Page 18 of Brilliance and Betrayal (The Diamond of the Ton Regency Mysteries #1)
17
"Till this moment, I never knew myself."
—Elizabeth Bennet, Pride & Prejudice
I t felt a little like a waking dream, life bent so slightly out of true and not quite real. Outside, lamplight flickered in the gloaming, the shadows blunting the harsher angles of London’s face into something more ephemeral.
Charity’s thoughts were loose and disordered, and she found herself reluctant to pick them up. To break the fragile peace between them, or to acknowledge the truths that would inevitably splinter them apart once more.
Selfishly, she ignored sense, letting the smell of cloves on him draw her deeper into that uncanny feeling, living the echo of a moment that could have been, but never was.
But then, his breathing changed, and she knew it was over before the hack could even slow to a halt. She moved away from him as the driver alighted, feeling chilled and awkward. The door was opened onto a row of modest brick houses, and she could hear a far-distant clamour of humanity.
He stepped down and held his hand out to her, but his expression was… different this time. Peregrine was watching her with the steady appraisal of his namesake, fixed and preternatural. Not letting her gaze lower, she took his proffered hand, and once she had straightened on the pavement, he reluctantly let it drop.
“Where are we?” she asked softly after the hack moved on.
He glanced around, looking for movement. “My townhouse, near Covent Gardens.”
Had he brought her to the home in which the Fitzroy men installed their mistresses? If so, it looked rather dark and forlorn. He beckoned her forward, finally resting his palm on her lower back to guide her silently as she plodded forward.
“But are we safe here?” she asked him, her voice barely above a whisper.
There was a little silence, and she knew he was wondering the same thing. “I think so,” he said finally. “Very few people know about it.”
Suddenly she realised she knew this house, and knew then it had never seen a mistress here, no matter what others might assume, given its location. It had been one of the places people had searched for her after her kidnapping, but they had found the house mouldering and unused except for the two orphans hiding in the basement.
It didn’t smell as musty as Grace had described it, but it was most definitely empty. Perry had brought them through the servant’s entrance, and the fireplaces were cold.
When she shivered again reflexively, he stripped his coat, handing it to her. She startled, and he gave her a darkling look. “I am taking it off, so you may as well wear it.”
She held his coat like a dullard while he lit a candle.
“How badly were you hurt?” he asked finally, reaching a hand slowly towards her hair like one would approach a frightened child.
She shook her head quickly, stepping away. “It is fine.” Really, her scalp ached like fury where the thug had pulled her hair, but she didn’t think she could bear to touch the spot.
Peregrine let his hands drop and for a long moment he watched her, rolling up his shirt sleeves over his forearms.
It was uncomfortable to look at him, so she watched his hands. “I cannot tell what you are thinking,” she blurted out.
“Sparkles… you really don’t want to know.” His words were both heavy and guarded. Finally, he turned away from her. “I need to see to things. Consider yourself entirely welcome. There are no servants here… it is just me.”
Then he left her, to do… chores. A man of title and his bearing, doing humble tasks like drawing water and tending hearths. It was nearly as hard to add to the picture of the man who had been so comfortable dealing violence. But somehow it fit.
Feeling at her wits’ end while he was busy, Charity put on his coat and decided to explore. Or think. Perhaps she could find some way to be useful… removing dustcloths or… something. But as she passed from room to room, she saw the signs of recent habitation, and she filed the mystery away to ask him later.
The parlour on the first floor was empty except for a lone table, and the other room on that floor was a study. The desk was uncovered, but no papers of any kind sat on top of it. The third floor also had only the two rooms—a bedroom and a locked door which would not yield to her.
Charity stood inside the bedroom for a moment, looking down at the covers. It was made, but without exacting care, its maker only having to please himself. And as she looked on, her heart picked up its pace.
With her thoughts at sixes and sevens, Charity went back downstairs to the dark study. She sat behind his desk for a long while, trying to make sense of everything that had happened, and failing miserably.
After perhaps three quarters of an hour, she went searching for Peregrine—and she found him in the kitchen. He was stripped to the waist, scrubbing soot-stained hands and arms over a wash pail.
“Oh!” Charity exclaimed, slapping her hands over her mouth as Peregrine spun to face her. His face was lost in shadow, the faint glow of the light behind him obscuring his expression.
“I—I’m sorry, I did not mean to intrude on you,” she stammered, already stepping back, ready to flee, until her eyes caught on the dark mottling curling around his ribs. Her voice faltered. “You did not say you were hurt.”
He tilted his head slightly, his words wry. As if he was amused she finally deigned to notice. “The trophy from our adventures yesterday. Surely you remember?”
Yesterday? It felt like a lifetime ago now. “I thought you were speaking in jest. I did not realise you were truly injured.”
“Hodges got a few worse than mine—unsightly ones. But bruises heal.”
She hadn’t even wondered as to why he had taken a hack today. Her face heated.
Peregrine smirked faintly, examining his right arm, on the side above the elbow, prodding the flesh around a small cut, which earned a wince but apparently needed no further treatment. “Sparkles, did no one tell you it is rude to stare? And what do you want?” He pulled his shirt back on, hiding the bruises from sight.
Peregrine was back to making a mock of her—familiar territory.
Safer.
She lowered her eyelashes. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked baldly. “There are inns. The homes of neighbours and friends. The Queen would probably even let me stay. But you… brought me here. And I cannot help but notice… you have been staying here, too.”
He paused, his expression inscrutable. As if he was weighing how much truth to give her. “Because I feel safer here than anywhere else I can think of. I want you to stay here for a while. Just a few days. I will get Hodges to come play housemaid.”
“You want me to stay here. While you leave?”
In his own sanctuary, where he apparently feels safer than at the Fitzroy estate , her inner voice added, and Charity frowned at that notion.
“There are no more doors you can open for me.”
He wasn’t just keeping her out of the way. He was setting her aside. Abruptly, she was angry. “You promised there would be no secrets!”
Peregrine let out a short, audible breath—just shy of a scoff. “I promised I would not impede your investigation, and that is at an end.”
He had called one of her attackers by name. How many connections to dark places did he have?
“Then what happened with the prince and princess was a message of some sort. And the message was meant for you.” It was a guess, but it fit the pattern.
Swiftly, he moved into her space, looming over her like a threat. The faint flicker of light from the hearth caught in his eyes, but the shadows clung to him like a second skin. “It is a dangerous thing, prying into secrets. Leave it alone.”
“No.” Her heart was beating so fast she was breathless. “You cannot intimidate me any longer, Perry. I see who you are now, and I am not afraid of you.”
He hesitated for a long moment, something unnameable hovering in his eyes and on his lips. “Well, that is… something, I suppose.”
The choking sense of unreality tightened on her as he stepped away. He was going to leave her here. Completely unattended. Her entire life, there had always been someone within the reach of her voice or the tug of a bell pull.
Stop thinking only of yourself! He is the one who is going to dangerous places—and he is going to be the one who is by himself. Especially if he sends Hodges to you.
She ran forward, grabbing his shoulder. “Tell me. Who is McGrath to you?”
He turned back to her. “You know I am not going to tell you that.” There was no give in his jaw.
Charity lifted her chin, prepared to use the only leverage she had. “Then I will not stay here. I will go home—or wander the streets—unless you tell me what I want to know. You want me to trust you, but I want your trust in return.”
“Do not amuse yourself at my expense, Charity,” he ground out. “This isn’t a game of Question and Command.”
She liked the way her name sounded on his tongue. It seemed as familiar as it was forbidden, and made her feel… a little wild.
“Why not?” she dared him, poking him in the chest in a flagrant violation of her rules. “Is that not the point of the game? A secret for a secret? An exchange of trust?”
Something new was waking deep inside of her, and it was as though she only now truly was alive. No wonder Peregrine had enjoyed provoking her. This was so much better than feeling as though she had no power over anything at all.
Peregrine’s mood snapped, and he grabbed her hand in his, his eyes flashing dangerously as he let the other pull her against him. “Secrets are never about trust, Sparkles. It is all about control .”
Charity’s lips parted as she suddenly understood. These were the stakes Selina and Peregrine played for. No wonder the marchioness had called it currency. With the right secrets, people could be bought and sold. If you had enough secrets and the right people… just about anything might be possible.
This was the real power, and he was being driven by a need to keep it. She could see it now so clearly that she wondered how she ever misunderstood before.
“Then keep it,” she whispered to him, not struggling to get free of his hands. “Keep your control. But do not leave me in the dark.”
Now that she had a glimpse of this world that existed… she wanted to know everything about it.
A part of her noted in passing that the voice of her mother was nowhere in evidence, even though she should be shrieking. But Charity was tired of being bound by senseless rules that had no real power to ward off the harm in her life.
She saw his throat move, and she knew it as a sign of victory.
“McGrath is… an associate of my mother’s man of business.”
Stilling, she considered that. “Does this mean?—”
“You are absolute rubbish at following rules of any kind, you know that, right?” He let her go, and her skin felt cold without his hands on her. Peregrine’s face, though, had lost some of its hardness. “It is my turn, remember.”
Unbidden, Charity felt a smile dig into her cheeks. It was so foolish to find this so funny. But it was the most genuine amusement she could imagine feeling for… far, far too long. “You are right. I do apologise, my lord. Pose your question.”
He pursed his lips in thought for a moment and then he smirked. “Did you really take that old codger to your bed?”
Devil. He was either trying to navigate her into choosing command, or he was fishing for evidence that her marriage was a sham. Either way, he was going to be disappointed. “Everything was properly done,” she said lightly.
“Yourself included, Sparkles?” he asked, and she couldn’t help it. She turned a fiery shade of red as his meaning came clear.
“My God, Perry! Is nothing sacred to you?” she sputtered, half laughing and half mortified. “And since it wasn’t your turn, I will not answer that—now or ever.”
“I daresay I will survive the mystery since your face is answering for you.”
His voice and expression were teasing now, and Charity felt… a wistful kind of happiness unfurling, chasing away the wretched thoughts and emotions from earlier. Perhaps they weren’t irrevocably broken. Not just yet.
“Is she back?” she asked him softly, not really wanting to know. Because… she was already afraid she might never sleep again.
It wasn’t until he grazed the corner of her eye with his thumb that she noticed wetness forming there. He didn’t even ask who ‘she’ was. “In England? Not a chance of it. Short of having an army at her back, it would be far too risky.” He held his breath a moment, as if he was thinking. “But… my mother’s man of business had almost as much ambition as my mama, a thirst for money, and several roots in dark places besides.”
Charity nodded slightly, not wanting him to take his hand away, but needing him to. It would be such a mistake between them if she forgot herself. From the very first moment they met, they had been star-crossed in every possible way, cursed generations deep.
“Question or command?” he asked her.
“Question.”
He thought for a moment, his expression almost hesitant. “If you could go back a year and do things once more, would things between us be the same?
If she could go back to before they knew one another’s name, he meant. Did she have any regrets?
Now, she did. But that didn’t mean things wouldn’t still be the same. She hadn’t expected to find ruin down this path, true, but the other course would have demanded everything from both of them… and then would have left her in a far more permanent state of destruction.
After a moment’s consideration, she replied. “Command.”
Some of the life left his eyes, but he had his command at the ready. “I want to loosen your hair.”
“Of all the things you could ask for, that is what you want?” she asked him, surprised.
There was the briefest hesitation, before his trickster mask fell over his face again. “You seem to think it is such a small thing to ask. But as it happens, I have a terribly unromantic ulterior motive. Several, actually. The first one is I do want to make sure your head is all right. What if the bastard plucked you like a chicken?”
Charity slapped a hand over her mouth at the thought, and then felt at the back of her head, hissing in pain as she poked the tender spots. Then she whirled, granting him the permission to check.
“What else?” she asked him, feeling a lock of her hair fall to her shoulder as he drew the first pin. “You said you had several.”
“You are also rubbish at managing your own hair,” he muttered as he pulled more pins, and she huffed a laugh. “So really, I am doing you a favour.”
Peregrine was being gentle, but now she was worried at his silence. Was there a spot of bare scalp after all? “And?” she prompted.
“I wanted to,” he answered, lightly massaging the back of her skull and the hollows in her neck behind her ears as he parted the mass of hair with his thumbs. Her knees grew unsteady, and she inhaled swiftly.
“Oh, you were asking about your hair? It is fine.” Then he let her hair go and began to climb the main stair.
“Brute,” Charity muttered under her breath, piqued. And then she stood at the stair, looking up. Peregrine had moved out of sight so swiftly it was like he had never been there at all. She began the climb, but slower, more by feel than by the dim light from the windows.
Unlike many members of the ton , the Fitzroys were not only wealthy in assets, they had never been short of ready coin. It made little sense that a woman like Marian Fitzroy would be randomly struck with a notion one day to steal from the Crown or kidnap a person. If her man was into dark dealings, one could almost be certain the lady was, too.
It would explain a lot about her means and her ruthlessness. And in her sudden absence, a man of business might see Lord Fitzroy as an obstacle to acquiring everything. Peregrine was in England alone, without an heir of his own.
Charity couldn’t begin to imagine the kind of hell Peregrine had stood upon the edge of all this time. How had he managed to keep his soul?
The first floor was dark, and she kept climbing, feeling out of sorts by her sudden abandonment. But perhaps she was being foolish. Maybe he was only preparing the guest room—but no, it was still locked.
Peregrine was in his room, rummaging in his wardrobe and not looking at her. “I know it is not what you are used to, Duchess, but at least it is clean,” he said, pulling out one of his shirts. “My brush is on the table, and there is some fruit in the kitchen. I will make sure Hodges brings you more.”
He was still planning to leave the house. He was rebuilding the wall that stood between them. And Charity could not think of a way to ask him to stay that wouldn’t be entirely inappropriate.
“Question or command,” she asked him softly.
Peregrine laughed, the sound bitter. “I think we had better stop playing this game before we both end up regretting it, Charity.”
“I already have regrets,” she said, her throat aching with it. “You asked me if I would make things different. But it doesn’t matter what that answer would be. This… draw between us—it isn’t meant for people like us, Perry. Fate would have always torn us apart.”
His face, already solemn, turned to stone. Peregrine looked down at the floor for a moment, his face falling into shadow, before he lifted his eyes once more. “Was it fate?” he asked, bringing his fingers up to trail along the curve of her jaw. “It feels more like it was my failing.”
Her chest hurt. “Perry?—”
“Command,” he said softly, cutting her off. “Make your wish, Charity.”
What could she ask for? She looked into his eyes, wishing he would show her… something, and she wished she dared ask for just a glimpse of the thing she knew they couldn’t have.
“Sleep here? With me? I just—I have never been alone.” Not even when she had been held against her will.
He hesitated. “I’ll stay downstairs.”
There was no furniture. He’d be on the floor, and the memory of his bruised ribs rose in her mind’s eye.
“You are hurt. And the bed is big enough for two,” she said in a rush. “Especially if I am beneath the covers and you are on top.”
Peregrine scratched his cheek wearily. “You really were not jesting when you said you wished to burn my life to ash, were you? Fine,” he said finally, his voice resigned. But his gaze lingered on her for just a moment longer, unreadable and too heavy with things unsaid. “But only until morning.”