A Restless Truth (The Last Binding #2)

Chapter 27

27

“ And now, ” said Mrs. Navenby, her tone shifting, “ we are both of us dead. I am just a voice and a bit of silver that came to me from her hands. And if I can do anything to bring hurt to the men who murdered her, then I will .”

It took Maud some effort to take control of her own body again. During Mrs. Navenby’s story she’d curled herself up, like Ross in the chair, in a corner of her own mind. She’d almost forgotten that she was a body at all. She was simply an audience.

Now, silence. Now the dryness of her throat and the lingering taste of the whisky—now the warmth of the locket beneath her clothes, the stiffness of her legs from sitting so long unmoving. She almost wanted to ask for more time, to sort through all the things that she was feeling. But she stretched and wriggled her toes and focused her eyes.

There was a rosebush growing out of the table.

Ross uncurled enough to lean forward and brush his fingers against the half-opened yellow blooms closest to him. His fingers passed through the illusion like smoke. Now that Maud looked more closely, it was two rosebushes, twinned and twining trunks wrapped tight around each other—and then growing apart as the higher branches rose, like a picture Maud had seen once of a snake born with two heads. One of the rosebush’s heads grew yellow flowers; the other, red.

All of it was the creation of Violet, wooden rings gleaming on her thumbs, grey eyes narrowed in concentration.

“ You’ve a real gift for illusion, Miss Debenham, ” said Mrs. Navenby. Maud’s voice croaked. She said, “I could do with some water, I think.”

Violet let the rosebushes dissolve into nothing, but Hawthorn was already standing. He fetched her a glass of water, and Maud drank gratefully.

Hawthorn stayed close. Maud couldn’t read his expression. She remembered, suddenly, that he, too, had loved someone who had died, and that his twin sister’s death might possibly have had something to do with the Last Contract. Maud would find all three pieces of this blasted thing, and then do whatever it took so that people would stop having to die.

Hawthorn said, “Do you think that’s why your spirit anchored onto the locket when you died, ma’am? Because it had strong personal meaning for you?”

“I was thinking of her in the moment, certainly. I was so angry that she was dead and I hadn’t been there, and I was about to die as well—that what we’d worked for, together, was to be erased by entitled men.”

“Anger’s a powerful force,” said Ross. “It’s what they say of ghosts, isn’t it? Unfinished business.”

“ Nevertheless. I don’t think people are supposed to go on existing in the world, after death .” Mrs. Navenby managed a sniff. “ It’s not proper .”

“You mean you wouldn’t want to stay a ghost?” Maud ventured. “You wouldn’t want to—always have a medium, in order to live longer?”

“ It isn’t living .” Said with conviction. “ As I said: I appreciate the opportunity to have a hand in this business, in order to avenge myself and my friends. But you can’t wear me around your neck forever, Miss Blyth. ”

“Forgive me,” said Hawthorn. “But would you prefer to be stuck to a piece of cold metal forever instead, with no medium to give you the option of expressing your will?”

A sickly sensation slid down Maud’s chest. What a horrid prospect.

“ It wasn’t unpleasant, ” said Mrs. Navenby, as if in answer to Maud’s thought. “ The haunting without being drawn to a living body. Between asleep and awake—there are worse states. And to be a ghost in the presence of a medium is the opposite of restful. There is a constant itch to be in motion, without any flesh of my own to truly feel the itch. I am finding it… wearying .”

And she sounded it. For the first time, fatigue dragged at that impatient voice. Maud’s hand settled over the locket in unthinking fellowship. There were days when she felt like that: body and mind tired and impossibly restless, both at once. At least she had the option of exhausting herself with a long walk.

“Would you want to be banished, then?” Ross asked. “Exorcised, if that’s the word to use?”

“I’m sure we can come up with some solution,” Maud said hastily. This was all becoming distressingly morbid, and they still had the bowl to find. “When we’re back in England, Edwin will read twenty books and find the answer. I’m sure of it.”

“Regardless of what happens, I owe you a debt, Miss Blyth. You did me a service in coming to America to warn me and you’re doing me another now, and I know you never volunteered for the latter.”

A lump formed in Maud’s throat. It tasted like the guilt that she’d been carrying around since the moment she saw the old woman’s body motionless on the stateroom floor. Of course she’d never asked to be a medium—but if offered the chance to give voice and vengeance to someone wronged, someone with no other possible champion, who wouldn’t volunteer?

“ I suppose, ” Mrs. Navenby went on, more animated, “ that given this Courcey boy was worthy of Sutton, and Enid particularly wanted Miss Debenham here to inherit, I should be leaving my own fortune to you. It would be nicely symmetrical, if nothing else. ”

Maud choked. “You hardly know me! And I’m sure you have relatives of your own!”

“ Oh, yes, they’re the ones in the will, ” said Mrs. Navenby, as if Maud had pointed out some window spots that the cleaners had missed. “ Nieces and nephews and the like, all grown. I doubt they’ve been waiting to pounce, as the Blackwoods were for Enid. It’s not a true fortune by any measure of the word. Most of it went to my own upkeep after Ralph died. What’s left is the house in New York, I suppose. Or the proceeds from its sale. ”

“I heard a story once,” said Violet, “about a ghost who haunted a writing desk in her own house, and so saw exactly how her relatives behaved and squabbled after her death. When the executors arrived it turned out that one of the law clerks was a medium, and through him the ghost overturned her own will and left everything instead to one of the under-gardeners, who’d always brought her fresh flowers and told her how the gardens were looking when she was too ill to go outdoors.”

Silence, as they digested that.

“It’s not exactly precedent,” said Hawthorn. “But there are aspects of magical law that work oddly. You could consult someone in the legal offices at the Barrel.”

“Edwin doesn’t trust the Assembly or the Coopers. But,” Maud said, “I could ask Kitty Kaur if she knows anyone suitable. She used to work there.” As if this were a real thing that was actually going to happen. Maud felt breathless. She allowed herself to imagine it: coming home to Robin with enough money to ease things, to erase the worry from his brow.

“Fascinating as it is to discuss the transfer of wealth from the filthily rich to the only grubbily rich,” said Ross, “how do you want to handle tomorrow, Miss B, if I can’t wear that jacket for longer than it takes me to dash up here for after-dinner orgies and storytelling?”

Once again they needed plans . Maud chewed her lip and tried to think. Nothing swirled in her mind except thoughts of Flora Sutton, and Beth Navenby, and Violet. An ache had lodged itself in her heart: a shrapnel piece of all the histories of women who’d been important to one another, stretching back through time.

“Violet will make me my own illusion disguise,” she said finally. “If you can tell me which of the under-cooks had the cage off Mr. Hewitt, I’ll take it from there.”

“And hearing about the Forsythia Club has given me an idea,” said Violet. “If we still want to find out what Mrs. Vaughn’s doing on this ship but don’t want to risk being alone with her—I know how we can go information-digging in public. Though I may need some bribery money, Hawthorn.”

“You’re an heiress,” said Hawthorn. “Provide your own bribes.”

“Heiress-to-be,” said Violet sweetly. “You’ll give Maud a loan to buy a bushel of pornography, but you won’t extend one to me in the name of the greater good? Pay up, my lord. I promise you’ll be very entertained tomorrow, one way or another.”

Hawthorn looked at her. Possibly calculating, as Maud was, whether Violet had ever been less than entertaining for more than a few minutes at a time. Or possibly calculating the interest he intended to charge on the loan.

Eventually he sighed, hard, through his nose. “Money, cheque, or jewels?”

One of the guiding principles of Violet’s life, since she’d slipped out the kitchen door at midnight three years ago, was this: don’t ask what if, unless to compare yourself favourably. When lying awake debating whether to use the sparks of your magic to kill cockroaches or drive back the damp, think deliberately about the ways in which life could be worse .

A cruel husband, say, or a dull one, or one determined to keep redrafting the lines around his wife—smaller and smaller each time. Magic used only to hide faded spots on curtains or add lustre to the guidelights dotted across a dinner table.

All the stories, all the wonder, slowly stifling for lack of air—until all that was left was a tall blond woman with lines on her brow, an illusion of Violet within which dwelled the anxious spirit of her mother.

Those thoughts made Violet’s reckless decision to run shine all the brighter in her personal history. There was no point in dwelling on the other sorts of what-ifs . They didn’t warm her toes or bring audiences flocking to the theatre.

And yet.

Violet and Maud made their way back to Maud’s cabin without talking. Maud tugged restlessly at the fingers of her evening gloves. Violet wished for a spell that would render Maud’s skull transparent, her thoughts visible. Was Maud, too, dwelling on the members of the Forsythia Club?

Like Violet, those women hadn’t consented to be small. So, half a century before Violet ever packed her midnight bag, they’d taken action. Instead of running they’d planted themselves in their own soil and gone their own way in secret. And in fellowship.

What if . If Violet had been open with her sisters, if she’d allowed Julia or Alice or even Ellen into the darkest fears of her heart, what might have happened?

If she’d had any close friends, girl magicians like herself, what then?

In the cabin Maud pulled the locket’s chain over her neck as Violet warded the door. She took it into the smaller room. Violet heard a low murmur, as if Maud were confiding something in the ghost, and experienced an absurd bolt of jealousy. Maud Blyth’s caring was not hers . It was wide enough to encompass the world.

And it was hard to feel jealous when Maud emerged, neck bare, and came straight to stand in front of Violet with a little sigh. Her finger thoughtfully traced the beaded neckline of Violet’s gown. Both of them, Violet thought, had fallen into Beth and Flora’s story and were still in it up to their waists: a fast-flowing river of regret and loyalty and the years of a life rushing past you.

Violet wouldn’t let herself die regretting a moment on this ship.

“What’s next on that list of yours, O honoured general?” She spread her arms, laughing, inviting. “I’m yours to command.”

Maud didn’t laugh in return. She inhaled sharply, and a sliver of space appeared between her lips. “Are you?”

Maud’s eyes were ravenous. The room shrank around them. Violet’s skin became a size too tight as she registered the question. Not for a fortune could she have done anything but nod.

“You have to say no,” said Maud, a tumbled rush. “If it’s something you don’t want, you have to tell me…”

Violet opened her mouth to dryly say, Of course . But—it would be easy, wouldn’t it, to perform the cool and experienced Violet Debenham? The girl who would strive to be as scandalous as possible, even for an audience of one?

Violet had let several people take that version of herself to bed. If she ran her fingers through those memories, it might take her some time to untangle how much of it she’d actually, truly wanted .

“Yes. I’ll tell you.”

Maud’s smile was a burst of light that Violet could nearly feel on her lips. She licked them. Their bodies swayed, untouching but hotly aware. The kiss that was surely coming swam in the air between them.

Maud said, “Undress, please?”

Violet smiled. “Shall I make a show of it?”

“No,” said Maud. “No. I don’t want you to perform at all.”

Maud’s body thrummed with fine movement: the rapid tap of her fingers against her own leg. The tension made little sense, but it was bleeding into Violet, and finally Maud’s words settled home.

No performance at all.

No wonder Maud had insisted on Violet being able to say no. By agreeing to this, Violet was agreeing to be herself, Violet, alone. To set down her characters and mannerisms, her illusions and voices.

Undress.

Yes, quite.

“I know it’s not a small thing. For you.” Maud spoke into Violet’s hesitation. “But I need it. I need to be sure that I—that this is what you want. I couldn’t bear it if this was only pretend.”

“I’ve never had to pretend to want you, Maud Blyth.”

It sounded like a contract, spoken and witnessed. Violet reached for the first of the buttons in the small of her back.

It took effort. It was hard not to make it playful or deliberately attractive. Violet had done striptease on the stage; she’d done it in the office of the producer she approached, hollow-bellied, before she found the Penumbra; she’d done it for lovers, in private. The attention of one’s audience was a ray of light. Performance was both protection and reward.

This, now, was the undressing of being so comfortable with someone that protection was unnecessary. It was more intimate than the roll of a stocking down one’s leg.

Maud sat on the edge of the bed and watched. Violet didn’t look at her directly, but those small movements were still there in the periphery, making Maud’s presence impossible to forget. Fiddling with her skirts. Air-tapping the foot of one leg crossed over the other.

“Stop,” Maud said finally.

Violet was down to chemise and drawers, and had taken down her hair. Her drawers were a longer style than Maud’s, airy angles of fabric that brushed the knees.

She stopped.

“Come here.”

Soft, and not harsh, but it wasn’t a question and she’d not said please . Violet went, flush with awareness and wanting. Even the act of walking felt awkward without performance. How did Violet Debenham move her arms, her legs?

“Maud?”

“I’m thinking.”

Maud’s voice was cool as shadowed grass. Violet remembered Maud saying, I’m not naturally good.

Saying, I know how to unravel someone.

Violet wanted, with a sudden thrill of desire, to know what happened when Maud Blyth allowed herself to be a little mean .

“Now undress me.” Maud slid off the bed and turned her back. A curl of brown hair wilted down the side of her neck. Some of the gauze overskirt had caught on its own embroidery, puckering into a fold. Maud had a small scab on one elbow. Violet noted detail after detail as she unwrapped the gorgeous trappings of Miss Cutler, laying the garments over a chair, to reveal the soft body of Maud beneath.

She undid the garter clips that hung from Maud’s corset and attached to the stockings. Maud sat back on the bed so that Violet could kneel and remove her shoes. They were black and pink, with two small pearl buttons securing the strap.

“It’s not that I don’t love watching you perform,” Maud said all at once, as if the words had been straining at a leash. “I do . I love watching you more than anything. I can’t stop thinking about the first night, when you frigged yourself in front of me, and—and what might have happened even before that, if I hadn’t burst in and interrupted you and Lord Hawthorn. What it would be like to watch you come apart on someone else’s fingers, or—or prick.”

And how was Violet meant to keep calmly tugging a stocking free of Maud’s toes when Maud was saying things like that? For the sake of her composure, she didn’t look up, but she raised her eyebrows pointedly. Maud hadn’t told her to keep quiet, but Violet didn’t want to discourage Maud from speaking. Though she’d been enjoying the silence too—the better to hear the betraying catch of Maud’s breath when Violet’s fingers lingered against her skin.

Or now, when Violet set the stocking aside and brushed her thumbs up and down the front of Maud’s shins. Something about the sight of Maud’s bared feet, the blue veins there, made tenderness mingle with the tightening knot of need in Violet’s belly.

Violet shuddered with the first touch of Maud’s hand in her hair. It was neither hesitant nor soft. Maud’s fingers slid against her scalp like the wide teeth of a comb, and Violet closed her eyes. Her cunt ached with demand. She wanted so badly to touch herself, and from what Maud had said—

But when she reached for the folds of her drawers, meaning to delve beneath, Maud’s hand tightened in her hair. Violet stopped and looked up.

Kneeling. It was rather an obvious position. And Maud had a list; Maud had read a lot . Including those purple Roman pamphlets, which, for all that they only featured men, played very obviously with restraints and power.

But Maud said, “Show me something magical.”

With the word restraint echoing in her mind, the spell came easily to Violet’s fingers. It felt right to use it this time in a place of joy and pleasure. She cradled the night-sky rope she’d used on Clarence and sent it climbing Maud’s beautiful bare legs.

“Oh,” breathed Maud, and “ oh, ” more guttural, as Violet tightened the rope’s grip. She wanted it firm enough not to tickle at all. She wanted Maud to feel it like Violet’s own hands.

Up, and a curl around Maud’s waist; and higher, until it could wrap lovingly down her arms as well. Not binding limbs together but decorating Maud’s body like ivy coaxed around a lamppost.

“Yes?” said Violet.

“ Please .” Maud lay back on the bed. She was breathing in tight little gasps. Her legs were splayed. The ropes curled lazily and lushly slow around her.

Maud had given Violet permission to perform in this small way, but it didn’t feel like performance. Violet was inhabiting her own magic with the same pure, greedy joy that she’d felt as a girl, even if there was nothing childish about the slide of sparkling shadow around Maud’s plump thighs and up beneath the white fabric. Heat clenched in Violet’s cunt at the sight.

Violet let her hands ease apart. The ropes parted Maud’s legs farther and wrapped around her wrists.

“Tell me to hold you down like this,” said Violet. “Maud. Tell me to keep you pinned and make you scream.”

Maud made a sound like she’d tried to swallow a whine. The stretch of her neck gleamed with sweat. Violet would be ruined for written erotica for the rest of her life. No lurid fantasy would ever hold a candle to the way Maud looked now and the power humming hot in Violet’s hands.

“I want…” Maud managed to lift her head. Her eyes were green fire. “I want…”

“Yes?”

“Far too many things. But I want to touch you most of all. Always.”

It’s how you know the world . Violet cast a quick negation, and the ropes vanished. She’d been doing this from her knees; they clicked as she stood.

“Let’s get the rest of these clothes off you.” She helped Maud to stand again and divested her of corset and drawers. Only the chemise was left, a body-warm promise as Violet took hold of its hem.

“Stop,” said Maud.

Violet had never been so aware of two thin layers of fabric separated by a single inch of space. She wanted to rub against something. She was ablaze . Maud laid her palm on Violet’s chest, fingertips on Violet’s collarbone as if reminding herself of landmarks.

“Kiss me. Now, kiss me now, I—”

Violet interrupted her with selfish obedience. She slid her own fingers into Maud’s hair and drew their bodies together hard. It was a kiss fresh and overwhelming as rain, rough at the edges with desperation. Maud clung to her, dug fingers into her flesh, for a small and glorious eternity. Then pulled back with a little jolt.

“Fuck me.” The word fell over Maud’s lower lip with defiance, as if she’d had to give it a shove.

“I can fetch—” Violet started, but Maud shook her head.

“No. No. Just you.”

Violet bent and kissed Maud’s shoulder. Opened her mouth, glorying in the sugar-salt of skin. Scraped her teeth. “All right.”

Violet guided Maud onto the bed, then knelt in front of her. She helped Maud bend and lift one leg, her lower body angled a little to the side, chemise rucked up to her waist, exposing her sex so that Violet could shift forward and slot her own against it. This took a few bitten-off curses as Violet shoved the layers of her own drawers aside, trying to get the garment’s opening lined up. Maud began to laugh, but didn’t suggest that Violet remove them, and Violet was by now a line of gunpowder awaiting a flame; a spell anchored to one spot, awaiting the clause that would trigger it.

Both of them gasped when flesh met flesh. One or both of them was already wet enough to make the grinding motion easy and slick. Violet hooked the pale weight of Maud’s leg over her own hip.

“Mm.” Maud closed her eyes. Her fingers flexed on the bedclothes. “ Oh . I could do this for hours.”

“That might be a tad—ambitious,” Violet managed.

A smile widened Maud’s mouth. “Are you surprised, by now?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Heat lay over Violet’s shoulders like a cloak with the sun sewn into it. She ran a flat palm up Maud’s belly, pausing to circle her navel with a single finger, then farther up to rest beneath Maud’s breasts.

“All right?” Violet said, soft.

This time the mm was syrupy, satisfied, further from words. Maud’s stomach rose and fell beneath Violet’s arm.

Violet drew her hand down Maud’s body again, exerting more pressure, and at the same time moved her hips in a savage circle. The air was loud with their breathing, each inhalation a rasp of sweet frustration. The folds of Maud’s cunt were too soft, too yielding, against the part of Violet that demanded something firm. She lost patience and shoved her hand down between them.

“Oh, yes, please, you can—inside me—please,” Maud panted, and Violet slid two fingers straight into the throbbing heat, angling her thumb where she could push against it herself.

Maud’s leg clenched tight over Violet’s hip, the other suddenly curling in too as if to keep Violet pinned tight against her. The tear-bright look on Maud’s face as she shook her way into orgasm was enough to haul Violet along with her a few moments later, frantically riding the heel of her own hand to drag out the waves of pleasure.

After that, Violet assumed they were done for the night. Maud, practically glowing with satisfaction, proved her wrong. She sat up and gestured impatiently for Violet to lie down, and Violet hissed at the first touch of Maud’s fingers down where she was sensitive and soaked. Her hips twitched of their own volition.

Maud said, “Show me something magical, Violet.”

The note in her voice—God, God, Violet had cast this all wrong from the beginning. In this moment Maud was Cleopatra. Alexander. She could have pulled armies to their knees.

Violet said, hoarse, “Tell me what you want.”

Maud smiled like a catastrophe. “Illusion. I want to see if you can hold it.”

There were illusions that the magicians of the Penumbra created and regretfully had to put aside. Illusions that would stretch even the bounds of a theatre audience’s credulity. Violet brought her pleasure-weak fingers together and summoned all the magic she had left, and began to work.

Scarlet fish the size of plane leaves swam in the air around Maud’s head, their scales glittering in scattered flecks of silver and bronze and green. Maud scrunched up her nose when one flicked its tail near her face. But her delighted eyes returned to Violet’s face, and her fingers moved with deadly care and intent.

I want to see if you can hold it.

Maud watched people. Noticed things. Maud had learned that Violet unravelled for firm hard strokes delivered right in the wake of release, pleasure so sharp it crossed into pain.

One fish wavered as if seen through rain. Violet wanted more than anything to screw her eyes shut and simply feel her own tightening need, but she’d lose the illusion entirely if she did. She’d lose the game.

“They are lovely,” said Maud, all earnestness now. Her thumb moved in brisk circles. The unbearable need to move trickled like hot candle wax down Violet’s legs.

Power could take the place of precision. Falling apart, Violet forced the illusion to live by pouring magic from the heart of her, more and more—a school of brilliant glimmering colour moving faster and faster around Maud’s head and shoulders—until even that gave out, and Violet’s skin seized, and the fish vanished as Violet sobbed and cursed, dropping the cradles in favour of clutching at the bedcovers. Too much. Too much for one body. She’d have to be as wide as the horizon to hold it all.

When her breaths were the size of a rib cage, not an ocean, she lifted her head. Maud was curled up with her folded arms resting on Violet’s pelvis. Her gaze was wild and certain and full of fireworks. Her heartbeat was palpable through the places they touched. Her fingers tapped on the side of Violet’s hip.

Pipes and drums, Violet thought. She felt stripped away and exhausted. She felt new.

Thank you, said Maud. Soundless, just her lips moving.

Then she dropped her head, as if the strings of her own masterful act had been cut, and buried her face in Violet’s bare stomach.

No matter what happens between us, Violet thought numbly, I will never be rid of this moment. I will carry it always.

If she’d told herself a year ago that she’d find herself here, she might have smiled to hear about some of it. But she wouldn’t have known what to do with this part. This stirring of a drowsy thing in her chest made of soft wax and the smell of honey. The utter strangeness of yearning for something that she’d had —and had thoroughly, at that. Of being in a bed with a beautiful girl and still feeling her heart ache like a muscle long unstretched. She wanted to tell Maud stories and have her laugh at them, to flirt with her over coffee and watch her wander around rooms, thinking with the roaming of her fingertips.

And maybe Violet would again be easy to abandon, and maybe she’d end up with yet more rings on her hands to remind her of it.

Maud straightened and lifted a hand to smother a yawn. Brown hair billowed around her shoulders like the densest London fog, and she absently touched the top of her breastbone, as if aware of the locket’s absence.

Better thumb rings, surely, than jewellery worn as a reminder that every day you ached and loved and settled for less than what you wanted.

“What is it?” Maud said.

Nothing was on Violet’s tongue, but Maud had requested truth from her, tonight.

So Violet reached for Maud’s hand, lifted the inner wrist to her mouth, and kissed it. It wasn’t an answer. It was truth, withheld. Maud smiled, and in her smile was the fact that she’d noticed and let it go.