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James caught up with Cordelia on the front steps of the Institute.
He’d hurried after her without a moment’s thought—rude, he knew, but all he’d seen was that Cordelia was unhappy, and leaving, and he had to do something about it, immediately.
The snow outside had stopped, though it had left a thin icing-sugar scrim of white on the front steps and the flagstones of the courtyard. Cordelia stood on the top step, her breath puffing around her in white clouds, her hands—gloveless—folded together. Her hair was a bright flame against the whiteness of winter, like a poppy among a field of lilies.
“Daisy—” he started.
“Don’t,” she said, softly, looking at the Institute gates with their Latin script, PULVIS ET UMBRA SUMUS. “Don’t call me that.”
He could see where her fingertips were reddened with cold. He wanted to wrap her hands in his, fold them inside his coat the way he had seen his father do with his mother’s hands. With the self-control that years of Jem’s training had instilled in him, he held himself back.
“Cordelia,” he said. “Would you have told Lucie? I know you couldn’t have, you didn’t have a chance, but—would you have? That you saw me… with Grace, before you left for Paris?”
Cordelia shook her head. “I wouldn’t have, no. I never told her anything about our discussions of Grace or about our… arrangements regarding her.” She lifted her chin and looked at him, her dark eyes shining like shields. “I would not be pitied. Not by anyone.”
In that, we are alike, James wanted to say; he couldn’t bear to tell anyone about the bracelet, the spell. Couldn’t bear to be pitied over what Grace had done to him. He had intended to tell Cordelia, but he had imagined a very different sort of reunion for them.
He pushed thoughts of her in Matthew’s arms away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never thought about putting you in a position where you had to lie to Lucie. I see now it’s put distance between you two. I never wanted that. My pride was never worth that.” He allowed himself to look at Cordelia. Her expression had softened slightly. “Let’s just go home.”
Unable to hold back, he reached out to move a wayward lock of scarlet hair away from her face. His fingertips grazed the soft skin of her cheek. To his surprise, she did not reach up to stop him. But neither did she say, Yes, let’s go home to Curzon Street. She said nothing at all.
“That house is our home,” he said in the same quiet tone. “Our home. It isn’t anything to me without you in it.”
“It was to be your home with Grace,” she said, shaking her head. “You never pretended that it wouldn’t eventually be hers. We were only to be married a year, James, you and I—”
“I never thought of living there with her,” James said. It was true; he hadn’t. The spell hadn’t worked like that. It had forced his mind away from thoughts of the future, from any examination of his own feelings. “Cordelia,” he whispered. He cupped her cheek in his hand. She closed her eyes, her lashes fluttering down, a fringe of dark copper. He wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt. “Come home. It doesn’t mean you forgive me. I’ll apologize a hundred times, a thousand times. We can play chess. Sit in front of the fire. We can talk. About Paris, about Matthew, Lucie, anything you want. We’ve always been able to talk—”
At this Cordelia’s eyes opened. James felt his stomach drop; he couldn’t help it. Even melancholy and low-lidded, the depths of her dark eyes never failed to utterly undo him. “James,” she said. “We’ve never really talked about anything.”
He pulled back from her. “We—”
“Let me finish,” she said. “We’ve talked, but we’ve never told each other the truth. Not the full truth, anyway. Only the parts that were easy.”
“Easy? Daisy—Cordelia—I told you things I’ve never told anyone else in my life. I trusted you with everything. I still do.”
But he could see her momentary softening had gone. Her face was set, again, into determined lines. “I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to return to Curzon Street,” she said. “I am going home to Cornwall Gardens. I need to see my mother, and Alastair. After that…”
James felt as if he’d swallowed boiling lead. She had called Cornwall Gardens home; had made it clear she did not think of their house in Curzon Street that way. And yet, he could not blame her. No part of this was her fault. They had both agreed: a marriage in name only, to last for one year.…
One year. They’d barely had a month. The thought of that being all the time he ever had with Cordelia was like a wound. He said, mechanically, “Let me get the carriage. I can take you to Kensington.”
Cordelia took a step back. For a moment, James wondered if he’d said something to upset her; then he followed her gaze and saw Matthew, closing the front doors of the Institute behind him. He wore no coat, only his velvet jacket, torn at the wrist. He said, to Cordelia, “The Consul’s carriage is also at your disposal, if you’d prefer. I won’t be in it,” he added. “Just Charles. Come to think of it, that’s not a very attractive offer, is it?”
Cordelia looked at him solemnly. James could not help but think of the expression on her face when she’d realized Matthew had been drinking in Paris. He knew how she felt; he felt the same way.
“It’s kind of both of you,” she said. “But there’s no need. Alastair’s come to bring me back. Look.”
She pointed, and indeed, a hansom cab was just rolling in through the Institute’s gates. It bumped across the flagstones and came to a stop in front of the gates, steam rising from the horses’ blanketed flanks.
The door opened and Alastair Carstairs swung himself down. He wore a thick blue greatcoat, his hands swaddled in leather gloves. He marched up the steps to his sister and said, without looking at either James or Matthew, “Where are your things, Layla?”
Layla. The sound of that name hurt, brought back the poem, the story whose thread had bound James and Cordelia, invisibly, over the years. That heart’s delight, one single glance the nerves to frenzy wrought, one single glance bewildered every thought.… Layla, she was called.
“Magnus says he sent them on,” said Cordelia. “Some sort of spell. My trunk ought to turn up at the house. If it doesn’t…”
“It had better,” Matthew said. “It has all your nice things from Paris in it.”
All your nice things. Things like the red velvet gown she’d worn the night before. Things Matthew had no doubt gone with her to buy. James’s stomach twisted.
