The Last Hours: Chain of Iron, page 12
There was a rustling on the other side, the door opened, and James stood in the doorway looking puzzled. He was barefoot, his waistcoat open, and a few buttons at the top of his shirt undone as well. His jacket had been tossed over a nearby chair.
Cordelia fixed her gaze in the middle distance, though that didn’t quite work—she found she was staring directly at the hollow at the base of his throat, usually covered by a shirt button. He had a strong, slender neck, and the hollow was really very fascinating, but she couldn’t allow herself to go to pieces over parts of James Herondale right now. She set her jaw and said, “You are going to need to help me with my dress.”
He blinked, his long eyelashes flickering against his cheekbones. “What?”
“I cannot get the dress off without the help of a maid,” she said, “and I cannot call for Risa, or she will know we are not spending the night together, in the marital sense, and she will tell my mother, who will tell everyone else.”
He stared.
“There are buttons,” she said evenly. “Many buttons. You need not help with my corset. I can manage that. You will not need to touch my bare skin. You will be touching only fabric.”
There was a long, painful pause, during which Cordelia wondered whether it was possible to die of humiliation.
Then he swung the door wide. “All right,” he said. “Come in.”
She came into the room, trying to focus her attention on the decor. Books, of course, everywhere. This was where he had put his beloved poetry books—Wordsworth and Byron and Shelley and Pope, next to Homer and Wilde.
The room was decorated in shades of warm ochre and red. She gazed down at the dark crimson carpet as James said, “I suppose you had better turn around.”
Turning around was a relief, actually. It was much worse to have to look at him and know that he could see her blushing. She felt him come up behind her, felt his hands touch her shoulders lightly.
“Where should I start?” he said.
“Let me move my hair out of the way,” she answered, reaching up to sweep the heavy mass of it over her shoulder. James made a funny sort of sound. Probably stunned by the sheer number of buttons on the dress.
“Just start at the top,” she said, “and if you need to tear the fabric a bit, it’s all right. I won’t be wearing this again.”
She had tried for a bit of humor, but he was utterly silent. She felt his hands move to brush the back of her neck. She closed her eyes. His fingers were light, gentle. He was close enough for her to feel him there, feel his breath against her skin, raising all the tiny hairs along her arms.
His fingers moved down. The dress was loosening, beginning to sag. His palm slid across her shoulder blade. She felt her eyelids flutter. She still thought she might die, but not of humiliation now.
“Daisy,” he said, and his voice was thick, almost slurred. He must be horribly embarrassed, she thought. Perhaps this might even feel like infidelity to Grace. “There’s … something else we need to discuss. The matter of the second runes.”
Oh, Raziel. The second runes … the ones a bride and groom inscribed on each other’s skin in private. Was James suggesting that since her clothes were coming off anyway, they do it now?
“James,” she said, her throat dry. “I don’t have my stele with me—”
He paused. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have said his hands were shaking. “No, not now,” he interrupted, “but we will have to mark the runes sometime. If someone were to learn that we don’t have them …”
She could feel the first rune he had given her that day, burning on her arm. “We’ll just have to try,” she said, her teeth clenched, “not to get undressed in front of other people.”
“Very funny.” His fingers were moving again, sliding down her back. “I was thinking of Risa.” She heard him draw a breath in, sharply. He must have reached the last button, for the top of the dress crumpled like a wilted flower, sagging down to her waist. She stood frozen for a moment. All she was wearing on top now was her corset, and the thin chemise under it.
There was nothing in any etiquette book to cover this. Cordelia tugged the front of the dress up, holding it against her chest. The back of the dress slipped farther down, and she realized with horror that James could likely see where her hips flared beneath the corset, curving out from her nipped-in waist.
Her gaze fixed on the Oscar Wilde books propped next to Keats on the bookshelf. She thought of The Ballad of Reading Gaol: “Each man kills the thing he loves.” Cordelia wondered if it was possible to kill the thing you loved with embarrassment.
“Please go,” James said. His voice was nearly unrecognizable. What had she done?
“I really am—awfully sorry,” she said breathlessly, and fled. She had barely made it to her own bedroom when she heard the click of his door as it shut, and locked, behind her.
LONDON: 48 CURZON STREET
Huddled in the lee of a wall, he had watched them go in—James Herondale and his red-haired bride, the bearer of Cortana. They had climbed down from their carriage in Shadowhunter gold and splendor, both of them glimmering like precious trinkets in the fading light of the winter sun.
It was nearly dark now. Yellow light sprang into life at one upper window, then another. He knew he could not wait here much longer; he was risking frostbite, or some other sort of damage. Human bodies were cruelly frail. Trinkets indeed, he thought, huddling deeper within his coat. When the time was right, they would come apart so easily in his hands—like shiny, worthless baubles. Like broken child’s toys.
6
THINGS TO COME
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles
is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
—John Keats, Letters
James never mentioned the episode with the wedding dress, much to Cordelia’s relief. Other than making sure Risa would always be around to assist her when she dressed, Cordelia was very content to go on as if nothing had happened.
She found it easier than she would have guessed. On the day of her wedding, she had been certain a year of horrible awkwardness lay before her. But to her surprise, as the next two weeks passed, the question of awkwardness never seemed to come into it. She was not reminded of Grace; in fact, she found herself forgetting, sometimes for hours at a time, that James’s sentiments were engaged elsewhere. Being with other people was easy, even enjoyable—she and James went out, had suppers with friends and at the Institute, though they had not yet been invited to Cornwall Gardens. Magnus had not yet visited—from Anna, they learned that he and Jem had encountered problems with the books at the Cornwall Institute, and had brought them to the Spiral Labyrinth for further investigation. It was not yet certain when they’d return.
However, the Merry Thieves came over to carouse and to eat Risa’s cooking nearly every day. Will, Tessa, and Lucie visited frequently. Anna stopped by in the evenings, once ending up in a four-hour conversation with James about draperies, during which Cordelia fell asleep on the divan.
Being alone with James, Cordelia discovered to her surprise, was just as easy.
It did not happen all at once, of course. They relaxed into it: often reading together, in opposite chairs by the fire in the drawing room. Other nights, they ate dinner in the study and played games: draughts, chess, backgammon. Cordelia couldn’t play cards and James offered to teach her, but she demurred; she preferred the physicality of the board games, the way they played out like a battle, in real space.
Each night, after the game was won, the winner would ask a question. It was how Cordelia discovered that James didn’t like parsnips, that he sometimes wished he were taller (though, as she reminded him, he was a very respectable six feet), that he’d always wanted to see Constantinople. And how she told James that she was afraid of snakes even though she knew it was silly, and that she wished she could play the cello, and that she thought her best feature was her hair. (James had only smiled at this, and when she tried to make him tell her what he was thinking of, he waved it away.) The teasing and laughter after was often the best part; Cordelia had loved James as a friend before she’d ever loved him another way, and this was when she was reminded why.
She liked the way conversation would fade and slow as they both became sleepier, but neither wanted to stop talking about anything and everything. She talked about traveling the world, and what she had seen: chained Barbary apes in Marrakech, the lemon trees of Menton, the Bay of Naples after a storm, a procession of elephants at the Red Fort in Delhi. James spoke longingly of travel: how as a boy he had kept a map on his wall with pins stuck into the places he hoped to one day go. Since neither had ever been to Constantinople, they spent a night pulling books and maps off the shelves, reading accounts of travels to the city aloud, discussing the sights they’d want to see—the minarets of mosques illuminated at night, St. Sophia, the ancient port, the city divided by its river. James lay on the rug with his arms crossed behind his head as Cordelia read aloud from an old travel memoir: “The Queen of Cities was before me, throned on her peopled hills, with the silver Bosphorus, garlanded with palaces, flowing at her feet.”
He chuckled, only a sliver of gold visible beneath his half-closed eyelids. “You’re better than a Baedeker,” he said. “Go on, then.”
And she did, until the fire burned down and she had to rouse him, and they crept upstairs together. They parted at their separate doors. Sometimes she thought his hand lingered at her shoulder as he kissed her good night, chastely, on the cheek.
She had dreamed of all this, in a half-guilty way—living with him, being so close, so often. But she had never imagined the reality of it. The sweet, piercing intimacy of ordinary married life. Of James making her giggle while teaching her slang words (considered too rude for ladies) over breakfast—a “donkey’s breakfast” was a straw hat, and “half-rats” was being mostly intoxicated. Of wandering into their shared bathroom while he was shaving, shirtless, a towel around his shoulders. She had nearly fled, but he’d only waved at her amiably and struck up a conversation about whether they needed to attend Rosamund Wentworth’s engagement party.
“Oh, we might as well, I suppose,” she said. “Lucie’s going, and Matthew, too.”
He went to rinse the soap off his face, and she watched the smooth slide of muscles under the skin of his arms, his back. She had not known men had such deep grooves above their hip bones, nor did she know why the sight made the back of her throat feel odd. She glanced up hastily, only to notice that there were light freckles at the tops of James’s shoulders, like golden starbursts against his skin. There wasn’t a part of him she’d seen yet that she didn’t think was beautiful. It was nearly unfair.
He was most beautiful when he was in motion, she’d decided. It was a conclusion she’d come to while they trained together—another part of married life she’d never considered, but found she liked very much. The training room James had installed on the upper floor was small but comfortable, with a high enough ceiling to swing a sword around, a climbing rope, and platforms to create makeshift terrain. Here she and James sparred and went through forms, and she could really see him, the actual beauty of him in motion, the long line of his body extended in a lunge or graceful in a controlled fall. She wanted to believe that, when she wasn’t paying attention, he was sneaking looks at her just as she was sneaking looks at him. But she never caught him, and she told herself it was wishful thinking.
Sometimes Cordelia wondered if her unrequited love was a sort of third member of their household, present even when she was not—haunting James’s steps, wrapping ghostly arms about him as he tied his tie before the mirror, curling up insubstantially beside him as he slept. But if he felt any such thing, he certainly gave no sign.
“Daisy,” James said. He was in the corridor, outside Cordelia’s half-open door; Risa was nearly finished helping her dress. “Can I come in?”
“One moment,” Cordelia called; Risa was just doing up the last buttons on her gown.
“Bebin ke mesle maah mimooni,” said Risa, stepping back, and Cordelia glanced hastily at herself in the mirror. Look how you are beautiful like the moon.
Cordelia wondered dryly if Risa was referring to the fact that the dress was low-cut enough to reveal the tops of her breasts: swelling crescents above the dark green silk. She supposed it was true that a married woman could wear clothes that were far more daring than a single girl’s. Every seam in her dress had been designed to emphasize her curves; every inset panel of lace offered a trompe l’oeil hint of her bare skin beneath. The effect, as Anna had explained to her when she chose the material, lay in the eye of the beholder: even the most ardent gossip could not fault its cut, but an admirer could easily imagine what lay underneath.
But will James imagine it? said a small voice in the back of her mind. Will he notice the dress? Compliment it?
She didn’t know: it had been two weeks since her wedding to James and he was sometimes entirely opaque. Still, they had been two weeks so happy they had surprised her. Maybe this mad gamble would pay off. She would have this to look back on when she was old and gnarled like a tree trunk—a year of happiness married to a boy she adored. Some people never had so much as that.
“Maybe the dress is too much,” Cordelia said, tugging at the neckline.
“Negaran nabash.” Risa batted her hand out of the way, tsking. “Don’t worry. This is your first real night out before the whole Enclave as a married woman. Show them you are proud. Show them you will not be made to feel small. Show them you are a Jahanshah.” She made a shooing motion. “Now I shall go.” She winked. “You must not keep Alijenab James waiting.”
Risa slipped out, leaving Cordelia to stand there feeling rather foolish. James rarely came into her room; she sensed he wanted her to have her privacy. He knocked once now before coming in and closing the door behind him.
She tried not to stare. James was wearing a black tailcoat and white waistcoat. His father’s mad werewolf tailor had done another excellent job: James’s clothes fitted him perfectly, dark broadcloth shaping his shoulders and long legs, white linen shirt showing the lean strength of his chest and throat. His gaze fell on her, his body going utterly still. There was a dull flush of color along the tops of his cheekbones.
“Daisy,” he said. “You look—” He broke off, shaking his head, and fumbled something out of his pocket. It was a simple black velvet box. He held it out to her and she took it, quite surprised.
“Our two-week anniversary,” he said, in answer to her quizzical expression.
“But—I didn’t get you anything.” She took the box, the velvet nap soft against her fingers. “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“You weren’t,” said James. “Sometimes I have foibles. This is one of them.” He grinned. “Open it.”
She did, revealing, nestled on a bed of more dark velvet, a glimmering gold pendant on a chain. She drew it out of the box, exclaiming as she realized what it was—a small, round globe, the faint outline of seas and continents etched onto its surface.
“We have talked so much of travel,” James said. “I wanted to give you the world.”
“It’s perfect.” Cordelia felt as if her heart might flutter out of her chest. “Here—let me put it on—”
“Hold on, hold on.” James laughed, coming up behind her. “The clasp is small. I’ll help you.”
Deftly, he found the clasp at the back of her neck. She froze. His fingers slid lightly across the delicate skin at the top of her spine, where her dress dipped down. He smelled delicious, like bay leaves and clean masculine skin. There was a click as the necklace fastened; he breathed in deeply as he reached around to straighten the pendant and she felt it, felt his chest expand as he breathed, the linen of his shirt against her back, making the hairs rise all along the back of her neck. His hands drifted for a moment, inches from green silk, from bare flesh.
He stepped back, clearing his throat. She turned to look at him. The Mask had slid into place, and she could read nothing in his expression but an amiable blankness. “It looks lovely,” he said, taking a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “And I nearly forgot—Neddy came with notes for the both of us, from Lucie. I didn’t open yours, despite my obvious burning curiosity.”
Darling Cordelia, the note read, in Lucie’s familiar sprawling hand, I am so, so sorry to miss tonight’s party and leave you to the depredations of Society, but I’m feeling quite fishy about the gills. Should anyone trouble you, keep your head high and remember what the Beautiful Cordelia would say: “I shan’t, and you can’t make me!” I shall expect to hear everything about it tomorrow, especially what everyone was wearing and whether Thoby has grown another door knocker. All my love, LUCIE.
Cordelia handed the note to James to read while they headed downstairs and out into the night. The footman had already brought the carriage around. It was a sharp, cold evening: the air was dry as chalk and the snow wore a top layer of ice that snapped and broke like glass under their feet. There were heavy fur rugs inside the carriage, and boxy foot warmers; Cordelia snuggled down with a sigh.
“Door knocker?” James inquired, as the carriage began to crunch forward over the icy road.
“It’s a sort of beard,” said Cordelia with a smile. “I’ll point one out if I see it.” Though beards were rare among Shadowhunter men: harking back to the armies of Rome, Nephilim regarded facial hair as something an enemy could potentially grab onto in battle. There were no such prohibitions for women’s hair, likely because the Romans would never have imagined women fighting.
“Well, if Thoby is sporting one, that leaves me two choices,” said James. “Challenge him to a duel, or grow one even bigger.”
“I hope you won’t do either.” Cordelia made a face.
“I suppose as my wife, you do get some say in my appearance,” said James. Cordelia looked at him through her eyelashes, but he was only gazing out the window at the black-and-white night. “The Wentworths don’t entertain often. I’m looking forward to your first glimpse of the Pastry.”
