Chapter Two #3
My hand slid across the filth coating the floor, dipping beneath the straw. My breath grew ragged as I closed my hand around
Sweetie.
“I’ll break ye like all the others,” he snarled. “Mark me, I will.”
He strode away then, huffing and barking at the other prisoners who screeched and pleaded with him for food, for blankets,
for a drop of clean water.
But I stayed exactly where I was, grasping the only weapon I had left.
Waiting.
That night, I knew better than to close my eyes, even for a moment. Whenever I felt myself begin to slip into slumber, I staggered
onto my feet, pacing the four steps across the cell my irons would allow and the four steps back. Again. Again.
My mind tormented me by circling back to Oliver’s devastated look. To the soldier’s silver eyes burning with triumph, having
caught himself a prize. To the guards stealing the silver coins from my pocket, laughing as they threw me to the ground. To
the sound of the cell door slamming shut and locking.
I wouldn’t let myself think of Mama. Not down here. I couldn’t taint her memory the way I’d tainted her perfumes by bringing
them to the Midnight Market.
God, why hadn’t I just listened to Oliver about the market in the first place? I could have made extra coins having him sell
a few of my perfumes at one of his father’s apothecaries—but then what if they had asked for more and I couldn’t produce enough
of it? What if it had drawn the sort of attention I’d spent the better part of my life avoiding?
And damn it all, why couldn’t I just seize the hand Oliver was holding out to me now, begging me to save myself?
Instead, I clutched Sweetie until my fingers cramped, and I was forced to let go for a few moments to find some relief.
In the face of all those tormenting questions, I knew only this: I would not let Branson touch me.
The hours passed. The torches on the walls burned until they finally devoured themselves, casting me into a deeper darkness.
Here and there, I heard women stirring, whispers passed between cells. Warnings. And in that silence, we waited for the lone
candle to appear at the end of the hall.
But tonight, I knew, the others were safe.
I watched for the candle flame, waited for it to drift toward me. To damn me. My terror and exhilaration were indistinguishable
from each other as the door at the end of the hall scraped open. My heart kicked ferociously in my chest.
He would not touch me.
I moved then, rising to my feet and edging toward the back of the cell, where I would make my final stand.
Branson’s disgusting essence polluted the air like coal smoke, as diseased as his soul. But— I straightened, my fingers tightening
around Sweetie. I breathed in, searching through the rancid odors emanating from the other cells. It wasn’t only his essence.
There were others—two.
Another guard named Samuelson, who reeked of fish, ale, and tobacco. And . . .
The prison governor.
Lantern light flooded the crude hallway, licking at the bars of the cell. I slid Sweetie into a tear between my bodice and
skirt just as the light flared and the men stopped in front of me. I blinked against the onslaught, trying to make out Mr.
Pembrooke’s form through the glare. He came into focus slowly: his long, narrow face bookended by teeth too large for his
mouth and a ring of gray hair around his otherwise bald pate.
In the rare moments I saw the governor passing through the hall, he was elegantly dressed, almost as if to prove to his prisoners
that their filth couldn’t touch him. Tonight, however, he seemed mussed. His expression was as disordered as his clothing,
as if he had been made to dress in haste.
His usual essence was there: mineral greed, of course, and the parchment of endless stacks of records, and the hot, sour wine
stink of the hatred he bore toward his prisoners, and they to him. But there was something else, too. Wet fur.
Fear.
“Unchain her,” came Mr. Pembrooke’s reedy voice.
Branson, of course, was the one to do it. I swallowed the fresh bile that rose as he knelt and lifted my skirt, revealing
my torn stockings and chained ankle. His touch felt like the scales of a serpent slithering up my calf. Spite boiled out of
him; he was nearly spitting with it as he rose and shoved me toward the open cell door.
I staggered, barely catching myself with a gasp. The weight of the chain being lifted, the relief the metal was no longer
rubbing against my raw skin, made my legs as unbalanced as a colt’s.
“Branson,” the governor said sharply.
“She was being defiant,” he snarled. “Just look at ’er—”
“Enough,” Mr. Pembrooke barked. “Follow closely, girl. Should you make any attempt to flee, you will be placed back in irons.”
Was this some sort of trick? A test to see if I was foolish enough to step out of the cell? I took one terrifying step forward,
then another. When none of the men reacted, except with annoyance at the delay, I dared to trail after Branson and the governor.
Samuelson walked behind me, close enough for his hot breath to churn against my neck.
“Where are you taking me?” I dared to ask.
Branson whirled back, lifting his truncheon.
“Branson.” The governor’s voice cracked, and the smell of wet fur intensified. I balked at the strange reaction. The prison was Pembrooke’s
kingdom. He had no one to fear here but God and, perhaps, the King.
Someone is here, I thought, dazed. Someone is here for me.
We climbed more stairs than I could count, until my head was dizzy enough to spin off my shoulders. I searched each dark cell
we passed for Arabella’s face, but it was hardly a relief to not see her there.
At some point, the floor beneath my feet changed from packed dirt to wood planks and the stone block walls to covered plaster.
Soon, even the air seemed to move more freely, easing some of the prison’s foul tang from my nose and throat.
It wasn’t until we reached the upper hallway—the very one they had marched us in through to record our names in a terrifying
book—that alarm licked my heart again. Because aside from Oliver . . . there was only one other person who might have come
for me. And between the two of them, only one would strike such naked fear in the governor’s heart.
My feet slowed. The hall smeared at its edges, as if stained with tar. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t—
The governor stopped outside a room bearing a brass plaque with his name and title and, without preamble, opened the door.
“Wait,” I begged, lashing out a hand to grip the doorframe. “I believe there’s been a terrible mistake—”
I was unceremoniously thrust inside.
The room spun around me, whirling tighter as it stole the air from my lungs. A tapestry of woodsmoke, leather, and books wove
together, granting me a glimpse of the room even before my vision cleared.
The office had been designed to suit the taste of a gentleman who aspired to join the lofty ranks of the Patricians.
It imitated their taste for dark wood paneling, ornate patterned rugs, and walls of bookshelves bearing colorful tomes with uncracked spines—purely decorative.
Several candles and lanterns had been lit, giving the room an unnervingly gentle light.
After so long in the damp cold, the heat from the hearth’s fire was scalding.
My gaze flew to the enormous portrait of Pembrooke hanging over it, looking slightly cross-eyed and bad-tempered.
A feeling like growling thunder against my cheek finally made me turn toward the mahogany desk at the center of the room.
To the shadowed figure sitting behind it.
The vise of terror around my chest eased, and I took a deep breath.
The man’s dark, well-tailored suit was an ink stain against the air. A black waistcoat embroidered with silver thread revealed
itself beneath a pristine white cravat. The look was completed by fawn-colored breeches and riding boots ruthlessly shined
to a mirror finish. They were propped up on Pembrooke’s desk, without a care for any of the governor’s neat piles of correspondence
and documents, daring the older man to say something about it. He tossed a small crystal paperweight into the air and caught
it with ease, seeming to enjoy the hitch in Pembrooke’s breath at the sight. The young man tilted his head, his lips tightening
almost imperceptibly as he studied me.
I studied him in return, his presence striking my senses like a physical jolt. He had the kind of flawless, cold masculinity
that made him feel remote, like a star that could only be taken in from a distance. The waves of his hair looked black in
the dim light, mussed as if he had ridden over only moments before.
There was something there—something maddeningly familiar, like a note of a perfume lost at the misty edges of memory.
His expression felt too old for such a young face. Brooding, even a little merciless. It gave him the look of an underworld
fairy god—at least one who’d decided to amuse himself by trading his usual shadows for a visit to the world above.
But that gaze . . . those eyes . . .
The sharpness of them, the silvery color so like that of a knife—a shudder of recognition settled over my shoulders like a
cloak.
A knife—or coins.
“You.” I was shaking so badly I could scarcely speak—not out of fear now, but a growing fury.
“Miss Lockwood,” he said, with a horrible smile, “what a pleasure to see you again.”