Page 1 of Of Fate and Phantoms
Chapter 1
London, New Year's Eve, 1889
"You look beautiful," Lincoln whispered, enclosing my hands in his.
We stood in the corridor between our rooms on a freezing New Year's Eve. Lincoln's warmth, however, chased away the chill. A tendril of his hair skimmed his brow. He didn't plan on tying it back for the ball. Apparently pirates cared nothing for grooming.
"Thank you," I murmured, a blush rising up my throat and infusing my cheeks. "You look rather dashing yourself."
"Pirates aren't supposed to look dashing." He eased back, taking my hopes of a kiss with him, and rubbed his bristly jaw. "Perhaps I should have started the beard a day earlier."
"Not too dashing," I quickly reassured him.
Who knew that such a self-confident man cared so much about looking the part of a pirate for a masquerade ball? He'd gone so far as to purchase a new shirt, complete with ruffled sleeves at the wrist, a wide leather belt, and a tricorn hat that he'd thrown in the dirt as soon as he got it home. Apparently pirates couldn't be seen in brand new hats. At least not the roguish pirate that Lincoln wanted to portray.
"You will look frightening once you put on the eye patch," I said. "We maidens will tremble in our shoes."
He leaned in again, as far as the broad skirts of my Georgian costume would allow. "I hope to scare away all but the bravest of maids."
I tried to think of a quip in response, but my mind went blank when his lips caressed the corner of my mouth and he palmed my waist. I felt the light pressure even through the corset boning.
"I'll save a dance for you," I said.
"Save them all for me. I won't be dancing with anyone else."
"You should. People will talk if you only dance with me."
"Let them."
"You want them to gossip?" I asked.
His lips curved into one of his rare smiles, but this one held a touch of mischief, an even rarer commodity. "I want them to know you're mine."
In the week since Christmas, Lincoln and I had settled into a pattern that fell somewhere between friendship and betrothed. We were neither, and yet sometimes, like now, it felt like we were both. I had not plucked my engagement ring from its velvet bed in the ring box, but that didn't stop us from touching hands as we passed in the corridor or sat next to one another at dinner. Only once had we kissed passionately, in the privacy of the parlor the day after he emerged from his sickbed.
That kiss had not been repeated, not even on the single occasion when we'd found ourselves alone in the house one Sunday morning. He'd retreated to his study and I'd gone to find him. I wasn’t sure what I hoped would happen, but I was certainly not expecting him to order me to leave. He'd sought me out later to apologize, blaming his abruptness on concern for my virtue and his lack of willpower. I'd laughed but he had not.
Lincoln's hands dropped to his sides, and his gaze shuttered. "We shouldn't be doing this. Not here. Not now."
Not now.
It was a reference to our status as a couple, or lack of it. I knew he wanted to be engaged again, and that his offer awaited my response in the form of putting the ring on my finger. Yet I wasn't ready to give up my newfound freedom. I had a small house of my own now. I had a roof over my head here at Lichfield Towers, and I could make my own decisions regarding my life, my person, and my future. I didn't want to jeopardize that, and certainly not with a man who'd proven to be unpredictable. And yet, I loved him. That could not be denied.
"You're right," I said on a sigh as I moved away. "It wouldn't do for Lady Vickers to see." A few months ago, I hadn't cared a whit for propriety, but things had changed since then. Not the least of it, the arrival of both Seth's mother and my friend Alice. Where before I was still something of a street urchin in my thoughts and behavior, I was now more aware of the necessity to act my age of nineteen. It was time to fit back into a society that had been alien to me for so long and be the sort of person they could both be proud to associate with. My newfound maturity could be attributed to facing down the twin evils of the Queen of Hearts' army and the headmistress of the School for Wayward Girls. Escaping that place alive would bend even the most stubborn will.
I went in search of Alice, and together we put on the wigs and masks we'd purchased during the week. The gowns had been discovered in a trunk in the attic, having been left there by the previous owner of Lichfield. They'd required minor repairs and airing out, but they were otherwise perfect.
We met Lady Vickers, Seth and Lincoln at the appointed hour. I bit back my giggle at Seth's foppish Georgian attire, complete with powdered wig and beauty spot. He'd insisted on matching our costumes, and wanted Lincoln to do the same to identify us as a group to the other guests. Lincoln had refused to dress as a dandy and decided on the pirate outfit instead. His argument that he matched the same era of our costumes had been unassailable, much to Seth's frustration.
Seth slapped on his hat, blew its long black feather off his face, and held his arm out to Alice. "You do look smart," he told her.
Smart? That was the best he could do? For such a charming man, he wasn't always at his most charming with her. Indeed, he even seemed a little overwhelmed by her. She was uncommonly pretty and possessed an air of aloofness.
He must have realized his response lacked enthusiasm because he added, "And beautiful. Lovely. A vision."
"And historically accurate," Alice said. "More or less."
Lady Vickers followed them out, her scowl directed at Alice's back. The severity of it became lost, however, with all the tinkling of the beads and tokens attached to the hem of her gypsy dress, visible beneath her fur coat. I'd tried to tell her that the beading and colorful dress were a cliché, and that gypsies didn't wear such ostentatious outfits, but then I'd have to tell her how I knew. Lady Vickers, for all her strength of character, might not like knowing that the woman she'd taken under her wing had visited a gypsy camp with a man who was half-gypsy himself.
