A Restless Truth (The Last Binding #2)

Chapter 33

33

The four-poster bed seemed to taunt Violet as she and Maud dressed. Not for sexual reasons, this time. She remembered how soft and inviting its pillows were. Nerve-racking events made Violet want to nap .

No. They had to get hold of the bloody bowl, or all of this would have been for nothing.

Both of them picked out the dresses they’d worn on the very first night aboard. The indigo blue was Violet’s finest; and though Violet preferred the silver-grey, she couldn’t deny that the sunset pink set off Maud’s complexion gorgeously.

They helped each other with buttons and laces, Violet formed braids back from Maud’s temples and looped them into the pinned pile of her hair, and they threw ideas back and forth. Dorian and his cage might be on display during the dinner that preceded the dancing, or they might not. The lottery would involve small bits of paper. They had Violet’s magic—what else could they use? The Pipes and Drums? Lord Albert? A kangaroo?

Violet slid her entire collection of rings into her evening bag.

“This is your last night to create scandal, Miss Debenham,” said Maud. “Are you sure you don’t wish to attend with short hair and a moustache?”

Violet, tugging on her gloves, laughed. “We are Lord Hawthorn’s strumpets, and we were abducted by murderous jewel thieves. We’re already going to have enough attention to make getting our hands on this bowl a trial. Here, look at me. Should we cover up those battle wounds of yours?”

She cupped Maud’s face, lifting it to her own. The split in Maud’s lower lip had scabbed over. The memory of Chapman’s blood kept trying to climb into Violet’s throat, but she shoved it down.

“I don’t know much healing,” added Violet. “I’m better at greasepaint.”

“We could ask Mrs.—” Maud’s hand faltered, reaching for the sunflower locket that wasn’t there. Her face fell. Violet let her hands drop.

“I really am sorry,” Violet said quietly.

“I know.” Maud chewed her lip. She was going to reopen the cut. “Violet, if you hadn’t thought of the locket—if it really was a choice between giving up the contract and letting them hurt me, what would you have done?”

Violet had no idea what answer Maud wanted. She had even less idea of what the truth was.

Maud went on, “I didn’t tell you all the details of how Walter Courcey ended up with the coin, did I? Edwin made the bargain, for Robin’s safety—and mine—and gambled that it was better to be safe and free, and able to plan for the next battle.” Her fingers hovered over her bruised cheek, then fell. “I don’t know if I’d be able to do that. If it would have occurred to me. It certainly didn’t occur to Robin .” A self-deprecating flicker. “We’re not great thinkers, we Blyths.”

“If I’d done the same…”

“I could hardly have blamed you,” said Maud. “It would have made the next few battles harder, but I would have understood. And probably been grateful, once I’d stopped shouting at you, that you’d consider me worth it.”

Violet said with absolute honesty, “I don’t know what I’d have done.”

Now it was Maud looking at the bed. She didn’t look tired. Violet had never seen tired on Maud Blyth; she looked entirely alert until she slept, when she looked as though she might never wake.

“When we…” A slight blush. “Last night, I thought, I could tell her to do anything, and she would . Anything.” Her eyes cut to Violet with undoing speed. “Because the more outlandish it was, the more outrageous my request, the better a shield you’d have for the truth.”

“But you didn’t,” said Violet, careful.

“No. I told you to put the shield down.”

“You told me I could say no.”

Maud chewed her lip again. Violet curled her hands to stop them from reaching out to stop her.

Violet said, “Is this an apology?”

A moment’s hesitation, and Maud shook her head.

“Do you wish you’d asked for something else?”

“No,” said Maud. “But now I can’t stop thinking about how far I could push you.”

Maud, with her lists . Only Maud had ever looked at Violet with this hunger that veiled itself in nothing at all, unashamed and ceaselessly questioning. Violet smoothed her gloves for the fourth time, and her skin cried out for more.

They were fully dressed. They should be leaving. They would be late for dinner.

Violet said, “Give me an example.”

Maud’s face was florid pink, like the first time she’d stepped out from Hawthorn’s bedchamber with her eyes screwed shut. As if, even now, she was picturing something that she was too well-bred to put words to.

Maud said, “You mentioned tying me down and making me scream. I’d like to see you try that. And I liked watching you do magic, and especially liked making you unable to hold it. I think… I could ask you to stay silent, and then see how loud I could convince you to be.”

Now Violet was picturing it. Maud had learned a lot in a few days. And if it were a competition—if she were again doing her determined best to make Violet lose control—

“Fuck,” Violet said. “You shouldn’t be allowed loose in the world.”

“And then—”

“No. Stop talking now, or I will tie you to the bed and fuck you in the ruin of that dress, balls and bowls be damned.”

Maud looked delighted that Violet had met her ante and raised it. Her smile was a promise and her posture loosened.

Violet’s need loosened too. Now it was a yearning only partly to do with Maud’s skin and Maud’s laugh and the way Maud’s upper lip looked as though someone had dented its centre with the press of a finger. Violet wanted to curl up in a window-seat and just talk . She wanted to ask Maud, who was frequently terrified but never defeated, what she thought happened after death. Whether she feared it, or saw it as another quest, or a boat suspended on the world with no land in sight.

“Shall we be going?” said Maud.

“We don’t have a plan yet,” Violet pointed out.

“I know.” Maud’s collarbones rose and fell as she shrugged, shifting her necklace of golden lilies set with tiny seed pearls. “Let’s start by getting ourselves into the room with Dorian’s cage, and go from there. Between us, we’re not bad at thinking on our feet.” A sudden grin. “If all else fails, I’ll go and weep all over Lord Hawthorn until he’s forced to help. Or trade all of Mr. Ross’s pornography back in exchange for him stealing Dorian from the winner.”

“ All of it?” Violet said, mock-appalled.

“I can make sacrifices too. Besides”—with a wicked fleeting dimple as Maud turned to the door, which made Violet’s entire chest seize like corset laces—“I’ve read most of it by now.”

The tables in the dining saloon were crammed along the sides of the room like timid wallflowers, allowing for dancing in the centre. No pattern-dances were possible because of the pillars, and it was a far cry from the lofty-ceilinged ballrooms that Maud had set foot in before; but the air was gilded with chandelier light and someone had opened a hatch leading out to the narrow strip of deck, so that the evening air could breathe coolly into the body-press heat. An aviary of gorgeously plumed passengers chattered and laughed as they ate and drank and moved around the room.

Maud took her lottery ticket from the steward at the entrance and gave it to Violet, who committed both numbers to memory before stowing them in her bag.

Even more than usual, eyes followed them from the doorway. They left a churned-up wake of murmuring as they went. Maud had expected it, but her skin still felt sensitive to the force of so many glances. She’d never been so grateful for the granite-solid nature of Violet’s act. Violet kept her chin high and didn’t modulate her laughter, and allowed herself to be drawn into a breathless and only slightly fabricated version of their terrifying chase and abduction.

Maud drank water, and ate poached sole in butter sauce, and thought about the fact she still hadn’t asked how Violet was feeling; Violet, who’d killed her second man with a spell that opened throats, and who’d looked frighteningly blank afterwards.

She didn’t think Violet would lie to her. And Maud had only now realised, far too late, how much power she had demanded by asking Violet to lay down her shield. It was undeserved. It was more than she’d bargained for. More than a contract should allow one person to steal.

Violet might wear her sparkling recklessness well, but beneath it she was careful, careful, careful. Maud was not; but she would learn to be. She would choose to be, as she chose every day to be generous and kind and all the other things that defied the coiled snake of her inherited nature.

After the meal they strolled out onto the deck. There were fewer people outside than Maud had expected, explaining the crush of the saloon. Light spatters of rain were whipped against them by the wind. No stars. A grudging glow from the shrouded moon.

“Ugh,” said Violet. “So much for fresh air.”

Maud dragged in another lungful anyway. “I rather like it.”

“I don’t think inspiration is going to strike us out here,” said Violet. “And they’re setting up for the lottery.”

Back inside, Maud’s eyes leapt from person to person. One of the Boston sisters was fanning the other, both of them talking at once. Maud had to gather her skirts to inch around the possible honeymooners, who’d pulled their chairs close and were giggling together. The red-haired woman wore a gown with gorgeous lace ruffles, and the man’s moustache was more lopsided than ever. What would they do if they won an African Grey with an unfortunate vocabulary?

Maud was wondering with some bemusement whether the best strategy mightn’t be marching up to the winner, whomever they turned out to be, and asking outright to buy Dorian back—in memory of her poor dead aunt, et cetera—when Violet’s hand closed on her arm.

“ Look, ” said Violet.

Maud followed her gaze. There were a lot of people in that direction.

“It’s worth a try,” Violet murmured before Maud could ask. “Give me a moment.”

The man she approached had a short blond beard and a scarlet coat—almost a military style, trimmed in black and gold. Violet’s manner was at its most flirtatious, commanding his attention. It wasn’t until he kissed Violet’s proffered hand that Maud recognised him as the young man who’d approached them during the carnival and spoken in another language.

Violet fished in her bag. The man fished inside the front of his wonderful red coat. The two of them shook hands, as if closing a business deal.

Maud almost laughed, as another of Robin’s visions fell into place. She could feel the humour on her mouth as Violet took her leave and returned to Maud.

“Oh, well done, Harriet.”

“It may come to nothing. It might be as disastrous as follow ing the motorcar vision was. But one doesn’t see a red coat on a man very often.”

“Climbing into the motorcar was a perfectly sound idea,” Maud protested. “It wasn’t Robin’s fault that they put a tracking rune on you.”

“Yes.” Violet made a face and looked around. “I’ll find Clarence and have him remove the rune tonight. Even if Morris is lying low, I don’t enjoy knowing that he could follow me around whenever he fancies.”

The bearded man now bowed in their direction, and Violet kissed her fingers to him. “Nice boy,” she said. “I hope my ticket wins him a lovely bottle of port.”

“What did you tell him? I hope you didn’t promise to become a tsarina after all.”

“I told him,” said Violet solemnly, “that during Mrs. Moretti’s séance, a spirit informed me it was vastly important we should trade tickets. I think his English stretched that far. He seemed rather tickled by the idea, in any case.”

Sadly, Violet’s ticket didn’t win the gentleman anything. A case of wine, a season ticket to the Royal Opera and another to a Broadway theatre, a pretty standing clock, and several White Star Line souvenirs were handed out to men and women who waved their tickets triumphantly in the air.

Finally came the late addition to the list of prizes—“ An amusing and lively creature, ladies and gentlemen, generously donated by Mr. Frank Bernard! ”—and Maud stifled a leap of delight when Violet lifted ticket number 172 and strode to the area in front of the fidgeting orchestra to collect her prize.

She brought Dorian, cage and all, back to where Maud stood. All of Maud’s effort went into looking merely amused that her friend had serendipitously won the parrot that had once been hers, instead of allowing any of her elation to creep onto her face.

It was there. The cup of the Last Contract was right there. Maud was past carelessness: that bowl was going to be on her person from now until the moment she could put it into Edwin’s hands.

“Oh!” she said, as if it had just occurred to her. “Miss Broadley can use it for her nightingale song after all! Here, Violet, let me…”

Maud opened the cage door and extracted first the food bowl—full of nuts and fresh grapes, she was glad to see—and then the water bowl. Then Dorian, who hopped onto Maud’s gloved fingers with as much condescension as a duchess accepting a footman’s assistance down from a carriage.

Violet hoisted the empty cage and swept her way back to the performance area, where she made a production of offering Miss Broadley the prop. She held the eyes of the room effortlessly, and the singer—radiant in a white gown with opalescent beading—accepted it with a deep, ironic curtsy. There was a smattering of applause—mostly, Maud thought, because the crowd was in the mood to applaud.

“I’d offer to duet with you, Miss Broadley,” said Violet, projecting her smokiest tones, “but you may have heard that the kind of songs I’m used to aren’t exactly of the classical calibre.”

Laughter as well as applause, this time. Nobody had attention to spare for Maud emptying the silver water bowl into the pot of the nearest standing fern and then slipping it into the deep pocket that was the main reason she’d chosen this evening gown over all the others.

“Maud?”

“Helen! Good evening.”

“Good evening.” There was a stubborn angle to Helen’s chin. Maud braced herself for yet more questions about the séance—Helen deserved to ask, if anyone did—but Helen simply looked at Dorian, face softening. “I am sorry we couldn’t take him. If Miss Debenham doesn’t have room for him, please do ask her to write to me before she sells him to a collector. I’m sure I could wriggle around Mama somehow.”

“We’d better hope Violet doesn’t teach him any music-hall songs in the meantime,” said Maud.

Helen giggled and reached out a finger to scratch the side of Dorian’s neck. The parrot gave a chirrup of approval and stretched his head towards her.

“You could write to me too,” said Helen. “I’d love to show you the menagerie when they’re properly settled in and happy, not shut up in crates.”

Or racing around the ship under the direction of a Pied Piper charm. Maud felt a glow of affection for the girl, who could have decided that their tentative friendship was too much bother now that Maud had turned into even more of a flypaper for scandal.

“Here,” said Maud. “Would you hold him for me, during the singing? I have the start of a headache. I think I’ll duck out and get some air.”

“Isn’t it raining?” Helen asked, though she was already reaching out, her smile widening. Dorian followed his food bowl, stepping from Maud’s wrist to Helen’s, and even closed his eyes in avian pleasure when Helen scratched his neck again.

“I’m sure the rain’s stopped by now,” said Maud.

She was surprised to find that it actually had. The night air hung heavy and cleanly damp. Miss Broadley had begun to sing, and the caramel-smooth notes followed Maud out through the hatch. She stood on deck a while, listening, shivering with pleasure at the music.

She didn’t have a headache, but she did want to be alone with the fact that she’d done what Robin needed her to do. She touched the bowl, solid and real in her pocket. She tipped her head back and counted the few stars that dared to peek through the clearing clouds.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and Maud turned to see Violet holding two glasses of champagne, one of which she handed to Maud with an arch smile. Violet touched a finger to her lips as if they were schoolgirls getting away with something at a grand adult party.

They toasted, the clink of glasses dissolving into the throb of opera and engine and water against the side of the ship. The champagne was lukewarm, sweeter than any Maud had tasted before, but the bubbles tickled teasingly at her lips as she drank two good swallows.

“I left Dorian with Helen,” she told Violet. “Did she find you? I—”

The deck rose and fell beneath Maud’s feet with sudden insistence. She reached out to steady herself, found nothing, and fumbled the half-empty glass. It fell to the deck and shattered with a ting that sent splinters of white sound into Maud’s temples.

“Oh, dear.” The voice was not any of Violet’s many voices. It was soft, it was sweet, and it quavered with age. “You’re not used to drinking, are you, Miss Blyth? You don’t look well at all.”

Maud couldn’t focus her eyes. The blurred column in front of her still looked like Violet. Maud smelled musty roses. It was all wrong. Her entire body tried to pull away and again she stumbled over her shoe, over the hem of her skirt. This time she almost fell.

She was prevented by a grip beneath her arm, supporting and inescapable. Papery skin. Maud shuddered. Above her head the few brave stars spun in sickening circles.

“Now, now,” said that sweet voice. “Can’t have you taking a tumble, can we? Let’s find you somewhere to sit down.”