“To whom do I owe my rescue?” she asks. A smile plays about her lips, and I can imagine how the newspapers will eat this up. MISTRESS VIRULEN PULLED SMILING FROM THE WRECKAGE OF HER CARRIAGE, and so on.
We introduce ourselves. Mistress Virulen’s eyes hold mine for a beat longer than they do Hal’s, but she keeps hold of Hal’s hand long after she releases mine.
“Is there somewhere we can escort you, my lady, until a safe conveyance can be hired for you?” he asks. “I suppose your father will send dray oxen to fetch his carriage.” I watch the tender way he releases her. Jealousy snaps at me with green jaws.
Her perfume is both heavenly and heavy—bergamot, damask rose, spice. She waves her free hand as if there’s nothing to trouble over. “I’ll hire a hansom to take me home.” She looks around at the expectant crowd, smiling. “Surely one of these noble people will kindly return me to my father’s estate.”
Several affirmative shouts answer her.
“But first, let us see the cause of all this hullabaloo.” She pulls us toward the front of the trolley.
“My lady, I don’t think—” Hal begins, but one look from her silences him.
We move forward.
I don’t want to look, but Mistress Virulen’s grip is too strong to resist. She pulls me toward the still-smoking front wheels. Another crowd has gathered there—officers, a barrister or two, and a few Pedants. Father is among them, crumbs still dotting his cravat. He must have been taking his lunch in his favorite pub, the Surly Wench, up the street.
When he sees me, he blanches whiter than the Sheep of Learning.
“Vee!” he says. He comes to me as if he wants to embrace me, but Mistress Virulen’s hold on my hand stops him.
“Mistress,” he says, bowing toward her.
She inclines her head.
A light drizzle begins. Mistress Virulen releases me so I can pull my hood up over my hair. Some thoughtful person brings her hat, miraculously undamaged, from the wreckage of her carriage and she affixes it over her gorgeous black curls. I resist the urge to fiddle with my hair. Why can my curls not be so tidy? They rebel against order, which is why I most often wind them up in braids or chignon, despite the unfashionableness of such styles.
She grabs my hand again and pulls me onward, as if we’ve been fast friends forever. I don’t know her at all, except what little gossip I hear in the Museum halls and at the dinner table. I recall Aunt Minta saying once that Mistress Virulen was on the hunt for the perfect match, that the Virulen Estate isn’t as prosperous as it once was. But if her gown and hat are any indication, her family is prospering quite well.
I sigh in relief to find that the body is already covered with a white sheet, though blood slicks the cobbles, the front of the wheels. I can see from the depressions in the quickly staining sheet that the body has been cleaved in two, and I’m torn between fascination and horror.
Mistress Virulen has a strangely fervid expression. I’d almost say she finds this exciting, but it would be wrong for a lady of quality to be anything but grieved by death.
“Ladies,” Father says, “perhaps you should step over to the café there, out of view of this tragedy. We shall join you momentarily.”
A swift look passes between Hal and me, but Father picks up on it. He glares at Hal.
Mistress Virulen reluctantly allows me to draw her to the café across the road. Room is made among the crowding patrons for us to have a seat by the window, and I am glad to be surrounded by the smell of coffee grown deep in the Eastern wildlands rather than the death and smoke outside.
Mistress Virulen is restless, staring out the window. She smiles at me when our coffee comes, her full attention finally bent on me.
“Miss Nyx,” she says, “I have a proposition that may interest you.” She looks at me over her teacup. Her teeth are whiter than the bone china.
“Oh?” I say. I take a long sip.
“How would you like to be my Companion?”
I splutter and then do my best to recover my dignity by hiding behind my napkin. When I’ve swallowed my incredulity along with the scalding coffee, I say, “Come again, my lady?”
She laughs. “You silly bird! You know what I said!”
“But, my lady, I’m hardly qualified for such an honor. And you barely know me.”
“That is precisely why I would rather have you!” she says. “Any girl who is brave enough to try to stop a trolley to save me certainly deserves a reward.”
It’s as if the cold outside seeps into my veins instead of the warmth I seek from my coffee. I gulp it hurriedly, trying to steel myself, and nearly sear my tongue off in the process.
“I’ve no idea what you mean,” I manage to say.
She laughs at me again. “Oh, don’t be coy. Of course you do! I saw you through my carriage window before everything turned upside down. You were practically glowing with”—she leans closer, the feathers on her hat nodding toward me—
My face is hotter than the dregs of coffee in my cup. If she saw, then everyone must have seen. And with the incident at the Museum with the Sphinx, it’s a wonder newspapermen aren’t beating down our townhouse doors to get answers. Or that the Raven Guard haven’t come to lock me away. I wonder if she saw Hal, too, and if she will try to blackmail him. Perhaps he’s better at hiding it than I am. He must be, if he hasn’t been caught yet.
“We could be of much use to each other, you and I,” she says.
“And what if I’d rather not?” I try to sound arch, but I come off more like a petulant child.
“I suspect you’d find your life a deal more uncomfortable than you already do.” She leans even closer, so that the topmost feather on her hat almost tickles my nose. “You should understand, Miss Nyx, that I always get my way.”
I force a smile, but it is more truthfully a grimace.
Father and Hal wade through the crowd. Aunt Minta comes behind them.
“We’ve a hansom for you, Mistress Virulen,” Father says. His eyes wander between us. “That is . . . if the two of you are finished?”
She stands, her skirts hissing against the table. I stand with her. “I believe we are, Pedant Nyx,” she says, holding my gaze. That wicked smile curves her lips again.
She takes my hand. “I shall send the formal invitation to you as soon as I return home. I’ll look forward to your acceptance.”
I nod. Under better circumstances, Father’s quizzical gaze would make me laugh. Hal looks between us, his expression completely unreadable.
Mistress Virulen is off in a whisper of exotic perfume and puff of nodding feathers.
“Invitation?” Father asks.
“She wants me to be her Companion,” I say.
Realization dawns on his face just before he embraces me. He knows what this means—that I will be exposed to more connections in higher places than he and Aunt Minta could ever reach. Such a position almost guarantees me a match far beyond his wildest dreams.
As long as I don’t botch it up. And as long as Mistress Virulen keeps her knowledge to herself. Therein lies the bargain.
I rest my cheek against his robes, breathing in the damp, scholarly smell and loving it more fiercely than ever. My eyes meet Hal’s over Father’s shoulder. I think he knows what this means too. No more Museum for me. And perhaps no more magic, if I am to survive. His gaze is hard, his eyes almost too brilliant to bear.
“I’m so proud of you, Vee! Today has truly been a red-letter day,” Aunt Minta says, as she arrives. The news apparently is already being whispered about; my indiscretion in racing from the carriage is already forgotten.
I think of the scarlet letter on Athena’s robes at her execution and can only agree.
CHAPTER 12
