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Maybe me. Clearly he doesn’t think even I will be enough if these mad killers come after us.“It’s a heavy commission,” she said.
“But you’ll take it?”
She wanted to refuse. She wanted to explain that she had come this far, managed this long, by caring only for herself, by not taking on burdens that she knew she could not handle. But she couldn’t speak the words and had already squared her shoulders to accept the weight. She said, “I don’t see that I have a choice.”
Chapter Five:
Madeleine
Madeleine eyed herself in the full-length mirror and wished gray was not the color of the season. She needed brighter shades for her chestnut hair and olive skin, but this particular shade of iced silver was currently the height of fashion. At least the simple silken sheath draped perfectly over her body and felt as cool as the color itself against her skin.
Her best hope was to accessorize. A filmy scarf of ochre and cinnamon reflected rich tones onto her face, and small bronze clips created curls and coils in her heavy hair. On her bare arms, she added wide gold cuffs above her elbows. Silver cuffs would have been a more perfect match for the dress, but she craved the heat of gold.
Anyway, she had silver enough around her wrists. Around her left was a wide filigreed band studded with dozens of tiny diamonds, proclaiming to anyone who cared to look that she was a member of a privileged elite. She found the bracelet embarrassingly ostentatious, but her father had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday, so she always wore it. Like all his gifts, it had been bestowed on her in an impersonal and unemotional manner. But that didn’t mean it was unimportant to him.
On her right arm she wore bracelets of her own choosing. Her favorite was the smooth silver band inset with rows of tiny gold flowers along both edges, identifying her as a woman who preferred men. But she was also fiercely attached to the two very thin, very plain circlets, one gold, one silver, that marked the memories of her brother and her mother. Adults commonly wore wider funeral bracelets to memorialize dead spouses or children, but it was only in recent years that it had become common for people to don slimmer bands to mark losses of siblings or close friends. Madeleine knew her father wished she did not carry her grief so openly, but he hadn’t forbidden her to wear the jewelry. He was adorned with two very similar pieces himself.
Her newest bracelet was one she wasn’t officially permitted to wear yet, though she kept it in her jewelry case in her bedroom and admired it every day. It had been a gift from Tivol on the occasion of their betrothal; once they were married, it would be welded around her right wrist with her other personal accouterments. It was as wide as the filigreed band, made of a loop of silver and a loop of gold soldered together, with a line of diamonds dancing along the center line. It would mark her as a married woman—a rich married woman,she couldn’t help thinking—an adult with responsibilities, social standing, a household of her own.
She could scarcely remember a time in her life that she hadn’t known she would marry Tivol. She couldn’t recall the first time someone had said to her, “Of course, that may change when you are Tivol’s wife.” He had always been there, as solid and as certain as her father, but so much brighter and kinder and dearer. He was a little too sure of himself sometimes, occasionally wrong about what Madeleine was thinking, and a tiny bit overbearing—but still the person in her life she was most likely to turn to, no matter what the situation. There was no one she knew half so well.
She had been a bit surprised when her father had decreed that the wedding wouldn’t go forward for another two years, and even more surprised when Tivol agreed to the delay. “But I’ve always known I want to marry you!” she exclaimed. “I don’t see the value of waiting.”
“There is still a great deal of planning to do,” he pointed out. “I am still learning about my mother’s business and we haven’t eventhoughtabout where to buy a house. And frankly, I’m enjoying all the privileges of a bachelor life. I am loath to give those up before I must.”
That had distracted her. “What privileges? You’d better not be consorting with immoral women, or we won’t be waiting two years to get married—we’ll be waitingforever.”
That had caused him to drop a quick, affectionate kiss on her cheek. “Well, if Iwasconsorting, I certainly wouldn’t tellyou,but I’m not,” he assured her. “But I like being able to dash off with my friends at a moment’s notice, and stay up drinking later than I should, and not have to worry about maintaining a household, and all those other boring things that only old men do.”
“Very well,” she’d said. “I shall enjoy my own two years of freedom just as heartily. But I’m looking forward to living somewhere other than my father’s house.”
He’d kissed her again. “I’m looking forward to living withyou,” he said.
There was a knock on her bedroom door before the newest housemaid poked her head in. Her name was Ella, and although she was very sweet, she looked perpetually anxious, even though Madeleine always tried to greet her with an encouraging smile. “Someone’s arrived to see you, dona,” the girl said. “He’s in the gilt room.”
Madeleine resisted the urge to correct her.You should tell me the name of my visitor when you announce him.She didn’t want Ella to become even more uneasy. “Thank you, I’ll be right down.”
She took a last look in the mirror—the scarf helped a great deal, but the gray was still a terrible choice—then headed out. She paused a moment on the balcony just outside her bedroom door. The central atrium of the house was flooded with light from the glass panels that formed a circle in the center of the roof. The wash of sun picked out all the colors in the mosaic tiles that covered the floors and the walls here on the second story. On sunny days, Madeleine sometimes felt she was inside a jewel box or maybe a fabric-merchant’s shop, a mad swirl of hue and texture. Three mosaiced pillars stretched all the way from the tiled floor of the lower level to the supporting beams of the ceiling, adding their own patterns and colors to the general mix.
Madeleine’s brother had spent one whole summer figuring out how to rig a rope that would let him leap from the balcony to one of the pillars and slide all the way down. He’d been rewarded with a broken leg and their father’s fury, but he had assured her that all the trauma had been worth it. He’d only been ten at the time. He was dead two years later, or who knew what other kinds of trouble he might have gotten into?
Madeleine pushed back the memories and hurried to the stairwell that descended majestically from the second floor to the ground level of the atrium. Here, all the tiles on the floor and the walls were muted, mostly browns and tans with the occasional square of gold or sage. The bottom level of the home was considered the more public space, where strangers might be welcomed or business might be done, so it had to present a more formal air than the upper stories where the families lived.
Passing the tall potted plants that formed rows of greenery along the atrium, she headed for the cozy sitting room where favored guests were always shown. “Tivol, you’re early,” she said as she burst inside. “I can hardly believe it.”
But the man standing just inside the door wasn’t Tivol. “Madeleine,” he said, coming close enough to grasp both of her hands. “I heard what happened.”
For a moment, she was so surprised that she didn’t react, not even to yank her hands away. She just stared into his handsome face and felt a blush rising to her own. “Reese,” she finally said in a blank voice. “What are you doing here?”
His grip tightened. “I’ve been in the city a week or two. I had business for my father. I was going to come by one day, but I—” he shrugged and left the rest of the words unspoken.
She could fill them in for herself.But I thought you would refuse to see me. She pulled her hands free and stepped away from him, deeper into the room, hoping the color had started to fade from her cheeks. “Yes. Of course. I hope your father is well?”
“He is.”
“And your mother? And your sisters?”
“Everyone’s fine,” he said impatiently. “But Madeleine! I heard what happened to you two days ago! Are you all right?”
