Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles by Karina Cooper Read Free Book Online

green eyes pinned upon me. “So I didn’t dream it.”
    “No, you did not.” The tea I had only just made fresh steamed. I poured him a cup without his asking. “I apologize for the method of your invite, but I’m afraid you left me no choice.”
    The lord pushed up from his uncomfortable repose, placed his boots upon the floor quick enough that the wood thumped and groaned. I was watching the tea I poured instead of the byplay, so I did not see what caused Ashmore to deliberately clasp his hands together—elbows braced upon his knees as he leaned forward—and say softly, “I would recommend you rest, my lord.”
    Ashmore was not a particularly large man. I knew of the well-developed muscle beneath skin nearly as white as milk, but it was not obvious beneath his attire. Yet he had a way of speaking, an assurance that filled his manner with all the confidence of his overly long years, and it was as if he became too large to ignore.
    Piers weighed him as I had done many a time over, and the same understanding seemed to click into place behind his pale eyes. He sat back in the sofa, as a gentleman comfortable with his lot in life. “Well, your invitation has succeeded, my lady.” The courtesy dripped venom. “What would you have of me?”
    The tea sloshed as I handed him the saucer. “You do not need to call me that, my lord. I am overly aware of my position.”
    “Oh, that’s very good,” replied the earl, who did not refuse my offering as his lady mother would have. I had not given him the allowance of cream or sugar, for we had none. “You’re aware. I shall leave it all be, then, shall I?”
    For all his careless cruelty, he could not hide the hurt beneath his droll façade. Much of what he thought had always remained locked behind a mask of amused ennui, yet he struggled now.
    I pitied him, even as I felt responsible for his fractured composure.
    He wore his hair as his brother had been wont to, short enough to satisfy fashion’s strictest demands, and he’d clipped back the chops he’d kept so tended. The resemblance between the eldest and second sons had never been remarked upon all that much, but it was impossible to miss now.
    I sighed, forging on before he could. “I am not asking you to forgive, nor to forget. All I want is the opportunity to make things right.”
    “You should have thought of that before you abandoned your duty.”
    I winced.
    Ashmore watched in silence. This was not his conversation to have. I appreciated that forbearance. I chose my words with care, clasping my hands tightly in my lap. “If I had remained with your family to mourn, I would have been locked away.”
    “Don’t be—”
    “Please,” I said over his aborted scorn. I knew what his lady mother had planned—to keep me out of sight in a dowager’s manor in the country until the world forgot about the widowed countess—but I did not want to have this particular argument now.
    Piers subsided, but I saw the tension in his jaw, and in the line of his set shoulders. He watched me as one might a venomous spider—legacy, no doubt, of his mother’s hatred and my own reputation.
    “All this time, I have been working to right the wrongs I have committed,” I continued, “and I chose to begin by hunting down the man that murdered your brother.”
    “Your husband,” he replied tersely.
    I inclined my head, eyes stinging. “Yes. My husband.”
    The earl looked away. “Why are you telling me this?”
    “Because I have need of your help,” I said, as simple as I could frame the matter.
    A dismissive sniff. “You must be mad.”
    “I am not,” I said, a ghost of a smile touching my mouth. I wasn’t so mad these days, anyhow. “But I am committed to this course. There are those who need my help, and I would like to help them.”
    Piers frowned at Ashmore. “Who are you, then?”
    “Oliver Ashmore, at your service.” The man who was little more than a ghost, a guardian who was never at home, inclined his head