The Architect of Song (Haunted Hearts Legacy Book 1) (34 page)

I laughed and rubbed my hips, the netted bustle doing little to ease the pain. A gust of wind caught several tendrils of hair, tugged loose from my braid by our dancing, and lifted them across my forehead, half blinding me.

Lord Thornton removed my off-kilter hat and pitched it to the bench opposite the one holding his cane and cap. The moment had taken a serious turn. I watched him from behind the golden screen of my hair, afraid to move. Afraid to even breathe.

I didn’t wish to break the spell or risk losing the expression on his face—the same one he exhibited at the garden—troubled enchantment, head tilted to the side like a tamed wolf trying to make sense of its master’s desires.

I paid no mind that we sat alone and unsupervised in the wilds of a forest.

I clenched my hands within my cloak, feeling anticipation more than fear. Clamping a gloved finger in his teeth, Lord Thornton unsheathed one hand and, with as much care as he took tending my wound days before, his fingertips gathered the hair stretched over my eyes and tucked it behind my ear.

His touch almost burned my half-frozen earlobe. Startled by the sensation, I sucked in a breath of icy air. This brought him to focus on my mouth with those irises of shade and ice … of liquid and smoke … a paradox, so much like the man who owned them.

His lips moved then, such a slight flux I had to strain to read. “Sky-fallen angel.”

The words made me think of Hawk, and pricked my conscience. But I didn’t have time to wrestle guilt. The viscount’s gloved hand cupped the braid at my nape and drew me close. His mouth stopped mere inches from mine—an excruciating restraint—and I tasted his scent.

Our breaths formed a cloud, enclosing us in our own world … a world of mist, and wonder, and unexplored expectations.

Surprising me, he tilted my head down so his lips would brush my brow—a pressure so delicate it could have been the rasp of a butterfly’s wing if not for his whiskers scraping me.

He kissed my eyelids, leaving each one tattooed with heat. Even when I opened my lashes, I still felt his mouth there—firm, yet so, so soft.

But it was an illusion, for his mouth was elsewhere, trailing my chin to my cheek. I made a startled sound—a lump that climbed my throat. His lips covered mine and swallowed the cry along with my breath. A prickly warmth replaced the air in my lungs as both of his hands tangled in my braid and slanted my head to deepen the kiss. My own hands opened haplessly beneath my cloak, unable to reach him for the cloth binding them.

He savored me, devoured me, gently sucking my lower lip into his sweet, hot mouth. Somewhere, in the darkest throes of my mind, I imagined that I was lying beneath him, twisting like wildfire, losing myself to his touch as the snow melted to puddles all around us.

The thought slapped me awake.

I jerked back. A string of spittle, sylphlike as spider’s thread, joined us for an instant before breaking.

Motionless, he stared at me, lips shiny and swollen. His panting breath rose between us, shrouding us in white vapor.

“Forgive me.” His dilated pupils showcased an intense state of arousal that mirrored my own. “It is … this place. It’s magic.”

Magic.
No question. I was nothing if not spellbound.

He stood and lifted me to my feet. Using his discarded glove, he slapped white powder from my cloak and skirt as if I were a mussed child in need of preening. I couldn’t control my erratic breath, relieved yet disappointed that he hadn’t sought to lay me out in the snow, to touch me in hungry, secret places.

I hated myself for the fantasy, for betraying Hawk, even if for a moment. Without him here to force my thoughts into seclusion, the desires I’d been suppressing broke loose, as if a thousand wind-blown leaves danced in my blood and skittered through my chest.

My host’s jaw muscle twitched as he led me to sit at the bench where my hat waited. The feathered plume bowed in the chill breeze when he returned it to my head.

He knelt before me. “I used to come here as a boy.” He gestured to the gazebo and slipped into his glove. “Alone, seeking solitude. I would lie on this very bench and look through the roof at the trees overhead. Then I would ask the wind questions of my future, and wait for her to answer through the rustling leaves.”

His face opened on the childish rumination, an expression so rare and lovely I paused to admire him. “This gazebo was here so long ago? Did you not have it built after you acquired the land?”

“No. It’s always been here. Though I carved the symbol on the entrance and added the fountains.”

“So you came with your father? Merril? During your childhood? I thought he had just one job for Lord Larson. The one where he first met your mother, before you were born?” My stomach jittered to brook such an intimate subject. “Might I ask, how is it that he never ran across her again?”

The viscount’s face closed to me then, as if I’d drawn the shutters with my brazenness. He pressed a fist to his lips and I scolded myself, remembering how sweet and tender they felt upon mine. How could I have used my mouth for so insensitive a question?

He dropped his hand. “My father received a letter of Gitana’s death from Aunt Bitti upon my mother’s passing. Lord Larson commissioned him for a project thereafter. My father’s talents as a clockmaker were becoming well-renowned, and he was in high demand. Larson had a special request. He wanted a geometric clock to set upon the turret of his country house—wanted it to be the first of its kind, the largest one in all of England; he was willing to pay Father ten times what he made on his mantle clocks in a year. So we came throughout my youth to work upon it. Larson invited us only in the fall. Made it easier for my father to agree to it, as he knew the gypsies mined only in spring and summer, and he couldn’t bear to see them—to be reminded of her.”

I fought the tears burning my eyes. “You mean to say, you and your father missed Chaine by a mere turn of the season … year after year after year?” The profound tragedy pierced my heart. Hawk would be devastated.

I could never tell him.

The shadows had returned to the viscount’s eyes tenfold, so intense and dark they seemed to bleed from his pupils and infiltrate his irises. He took a place beside me on the bench, propped his elbows on his knees, and looked up into the sky.

We sat silent for a while, as I couldn’t bear to hurt him anymore than I already had with my questions. He harbored such obvious guilt for Hawk’s mistreatment. But try as I might, I had too many other questions that would not be contained.

“How did you ever find your brother?”

Lord Thornton faced me. “Our aunt. She confessed everything to Chaine after they escaped Tobar. Chaine was fourteen then. He spent the next five years searching for us with only our surname to go by. Unfortunately, we were abroad for some time for Father’s health. But finally, Chaine found us … just after Father and I settled at an inn in Worthington.”

I leaned forward, filled with hope. “So … Chaine and Merril met before his mind went lapse?” I thrilled at the thought of having something positive to relay to Hawk.

Jaw clenched, the viscount skated a finger along his thigh then let it drop to the bench between us so he could etch something in the dust of snow. I couldn’t watch his doodling for fear I’d miss the answer to my question.

“No. I met Chaine first, and was so shocked upon seeing him—upon our likenesses—we both worried how it would affect Father, for he had already begun to slip. My brother and I spent half a year getting to know one another in secret. I helped him refine his English and learn the ways of nobility, and he taught me Romani and how to read the lines of an open hand. By the seventh month, we came up with a plan to give Father the news. Together, we painted the portrait of mother hung upon the wall in your chamber—I filled in the colors, and Chaine used his memory for the lines, since I had never seen her. Then we brought the portrait up to Father’s room in the inn, to give him the gift from both of us. But Father’s vision and mind were already too frail. He at first thought the portrait was Gitana’s ghost, sitting before him. Then to see Chaine and me standing side by side next to it, he assumed the oddities a result of his failing eyes. Our voices, speaking to him simultaneously, well … it merely confused him more. He was convinced he was seeing double. He couldn’t grasp it. So, to keep from upsetting him, we hid the portrait and visited him one at a time from that day on. We allowed him to think we were the same man.”

The heaviness in my chest sucked the breath from me. “So … he never accepted he had another son?” I worded my question with care so the viscount wouldn’t know I had overheard the conversation in the sanatorium.

“Only by making up a fantasy in his head … that he had married Gitana and they had two boys. Me, and a younger one. A baby he had never seen. In his delusional world, Gitana and he were married for years. She broke their vows while pregnant with their second son, and went back to Tobar, leaving Father heartsick for his child. A child he wants me to find.”

I swiped away tears with my glove. Now Merril’s erratic rants made perfect sense. Why he called Gitana a whore … why he thought she would come back to him to reunite their family. Poor, confused old man. I wished to ask Lord Thornton why he didn’t sing to his father anymore, as it seemed it might make Merril happy. But I could never explain how I knew such a conversation had taken place.

Lord Thornton stopped drawing in the snow and caught my hand as I brought it away from my eyes. “Thank you for your compassion. I apologize for Father’s behavior the other afternoon. You need never go with me to see him again. I know how unsettling it must be for a lady, to visit a place like that.”

“But I should like to go with you again.”

His lips parted slightly, as if awed by my words. “Truly?”

I squeezed his hand. “Yes. I very much like your father. And I like spending time with you … no matter where we are.” I smiled at the confession. At last I could admit how fond I’d grown of his company over the past few days.

The man seated beside me was generous to his servants, a caring and responsible son to his father, a kind and witty friend to my uncle, and attentive to me. Even when busy with Manor or money matters, he always made time to take me on a pleasant walk through the gardens, or sit with me in the drawing room as I stitched a hat, or visit my boutique and help with the placement of our merchandise. Not to mention his wit and often profound insights. For the life of me, I could not see this great flaw of his—the erratic temper.

The viscount nudged his knee against mine to recoup my attention. I glanced up at him.

“I’m not sure what’s to become of Father now.” He studied our entwined fingers. “He appears to be getting worse.”

I’d seen the look he gave the nurse when the old man spoke of the “other” guest. Guilt resonated within me, a gnawing desire to tell Lord Thornton his father had indeed sensed someone there. That he wasn’t crazier than they thought. But I had no proof; and I would do nothing but risk losing Lord Thornton’s faith in my own sanity, unless I could convince Hawk to reveal himself to his brother. Perhaps their gypsy aunt would help me, if I could garner a moment with her.

I curled my fingers tighter around the viscount’s hand, tried to gather the courage to ask him why his aunt was here and if had to do with Larson, when he stood abruptly. “I think I hear Enya approaching.”

He limped to the other side of the gazebo and gathered his cane, dropping his hat to his head. Then he held out an open palm. “Even if I’m mistaken, we should seek her out. She mustn’t go beyond the walls of the Manor. The horses all know their way, even in the forest. But just on the other side of that rise …” He pointed to a hill in the distance covered with fir trees. “There are decaying mines and hidden springs she might fall into.”

I thought upon Hawk’s fallen corpse somewhere out there, alone and abandoned, and my heart ached.

As we started away from the bench, my hand in Lord Thornton’s, I glanced over my shoulder once more to imprint the image of the gazebo in my mind, so I might never forget my first tangible kiss—flesh to flesh.

From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the picture the viscount had etched in the snow on the seat, drawn with precision and mastery.

It was a bird with a broken wing.

“You are sure a sound came from up there?”

I stood on my bed in my chambers—half-dressed in my sleeveless chemise and pantlets—staring at the domed ceiling alongside Hawk. Once more, my ghost was insistent that the townhouse had an attic. I still thought it impossible, due to the shape of the plaster above us.

His eyes grew round and he pointed toward his mother’s painting. “I hear it again. Over there this time. Almost as if it’s in the wall.” Sunset had fallen, and being on the east side of the house, my room grew dark. To compensate, the servants always had a fire burning in my fireplace by mid-afternoon.

The flames reflected along the walls and Gitana’s image in shimmering slices of light. My attention caught on the symbol camouflaged in the portrait’s background. The symbol it shared with the gate. I rubbed the locket beneath my chemise’s low ruffled neck, considering what the viscount had told me of the rune’s meaning.