The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(34)

He ignored Pippa, choosing instead to offer Celine a stiff kind of smile. “Perhaps some gloves, a hat, or a set of lace handkerchiefs?”

“Of course,” Celine replied. She turned to find Pippa hovering beside her, an anxious expression lining her brow. Celine shooed her away.

“You’ll have to forgive my colleague,” Celine said to their customer. “It’s unusual for a gentleman to come into our shop alone. Is there a certain color or type of fabric you prefer? We can assist you with the gloves and the handkerchiefs, but the milliner two streets over would better suit your needs if you’re interested in a hat or a bonnet.”

The unusually laconic customer made his way toward a small white table with a neat arrangement of embroidered gloves. When he reached for them, Celine noticed a set of vicious scars on the back of his hand. A gasp flew from her lips.

He pivoted at once, his eyes narrowing. “Is something wrong?”

When Celine looked back down at his hands, the skin there appeared unblemished once more. As if she’d imagined the scars in the first place. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought I saw something.”

“May I ask what it was?” His lips formed a thin line.

“Please excuse my strange behavior. It’s clear I’m in need of rest.”

The gentleman continued watching her. He cocked his head to one side, like a bird. Then the edges of his face began to shimmer like the surface of a stone baking under the summer sun.

Celine blinked. Took a startled step back.

For an instant, the gentleman before her looked entirely different. As if the whole of his body was marred by the same smattering of crosshatched scars she’d seen on his hands. Even his face was marked in the same fashion. His features became more angular, the tips of his ears tapering to points. When one side of his mouth rose in the suggestion of a smile, Celine could swear he had fangs, like those of a demon.

She shook her head. Squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, he appeared to be a normal man once more. Fear ricocheted through her blood.

Celine blinked again. “I apologize. Please—excuse me,” she stammered. “Pippa, would you mind assisting the gentleman at the till?” Then she fled to the storeroom, feeling the unsettling young gentleman’s gaze follow her with every step.





I





Unbeknownst to those inside, a stranger in a bowler hat studied the scene unfolding within the dress shop. He cracked his gloved knuckles once, then removed a graphite pencil and a pad of paper from his left breast pocket.

No more than a minute was spent jotting down today’s observations. Then the stranger smoothed his handlebar mustache and vanished around the nearest street corner.





JAE





Here he is, that strange Chinaman.”

Jae was so lost in his thoughts, he almost missed the hatred aimed at him like the barrel of a gun. He paused just before the entrance to his building, listening to the elderly woman speak from the gallery above.

He knew it was her. It was always her.

“I still have trouble believing they allowed those boys to take up residence here,” the woman continued, her words soaked in spite.

Her friend beside her clucked in agreement. “It couldn’t be helped. Le Comte de Saint Germain owns this building. He gave them leave to reside here, for Lord knows what reason.”

“The count should care what the neighbors think. To let a Chinaman and that peculiar dark-skinned boy from the East Indies live among us . . .” She tsked. “They aren’t Christian, I tell you,” she whispered. “I’m almost certain I saw one of those profane statues in their hallway.”

“That Indian boy grows strange herbs on his balcony. They smell wretched and attract flies.”

“He’s nowhere near as bad as the Chinaman. He’s like a ghost, the way he walks without making a sound. Why, this one time . . .”

Jae listened to their continuing conversation, a variation on a theme from three days ago. He focused on it. Let their ignorance flow through him and around him, bathing in the heat of their hate.

Then he let it go. Released it, like the petals of a flower on a passing breeze.

It had been the same wherever he went. The lesson he had learned the moment he set foot on Western soil. If he fought against these falsities—if he tried to reason with the unreasonable—matters would only escalate, to no one’s satisfaction.

One time in Dubrovnik, he murdered a man for proudly wearing the badge of his prejudice. In the moment, Jae relished the feeling of crushing the man’s windpipe in his fist after draining him dry. But the next night he discovered another putrid sack of hate in his place.

It wasn’t about the individual. It was about the collective.

Until hate was untaught as it had been taught, this would be Jae’s lot in life. Arjun’s lot in life. Hortense’s and Madeleine’s lots in life. Indeed, even Odette—with her pale skin and radiant smile—was subjected to hatred for loving as she did, against someone else’s beliefs.

Strangely this thought was comforting to Jae. The only place he’d ever lived where he’d not had to explain himself was in New Orleans, among his brethren in the Court of the Lions. And he was thankful for every member of his chosen family. For the bonds they formed together as outsiders, in more ways than one.