DISCLAIMER: All characters and place names are Libba Bray's. No money is being made from the publication of this story.
Fall came, bringing the icy winds that heralded winter. Life at the camp became much more difficult, but my gypsy friends and I built roaring fires to combat the chill. I regretted having to leave them and Gemma—I addressed her as Miss Doyle, but she had long since been Gemma to me—for a time, but the Rakshana expected me to make a full report of what I had learned. Winter came to Spence two months later, and I with it. It was with a heavy heart that I returned to her, knowing what I had been asked to do. Already I knew I could not. Perhaps as early as then, I knew I had to defy the brotherhood that had raised me since I was a child. I was loyal to them, but the new power was growing. Gemma did not yet know what hold she had over me. I was only too aware of how deep my attraction to her had become.
My first truly happy memory of her involved snow. It had been coming down for three days, and one morning I peered outside my tent to see that it had finally stopped. The whole world was a beautiful, pristine wonderland. For the first time since the death of my brother, my heart felt lighter, almost peaceful. I had returned to Spence at the peak of the storm and resolved to wait it out before making my presence known. Here was my chance, I knew, and my heart thrummed with the prospect of seeing her again. Her eyes, her red-gold curls, her voice had haunted my dreams. It was time for the reality.
I made my way through the snow that was several feet deep, but which I had learned to cope with fairly quickly. Hiding behind a tree, I could hear the schoolgirls' laughter in the distance. They were outside the school, reveling in the new snow. Anxious to see if she was among them, I cautiously crept from my hiding place and watched as she, Miss Worthington and Miss Bradshaw came down the front steps of the school, bundled in their winter coats. Her face was already turning red against the cold. This made me smile, and I could scarcely wait to speak to her. But I knew an opportunity had to present itself, when her friends were safely at a distance. So I waited, and I watched.
The look on her face when she first held snow is one I will never forget. "Ah, it sticks!" I heard her exclaim to her friends, delighted. She and I were used to the hot, sweltering weather of India, and her smiles as she marveled at this new thing were beautiful to behold. The three of them started throwing snowballs then, and I could scarcely keep from laughing as I saw her squealing and giggling like a child as more than one snowball found its way to her head. Miss Worthington left them, but Gemma continued throwing snowballs at Miss Bradshaw until suddenly she was running swiftly toward my hiding place, laughing and panting as she taunted her friend into retaliation. She was but three feet away from where I stood when I saw her boot catch in the muddy snow and she started to fall forward. Here was my opportunity, and I took it. I caught her arm just in time, and she started up with a gasp as she saw who had saved her.
Her hair was soaked, her nose runny, and her cheeks had turned completely red, but to me she had never looked more beautiful. I could not keep an amused smirk from my face as I greeted her with, "Miss Doyle. You look…well." How good it felt to tease her again! Our conversation was brief and to the point, but as I ran swiftly away back to the gypsy camp, my heart felt lighter than ever. I had seen her. I had been close enough to touch her, to smell the scent of her skin when I was forced to press against her, hiding us from Miss Bradshaw. I still felt the warmth of her breath and the beating of her heart in every part of my body. Until the next time we spoke, it would be enough.
That time came quickly. I had intended to speak to her in the privacy of her room, knowing that Miss Bradshaw and Miss Worthington were already away for the holidays. I climbed the ivy and slipped through her bedroom window to find the room dark and uninhabited. So I had to wait, I told myself. So be it. I resisted the urge to look through her things, to see if I could catch the scent of her that I was already beginning to miss. I hid myself behind her dressing screen, intending to make my presence known as soon as she stepped into the room. But as I waited and the sun finally set, the full moon rising in its place, I found myself drifting off into a light sleep.
I do not know how long I slept, but when I awoke, it was completely dark outside and the room was bathed in a soft light. I heard her voice, low and threatening, and I peered around the screen to see her sitting at her vanity table, her hair loose, wearing nothing but her underclothes. The straps of her chemise were pushed down to reveal the creamy skin of her shoulders. Her hair shone a dark copper in this new light. I had never before seen it cascade down her back as it did then. The shock I felt as I watched her quickly gave way to awe, then overwhelming desire, as she spoke to her reflection. "Speak!" she growled menacingly.
This exclamation was enough to rouse me to my feet. Stepping from behind the screen, I cleared my throat and said softly, "It is I, Kartik."
What ensued was utter embarrassment on both our parts and a hasty retreat to her closet to fetch her robe on hers. We, each of us, sat on either of the beds in that small room, facing each other. I remember telling her of the Rakshana, of my family, but what I remember most was her loveliness and the way her robe, buttoned askew, revealed part of her collarbone just so. I believe she did not yet know how to regard me, if I was someone she could trust or just another person trying to take her power. In truth, I was the former, but I did not know how to show her that. So I took a defensive stance and we ended the night with a polite farewell and my assurances that I would be close by when she got to London.
She left for her grandmother's house in town the next day. I knew I had to stay close to her, as the Rakshana wanted, but I did not know how I could manage it in such a city as London. There were no woods to hide me, no gypsy camps allowed near the elegant houses and parks that belonged to the London gentry. And I did not know how she would receive me there, amongst all the reminders of how different our stations in life were.
When I was informed by higher powers that I was to be Gemma's father's new coachman, I was delighted. The prospect of being so near her, of living on her family's estate, was thrilling. I held out the vain hope that she would be just as delighted to see me. That first day, I waited patiently at the carriage house, dressed elegantly in my new uniform, my hair secured under a cap. I had never before taken such care with my appearance, but this was London, after all, and I was about to see Gemma for the first time after days of absence.
She came abruptly that evening, bathed in the glow of twilight as she stood imperiously in the doorway. I could scarcely breathe for the sight of her. Sometimes she was not always aware of the effect she had on people. I grinned at her, unable to contain myself, so happy was I to see her. Less than a week's absence had felt like months to me. At this point, I knew myself to be deeply in love with her, but now was not the time for heartfelt confessions. Too much still had to be done. We discussed the realms and Circe briefly, and then she turned to go, taking a part of me with her.
Being so near her yet unable to speak to her freely was maddening. I saw glimpses of the life she was born to, when she attended this party or that dinner. I remember what a goddess she was the night of the opera, in her white gown with the flowers in her hair, and how she took my breath away. But it was the dinner at "Muddleton's" house that sticks in my mind.
I knew he'd formed designs on her the moment I saw them together, but I needed proof before I was going to speak to her about it. So I did something that I would have regretted had I not been absolutely convinced I was acting in her best interests. She was an impressionable young lady, after all, and I wasn't going to see my Gemma—for I had begun to think of her, or rather wish for her, as mine—taken in by the first slick-tongued fop that came her way. I watched them closely as they stood in the library of the Muddleton house, and what I saw made my blood boil. She allowed him to touch her hair! That golden red hair that belonged to my angel, in the hands of a pasty-faced fool who scarcely deserved to tread the same ground as she! And at every instant, when her face was turned away, he regarded her as a wolf regards a flock of sheep. I wanted to rush through the window and take her away right then and there, or perhaps enter the room and challenge the impertinent boy to a duel. But I did not. I contented myself with throwing rocks, hard, at the window until the two of them broke apart.
"A pleasant evening, Miss Doyle?" I asked as she emerged from the house with her family. My voice was icy, but she seemed too giddy to notice, and this annoyed me even more.
"Yes, very pleasant," she replied happily. I could not help muttering, "So I noted," in response, and her quizzical look as she stepped into the carriage showed me that she could not help but take my meaning. Pulling away from the curb angrily, I resolved to warn her about her deceptive Mr. Muddleton as soon as possible.
That opportunity came in the middle of the night, when the moon was full and the carriage house was silent save for my own voice reading lines from Homer. I was teaching the housemaid Emily to read, as this was the only possible opportunity for both of us. Gemma stormed into the carriage house in a way that made her look like a queen, and even though she was angry, my heart leapt at the sight of her. Emily ran for the house as Gemma demanded to know what I meant by my comment, and in my embarrassment I revealed that I had been watching her and Muddleton through the window. She seemed upset by this, but I won her over eventually and we discussed a patient at Bedlam whom she thought would be able to help her find the Temple. I warned her about Muddleton as well, that he regarded her as a piece of ripe fruit and she'd best be on her guard with him. She seemed pleased by this, which added to my already bitter mood. I suppose I could've done more to conceal my jealousy, but the charade was beginning to tire me and I longed to be able to tell her how I felt. But not right then. No, not yet. I found her especially irresistible that night, even when she turned on her heel to go and ran smack into the carriage house wall. Darling, adorable Gemma, I thought, as I bent to offer her a hand.