Chapter 15 #2
Gabriel was already running through the connecting door, pounding down the back stairs. I backed myself into a corner to wait, staring at the divots and valleys in the rumpled fabric.
He reappeared a few minutes later, disheveled and angry. “He escaped.”
I examined the lines on my trembling palms, the crisscrossing creases.
“He spoke to you?”
“Mad things.” I traced an uneven line. “He thanked me for finding the journal.”
His fingers lifted my chin, eyes examining mine. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, green eyes wavering in my view. “But he had me.”
Arms pulled me into his warm chest. “I have you now.”
~*~
I hugged myself inside the carriage. I was glad we had taken it for once. Even if I wanted to celebrate the ice that had come so readily, I’d be hard pressed to do so now. “Why do you think he let me go?”
Gabriel watched me. “Likely for the same reason that Kennen was left alive. He only intends harm to his victims.”
“He said that he would have only killed them if they asked.” I clutched my dress. “That the one who killed them didn’t ask. That you know this.”
His body stilled, stark against the rocking of the carriage.
“What does that mean, Gabriel?” A flurry of emotions flashed through his eyes. “If he is not the murderer, who is?”
“He’s mad,” Gabriel said flatly.
“What little I read of Anastasia’s journal suggested she and Octavia were part of the same club. I asked Worley if he was a victim, he said he was a loyalist, that he—”
He leaned forward, a hand on my cheek. “Slow down. I have you.”
He had said the same to me in the house. It made my breath come easier, my heart unclench. I had been in charge so long. Alone and with so much—
“I have you.” He ran a hand up my arm and loosened my fingers, pulling them away and into his own. He repeated the gesture on the other side. Warmth bloomed against my skin—a spell unspoken.
“Do you trust me, Marietta?”
“Yes.” My fingers curled into his. I had put all of my trust in him.
Soft kisses up my neck, along my jawline, on my lips. He was trying to distract me. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to accept what he was offering.
He rapped on the trap five times in succession. We turned a corner, going in the opposite direction of the house.
He slid me on top, so I was straddling him.
Heat swept up my skin and through my veins, making me burn.
The carriage rocked over the cobblestones, swaying and brushing us together.
A thrust of my dress, a flick of his trousers and he was pushing inside me, my body greedily pulling his heat in.
I kissed him fiercely as he clutched my hips, warming every part of me.
I would never be cold again.
If he betrayed my trust…but no, how could he? Silly fears reared like spitting snakes at Worley’s poisoned words.
He hit that lovely spot deep within and I moaned into his skin. Over and over, relentlessly. I had hired Gabriel, I had come to him.
I clutched the hair at his nape as I rode him to the rhythm of the stones. Pressing exactly where I needed him to, a lethargic, heavy feeling overtaking me as I reached for that peak. Magic coiled between us, heat warming the ice—cycling the magic so the power could be used again.
I let him wash away the itchy skin and disgust of Anastasia Rasen’s pink dollhouse, the sheer terror of murderous hands. Cleansing waves, but no answers.
I closed my eyes and let him push me over the edge, stifling my breaths into his dark hair as I clutched him to me. He might not be mine forever, but in this moment, he was. He followed a second later, washing the lingering fear and cold away.
I rested my forehead against his, drugged and oddly energized. “There must have been something in Anastasia’s journal. Some clue.”
He stiffened beneath me. “Do you really want to talk about that right at this moment?”
I smiled. “I suppose not.”
His whole body sighed. “There is an open market close to her house where we can make some inquiries. Then I’m going to take you to bed and make sure you can’t walk for a week.”
~*~
I walked through the market, hair back in proper place, clothes back together. Gabriel was working the west side stalls while I took the east. A crone selling trinkets in a ramshackle stall was trying to work her elderly wiles on him.
Finished with my inquiries, I touched a checkered scarf draped over the stall, eyes skimming his body as the crone handed him something, a wooden token dangling around her wrist. It seemed impossible that such an overwhelming man could move between different levels of society so easily.
He smiled.
I sighed. When a smile such as that existed, it was not hard to believe in the impossible.
It was hard not to want to be by his side for everything. A spell to soften my accent, to roughen or enhance my appearance, to blend in or stand out. I had the ability to do all of it now, with diligent practice and a place to do it.
And the shadows in his eyes, the expressions he sometimes tried to hide? I would figure out a way to breach—
A hand gripped my arm and yanked me behind the stall and into a shallow alley behind the colorful rows. Thorne Worley loomed over me, his brown eyes both earnest and unhinged.
I tore at the fingers around my wrist. He tugged me farther around the bend. “Wait, please. Listen.”
“Wait for what? Five women are dead.”
His eyes grew watery. “I know. Murdered. All of them. Except the most special one.”
“Who—”
“Need to help Lissa. I’ve been following the rules. Always so important. Lady Winstead and Lady Fomme and Lady—” A flock of ravens flew through the opening of the alley. Worley gripped me harder. “You must kill Noble before he kills you.”
Iced terror flowed through me. “What?”
“He will kill you. Just like he killed the others.”
“You’re mad.”
He pushed me against the wall, and I scrambled to break free. “My ladies. Gone. His fault. Hates them. Wants revenge. Can’t let him get Lissa. Head of them all.”
One part of me was screaming to run, the other unable to look away. He was like Octavia’s twisted journal, only in reverse, the victim pining for the master.
“Kill him first. It’s the only way. I tried. Too well protected from the outside. Must do it from within. You must. The only way. Must protect Lissa.”
“Who is Lissa?”
But Thorne Worley was gone. Slipped back into the stalls.
Gabriel stood in the same spot moments later, eyes dark. “Marietta?”
Something spiked within me. New fear. “Yes?”
“Why are you back here? It’s not safe.” He motioned toward the market and I followed him back into the crowd.
How to respond? With a question, with the truth?
“I just had to catch my breath,” I said. My mind had decided for me. Lied. “I didn’t discover anything.”
It’s not that I believed Worley, but his words circled, battering and coy. Lady Winstead. Lady Fomme.
Anastasia’s journal had mentioned a Celeste. Octavia’s had mentioned a C.F.
Celeste Fomme, Lady Fifth of a great house, had been a dragon of society at one time, until something had driven her to the country. She hadn’t attended gilded events in years.
She was a direct link between both journals and Worley. She was likely one of the bodies in Coroner’s Court.
That didn’t mean Gabriel was involved. Yet, when I had mentioned a link between the journals, Gabriel had answered not with words but with seduction. He had pushed aside the matter, even with its overwhelming importance. I had let him, trusted him to return to it later.
Would he return to it later? Or would he simply press me up against another surface, devour me until I could think no more?
Octavia’s journal. I needed to read it. Now.
“I’m going to head back,” I said. “The trial being moved up means I need to go over Kennen’s defense.”
“I filed those papers already. You approved them.” His eyes turned unreadable.
I smiled. It took effort. “I thought I might write out some memory aids for him. His scattered mind, you know. He stumbles when he gets nervous.”
Hard green eyes watched me. His lips tightened, and for a moment I thought he would hold me there. “As you wish. Take the carriage. I will see you in an hour.”
I bobbed my head and hurried away, instinct outrunning caution.
My gaze met his as the carriage lurched forward. I couldn’t read his eyes from here, but his demeanor was dark. Accusatory. Murderous. Not like the lover he had been. A changeling. A seducer who always got his way.
I yanked the shade. How different the carriage felt from when we’d… I snatched my fingers from the soft cushions, the velvety blanket.
An inkling of suspicion edged with terror.
The carriage clacked along the street. The driver seemed interested in a Sunday jaunt rather than getting me to the house in the speed I desired. I considered exiting and running ahead, but we were moving just fast enough to discourage that.
I might need fresh running legs before the afternoon was over.
The carriage pulled in front of the Ashfield house and I bolted before the vehicle came to a complete stop.
The driver yelled something, but I just waved a hand and fumbled with the front door.
Three attempts at the lock before it turned.
I flew up the stairs and grasped blindly beneath the serpentine chest. There.
I scraped the journal across the floor and flipped it open.
January 2nd, in the year celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the March. M.N., C.F., E.M., I.F., T.R., and I have taken it upon ourselves to indulge in some fun. We have formed a club with the utmost discretion.
I didn’t know who M.N. was, but C.F. would be Celeste Fomme.
I.F. Iris Forester, the only victim previously identified.
Anastasia’s journal had mentioned Estelle and Moreton.
E.M. What about Anastasia herself? I looked the initials over again and stopped.
T.R. I had heard someone call Anastasia Rasen Tasia before.
All five murdered women were in this club. All prominently mentioned in the journal Gabriel had kept from me—becoming angry every time he caught me reading. He’d reacted almost violently when I read the part about their favorite—the man of incomparable beauty with the gorgeous eyes—
The book slipped from my hands...
Gabriel. Archangel. Avenger.
...and slammed against the floor.