Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
Ah. My anxiety dissipated. “Well,” I replied. Standing, I crossed to fetch the green gloves from beneath my mattress and presented them to him, summarizing my conversation with Manon. When I finished, he frowned.
“I thought you said Anais’s gloves were white.”
“Precisely,” I answered. “It is odd, isn’t it? She loses a pair of white gloves, and then a set of green ones turns up in a different place—hidden there, according to Manon.”
“It is certainly odd,” Noé admitted. “But do you really think it has anything to do with Sybil’s death?” He paused. “None of the other maidens reported missing garments after the Vainglory. Perhaps these belonged to the veiled lady Nathalie Moreau saw?”
I pursed my lips. “It is a lot of strings to tie to one lady,” I said skeptically. “And a lot of accessories, as well.”
Sighing, I stowed the gloves back beneath my mattress.
Noé was right—despite the strangeness of the whole affair, there was nothing to suggest that either Anais’s missing gloves or these new ones related to Sybil’s murder.
It was the veiled woman whom both Nathalie and Bernard had reported sneaking around Fortblanche that night.
The same woman whom Bernard had seen with a key—possibly, the very same key which Bastian was so desperate to find.
She was who we should be focusing on. Why couldn’t I put the former lead out of my head?
When I turned back around, Noé was watching me with a playful expression. “So, it is my hands for you, is it?”
I rolled my eyes. “It was a pointless exercise. Let’s not discuss it further.”
“Tamerlane.” The sound of my true name caught me; begrudgingly, I looked over at him. “I meant my promise to you at the end of the Vainglory,” Noé said, meeting my gaze. “I have no desire to bind you. After we wed, I will find a way to destroy my seal.”
My neck prickled. “If we solve Sybil’s murder,” I said, moving to settle into my desk chair again. “You really mean to wed me?”
Noé’s expression did not change. “You know that I do.”
He said it with so much steadiness—such severity—that I did not doubt him. He’d told me since the beginning, hadn’t he? That he would do anything to bring his father down. He had no lines; he had no rules.
He was like me.
Still, I leaned closer. “Why did it have to be me?”
Noé’s nose wrinkled.
Rapping a knuckle against the desktop, I clarified. “Last night”—my voice briefly hitched at the mention of our carriage ride home from Dorian’s, but I pushed through—“you said you would have chosen me as your bride regardless of anything. I want to know why.”
A stillness had come over him. He hesitated before answering a second later, “It had to be you.”
My temper flared. “It didn’t,” I protested.
“My Wit is useful for your…plan…” I drifted off, hesitant to reference Bastian’s death directly with the Weaver King dwelling in the same estate as us.
“But there are other witches who could have aided you just as well.” I scooted to the edge of my seat.
“There is another reason,” I insisted. “Something specific to me which allowed you to set your plot into motion.” He blanched; I shifted closer, pressing my advantage.
“It isn’t fair to keep things back from me.
What if denying me the knowledge endangers me? ”
Noé regarded me for a long moment. My movements had put us in quite close proximity; my skirts brushed his trousers, the fabric connected. “You are not in danger,” he replied. Then: “No other girl would have suited. It had to be you, Tamerlane. I don’t wish to discuss it further.”
My skin heated. I broke in before he could redirect the conversation elsewhere. “You shouldn’t call me that.” I flushed when he closed his mouth. “Someone could overhear you,” I justified.
Noé’s jaw ticked. After a beat had passed, he said, “I can’t call you Cecilia Lovett.”
He stated it as if it were fact. I blinked, thrown by the force of his conviction. “Why not?”
“I just…” He scrambled. “It doesn’t suit you.”
His voice wobbled. It was the first time I could recall that I’d heard him sound anything less than fully certain. “Eliot picked that name for me,” I said.
Noé laughed. “Then Eliot does not know you at all.”
Our eyes met again. Without fully understanding why, I stiffened, certain he was about to say something more and yet unsure what that something was.
Then a shudder passed through him, and he seemed to remember himself. Straightening, he cleared his throat. “I disturbed you,” he said, nodding toward my desktop, where the book I’d been reading before his knock was splayed open. “I’ll leave you be.”
I returned his nod, watching as he strode toward the door. When he reached the threshold, I called out.
“But you’ll return later,” I said. “Yes?”
He turned. My skin heated as I took in his perplexed expression, his cocked head. Why had I asked that? What did it matter to me whether he returned or not—whether he spent the night in his own quarters or mine? It certainly never had before.
Still, I felt my heart squeeze as he relaxed again. “Of course,” Noé replied, one hand gripping the doorframe. “I’ll see you soon, Tamerlane.”