“Let’s discuss it in the carriage,” he said softly, offering his arm.
Finding her wits, Elsie accepted it and let him lead her to the road.
Despite Bacchus’s suggestion, the carriage ride to Brookley was rather silent.
CHAPTER 5
Elsie came home to an empty house, unsure if Ogden was still looking for stolen opuses or attending to other business. At first, she assumed Emmeline was simply running errands, but when the maid did not return by nightfall, it became clear she must have left to stay with family or friends. And so Elsie locked up the dark stonemasonry shop and put herself in bed, pretending to sleep and doing a very poor job of it.
She was engaged. To Bacchus Kelsey. Engaged to be married.
And he hadn’t even proposed.
We’ll sort it out, Elsie, he’d said as the carriage pulled down Brookley’s high street, his Bajan accent soft. I promise.
But he’d seemed tense, so wrapped in thoughts they were suffocating him. Elsie didn’t know what she’d wanted him to feel, to say. That he was relieved? That he was actually madly in love with her? That made her laugh.
How funny it was, to have a man who had once nearly thrown her into prison sacrifice his happiness to keep her out of it.
Tears stung her vision, and she blinked them away. His happiness. Oh, she wanted Bacchus to be happy. So desperately. She recalled the utter glee that had encompassed him after she pulled that siphoning spell from his chest. How it had buoyed her. Made her feel wanted and important. She wanted him to be like that always.
But this arrangement had practically put the spell back onto him, hadn’t it? Elsie would eat up his time, his energy, his money, as any unwanted spouse would.
Rolling over, Elsie pressed her face into her pillow and moaned. How blissful this engagement would have been if it had come about differently. If she’d never been arrested and he’d stayed in England for the want of her and they’d courted in the way a man and a woman were supposed to, without secrets and murderers looming in the background. Yes, Elsie was willing to admit that in that other, perfect scenario, it would be joy keeping her awake. Excitement.
“You’ll have to make the best of it,” she said into the pillow. “Make him regret it as little as possible. Be the best forced spouse you can be.”
And the magistrate might yet lose interest. For all they knew, Bacchus could be let off the hook.
It bothered her how much that thought seared, like she’d swallowed a hot poker.
God help her, she’d be miserable if he stayed, and miserable if he left. The most logical thing to do was to prepare for the pain now. The worst thing about tragedy was being surprised by it. She simply wouldn’t let it catch her unawares this time. Not like it had with her family, with Alfred, or with the mysterious American man she’d thought, however briefly, was her long-lost father.
A sore lump formed in her throat, and stubborn tears pushed their way onto her pillowcase. She’d tried very hard not to think on that the last two weeks. The worst of it was how excited she’d been upon receiving a telegram from the Halls, the family with whom her parents had abandoned her. They’d reported that someone had finally come looking for her. She’d cashed out her entire bank account and fled for Juniper Down immediately, only to realize the man was not her kin. He wasn’t even English. And he thought she’d written a mass of articles to toy with him for a reason she had been unable to surmise.
That horrible disappointment had been followed by the revelation that the Cowls—or, rather, Master Lily Merton—had been using her for years, something that had filled her with shadows that were too poisonous to bear.
She heard the snap of the bolt in the back door and sat up, quickly wiping her eyes. The door opened, closed, followed by familiar footsteps. Too heavy to be Emmeline’s.
Grabbing her night-robe, Elsie pushed her arms into its sleeves and hurried into the hall.
“Ogden?” she called.
A candle lit at the bottom of the stairs, illuminating Ogden’s face. Relief etched his features. “He did it. You’re back.”
She nodded. “As are you. We need to talk.”
He ascended the steps. “Anywhere is fine. Emmeline’s not due back until morning.”
She stepped aside to let him pass, then followed him into his bedroom, where she perched on the trunk at the edge of his bed. “What did you find?”
“The place she hid the opuses,” he answered. Elsie perked up, but he held out a hand, staying her. “It was empty. She’s been there. I didn’t find her, but I returned to the Spiritual Atheneum in London on my way back. Picked some brains. Apparently she’s officially retired and moved from the city, though no one seems to know where.”
Elsie’s lungs twisted in an unexpected way. Lily Merton must have decided Elsie wasn’t necessary anymore. It shouldn’t have bothered her—she wanted nothing to do with the murderer—and yet it did.
“I’ll be returning soon to try to locate her, keep tabs on her. Someone must know something.” He set the candle down and plopped onto his bed, landing hard enough to shake the trunk pressed against its foot. “She’s being smart—she knows I could overpower her mind if I found her.”
Elsie stiffened. “Could you?”
He hesitated, peering at her with severe turquoise eyes. “Yes, I could.”
Elsie licked her lips, considering.
“Does that bother you?”
“Does what?”
“What I am,” he clarified. “What I can do.”
She shook her head, then paused. “It doesn’t bother me. I’m just . . . not used to it.” I just don’t know if you’ve ever used it on me.
She knew he had, in service to Merton, but she had to believe he wouldn’t do it intentionally. He’d claimed that their interactions were genuine, that Merton had controlled him only on occasion. She needed to believe that. She needed to believe in something.
“I wonder,” Ogden went on, “if she’s hired new thugs, or if she’s choosing to lie low. Perhaps it’s over. Perhaps she really has retired.”
Elsie gave him an incredulous look that he merely nodded at. People had been murdered, their opuses stolen. A woman did not go through such extensive efforts merely to give up in the end. “The question is,” Elsie said aloud, “what is the end?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his hands together. “If she has all those opuses . . . she’s the most powerful person in England, if not the world.”
Elsie hugged herself, cold in a way that radiated from the inside out, much like she’d been in prison.
As though sensing her thought—and perhaps he had—Ogden asked, “How did he get you out? What did he have to pay?”
The lump in her throat returned, and she swallowed it down. “Not money,” she murmured.
And she told him everything, from the moment the guard unlocked her cell to the moment Bacchus dropped her off in Brookley, promising to contact her soon. Everything but the worry and worthlessness gnawing on her insides.
Ogden leaned back. “Interesting.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
He shrugged. “He’s not a bad choice, Elsie. He’s titled, wealthy, and virile.”
Elsie’s cheeks heated. “Did you say virile?”
Ogden smirked. “It’s hard not to notice.”
She covered her face with her hands, hiding her embarrassment.
Until another realization hit her, making her stomach drop.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
Ogden tensed. “What? What’s wrong?”
Slowly, she dropped her hands from her face and lifted her eyes. “If I marry him . . .”