Shana Abe - The Sweetest Dark

He had been reaching into his inner coat pocket for something. I saw dimly and without surprise that it was a wallet, and while still holding it he pushed up his hat, staring at me intently. His skin was pale as ivory, his eyes were blue and heavily lashed, quite as striking as a girl’s.

The line of his lips began to flatten into an expression that might have been pain or irritation or perhaps pure distaste.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Laurence and the stationmaster, who had been working themselves into an actual argument, fell silent. The trilling girl leaned past the duke’s son to get a better look at me, the lace wrap around her neck and shoulders prickled with light. She was as stunning as I’d expected, dark hair, dark eyes, a rosebud mouth puffed into a pout. An overripe scent of jasmine and sugar surrounded her like a cloud.

“Oh, Mandy, do send her off,” I heard her plead under her breath. “Tell her we haven’t any pennies to spare.”

I spoke to the dark-haired lord. “I’m going to Iverson. To the school. Can you give me a lift?”

Laurence snorted and the girl looked truly appalled, but Lord Armand only stared at me harder.

“What’s your name?”

“Eleanore.”

This bit of information didn’t seem to satisfy him. He took off his hat with his free hand, and for one wild and unlikely moment I thought he was going to offer me a bow, but instead he pushed his fingers through the shiny brown hair that had been mashed to his forehead.

“I haven’t got a trunk,” I said into the silence. “Only this.” I tapped the toe of my shoe against my suitcase. “So I won’t take up much room.”

Chloe raised a hand to her mouth; her snicker was still loud enough to hear.

Yet I held on to that steady blue gaze. From the cut of his clothes to the angle of his chin, Lord Armand of Idylling was every inch an aristocrat and no doubt used to people of my class scraping low whenever he passed by. I wasn’t going to be one of them. There was something about this young man, some indefinable thing that felt like—like a living snake poised taut between us. A real, electric, dangerous thing, and I knew if I dropped my gaze, it would turn on me, and I would lose more than just this moment.

“How about it?” I said, trying to sound confident but instead managing something barely above a whisper.

The pressed shape of his lips began to loosen. He opened his mouth, maybe to speak, but before he could, a new voice chimed in.

“No need, m’lord.”

I didn’t have to look away first; Lord Armand did. His gaze cut to someone behind me.

“Hastings,” greeted the boy, strangely flat, and when I turned around fully I saw that the new person who’d spoken was my fellow passenger from the train, the snoring old man, standing now motionless beneath the awning of the station roof. “How … nice to see you again.”

“Aye. I’m here for the gel.” The man curled an arm toward me. “Come along, miss. Haven’t got all night.”

I flicked a last glance at Armand, who was scowling faintly. None of the others were looking at me at all.

I picked up my case again and walked away.

The elderly man didn’t wait for me to reach him. He limped off into the amethyst-and-star night without another word, his cane tapping emphatically with every other step.

I was feeling my way down the platform stairs when I heard the imperious tones of Lord Armand lift sharp behind me.

“Eleanore who?” he called.

Bugger him and his gorgeous eyes and his snide friends and his chauffeured motorcar. I kept walking.

“Eleanore who ?” he called again, much louder.

“Jones,” yelled back the man ahead of me; he’d paused at last to let me catch up. “Eleanore Rose Jones!”

A carriage with a pair of horses and a driver waited at the end of a graveled lot. It was a big carriage, the old-fashioned kind that was entirely enclosed, a bit like a fairy-tale pumpkin transformed into a coach. Which was fortunate, because horses always hated me. No matter how gently I spoke or how quietly I passed by, to a one they hated me, and venturing too close meant nearly always a bolt or a lunging bite.

We crunched along the lot, countless little stones grinding beneath the soles of my feet. A long, gleaming automobile had been parked at an angle in the exact middle, clearly waiting for trunks and lords.

“Mr. Hastings?” I said after a moment.

“Aye.”

“My middle name isn’t Rose.”

Funny that I couldn’t see him smile, but I thought I sensed it anyway. “No? What’s it, then?”

“I haven’t got one,” I admitted.

“Well, I’d say Rose is as fine a name as any, ain’t it?”

I saw his point.

...

The interior of the carriage was not nearly as musty as I’d feared it’d be. In fact, it was luxurious, far nicer than the London hansom I’d been in so many hours past. The seat cushions were plush and newly padded, the walls had been papered in silk, and a pair of folded fleece blankets had been left out for me to ward off the chill.

Since Mr. Hastings had climbed up outside to sit beside the driver on his perch, I drew one blanket over my shoulders and the other across my lap. I wasn’t terribly cold, but they were so soft. As the carriage rolled away from the station, I rubbed a velvety edge slowly over and over the back of my hand.

For each tiny, merciful gift from life, I was grateful.

The blankets at the Home had been of boiled wool. There was a fleece coverlet at the nurse’s station, but you had to be white-knuckled, wishing-you-were-dead sick for her to offer it, and usually it smelled like iodine.

I’d kept the curtains opened and the window cracked. I craved that outside air, which still tasted of wonderful salt to me.

A motorcar roared up behind us, its reflective lanterns splashing a feeble illumination along the fence posts lining the bend in the road. The horn bugled twice before the car sped past, spitting pebbles in its wake. Chloe’s laughter was full and loud as they vanished into the dark ahead.

The dust settled, and the horses pulling our carriage only plodded on.

I didn’t feel sleepy. I should have; I should have been exhausted, actually. In my excitement over leaving the Home I hadn’t slept much the night before, and certainly today had dragged on long enough. I removed my hat and rested my head against the seat back, closing my eyes, listening to the sounds of the shore and the horses and the country night.

We bumped over a bridge spanning a river, waking wooden thunder from each and every plank.

I’m not sure when I began to grasp that I was hearing more than just those ordinary noises. Ten minutes later? Thirty? It came upon me gradually, the awareness that the phonograph music from the station was still playing, even though we were no longer anywhere near it.

I opened my eyes. I sat up. Was I dreaming?

It was still playing.

I slapped my cheeks with both hands, pinched my arms. I was asleep, this was a dream, I needed to wake up, because this was not happening.

But it was.

“No,” I muttered, caught somewhere between anger and disbelief. “Not again.”

I searched the carriage, pulling up the cushions, running my hands along the smooth walls, the door latch, the window frames, the floorboards. I found nothing new, nothing to explain the slow, sweet music that was playing very markedly all around me.

And it was around me, not merely inside my head. I was not imagining it. I’d never heard this composition before, this wistful combination of notes that swelled and subsided but never fully ended. It was not entirely unlike the music emanating from metals or stones but was far more complex than that. More a symphony than a single song.