Chapter Nineteen
“How could you be polite to that vermin?” she admonished, a storm brewing in her stare, her lips quivering as she battled against a wave of hot, angry tears.
A shadow passed over his face from the tall, flickering gas lamps standing uniform beside eerie, gray statues, revealing the glint of silver in his irises. “He’ll get what is coming to him.”
She froze, unable to move as he stood under the stars, amongst statues covered in stone veils, obscuring their warped, angel faces. “Is that why you invited him here? To hurt him?”
“No. I invited him so you could.”
“Have you lost your damned mind?” With a shake of her head, she started pacing the courtyard. It was getting harder to keep her emotions inside when he was being so infuriating, and the blood, his blood, was pulsing through her. “I cannot do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because that would make me no better than him.”
“I won’t judge,” he said in a deep tone that enveloped her. “We can kill him together if you’d like. Rats like him deserve it.”
Her jaw slacked. Yes, while the thought of bludgeoning Charles Eringhorn to death filled her with a twisted sense of euphoria and justice, she knew she couldn't succumb to her baser desires. “Is that what you tell yourself to justify murder?”
“I do not need justification,” he said smoothly, eyes darkening. “I can do it for you if you want, so you do not have to burden your soul.”
“No! I don’t want anyone to die because of me. Charles will meet his punishment one day, whether it is now or in death.”
“No deity cares to punish the wicked, Miss Lovett.”
“No? Did they tell you that?”
“In the three centuries I have been alive, evil has always triumphed. The strong and detached will always win.”
“Fine, but hurting people feels wrong and I won’t go against my instincts unless I am left with no other choice.
Murdering Charles will not bring Alice back or undo any of the terrible things his family did to ours.
It certainly won’t make me feel any better.
I’ve done things I am not proud of too and yes, I justified them, but all I can do now is try to redeem myself. ”
Something shifted between them and inside herself. She’d never spoken those words aloud before, but as she did, a newfound courage filled her up.
She looked at Nathaniel and sighed. His reason for inviting the Eringhorn family should not have appeased her, but it did. Even if they were wicked. It was also…touching.
By the way he stood still, hands in his pockets with a restrained tightness to his muscle, she just knew he was holding himself back. “Your kindness is terrifying.”
She jolted. “Why?”
“Because in such a wicked world, it will be the death of you.”
“Not if you have anything to do with it,” she mumbled, feeling a little better after breathing in the fresh air and being away from that packed ballroom. “You need me alive, and you are the strongest creature to walk this Earth.”
“For now,” he said, and glanced at the moon.
A sharp pain coursed into her hip, the necrotic infection from the bite so tender under the scraps of fabric of her dress. Wincing, she hid her crumpling expression by briefly turning and focusing elsewhere to distract herself.
Everything in the courtyard had been designed beautifully, from the way the statue's hands were positioned perfectly over rose bushes, to capture the blooming flowers in a bouquet, to how they were positioned so their expressions appeared different depending on where she was standing.
Or they really were shifting, and she was descending into madness. The more she stared, she swore she could see their stone smiles stretching.
With a shake of her head, and a squeeze of her eyes, she looked back at them, relieved to see they were unmoving.
“Do you like them?” Nathaniel asked when she fell into a comfortable silence.
Charlotte gazed up at the sculpture of a man on his knees, a jagged hole in his chest, stone fragments of his ribs poking out. In his palms was his heart. The statue was eerily realistic, so much so that her brows creased when she looked at the man’s eyes, clamped shut in pain.
“I see nothing but suffering,” she said, her gaze passing over each one.
“They are a depiction of my life.”
“I see none of your likeness, which is surprising considering how much you think of yourself,” she quipped and he almost smiled.
“Perhaps I am not as vain as you’d like to believe.”
Her lashes flickered in the icy breeze, heart softening. “Then you see your life through the eyes of others. Which is startling, as that would mean you have empathy.”
“Why would that be startling?”
“How can someone who feels the pain of their victims so often be the cause of it? Unless you enjoy it?” Her brows knitted together. “Like some twisted form of punishment.”
“You’re very observant,” he said in a deep, baritone voice. “I like that about you.”
“You do?”
“I thought it was obvious. I enjoy your company.”
It was, only because she’d felt like she was going crazy trying to decipher the spectrum of expressions, actions, and emotions she’d seen from him. “Yet, you want to kill me.”
“Two things can be true at the same time.”
Everything about him confused her. He was more than just morally ambiguous. There was nothing dichotomous about Nathaniel; he was good, bad, and everything in between.
“Don’t think I don’t see what you are doing,” she said upon noticing how he steered the conversation with ease.
“Please, enlighten me.”
“Every time I bring up anything intimate, like the statue's reflection of how you see yourself, you change the subject with a compliment.”
“Well, the compliments are sincere.”
“You are doing it again,” she said.
“Lifetimes of habit, I’m afraid,” he said, stroking a thumb over the dark shadows of his well-groomed beard.
“Why were you cursed?” she asked, surprised that this was the first time she’d asked.
Everything about the courtyard was a story, each one unfolding its hidden truths, and the more she looked, the more she realized.
He saw himself as a monster, maybe even more than she or anyone else did. But evil didn’t paint themselves as so.
After a slow, tortuous pace around a leaf-covered bench in the center of the paved ground, he stopped next to the weathered, stone fountain and sighed. “It is an arduous and terribly depressing story.”
“I cannot imagine it a happy tale,” she said and stood in front of him, the cool breeze cooling the fever brought on by the blood high. “My ancestor didn’t explain why this all happened, and I want to know why—”
She stopped herself. What else could she say? That she wanted nothing more than to know him better, to understand how he became the version of himself he was now? All so she could reconcile with her growing feelings.
“Do not try to pull me into your light,” he warned, sensing the motive behind her words. “I do not seek to be redeemed, little lamb.”
“Yet you consistently drag me into your darkness.”
“You are tempted by it,” he said brashly, making her breath hitch. “Don’t feel bad. Most people are.”
“Why do you think that is?” she asked, heart pounding.
He removed his jacket and rolled the sleeves of his shirt revealing the long, corded veins on his forearms. After throwing the blazer over one shoulder, he shoved his other hand in his pocket and glanced at the moon.
“People have long hidden evil desires behind their supposed good values, while disciplining anyone who has normal self-indulgent wants. You are tempted by the so-called darkness because there you don’t have to hate yourself for embracing the most natural parts of who you are.
It is beautifully human to be carried by a mess of emotions.
True evil rarely hides in the darkness. It is often woven into the souls of those who come across as the most virtuous. ”
His explanation nestled deep somewhere in the crevices of her soul. Guilt had often chipped away at her will to live. It followed her now, still. With a deep breath, she added, “It is exhausting having to wrestle with every sinful thought.”
His widening eyes flashed with silver. “Tell me them.”
Heat flushed her upper body at his unexpected request, reddening her neck and cheeks. “I can’t.” She hoped he wouldn’t press her, because they were mostly about him. “Besides,” she added, “you have not yet told me the story of why you were cursed.”
“You are not going to stop asking are you?”
She pursed her lips, lashes flickering in the wind. “No.”
After a long sigh, he said, “It was over three centuries ago when my path to Hell began with a promotion to commander in Henry the Eighth’s army.
I was trusted to lead the campaign to cross into Scotland and lay waste to the southern towns and villages after Scotland’s ruler refused to betroth the infant, Mary Queen of Scots and Prince Edward. ”
Her mind whirled. Hartley said she’d served in his court at some point, but to hear it made her realize just how old he truly was.
“I gave the orders to desecrate a town and burn its abbey to the ground,” he continued.
“We plundered and attacked without mercy, believing we were invincible with our numbers. We did not know how much our actions would strengthen the resolve of the Scots.” With a shake of his head, he glanced at the stars, the black in his eyes absorbing their reflections.
“I was so young and foolish then. I should have known that men who had nothing to lose were the most dangerous. They decimated my troops just days later, and when I came face to face with a sword, I saw an opportunity to escape. I stabbed the man in the foot and ran instead of dying with my men. I left behind my two closest friends.”
Tears glossed his eyes in an unexpected display of emotion. Her fingers itched to comfort him. It was her deadliest instinct, to console those in pain, no matter the harm they caused.
“I’m sorry.”