Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“I got it. Yes.” James spoke slowly. His coat had been thrown over the chair behind him. He was in his shirt and trousers, one of his braces slipping off one shoulder. Part of Cordelia longed to step forward and fix it for him, to brush back the messy hair from his forehead. He was holding something—a green bottle, which he was turning over and over in his hands.

“Has something happened?” Cordelia asked. She thought suddenly, with a spasm of fear, of her mother. Of the baby due any day now. But surely she would have heard from Alastair if anything had happened? He knew where she was staying. “For you to journey all the way to Paris—”

“I would have come earlier,” James said, his voice low. “I would have come the night you left, if it were not for Lucie.”

“Lucie?” Cordelia’s mouth went dry. “What could possibly—is she all right?”

James sat forward. “She left London, the same night you did,” he said carefully, “because of Jesse Blackthorn. My father fetched me to help bring her home. She is quite all right,” he added, holding up a hand, “and eager to see both of you. As I have been.”

“Ran off because of Jesse Blackthorn?” Cordelia demanded. “Because of his death? Where did she go?”

James shook his head. “I cannot say. It is Lucie’s story to tell.”

“But I don’t understand,” Matthew said, a furrow appearing between his brows. “You said you would have come here the night we left, if not for Lucie—but we assumed—”

“That you would be with Grace.” It hurt to say it; Cordelia breathed around the invisible spike in her heart.

James smiled. Cordelia had never seen him smile like that before: a smile that was all bitterness, all inward-turning loathing. “Grace,” he said. “I have no desire to spend even a moment with her. I despise her. I shall endeavor never to see her again. Cordelia, Effie told me what you saw—”

“Yes,” Cordelia said. She felt as if she were some distance outside her body, looking down. Matthew, beside her, was taking short, shallow breaths. “You did not seem as if you hated Grace then, James. You took her in your arms. You said—”

“I know what I said.”

“That was the night I left,” Cordelia cried, “the same night. You cannot say you would have followed me here.”

James’s voice sounded scorched, bleak as Belial’s land. “I came as soon as I could. For both of you. I thought, if I could explain—”

“James,” Matthew said. His voice shook. “You didn’t want her.”

“I was a fool,” James said. “I freely admit that. I was wrong about my own feelings. I was wrong about my marriage. I didn’t think it was real. It was real. The most real thing in my life.” He looked directly at Cordelia. “I wish to repair the broken things. To put them back together. I wish—”

“Does it not matter what I wish?” Cordelia tightened her grip on Matthew’s hand. “Does it not matter, all the times we went to parties, to gatherings, and you stared at Grace instead of looking at me? That you kissed her while we were married? If I have hurt you by coming here, with Matthew, I am sorry. But I did not think you would care.”

“That I would not care,” James repeated, and looked down at the bottle in his hand. “I was here for hours, you know, before you came in. I thought I might try getting myself drunk on this stuff, thinking it would keep my courage up, but it does taste like the vilest poison. I could only manage a mouthful. How you can stand it, Math, I’ve no idea.”

He set the half-empty bottle on the table next to him, and Cordelia, for the first time, saw the green label: ABSINTHE BLANQUI.

Matthew’s hand, in Cordelia’s, was like ice.

“That’s not Matthew’s,” Cordelia said.

James looked surprised. “It was in his room—”

No, Cordelia thought, but James only looked puzzled.

“You went into my room?” Matthew demanded, and any thought Cordelia had had that this was a mistake, that the bottle wasn’t his, vanished with his words.

“I was looking for you,” James said. “I saw this, and the cherry brandy—I suppose I shouldn’t have taken it, but it seems I’m not much good at Dutch courage. I…” He looked between Matthew, white as a sheet, and Cordelia. He frowned. “What is it?”

Cordelia thought of the way Matthew had tasted when she kissed him. Sweet, like candy. Cherry brandy. She let go of Matthew’s hand, drew her own in front of her. Laced her shaking fingers together. She was a fool. A fool who had learned nothing from the life and death of her own father.

She could lambast Matthew now, she supposed. Shout at him in front of James for lying to her. But he looked so stunned and fragile, his eyes fixed on some point in the distance, a muscle in his jaw working.

“I should not have come,” said James. He was looking at both of them, at Matthew and Cordelia, rage and love and hope and despair all in his eyes, and Cordelia wished she could comfort him, and hated that she wished it. “Cordelia, tell me what you want. If it’s Matthew, I’ll go—I’ll take myself out of your life. I never intended to hurt either of you—”

“You knew,” Matthew whispered. “I told you in the letter that I loved Cordelia. And yet you come here like this dark angel, Jamie, telling Cordelia you do want her—”

“You said what you felt,” James said, white as a corpse. “I need only to hear from Cordelia, too.”

“By the Angel,” said Matthew, his head thrown back. “There is not, never will be, any escape, will there? Never anything better—”

“Stop.” Cordelia was suddenly exhausted. It was the kind of exhaustion that sometimes fell upon her after a battle, a dark wave rolling over her, as if she had fallen far below the sea and drifted there, unable to raise herself to the surface. “I will not be the cause of fighting between the two of you. I do not want that. Whatever argument you have between you, settle it. I am going to pack my things, and tomorrow I will return to London. I am sorry you made this journey for no reason, James. And Matthew, I am sorry I came with you to Paris. It was a mistake. Good night.”

She walked out of the living room. She had just stepped into her bedroom when she heard Matthew say, sounding more defeated than she had ever heard him, “Damn you, James.”

A moment later, the door to the suite slammed closed. Matthew had left.



* * *



It took James several moments to summon up the courage to knock on Cordelia’s door.

When he had first arrived at the hotel, it had been easy enough to get the number of Matthew and Cordelia’s hotel room from the clerk by claiming he wished to leave a message. A trip up in the lift, an Open rune, and he was inside, pacing from room to room, checking to see if they were there.