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“Oh, Crispin,” Annette said, dropping her suitcase to wrap her arms around him. Her familiar scent of rosewater enveloped him, too, bringing over two hundred years of memories with it.
Annette’s face the first time he saw her, apples still in her cheeks from her youth, and her expression unsure as her friend said, “I have a special gift for you. This is Crispin. I’ve purchased him for the night to do whatever we desire…”
Or Annette at court, looking regal in her ballgown even though the heavily-applied white paint on her face and shoulders couldn’t hide the bruises her violent husband had given her.
Or Annette weeping and clutching her abdomen after nearly dying from a stillbirth. “I lost the baby! Oh, Crispin, I could bear it if I knew that it was Abbott’s child, but when I think that it might have been yours, I wish I would have died, too…”
And Annette’s determined face pressed against the filthy bars of his prison cell. “I’ll find a way to save you, Crispin. I promise that youwon’thang. I won’t allow it.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Bones chided her.
She caressed his back. “You’ve never abandoned me in my hour of need.”
Bones pulled away. “I’m not in any need-”
Her fingers pressed to his lips. “Lie to meafterI’ve had a drink, hmm?”
With that, she went into his hotel room.
Bones shut the door behind her. She’d come all the way from London. He couldn’t throw her out without at least having a drink with her. Then, he’d assure her that all was well despite whatever she’d heard, and he’d send her on her way.
Annette’s brows rose as she saw his hotel room, which was…rather untidy, he supposed. At some point, he’d stopped doing his wash and simply thrown his dirty clothes into the corner. He’d done the same with his used bath towels, and now a mildew scent hung in the air, or was that smell coming from the dinner tray he’d ordered as a pretext for drinking from the room service attendant? Had that been last week? Or the week before?
Annette said nothing about the disarray. She just opened her suitcase, revealing two bottles tucked among her clothes.
“You’ll enjoy this,” she said, opening the first bottle. “I bought it for your birthday two Novembers ago. Shame that this is the first chance I’ve had to give it to you.”
“Yes, well, I’ve been busy,” Bones said noncommittally.
She glanced at the computer screens showing different angles of the hospital’s entrances. “I’ve heard.”
He grunted. “Rodney shouldn’t have rung you.”
“Rodney didn’t,” Annette said while looking for a clean glass in the mini bar area. When she couldn’t find one, she handed him the bottle. “He rang Charles, and Charles rang me.”
“Charles,” Bones muttered before taking a drink. The whiskywasexceptional, with a welcome heat that instantly mellowed into smoky smoothness. “He’s become a busybody in recent years.”
“He hasn’t,” Annette said, her tone softening. “He’s just concerned about you. So is Rodney, and if I wasn’t before, I am now. Look at the state of you. You’re pale as death from not feeding, your hair’s greasy, your clothes smell like a rubbish bin, and this room smells worse. You took better care of yourself when you were a whore living at that bordello.”
Bones let out a harsh laugh. “Then I bid you to enjoy the more pleasant sights and scentsoutsideof my hotel room.”
She sighed. “You can push me away, Crispin, just as you’ve pushed Charles and Rodney away, but eventually, you’ll have to reckon with the fact that if the three closest people in your life are all saying the same thing, you might want to listen.”
“Why should I whennoneof you understand!”
The words ripped out of him, taking down his shields with them. Annette’s face crumpled as his emotions spilled out.
Bones snapped his walls back up, cursing himself for the slip. “Don’t bother about that. It’s nothing-”
“It’snot.” She grabbed him, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Oh, Crispin, I knew you were in pain, but I had no idea. I’m so sorry, my darling. So very, very sorry…”
She embraced him again. He knew he should pull away. He didn’t need her pity or her exhortations or her logic, but…it had been years since someone had put their arms around him this way. He must have missed it more than he’d realized.
“You should go,” he said into her hair.
“No,” she whispered. “You’ve been alone far too long.”
“She didn’t want to leave me.” His voice was hoarse as he fought to keep Annette from feeling the anguish that his ice couldn’t entirely smother. “She did it tosaveme.”
