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Wild:. Noelle Mack
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No. The old volume was unique, and probably quite valuable. There could not be others like it, not with richly colored illustrations like that.
She turned the pages again, looking only at the pictures. The words behaved themselves, staying on the paper in neat rows of black type. Then she came to the concluding illustration.
Scolding herself for being so gullible, she lifted its protective page and gasped. Her eyes widened. The picture showed a wild and desolate land, buried in towering drifts of snow and ice.
She snapped the book shut. It was the otherworld she had glimpsed in Kyril’s eyes.
2
After Kyril’s departure from Cheyne Row…
He asked not to go north to his house near Grosvenor Square as his coachman expected but to the east, following the road along the river. Tom Micklethwaite hunkered down as if his massive shoulders could protect the rest of him against the rain, and urged the four black horses on with a slap of the reins. No whip. His master did not like animals to be mistreated.
Miles away, an hour or more later, he stopped where Kyril had told him to, pulling up the reins and looking about nervously. They had come out from under the storm. Here, the wind was blowing from the opposite direction, pushing the clouds and rain back.
Tom heard his master open the door and step down quietly. The coachman reached for the stout cudgel that he kept under the seat. In sight of the Thames, the ramshackle houses leaned upon each other and there was no telling who lurked in the alleys between them. If heads had to be broken, he would break them and ask no questions.
Kyril looked up and saw Tom slap the cudgel against his rough palm. Once. Twice.
“I hope we will not need that, Mr. Micklethwaite. But the boat is coming. I will soon be on my way and you can go home.”
The coachman peered into the darkness, seeing nothing out on the water. They had stopped by a flight of stairs leading down to the river, slippery with moss and filth. Someone had left a lamp there, but its light was feeble.
Kyril gave a soft halloo when a bright point of answering light appeared in the distance, reflected in shattered fragments by the black, rushing water. Little by little, the light came closer and he heard the soft dip and splash of oars.
“Here he is.”
“An invisible man,” the coachman grumbled, “in an invisible boat. I wish you luck, sir.”
Kyril made no comment. Tom Micklethwaite was blunt by nature. But the Pack had needed a coachman who knew his way through the intricate web of alleys and crooked streets along the river, especially at night. The Thames waterfront was a maze that often trapped the unwary, with stairs and docks and landing places that took a lifetime to learn. Born in Stepney, Tom had proved to be their man and he was trustworthy.
“Coming about,” the man in the boat said in a low voice. He gave a final hard pull on the oars to propel himself to the narrow dock at the foot of the stairs, then kept one in the water to turn the boat around with.
Kyril handed the lantern on the stairs to Tom and, surefooted despite the slime on the stairs, went down to the boat. The other man drew both oar handles through the oarlocks and trapped them under a planked seat, keeping the wide, wet blades up in the air. They dripped into the river, gleaming in the isolated light of the lantern attached to the bow. He threw a line in a loop around a half-rotted piling, securing the boat to it.
“Neatly done,” the coachman said softly. “If that bad wood holds.”
“It will hold long enough.” Kyril clambered down into the rowboat. “I will be gone for some time,” he said over his shoulder to Tom, trying to stay on his feet. “Return the carriage to the mews and—” He swore under his breath when an unseen swell rocked the boat.
Lukian Taruskin leaned to the opposite side to steady it.
“See to the horses, Tom, and yourself—it was a long while to wait in bad weather and then the gallop—damnation!” The boat tipped to the other side.
“Sit down, cousin.” Lukian spoke in Russian. “The tide is turning and we must be off. Tom has not failed you yet.”
Kyril finally sat down.
Tom tipped his hat to his master once he was safely down and slapped the reins over the horses’ backs, turning them and the carriage in the opposite direction from which they had come.
The darkness swallowed the sound of their pounding hooves just as Kyril reached up to extinguish the little flame in the lantern. “Thank you for fetching me. We will not need this now.”
“No,” said Lukian, “perhaps we did not need it at all. But I wanted to be sure you would see me and I was prepared to wait. I saw the storm blow in over your part of London some hours ago.”
“The rain was very heavy.”
“I am glad we are not in the thick of it.”
“So am I.”
Lukian set to in earnest, pulling rapidly on the oars to get them well away from the treacherous bank.
After a little while he spoke again. “How did you get through the streets? London is ankle-deep in muck when it rains hard. I was surprised to see you at the dock.” His efforts took the boat straight through the strong current of the placid-looking Thames. Like Kyril, he was a powerful man.
“Micklethwaite made good time.”
Lukian’s breathing was deep and regular. He seemed to be enjoying the vigorous exercise.
“And where were you before this, Kyril?” he asked with amusement. “You smell of flowers.”
“Do I?”
Lukian snorted. “Let me guess. You were not picking violets in a churchyard. Who is she?”
“That is for me to know and you to find out.”
His cousin rowed on, thinking it over. “Hmm. Of the ladies of your acquaintance, there is only one who likes that particular perfume. I met her once. You dragged me to a soirée at her house when I was the worse for drink.”
“Are you speaking of—”
“Yes, her,” Lukian said impatiently. “The woman you hold in such high esteem. I don’t think she liked me. You know exactly who I am talking about.”
Kyril did, but something in his cousin’s tone struck him as odd. Lukian’s bad temper was nothing new, but his snappishness was. He was a lone wolf by nature, prone to dark moods which he usually managed to keep to himself. It was impossible to see his expression clearly now that the lantern had been put out.
“I doubt she remembers you,” Kyril said at last.
Lukian shrugged, which interrupted the rhythm of his rowing. The oars bounced on the water and splashed. “Good. What was her name again?”
“Vivienne Sheridan.”
“Yes, of course. She must have rubbed herself against you very thoroughly, Kyril.”
“Do not be so rude. She did not rub, as you put it. We embraced.”
“Aha. How romantic. Do you love her?”
There was a thin, razor-sharp edge to that unexpected question. Why on earth did his cousin even care? Kyril cleared his throat. “She is very beautiful.”
“So she is.”
“And highly intelligent.”
Lukian snorted. “A paragon of womanly perfection, I suppose. Worthy of a pedestal.”
“Yes, Lukian. But not at all like a statue. She is extremely sensual,” Kyril added. “So much so that I very nearly forgot my meeting with you.”
Lukian’s