Lord Corvus Ashwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Lord Corvus Ashwood had thirty-eight days to marry Aurora Mayfair, and she had refused him twice. He stood at the window of his rented rooms and watched her front steps across the square. She would not see him. She would not write to him. Her butler had been instructed to say she was out, even when smoke rose from her morning grate. Corvus had two horns, gray skin, and a black coat cut by the best tailor in the city. None of it helped. A man cannot propose to a closed door. He had been watching her since she was sixteen. That was the year she told her father his partner was a thief, and the year the household decided she was hysterical. She had been right. Corvus had checked the ledgers himself, later. Her perceptiveness was the thing he wanted, and the thing that made her hard to approach: she had decided, early and correctly, that he wanted something from her. She did not yet know what would happen to her if he failed. He intended that she never know. He needed a pretext. Calling on her required an invitation she would not give. Crossing her path in the park required luck he could not afford. So he bought the townhouse opposite hers. It was four stories of fresh stone and new iron, the kind of address a man took when he meant to be seen taking it. The deed was signed before noon. By evening, workmen were carrying his trunks up the front steps in full view of her windows. He was now her neighbor. No one could question a neighbor on his own step. In the small back garden stood a gazebo, painted in pale stripes, with open sides that faced her drawing room. Corvus had a chair carried out and sat there with a book he did not read. He could see her curtains move. He could see the corner of her writing desk. He waited, and he was patient, because patience was cheaper than time. The lure went in a covered basket the next morning. Inside was a kitten, orange and round-faced, with a velvet ribbon and a card in his hand: "Found at my door. I am told the markings match a cat reported missing from your household. Pray collect at your convenience. — Ashwood, opposite." He had no such report. He had bought the kitten from a girl in the market for a shilling. By three o'clock he saw Aurora cross her hall in a walking dress, the basket already returned, her gloves drawn on with the speed of a woman intending a short, decisive errand. She was coming to correct him. That was enough. He set down his book and went to meet her at the gate.