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“In the dark?”
He extended a hand for the bottle she held. She relinquished it and he drank deep, wiping his hand across his mouth before saying, “I am seizing the bull by the horns.”
She took the bottle back. “Is one of us to be a bull in this scenario?”
“Did you know that Lady Emily does not eat soup?”
Sera shot him a look. “I’m sorry?”
He smirked. He had her now. Sera had never not been interested in another person. “You seated her next to me at dinner. There was a soup. It provided some interesting conversation.”
Sera blinked. “I cannot imagine how.”
“Believe me, I was surprised, as well. I thought I might perish from awkward avoidance of Miss Mayhew’s disappearance. In fact, the events of the afternoon did not come up. Thanks to the soup.”
“Malcolm, forgive me. But are you quite all right?”
“I am, as a matter of fact. It is the lady who seems a bit . . . odd.”
“Because she did not eat the soup?”
“Not the soup. Any soup.”
She stopped. He had her. “She does not eat soup?”
“This is what I have been trying to explain. The woman doesn’t eat soup.”
“Doesn’t eat it? Or doesn’t like it? Or both?”
“This is the bit I cannot understand. She does not know if she likes it, Seraphina. She’s never had it.”
She blinked. “Is this some kind of joke? You take my whiskey, drag me out into the dark, and tell me ridiculous stories of people who have never eaten soup?”
He raised a hand. “Upon my honor, Sera—what little you and your sisters think I have left—Lady Emily has never eaten soup.”
There was a pause, and Sera said, “How is that possible?”
“This is my exact point.”
A beat. And then, magnificently, she laughed. Like heaven come to earth, the sound curling between them before it spread out into the darkness, Malcolm half expecting it to summon the sun.
Because it felt like the sun.
And all he wanted was to bask in her, even as the laughter died away, fading into little breathy chuckles. She began to walk again, and he joined her, the two of them in companionable silence for the first time in—possibly forever. And it was glorious.
Perhaps there was hope, after all.
They climbed a small hill, Malcolm reaching back to help her navigate a rocky patch, Sera taking his hand as though it were the most natural thing in the world, heat flooding him at the touch, along with desire. And hope, a dangerous promise.
She released him the moment they came to the crest, and the disappointment that came with the action was keen. After a long moment, she turned to him and he held his breath, wondering what she might say.
“Do you think it is liquid nourishment she fears?”
The return to Lady Emily’s strange trait summoned his own laugh, loud and unfamiliar. “I don’t know.”
“You did not ask?” She shook her head in mock disappointment.
“I did not.”
“I suppose you thought it would be rude to pry.”
“I know it would have been rude to pry.”
She nodded. “You’re right of course. But there really ought to be a special circumstance allowed for this.”
He hadn’t felt this free in years. Not since the last time they’d laughed together. Before they’d been betrothed. Guilt flared. He’d taken so much from her—so much life. No wonder she’d left him. No wonder she did not wish him back. He should let her go.
Of course, he wouldn’t.
Unaware of his thoughts, Sera added, “Between the soup and the lawn bowls, it’s been a bad day for your unmarrieds, Duke.”
“You’re right,” he said, unable to hide his frustration. “Let’s send them all home.”
“Why do you make it sound as though I am responsible for these girls? You are the one who planned a house party to find my replacement. You summoned them without me. You would have been here anyway, choosing your next wife. I’m merely trapped here alongside them.”
He couldn’t tell her that these girls had been summoned in a frenzied twenty-four-hour period immediately following his commitment to winning her back. She would not take well to the revelation—that much he knew. “I may have made an error in judgment.”
She chuckled. “They’re lovely women, Malcolm. Good matches.”
He looked to her. “One has never eaten soup.”
She smiled. “Think of how you might change her worldview! Did you not always wish me less worldly?”
Never. Not once.
“Ah yes,” he said, ignoring the thought. “What a lovely foundation for a marriage soup might be.”
She laughed at that, and then said, “She’s not your choice, anyway. She was never going to be.”
Of course she wasn’t. None of them would be. “I’m fairly certain Felicity Faircloth would rather have your American than me.”
Sera did not hesitate. “He’s not my American, and you know it.”
He did. Sera would never have allowed him to touch her if she were committed to Calhoun. But it did not mean that—
Before he could stop himself, Malcolm asked, “Has he ever been?”
“Does it matter?” she asked, watching their feet moving through the grass. “Does it matter if there were a dozen?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “Of course it would. This is the world in which we live, where I am required to remain chaste as a nun, and you . . . you are welcome to the wide world.” She paused, regaining her reserve. Then, softly, “He was never mine. Even if I could have loved him, he deserves children.”
Mal didn’t hesitate. “Your love would be enough.”
She was silent for a long time, while he searched for the right words, to no avail. And then she lifted the bottle and drank. “It doesn’t matter.”
It did matter. It mattered more than anything, and somehow, like all things that matter a great deal, he could not find the words to say so.
“And you?” she asked. “How many Americans have you had?”
He told her the truth. “One. The one you witnessed.”
She laughed then, hollow and so different from her earlier happiness that he felt the sound like a blow. “I am to believe that?”
“I don’t expect you to,” he said. “But it is the truth.”
“That is the problem with truth; so often you must rely on faith to embrace it.”
“And you’ve no faith in me.” He regretted the words the moment they were out, wishing immediately that he could take them back. He did not want her to answer. The silence that stretched out between them in the wake of the words was clear enough without her answer. Not to mention unsurprising.
And then she said, so soft that it almost seemed she was speaking to someone else, “God knows I want to.”
“It was one time, Sera. Once.”
“It was meant to punish me,” she replied, the words simple and empty of emotion as she looked down to the lake, spread like black ink below.
Regret and shame flared. How many times had he felt them? How many times had they consumed him in the darkness as he searched for her? But they had never felt like this. Without her, they’d been a vague, rolling emotion, present, but never truly there. And now, faced with her, with her tacit acceptance of their past, of his actions, of his mistakes, they were a wicked, angry blow.
What a fucking ass he had been.
“I cannot take it back. If there were anything in the world I could take back . . .”
The breath left her in a stream of frustration then. “Tell me, is it the act for which you lack pride? Or the consequences of it?”
He turned to her then, unable to find the proper words to reply. “The consequences?”
“My sister landed you on your backside in front of all London, Malcolm. You did not care for it. You meted out punishment on the whole family after that.”
Shame again, hot and an
gry, along with a keen instinct to protect himself. To defend his actions. But there was no defense. None worthy of the blow he’d dealt. None that had ever dismissed his regret for it.
I’m sorry. The words were cheap escape. “I would take Sophie’s attack a hundredfold. A thousand. If I could erase the rest of that afternoon.”
Sera grew silent, and Mal would have given anything to know what was going through her head. And finally, she said, “As would I, ironically.”
He closed his eyes in the darkness. He’d hurt her abominably. They were silent for a long while as he considered his next words. But before he could find them, she said, “And what of all the years since?”
He looked to her, the darkness freeing him in some way. Making him honest. “I would erase them, too.”
She turned to face him, slow and simple, as though they discussed the weather. “I wouldn’t.” The ache that came with the confession was crushing, black as the water that spread out before them, stretched forever like the silence that accompanied it. Finally, Sera looked to the starlit sky and said, “So, was this your plan? To lead me into the darkness and revisit the decline of our marriage?”
He exhaled, looking to the water, black and sparkling in the moonlight. “It wasn’t, as a matter of fact.” He began to descend toward the lake, calling back, “I had planned to show you something.”
Curiosity got the better of her—as it always had. “What?”
Could he tempt her away from the past? Toward something more promising? It was worth the try. “Come and see.”
For long moments, he did not hear her, and he steeled himself for the worst. For the possibility that there was no hope for them.
And then her skirts rustled in the grass.
Chapter 18
Sunken Starchitecture: Highley’s Hidden Hideaway
“This is beautiful.”
Sera stood just inside a small, stunning stone structure, fixed with six stained glass windows depicting a series of women in various states of celebration, stars embedded in the glass around them, as though they danced in the night sky.
Malcolm stood to one side, lantern high in his hand, revealing the glorious stonework stars and sky that climbed the walls between the windows and spread across the domed ceiling of the space. Sera tipped her head back to take in the moon and sun in full relief above as he said, “The windows are more beautiful in the daylight, obviously,” he said.
She looked to him. “I believe it.”
She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d followed him, lantern in hand, as he descended the rise to the lakeside. She shouldn’t have even followed him, for what was the point? Spending time with him only resurrected the past in ways she wished never to do again.
Spending time with him only reminded her that she’d once wanted to spend a lifetime with him.
And still, she’d followed him in the night, drawn like a moth to his flame. And, just like a moth, the fire of him threatened to consume her. As ever.
She’d never spent time on the grounds of Highley; he’d spoken of the lake a dozen times—it held a powerful place in his childhood stories—but she’d never had a chance to see it.
And now, as she looked from one of the women to the next—each so beautifully designed that it seemed as though they were trapped in glass—Sera wondered why he hadn’t brought her here, to this beautiful room overlooking the lake beyond. She looked to him. “Who are they?”
He hesitated—just barely—not even enough for another to notice. “The Pleiades.”
The Seven Sisters, daughters of Atlas. She looked back to the windows, counting. “There are only six.”
He nodded and turned away, toward the circle of wrought iron at the center of the room. Opening a gate inlaid in the railing, he waved the lantern toward the dark circle below. “The seventh is beneath the lake.”
Sera moved toward him, sure that she had misheard, her gaze transfixed by the dark, turning staircase there. There were no lights below, the first few steps giving way to immense blackness in no time. She looked back to Malcolm. “I’m not going down there.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first of all, because the words beneath the lake sound properly ominous and, second, because it’s blacker than midnight down there and I’m not an imbecile.”
His lips twitched in a tiny smile. “I was planning to go ahead of you.”
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I shall be fine here.”
He ignored her, turning to the wall and fetching an unlit torch, opening the lantern he carried and lighting it with impressive skill. Sera took a step back when he lifted it over his head, casting his face into bright light and sharp shadows.
“If you think a burning club is going to make me feel better about going down there, you’re very misguided,” she said.
He chuckled at that. “You do not trust me?”
“I do not, as a matter of fact.”
He grew serious. Or maybe it was a trick of the light on his face, making him seem as though he were never more honest than in that moment. “I will keep you safe, Sera.”
Before she could answer—before she could slow the instant, panicked beating of her heart—he was gone, heading down the steps into the darkness. She came to the edge of the railing, watching as his light circled down the narrow steps. “How far down does it go?”
“Don’t worry, Angel, I shan’t lead you into hell.”
“All the same, I prefer not to follow,” she called.
“Think of yourself as Persephone.”
“It’s summer,” she retorted as a brazier came to life, revealing the bottom of the staircase. “Persephone is aboveground in September.”
He looked up, his beautiful eyes turned black in the darkness, a wide grin on his face. “You’ll follow.”
She huffed a little laugh. “I have no idea why you would think such a thing.”
“Because this is what we do,” he said. “We follow each other into darkness.” And then he passed through a dark doorway and out of view.
And damned if he wasn’t right.
She followed, lifting her skirts and inching her way down the winding staircase, grumbling about bad decisions and irritating dukes the whole way. At the bottom, she looked up, the circular opening at the top of the stairs a great distance away, the stone and stained glass windows seeming, suddenly, as though they were a frieze painted on the ceiling rather than an entire room above.
It was beautiful artistry—a mastery of perspective like none she’d ever seen.
Air teased at her skirts, a cool and welcome respite from the cloying heat above. It comforted Sera for a moment, before she realized the reason for the comfortable temperature. She was underground.
The thought had her looking to the teardrop-shaped doorway where Haven had disappeared, and where he stood, not a foot away, torch in hand, grin upon his handsome face. “I told you that you would come.”
She scowled. “I can go just as easily.”
He shook his head. “Not if you want to see it.” He waved his light deeper into the space, revealing what appeared to be a narrow, teardrop-shaped tunnel, painted on all sides in the same motif as the windows above, dark sky and a starscape that gave competition to the night sky beyond.
Her eyes went wide. “How far does it go?”
“Not far,” he said. “Take my hand.”
She shouldn’t. “No.”
He looked as though he might argue with her, but instead he nodded and went ahead, lighting another brazier, and then another, each revealing a few more yards of the tunnel.
“We are under the lake?”
Another brazier. “We are technically inside the lake, but yes.”
“Why?”
And another. “Do you know the story of the Pleiades?”
There were moments when she could forget that Haven was a duke, and moments when his past, being raised in a constant state of aristocratic whim, showed without pause. Invariably, those moments
were the ones like this, when he ignored questions and changed subjects without apology.
She did not hide her irritation. “I know they were sisters. I know they were daughters to Atlas.”
Another light flared to life. “And once Atlas was punished, forced to hold up the heavens, they were left alone, with no one to protect them from gods or men. Seven sisters. With only each other.”
She did not like the thread of awareness that went through her at the words. The familiarity of the story—her father, made aristocrat without warning, she and her sisters thrust into the world of the London aristocracy without aid. Never accepted for their low beginnings, never admired for the way they rose.
She affected a false bravado. “Dangerous daughters must stay together.”
“One more than the rest.” A flare of orange, casting his serious face in angles and shadows. He continued, his voice low and dark like the endless teardrop hallway. “The oldest six Pleiades were beautiful, and each tempted a god. Each married into the heavens. But the youngest, Merope—the most beautiful, most graceful, most valued—she caught the eye of a dangerous suitor—one who was earthborn.”
“Isn’t that always the way? Your sisters get their hearts’ desire, and you get a mere mortal.” Another brazier. This tunnel was endless. “Are we crossing the entire lake underwater?”
It was as though she had not spoken. “No mere mortal. Orion was the greatest hunter the world had ever known, and he pursued Merope relentlessly. And she was tempted.”
“Of course she was. I’m certain he was handsome as the devil.”
“He was, as a matter of fact.” Ah. So he was listening. “She did everything she could to hide from him, knowing there was no hope for them.”
She, too, was listening, the words no hope settling like an ache in her chest.
“She turned to her sisters, who banded together, working as only sisters can do to protect their youngest from the mortal hunter who would never be good enough. They began by blinding him—”
“And you thought my sisters were bad.” He lit a final flame, revealing another dark doorway, the hint of something beyond.
One side of his mouth tilted up, even as he stood framed in darkness, watching her. He looked like a god of sorts—a modern one. Tall and beautiful, with a face chiseled from marble, rendered even more godlike in the flickering light from the torch he held, as though he could summon flame at will. “His blindness was no deterrent. He was a master hunter, made so by the gods themselves. And so he pursued Merope, ever more desperate for what they might have together. For the possibility of their future.”
