Page 2 of This Haunted Heart

Rynn Mavis

The following evening…

T he Night Lark was throwing one of its pleasure parties. I was so close to completing the sale on my room and leaving my eventful life behind that I let myself out to enjoy the city without the usual pang of guilt that accompanied not pitching in what I thought I ought to.

Financially, my dues were paid up through the month, but I’d be out before then. Last week, I’d gifted each of the girls an item of worth from my collection: a silk cushion, a fine chair, velvet curtains . . . The gifts made me feel a little less distressed about my pending departure, and it would help to ensure they kept their lips convincingly shut about where I was going.

Even if Utrecht was the one doing the asking.

The hotel across the way had the most decadent dining service. Nearly year-round, they made hot mincemeat pies worth battling over. An impromptu bare-knuckle match had famously erupted in the street over those pies when they’d had a fruit shortage last year. The manager, Adelbert, loved the business the Lark brought their way almost as much as he loved dramatically retelling the story of that fight.

I couldn’t manage a fork and knife with my arm in the sling I hid beneath my shawl. Adelbert cut my food up for me and kept me company, gossiping with me in his native German.

I overindulged until long after the sun had set. Regulars who recognized me bought me drinks and visited my table at intervals.

“You’ll mention us to all of your friends, won’t you, Vieve?” Adelbert asked after I announced my departure. His mustache was thin and subtly curled. He smelled like the mint sauce the kitchen served with the lamb special.

“You know I will. Don’t I always?” I reassured him. Then I kissed both of his cheeks before leaving.

On my return stroll to the Lark, I could still taste the hint of raisins and orange rind on the back of my tongue. The weather was fine. There was only one thing currently hampering my good mood.

One very small thing.

I opened my reticule with some difficulty one-handed and plucked out the strange cigarette I’d found near my windowsill that morning. It seemed innocent enough in my gloved palm, gently illuminated under the bright streetlamps. The scent of the tobacco was hauntingly familiar, and it was the main reason I’d had too much hard cider with dinner. I brushed it under my nose and inhaled the sweet grassy mixture that didn’t belong in Salt Rock.

Snuff was very popular here in the city. The pipe too. I almost never spotted a cigarette on a patron, let alone one with some homegrown broadleaf blend.

This was something I hadn’t smelled since I was eighteen, and it stirred up thoughts I’d pushed down so hard and for so long that the moment they tried to claw back out of me I had no choice but to stop. To do nothing. To stand still and hold my breath and squeeze my eyes shut.

I froze again like I had when I’d found it, right there near the street, halting so suddenly another passerby bumped into me, knocking my shawl from my shoulder. The jolt put an ache in my injured elbow. The gentleman removed his top hat politely and made a rushed apology, taking the blame for the accident I’d caused.

I declined his offer of assistance, and he continued on his way. When I was alone again, I sucked in a slow breath. Then another, trying to will my pulse to calm.

“Where did you come from?” I demanded of the cigarette in a mousy whisper. Trying to convince myself it was real, I squeezed it between my fingers until it crunched lightly.

The sheer will it took to slam that dark door back down on the bottomless pit that was my memories left me feeling like a wrung-out rag discarded in the dirt. Finally, my feet were working again.

I lumbered around to the back of the Lark. Matthew, an attendant who watched the staff door, lifted his hat to me. I waved in greeting, then carried myself wearily up a set of narrow stairs, still fingering the smoke that had spooked me.

Utrecht favored the pipe and occasionally cigars. I’d never seen him with rolling papers. He’d been traveling these past few weeks and couldn’t have left it at my window. Surely, I’d have noticed it well before now, especially with how much I’d been going through my things to prepare for relocation.

The party was a successful one, based on the dull roar of conversation and assorted debauchery coming from downstairs. At my door, I struggled to wrangle the key into place, dangling my reticule around the wrist of my injured arm.

I jostled the knob, and the door opened a crack. My heart lurched.

I could have sworn I’d locked my room before I vacated it. A woman only needed to find a lost drunk in her quarters the once to remember that necessity. But I’d been so distracted by the mystery cigarette, I’d probably forgotten.

I listened for a moment for trouble but heard nothing. Banishing my worries, I shouldered my way inside.

“Oh?” I said, surprised to find a man standing amongst my shelves.

Not a drunk. He was sturdy on his feet and appeared to have been reading. He turned to me, holding aloft one of my books. The cloth cover was embroidered with a pirate ship. At some point early in my life, I would have reacted very differently to a stranger in my quarters. But now, after everything I’d seen and endured, even that initial vague sensation of surprise quickly melted away.

My relationship with fear was much more complicated now.

His gaze met mine, and my lungs hitched. He was handsome, with big hands and a strong jaw. Thin scars cut through his brow and left cheek. They were prominent, but rather than disfiguring, they made him more striking. Beneath a mop of dark walnut hair, his eyes were a stunning shade of warm brown, pupils ringed in gold, the irises flecked with bits of bronze.

Though he carried himself upright and assured, his gaze was full of a tangible sadness I could feel. It coated my skin in cold.

“Hello there,” I said softly, like he was a skittish colt I didn’t want to startle and not a man much larger than me.

He stared back shyly, then closed the book. “Hello,” he said, his voice rich and low and full of so much melancholy my heart squeezed.

I had a bad habit of carrying the feelings of others around on my back even when I had no business doing so. A tendency I struggled time and time again to keep in check. Empathy had gotten me all tied up with Utrecht and other serpents just like him. I had a countless number of regrets about all of them. And here I was, about to give in to the same impulse all over again.

But I stood no chance of resisting. Not with this stranger. There was something beautifully dark about him. His sadness hit me like a freight train. I didn’t even care why he was in my room. Before I let him out of it again, I was determined to see him smile.

“Was there something you needed?” I asked, shifting in closer to inspect him better.

“I hope I haven’t disturbed you.” He rubbed one of those big hands I admired down the back of his neck.

“You haven’t . . .” I removed my gloves one finger at a time, considering him. “Ah, I see what this is now. You’re hiding in here, aren’t you? I take it this is your first pleasure party.”

He winced. “Are my shortcomings so plain as that?”

“Painfully so, I’m afraid.” Chuckling, I moved to deposit my gloves, reticule, and shawl onto the sofa before returning to him.

He was dressed like a man made in the country, in tall riding boots, twill waistcoat, and tan trousers, his white collar heavily starched. It was clear in his expression that city revelry didn’t agree with him one iota. It took effort on my part not to tease him further about it.

“I’m not fond of crowded spaces.” His gaze darted over me, and his full lips twitched. He was subtle in his appreciation of my form, but I knew well what a longing look felt like, even the polite ones. “I didn’t see you downstairs earlier. I might have tried harder to enjoy myself if you were.”

“You missed out on a treat,” I said, frowning. “The women I work with are lovely. And very talented.” It wasn’t a line that I was feeding him. I knew from experience how gifted some of them were.

His cheeks went ruddy. He had the warm complexion and broad build of a man who spent plenty of time outdoors, but his boots were much too clean, the leather too fine for him to be a farmer or rancher.

He was a bit of a riddle. I liked riddles, and I had a soft spot for a big man capable of blushing easily.

“I meant no offense to the beautiful women downstairs,” he said earnestly, with a repentant bow of his head.

“Good. I appreciate that you aren’t the sort who assumes incorrectly that I need you to insult the others before complimenting me. Relations are transactions here at the Lark. We’re not rivals.”

“I’m sure they’re as lovely as you say. It’s only that I have a little sister who recently turned nineteen,” he explained, pulling on his ear sheepishly. “Some of the ladies on the floor below are much closer to her age than they are ours.”

“Ah, I see.” I nodded my head. “That is a different thing.”

He shuffled his weight, his posture stiff. “I’m not much for hard drink either. But they say you should always try something at least once . . .”

“They do say that.” I smiled at him in a fashion I hoped he found disarming. “Whatever made you pick this room to hide in?”

He cast a glance around, and the lines near the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Well . . . it helped that it wasn’t downstairs.”

I chuckled again. If one was keeping score, that was twice now in a short period of time. It felt nice to laugh so easily, even with a stranger. I was more determined than ever to see him do the same.

“I like it in here,” he said, taking in a deep breath through his nose that filled his chest. “It smells like books. And it’s very clean.”

“The books I take full credit for, but the cleanliness, I cannot,” I confessed. “We all pitch in for maid services. If we didn’t, you’d have to step over piles of my underthings to reach those shelves.”

His head tipped back, and his laughter was as flavorful and full-bodied as good whisky. A little shiver of pleasure rippled down my spine. His joy had been well worth the effort. It shook through his bulky shoulders and melted away a little of the sorrow I sensed in him.

“I don’t like to tidy up either,” he said amicably. “It’s a time-consuming habit that never ends. One might as well volunteer to help push Sisyphus’s boulder.”

“You’re exactly right.” I made a mental note that he was educated enough to know about Sisyphus. Definitely not a common farmer or rancher, despite his costume. “I served as a kitchen maid as a youth. The family worked me nearly to death and broke me of the cleaning habit for good.”

Surprised I’d told him all that, I bit my lip. I didn’t ever talk about my disastrous youth. The strange cigarette and too much hard cider were likely to blame for my oversharing.

“Now that you’re here,” he said, gesturing toward my shelves, “you can solve the mystery of your books for me.”

“There’s a mystery?” I moved in beside him until my shoulder brushed against his arm. He had an appealing smell. Like clean linen fresh from the line and a touch of cologne water, something spicy and more complex—black tea brewing near a bed of orchids.

“These here didn’t surprise me,” he said, pointing to the top shelf. “They frequent most libraries: poetry, botany, a book of common French words . . . And yet they seem barely touched. There isn’t a single marker in them.”

“Well, you see,” I said, running a finger along the leather spines, “these books exist for the sole purpose of making me seem sophisticated and smart. I haven’t read them more than the once because they’re painfully dull. Some of them I haven’t finished at all.”

A secret smile tugged at his mouth. “I see.”

“Did it work?”

“Did what work?”

“When you saw them, did you assume I was a sophisticated woman?”

“Yes, well, of course. I assumed you were an advanced intellectual.” His lips quirked. “Though actually, I was more impressed by these down here. They’re Dutch and French. You read in multiple languages. Regretfully, I only speak one fluently.”

“Ah, you’ve picked an excellent novel to browse,” I said of the cloth-covered book in his hand. “ De Gevangene Van De Piraat by Vieve Avondrood. I adore her the most.”

“The Pirate’s Captive,” he translated. Many Dutch and German immigrants had settled in the area southeast of Salt Rock. The fact that he was familiar with the language to some degree clued me in further to his origins. “My Dutch is in dull shape. That’s about the only thing I could work out.”

“You’ve gotten it right, though.” I patted his forearm. “Well done.”

“I think you’ve solved the mystery for me. These here by Avondrood have multiple items in them, and some of the markers are quite strange.”

“Oh dear,” I said, covering my mouth to conceal a smirk. “Strange, you say? I don’t recall placing anything strange in my books.”

“Now that we’ve spoken, I hypothesize that the more exceptional and plentiful the markers, the greater your affection is for the story.” He tapped on another novel detailing the exploits of a pirate captain and the maid he’d stolen away to take on adventures. “This one had a feather in it.”

“Useful enough as a bookmark, you must agree.”

“The one beside it has a purchase receipt and a toothpick.” His lopsided smile stretched the broken skin across his battered cheek. It was the kind of smile a person could much too easily fall in love with.

I shrugged. “That’s a little strange, I suppose, but it still gets the job done.”

“This one had a torn piece of mail, a dogeared page, and a nail file. ”

“I’ve already confessed that I’m not very tidy without help. There’s really no need to belabor the point,” I said playfully.

“And this one,” he said, displaying the book in his hand with a flourish, “this one has a stocking in it.”

“It does not,” I gasped, grabbing for it.

He lifted the book over his head, out of my reach, and his grin went wicked. “It does so.”

When I didn’t try for it again, he lowered the novel and proved his words, opening it straight away to a balled-up white stocking. The silk marked one of my favorite passages: a stolen kiss between a pirate lord and his lady captive.

“Oh dear,” I said, touching a hand to my heart. “I do hope it’s at least a clean stocking.”

“Given your record, I wouldn’t bet on it,” he said, voice wobbling.

“Probably I shouldn’t.”

“It could have been worse.”

“Could have been my drawers! How dreadful,” I fretted, glaring accusingly at the other books, certain they would betray me next.

“I haven’t gotten through all of them yet.” He considered me out of the corner of his gaze. I was growing to like the weight of his sad eyes on me. “What do you suppose the chances are of finding something even more unexpected in them?”

“Not good for me. I own a lot of books and have lots and lots of underthings. Let’s not find out, I beg you.” I squeezed his arm pleadingly—then once more appreciatively, the muscles taut beneath the fabric of his crisp shirt.

“I would love to know what other unusual treasures they hold, but if you insist.” He placed the cloth-covered book back on its shelf, scooting it in with great care so the spine lined up evenly with the others.

“I do insist. Come and sit with me, far, far away from there.” Catching him around the elbow with my functioning arm, I dragged him toward the sofa. “You can still smell the books from here. I promise.”

His tawny eyes sparkled with mirth, but gloom still burned in their depths. I was growing increasingly curious about what had caused it and whether I had the power to make it go away—a dangerous combination that often got me into trouble.

I truly hated how addicted I’d become to trouble. If it was a compulsion I could give away, I would. I’d abandon it in a box on a street corner the way people gave away kittens. But the only option for a woman like me, a woman who was alone in this world, was a life of trouble or submission to a master to rule over her.

And I’d much rather endure the trouble.

My stranger came willingly, lowering onto the cushion after I gave him a gentle push. I towered over him from this position, and I used the advantage to take in his striking face. I reached for him, and he let me touch him. My fingers followed the old wounds that tore through his brow.

“You have excellent scars,” I told him.

His haunted eyes fixed on mine, and his mouth pulled up at the corner. “You like scars?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“I suppose they make me look dangerous. Like one of your pirates.”

“A big handsome pirate with beautiful, sad eyes.”

His brows lifted, and his throat bobbed. “You think I’m sad?” The dark tone of his voice confirmed it .

“I know you are . . .” I touched his cheek, dragging my knuckles across the scars in his warm skin until they scratched through the scruff of his short beard. “And this is usually when I’d tell you in explicit detail all the things I could do to take that awful sadness away for at least a little while.”

He leaned into my touch. “Why don’t you?” Then his eyes flickered down to my sling. “Of course, you’re injured. That’s probably why you weren’t at the party.”

“It’s not that, actually.” I stroked his cheek, finding it difficult to stop touching him. It just seemed right that I should stand close and cup his face in my palm like we were old lovers and not new acquaintances.

I was accustomed to intimacy with strangers, but this—whatever it was between us—felt different. It felt heavy and important and intoxicating.

“Tell me,” he pressed.

“I’ve sold my room here,” I said, sounding regretful, which came as a shock to my own ears. I’d put so much effort into starting a new life. It and all the money I’d saved were supposed to be the thing I wanted the very most. “I’ve retired, and I leave the Lark at the month’s end.”

He straightened against the back of the sofa. “Retiring? But you’re so young.”

“As you pointed out earlier, I’m considerably older than the other women here. I could be a mother to some of them.”

“Anyone with functioning eyes could see you are no less desirable,” he insisted grumpily.

He seemed so affronted by the idea of anything else, he surprised another quiet laugh out of me. “You’re too kind. But that’s not the only reason why I’m retiring . . . Let’s just say I’ve lived a very eventful, very full life. In just 38 years, I’ve had ages worth of adventures. I’m convinced I now deserve to rest. Preferably somewhere near an ocean, in a small house I won’t have difficulty keeping clean because there won’t be room for any mess after I’ve squeezed myself and all of my books inside it. Doesn’t that sound lovely?”

He fell silent, contemplating my words. Then he squinted at my sling. “Can I ask you what happened to your arm?”

“No, you cannot,” I said sweetly.

He scowled at me.

I brushed my lips over the adorable furrow between his brows until it smoothed. When I pulled back, he regarded me with such intensity, such raw smoldering emotion, I simply didn’t have a word to describe it adequately. It was too complex to be discernible. Muscles low in my belly quivered.

“I only have to wear the sling one more day,” I told him, still close enough to smell the starch on his collar and his spicy scent. “Doctor’s orders. This is a small thing not worth worrying over. It hardly warrants a mention compared to my other adventures.”

He took my right hand in his and brushed his thumb over my knuckles. “I’ll be in the city a while longer. It would please me greatly to see more of you.”

Uncertain what to say, I nibbled at my lip. “I think I’d enjoy that too, only it’s like I said. I’ve retired. I don’t take on clients anymore.”

“That suits me fine,” he said firmly. “In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t see me as a client at all.”

I blinked at him. “Are you saying . . . but you can’t mean you wish to call upon a retired harlot?”

“If you’d be so kind as to invite me. That’s exactly what I’d like to do.”

“But you don’t even know my name. I don’t even know yours . . . Being untidy and sticking stockings where they don’t belong might not be the worst thing about me. I could be the sort of person who rambles on about dull things like”—I looked to my top shelf of books for inspiration—“French verb conjugations and bad poetry.”

“I signed in here as Dante Malacoda. You could call me that,” he said, unaffected.

“That’s a very ominous name, Mr. Malacoda.”

“Perfect for a pirate.” His grin was infectious and triggered my own. “As for your other concerns, I believe that’s the point of getting acquainted. So one can become more familiar with all the delightful habits of the other.”

He truly was dangerous with a grin like that. His showing of teeth might as well have been a loaded pistol ready to fire straight through a lovesick heart, destroying it once and for all.

“I’m called Vieve here.”

“Like Vieve Avondrood?” He peeked over at my books.

“Just like that.” I unlaced my fingers from his, toying with the strap of my sling, unsure of myself. It had been an age since anyone had the power to make me feel all fluttery inside, like I’d swallowed a bunch of butterflies whole. He hoped I’d invite him to call at a bordello that clearly made him uncomfortable. How strange. “Did you want me to invite you here ?”

“Is there someplace else you’ll be?”

“Well, no. Not yet.”

“Then, yes. Here.” When I didn’t immediately answer, he recaptured my hand and pulled me in closer until my legs brushed against his knees. “Go on. I can see that you want to.”

My stomach swooped. The sensation lingered in my belly like I’d just dived headfirst off a cliff into treacherous seawater and I was still falling and falling.

“Yes,” I panted, coming up for air. “Oh, but wait! What if you’re the type who likes to ramble on about boring poetry and botany?”

He lifted his hand in a mock vow. “I promise you I won’t recite one single poem in your presence. Not a rhyme, not even a haiku.”

“Actually, I like the occasional haiku.”

“Then you’re a difficult woman,” he quipped.

“Better you know that now.”

“As for botany, the closest I’ll get to it is bringing you flowers.”

“Flowers? But I adore flowers. How could I say no to that?” Because it was too difficult to resist, I swiped my thumb once more across the rugged beard that shadowed his jaw. “Please, Mr. Dante Malacoda, will you call on me here? Tomorrow evening, 7 sharp.”

Grief cleared from his eyes like storm clouds rolling away to reveal the sun. The pleasure that remained knocked my breath away.

“I certainly will,” he said, lips quirking. “Good evening, Miss Vieve.”

He unfolded himself from my sofa and ate up the distance to the exit with his long strides. He left, closing the door softly. In his wake, the scent of sweet, grassy country tobacco wafted to my nose. It was possible my rattled brain had conjured the smell. I’d been so haunted by it all day long.

Either that or I’d just made a dreadful mistake inviting that sad, handsome pirate back to my rooms. Worry churned just behind my navel, and I pressed a palm over it .

For me the line between fear and thrill, pleasure and pain, was disastrously thin. As my heart sped, muscles in my stomach clenched. A delicious thumping pulse surged between my thighs. The promise of danger-tinged adventure was a shot of bliss to my system that I chased harder than men with pickaxes and shovels sought silver.

* * *

That night, I had a nightmare, a vision of wandering lost in the mire I used to call home. The dream was instantly familiar. I’d had it many, many times before. Only, it was different in some ways, the images more vivid, the pain they inspired starker. My senses were heightened as I slogged through wet earth. The smell of silt and mud and broadleaf tobacco coated my nose.

A menacing voice shouted at my back, calling me terrible names, and I ran from his anger as fast as I could, afraid the monster would catch me.

Then I heard a melodious voice humming a happy song. The melody drifted to me through the trees, calling me closer.

I came to a clearing surrounded by heavy fog. There, I spotted a strange woman seated at a great loom. The loom itself was made of the drooping branches of the nearby weeping willow trees, pulled together to craft the frame, shuttle, and posts. I knew immediately that she was one of the weaver women, witches of legend like in the old stories from my childhood. Witches who guarded the woods and demanded offerings from travelers.

I sensed that if I stayed close to her, she would keep me safe from the monster, but I didn’t know what offering to give her for her help. I had nothing. A feeling of foreboding and ancient wonderment settled over me, as intertwined as the threads in the blanket she was making.

Her dress was dark fog and black smoke. She wore a wicker hat over corn-silk yellow hair. The wide brim shadowed her face. I wanted to give her something, so I sang a silly song for her I’d invented as a child. The song seemed to please the witch. She sang it with me, and I drew nearer.

Her yarn was blood red, and as she wove her magic into the fabric, I realized the crimson wool was being drawn right out of her wrists, straight from her veins.

A scream caught in my throat.