Chapter 13
Cynthia couldn’t tear her gaze away from Helena’s face, flashing in and out of darkness as they bumped along the gas-lit streets towards Mayfair.
A veil had been removed from her eyes. She finally saw things clearly.
Nothing had changed in the world outside The Devil’s Bargain, but everything had changed inside of Cynthia.
Damien Sinclair was a dangerous man, but he had unintentionally given her an invaluable gift. Awareness of her true self. She could almost forgive him for being an evil, calculating, cruel bastard. Almost.
‘I find it increasingly frustrating to not know what you are thinking.’ Helena’s cool voice reached across the carriage, a soft rainfall of sound.
‘How unfortunate that you must suffer as the rest of us do.’ Cynthia couldn’t stop the smile curling her lips despite the horror of their evening.
Though it certainly could have gone far worse.
She had all the letters of debt her husband owed to a dangerous man, and thanks to Helena’s unique gifts, they had given him nothing in return.
‘It isn’t just that I can’t hear you. It’s that I don’t understand the why of it. I could pluck the inner musings of any stranger on the street without a hint of effort. But no matter how I try, your thoughts remain hidden. It makes no sense.’
‘Try again, now. I’ll think something simple, and you try to read me.’ Cynthia watched Helena carefully.
RED.
She cleared her mind of everything except that one word.
Helena’s eyes started to change. In the dark carriage, she could barely distinguish their shade, but like water freezing on a pond, they lightened, glowed, and turned to flashing silver.
Cynthia stopped thinking about any colour other than Helena’s incandescent eyes. ‘Why do your eyes change like that?’
Helena blinked, the silver immediately dissipated until shadows once more hid her. ‘It happens when I use my powers.’
‘Always?’
Helena shrugged, the swish of silk against velvet squabs loud in the quiet carriage.
‘Sometimes, people are thinking so loudly, I don’t have to delve into my magic at all.
Their thoughts crash over me like waves.
Other times, when I’m seeking a particular truth, I have to push, and then my eyes change. ’
‘Does it hurt?’
Helena smiled, her face caught in the flashing streetlamp as the carriage swayed. ‘No. Accessing my power feels like a rush of water, lifting me. Making me weightless. But the constant noise of other people’s thoughts can become…’ Helena shrugged, ‘loud.’
‘But not with me?’
A crimson curl broke free as she shook her head. ‘No. With you, it’s quiet.’
‘Maybe that’s a good thing.’
‘It’s frustrating. I’m used to the constant noise, but the silence is impossible. Take tonight, for instance. I have no idea how taking those pictures affected you, or what your true opinion is.’
‘If you wish to know what I’m thinking, ask. I promise I will answer any questions you might have.’
I have a few questions I’d like answered. Like why you two smell of each other.
Cynthia turned sharply to the fox snuggled next to Helena. He licked his chops and placed his sharp nose between delicate paws. She didn’t feel the rush of weightlessness Helena described, but some magic must be at play to let her hear Helena’s familiar.
‘All right. What were you thinking when we posed for those photographs?’ Helena lifted a crimson brow in silent challenge, daring Cynthia to live up to her promise.
Her heart thudded painfully in her chest as the heat she had felt in those moments returned with increasing intensity, pulling her attention away from Hamlet.
Blast. I should never have baited her.
But when Cynthia made a promise, she did not renege. ‘I was thinking that your hair is like a blazing sunset. Or the glory of autumn. And I wanted to taste you.’
‘To see if I taste of caramel and salt?’
Helena remembered her question from a week ago.
Surely that meant something. It gave her courage to continue.
‘Yes. And my whole body seemed to turn into liquid fire. It was extraordinary.’ She leaned closer to Helena.
The carriage was impossibly warm. Or perhaps that was just Cynthia’s skin.
It stretched tight, achingly sensitive to the rasp of her lace bodice against her bare inner arm.
‘Before Sinclair interrupted us, you told me you never understood how others felt desire for one another. Do you comprehend now?’ Helena’s eyes were turning silver once more.
Cynthia bit her lip and held her breath. She should pull back. Wait until whatever madness currently claiming her released its grip. But she wanted Helena to know. She wanted to talk with someone about this revelation, if not to better understand it herself.
‘Do you really think I’m beautiful?’ Cynthia sought assurance. Something she never did but desperately needed.
Helena shifted her foot between Cynthia’s slippers, dragging the toe of her boot up the inside of Cynthia’s calf. She was testing her, and dear God, it was working. All the air in the carriage mysteriously evaporated as Cynthia fought to expand her lungs.
‘Infuriatingly so. You make it dashed difficult to focus on this investigation.’
‘How did you know?’
Helena leaned forward. Cynthia couldn’t stop her gaze from flicking down to the neckline of her dress.
She knew what her own breasts looked like, but she was overwhelmed with a sudden desire to feel the weight and texture of Helena’s.
To know if her nipples were the same strawberry red as her lips.
To feel the tight bud against her mouth and nip her like a ripe fruit.
Highly untoward!
‘Know what?’ Helena placed her hand on Cynthia’s knee, her thumb rubbing incendiary circles.
‘That you preferred women to men?’
Helena’s teeth gleamed white. ‘Clara Beaumont.’
An overwhelming hatred for Clara Beaumont washed through Cynthia, though she didn’t know a thing about her.
She narrowed her gaze. ‘Clara Beaumont.’ The name could have been a curse.
Helena licked her full upper lip and raised her brows, nodding slowly.
‘I was near to nine or ten. She was the daughter of one of our neighbours. We used to play together. It was a rainy day, and we were playing hide-and-seek. Ellie was seeking us. Clara and I hid together in a linen cupboard. I remember the smell of starch and pears. She pressed her body against mine in the small space and everything in me came alive. It was then I knew.’
‘What happened?’ Cynthia wished to find this Clara and tell her in no uncertain terms that Helena Blair was not for her.
She is mine.
For the second time, the word pounded in her chest, louder than her heartbeat.
She pulled back from the raw need. One could not possess another person. Yet she couldn’t deny the impulse to pull Helena into her arms and kiss her so soundly, the witch never thought of Clara Beaumont again.
Cynthia had been kissed by Hubert a thousand times, but it was always a wet, slimy mashing of mouths that she endured until it was over.
Nothing like what she wanted to do with Helena.
She wanted to lick the seam between her lips until the other woman opened to her.
Nibble along the edge of her jaw. Suck her bottom lip and see if she did taste salty and sweet.
She wanted to make Helena moan with a need as desperate as her own.
Helena’s low laugh eased something in Cynthia’s chest. ‘Nothing happened. We were just children. Clara was in love with the stable master’s son. She used to rhapsodise endlessly about the lad’s brown eyes.’
‘Oh. But you have… experienced intimacy with other women?’
Helena’s thumb inched higher up Cynthia’s leg. ‘A few. Never more than a passing whim. Emotional entanglements are fraught with peril and should be avoided at all costs.’
It was a warning. Whatever was between them couldn’t last. Which meant it shouldn’t start. Cynthia should pull back now. Because it would be impossible for her to continue down this path and not develop feelings for the elusive red-headed witch.
Helena’s thumb continued its journey along Cynthia’s thigh. ‘But always I knew what those women wanted. I never had to question whether my actions were welcome. Whether I was giving them what they desired. There was no mystery. Nothing like you. You bewilder me.’
Her corset was insufferably tight. She wished for a blade to cut the ribbons so she could take a deep breath. ‘Is that bad?’
Helena slowly shook her head, her gaze holding Cynthia in thrall.
‘Only disconcerting. Because I don’t know if you want me with the same fervency that I want you.
You said your desires frighten you. I don’t want you to be afraid, Cynthia.
This is all new for you. I want to give you whatever time you need to be sure. ’
Cynthia took Helena’s hand from her thigh and pressed her lips against the other woman’s fingers, her tongue darting out to explore the ridges.
Helena’s mouth parted on a gasp. ‘I’ve always believed in facing my fears.
Sometimes, it is better to leap than dither with uncertainty.
’ She might not be ready, but how would she know if she didn’t try?
She had been trapped in a disguise for so long, she couldn’t remember what if felt like to just be Cyn.
A memory flashed, fast and vivid.
‘Something’s not right with the girl. I swear to you.’ Governess Smithers looked at Cynthia with wide eyes. Fear hardened her features as lightning flashed in a cloudless sky.
‘You are near hysterics. Control yourself.’ Cynthia’s mother had come for a rare visit. ‘I hired you because you are the best. Whatever is wrong, train it out of her.’
‘It’s the very Devil’s work, my lady. I swear to you. I’ve seen her whispering to the animals. Conjuring all kinds of weather.’
Thunder rumbled. Governess Smithers turned to the window as it rattled in a wild burst of wind.
Cynthia’s mother glanced at Cynthia with growing concern before turning back to the governess. ‘Fear not. The Devil is no match for me. I will take care of this, and you will stay and train Cynthia to become a proper lady. I will double your wages to keep what you have seen a secret.’
Governess Smithers narrowed her gaze and firmed her jaw. ‘Triple.’
Cynthia’s mother hissed out a breath. ‘Fine. But if you breathe a word of this, I will decimate you. When I’m through, you won’t be fit to train field mice.’
Governess Smithers’s chin wobbled as she nodded.
‘There’s nothing wrong with Cyn!’ Thomas’ voice, still a tender falsetto, rang with the rage of a loyal brother.
‘Go with Governess Smithers, Thomas. You’re leaving for school on the morrow and must be ready.’ Their mother used the stern tone that was impossible to ignore. ‘I need to speak with Cynthia alone.’
Thomas squeezed Cynthia’s fingers. He was ten, only three years older than her, but always her protector. His green eyes filled with tears as Governess Smithers pulled him away.
‘It’s all right, Thomas.’ Cynthia couldn’t stand to see his distress.
Whatever had changed within her on her seventh birthday, the power that filled her the moment she opened her eyes, wasn’t going away.
It was getting worse. Perhaps it was the Devil’s work.
It certainly made everyone around her angry.
‘It’s worse than I feared.’ Her mother took both of Cynthia’s hands as soon as Governess Smithers shut the nursery door behind them.
Fear, real and hot and prickling, flowed from Cynthia’s chest out to her fingers and toes. ‘Is something wrong with me, Mother?’ Because something was certainly different.
Her mother pressed her lips together and crouched down to look Cynthia in the eyes. Her pale-blue gaze was full of something haunting and achingly sad.
‘I hoped it would pass you by. As it did me, and my mother. You are destined to be a grand lady of the beau monde, my darling. Magic has no place in this world. Come.’
The carriage lurched to a stop.
Cynthia was pulled from her memory as the creak of springs and crunch of gravel brought her back to the present.
She had instructed the driver to take them to Helena’s home first before returning Cynthia to the house she would soon be leaving.
What the bloody hell was that?
She didn’t remember much of her childhood before Governess Smithers arrived. Thomas would tell stories, but before seven, her memories were curiously blank. The fleeting images she recalled from those times were hazy and disjointed.
Helena was right. She needed time to process all that was changing within her. Hubert’s death was like a blow shattering shields she had constructed around parts of herself that were unacceptable. But she didn’t care so much about being acceptable any more.
Leaning back, she let Helena’s hand slip from her own. ‘You are home, Helena.’
Helena glared at the window as if it had gravely insulted her. ‘How unfortunate.’
Secrets have a way of bubbling up. Good luck with yours.
Hamlet sprang to his feet, his amber gaze lingering on Cynthia before he hopped to the floor and waited for the carriage door to open.
You are not helpful. Cynthia glared at the fox.
I’m incredibly helpful.
‘Are you free tomorrow for dinner? Uncle Lachlan will be there. We can tell him about this evening.’ Helena shifted, readying to depart.
Cynthia’s belly rolled as her heart dropped.
‘Must we? He’ll tell Thomas and I can’t imagine my brother will take the news well.
’ No matter how her world was shifting, one thing was constant: the protective nature of her brother.
He would not be pleased to hear Cynthia had put herself in such a dangerous situation.
Helena’s rueful smile echoed Cynthia’s sentiment.
‘I think we must. Sinclair gave up more than just his leverage against us tonight. He wasn’t lying when he told you he didn’t kill your husband.
But neither was he completely honest. He said there were others who had reason to murder Hubert, but what he didn’t tell us was the name that came into his mind. ’
‘He gave you a name?’
‘Not intentionally. But when you asked who killed your husband, he thought it clear as church bells on Sunday. George Lippert.’
Cynthia shook her head. ‘Who the bloody hell is George Lippert?’
The footman opened the carriage door and set the step. Hamlet leapt to the ground and Helena followed, turning as the wind caught a strand of her fiery hair and blew it across her cheek. ‘No idea. But Uncle Lachlan might know. And if he doesn’t, he’ll find out.’
Before she shut the door, Cynthia glanced at Hamlet, then back to Helena. ‘Can you hear animals’ thoughts as well? Or only people?’
Helena’s silver eyes clouded. ‘Only people. Why?’
Cynthia leaned back into the shadows of the carriage. ‘No reason.’ But she saw Helena’s lips press together. She shouldn’t have asked. It was impossible at any rate. She wasn’t a witch, no matter what the fox said. She was just a woman, realising nothing in her world was as it seemed.