“What a fright that must have been for you, my lady,” Cherie said as she unbuttoned the first of a dozen satin-covered buttons along the back of Ingrid’s dress.
Ingrid stood within the flickering light from the fireplace in her room, the flames too small to provide any real warmth. She stared into them. Nearly getting trampled in the street had been upsetting, yes. But even more worrisome was the fact that the incident hadn’t produced a single lick of electricity. If she’d been getting anywhere at all with her training, she should have been able to use it for protection. A few staggered jolts of lightning would have dropped that rider straight out of his saddle. The fact that the rider couldn’t have possibly been Jonathan made her all the more quiet and confused as Cherie worked at the buttons.
“Are you cold, my lady? I’ll warm a pan for your bed,” the maid said timidly. Cherie had been her lady’s maid for four years, but now that she knew Ingrid could fire off electricity, she acted as if Ingrid would lose her mind at any moment and do just that.
“Yes, thank you,” Ingrid said distractedly. There was a knock on her door and Cherie abandoned her unbuttoning to answer it.
“Lord Fairfax.” Cherie bobbed into a curtsy before Grayson, who stood on the other side of the door.
“Grayson?” Ingrid clutched the shoulders of her loose dress to hold it up.
Her brother hadn’t sought her out in weeks. In fact, she’d felt completely separated from him lately. Their connection, the one she’d always counted on while growing up, had withered away to practically nothing.
“I wondered if you would walk with me a bit around the churchyard,” he said.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Ingrid asked Cherie to close the door and redo the buttons on her dress. If Grayson offered to spend time with her, then she would gladly accept.
Maybe he had changed his mind about visiting Constantine.
As soon as they were outside the rectory’s front door, Grayson held out his elbow for Ingrid to grasp. She took it, feeling as if they were back in London, stepping out to take a stroll through Hyde Park like they used to every Sunday. Attached at the hip, I see or Two eggs in a basket, as always had been a couple of the comments they’d grown used to receiving each week.
But after an entire turn around the rectory with little more than a few words passed between them, Ingrid began to feel desperate. How could she not know what was happening inside her brother’s head? She’d always been so intuitive with him before, and he with her. How was it possible that her own twin now felt like a distant relative?
Well, she was finished with it. Finished treading so carefully around him. Besides, it was still misting flecks of ice and it had to be close to midnight.
“Why did you ask me out here if you weren’t going to speak to me?”
“If you’d rather go back inside …,” he replied testily. Ingrid sighed.
“No. I’d rather talk with you for once. Grayson—” Ingrid stopped to gather the right words. Something soothing. Something heartfelt. But nothing came to her.
“What happened between you and Papa? I need to know.” She hooked his arm and brought him to a halt. “He called you a fiend. He thought you were the one who’d harmed Gabby. Why would he think that?”
Grayson hunched deeper inside his fine woolen coat.
“I can’t tell you.” He swallowed hard. “You have no idea how badly I want to go back to the way things were, but … I’m different. I’ve changed.”
“We’ve all changed.”
“Not like I have.” He jerked his arm free.
They were behind the rectory, near the ell where the servants were housed. No doubt their voices were carrying, providing bits of juicy gossip to be passed around the next morning.
“Would you stop?” she said, exasperated. “Grayson, I’m not afraid of you. None of us is. You haven’t shifted in weeks. You’re controlling it, so please—stop setting yourself apart like this. You’re a Duster, just like I am. Just like Vander is. There are more of us, and if you’d just try—”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I’ve done,” he said, pulling even farther away.
The icy mist had built up on her skin. It beaded and rolled like teardrops down her cheeks.
“We’ve all done things, Grayson. I set a ballroom on fire. I could have killed someone.”
“I did kill someone!”
Ingrid stared at his black outline, unable to blink. No. He couldn’t have.
“How? When? My God, Grayson—” Ingrid stepped forward and reached for him. He sidestepped her.
“It was in London. It’s why Father sent me here instead of to university like he’d planned. He knows what I did, and he’s right. I am a fiend.”
She heard the sob trapped in his chest, strangling each word.