Tarnished Knight - By Bec McMaster Page 0,13
ceiling. Will peered through the branches, his arms wrapped around the evergreen and a scowl on his face as he wrestled it into place.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” Blade asked, stepping back and examining it.
Esme pasted a smile on her face and nodded as the others gathered to look. She could feel Rip watching her from across the room, leaning against the wall in silence. He’d barely been involved in wrestling the tree inside and neither had she. Both of them hovered on the edges of the family, as if someone had trapped the pair of them outside one of those snow globes the French exported, looking on the family within. Somehow the world seemed dulled, sound distorted. As if she didn’t truly belong in this moment.
Honoria laughed as Blade slung his arm around her. Since marrying Blade, she’d put on several pounds, a vital improvement. The weight softened her features and happiness often put a smile on her face. In the past six months she and Esme had become quite close, though Esme couldn’t go to her with this. She couldn’t go to anyone, not even Blade, who’d once been her confidante. Her heart felt like it was breaking but how could she tell her friends what had happened?
She’d kissed Rip and he’d told her he didn’t want her. I can’t. Not with you. Words that seemed scarred across her heart. She felt it bubbling up inside her, like a fist in her throat, threatening to escape. But if she let it, the tears wouldn’t stop. And Esme had always been good at hiding them.
She hadn’t cried when her parents cut her off after marrying Tom and she hadn’t cried when his mother cast her into the streets after his death. Instead she’d picked herself up out of the gutters and found herself respectable employment as a seamstress until her new neighbour began to make life unbearable. She could do it again. Paste a smile on her lips as she pretended that nothing had ever happened between her and Rip.
Still, the thought of being his friend right now was more than she could bear.
Two children darted past, screaming with laughter. Lark had arrived at the Warren with Tin Man, though nobody knew whether she was his daughter, a relation or merely some young girl he’d taken in off the streets, and Charlie was Honoria’s younger brother. Though he’d been stricken with the craving too, he’d recovered from it much quicker than Rip had. Blade kept an eye on the lad, but he seemed to be handling himself well. In the first few months he’d been terrified to be alone with anyone human, especially his sisters Honoria and Lena, for fear of going for their throats. It was good to hear his laughter now and see him relax.
“Charlie! Give it back!” Lena darted into the room, her hair tied up in a red ribbon and her cheeks flushed. She stopped when she saw the tree, her eyes widening. On the verge of being a woman, Lena could still be given to moments of childish glee, and her life had been hard enough six months ago that she’d taken to every moment as if it could be the last.
“Goodness,” she said. “Where did that come from?” Then her eyes narrowed in delight as she spotted Will, straining to hold the tree in place. “What a terribly hairy decoration. Perhaps we should put some ribbons on it?”
Will shoved out of the branches as if embarrassed to be caught up in it. He’d stiffened as soon as Lena entered the room.
The sight jolted Esme out of her misery. Will had never liked women much, ever since his mother sold him to a travelling showman and he’d spent ten years in a cage. It had taken Esme years to break through his distrustful demeanour – mostly by sneaking him snippets of roast beef and baking spice cakes for him. Stepping up to his side, Esme slid a protective hand over his shoulder. “I think it will hold,” she said.
Their eyes met. Will’s shoulders softened, as though he was relieved to see her. Esme wasn’t stupid. She’d seen him duck behind buildings to avoid Lena, whilst Lena mercilessly hunted him down. Lena knew she made him uneasy, but she hadn’t quite realized why.
It was difficult enough for Will to trust Esme and Honoria but a young, attractive girl who flirted with him? Esme had never seen him with a woman, but she knew when a young