The Architect of Song (Haunted Hearts Legacy Book 1) (43 page)

“Remember, how I told you that Tobar was excluded from Chaine and Larson’s card game on that fated night?” Hawk went on, unaware of my suffering. “Well, Tobar was furious. No doubt he thought Larson was holding out on him. So while Chaine was bettering Larson in a game of cards at the tavern, Tobar visited the estate and broke into Larson’s country house to steal his handwritten ledgers … records that not only exposed Larson as the anonymous owner of the tavern, but provided a decade’s worth of names … men Larson had hoodwinked into financial ruin. Tobar planned on blackmailing Larson with the information. What he didn’t plan on, was me being at the estate for the very same reason. I saw him coming out the back door. My brother never knew what transpired next. This is why I needed to return from the dead … to tell him where to find the ledgers.”

A cold sweat dotted my brow, and my surroundings became dusted with black fuzz. But I could not give in. I had to relay Hawk’s message to Chaine once I was found.
If I was found
…

“Chaine and I were to meet in this very spot beside the witch tree after he got the deed and I found the proof to blackmail Larson. Chaine had drawn pictures of Tobar, ugly and twisted as the man himself. I knew it was him the moment I saw him leave Larson’s home. And he recognized me as well. Or thought he did. He came at me with a knife, intent on killing the bastard son he had abused for so many years. The one who had escaped at the age of fourteen.”

My vision blurred and I couldn’t swallow for the stomach acid burning my throat. I squeezed the locket and a lightning sharp pain radiated through my arm. Hot and cold raced through me. I clenched my teeth in an effort to stay conscious.

“We struggled. Tobar stabbed my chest with the knife. I’d been holding Chaine’s watch within my breast pocket, until he finished cheating Larson. The blade dented it, broke the face, but protected my heart. I bent forward, feigned injury, then snapped up and cracked Tobar’s chin with my cane. As he slumped to the ground in a daze, I took the ledgers filled with Larson’s sins and set off on my horse for the witch tree. I had just shoved the pouch into the tree’s mouth as Tobar’s mare broke through the bush. When he arrived, I made it look as if I’d tossed the ledgers into the mineshaft.

“There was a rope and pulley system leading in and out of the tunnel. Tobar took the contraption down to retrieve his prize. It was the perfect opportunity to make him pay for all the years of misery my brother lived. The fitting place for the gypsy king to meet his end. I was about to follow him when Chaine came upon the scene. He tried to stop me, fearing for me, but I was so drunk and set on revenge I could think of nothing else. My brother and I argued. He clenched my jacket, trying to shake some sense into me. Then we both heard a sound behind us. Larson’s spying provided just the distraction I needed. I broke free from Chaine and took the plunge, riding the rope to the bottom.”

Nausea rushed through me, a roiling snarl in my stomach.

“Tobar and I fought in the tunnel,” Chaine reached the ugly conclusion. “A cave-in resulted, and crushed us both. Chaine climbed down to find me, but he was too late. I was dying, and had only strength enough to make him promise to live my dream, and to bring my spirit back. I took my last breath upon those words.”

I wept as the morbid scene unfolded in my mind; yet in the same instant, the weight of Chaine’s guilt lifted off of my chest as if it sprouted wings and took to the sky. Shivering, I could no longer hide my pain. “My arm …” Black speckles dotted my vision.

In a blink Hawk was at my side. He dunked his hand in the water then felt my forehead. “You’re feverish. Just hold on Juliet. I hear horses in the distance.” A worried wrinkle etched his brow.

I tried to smile, but groaned instead. “You’re lying. There’s fear behind your eyes.”

Another gut-twisting jolt shot through me. The black fog swarmed me. My body fell lax, and the locket slipped through my fingers into the water below.

Six times I had watched dawn come into this room, but never one as dark as this. For not once in my stay here, not once in the prior weeks at my home in Claringwell since Mama’s burial, had I faced a morning without my ghost.

Propped on a feather pillow, I touched my neck, devoid of the locket I’d lost forever in the mines. My gaze wandered to the terrarium on the Secretaire. Seeing the barren stem, the spattering of the last seven petals withered and black upon the wooden base—scored my insides. As if the very air I breathed sprouted thorns and raked me from within.

I’d spent the night abed, in and out of consciousness. Never lucid enough to ask any questions. This morning, I would have everything answered. Enya sat next to my bed, reading. She was to be my informant.

Unfortunately, my chamber danced with activity: maids tending my every whim, butlers carrying in bouquets of flowers from Chaine and my uncle in their absence, Miss Abbot spooning porridge into my unwilling mouth, Enya fluffing my pillows beneath me and laying compresses on my shoulder.

The Manor’s physician flitted in to check my stitched shin and shovel bitter medicine down my throat. I’d already decided I spared no affection for him. The one memory I had of my arrival back to the Manor yesterday centered around the red-haired rooster-faced man and his conclusion my shoulder was out of socket. With all the tenderness of an insolent child forcing a square peg into a round hole, he popped my bone back into place.

I had screamed. I knew it was loud by the tension on my vocal cords and the startled looks on everyone’s faces. Uncle and Chaine had stood in the corner, both of them holding their hats in their hands, their coloring green as algae. Tears steamed Chaine’s cheeks … just to see me suffer so.

I had the passing thought of how it would be one day when I gave birth to our children, as I imagined such pain would be tenfold.

I hadn’t yet told Chaine that I would bear his sons and daughters. But I had decided it yesterday upon my rescue from the mine.

For I
remembered
.

I remembered how he lowered himself into the shaft with afternoon sunlight splaying behind him like an angel’s halo; I remembered thinking of the courage it took to face his childhood nightmare—the rats, the darkness, the demons—yet he had insisted he be the one to save me.

No one told me of his insistence. No one needed to. I saw how the determination stormed in his eyes as he wrapped me in his coat and tied the rope around us both, how it throbbed in the thudding of his heart as he held tight to me, kissing the top of my head while the others lifted us out.

And I knew in that moment I would share the rest of my life with him.

Which led to the question I wished to ask Enya. Where were Chaine and my uncle now? The two men who loved me most in this world had yet to visit me this morn. It left a very unsettled feeling in my gut, compounded by the agony of Hawk’s absence.

I couldn’t believe I would never see my ghost again. I could not make peace with it or risk breaking down. So I chose, for today, to push aside the niggling emptiness, bury it deep, and focus only on those who lived.

As I had finally realized, after all this time, I did indeed belong among them.

At last, my chamber cleared of servants. Asking if I’d had enough of the bland white slop, Miss Abbot gathered her tray and left.

Enya and I sat in solitude.

I placed my hand atop the pages of the book she read. She looked up and turned it—open-faced—upon her lap. A tender smile lifted one corner of her mouth, but dread cowered in the circles beneath her eyes.

I asked of Lord Thornton’s and Uncle’s whereabouts. Instead of answering, she bent forward and pulled a small box from beneath her chair. Without a word, she placed it in my good hand, helped me lift the lid, and spread open the tissue paper. My locket and chain lay there on a swatch of red velvet.

My heart skipped a beat.

Reading my unspoken question, Enya explained.

“When Lord Thornton brought you up from the tunnel, you kept mentioning your locket. After the physician treated you, his lordship asked me about the necklace’s significance. I told him you kept your parents’ portraits within. He went back to the mine with a net, a lantern, and three footmen, and dragged the flooded shaft until he found it. I was told he wouldn’t even let his servants help. They waited above to draw him up when he finished. He didn’t return until well after supper.”

Such devotion humbled me. At the same time, I worried for what else he’d found. Had he been forced to face his brother’s bones … Tobar’s skeleton? Apparently everyone still believed he was Nicolas. I vaguely remembered his cane in hand while he stood watching the physician mend my arm and stitch my shin. He still maintained the masquerade. That must mean Larson hadn’t come forward with his true identity.

Had they met some sort of compromise? After learning all I had of the investor, it seemed implausible he would even know the meaning of the word.

Then something else occurred to me. Had Chaine touched the silver charm when he drew it from the water? Had he seen his brother’s spirit—talked with him?

With it so cold in that tunnel he had probably worn gloves …

Enya fluttered her hand in front of my eyes to catch my attention. “I must tell you, Juliet. When the viscount handed me this box while you slept, I waited for him to leave then opened it to see if your parents’ portraits had survived. Only to find a silver petal within. I didn’t touch it … I know how fragile you say they are. But when I held the locket in my palm, I had the strangest feeling … as if someone were looking over my shoulder, watching you. I even thought I heard a groan. I placed it back in the box and glanced behind, but no one was there.”

Heart aflutter, I grabbed the locket, keeping the velvet between the metal and my flesh. I held it in my right hand and worked the hinges open with my left to reveal Hawk’s last petal, bright and alive. As I closed the locket again, anticipation swelled within me. It hadn’t withered. I could place the chain upon my neck and revive him. We didn’t have to say goodbye. I could preserve it forever within the silver, if I was careful enough.

Enya lifted my chin, centering my gaze. “What is this power the blossom wields?”

My thoughts jumbled; I could think of nothing but the truth. That it conjured a man’s specter; that it could fuse your spirit to his and heal your wounds; that it could bridge him to flesh with the assistance of water.

A ghost flower.
Who would ever believe such a Banbury tale?

Enya had yet to tell me where Uncle and Chaine were. I shut the necklace within the box. “Tell me where Lord Thornton is. Why hasn’t Uncle been to see me? I want someone to bring them both here, post haste.”

Her face flushed. “You don’t remember?”

My shoulders tensed, spurring a distant ache in my wounded arm. I could move it now—a vast improvement over yesterday. “What am I to remember?”

“I tried to tell you when you awoke in the night. You must have been too groggy to read my words.” She sighed, closing the book upon her lap. “Lord Thornton’s aunt is here. The same gypsy that you brought in from the forest those weeks back. She saw you get pushed into the shaft. Came running into the house with her wolf, caused such an upset with all the cats running awry everyone became distracted. It didn’t help that no one could make sense of anything the old woman said. Had Lord Thornton and your Uncle not come back from Worthington early … you would have been in the mine till nightfall when the others returned.”

I shifted in my bed, trying to get comfortable. “Why did they return early?”

“The moment they arrived in Worthington and unloaded, Lord Thornton realized someone was missing from the guest list. The investor, Lord Larson, had not ridden with the caravan. He’d stayed behind, here at the Manor, without any of us knowing. The viscount borrowed a fresh horse in Worthington and came back, with your uncle following behind in a borrowed carriage. When they arrived, the old gypsy told Lord Thornton everything. How Larson had followed you as you left the manor. How he’d shoved you into the mine. I suppose he thought it would look like an accident. In truth, it would have, had the old gypsy not seen.”

I pondered what motive the investor could have to push me into the shaft. Perchance he wanted to lead others to the mine in their search for me and expose Chaine’s true identity.

I studied Enya again and noticed her eyes tearing up. “Enya, whatever is wrong?”

“Your viscount … he was furious.”

My chest twisted to a fist. Something in her haunted expression did not bode well. “
Was
?”

My maid dabbed at her lashes with her sleeve cuff.

Sitting rigid in the bed, I threw off my covers. “Tell me.”

She shook her head. “Your uncle says you’re too weak. We must wait until this evening … perhaps … perhaps you’ll be strong enough to visit him then.”

Bile burned my throat. “Visit who? My uncle? What’s wrong with him?”

She shook her head. “No. Lord Thornton. He challenged the investor to a pistol duel. The man hurt you, yet would not admit to any wrong doing. No one could prove his part. Larson claimed the old gypsy was lying, that she pushed you in. But your viscount was bent on justice—on defending you. So they met at midnight in torchlight. Your uncle served as the viscount’s second. They were to use single-shot derringers. It was to be one shot fired … those were the terms.”