Page 39 of Til Death Duke Us Part
“And they sent a few sentences back. Nothing much. Five or so sentences to say what four words could have. We told you this would happen.”
“They sent no money?”
She didn’t answer. Her throat was closing up.
“They did not come to claim you, bring you back home?”
She closed her eyes to stop the tears.
“They did nothing.”
“They warned me.”
His fingertips tightened again, and then he released her. And caged her. His forearms fell to the wall on either side of her head, and he bent his neck, curving over her. She listened to him breathe—purposeful inhalations, steady exhalations. When he spoke, his voice was strained, as if the breathing had not helped. “My father had a daughter out of wedlock. You know that. He didn’t know about Jane until she was a young child. He found out about her existence at the same time… my mother did. He kept Jane not just because she had nowhere else to go but because she was his daughter. And he didn’t just keep her, he loved her.”
“Your mother?—”
“Loved Jane too, as I’ve said. Jane was not her daughter, but she treated her like one, taught her how to survive a world that would judge and reject her. My parents did better by her than I ever did.”
“Victor—”
“Shh.” He kissed her, a quick soft thing. “If my mother can accept a bastard into her home and into her heart, your parents could have accepted their own daughter’s husband. Whether they liked him or not. And God, I feel like a hypocrite with that speech.” He huffed a laughed and rolled to rest his back against the wall beside her. “I was not particularly welcoming of my brother-in-law. I tried to ensure my sister did not marry him. With force. Didn’t work.”
“You’re friends with him now, though.”
“Friends? Bloody hell, don’t say that. Not a bit friendly with each other.”
“I don’t believe it. I can tell you like him.”
“He’s good to my sister,” he grumbled. “Better than I ever was.” He nudged her arm with his elbow. “Come on now, Sephy. Join me in disliking your parents mightily.”
She shrugged off the wall. “I suppose I’ll try.” She’d not let a single tear drop. His speech had stopped them. But she pressed the heel of her hand against her lower lid.
The sky’s blue was rushing toward darkness, and the autumn chill had ravished her meager coat. She wrapped her arms around her.
Victor unwrapped them then shrugged out of his greatcoat and snapped it into the air, settled it around her shoulders. “Put it on,” he grumbled.
She stuffed her arms in as a breeze barreled through the alley, and he fastened it all the way up to her chin. It swamped her. She held it close, gathering its warmth as he pulled a yellow leaf from her hair and dropped it to the street.
He linked their arms. “To the cemetery?”
She studied his hard and handsome face. He was still determined on this path. She’d entered Manchester with such hope of doing some good, helping Victor find a purpose, ending his horrid scheme. He was a good man in his own way. And she’d failed to convince him to see it. She’d failed a living man. She couldn’t fail the dead. “To the cemetery.”
10
GHOSTS AND GLAMOURS
“Cemeteries are quite beautiful this time of day.”
Victor stopped beneath the iron arch guarding the Rusholme Road Cemetery to stare at Persephone. The sun had already passed below the rooftops, and the skyline glowed bright pink, an almost impossible color that faded into purple, blue, then the deep insistence of a star-studded navy. Night was coming. Victor shivered.
“Beautiful?” He huffed. “Nothing but loss and grief here. How can you call that beautiful?”
She shrugged, moving into the cemetery with none of his hesitance. “We’re so careful with these people we love. See those trees over there?” She pointed to a long row of them along the western edge of the cemetery. “The dead don’t need them, but they’ve been planted here nonetheless.”
He caught up with her, hands in pockets, all glamours cast aside. He’d been himself as they’d taken a long way here from the library. He’d been himself as she’d pointed out places from her past and little details of alchemist culture that—she said with stoic ease—if he told anyone else about, she’d have to kill him. He didn’t really care about anyone else, so that wouldn’t be a problem.
Well, there was Jane. But she likely knew everything already, considering who she’d married.
