Despite the late hour, the streets of Sootham were teeming and alive. Niamh, however, kept her eyes trained on her feet. The cobblestones were treacherous tonight, glistening with damp. Rainwater—and a slurry of other unseemly liquids—pooled in the cracks and reflected the oily, golden light of the streetlamps.
She would not ruin either another hemline or a pair of slippers. She would not look like a careless child on the one night of her life it mattered. She stepped carefully off the curb—and immediately was jerked backward by a firm tug on her elbow. Niamh stumbled back into Sinclair, just as a carriage tore out of the night itself. It clattered by, a blur of horses and crushing wheels. Her heart slammed against her rib cage.
“Careful.” He offered his arm to her, and she gratefully accepted.
He led her around puddles and the gentlemen pouring out of the gambling dens and clubs, loud and merry and unsteady with drink. Never in her life had she felt so completely out of her element. This, she understood, was not a place girls like her were supposed to be. But on the arm of one of the most infamous political columnists in the city—and with little reputation left to lose—she felt oddly safe.
Sinclair leaned down conspiratorially and said, “This is where all the nobles take their mistresses. You’ll find the best gossip here.”
“Revealing your trade secrets, Sinclair?”
“Hardly,” he scoffed. He jerked his chin toward a building across the street. “Here we are. The doom of high-society men.”
Tucked away between dark-windowed shops and busy coffeehouses, Nightingale’s rose up out of the gloom and the protective arms of the oaks, all ostentatious white stone and imposing crenelations. On the other side of a wrought-iron fence, twin gas lamps burned like the eyes of a massive beast in the dark. Out front, a massive bow window, nearly opaque and streaked with black beads of water, overlooked the street. If she squinted, she could see the shapes of people moving just beyond it. It made even Sinclair’s lovely home look like a dollhouse.
“That does not make me feel better,” she said weakly.
“You have nothing to worry about, my darling, innocent companion. Men come here to gamble and bicker among themselves. Mostly cards or hazards. There’s also betting books. They wager on things like who’s going to get married this Season, or whose marriage is going to collapse. I heard Lord Bowsworth once made a two-hundred-guinea bet on a raindrop race.”
Those were the kinds of men she would anger, if she succeeded tonight. Or perhaps some of them had already betted against Kit and Rosa. She swallowed down the knot of nerves in her throat. “Right.”
He tapped his walking stick against the wet cobblestone, then gestured toward a lattice that ran up the side of the building like a ladder. Wisteria threaded through its rungs, its sweet scent carried on the breeze. “See that there? You can climb up to get to the balcony. In the meantime, I’ll create a distraction. As soon as Kit is left to his own devices, he’s going to make a beeline for it. I guarantee it. You use your wiles. He realizes what a stubborn ass he’s been. He calls the wedding off. Crisis avoided.”
She nodded.
Sinclair frowned up at the balcony. “Are you sure you can do this? You have a way of tripping over air.”
“Ghosts push me, I’ll have you know!” She huffed. “Have a little faith.”
“Very well,” he said skeptically. “I’ll see you soon.”
As he strolled through the gate, the very picture of confidence, Niamh slipped around the side of the building. Here, the light hardly reached the narrow alleyway, and as the mist scythed lazily over the streetlamps, the darkness guttered around her. A shadow cleaved from the others and glided toward her. Niamh bit down on a scream. But it was only a black cat, trotting busily past her. It registered her presence with a soft, inquisitive mrow?
She blew out a breath, beyond exasperated with herself. For the good of her people, Castilia, and the man she loved, she could do this.
Niamh grabbed the lattice. The iron was slick and cold against her palms, and when she eased her weight onto the first foothold, the entire structure groaned in protest. She did her best to ignore that as she hauled herself up rung by rung. This close, the scent of the wisteria turned cloying, and the flowers tickled her nose as she climbed. Her breath grew thready, but she refused to think of how far below her the ground was. At last, she closed her shaking fingers around the railing of the balcony. As carefully as she could, she eased herself up onto it—then all but melted onto the floor. She lay on her back, chest heaving, as the stars spun overhead and her vision pulsed black. Remembering to breathe while climbing had not been high on her list of priorities.
Maybe Sinclair had been right to worry. This was by far the worst idea she’d ever gone through with, in a very long list of very bad ideas.
Once she caught her breath, she got to her feet and waited. Light from inside spilled out onto the floor a bare meter away from her. From here, she could just barely make out the club within. A miasmatic haze hung over everything, but she could hear the clink of glasses and the laughter and shouts of men as they staked their fortunes. Most of them clustered around tables and lingered at the bar. There were, disappointingly, far fewer hunting tools than Sinclair had led her to believe. She should’ve known better than to listen to a single word he said.
The balcony doors flew open. Niamh swallowed a squeak of surprise.
Kit stalked to the railing and leaned over it. He took in a ragged gulp of air, as though he’d been holding his breath all night. He carried the smell of the club on him: acrid tobacco smoke and the sickly sweet sharpness of liquor. It couldn’t have been easy for him to be in this environment. His skin was paler than usual and slick with sweat. No one paid him much mind. They were too deep in their card games and their cups.
But as miserable and stressed as he looked, her heart still gave a desperate lurch at the sight of him. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows; his jacket must’ve lain forgotten on the back of some chair. She wished she could touch him again. She wished she had any right to. The lit end of his cigar burned like a will-o’-the-wisp. He puffed restlessly at it, too absorbed in his own thoughts to take notice of her standing in the dark like a fool.
“Kit.”
He nearly jumped out of his skin. She had to admit it was satisfying to be doing the startling for once. He blinked, then blinked again, as though she were a horrible vision he might dispel with enough effort. But when that failed, he stared. She couldn’t track the emotions that passed over his face. Each one of them bludgeoned her. At last, he predictably settled on anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I wanted to see you. The words hovered right there, on the tip of her tongue. I wanted to speak with you. But he hadn’t fled at the very sight of her. Now that she’d hurdled that first obstacle, she couldn’t jeopardize this opportunity.
“I wanted to apologize. I’m sorry.”
“Yes,” he said dismissively. “You’ve said that already. Now that you’ve gotten what you’ve come for, you can go.”
“Wait, please.” She took a step toward him, and he threw himself against the railing as though she’d aimed a knife at him. Chastened, she retreated a few paces, where the wisteria tumbled down like a curtain. His wary eyes flashed like a cat’s in the dark, but he did not move again.
“I wrote to Lovelace—to Sinclair—when you told me to be careful,” she continued. “He wrote to me when I first arrived, but he never forced me to spy on you. I never intended to, and I never did. But I was foolish to believe that I could handle everything on my own. You’re right that I am a coward. I am always running, without any regard for my own well-being. But this time, I hurt someone else, too.” Her voice trembled, and she squeezed her eyes shut to hold back her tears. “I should have said something much sooner. I regret every moment I didn’t trust you with the truth. It was my own recklessness that landed us here. I’m so sorry.”
Kit fell quiet for a long moment. He tapped the ashes of his cigar off on the railing. “There’s no sense dwelling on what you should have done. It’s over.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she said breathlessly.
He listened without interruption as she described Sinclair’s plan. Kit had always been terrible at hiding his feelings, but as she spoke, he remained unsettlingly blank. With the cigar smoke shimmering before his face, it was as though they stood on opposite sides of the veil between worlds.
“No,” he said. “Sinclair has tried it his way for years. I’m done playing these games. I’m done. I’m not making a fool of myself again—especially not for you two and your harebrained schemes.”
“You didn’t even consider it!”
“I don’t need to.”
Tension slipped between them like a knife. The last time they were alone, he’d looked at her so tenderly, his hair and eyes washed cool and silver. She did not want to remember it all so vividly. The gentleness of his callused hands against her skin, the reverence of his gaze on her. But now, Kit glared at her with pure and utter reproach. She didn’t know how to cross this gulf, or if there was any crossing this gulf. There was nothing to do but pound on the door he had slammed shut between them.
“Why not?”
“I can’t let Jack take the fall for what our father did,” he said lowly. “He’s spent his whole life protecting me. It’s time to repay the favor.”
Of all the foolish, self-sacrificing things he could do…! If he would not call off the engagement for her sake, perhaps she could appeal to him in another way. “But there is no guarantee Jack’s plan will work! Besides, it is wrong of you to drag Infanta Rosa into this unknowingly. If you had any honor at all, you would let her go free of this engagement.”
Coldly, he asked, “Have you gotten everything out of your system yet?”
“No! Why are you so determined to be unhappy? Why do you think you deserve nothing better?” Her voice wavered. “I know I have lost all claim to the ability to make you happy. But if there is any other way to do your duty, to fight for what you believe in, then why are you doing this to yourself?”
Kit looked stricken. “I can’t risk it.”
“Risk what, Kit? Can you truly tell me you want to do this?” She felt wild and reckless, like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, rather than a balcony. The force of her feelings swelled like a storm within her. If anyone were to find them here, it would be beyond ruinous, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She couldn’t let it end like this. “Tell me you do. Tell me you will be content. Tell me you will have no regrets, and I will wish you well. I will leave Avaland at once, and I will not look back. I will remember you fondly, and I will not wish for you to think of me more than you ought.”
He was silent.
“Tell me,” she whimpered, “please.”
“It was cruel of you to come here.”
“Cruel?” She clenched her fists at her sides. “What is cruel is befriending me and treating me like an equal. What is cruel is—”
In one fluid motion, he dropped his cigar and crossed the space between them. Her back hit the wall. He loomed over her, all coiled tension, and the heat of his body flooded over her like a wave. He must’ve read the longing in her, for his pupils dilated. By now, she knew intimately what hunger looked like on his face. There was a fire kindling in his eyes, and fool that she was, she was all too eager to burn. His breath trembled against her lips.
This, she thought. This is cruel.
“What’s cruel,” he said, “is that you let me hope.”
When he spoke, his mouth moved against hers. The softest, feather-light pressure. The ghost of a kiss she would never have again. A punishment—whether for himself or her, she couldn’t be certain. The agony was greater than she ever could have concocted for herself in her worst nightmares.
But then his mouth captured hers, hard and insistent and angry.
Niamh’s eyes widened, riveted on him. Desire turned her molten. Indignation filled her with stubborn resistance. But as his teeth tugged on her lower lip, as he slid a knee between hers, her eyes fluttered helplessly shut. She arched up to mold herself against him. The rough moan she drew from him pooled low within her. Faced with his fervent, unyielding want, she couldn’t remember for the life of her what she’d come here for, or what they’d been arguing about.
Then, she heard a terrible sound: the creak of the balcony door opening.
The noise of the club flowed out: laughter, the clink of glasses and coins.
Kit pulled back sharply. Golden light—and panic—sparked in the depths of his eyes. Before she could blink, the wisteria seized her. Its vines looped around her arms and waist, then all but dragged her back into the shadows. New growth shot out, delicate and glittering faintly with magic, to conceal her entirely from view. Their petals made her nose itch, but she held her breath and stifled the sneeze. She could hardly resent the rough treatment when he’d saved her. Again.
Jack stepped outside. “There you are. What are you doing out here?”
“Nothing,” Kit said, sounding just a little breathless. “Just getting some air.”
Jack eyed him suspiciously, but came to stand beside him. He rested a hand on Kit’s shoulder, and Kit did not pull away. “I know this has been difficult, but you are doing the right thing.”
Kit’s jaw worked, but he made no reply.
“How can I make things right between us?” Jack hunched over the railing. “After tomorrow, you will go on to live your own life. I do not want us to part like this, with so much regret between us.”
“Just let it go, Jack,” Kit said wearily. “Don’t torture yourself anymore. Not for my sake. These past few days have helped me to understand you more. On some level, I always have understood.”
“I hope you know that I love—”
“Yeah. I know.” Kit tensed. He stared out into the night, but even from here, Niamh could see sadness overtake his expression. “I do, too.”
Jack turned to face him. “Kit, I…”
“If we’re done here,” Kit said, “let’s go.”
He turned and walked back inside. Jack lingered for only a moment before following him.
Little by little, the vines around her slackened. They eased her onto the ground so gently and apologetically, she had the impression of them dusting off her skirts and rearranging her hair. Purple and gold blossoms drifted through the air and settled at her feet. For a few long moments, Niamh stayed slumped against the balcony railing, the pads of her fingers pressed to her swollen lips. Her face burned with what she was certain was a magnificent flush. Anger and fondness tangled so wretchedly within her, she couldn’t breathe.
Kit Carmine was the most insufferable, contrary, confusing man ever to live.
But she’d given him an escape route—a chance to cut her free forever—and he had not taken it. He’d kissed her with the furious, terrified desperation of a man clinging to life. He’d protected her as if it were as ingrained in him as breathing.
Don’t deny me only for the sake of denying yourself.
Tomorrow, he couldn’t waver any longer. He did not have to love her as she loved him. But he deserved, for once in his life, a chance to build a life on his own terms. He deserved a second chance to take his own advice.
She would give him one.
And then, if she must, she would let him go.