Pickering’s eyes narrowed for a moment, and then his expression cleared. “It seems I have overstepped. I am not questioning your steadfastness, old chap. Of all the men I know, you are the most unwavering.”
“There was another,” Greystone reminded him. “He sacrificed his family on the altar of his loyalty. That is why I will never have one.”
“Yet you still make inquiries.” Pickering propped his elbows on his knees to lean forward. “Do not glower at me. Until you relinquish the past, you will never be free of the resentment. Had I not been orphaned, I daresay I would have arranged to have my parents believe me dead.” He gave him an unpleasant smirk. “Perhaps you should consider the same. Even the most discreet of inquiries can lead to revelations far more unpleasant than the abandonment of a bride.”
He shrugged. “My mother would not care if I were dead, and Miss Reed is nothing to me.”
Now Greystone stood on the balcony watching for her carriage, that he might see the woman he had dismissed with such callousness. The sight of her would return to him the cold reason he needed for the work, for time would have bestowed much change. He needed to see her dulled and aged by the years, her bloom gone, her innocence giving way to artifice. Perhaps she would resemble her mother now, or have grown stout from consoling herself with sweets. She would be bitter still, and carrying that grudge for so long that it would have etched unkind lines in her face.
Please, God, let her be made plain and dull and forever safe from me.
Footmen came out of the hall to place hollowed turnips on the tops of railings and the sides of steps. Once they had been arranged, tapers were employed to light the candle stubs inside them. The flickering light caused the faces carved through the sides of the turnips to appear appropriately demonic. Snatches of music came faintly from the back of the old chateau as the musicians tuned their instruments in preparation for the dancing. Downstairs the servants would be rushing about to check that all was in readiness; the air would be rosy with the scents of spiced cider and mulled wine. The incomplete renovations to the elderly house gave it the distinct air of being suitably dilapidated and possibly haunted.
Around him the deep violet skies slowly darkened to a charcoal velvet, sheened silver by the rising moon. Greystone heard the first clatter of horses’ hooves and creaking of carriage wheels approaching, and drew back into the shadows. The mask Pickering had chosen for him would wholly conceal his features, or so he had assured him. Looking down he counted six carriages, each stopping in turn to reveal their occupants.
In the city, elegant dress and artful masks would have been expected, but here in the country the guests dressed in true costumes. He saw the men of Renwick wearing old uniforms, outdated livery, and even some monks’ robes. Their ladies had garbed themselves in fashions of decades past, and sparkled with paste-gemmed tiaras, necklaces and ear bobs. Their smiling faces and shared laughter made him feel a thousand years older.
Like his mother, they would never know about his dark inheritance, or how often he had washed the blood of it from his hands.
Two young women then climbed down from a rig in vintage ball gowns so voluminous they seemed to float like clouds. Ghosts of fashions long past, they shimmered in the scant light. Each wore a velvet mask that covered enough of the face to conceal their identities, and lent them the air of refined criminals. The taller of the two moved into a pool of glowing amber from the turnips’ candles, which gilded her blue gown and awoke the dark fire of her auburn hair. That color had been burned into Greystone’s memory as a winter bonfire that could never be extinguished.
There, she has come.
Greystone watched Jennet Reed lift her skirts to mount the steps leading up to the hall. She still moved with the same easy poise, her head held high, her movements effortless. Although the full gown tried to disguise her body, he could tell that her long-limbed form remained as slender as it ever had been. He had no doubt she would still smell of rose water and almond oil from the cream she used to keep her hands smooth. Touching her skin had been the same as caressing sun-warmed silk. It still would be, he imagined.
Jennet appeared no older than any debutante in her first season, and yet he knew her to be close to thirty now. How could she look so unchanged?
We will grow old together, she had said to Greystone just after she had accepted his proposal of marriage. How do you think you will like me when I am bent over and wrinkled and smell of rheumatism balm?
He had laughed at her. Who do you expect will be rubbing you down with that balm, my heart?
Below him Jennet’s brows arched as she paused and regarded the faces of the carved turnips. From the thinning of her lips she didn’t care for the devilish decorations. Greystone tensed, and then wondered why he did. If she left in a huff Pickering would be disappointed, but he would be spared the torment of watching her from afar. If she stayed he would spend the rest of the night yearning to hear her voice, look into her eyes, and kiss her until her knees gave way.
Her effect on him had not changed, it seemed. Despite his claims to Pickering, and his own futile wishes, he would always be obsessed with her. Greystone imagined that as fitting punishment. He deserved much worse.
The other young lady then said something to her, and Jennet’s expression shifted from dislike to wry amusement. As another quartet of costumed guests joined them, the pair fell into a lively conversation. She seemed content to be part of the group, and listen as the others chattered away, just as she always had in the past.
Nothing had changed her.
Seven years ago, Greystone had done to Jennet the very worst thing possible. He had driven out of Renwick, past the church where at that very moment she waited to marry him, and took the road to London. When he stopped to water and rest his horses, he had almost turned around to go back. Saner thoughts prevailed, and he continued on to his parents’ house in Mayfair. Once he had finished making the necessary arrangements to travel, he had gone to his club. There he had gotten so drunk he’d spent most of the night casting up his accounts.
A few days later he had left England, not to return for three years.
The weight of knowing what he had done to Jennet had been the only burden from his old life that Greystone had never been able to shed. By jilting her so abruptly he knew he had snuffed out any tender feeling she’d had for him; that had been his intent. No, he had wanted her to hate him with all her heart. He would have spared her the public humiliation of being left at the altar, but that, too, had been imperative. After his ruination of her Jennet had never married, that much he had allowed himself to glean from various sources familiar with the Reeds.
He had not simply ruined her; he had condemned her to a life of solitude and misery. Any man tempted by Jennet would be swiftly told of Greystone’s abandonment. No matter how much a man was to blame for a broken engagement, society held the rejected lady responsible. Aside from estranging himself from his parents, condemning a bright, beautiful young woman to the narrow, joyless existence of a spinster had been what Greystone considered his most singularly despicable act.
Yet here she was, Miss Jennet Reed, stepped out of his past into his present, seemingly without a single alteration. Smiling and easy with her friends, as if she had never suffered a moment in her life. Obviously prepared to dance and enjoy herself, was Jennet. She behaved as if she had not a care in the world. Greystone looked down and saw he had gripped the balcony railing so tightly his knuckles had gone white.