Page 65 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
“I’ll tell you about that later,” Fiona promised.
“I’m positive,” Cordelia continued, “that you are dear to Lord Lysander, and that he would not let you worry about him long. If anyone will have heard from him, it will be you.”
Fiona shook her head. “I have not seen him since—” She glued her lips together before details slipped out that shouldn’t. He did not wish to marry her, and if his very stern-looking brother knew that the last time she’d seen him had been after midnight, and that they’d been alone, and that she’d been scantily dressed, and that they’d lain with one another, shattered around each other… Well, he would demand Zander do the correct thing, the thing Zander did not want to do.
She shook her head again, this time slowly. “I have not seen him in days. I am sorry.”
“Days?” Papa stormed around the counter and rushed toward them.
“Better to say weeks, daughter!” Mama clasped at her chest, as if to soothe her madly beating heart. “It’s been weeks since he barged into our home and turned everything topsy-turvy. Answers, Fiona. Now.”
Fiona faced her family, looking on each beloved but frustrating face one at a time. They wore worry like heavy cloaks, for her, for themselves, and she’d dressed them in those cloaks. She should divest them of those as well. But Zander was missing.
“I will explain all, I swear it,” she finally said, “but Zander is more important at the moment.” She set her lips firm and turned back to Lord Theodore. “What else, my lord?”
“Do you know anything about this?” Lord Theodore pulled a piece of marble statuary from his greatcoat pocket and held it up to her.
She took it. “It’s broken.” A nude man, about the size of her forearm, heavy, one arm as well as its… manhood… missing. And stained a deep, violent red. “No, I cannot say I know it.” And yet… it seemed familiar, tried to spark a memory deep inside her mind. She could not place it, though, so she shook her head. “It is familiar… but I do not know from where.”
Lord Theodore took the statue back. “My sister found it outside her home almost a week ago, around the time Zander seems to have disappeared.”
“Is that… blood?” Posey’s voice shook.
Almost a week ago. Around the time he disappeared. Could it have been the morning he left her, the morning after their night? Was that Lysander’s blood?
Fiona shook her head over and over and over. “No. I know nothing.” All she could say.
He bowed, stiff and curt. “Thank you, Miss Frampton. If you hear from him or discover any detail, please contact my sister. You know her address, yes?”
Fiona nodded, and they turned to leave.
First the dowager goes missing. Then the paintings. And now Zander. That last blow the worst, even if a swinging rope came with the other two.
“Wait!” She fled toward them. “There’s one more person we should speak with about him who might know something.” When three related things went missing, perhaps there was a connection no one yet saw. “Lady Balantine. We have been helping her locate her paintings.” Fiona lowered her voice as Lord Theodore and Lady Cordelia turned back toward her. “Yourpaintings, my lord.”
Lord Theodore inhaled sharply. “I see. Where is she?”
“I’ll show you. Wait for me.” Fiona rushed for the back room to don her pelisse, but her father stepped into her path.
“No, Fiona. You are not to leave this shop. In fact, you will return home this instant.” Papa’s hands were hard like diamonds. His face, too.
She swallowed hard. “I have to go.”
“You have to do what your father says.” Her mother’s voice was calm, like always; but like always, it told Fiona what to do.Sit still, focus, paint, stay home, marry a future surgeon.
“No!” Fiona swept past her father and snatched up her pelisse, shoving her arms into it. “No, no, no.” She stood tall before her family. “I love you. I love all of you. So very much.” Ah, now the tears would fall, just one, a lone sign of her inner weeping. “I would not have done anything I’ve done if I did not, but I am not who you want me to be. And I cannot be that person. Mother befriends a duchess, and Posey is your apprentice, Papa. They live lives that suit them despite what the world might think of them. And I’m supposed to make up for their refusal to fit in by doing just that? No!” She’d said that word now more times than she’d ever said it to them before.
She paused, giving her family time to speak, to react to her long-coming rebellion.
They did not speak. Just remained frozen with mouths slightly parted and eyes wide, and thank goodness, because she still had plenty more to say. And the bloody statue in Lord Theodore’s pocket gave her courage to say it all.
“I will not shrink myself to the accomplishments others think suitable, and I will not marry a man I do not know, and Iwillgo find Lord Lysander because… because he does not think me silly.” Her voice had reached new heights, so loud the glass cases almost shook, their shiny wares inside them, too.
Posey reached out a hand, a statue coming to halting life. “Fiona—”
Fiona swiped the hand away. “No.” It felt good to say. Again and again and again. “I have made mistakes. Of that I am well aware. And I am trying to rectify them. My mistakes are my duty to—”
Her father took a single step forward. “Nonsense!”
