Now I was the one smiling, though I was glad he couldn’t tell. “No, my lord. It is bloody dark.”
“In that case …” He rummaged through the bulky thing, and suddenly I smelled cheese and salty olives and bread and smoked fish.
“Good God,” I said, my mouth beginning to water. “Did you bring a picnic?”
“A small something, perhaps. And …”
And a lantern, as it happened. He struck a match; the delicious food scent was briefly overwhelmed by sulphur, and then the amethyst shadows retreated against a small yellow glow.
“That’s better,” he said.
I drew my knees up to my chest. “Someone might see.”
“Who the devil,” Armand responded cordially, replacing the lantern’s glass, “is going to see all the way out here in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night? I’m not going to attempt to eat Russian caviar in the dark, Eleanore. It stains. And this is a new coat.”
“Very well.”
He sent me a glance from beneath his lashes. With the light cast up from below, he was all stark jawline and cheekbones and diabolical dark brows. I saw the dragon in him then as clear as could be. Only his eyes were reassuringly familiar: rich cobalt blue, the color of oceans, of heaven’s heart.
“Hungry?” he asked, soft.
There was an implication in his tone that he meant for something other than food.
“I’ve never had caviar,” I said deliberately.
His gaze fell from mine. “Then I’m honored to be the one to offer it to you now.”
And that is how I discovered that caviar is one of the most purely revolting substances ever to exist. I actually had to spit it out and wipe my tongue clean with a fresh piece of bread to get the disgusting fish-jelly flavor out of my mouth.
“Charming.” Armand was smearing more onto his own bread with a delicate silver knife. “Glad to know all those lessons in deportment aren’t being wasted.”
“What josser was the first person to slit open a sturgeon and see a slimy blob of eggs and think, Right, I’m going to eat that?” I swiped again at my tongue. “I never thought there existed a food I wouldn’t like, but you, my lord, have proven me wrong.”
“A first!”
“And last. What else did you bring?”
Ten minutes later, I realized I was the only one still eating. Crickets had begun to chirp sleepily from the bracken, filling the silence. I glanced up to discover Armand watching me, his face shadow-sharp and inscrutable. The last of the bread and olives lay untouched by his feet.
“Westcliffe doesn’t want you coming back next year,” he said abruptly.
I brushed some crumbs from my shirt. “That’s hardly a revelation. She thinks I’m your doxy.”
“She’s sent letter after letter to Reginald, implying it’s time to find a new scholarship girl. To cut you loose.”
Reginald was the duke, and my sponsor at the school. I’d only ever heard Armand refer to him as “dad” once. Right after His Grace had tried to murder me.
“What does he write back?” I asked.
“Nothing, so far. I’m afraid all her letters have been regretfully mislaid.”
I smiled, shaking my head. “You can’t keep that up.”
“No, I know. Eleanore—Lora—listen.”
But he didn’t say anything else, just kept staring at me, fierce. The flame of the lantern maintained its small, steady burn between us.
Crickets. Leaves rustling. Very dimly: the surging pulse of the sea.
“Don’t worry.” I tried to sound confident; I was an excellent liar, but Armand had a hardness to him that wasn’t easily fooled. “They’ll probably send me to another orphanage, but just for the summer. It won’t be for long, and I’ll be fine. You know I’m not nearly as helpless as I seem. I’ll land on my feet, no matter where I end up.”
“Another orphanage—or worse.”
“No.” I was pleased my voice didn’t crack. “That won’t happen, I assure you.”
Hell would freeze over first. The moon would plunge from the sky, cats would bark, and dogs would weep tears of rubies and pearls. I would never, ever return to Moor Gate, or any place like it. I would never let demented people like that have control over me again.
Armand ran a hand through his hair, leaving a muss. “There is another option. We get married. You stay with me.”
My attention zagged back to him; I’m sure my mouth had fallen open. “Married.”
“Yes. Kindly try not to sound so horrified.”
I covered my lips with both hands, then forced myself to drop them to my lap. “You—you’re not of age yet.”
“I will be in a month.”
“Well, I’m not of age yet. I haven’t the faintest idea when I’ll be eighteen.”
He frowned. “You don’t know how old you are?”
“No. I don’t even know my birthday.”
“How you could celebrate it if you don’t … ?”
I only looked at him.
“Oh. Right. Orphanage.”
“And the fact that I have no memory of my life before 1909. The only thing I know about myself at all is that I was born on a steamship. And only because Jesse told me that, and the stars told him.”
Armand picked up a fat green olive and held it between his finger and thumb, glaring down at it. “The stars, of course. Always the bloody damned stars.” He flicked the olive to the trees, and all the crickets went quiet.
Jesse had been a star. Of the stars, human-born but with all the sorcery of the firmament rushing through his veins. He’d been a creature caught between realms, like us, and had recognized what Armand and I were long before we two did.
Everyone at Iverson assumed Jesse Holms to have been nothing more than the simple hired hand he’d pretended to be. But he’d become my light and my guide into my drákon Gifts. It was because of him that the stars now spoke to me, instead of just singing their wordless songs.
“Don’t you hear them yet?” I asked gently.
“Yes, I hear them. I just don’t like what I hear.” Armand climbed to his feet, slapping noisily at the folds of his coat. “Look, waif, I haven’t got all night. I have to wake up early for another excruciatingly instructive meeting with my farms manager about some cows or something, so let’s get this over with. Did you bring the shovel?”
I rose to my own feet, lifting a hand to indicate the shovel, obviously just beside me.
He grabbed it, said, “Let’s go,” and moved off without another look.
I collected the lantern and the picnic basket and followed him. Neither of us really needed illumination to find the place where I’d buried my chest of gold a few weeks before, but I didn’t want to leave any evidence of our meeting behind.
Like me, Armand heard the music of the metal and strode straight to it.
I’d chosen an area that looked like any other in the woods, littered with decomposing leaves and pine needles, a few handy ferns growing lush and random around it. Oak roots pushed through ivy and peat, sinking gnarled tendrils all the way down into the bedrock.
There was a gap in the root system exactly wide enough for the chest. A little too far in any direction, and a treasure seeker would end up just slashing at wood.
Armand sank the shovel into the perfect center of the proper spot.
I would have done the digging myself, but he’d insisted. I hadn’t told him, but the truth was that burying the chest in the first place had made me so ill I’d actually passed out. I kept forgetting I was supposed to be on the mend.
“I’ve counted every piece,” I warned him, watching the shovel jab in, lift out, great mounds of moss and dirt piled to the side.
He didn’t glance up. “You think I’d steal from you?”