But the truth was, I didn’t want to be that girl. Jealous. Spiteful. Despising the only person who watched Bran’s back when Celia was around. Gabriella had covered for him so he could spend time with me. And she hated Celia almost as much as I did. I shoved the green-eyed monster way, way down and let myself relax back against him.
Bran started to speak, but had to pull up short to avoid running down three children, dressed to the eyeballs in expensive school uniforms, who darted out into the road before us. Their frazzled nanny trotted in their wake, pushing an old-fashioned perambulator. When I saw a baby’s chubby fists wave up from inside her snug conveyance, I was surprised at the sudden and fierce longing for my sister.
I miss you, Ellie.
I cleared the obstruction from my throat as Bran put his heels to the horse. “So,” I said. “What happened today?”
What was more important than rescuing me?
“We were preparing to leave for the institute when I received a message from Gabriella that said Blasi was looking for me. I didn’t want to leave, Hope. But Mac and Phoebe convinced me I had to maintain my cover. God, you don’t know how hard it was not to storm in there after you.”
No, I thought. You don’t know how hard it was.
“I had to pretend I’d been holed up in a . . . in a brothel,” he said. “It was the only thing I could say that Blasi would believe.”
We rounded the corner. The carriage was parked just this side of the Waldorf near a service alley. As they spotted us, the others climbed out and gestured for us to turn in there. Bran trotted the gray swiftly toward a servant’s entrance and hopped down before the others reached us.
“I want you to know that I’ve never been so afraid in my entire life,” Bran said, his eyes locked on mine. “I couldn’t survive it, Hope. If something had happened to you, I—” He shook his head, for once unable to summon the right words.
From my perch on the horse’s back, I stared down into the face of the boy I’d loved since I was four years old. All his native cockiness had vanished, leaving only guilt and misery in its wake.
“Please forgive me,” he whispered.
In answer, I jumped down into his arms. He held me so tight. As the others bustled down the alley, I pulled back. Searching the blue and green eyes I knew so well, I decided to shove the last, niggling seeds of doubt far beneath the surface of my mind. I would allow them no light, no air. I would let them suffocate and fade forever from my mind.
Whatever happened, he’s here now. We’re together, and that’s all that matters, right?
Chapter 36
OSCAR TSCHIRKY MET US AT THE DOOR.
“Mr. MacPherson,” he cried, and quickly escorted us out of the rain and through a humid, bleach-scented laundry to the service elevator. “Oh, I cannot tell you of my relief upon receiving your message just now. I only pray you can forgive me for asking you to enter this way, instead of welcoming you in the lobby proper. I was, of course, only thinking of Miss Randolph’s comfort.”
The Waldorf’s employees were so well trained, the young elevator operator didn’t so much as flinch when I entered wearing little more than a man’s coat. With my bare feet and sodden, stringy hair, I must’ve looked exactly like what I was, an escaped mental patient.
“Oh, my dear Miss Randolph.” The little ma?tre d’h?tel bowed low before me. “I was so grateful to hear of your recent, ah . . . liberation. Of course, the news of Dr. Carson’s criminalities had already begun to spread even before this morning’s events. Several of New York’s best have gone to retrieve their beloved family members, whom they entrusted into the doctor’s care in good faith.” Oscar Tschirky tsked. “I do hope the fiend is punished to the full extent of the law.”
Bran wrapped an arm around me while Mac put in, “Please excuse Miss Randolph, as she’s feeling a bit peaked just the now.”
Oscar nodded, obviously dying to know what exactly had occurred, but entirely too polite—?or good at his job—?to press any further.
At the door to our suite, Bran tugged me a few feet away. “Listen,” he said. “You need to know that there’s something else going on. Something to do with Blasi. I don’t believe my mother or Flint was aware of it before they sent us, and I’ve no proof as of yet, but something feels off.”
From my bedraggled hair to my stinging feet, exhaustion sang inside me. The hotel’s long, carpeted hallway seemed to expand and contract, and I was struck suddenly with the oddest certainty that we were all inside the belly of a great ship. Outside these walls, a mighty storm bore down upon us, intensifying with every second. Waves slammed the hull again and again and again, and I knew there was no way we’d ever outrun the deluge. I closed my eyes as the seemingly solid floor beneath my feet began to dip and sway.
Waves and waves and more waves slammed into me on a rip tide of exhaustion.
I keeled to the side, and Bran caught me, his brows low . . . worried . . . as I snorted. “My luck it’s the freaking Titanic.”
“Hope?”
I waved it off. “Nothing. Just tired.”
“What are you talking about, Cameron?”
My eyes shot open. Collum stood to one side, his voice raspy as he asked, “What feels off??”
To his credit, Bran didn’t hedge. “I’m not certain. Not yet anyway. All I know is that Blasi has been acting very strange. Very secretive.”
“And?” Collum asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine at this point, mate.”
An itchy, uncomfortable silence stretched between the three of us.
It was Bran who had the willingness to break it. “I have to go,” he said. “As I’m supposedly debauching myself at some seedy underground gaming establishment in Hell’s Kitchen at the moment, it wouldn’t do for one of Blasi’s people to step off the lift on the wrong floor and see me going in or out of this suite. According to Oscar, no one knows or will know that you have returned. Still, I can’t imagine it will take much for word to spread.”
“Yeah.” I glanced over at the open door where, bless Oscar’s heart, it looked as if half the Waldorf staff was lined up preparing to wait on us. “I bet the whole hotel will know soon enough.”
Collum’s steady hazel eyes bored into Bran. “You’ll be attending the soiree tonight, I understand?”
Bran nodded. “Yes. Blasi managed to secure an invitation, though I do not know how. He’s hoping to get Tesla alone.”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t.”
Collum stalked off into the suite. Shaking his head, Bran watched him go. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.” He looked down at me, smiling. “The old boy does grow on you, doesn’t he? Like a fungus. Or a particularly mealy wart.”
A chuckle whuffed from my lungs. “He does.”