For only three people.
I wondered if the servants would get to eat what we didn’t finish. Maybe they just tossed all the leftovers straight into the rubbish.
And it wasn’t merely the meal that was excessive. The dining room was filled with floor-to-ceiling windows, sky and glass everywhere, with Armand’s seat placed so that the biggest one loomed right behind his back. It made it seem as if he somehow sat suspended in midair.
But I guessed he was used to it. I hadn’t noticed him glance even once out the windows. Instead he’d paused, fork in hand, and was regarding Lottie with polite interest. He was obviously waiting to hear what Lieutenant Clayworth’s note said.
I, however, didn’t stop gobbling down my latest helping of fried potatoes and sausage. I had no need to wait; I already knew what the note said, since I’d written it myself.
TERRIBLY SORRY, AUNT LOTTIE AND ALL. MUST DASH OFF UNEXPECTEDLY. WAR BUSINESS. HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND AND WILL SEE YOU SOON, NO DOUBT.
—L.C.
Another good lesson for you: When forging missives or signatures, it’s always better to keep things short. The less there is to scrutinize, the less there will be to muck you up.
The lieutenant hadn’t actually left a note. After I’d come back down to earth last night, I’d searched his empty room to be sure. I’d even done a quick perusal of both Armand’s and Lottie’s chambers to check that he hadn’t slipped one under their doors before leaving, because I couldn’t risk him writing something about me, truth or lie or anything at all. Not if I wanted this summer to keep going forward.
But he hadn’t. He’d just fled.
Who, exactly, was the coward?
I had seen Armand Louis run into a hail of bullets for me. I’d seen him face mortal danger without recoiling, and I’d seen him weep for our dead. So to hell with sodding Lieutenant Laurence Clayworth.
During my hunt for the note, I’d come to the decision that I’d keep most of the facts of my encounter with Laurence to myself. I didn’t know how close the two of them truly were, but hearing that a person you thought a friend considered you unbalanced at best, craven at worst, could only hurt. Whatever else I felt about Armand, I had no desire to cause him hurt.
Lottie sighed and held out the folded paper to Armand, who scanned it and then passed it to me. I looked down at it, allowed myself a fresh measure of satisfaction at the handwriting (which definitely didn’t resemble mine), then looked back up.
“I trust everything is all right,” I said, with what I hoped was exactly the right touch of genteel concern.
Apparently I’d miscalculated. Armand’s focus went from his kippers to my face, instantly alert.
“ ‘War business’,” Lottie muttered, slicing into her eggs. “And the boy couldn’t be bothered to wait for a respectable goodbye.”
“You know how things are these days, my lady,” said Armand, still watching me. “It’s an unfortunate fact of the modern world. Matters change in the space of a breath.”
Lottie squinted at him. “What’s that you said?”
“Matters change.”
“Did he receive a telegram in the night? We must ask Foster.”
“I wouldn’t,” I warned Armand, low.
“Foster?” Lottie was looking around, annoyed that neither the footman by the sideboard nor the butler had come forward. “Foster? Where the devil is he?”
“Matthews,” said Armand, “I believe Lady Clayworth would enjoy some trifle, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Certainly, my lord.”
Armand gazed at me, silent, while the butler offered a heap of cream and cake to her ladyship.
“Well?” he said as Matthews moved away and Lottie happily dug in.
I glanced at my own plate, now nearly empty, then back up at the sideboard.
Armand’s tone went dangerously silky. “Lora.”
“Yes, yes.” I poked at a piece of potato with my knife. Now that the time had come, I found myself struggling with what to say. “We might have a problem.”
“What manner of problem?”
“Your friend. I imagine his nose is broken.”
“Oh? And why would that be?”
I gave up on the potato. I lifted my eyes and gazed back at Armand and let the silence balloon between us.
His face, already so pale, seemed to go even whiter.
“Are you joking?”
“No.”
“Were you—hurt?”
I smiled, mirthless. “No.”
He sat there without moving, staring at me. A cloud of small brown birds poured into view behind him, shrinking and swelling in unison, blurred wings and shrill chirrups. Pouring away again.
Armand had gone to stone. No, not stone, because I didn’t think stones could emanate the black sense of menace I felt from him now. He was as stiff and frightful as he’d been that moment in the duke’s asylum, when in the back of my mind I’d thought maybe, maybe I’d have to stop him from killing his own father.
I said, “I should have locked the door and I didn’t. No harm done but to him. In fact, I likely did him a favor. He can tell all the girlies now that a Hun clocked him in a fight.”
Armand stood; alarmed, so did I. He seemed fixed on a point beyond me, someplace where there were no birds or sky or anything civilized like breakfast. I looked into blue eyes and saw only sparks and darkness.
He’ll come back to us stronger and stronger, Jesse had told me once. He’s going to crave you more and more, and not having you will eat him raw.
How much worse, then, would it feel to know that someone else, his own mate, had not only craved me but had gone behind his back to act upon it?
It wasn’t until then that I understood I’d accidentally revealed the worse betrayal, after all.
“Mandy. He’s not worthy of you. Let it be.”
“Lord Armand, have you taken ill?” demanded Lottie. “I cannot imagine why you’re standing otherwise.”
“Mandy,” I said again, urgent, soft. Trying to pull him back to me. “There’s more.”
His lashes lowered. He looked down at his hand, at his opening fingers. The fork he’d been holding had been bent nearly in two. It clattered down to the table.
“Yes, indeed, I’m so eager to see the future therapy room,” I said very audibly. “It’s downstairs, you say? Do forgive us, your ladyship. I feel we must get started right away. For the soldiers, you know.”
“What’s that?” Lottie asked, but I ignored her, reaching instead for Armand.
I was counting on all those years of being raised as a gentleman, all that stiff-upper-lip training, Eton, London, any of it, and to my relief, it worked. Without a word he let me slip my hand through the crook of his elbow, and together we walked out of the dining room, leaving a confounded Lady Clayworth behind.
“What did that young woman say? Why are they leaving? Foster, did you understand her?”
I hadn’t thought of where to go from there. No doubt there was a downstairs to Tranquility, but I had no notion of how to get there or even if there was going to be such a thing as a therapy room.
I was just walking, Armand rigid at my side, and my feet took us to the one other place I really recognized: the front parlor, where there was a piano.
Not an ordinary upright piano, either, but a shiny black grand piano, practically big as a pond, with a bench long enough for two. I led him to it, waited until he sat, and then took my place beside him.
I didn’t speak, and neither did he. Instead, my fingers touched the keys, and the music began to flow.
The duke had done up the parlor entirely in black and white. Floors, walls, furniture, drapes. It was probably the only reason the piano was there, fitting so neatly into his scheme, but as far as I was concerned, the piano was the only thing in the whole chamber that made any sense. Everything else was a black-and-white mess.