Chapter Eighteen

That night King Heartless and Prue trudged wearily to the garden. “I think your father plays me for a fool,” the king growled. “If he does I shall cut off his head.”

Prue threw down the needle she was trying to thread. “This is why people say you’re heartless.”

“I am heartless,” said King Heartless. “What more should you expect?”…

—From King Heartless

She didn’t know what to do next.

Funny. Bridget had spent most of her life placing one foot in front of the other, one task after another, going from one situation to the next, methodical, precise. Her day was ordered from when she rose to when she blew out her candle, a series of chores and lists and arranged events.

And now?

Now she was walking down a London street, very early in the morning, a soft bag with all her worldly possessions held in one hand, and Pip trotting on her other side.

She didn’t even know where to go.

Around her London was waking, maids coming out to sweep the front steps, delivery carts rolling by, and she… she didn’t know what to do.

She’d received the note from the Duke of Kyle with its curt message: “Done. All safe.” And then she’d fled. She’d not even had the courage to wait for Val to return. To bear his recriminations and anger for betraying him.

What a coward she was.

A carriage pulled up beside her.

Bridget halted and for a moment her heart squeezed so tight she thought it might stop altogether.

But then the door opened and Lady Caire peered out.

Bridget blinked.

A footman got down from the back and set the step.

“Well, get in, dear,” said Lady Caire, and Bridget did.

Pip hopped in as well, the door shut, and the carriage started forward.

“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Lady Caire said, staring at Pip.

Bridget looked at him.

Unfortunately he was trying to bite his hind leg.

She glanced up again. “I do.”

“I see,” said Lady Caire.

Pip jumped on the seat beside Bridget and the carriage rumbled on for a bit.

Lady Caire cleared her throat. “Montgomery forfeited the duel.”

Bridget nodded.

“I understand,” Lady Caire said, “that we have you to thank for that, Bridget.”

Bridget looked at her. “Did you name me?”

Lady Caire looked startled. “I’m sorry?”

“Did you name me or did you just drop me with Mam and my foster father and leave them to pick a name? Did you know them at all?” Bridget’s hands were twisting in her lap and she half laughed as she remembered Val’s words. “Or perhaps you put me in a basket like a kitten and sent me off with a servant to find someone to raise me. Did you even care if they were good or bad people?”

Lady Caire’s face had gone white. “I stayed with a girlhood friend up there. She knew your… Mam and foster father. I went to interview them in their cottage when… when I was close. Your Mam was there when I had you. She was the second to hold you. After me. I held you first. I cradled you in my arms and saw that you had black hair—my family’s black hair—and a red scrunched face. You were very quiet. My son screamed at birth but you just lay and looked around with wide eyes. We swaddled you. And then I gave you to your Mam.” Lady Caire looked down at her hands. “I named you Bridget because… because I knew that I couldn’t give you one of my family’s names. Bridget was my old nanny’s name. She was from Ireland and I loved her dearly.”

She looked up and tears were silently streaming down her proud aristocratic cheeks.

“There are many, many things that I regret doing in my life, but nothing that I regret more than what I did to you, Bridget.”

At that Bridget burst into tears.

SHE WAS GONE.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

His housekeeper, his archangel, his inquisitor, his Bridget.

His Séraphine.

Burning light. Warmth in the darkness. Stealer of both heart and soul.

Though he had that back. He’d bartered it for a handful of royal letters.

Val stared at the ivory box as he drank from the bottle of wine. Straight from the bottle of wine, for he seemed to have misplaced his wineglass and none of the servants would come near him no matter how loudly he bellowed.

Such were the things that happened when one’s housekeeper left.

She’d said she loved him. Loved him. What a strange and wondrous thing. And how it hurt, this love! What pain it caused, like tiny knives in the veins. He didn’t think he liked it much, but he’d endure it, yes he would, if only she’d return and stab him again.

He held out his arms and looked at the ceiling of his library, his grand library, his very favorite room in his magnificent house, the house he’d had built to his very, very specific plans. The ceiling was painted and gilded and grand, very grand.

And cold.

Everything was cold.

The fire wasn’t hot enough, that was the problem. So he took some of his books—his beautiful, beautiful books—and burned them, gilt edges curling, illuminated pages turning brown, fine leather smoking and stinking, and thought that must be a shame. Séraphine would scold him were she here. She would snatch them from the fire and never burn her plump fingers for she was a creature of fire herself, burning, burning.

But she wasn’t here.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

And when he looked up from the embers of his precious books, he saw that he’d somehow smashed the bottle of wine. He’d trod on the glass in his bare feet and his blood had mingled with the wine on the floor.

Or perhaps it was the opposite. Perhaps the wine had mingled with the blood in his veins and now he was part grape.

Fair Séraphine had tried to explain to him the difference, right from wrong. It made sense to her because she burned and was an angel. But to him, a creature of hollow ice and pain, it was sound and confusion without her to filter it for him.

And she wasn’t here to care anyway, either for him or for his victims.

So he wrote to Dyemore.

“I’M SO GLAD you agreed to stay with us,” Temperance Huntington, Lady Caire said the next morning at the breakfast table to Bridget.

Bridget bit her lip, looking up from the eggs she hadn’t touched. Yesterday, after an incredibly awkward carriage ride, the elder Lady Caire had deposited Bridget at her son’s town house and then almost immediately left. Bridget had been a very poor guest so far, having spent the previous day mostly in her room, exhausted and sleeping, too depressed to venture forth and confront strangers who must think the very worst of her.

This morning, though, she’d determined not to be such a coward. “Thank you for letting me stay, my lady. I do appreciate it very much and I promise it won’t be for long. Just until I can find a new position and—”

“Oh.” The lady’s brows knit over her gold-brown eyes. “First of all, you’re more than welcome to stay as long as you wish—indefinitely, really. You’re Lazarus’s sister. And please. Call me Temperance.” She smiled, her entire face lighting. “We’re sisters, after all, aren’t we?”

“I…” Bridget had to look away from the kind face. The tears threatened again, damn it. She’d never been one for weeping and now she was a veritable watering pot. She inhaled shakily. “You’re very kind.”

The sudden scrape of a chair made her look up.

Temperance was standing. She held out her hand. “Will you come with me? I want to show you something.”

The elder woman led Bridget up a staircase, splendid but not as flamboyant as dear Val’s—push that thought aside. Down a passage that obviously held the private apartments of the family, and to a set of large double doors. She opened them and Bridget blinked.

This was the master bedroom, and most obviously used by both the lord and the lady of the house.

Bridget looked at Temperance, but the other lady was calmly walking to a tall chest of drawers. On top were arranged a few items and she picked up one and turned, holding it out.

“This is Annalise,” Temperance said. “The first Annalise. Lazarus’s younger sister—and your elder, I suppose.”

Bridget took the miniature—for that was what it was—and looked. A small girl peered up at her, dark-haired, brown-eyed, wearing a severe, square-necked bodice and a ribbon around her throat.

She looked all of four.

Bridget glanced up and met Temperance’s sad golden eyes.

“Their father was… well, as far as I can gather he was quite awful,” Temperance said matter-of-factly. “Very strict. Possibly mad. And he ruled the household with an iron fist. When Annalise was five she caught some sort of fever. He refused to call a doctor. Amelia, Lady Caire, pleaded with him, but he…” Temperance shook her head, pressing her lips together. “Annalise died. Lazarus was ten years old.”

Bridget swallowed and looked Temperance in her golden eyes. “I’m not Annalise.”

“No,” Temperance said at once. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean that. You can’t replace her, of course. It’s just…” She sighed. “He never had anyone else, you see. He rather blamed Lady Caire for Annalise’s death, even though… well. Children can be so stubborn in their prejudices, can’t they?” she said somewhat obscurely. “Anyway, it’s only been recently that they’ve been able to talk at all. For years he was so alone. So lonely. I know he can seem quite intimidating, so sharp and, well, looming.” She rolled her eyes. “And he didn’t exactly make a very good first impression, calling out your… well… the Duke of Montgomery, which,” she muttered under her breath, “really is a bit hypocritical, considering how he courted me, but I hope you’ll give him a chance. You’re actually rather a miracle, you see.”

Bridget looked down at the miniature of a long-dead half sister and wondered if she’d found her family at last.