He thought her still asleep in bed at the rectory; Mama had made sure of that. Her mother had shocked her less than an hour before when she’d entered her room and woken her with a shake. It was Monday. The day Ingrid normally visited Clos du Vie. “You must go now,” her mother had whispered. “Before your father wakes.”
Ingrid had been in a fog while dressing herself in the dark, her maid not yet up to assist. Her mother’s help was as foreign as it was thrilling. Lady Brickton had never interfered with Ingrid’s visits to Constantine. She knew what Ingrid was supposed to be learning, and though she never requested details, every now and again, Lady Brickton would pleasantly inquire how her lessons were progressing. But until that morning when she’d hustled Ingrid out of the house, she had never acknowledged her daughter’s need for them.
Luc had been waiting with the landau on the curb, just beyond the hedgerow. And now here they were, parked outside a shopping arcade, killing time while the sun rose. It was far too early to call on Clos du Vie yet.
“I didn’t think my mother understood,” she said to Luc, who sat awkwardly on the bench seat across from her. She’d made him come in, out of the drifting snow and bone-cold weather.
“He’ll be furious when you return,” he replied. He was right. There would be the devil to pay, but perhaps Mama might have some excuse planned. Ingrid hoped so. She wouldn’t worry about that just yet.
After a minute or two of silence, Ingrid started to wonder if she should have heeded Luc’s protestations about staying out on the driver’s bench. Each time she dared lift her eyes, he would shift his gaze to the floor, or the seat cushion, or the window. Ingrid was aware of him, of his every breath, the slide of his foot over the carriage floor, the way he tugged at his collar as if it were choking him.
“Vander Burke is going to be a reverend?” he said, breaking the silence.
The mention of Vander’s name suddenly made the carriage feel crowded.
“He wants to become ordained, yes,” she answered. “Why do you ask?”
Luc sat up taller. “It just seems like an odd choice for someone who’s always been so willing to work with the Dispossessed.”
“Why should his becoming a reverend change that?” Ingrid asked. As far as she knew, Vander had no intention of quitting the Alliance. In fact, he’d said an Alliance reverend could be useful. The old reverend at the American Church had been blessing their silver weaponry for decades. When he died, Vander could take over the task.
Luc held her gaze. “You don’t know, do you?”
Ingrid frowned. At her confusion, Luc added, “Why we’re gargoyles? What we did to be cast into the Dispossessed?”
It was her turn to shift uncomfortably on the bench.
“I had wondered, but …” But she hadn’t had the courage to ask. Not just Luc. She knew she could have asked Vander or Constantine. Even Gabby would have known.
Whatever it was, it had to be awful—an unforgivable sin. She had considered what it might have been time and again but hadn’t made any move to learn it explicitly. Knowing Luc’s sin might change the way she saw him. The way she thought of him.
She was being a coward.
Luc looked away from her, confessing to the window instead. “We’re all murderers, Ingrid.”
She forgot the cold seeping in at the tips of her suede boots.
“Priests. Reverends. Any man of the cloth. We all took a holy life in cold blood, and in doing so gave up our eternal souls, along with any chance of entering heaven.”
He turned from the window to see how his confession had landed. Ingrid hoped she didn’t look as shocked as she felt.
“Why did you do it?” she whispered.
He didn’t hesitate to answer. “Vengeance.”
“For what?”
Now he hesitated. His eyes clouded over and went distant. He was somewhere else, remembering, and she could read his expression well enough to know he didn’t want to be there. Luc didn’t want to talk about what he’d done, and she was willing to bet that he hadn’t done so for a very long time. Perhaps never.
“Did a priest do something to you?” she asked, then bumbled, “Or perhaps a reverend, or—”
“To my sister,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “Suzette.”
He said her name with unexpected gentleness. He’d loved her.
“What happened?” Ingrid asked.
The distance in Luc’s eyes closed, and he was back with her in the carriage. He stared at Ingrid, unflinching. He was going to tell her, and he wasn’t going to look away until he’d finished confessing.
“He was the priest at our church. I liked him. My family trusted him. And Suzette … he seduced her. Got her with child. When my father turned her out, the bastard wouldn’t take her in. He denied everything. Said the babe inside her wasn’t his.”
Ingrid listened, rapt. She wanted to move to the bench beside Luc but held still. Any movement and he might startle like a bird and fly away from her.
“I didn’t get to her in time. She drowned herself in the Seine.”
His voice had gone thick.
“So I killed him.” The spell broke and he averted his eyes. “I was in a fury. I wasn’t careful.”