Chapter Twenty-Nine
T WENTY - N INE
I wake still in Bishop’s arms. His smell washes over me, reminding me where I’m and why I’m so wonderfully warm despite the chill breeze. I snuggle in deeper, wanting only to fall back into deliciously exhausted sleep.
That’s when I remember.
Lenora is dead.
My face heats in sudden shame. I wriggle free from Bishop’s arms, and he’s too deeply asleep to do more than grumble a protest.
I ease my legs over and sit on the edge, gripping the mattress as my heart pounds, my face red-hot.
My aunt is dead. Less than a day has passed since her murder, and I’m blissfully sleeping after…
My stomach lurches, and I push from bed. I didn’t even wait a day before losing myself, chasing my own joy, my own pleasure. Giddy with this new something I’ve discovered with Bishop, it’s been hours since I even thought of Lenora. She’s dead, her body likely lying somewhere in this house—
My stomach lurches again, and I run toward the broken window. I step on a sliver of glass, and only feel as if I deserve the pain. I lean out, and the cold night air blasts over my nakedness.
I’m not ashamed of what I did. The shame comes from the rest. Laughing and teasing with Bishop, letting that sweep me away, nothing else mattering but this shiny new something between us.
I don’t know whether Bishop and I are starting something real. I only know it shouldn’t have happened so close to losing her.
I gulp air and squeeze my eyes shut as tears well.
Bishop and I decided to pretend we were swept away by one another, but I am swept away, not only by him but by everything. Some of it—like him—is wonderful, but some of it—like Silas—is terrifying, and some of it—like my aunt’s murder—is devastating, and it’s all coming too fast.
My mother taught me never to think myself superior to other girls because my life is different from theirs.
Don’t scoff at them for their smaller lives, their smaller dreams. I believed I’d avoided that trap.
Never in a thousand years would I have mocked girls whose best hope was to secure a decent husband.
But I did—gods help me—quietly sniff at their sheltered lives.
I remember rolling my eyes at the story of a girl who, when her coach broke down, hid inside it for fear of stepping out alone in… Marylebone, one of the poshest areas in the city.
I was nothing like her. My life was filled with danger and adventure. Or so I thought. Now, I feel like a girl who strode alone through Marylebone, declared herself independent and worldly and modern… and then was dropped into Whitechapel in the middle of the night.
I’m overwhelmed. My “dangerous and adventurous” life was the danger and adventure of an aristocrat on an African safari.
I want to hide. Run home and hole up in my bedchamber and grieve.
Run even from Bishop because that scares me, too.
Not Bishop himself but whatever this is, whatever I feel.
Too much, too soon, and I want to be home with Lenora, in her office, watching her practice that suffocation spell and telling her about the odd encounter I had.
I’ll never be back home with her.
I’ll never debate magic with her.
I’ll never tell her anything again.
The tears fall faster, and I drop to my knees, another shard of glass crunching under it, edges cutting in, hot blood welling. I lay my head on my arms in the windowsill, silent sobs racking me.
“Delia?” Bishop’s voice croaks with sleep.
I glance over to see him rising, looking around in alarm. He sees me and scrambles up, and I know I should say something. I’m in the open window, and I need to tell him I wasn’t trying to escape. But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
In a few long strides, he’s here, lifting me up, cradling me, brushing hair from my face. His finger wipes at my tears, and he doesn’t say a word. He just leans his face against mine.
“She’s gone,” I say.
He nods, his voice a whisper. “I know.”
“Lenora is gone, and I’m acting as if… as if nothing has happened.”
He scoops me up and carries me back to the bed. He’s setting me down when his nostrils flare.
“You’re hurt.”
He doesn’t wait for me to reply. He sits me on the edge of the bed and follows the scent of blood to my foot.
Then he strides to the now-cold bath, wets the cloth, and brings it back.
Crouching, he cleans my foot so gently that I don’t even feel it.
Then, before I can protest, he rips a strip of fabric from his discarded shirt and binds my foot.
That done, he settles in beside me and tugs me onto his lap, and whispers wordless noises of comfort that only make more tears spill.
“It’s too much,” I whisper. “All too much.” I lift my face to his. “I’m scared, and I don’t want to be. It feels weak, and she’d expect better.”
“Would she?” His finger wipes at the tears. “I didn’t know your aunt, but I don’t believe you would love someone who expected too much of you, and I don’t think you’d be the woman you are if you’d been raised by someone who expected you to be invulnerable.”
“But I want to be invulnerable.”
He lowers his forehead to touch mine. “That’s a different thing, and one I completely understand. But Julius always tells me that the only way to make ourselves invulnerable is to cut ourselves off from everyone.”
“Because other people are our vulnerabilities,” I murmur. “That’s what Lenora said. We had to hide our underbelly, and our underbelly was each other. Silas saw that.”
“Did he?” Bishop pulls back to look at me.
“Or did he see an opportunity to kill a woman he hated because she dared stand in his way? Made him feel vulnerable.” He holds my gaze.
“You have done nothing wrong since you arrived. You followed my advice, and you figured out for yourself how to behave. Silas had no excuse. You know that, yes? That you didn’t do anything to make him kill your aunt? ”
I go quiet, but I must eventually whisper, “I know.”
“You said it’s all too much. It is. Too much for anyone. You were taken from your home, dropped into a new place with strangers, told secrets that change everything you knew about yourself. Imprisoned, threatened, beaten, and your aunt…” He shakes his head. “I took advantage.”
My head shoots up. “What?”
He shifts me onto the bed, and my body objects to the sudden loss of heat, urging me to climb back onto his lap, but he props me onto a pillow and then crawls in beside me, takes my hand and squeezes it.
“What happened in the basement was me losing control,” he says.
“I apologize for that. I find you…” He clears his throat and glances away.
“I believe I’ve already made that clear.
I’ve been struggling to control my attraction, given how inappropriate it is.
You’re not here by choice. You’re not here for me—or anyone. I lost control.”
I pull my hand from him. “Are you going to keep apologizing when I’ve made it clear that I wanted what happened in that cell? I consented to it. Freely.”
“I still took advantage of your vulnerability—”
I vault backward off the bed until I’m standing. “I said I want to be invulnerable. I didn’t say I was vulnerable. I was in full control of my senses, Bishop, and to imply I wasn’t, that I can’t be trusted to agree or not agree, to consent or not consent, then or now, is insulting.”
His head drops forward. “I’m making a mess of this.”
“Only if you honestly believe you took advantage of me. I admitted I feel overwhelmed. That’s all.”
“And what happened with me—what is happening with me—isn’t that part of it?”
I cross my arms and say nothing.
He moves to sit on the edge and reaches for me, but I ignore him. Yes, what I’m experiencing with him is part of my confusion. I already admitted that to myself. But he didn’t take advantage of me, and I am—maybe unreasonably—annoyed at the implication.
“I need you to tell me what you want, Delia,” he says. “To set the pace and the parameters. Are we moving too quickly? Do you want me to slow down? Do you want me to back off completely?”
I wrap my arms around myself. “No. I just want… I’m grieving, and I’m overwhelmed, but I don’t need you to do anything about it except understand.”
“You don’t need me to do anything about it?”
I shake my head, arms wrapping tighter over my chest.
“ May I do something about it? Or try?”
I don’t answer, but when he puts out his hand again, I take it, and he pulls me against him, holding me tight. Then he eases us into bed, tugging me into him, his arms around me, my head on his chest as he strokes my hair.
“May I do this?” he whispers.
I nod, and then I start to cry, and he holds me tight and says nothing.