“Pity.” I turned and walked through the doorway, not trusting myself to stay in a room with him any longer. I’d likely pull out my pistol. Or do something worse, like fall prey to his eyes and gestures.
Back in my room, Penny had placed a number of things out for inspection. She looked up at me, then past me, her eyes glazing over.
“Are you finished packing, then?” that damned voice said from behind, explaining the maid’s slack jaw.
I shoved a jewelry pouch into the corner of my case. “Why don’t you bother Sable? She is begging for the attention.”
“I’m hurt, Marietta. Truly.”
“I’m sure.” As if I had the ability to hurt anyone these days. Someone would have to care first.
I shut my eyes. Idiot. I was going to have a breakdown if I kept up such pitiful thoughts.
“Is this all you have?”
“If you are going to be obnoxious, I’d prefer for you to wait elsewhere.”
He picked up the edge of a black gown. I slapped his hand away.
He whistled and touched the edge again. “And here I thought little could outdo your current dress.”
“I’m in mourning.”
“Your parents have been dead for two years.”
I glanced up sharply at his quick display of knowledge once more. “How do you know that?”
“I know many things. Such as when you lie.”
That I’d stretched my mourning period into a second year was pushing things, but I couldn’t afford new dresses, and altering my older, out of fashion garments would only get me so far. Besides, the dark gowns protected me in other ways. Silly, insidious ways where my femininity wasn’t threatened. I couldn’t be held responsible for my lack of feminine wiles in dresses likethese.
And here I thought Ferris the prideful one.
“You know no such thing.” I pushed his hand aside and folded the dress.
“Don’t spend too much time worrying about which beautiful gown you can’t live without.”
Mocking words, words that made me want to lash back, but contradicted by the seriousness and truth in his eyes. I turned to my personal effects. No one would want my dresses, which could be replaced. Personal possessions could not.
The servants were untrustworthy, and Ferris soon wouldn’t be able to keep away the mobs. The streets were calling for vengeance. Noble’s house, though it chafed me to admit, was a safer place to store my mementos and more precious items. I might not trust him, but deep inside, underneath my tired and irrational anger, I perceived he had a code he would not cross.
We wouldn’t be standing in my bedroom otherwise.
The irritating man poked around my room, flashing smiles at a giggling Penny and sending Sable on repeated errands downstairs while I finished packing.
Penny disappeared to gather a last box. Noble reclined against a pillow, as if he owned the world. “Did you know they were selling your brother’s things?”
My lips tightened. “No.”
I needed to let Ferris know. I picked up a pen and jotted a note. I used the scant magic I could grip in my exhaustion to silently enter his room and tuck it into his hand, where theservants would have less of a chance of finding it. For the first time in two years I was glad my older brother was passed out. I didn’t know if I could deal with him now. And he and Noble would not get on well at all.
Ferris would be very angry that an outsider was aware of our economic straits. Even to help Kennen, he would not divulge such information. It was why I hadn’t discussed anything with him before embarking on this mission.
I walked back and looked around my room. The most important items were packed. I nodded to Noble and we carried my boxes and case into the same unmarked carriage.
Sharp eyes watched us depart. The carriage took a number of turns that seemed unnecessary, as if we were going in circles, or evading followers. But Noble had busied himself with Kennen’s journal, and I could only stare numbly at my wrist as each wheel turn took me toward an even more unknown future.
Twenty minutes later, the carriage stopped. Noble opened the door and I stepped onto the smoothed cobblestones of an Ashfield neighborhood. An older part of Midtown, but neat and maintained.
