Page 35 of The Beautiful Ones

The room was freezing. It was the sharp, biting cold of a Swedish winter. My breath bloomed before my face in a thick, white cloud. The heat of the Virginia night had vanished entirely, replaced by an icy stillness that smelled powerfully of frozen earth and crushed gardenias.

I set the copper pitcher down on the washstand with a loud, metallic clink.

I looked into the porcelain washbasin.

The water inside had frozen solid.

A thick sheet of jagged ice filled the bowl, curling up along the porcelain edges in delicate frost patterns that perfectly mimicked the heavy petals of gardenia blossoms. The mirror above the stand was coated in thick white frost.

“You should not touch the ice, Elin Andersdotter.”

The voice came from the shadowed corner near the wardrobe.

I whipped around. Adrian Fairhaven stepped out of the dark. He had removed his coat and stood in his snow-white shirt and dark waistcoat. His dark eyes caught the candle flame, but there was no reflection in them—only a deep, endless void.

He had spoken in Swedish.

Not accented, broken Swedish learned from a book, but the flawless, ancient dialect of the northern provinces—the language of my home.

I backed away until my spine struck the edge of the washstand. “Who are you?” I whispered. “How do you know my language? How do you know my name?”

Adrian took a slow, silent step toward me. The floorboards did not creak beneath his boots.

“I know many things about you, Elin,” he murmured, his voice echoing in the frigid room. “I know you count the marks on your garret wall every Sunday evening. I know you dream of a boat that will carry you back across the sea. And I know you are very far from home.”

He reached one pale hand toward my face. His fingers did not touch my skin, but as they drew close, the air between us turned so bitterly cold that my breath caught in a sharp gasp.

“What are you?” I breathed.

Adrian's lips curved into a faint, melancholy smile.

“We are the guests your employers invited,” he whispered. “And we have come to collect what is owed.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

CÉCILE

The ivory card rested beneath my left wrist as I played.

I had hidden it in my sleeve when we left the dining room, though I could not have explained why. It was only a narrow scrap with three questions written upon it, but it felt more intimate than a letter. Adrian had given me something no one else at the table had thought to offer: a way to answer without first proving that I deserved to be heard.

The capon is excellent. I am not hungry.

Did Nathaniel ask you to come?

Remember what?

My final answer—No—had been written for everyone to see.

I should have felt ashamed of contradicting my father. Instead, as my fingers moved across the ivory keys, I felt as though some tight and painful fastening inside me had come undone.

The drawing room had never seemed so alive. Candlelight shivered across the mirrors. The open windows admitted the heavy fragrance of gardenias that could not possibly be blooming. Behind me, conversation rose and fell beneath Nicholas Fairhaven's warm laughter, but it seemed very far away.

I played Schubert without sheet music. The notes lived inside me, whole and obedient, untroubled by the barrier that waited whenever I opened my mouth. At the pianoforte, I did not have to seize each sound before it escaped. My hands spoke, and no one hurried them.

Adrian listened.

He stood beside the tall velvet curtains, still dressed in white, untouched by the heat that had left every other gentleman flushed and damp. He did not drink his brandy. He did not glance toward whoever happened to be speaking. His attention remained upon me with such completeness that the crowded room seemed to narrow around us.