Infuriating.
Clio hated when she couldn’t achieve her goal. But delving into family secrets was a problem for a different day. Today, Clio needed to begin winning over the trust of a rather grumpy ghost.
She crouched as Sir Robin flapped his wings and landed gracefully a few feet away, hopping in the adorable way ravens had as he conducted his own explorations. He was awfully good at findinglost things. Especially shiny objects like rings, coins, and necklaces. Occasionally, he found them when they weren’t lost at all, but Clio was working with him on his habit of ‘borrowing’ items.
She tugged off her gloves and tucked them into her pocket, her bare hands hovering over the patch of wood where the rug had been. Sometimes, it helped to touch where the body had lain. The sensory connection could help focus her visions of the past. Wide skirts hindered her movements. Her tight corset constricted her ribs and dug into her full hips as she leaned further forward.
‘Blasted fashion,’ she muttered to Sir Robin.
‘Blasted fashion,’ he replied in his uncanny mimic. It was a trait that shocked most people when they first heard him, but ravens were cunning birds, and Sir Robin was especially brilliant.
Clio might hate corsets, but she did love a daring dress. Today’s ensemble was fuchsia with bold ebony stripes and black lace trimming. The bright colour brought some much-needed cheer to a dreary, grey February day. It also highlighted her pink cheeks and midnight hair, contrasting nicely with her amber eyes. An enterprising fool recently described their light colour as honeyed gold, earning himself a swift exit from her presence.
‘The only gold he’s interested in is what’s in my pockets. Fortune hunting basta?—’
Before she could finish her assessment of the impoverished lordling, the front door crashed open.
Sir Robin cawed in alarm and hopped closer to Clio’s skirts.
A large man in a black greatcoat, tall hat, Hessian boots, and dark trousers stood in the doorway. Wind tangled his coat tails, making the fabric twist and swirl behind him like bat wings. His sharp gaze found Clio almost immediately. Black brows pulled low over piercing green eyes. Pointing the silver handle of a beautifully carved walking stick directly at Clio, he could have been a dark angel sent to steal her soul.
‘Who the bloody hell are you, and what the bloody hell do you think you are doing here?’
For a surreal moment, Clio froze, her shrewd mind trapped in stasis, her hand still reaching out to touch the floor. A rogue image flashed of the man’s face, in a different time. The lines bracketing his lips were gone, his hair cut in a fashionably short style, impeccably combed. His eyes were stricken with grief, his beautiful mouth twisted in pain. Then it was gone, as swiftly as lightning disappearing in a black sky.
Holy Hecate. What was that?
Clio had visions of the past, but they were only ever linked to the dead. Never the living. Blinking, she forced herself back to the present and slowly rose. As she did, Sir Robin took the opportunity to flap back onto her shoulder.
‘Bastard!’ Sir Robin’s timing was impeccable as he finished Clio’s last sentence.
The man’s eyes widened in shock, and she took a measure of satisfaction in unsettling him.
‘Did your bird just call me a bastard?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ It wasn’t ridiculous at all. She was quite certain that is exactly what Sir Robin had done, and she was inclined to agree. A beautiful bastard, perhaps, but trouble, nonetheless. Unease rippled through her. ‘One might ask whyyouare here, and whatyouare doing, though I would never deign to do so in the rude fashion you have demonstrated. Such language, sir, in the presence of a lady. Shocking.’ She pressed her lips together, the lie bitter on her tongue. She was many things, but certainly not a lady. Her blood ran as red as any other commoner, even if her bank account was richer than most peers of the realm.
While Aunt Rowan’s apothecary shop on Savile Row, All Things Bright and Beautiful – catering solely to the beau monde’s most distinguished ladies seeking the elusive recipe for eternal youth –had made Clio and her family richer than most of their Mayfair neighbours, it hadn’t bought them a title. Not that Clio cared. Titles were as useless as suitors. They both required the same thing from women. Submission to rules neither benefitting nor protecting them. A woman was required to sacrifice her land, wealth, and autonomy on the altar of matrimony. A husband could do with them, and her, as he pleased. Hardly a worthy trade in Clio’s estimation.
Her mother tried to follow convention, and it ended in her death. She was the one ghost Clio desperately wished to see but never had. Aspen Blair abandoned her daughters in life, and so too did she slip away from them in death. She gave every part of herself to a man, and it killed her.
No love is worth such a sacrifice.
In Clio’s five and twenty years, she knew several ways to keep herself safe from all manner of danger. Always hang a mirror facing the door, sprinkle each entrance of a home with black salt and sage, and stay far away from handsome men with smouldering eyes and a lying tongue.
Bollocks to men and their false promises.
And bollocks to this gentleman who glowered at her like a bull seeing red.
‘You are reproving me for base language when that crow on your shoulder just accused me of being a bastard. I’ve called men out for less,’ the man growled, his low voice echoing in the entry.
Clio rolled her eyes as Sir Robin fluffed his feathers. ‘Sir Robin Goodfellow is hardly a crow. He’s a raven. Any fool can see that. And it would be rather silly to call out a bird, don’t you think? He couldn’t possibly hold a gun, let alone pull the trigger. Ridiculous notion.’
Lowering his walking stick, the man blinked, no doubt trying to process all that comprised Clio Blair.
Good luck with that, sir.
He stepped across the threshold of Viscount Beachley’s home. ‘A profane raven named Robin. And you call me the fool?’
