“He might as well be.” She touched his wrist. “Marcus has lost hope. You need not follow him.” She scowled. “If you will not live for yourself, then consider this: what of your human?” She raised one eyebrow. “Lucina told me she has seen the Wild Hunt. They might not forgive such a trespass. Without your protection, your human will be defenseless.”
His blood turned to ice.
How had he not considered that before? She had broken her silence and addressed the Lord of the Hunt. Not only that, but he’d also failed to deal with Mr. Blaylock. It was not like him to be so forgetful.
“Thank you, Helena,” he said, rising. “You can assure Lucina I am not yet ready to die.”
Then he made his way out of the building and rushed down the street. Kitty might not want to see him, but before he lefther forever, he would reveal his nature. It would give her some chance. But when he arrived at her shop, he remembered too late she’d left for her parents’ home. He did not know where they lived.
She might at that very moment be in danger, and it was his fault.
He fell to his knees, buried his head in his hands, and cried.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When Kitty steppedout of the carriage onto the gravel that lined the pathway in front of her family’s squat, red brick home, she was greeted with an armful of her squealing sister.
“It has beenforeversince you visited,” Betty said.
She wore a light-blue cotton day dress, as well as a straw bonnet edged with white lace. Kitty would have a conversation with her sister later about what was appropriate to wear now that they were in mourning.
“I thought you might be avoiding us,” Betty said.
Kitty pushed her sister away and clasped their hands together. “I am happy to see you, too. I’m just sorry it took something so tragic to bring me back.”
Betty frowned. “‘Tragic’? What do you mean?”
Then Kitty spotted her mother standing in the door to their home, twisting her hands together, wearing a gown as colorful as Betty’s, and a sneaking suspicion dawned on Kitty. She didn’t want to believe it was possible for her family to manipulate her in such a terrible way, but everything she was seeing suggested that this was not a family in mourning.
“I shall show you my newest bracelet!” Betty said, bouncing in her excitement. “Father bought it last week. Oh, Kitty, it’s such a beautiful piece, but I don’t have a gown to wear with it.” She touched her neck and stuck out her lower lip.
Kitty sighed. This was the least surprising of all, that she’d barely left her carriage and already, her sister was begging her for favors. “Yes, I can make you a dress.”
Their mother joined them, an uneasy smile on her face. “Dear, why don’t you dress for dinner? Your sister must be tired from the journey.”
“Yes, Mother,” Betty said, although without the bitterness Kitty had expected. Things had changed quite a bit since she’d left home, it seemed. Before Kitty had moved out of the house, she’d grown used to Betty pouting and throwing things whenever she didn’t get her way.
“I am surprised to see you in such high spirits.” Kitty fluffed her own dark-brown skirt. “I was relieved to find this in the bottom of one of my trunks.” She paused, examined her mother’s expression, then added, “If you require mourning garb…”
Then came a familiar laugh from behind Kitty’s mother.
“‘Mourning’!” Kitty’s father—who was most assuredlynotdead—said. His light-blond hair was shorter than it had been the last time Kitty had seen him, but he did not appear sick in the slightest. In fact, he was so rotund that the buttons of his brown tweed suit jacket were strained.
He came to stand behind his wife, beaming a most lively grin. “Patches was an old dog, but not worthy of such dramatics.”
“Patches,” Kitty said. She looked at her mother, who was blushing so hard, she looked like a ripe tomato.
Kitty should have been furious. Incensed. Or, at the very least, angry with her mother for such an egregious lie. But as she tried to summon the words to express to her mother how this betrayal made her feel, she realized she felt nothing.
Of course, her mother had manipulated her. Kitty would not have returned home for anything else. Mrs. Carter had only donewhat she’d felt was necessary to have her husband bailed out of his newest mess.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Carter said. “I-It was the only way. Your father, he—”
“Don’t,” Kitty said. “I’ll sort out whatever problem you’ve landed yourself in later. For now, you have me here. Can we act like a proper family, if only for a few hours?”
Mrs. Carter’s eyes grew glassy. “It is nice to have you home, Katherine.” She clasped Kitty in a hug. “We’ve missed you.”
Kitty wished she could have enjoyed the moment, as it had been too long since she’d felt anything but annoyance for her mother. But knowing her father wasn’t dead, and her mother had stooped to such awful tactics just to get her to return, to do God-only-knew-what, ruined it.
