Page 47 of Our Violent Ends
“About aforeigner?” Kathleen asked, finally recovering from her shock. “What are you talking about?”
Eileen and Aimee exchanged a glance. One of their expressions saidNow look what you did.The other saidHow does she not already know?
“Lang Shalin has been sighted with a man who might be a lover,” Aimee reported, entirely matter-of-fact. “Only rumors, of course. No one’s gotten a good look at his face. They can’t even decide if he is a merchant or the son of a governor. If you listen to the messengers running it, the same ones would say that Miss Cai was seen embracing Roma Montagov.”
Which was... true.
Kathleen didn’t let her expression show her continued bewilderment; she merely quirked an eyebrow and turned away, making for the table at the back to begin clearing it. She hardly paid attention to the plates as she stacked them onto her arm, laying them one atop the other until she was balancing them all upon her wrist. Of late, this would be fully in line with Rosalind’s peculiar behavior. And Kathleen could not fathom it, could not pinpoint when her sister had changed.
For the longest time, it had been Kathleen and Rosalind against the world. Their antics together constituted some of Kathleen’s earliest memories: as toddlers climbing the mansion gates when Juliette’s Nurse was not watching; as children trying to hide the bump on Rosalind’s head after they failed to slide down the staircase railing; as just the two of them, playing pretend with dried leaves because there was nothing better to use. The Langs had been triplets, but hardly anyone would have known by watching the three of them interact. Even after they were sent to Paris, the dynamic remained the same. Their third sister was an empty seat at the dining table because she was in bed again fighting a cold while Rosalind and Kathleen whispered secrets beneath their napkins, giggling if the tutors asked them to eat properly. Their third sister was the empty middle seat, absent at all the events Rosalind and Kathleen crashed, leaning on each other in the back of the car and laughing louder if the chauffeur glanced back in concern.
And now... now Kathleen had known nothing of these rumors, though they had once shared their every secret. Of course, it was possible that there was no lover at all, merely another merchant Rosalind was accommodating for their father. Yet Kathleen still felt a suspicious chill sweep up her spine as she entered the kitchen, dumping the plates in the sink for the kitchen hands to deal with. Had they grown apart? Had Kathleen become too much of a stranger for her sister?
“What are you up to, Rosalind?” she muttered. “What aren’t you telling me?”
The kitchen door slammed. Serving boys moved in and out, bustling around her as they got to work. Kathleen stayed near the tables, wiping her hands on a washcloth.
Rosalind had always trusted Celia. Maybe that was the problem here. Maybe Celia was fading, forgotten under the layers of Kathleen that she had taken on.
Kathleen shook her head, picking up a clean stack of trays and hurrying back into the club.
Seventeen
The room was too cold, and Roma couldn’t sleep.
With a huff, he turned in his blankets again, eyes opening begrudgingly. The window above him had the slightest crack, and though he had tried his best to patch it up, cold air blew in relentlessly. Once or twice, he almost thought he heard creaking, like the window was being lifted, but each time he jerked his head up and squinted into the dimness, he found only stillness, nothing but the wind trying to get in. Roma turned again and unwittingly thumped his elbow hard on the wall. He winced. A second later, there came a responding thump.
Juliette.
He was going to lose his damn mind, and it would be entirely Juliette Cai’s fault.
Their beds were side by side, which he knew because the walls were so thin that any time Juliettemoved, so too did his bedframe. Every little sound she made was audible, each low, long sigh that Juliette released because she likely could not sleep either, not in a place so strange and foreign, swathed by the scent of perfume.
Roma pulled the blankets up, all the way up, over his head in hopes that it would muffle the sounds.
“Sleep,” he commanded himself. “Go to sleep.”
But all the same, his mind continued running on a loop, relentless between only two thoughts:It is sogoddamncold,and then,Why did she kiss me back?
Roma smacked the blankets off in frustration.Hehadn’t been thinking.Hewas in over his head working in such close proximity to her, forgetting constantly that she was a liar, that she had bided her time pretending to love him again just to betray him.Hewas a fool.
What washerexcuse?
Roma shifted to face the wall. Perhaps with enough effort, he could peer right through and see Juliette there, lying next to him. Perhaps with enough effort, he could understand the girl he had been working with these past few weeks, who had killed the people he loved without remorse, yet looked at him like they were still kids playing with marbles on the Bund.
She had pushed him through the compartment door. Roma couldn’t rationalize that—no matter how hard he tried. And despite the bravado that Juliette had put on, Roma had seen the horror in her eyes when she stumbled forward into his arms. She hadn’t known that she was completely immune. It had been a wager, and if it hadn’t worked, she would have spent precious seconds that she could have used saving herself to push him out instead.
Whatever was going on with Juliette, it couldn’t haveallbeen a lie. Whether it was that she turned cold in New York or she turned cold at some point in their time hunting the Larkspur, someone who had been pretending from the very beginning wouldn’t have reacted that way on the train—wouldn’t have protected him without a second thought, wouldn’t have kissed him with the same longing that still stung his lips.
Something had been real in their past, before she chose her side. Something within her still reached for him, even if it wasn’t with her whole heart, even if it was an instinct more than a choice.
Can you have a girl without the heart?Roma blew a puff of air onto his cold hands, scrunching them up against his neck. She cared for him. He could see that now. So, what then? Would he have her even with hatred running through her veins, even if she would betray him when the Scarlets asked? Just to have her near, might he pretend that she wouldn’t keep cutting down the people he loved simply because he loved her most?
Roma cursed out loud, horrified by where his thoughts were going.
This wasn’t him. This was weakness. Even if they were inexplicably bound to each other, he didn’t want the girl without the heart. He didn’t want Juliette without the love—love that wouldn’t cut. Love that wouldn’t destroy.
But in a city like theirs, that was impossible.
