With This Ring (20 page)

Elektra did what everyone does when they see someone staring at something.
She followed his gaze upward, where she saw a brand-new fresco worked into the plaster of the domed ceiling.

It was a beautifully rendered blue sky with fluffy clouds fringed with heavenly golden light.
Peeking around the edges of some of the clouds was a trio of cherubs wearing nothing but mischievous grins, quivers filled with golden arrows, and some strategically placed cloud-wisps.

The artist had done more than supply the grand room with a grand ceiling, like icing roses on a wedding cake.
He had also managed to imbue the three cupids with expressions of twinkling mischief and relentless cheer that reminded Elektra rather forcibly of the establishment’s owner.

“I don’t know what it is,” the small man said.
“There’s just something about those cherubs.”
He scowled comically, though he might not have realized it.
“I don’t trust them.”

“Well, then, I suppose you should keep your eye on them.”
Elektra came to stand next to him and tilted her head back to gain his perspective.
“Truly a nefarious bunch,” she agreed.

“Hmph.”
He lowered his gaze and fixed it upon her, beaming as if she were a gift wrapped in green silk and peppermint sticks.
“What can I do for you, my child, my flower, my darling muse?”

Elektra might have been a little more flattered if she hadn’t seen Bliss’s swoon-worthy wardrobe not an hour past.
Still, her dearest Uncle Button loved her to tiny little pieces, she knew.
“It is the Duke of Camberton’s revel tonight.
I wished to consult with you over my gown.”

“I’d heard he rescheduled.”
The small man’s eyes crinkled in glee.
“High on The List, is Lord Neville?”

Elektra managed a smile, though she couldn’t seem to capture her former … intensity regarding the hunt.
“I wonder … there’s a particular color of blue.”

She told him of the meadow full of butterflies.
As she described the rush of wings, she found herself longing to be back there, even doused and filthy as she’d been.
It was such a single shining moment, there among the magical fluttering blue butterflies … running through the tall grass with Mr.
Hastings, handsome and laughing in the sunlight, feeling invincible after their brush with danger, feeling … happy.

“Ah!”
Button listened rapturously.
“I know the precise color!”
Then his face fell.
“I cannot possibly have something new ready for you tonight, my pet.”

Elektra swallowed and shook her head.
“No, of course not.
It was only a silly thought.”
She lifted her chin and forced her thoughts back to practicalities.
“What does the Bond Street rumor mill have to say about His Grace’s wardrobe this evening?”

Button tapped his fingertips together as he tilted his head back to gaze at the frescoed ceiling.
“He favors purples in his own dress.
His tailor just finished a new fancy-dress weskit for him yesterday that is the precise color of wine grapes.”

Elektra nodded.
“So, the violet silk, do you think?”

Button frowned, as if the ceiling had done something rather naughty.
“You wore that to the Whittingtons’ reception three weeks ago.”

“Well, it was very well received.”
Elektra had no illusions about being able to afford something new.
As it was, everything truly fine that she owned had been a gift from this man.
An investment, he’d called it.
She would land a brilliant match and become the fashion plate of Society, wearing only Lementeur, of course.
He would rake in the boodle and become richer than Prince George.

Elektra had accepted the “investment” at the time because she had no choice.
She would not beggar her friends in her quest … unless of course, she had to.

Lementeur waved a hand impatiently at the cherubs above him.
Naughty cherubs.
“It won’t do.
Send the dress ’round and I’ll kerfuffle it.
No one will be the wiser.”

Elektra folded her arms and gazed at her dearest friend.
“Mr.
Button, you’ll not skip your dinner just to ‘kerfuffle’ a gown for me.”

Button finally tore his disapproving gaze from the ceiling to smile at her.
“Of course not, my darling!”
He gave her wrist a little pat.
“I’ll have Cabot do it.”

*   *   *

When Elektra left Aaron to cool his heels in the foyer, he toyed with the idea of being annoyed at being treated like a servant.
Then he reminded himself that even the Prince Regent himself didn’t get to follow a lady into her dressing room—at least, he ought not to!

So he folded his hands behind his back and picked out a focal point—a bright yellow drape of silk across the room.
It reminded him of Bahamian sunlight, or the inside of a ripe lemon, or the flame of a torch stuck down into the sand—

“Who are you?”

That Cabot fellow was one stealthy bastard!
Somehow he’d managed to reenter the room and make his way within arm’s reach of Aaron without him knowing it.

Now the man stood there, gazing at Aaron as if he was still deciding whether to let him in or throw him out.
The master’s guard dog, apparently.
Aaron would have liked to dismiss the fellow as a mincing tailor who’d never lifted anything heavier than needle and thread, but this Cabot fellow moved like a man who had seen his share of violence and come out on the winning side, or at least come out to fight another day.

“Dark edges,” Aaron said aloud.

“I beg your pardon?”

Aaron turned to face Cabot fully and looked him up and down.
“You ’ave dark edges, you do.
Like the light don’t go all the way ’round.
You cleaned yourself up, but shadows don’t wash off.
My money’s on you in a back-alley brawl, any day.”

Cabot’s eerie gray eyes narrowed slightly.
“And your own shadows, my lord?
Having any luck cleaning them away?”

Aaron drew back.
“What’s this ‘my lord’ business, eh?
I’m a workin’ man!”

Something that might have passed as a smile to someone more innocent crossed Cabot’s face as he offered a short bow of apology.
“My mistake … Mr.
Hastings.”

Then he straightened and shot Aaron a look that sent a chill up Aaron’s neck.
“You’ll be moving on soon, then?
Away from Worthington House?”

Away from Elektra, he meant.
Aaron admired the bloke’s loyalty even as he mentally threw up his hands at the way everyone assumed he was after something he had no right to.
He was
protecting
Elektra—from
herself
!

So he folded his arms and gave Cabot an equally—he hoped, although his own gray eyes weren’t particularly eerie—chilling look.
“If the rest o’ you would stop ’elpin’ ’er sell ’erself off like a prize cow, I might could move on a bit sooner.”

Cabot didn’t blink.
“She knows what she’s doing.”

Aaron rolled his eyes.
“She’s madder than a cat with a Chinese rocket tied to its tail!
She’s bound to—”

“She’s bound to save her house and name.
She sees it as the answer, the only way to bring her family back.
It is a worthy cause.
Can you not see the point of her sacrifice?”

Aaron looked away.
“Aye.
’Tis a shame, is all.
She’s … she’s…” He threw out his hands.

Cabot tilted his head.
“I have known her for some time now.
If she were a man, she could build an empire.
She has the strategic mind of a general and the strength of a fine sword, but she knows that her beauty is her only useful coin in this world and she means to spend it as advantageously as she can.
If you knew the saga of the Worthington clan, you would not judge her.”

Aaron eyed the younger man silently.
He seemed inscrutable, as cool and unconcerned as Michelangelo’s
David
.
Yet Aaron could feel the intensity radiating from the fellow.
“What’s this ‘saga,’ then?”

And without any more prompting than that, Cabot spilled the story.

“It began with the destruction of the manor, of course, fourteen years ago.
One of the children playing with fire, it seems.
Archie and Iris have a small but respectable income, a royal pension in fact—don’t ask me the details of that, for I do not know—but it will never amount to enough to rebuild the manor.
The estate itself is not large at all, and takes in few rents.
Still, the family counted themselves lucky that everyone survived and moved into the London residence permanently.”

Aaron thought of Worthington House, of the mad jumble of furnishings and treasures, and mountains of books.
It wasn’t a hoard, nor an accumulation of rubbish.
It was simply all that could be saved.

“However, that night took a toll on Iris, who was expecting Miss Atalanta at the time.
She’d had a very difficult time with the twins, as one could imagine, and she was greatly weakened by the subsequent children.
She nearly died giving birth to Miss Atalanta, and remained weak and ill for years afterward.
Miss Calliope raised her tiny sisters herself.
She was ten years old.”

That explained a great deal about Attie.
Aaron thought of little Elektra, who had been a mere five years at the time.

“However, Iris did recover eventually, and matters were calm for a time.
Then Lysander went to war.
A few months later, he was declared dead.
That was when Iris began to truly slip away.”

Aaron drew in a slow breath.
“Only ’e’s not dead.”

“No, he yet breathes.
Whether he
lives
remains to be seen.
When he was finally properly identified, it was discovered that he’d been unconscious for several months in a war hospital, not expected to survive.
Head injury, perhaps.
No one actually knows.
Papers mislaid, physician and nurses moving on.
Wartime.
However, he survived.
He was simply asleep, and then one day, he woke up screaming.
They sent him home, where he continued to scream for several months.”

Aaron passed a hand over his face, thinking of Elektra, still in the schoolroom, losing her mother further by the day, listening to those screams resounding through her broken house.
And Attie?
Had she ever known anything but mayhem?

“Iris never quite came back to reality.
Archie, though a loving father, is a rather ineffectual dreamer.”

Aaron harrumphed.
“And most of the rest of them ’aven’t the sense to come in out o’ the rain.”

“But not Miss Elektra.
She is far more acquainted with the realities of the world.
Of course, what she truly desires is her family back, not social standing for herself.”

“Aye, I’d gathered that much.
But why should she think she’s the only one who can fix them?”

“Because Elektra is the one who—”

“The one who what?”

Aaron started.
Elektra had simply appeared next to them.
Are there secret doorways in this place?

Cabot bowed deeply.
“The one who will cap the match of the Season, of course.
Your Grace.”

Elektra did not look as pleased at being thus addressed as Aaron might have imagined.
“Time will tell,” she replied tightly.
Then she turned a more pleasant expression upon Aaron.

“Mr.
Hastings, I am possessed of a longing for an ice.
Shall we?”

“Aye, miss.”
Aaron bowed her through the door, only too glad to leave Cabot’s disturbing presence.

When he glanced back, he saw that eerie gaze following him, assessing him still.

*   *   *

“I don’t understand how you can be so certain this will work.”

Button looked up to see Cabot, carrying the tray that contained Button’s afternoon tea, standing in the doorway of Button’s office.
This tiny room, mostly filled by a desk and chair, papered in sketches, piled with samples, was Button’s mental storehouse, his inner sanctum, the flaming white-hot center of his creativity—where he’d been staring at a blank sheet of paper for over an hour.

Button sat silently for a moment, as if ruminating over Cabot’s question, when in actuality he was wondering if he would ever get over that first little flip of joy when laying eyes upon the beauty and grace that was Cabot.

He’d once almost convinced himself that it was only the charming dew of youth that caught his eye, like admiring a long-legged colt, or an oversized pup running free in the park.
Everyone liked to look at lovely, young things, full of life and glowing with energy, did they not?

And Cabot glowed more than most.

That lost young man, barely old enough to be called a man, ragged and starving, whom Button had caught robbing his little shop almost a decade ago, had spilled his bag of loot to reveal only the very best of Button’s wares, unerringly selected with instinctive taste and style.

Button, being Button, had felt an obligation to sponsor such natural-born talent to its fullest fruition, and had taken in the skinny, frightened nineteen-year-old thief as his protégé.
He’d only realized his own danger when daylight and bathing and a few good meals had removed the skulking, shadowed desperation to reveal that his new assistant was quite mind-bogglingly gorgeous.

Thus the theory of “youth as beauty” had been formed.

When years had passed and the effect had not worn off, Button was forced to admit that it was not simply youth, or even perfection of symmetry of jaw and cheekbone, although Cabot had that in shiploads.

It was, he decided in the end, simply the distilled Cabot-ness of Cabot.
It was in the way he turned his head, in the way he lifted his hand, in the subtle casts of mist and storm cloud in his gray eyes, in his voice when he spoke only to Button—

All that ran through Button’s mind, as it often did, in the blink of an eye, in the span of a breath, so it was the merest moment before he twinkled a mischievous smile at his assistant as Cabot set down the tray on a special small table next to Button that he’d long go ordered Button not to use for
anything else
.

Button looked away from the graceful competence of Cabot’s long-fingered hands as his assistant arranged the tea set and spread his own hands wide with a confident expression.
“Of course it will work!
Why would it not?”

Cabot straightened and backed away a step from Button’s expansive gesture.
They were both so bloody cautious …