Chain of Iron

Matthew regarded Alastair with dislike. Cordelia felt a familiar sinking of her heart. This was how it always went now, when Alastair interacted with any of the Merry Thieves. Suddenly, a few months ago, they had all become enormously angrier at Alastair, and she had no idea why. She couldn’t bring herself to ask. “James was called away on important business.”

“What business?” said Alastair.

“No business of yours,” Matthew said, clearly pleased with himself. “Rather walked into that one, eh?”

Alastair’s black eyes glittered. “You had best not lead my sister into trouble, Fairchild,” he said. “I know the kind of company you keep.”

“Alastair, stop it,” Cordelia said. “Now, are you really skipping out on the Pouncebys’ party or were you just needling Mother? And if the latter, do you wish to accompany Matthew and myself in the carriage?”

Alastair’s gaze flicked to Matthew. “Why,” he said, “are you not even wearing a hat?”

“And cover up this hair?” Matthew indicated his golden locks with a flourish. “Would you blot out the sun?”

Alastair wore the sort of expression that indicated that no amount of eye rolling would be enough. “I,” he said, “am going for a walk.”

He stalked out into the snowy night without another word, the effect of his exit dampened by the snow swallowing up the tread of his boots.

Cordelia sighed and started down the walk with Matthew. South Kensington was a fairy tale of white houses frosted in shimmering ice, the glow of the streetlamps shrouded in halos of snow-softened mist. “I feel I am ever apologizing for Alastair. Last week he made the milkman cry.”

Matthew handed her up to the carriage seat. “Never apologize for Alastair to me. He provides me an adversary to sharpen my wits on.”

He swung himself up next to her and closed the heavy door. The silk-lined interior of the carriage was made cozy by soft cushions and velvet curtains over the windows. Cordelia sat back against the bench, the sleeve of Matthew’s greatcoat brushing her arm reassuringly.

“I feel as if I haven’t seen you in an age, Matthew,” she said, happy to change the subject. “I heard your mother was back from Idris? And Charles from Paris?” As Consul, Matthew’s mother, Charlotte, was often away from London. Her son Charles, Matthew’s brother, had taken a junior position at the Paris Institute, where he was training in politics: everyone knew Charles hoped to be the next Consul someday.

Matthew ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging ice crystals. “You know Mother—the minute she steps from her carriage she’s off and running again. And of course Charles lost no time in coming home to see her. Reminding the Paris Institute of how close he is to the Consul, how much she depends on his advice. Pontificating to Father and Martin Wentworth. When I left, he had interrupted their chess match to try to drag them into a discussion of Downworlder politics in France. Wentworth was looking a bit desperate, actually—probably hoping Christopher would cause another explosion in the lab to give him an opportunity to escape.”

“Another explosion?”

Matthew grinned. “Kit almost blew off Thomas’s eyebrows with the latest experiment. He says he’s close to making gunpowder ignite even in the presence of runes, but Thomas has no eyebrows left to give to the cause of science.”

Cordelia tried to think of something to say about Thomas’s eyebrows but couldn’t. “All right,” she said, hugging her arms around herself. “I give up. Where is James? Has he taken fright and legged it for France? Is the wedding off?”

Matthew pried a silver flask from his coat and took a nip before replying. Was he buying himself time? He did look a bit worried, Cordelia thought, though anxiety and Matthew were things that rarely went together. “That’s my fault, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “Well, me and the rest of the Merry Thieves, to be fair. At the last minute, we just couldn’t let James tie the knot without throwing him a party, and it’s my job to make sure that you know nothing of the scandalous proceedings.”

Relief passed over Cordelia in a wave. James wasn’t abandoning her. Of course not. He never would. He was James.

She squared her shoulders. “Since you just told me that the proceedings will be scandalous, doesn’t that mean you’ve failed in your mission?”

“Not at all!” Matthew took another drink from the flask before replacing it in his pocket. “I’ve only told you that James is spending the eve of his wedding night with his friends. For all you know, they’re having tea and studying the history of faeries in Bavaria. I’m meant to make sure you don’t learn otherwise.”

Cordelia couldn’t help but smile. “And how do you intend to do that?”

“By escorting you to scandalous proceedings of your own, of course. You didn’t think we were really going to the Pouncebys’ party?”

Cordelia drew back the curtain of the carriage window and looked out into the night. Instead of the tree-lined streets of Kensington, shrouded in winter snow, they had arrived at the outer edge of the West End. The streets were narrow and thick with fog, and crowds of people milled about, speaking in a dozen languages, warming their hands over fires in oil drums.

“Soho?” she said curiously. “What—the Hell Ruelle?”

Matthew cocked an eyebrow. “Where else?” The Hell Ruelle was a Downworlder nightclub and salon, operating a few nights of each week in an outwardly nondescript building on Berwick Street. Cordelia had ventured there twice before, months ago. Her visits had been memorable.

She let the curtain fall and turned back to Matthew, who was watching her closely. She pretended to stifle a yawn. “Really, the Ruelle again? I’ve been there so often it might as well be a ladies’ bridge club. Surely you must know a more scandalous place?”

Matthew grinned. “Are you asking me to take you to the Inn of the Shaved Werewolf?”

Cordelia hit him with her muff. “That’s not a real place. I refuse to believe it.”

“Believe me when I say that there are few places more scandalous than the Ruelle, and none I could take you to and expect James to forgive me,” said Matthew. “Corrupting one’s parabatai’s bride is not considered sporting.”

The laughter went out of Cordelia; she suddenly felt very tired. “Oh, Matthew, you know it’s a fake wedding,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what I do. James won’t care.”

Matthew seemed to hesitate. Cordelia had broken with the masquerade, and he was clearly taken aback. He never remained speechless for long, though. “He does care,” he said, as the carriage turned onto Berwick Street. “Not, perhaps, in the way everyone imagines. But I don’t think it will be a hardship to be married to James, and it is only for a year, isn’t it?”

Cordelia closed her eyes. That was the agreement she had made with James: one year of marriage, to save both their reputations. Then she would sue for divorce. They would part amicably and remain friends.

“Yes,” she said. “Only a year.”

The carriage drew to a stop, just beneath a streetlamp whose yellow light illuminated Matthew’s face. Cordelia felt a small catch at her heart. Matthew knew as much of the truth as anyone else, even James, did, but there was something in his eyes—something that made her fear for a moment that he suspected the last piece of the puzzle, the bit she’d hidden from everyone but herself. She couldn’t bear to be pitied. She couldn’t bear it if anyone knew how desperately she loved James and wished the marriage were a real one.