Chapter Twenty-Seven
Arden felt numb as he sat in the parlor, a glass of whiskey in one hand, Oriana’s letter in the other. His eyes moved over the brief missive for the umpteenth time since it arrived from Mayles House half an hour before.
Dear Mr. Ryskamp,
After some thought, I agree to your terms and accept your proposal.
Your friend and fiancée,
Oriana
The message was short and to the point, but Arden was grateful for that—and grateful to Oriana Mayles, though as he read her message yet again, he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than that.
“Arden?” His aunt’s voice rang out as she stepped into the parlor. “There you are—I’ve been looking for you. There’s only a few days left before the ball and so much to . . . What do you have there?”
Arden glanced up from the letter, and for a wild moment, he was tempted to crumple it in his hands and lie, but he refused to be the fool Mavis believed him to be.
“From Oriana Mayles.” He held out the letter to her. “She’s accepted my proposal.”
Aunt Phi blinked twice slowly, looking truly shocked for the first time since he’d met her. Without saying a word, she crossed the room toward him and took the letter, her eyes scanning Oriana’s brief message as she sat down on the settee.
“Well,” she said finally. “Not quite how I imagined it would go, I’ll admit.”
Arden smothered a grimace. “You told me to convince her to marry me. You gave no stipulations for the proposal itself.”
“Yes, yes.” She waved a dismissive hand. “But still—I did hope it would be a bit more . . .”
She trailed off before she could say romantic, but Arden heard it all the same.
A wan smile spread over her face. “I suppose congratulations are in order. Shall I have Hilda pop a bottle of champagne?”
The thought of toasting to a future he was no longer sure he wanted felt unbearable. He rose to his feet. “I actually have some errands to run,” Arden lied.
Aunt Philomena frowned. “Errands? Arden, we must celebrate. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a man approaching the gallows instead of one newly engaged to a perfect young woman and on the cusp of becoming one of the wealthiest men in the country.”
Arden waited for some spark of reaction to her words to hit him, some flush of wanting or pride or satisfaction, but still, there was nothing at all.
“Arden,” she said again, slower this time as a furrow appeared between her brows. “Aren’t you happy?”
It was a simple question, but something about it shattered the numb shell that had surrounded Arden all day, and the emotions he’d been keeping at bay reared up. Chief among them was fury.
“Forgive me, Aunt Phi.” He struggled to contain his temper even as it burned through him. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her or affect her health, but he was angry. “My happiness was never part of our agreement.”
He turned and made his way past her to the open door, worried that if he stayed any longer, he would say something he truly regretted.
When he reached the doorway, though, he paused, guilt nagging at him.
He turned to look over his shoulder to find his aunt’s shoulders hunched forward, gaze fixed on Oriana’s letter.
He closed his eyes briefly and took a steadying breath. His ire had many causes, and while his aunt’s stipulation was one of them, she did not deserve his temper.
“I apologize.” His voice came out stiff. “You’ve only ever wanted the best for the Ryskamp line.”
“I want the best for you, Arden,” she said quietly, looking up at him with twilight-blue eyes that matched his own, now turned misty.
The sight of it shocked him—in the weeks he’d known her, he’d seen her wrestle with her own mortality, but he’d never seen her cry.
“It’s a dreadful thing to go through life alone.
I didn’t want the same for you, and I was sure you and Oriana would suit. ”
Arden stared at her. Though she’d been widowed for a decade now, with her busy social life and a household of servants who seemed to genuinely care for her, it hadn’t occurred to him that she would be lonely, but now he saw that was ridiculous.
He wondered if that was another reason she’d summoned him out here—not to jump through hoops for her amusement, but because she didn’t want to live the final weeks of her life alone.
Guilt swelled in his chest, and he turned around, making his way back into the parlor and sitting down in the seat across from her. He leaned forward, reaching for her hand, and she let him take it.
“We do suit,” he assured her, which wasn’t quite a lie. He and Oriana were friends, and they would remain so, whether they married or not.
His aunt tried to smile, but it wavered at the edges. “But Ms. Symone was right—you do not love her.”
Arden considered lying. If Mavis were here, she might tell him it was kinder to do so, but he’d had enough of Mavis’s brand of kindness to last a lifetime, and he could not stomach another lie.
“Love isn’t everything, Aunt Phi. The last time I was engaged, it was for love, and look how that turned out.”
Aunt Phi said nothing for a moment, merely surveyed him. “You mentioned her once before,” she murmured. “Who was she?”
Arden’s mouth suddenly felt dry, but in this, at least, he owed her the truth.
“Her name was Arabella Strickland—beautiful and brilliant. I fell in love at first sight.”
“Bullshit,” she scoffed.
Arden smiled. “I realize that now. But after two weeks, I proposed. She accepted—she was madly in love with me too, or so I thought.”
His aunt’s attention sharpened. “What happened?”
“It turned out that Arabella Strickland didn’t exist. She was a con artist—a Lack girl from the Low City. She took the ring I gave her, twenty thousand solas, and fled.”
“Oh, Arden,” his aunt said on a sigh, her eyes softening.
“Don’t.” His voice came out sharper than he meant it to. “I have no more use for pity than you do, Aunt Phi. I’m only telling you this to remind you that there are more important things to consider than love.”
His aunt’s mouth twisted. “I wonder if Miss Mayles would agree with that.”
Defensiveness prickled at the back of Arden’s neck, and he pulled his hand away. “I swear to you, Oriana is aware of my feelings, just as I am aware of hers. But as you said, there are other reasons to marry.”
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “But I confess, I’m disappointed all the same.”
Arden gritted his teeth. “All I have ever done,” he told her, struggling to keep his voice level, “is try to salvage the Ryskamp legacy—the same thing you yourself claim to want.”
She tilted her head. “And what legacy is that?”
Arden faltered, unsure how to answer. “Power,” he said finally, but the word came out hollow. “Influence. Strength. Magic.” Though all those things had been associated with the Ryskamp family since time immemorial, they all fell flat.
His aunt smiled tightly and gave his hand a gentle pat. “Very well. I suppose it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done, and it seems I have a will to alter. Tell Hilda to send word to my lawyer, will you?”
In case there was any lingering doubt that Arden was being dismissed, she leaned back against the settee’s cushioned back and turned her face toward the dying embers in the hearth.
After a brief hesitation, Arden nodded, getting to his feet. He wanted to say something—some words of reassurance or affection, but he could think of nothing that wouldn’t earn him a withering stare or be an outright lie, so instead he left in silence to do as she asked.
In the week since Thaddeus confronted her in the temple, Mavis expected to feel like a noose was tightening around her neck, but that wasn’t the case.
Most of the time, it was easy to pretend that nothing was wrong at all—even Thaddeus was making a point of continuing to escort her to various teas and balls, though he never spoke to her except to ask about the million solas she promised him or to deliver some barbed insult that failed to pierce Mavis’s skin.
More than once, he’d tried to call her bluff about having the money at all and gone so far as to direct his carriage to drive to the police station to turn her in, but he always changed his mind before they arrived, his desperation outweighing everything else.
He was embarrassed. Oh, his anger might have been stronger, but the two coexisted.
When he had her arrested, he would likely do so quietly, then spin a story about her getting cold feet and running away so that no one would ever learn the truth of how a low-born Lack girl pulled the wool over his eyes.
The more she thought about her inevitable arrest, the more at peace she felt about the whole thing.
Even when Thaddeus’s carriage drove them right past the police station, she didn’t feel the bite of fear or the spike of adrenaline flood her veins, demanding she run.
She was hardly looking forward to prison, but now that Rafe and Leif were safely out of town and Arden was engaged to Oriana, his aunt’s inheritance secured, she slept better than she had in years, untainted by dreams or nightmares.
Besides, she was tired of running, tired of having to pretend to be someone she wasn’t.
She might spend the rest of her days in a cell, but she would do so as Mavis Hale.
When she returned to her room at the Abalone after a particularly draining luncheon with a quietly seething Thaddeus, Mavis immediately crossed to the credenza to pour herself a glass of whiskey.
As she lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip, she wondered if tomorrow might be the day Thaddeus Mayles’s patience finally ran out, if tonight would be the last night she spent as a free woman.
But then, with Minstead’s contract hanging over her head, she supposed she’d never really been that.
Perhaps she was merely trading one cell for another.
Against the heavy silence that engulfed the room, the sound of a key turning in the door raised the hairs on the back of Mavis’s neck.
She spun toward the sound of approaching footsteps just as a moonbeam cut across Rafe’s rough-hewn face as he stepped into the sitting room, his dark eyes heavy on her. “Magpie.”
Mavis blinked twice, hoping he would disappear, but he didn’t. “You shouldn’t be here, Rafe.”
“Neither should you.” Rafe doffed his bowler hat and tossed it and his leather suitcase onto the sofa, never taking his eyes off her.
Mavis’s throat tightened. “I told you, I’m just waiting for Arden’s inheritance to go through so I can pay to break the betrothal contract.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed, and he let out a quiet curse under his breath. “Leif was right—you do have a tell.”
Mavis’s mouth gaped open. “I do not,” she said, but Rafe looked unconvinced.
“Tell me again why you sent us away, Magpie—the truth this time.”
Mavis scowled at him and reached for her whiskey, draining the rest of the glass in a single gulp. When she finished, she crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”
Rafe’s dark-brown eyes flashed. “Tell me you aren’t foolish enough to put yourself at risk for Arden Ryskamp.” He sounded angrier than Mavis had ever heard. She suddenly understood with perfect clarity why other people found him so very frightening.
“Of course not.” She slammed her glass back onto the credenza. When he fixed her with a doubtful look, she sighed. “Not just for him,” she amended.
He raked his fingers through his hair and stalked toward the credenza, reaching past her for the bottle of whiskey and unscrewing the lid. He made to pour himself a glass before thinking better of it and taking a swig directly from the bottle.
“I have everything well in hand. I just didn’t want you or Leif here if things got messy,” she said quietly. It was a truth—if not the whole truth.
Rafe turned to look at her again, his dark eyes glittering in the moonlight. “You risking your life for us is almost worse than you doing it for Ryskamp.”
“You would do the same for me, and you know it,” she said softly.
“Of course I would,” he snapped. He shook his head and took another swig of whiskey. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Mavis bit her lip to keep from spilling the truth about everything—how Thaddeus overheard her and Arden on the beach, how he blackmailed her for one million solas, how she was determined to take the fall for all of them.
If she did, she knew exactly what Rafe would do—he’d go directly to Mayles House and slit Thaddeus’s throat. But if conning Lusters was enough to see her imprisoned for the rest of her life, murdering one of them was enough to see Rafe executed. She wasn’t worth that.
“Every con runs its course eventually,” she said rather than answering him. “I swore that you and Leif wouldn’t suffer for my mistakes, and I intend to keep my word.”
He looked at her then—no longer angry, only sad. “How bad is it?”
Mavis swallowed. “I’ll be arrested in a day, maybe two.”
Rafe took another long sip of whiskey. “You always have been stubborn.” He shook his head. “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”
“No.”
Rafe let out a long exhale. “Ryskamp could help. Fool he may be, but I think he might burn the world down for you if you asked it of him.”
Something tightened in Mavis’s chest. He would—but then he would be left with nothing, and she couldn’t let him give everything up for her—not again. “I won’t ask that of him.”
“He’ll never forgive you if you don’t.”
Mavis forced another shrug. “I’ve never asked for his forgiveness—not for what I did five years ago and not for this. And I won’t ask forgiveness from you either.”
His eyes softened. “No forgiveness is necessary between thieves, Magpie.”
Her mouth wobbled into a smile. “That’s honor,” she corrected. “No honor between thieves.”
“No. Honor, you have in spades.”
Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
“There’s one more thing I have to ask,” she said.
“Anything.”
Mavis swallowed. “After you buy your freedom from Minstead, and Leif’s, use my cut of the money on the other urchins—as many as you can. And see that they’re taken care of. I know you think it’s hopeless, but it isn’t, Rafe.”
He took another long drink of whiskey. “No, it isn’t hopeless. Especially not once I bring Minstead down once and for all.”
When Mavis was too shocked to reply, he glanced sideways at her with a grim smile. “You and Leif aren’t the only ones with lofty dreams, Magpie—I just didn’t see the point of sharing mine until they were more than fantasy.”
“And are they?” Mavis asked him.
Rafe nodded. “I have a plan. Minstead isn’t going to know what hit him.”
Mavis wished more than anything that she could see Minstead’s face when it did, but the picture her imagination conjured up would surely be enough to get her through a good many nights in prison.
“When it does happen,” he continued. “When Minstead loses everything, I’ll make sure he knows you were part of it.”
She scoffed. “I doubt he remembers my name.”
“When I’m done with him, he’ll never forget it,” Rafe promised her.
Mavis smiled, and though it felt brittle, it was the most real smile she’d worn in days.