Page 3 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6
Pitch rolled to face away from the door and balled up as tight as one of the akaname who had fed on the Gu. But it was too little, far too late. The torrent spilled from him, making his body pulse with fracturing jerks.
The door slammed, the lad still uttering frantic apologies from beyond the barrier. ‘Tobias…I…I’m so sorry…’
Not sorry enough to leave, evidently.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Pitch grabbed at the blankets, breathless, heart pounding, his belly slippery with a mess he’d have preferred to avoid.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Charlie fairly squeaked.
‘I was fucking busy.’ His body tingled, but the bliss was already fading.
‘I know…’ The lad’s voice was small and, oddly, came from the bottom of the door, as though he’d buckled with the horror of what he’d just seen. Good. Pitch hoped it gave him nightmares. ‘Tobias…it’s Edward.’
He considered telling the vagabond to piss off. Pitch inhaled. ‘What about him?’
‘He’s calling your name.’
There was no brush of concern at hearing Charlie’s words. Just a numbness.
‘Tobias? Did you hear me? Would you please come and see him?’ Charlie’s request wobbled from him. ‘I know you’ve been avoiding him, but please. Perhaps it will help for him to see you. I don’t know…I don’t know how else to help him.’
Any pleasure that had come from spending all over himself whittled away. Charlie sounded as exhausted as Pitch felt, and as despairing.
He slid from the bed and padded across the pleasingly thick carpet over to the elaborate Indian rosewood wardrobe. It had been empty when they arrived, but Old Bess had set up a clandestine Melusine delivery service between here and Harvington Hall. A way of moving inanimate objects, food and clothing, from one Sanctuary to another, delivering them into a trunk in Bess’s chambers. Which meant Pitch had, at least, a suitably lovely selection of clothing to choose from.
‘Once I’ve wiped myself down,’ Pitch said. ‘I’ll consider it.’ He heard the hitch of the lad’s breath, but Charlie made no further protest. Pitch reached for a pair of pale lemon trousers that had arrived yesterday. ‘Is Silas with him?’ Now it was Pitch who held his breath, awaiting the reply.
‘He’s not with you?’ The lad’s voice rose with surprise, but he was quick to smother the moot question. ‘No, no. I’ve not seen him since last night. Perhaps he’s gone for a walk. You know how he is with the garden.’ Pitch certainly did. It had not stopped raining for days, the ground was sodden, the December air was punishing, but Silas walked every day. ‘He won’t be far, I’m sure. Tobias, please, will you come and see Edward?’
Pitch slammed the wardrobe door closed and was faced with his own reflection in the mottled mirror. A calamitous sight, for sure. His hair, with its ever-encroaching waves of gold in the natural mousier brown, stood haphazardly, as though Matilda had struck him with her damned lightning. There was no denying the smears of grey beneath his eyes, nor how his emerald irises did not shine so brightly as before the Fulbourn.
Pitch dragged on his trousers with a fierce wrench. ‘I’ll be along momentarily. Now piss off.’
‘Thank you. Thank you.’
The quick, dull padding of bare feet upon the hall runner declared Charlie’s departure.
Pitch dressed slowly, taking his time to decide between shirts, deciding on a white affair with voluminous sleeves and a collar trimmed with light blue lace. So far there had been no sign of the corsets he’d requested, despite Bess’s insistence he’d ordered them from the Hall. Pitch bent to put on his shoes, their polished black leather gleaming. His belly rumbled. But it was just simple hunger. Not appetite, just the basic need of a body for nourishment.
He was too distracted for appetite.
The wildness was quiet, slinking so deep in the shadows of Pitch’s innards that he wasn’t sure if he imagined its faint stirrings or if it was real.
The fear that simmered inside him fed on the silence.
He touched the dangling earring, smoothing his thumb over the amber before untangling a strand of his hair from around its fastening and heading downstairs.
CHAPTER TWO
THE DRIZZLEwas his only companion as Silas made his way to the back of the garden. The expanse of untended rose gardens and waning orchards was not inconsiderable. To reach the pond at the outer perimeter meant losing sight of the squat Georgian house they were currently calling home, with its chocolate-coloured slates and white-paned windows, a low parapet around the eaves to create the distinctive square shape of the era.
By the time the neglected groundsman’s cottage he’d discovered on a stroll the day before came into view, his greatcoat was double its weight thanks to the saturation of the woollen weave. And his hair, which had grown at a fast clip since Tyvain had cut it for the soirée at the Charters’ household, was plastered against his skull. A firm shake of his head sent water flying in all directions. He swiped his hand across his chin, grateful for the ever-increasing length there too. Not least of all because Pitch had told him a few evenings ago, as they lay beside one another, in a room that had become theirs, that he enjoyed the roughness against his skin.
If not for the circumstances which made them both unable to sleep readily, Silas considered those hours of idle chitchat and comfortable silence to be among the most perfect he could recall. Certainly far more pleasant than his appalling loss of control the first evening here, when he’d been puffed up with relief, bravado, and lust, only to step foot into the warm waters of the tub and make an absolute tit of himself.
Silas wiped at his nose, freeing ice-cold droplets from the tip. He shrugged, against the rain, his embarrassment, and the swaddling of worry that had not left him since the Fulbourn.
The constant niggle of dread plagued him, an itch he could not reach, a worm of reticence that was intent on burrowing deeper. But there was something more to the sensation than circumstances might dictate. Of course their situation was dire, their task mammoth, their enemies formidable. But this dread he could not shake…this despair…sat upon him strangely.