressed my lips to Chaine’s, silencing him before the investor could hear our discussion.
Chaine stiffened. Then his mouth curved to a smile beneath mine and his arms drew me against his willing male body. I clung to his shoulders. Just as his hand trailed upward over my back so his bared fingers could nestle into the hair pinned at my nape, the edge of the canopy lifted.
Chaine broke away, the glaze of interrupted passion clouding his eyes. Lord Larson’s crow-like features lengthened to shadows in front of the blue lights. He winked at me. In a flurry of movement, Chaine shoved the man back and stepped outside the canopy—locked in a protective stance between us.
He gestured to Larson with his cane then turned back after the investor strode to the other end of the turret. Offering his palm, Chaine led me outside of the canopy. I shivered from the cool rush of wind and he tightened the shawl at my neck, assuring his sketch remained safe in the knot.
He frowned. “Wait for me. I wish to escort you back to the townhouse. And perchance visit you later tonight, as well? Through our secret doorway.”
I nodded, but couldn’t hide my concern.
“All will be well,” Chaine assured me. He glanced toward my uncle and Enya. “Perhaps you might look at the constellations with your uncle, until I finish this … business.” His lip curled on the final word. Then his expression softened and he leaned forward to kiss my forehead, smoothing my hair as he would a child’s.
Without my prompting, Hawk foll
owed Chaine to keep me apprised of their conversation. I borrowed Uncle and Enya’s telescope while Hawk relayed Chaine and Larson’s words from across the other side, his voice loud and resonant in my mind.
“How dare you interrupt my time with Lady Emerline.” Chaine’s profile stood a full head taller than the bird-like investor. I slanted my telescope in their direction and turned the dial to adjust the lens so I could watch them. The visual, when combined with Hawk’s narrative, made me feel as if I stood right next to them, eavesdropping on their hushed exchange.
“I wanted a tour of the tower. So here I am.” Lord Larson turned his head to scan the surroundings. “I suppose it will suffice. You may open it tomorrow.”
“Sarp.” Chaine clenched his cane so tight his knuckles whitened.
“What did you just say? Don’t start with your gypsy gibberish again.”
Chaine met the investor’s gaze as he put on his gloves. “Snake. You, sir, are a snake. A scale-bellied, vermin-eating, icy-blooded reptile. Clear enough for you?”
Studying his fingernails in the blue light surrounding them, Lord Larson shook his shoulders on a laugh. “Ripe talk from a migrant tramp masquerading as a viscount. You’d do well to remember I have enough dirt in my shovel to bury you … to bury you like you did your twin.”
Upon this, Hawk glanced my direction. I watched my ghost through the telescope as he shook it off and resumed relaying the argument.
“Keep your voice down, pig.” Chaine’s profile snarled.
“Oh please. I’m whispering, for God’s sake.” The investor looked toward my uncle and Enya. “Who’s to hear from such a distance? Are you worried the linen-draper and his niece’s maid might tell your little deaf chit about your murderous ways?”
Chaine cast an anxious gaze to me and I tilted the telescope toward the sky. When I saw him turn his back to face the investor, I resumed my spying, swallowing a knot of trepidation.
“You are never to speak of her,” Chaine said—a wall of corded muscle ready to spring. “Keep her the hell out of this.”
“Me? I’m not the one who involved her. And on that note, there’s been a bit of a change in my demands. I want the deed to this Manor back; a percentage is no longer acceptable now that you’re planning to take a common wife and have heirs with her. I refuse to let my legacy fall to the tainted bloodlines of Thornton madness.”
“Oh, you want the estate back do you? Now that I’ve made something out of it … how convenient, that you waited all these years.” Chaine threw down his cane, caught the man by both shoulders, and propelled him against the wall. “Shame I don’t negotiate with snakes.”
I gasped. Enya and Uncle came to stand beside me, curious as to the emotional conversation taking place in the distance. Uncle urged me to stop spying through the lens but I refused.
“Ahh. This scene is familiar.” The investor clutched Chaine’s wrists where his hands gripped his jacket. “Is this not the same hold you had on your brother just before you shoved him into that open mine shaft?”
Hawk’s voice broke as he turned to me. Confused tears banked behind my eyelids, but I pressed my ghost to listen … there had to be some explanation.
Chaine’s back tensed to a powerful ripple of restraint as he dropped his hands from the investor.
Lord Larson straightened his jacket lapels. “Too bad you had a witness, aye?”
“A drunken witness.”
“Not too drunk to know you and your brother switched places in that card game to fool me. I’ve never told you what tipped me off, have I? You limped on the wrong foot at one point. Caught yourself, you did, but not before I noticed.”
Chaine clenched his hands to fists, silent.
“And I also know once you cheated me out of the deed with your gypsy trickery, you decided to cut your brother out, as well, so you could live his life without sharing the lucre. And don’t even think of killing me. I’ve written it all on parchment and sealed it in an envelope along with my will. It sits in the office of my solicitor. Should anything happen to me, all will be read. Just after midnight it was … ochre mine #34. Wouldn’t be hard to find the bones in that shaft. All someone need do is pry back the boards on the opening and have a look. Soon as they find a skeleton with a deformed right foot, they’ll be no question who you are. Too bad you’re so afraid to go into that tunnel yourself—after all those years you spent there as that weasley little child—else you could have hidden the body away by now, aye?”
Hawk choked on the narrative, unable to speak another word. Through a blur of tears, I watched in disbelief, wanting it all to be a lie. Wanting to wake up in bed, victim to a cruel nightmare.
I eased back from the telescope, legs sluggish beneath me, as if I’d stepped into a sinkhole of mud. Larson hadn’t mentioned Tobar being there. And Chaine hadn’t denied the investor’s accusations.
He’d lied. He did have a hand in the death of his brother.
My Hawk.
I sought out his ghostly face. He’d propped himself against the wall, breath heaving, as if he couldn’t grasp it. “It’s true.” Hawk’s voice carried over to me. “I remember …”
I sobbed. Tobar and Larson had succeeded in turning Chaine into a monster. He wore his kindness and gentleness as a mask. I should’ve known. No child could live through years of such torment and not lose humanity in the battle.
He had fooled me so easily. All his promises that he cared for me. Lies woven into pretty pictures.
Trembling, I plucked the sketch from my shawl and let it drop to my feet. I had fallen for him, thinking at last I’d found a man of flesh who could see beyond my faults and love me despite them. No … that he could love me because of them.
When all along, he’d been using me to cover up a murder.
Across the way, Hawk rose behind Chaine, levitating. Lights gilded his silhouette—a phantom of fury and blue ice, ready to toss his brother over the wall.
Only my plea stopped him—silent cries in my head no one but Hawk could hear. As my hostile ghost moved to the stairway, I begged Uncle and Enya to take me back to the townhouse, feigning a headache.
Abandoning his fight with Larson, Chaine tried to intervene as we started to leave the tower, his cane in hand.
“I’ve a headache,” I whispered, not even attempting to use my vocal cords.
“Then I shall walk with you—help you down the stairs.”
I looked away from him, fearing he’d pull me into his spell once more. “You left to play fisticuffs with your investor when you should’ve been seeing to my welfare. So go back to it.” Petty and insolent. Yes. And there was no ignoring the doubt within Uncle’s and Enya’s faces. They knew me well enough to question such a tantrum.
However, Chaine didn’t. Holding a fingertip to my chin, he coaxed me to look at his face. “Please, forgive me. Let me see you to your chamber at the least.”
“I don’t wish to see you again, at all.” I made sure he caught the underlying message. With that, I shoved him aside and accompanied Uncle and Enya back to the townhouse, nursing the bloody stub that was once my heart.
Chapter 32
He that lives on hope will die fasting.
North American Proverb
When we first arrived in my bedchambers, Hawk was calm. Too calm.
He stood before the French doors, painted by moonlight, and the words rumbled from his throat, quiet and chilling. “Chaine and I had started to suspect Larson owned the tavern, so we took turns frequenting the place, to spy on his routines. He was a degenerate, shared my weakness for bourbon and card games, so we arranged for a private set at the tavern, to cheat him out of the deed for this land. Wasn’t so hard to convince him. The mines were used up. The land was useless. For my ante, I told him I would finish the giant clock my father had never completed. I offered it to Larson, free of charge.”
“The clock your father was working on when you were young?” I asked from my seat in the midst of the bed, fingers gripping my quilt. “
The one at the top of the tower?”
“Yes. I never had any intention of paying up. I wanted that clock for myself. I felt no guile in the deception. Larson owed Chaine. Hell, he owed my family. All those years, watching my brother being tortured summer after summer … seeing me in my contentment during the seasons when the gypsies were absent. He could have told my father. It is impossible that he missed the similarities; we were mirror images of one another. I believe it’s why Larson forbade any of his servants to mingle with the gypsies … he wanted to keep the secret for his own. He liked having Tobar in his pocket.”
The investor’s cruelty gouged at my sternum. Just like Chaine had said in his journal entry and the note about his mother. Larson controlled the gypsies through their king, and used Tobar to trick the English gamblers out of their money.
“On the night of our plan’s execution, Larson excluded Tobar from the private game. He couldn’t risk the gypsy king recognizing his son. Perhaps Larson thought he had learned enough tricks from the Romani. He never considered my brother and I might have found one another. That we knew he secretly owned the tavern. Or that my brother would be sitting in my place during the card game. Gypsy tricks are useless against a gypsy. But what I never suspected, was that when it was all over … when Chaine had trumped him … he would throw me into the mines, so he could have it all to himself.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” I asked on a trembling breath, still wanting to believe in my mud prince, even after all he’d done.
“Dammit, yes, Juliet! I remember that moment … Chaine and I met at the witch tree, because of its significance to his past … to you. I only see bits and pieces after that—but we were arguing. He clenched my lapels in his hands, shaking me, and next I knew, I was falling into the mine … then everything crashed atop my head.” Hawk’s face contorted on a snarl. “I cannot believe I ever pitied him. He doesn’t want the goods on Larson to save the estate and Father. He wants to save his own worthless neck. To silence the one witness to my murder!”