King Among the Dead - Lauren Gilley Page 0,3
rumbled outside, the low, faraway kind that had become nearly constant. The occasional flash lit up the mullioned windows.
“On Miss Tabitha,” she clarified. She didn’t want to say when you killed her.
He nodded, though, understanding. “A knife.” He lifted one arm, and flexed it, and the blade slid out from a holster hidden inside his sleeve. A long, slender, clean-edged thing with a carved handle that made her think, oddly, of him. His honey-brown hair and his sharp, clean lines. The blade was already clean, gleaming before he retracted it. “You have to take proper care of your tools,” he said, and picked up his sandwich.
She picked hers up, too. The first bite was all salt-sharp-vinegar, delicious. All she’d had for three days was a bite of stale bread and milk, and she knew she couldn’t eat this delicately, elegantly. Knew she would shame herself in front of his strange and delicate, elegant man.
But he smiled at her as she ate, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Eat up,” he said, between his own bites. “There’s plenty more.”
~*~
When her belly was full, and the tea was gone, she helped Beck with the dishes. He washed and she dried; white and blue china printed with flowers, and horses, and carriages. They went in the rack, and then he turned out the lights, ignited a small oil lamp, and lead her back down the hall and up the stairs.
The light flickered and swelled as they ascended, up two switchback landings, and she glimpsed the gilt frames of old oil portraits: men and women with stern expressions, severe clothes, and hands folded in their laps. She didn’t have time to stop and study them, but she recognized Beck’s cheekbones in several, those honey-colored eyes; a mysterious set to the lips that was neither smirk nor smile.
He led her down a long, carpeted hall, and through a heavy, solid wood door, into a room that smelled cool and dusty – but, like the rest of the house, not unclean. Nothing like Miss Tabitha’s, with its mold and boiled cabbage.
She lingered in the doorway, though, until he’d clicked on the bedside lamp. Revealed a curtained window, and a four-poster bed with a blue velvet coverlet. An ornate dressing table with a flaking mirror. All of it old and lovely.
Beck held the lamp high in one hand and pulled back the coverlet with the other; fluffed the pillows; picked a spot of lint off the white sheets. Stepped back and surveyed the room.
“I’m sorry it isn’t fresher, but I think it’ll have to do for tonight.”
“It’s fine. It’s better than fine,” she rushed to say. She didn’t want to offend.
He went to nudge open an adjoining door. “This bathroom is an en-suite. All for you. There’s soap and such under the counter.” He leaned in with his head and arm, scanning it, voice echoing off tile and porcelain. “I’m afraid the towels are a little musty, but no one else has used them. We can wash them fresh in the morning.” He pulled back, and walked toward her, surveying the room once more. It gave Rose a chance to study him, briefly, as he approached.
He wore thick-soled boots that laced halfway up his calves, his pants black and clinging, accentuating the length of his legs, the graceful way that he walked. He’d taken off his jacket, a black leather thing that flared around a waist that she could now see was sharply narrow, clothed only in clinging black cotton. She’d admired his bare arms, before, when they were washing dishes at the sink, when the suds had dripped down the veins and knobs of his wrists.
It was his face that entranced her, though. She wasn’t used to seeing anyone so calm. So very composed and buttoned-up, unbothered by what was happening around him.
“There’s extra blankets in that trunk, if you need them.” He drew up in front of her, lamplight wavering, gilding his nose, his forehead, those sharp cheekbones. He stared down at her a moment, expression inscrutable. “Do you think you’ll be comfortable for the night, Rose?”
Up close like this, he smelled like the tea he’d brewed, and the lavender soap they’d used on the dishes. Not like blood. Not like Miss Tabitha’s body, sitting in its own blood, slowly rotting a few streets over.
The blood was still on his nose, barely visible. Little flecks. She resisted the sudden urged to reach up and scrape at them with a fingernail; clean the marks of her foster