Free Tarnished by Karina Cooper Page B

tended grates with the occasional silhouette beside them.
    Or several silhouettes, I noticed through a sudden wash of embarrassment. The laughter I heard had a dulcet edge, husky and teasing, and I knew what was happening in the darkness around me.
    Decadence. Debauchery.
    A hauntingly sweet violin reached my ears as I hastened along the path, silvery and beckoning. Masterful hands stroked those strings, as sure as a lover.
    The thought slipped into my head and I stumbled, caught myself hurriedly and swallowed down the awareness rising like a physical warmth in my chest.
    The bloody gardens made me nervous. In wholly different ways than the circus tent, to be sure.
    I resolved not to care. But my fists were clenched as I hurried through the vast courtyard. A helpful, wide-eyed young man in dockworker’s garb directed me to the far buildings while a woman grinned indulgently on his arm—mostly clothed, thank God. But not for long, given the way her fingers laced possessively around his arm. And his purse, likely.
    As I rushed through, I searched the boundary for more footmen. There was nothing. Hawke was all too easily lulled, I thought, and found myself vaguely disappointed by this fact.
    Floating on wild energy and high fury, I pushed open the door.
    And found myself in China.
    It was as if someone had bottled up the mystical Orient and painted the interior with it. The walls were dark wood, adorned by silk screens and exotic weaponry. To my right, a fountain bubbled from mysterious sources. The water trickled happily among the unusually lush lilies floating serenely on the surface.
    How did they get any plants to survive? These were indoors. What was the secret? A fertilizer, maybe. Something scientific in nature; I resolved to experiment when I could.
    Across the room, a fire crackled in the polished hearth, which was made from wood as red as a cherry and engraved with an array of eye-boggling designs. Mirrors glittered back the flame in burnished gold, making the room seem larger and brighter than it was. There were no trinkets in the room at all.
    A high, wide chair faced the hearth, its back to me, made of the same red wood as the mantel and draped with brilliant gold silk banners. Silhouetted in the transparent fabric, a tall figure remained still and unbothered by my abrupt entry.
    To its right, however, was another chair of the same style, and Micajah Hawke rose from its depths with murder in his eye.
    I meant to say something. I had the words, the clever accusations all ready.
    But the sheer animal grace with which he stood took out every viable thought in my head and replaced it with blank terror. As the firelight painted one half of his lithe body in gilded shadow, my overactive mind painted him as a black hunting cat, wild and sleek and hungry as the panthers I’d read of in India.
    He stalked toward me, disarmingly dapper; unmistakably dangerous. The muscles in his thighs flexed with every step, a ripple of black, his jaw was a rigid line of temper.
    I jerked as his hand wrapped around my upper arm, tight enough that I knew it’d bruise come morning, and my teeth clicked together as he propelled me backward toward the door. “You are worse than a child,” he said between gritted teeth, so low I struggled to hear him. “I thought I’d made it clear—”
    I found my voice. “Get your hands off me,” I hissed. My boots skidded on the lush carpet.
    His greater strength was undeniable. Willing or not, I was bodily dragged toward the door, all with a single hand at my arm.
    “ Tíngzh˘i. ”
    He froze. Not in the way a man pauses at a familiar voice and turns to look at the speaker, but as if he were suddenly a statue. Because I had no choice, I froze with him, and watched as a muscle ticked in his jaw. He stared at the door, features taut with . . . anger? Exasperation?
    I couldn’t tell.
    I glanced at the chair, but the silhouette hadn’t moved. Long, thin ornamentation wrapped around the figure’s