Unlaced

by Jaci Burton

  The sorceress looked down at the dark stain spreading over her heart and laughed aloud, her silver voice cracked and ugly. “How fitting.”

  When the djinn fell to his knees, his reptilian eyes growing flat and dull, she reached out with another spell and grasped his fading soul. “Don’t go just yet, my dear. Leave me something to remember you by.” Mercilessly, she held him back from death’s threshold, feeling his life trying to flee, frantic wings fluttering in her fist. The blood flowed down the blade and over her arm like a coal-black kiss, the velvet of the corset absorbing every drop until the plushy fabric was a matte ebony and the pink satin roses shriveled and fell away, dyed dark with the dragon’s death.

  “Bah!” The sorceress opened her fingers and the blade dropped to the rug with a dull thud. “Shaitan take you, reptile.” Turning away, she released the Magick and the djinn slumped, his soul draining away with the last of his life’s blood.

  The sorceress glared at her reflection, the black corset a magnificent contrast with her snow-white limbs, the pale swell of her heaving breasts. Her teeth bared in a snarl, she reached for the laces.

  There was no warning.

  From behind her, a nightmare vision rose, quicker than thought, roaring with hate and rage. The djinn reached a huge taloned hand over her shoulder, his eyes flaming. With the last of his strength, he rammed every claw into her breast, a perfect arc of cold daggers piercing flesh and bone.

  “Bitch!” he thundered. Then he jerked free, slid boneless to the floor, and died.

  The sorceress stared in utter astonishment at the five welling gouts of scarlet. As she swayed, her vision clouding, she reached out, calling desperately, “Shaitan! Lord! Avenge Your servant!”

  And He answered.

  The last thing the sorceress saw were the five heartsblood rubies glittering on the breast of the corset. Yes! Fiercely, she gathered up the only things still living within her—her will and her hatred—and poured them into the black velvet.

  By the time she hit the floor, the sorceress of storms had ceased to be.

  Only the corset remained.

  On the next peal of thunder, her body trembled, shimmering into a pile of gray ash that whirled out the tall doors and away over the high ledge.

  Long before the small scavengers had nibbled the djinn’s body down to the strong bones, the corset had followed the remains of its mistress, fluttering miles on the wind over the Cressy Plains like some bizarre bird of prey.

  Meg had just helped Da to bed when she heard horses outside in the yard. She dropped a kiss on her father’s stubbled cheek and rushed to the window, her heart singing. John.

  Seven weeks had passed since that night in the barn, and he’d been as good as his word. He’d made it up to her in every possible way and from every possible angle. A hot wave licked down her spine at the thought of his hands, his mouth, his cock. She knew she had no experience, but surely John Lammas must be the best lover in the world. He’d made her come so hard, she’d simply opened her mouth and screamed. Sister save her, she’d damn near fainted!

  Her hand on the latch, she watched his dark figure swing down from the horse and walk toward the house. She’d know that purposeful, long-legged stride anywhere. John never seemed to hurry, but he always arrived where he was supposed to be, unflurried and on time. It made him a fine dancer and an excellent horseman. He was the most coordinated person he knew, for all that he was so big.

  Meg shivered. Big all over.

  His cock was long and thick and straight, with a heart-shaped head that was smooth as silk under her tongue and tasted of musk and salt and man. What must it be like to have a part of your body with a mind of its own? She couldn’t imagine, but gods, she could enjoy! She loved that she could drive him wild with her mouth and her hands, until he shuddered all over, his fists clenching and unclenching.

  With one hand, Meg rubbed a tingling nipple, assaulted by a delightful vision of John roped to the post in the barn, his huge muscular body entirely at her mercy, his cock jutting up all flushed and stiff while his dark eyes burned with frustration and he ground out exactly what he was going to do to her, the moment he was free. Mmm, sweet . . . Perhaps tonight . . .

  Her eyes narrowed. There was a second horseman, still mounted, waiting by the gate. The man turned his head, his profile limned twice over by the light of the Sibling Moons, the Sister and the Brother. Meg frowned, apprehension unfurling in the pit of her belly. Nathan, the next brother along, as mercurial as John was calm. What was he doing here? They were such a volatile clan, John’s family. No wonder he liked to lie peacefully after they made love, one big hand stroking her hair. No speech necessary.

  She had the door open before John reached the bottom step. “What is it?” She slipped out onto the porch. “What’s wrong?”

  “Meggie.” He caught her hands in his and she went up on tiptoe to kiss him. Their lips met and clung, and for a few blessed moments, she forgot all about Nathan. But then John drew back, his thumb caressing her jaw, and she knew.

  This was going to be bad.

  “Nathan and Da had a fight.” John gave a sour laugh. “The whole family’s in an uproar. Ma, the girls . . . Brother’s balls, my ears are still ringing.”

  “But they’re always like that. Why . . . ?” Meg glanced at Nathan’s motionless figure and he lifted a hand in a brief salute. She’d always quite liked him. He was as quick to laughter as he was to rage, and charming with it.

  “Nathan hit him. Da, I mean.”

  “He what?” Appalled, Meg stared at the other man across the shadowed length of the yard.

  “Split his lip.” John ran a hand through his hair. “Shit, Meggie, it was awful. Now Da says he has no second son, and anyhow, Nathan stormed out. Either way, he says he’s going to Caracole. Torza’s Band are recruiting.”

  “Sister!”

  “Sweetheart, he’s such a hothead. I have to go with him. Get him there in one piece, see they don’t cheat him on the contract. Ma made me promise.”

  “But, John . . .” Meg ran down. Even buried in Holdercroft, she’d heard of Torza’s Band. Who hadn’t? A mercenary company, the most famous on Palimpsest. She shivered. Killing to order. “How long . . . ?” She cleared her throat. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Ten days to Caracole. Ten days back.” John shrugged. “It’ll take them at least a few days to process him. A month, give or take.”

  “You can’t . . . talk him out of it?”

  “Turns out it’s what he’s always wanted.” John shook his head. “Idiot, when he could have all this.” He lifted his head to gaze across the fields and fences, to the twinkling lights of the village and the dark bulk of the mountains beyond.

  “It’s an adventure, I suppose,” said Meg slowly. Caracole was a city of blue canals, elegant pavilions, and smiling vice. Country folk said darkly you could buy anything in Caracole if you had the coin. Anything.

  “Fuck that,” said John, not generally so crude. “Everything I want is here.”

  “John.” Tack jingled as Nathan rode forward. “We should go.”

  “In a minute.” John glared at his brother. “You start. I’ll catch you up.”

  “All right.” Nathan grinned, a flash of white teeth. He lifted a hand. “ ’Bye, Meg. Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck, Nathan,” she said automatically. “Be careful.”

  Nathan snorted. “Sure.” He trotted away into the darkness.

  Meg tugged John into the light spilling from the open door. She wanted to see his face. “The Sister hold you in Her hand, love. Come back to me.”

  She saw his throat move as he swallowed. He pushed a lock of dark hair out of his eyes. “Meggie, wherever you are is home to me. I love you. Now give me a proper kiss and let me go.”

  And so she did, pressing herself up against him, memorizing the feel of his hard chest crushing her breasts, the bruising grip of his fingers on her hip, the hot depths of his mouth.

  Finally, she hugged hi
m with all her considerable strength, making him huff out a laugh. “Don’t forget me,” she whispered, seized by a sudden terror.

  “Not my Steady Meggie. Never, I swear it.”

  He dropped a last kiss on her nose and wrenched himself away. Almost running, he swung into the saddle and cantered away after his brother. At the gate, he turned for a final wave, his face a pale blur. And then he was gone.

  The first month tiptoed by on leaden feet. Meg greeted each dusk with gratitude, because John was one day closer. Then Da caught the shaky ague and she had her hands full for four or five days until he was over the worst of it. Mistress Griddle, who was better than most big-city healers, shook her head over his tall wasted frame and murmured that Meg should be ready.

  Although running the farm and coping with Da took all her time and attention, Meg found she was stopping whatever she was doing several times a day to shade her eyes and stare down the rutted path. She missed John with a physical ache so acute her stomach felt like a ball of lead. Often she’d forget and think of something she wanted to ask him. How to speak to the farmhands, for instance. What he thought she should do about the broken pump or the fence in the north pasture. Sister, how she longed for his strong arms around her, his deep voice telling her everything would be all right! Every day she walked over to the Lammas farmhouse, and every day John’s mother shook her head, her eyes clouded with worry. The weight fell off Meg and the bloom in her cheeks faded.

  Toward the end of the second month, she found her father’s crumpled body on the floor of his bedchamber. He didn’t regain consciousness until two days later when he peered muzzily at Meg’s face and called her by her mother’s name. “Sorry, love,” he rasped, barely audible. “So sorry.”

  An hour later, his fingers slipped from her grasp and the life passed from him in a long sigh.

  It wasn’t until after the simple funeral that Meg discovered the full meaning of that strange apology, what her father had been hiding from her. The following day, Master Montse, the local financier and moneylender, arrived to explain gently, but firmly, that the Mackie farm was so deeply encumbered as to belong to him, lock, stock, and barrel. Would a week be convenient for Mistress Meg’s departure? There was much work to be done before he could cry the sale in Holdercroft market square.

  Numbly, Meg nodded. How could her life have fallen apart around her in the space of two short months? Dragging herself upstairs, she sat on the narrow bed she’d slept in all her life, staring blankly at the hooked rug she’d made with her own hands. Several hours later, she rose as if in a dream and packed a small bag. Her needs had never been complex. As an afterthought, she found the cheap blade and scabbard Da wore when he went to market. Grimly, she buckled them around her waist. The road to Caracole was a hazardous one, especially for a woman alone.

  But John needed her, she’d never been more certain of anything in her life. Her mouth twisted. The Sister knew, no one else did, not any longer. John Lammas was her future, and once she found him, all would be well.

  The following day, Margaret May Mackie turned at the gate for a last look, one hand on the worn wooden post. It felt sun-warmed and splintery, remarkably solid for something that would be gone from her life the moment she walked around the bend beyond the copse of stately cedderwood trees.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she disciplined her breathing. Carefully, she closed the gate, heaving the bar into place with the ease of long practice. Then she squared her shoulders, spun on her heel, and started down the rutted path that led to the Caracole road.

  Four

  THE GARDEN OF NOCTURNAL DELIGHTS, CARACOLE, PALIMPSEST—SIX YEARS LATER . . .

  When Tansy screamed, Meg froze, her fingers crushing the starched napkin she’d been attempting to fold into a crown. Godsdammit, she’d ruined another one.

  The screams went on and on. Seizing Cook’s heaviest skillet, Meg darted to the kitchen door. Full of intriguing twilight shadows, The Garden of Nocturnal Delights spread in a broad, gracious crescent before her. The Main Pavilion was situated front and center, convenient for both canal and street. Scattered discreetly among the lawns and shrubberies and water features, the small pavilions revealed themselves in teasing glimpses of warm terracotta walls topped by pagoda-style roofs.

  Her heart pounding, she tilted her head, listening. Doors slammed and voices rose, shouts and exclamations colliding in the soft night air. Peering down the winding path, Meg was treated to the sight of two sets of flexing buttocks as a pair of bare-assed Queen’s Guards charged past, swords in hand. They’d be off-duty, none too pleased to have their pleasure interrupted, but thank the Sister for their presence. Her breath came a little more easily.

  By the time she reached the Pavilion of Clouds and Rain, Tansy was huddled on the fine bricked path outside the small elegant building, her face in her hands, whining like a whipped dog. The tray she’d been carrying lay upside down beside her, the sweetmeats Cook had created so lovingly spilled and broken, the delicate tisane pot a pathetic pile of shards.

  Meg laid the skillet aside and crouched, drawing the little apprentice courtesan into her arms. “Tansy, what is it?” But the girl only continued to shake and cry, burrowing her head into Meg’s shoulder.

  “Mistress Meg?” One of the soldiers stood naked in the open door, his face grim. “They’re dead, both of them.”

  “What?” Meg stared. Blood stained the man’s fingers. Automatically, she untied her apron and passed it to him.

  The second warrior, a grizzled veteran, appeared at his elbow. “Looks like she killed him and then herself.”

  “But that can’t be. Not Shalla-Mae and her Duke.”

  The man shrugged. “See for yourself,” he said. His gaze shifted to a point over Meg’s shoulder. “Mistress,” he said, a warning in his tone.

  She turned. A small crowd was beginning to gather—clients and courtesans, male and female, a couple of Rose’s apprentices. In fact, Rose herself was hurrying down the path, her robe of midnight blue brocade belling behind her. The Dark Rose.

  Their eyes met and an unspoken message passed between them.

  “Friends.” Rose smiled and Meg was struck again, as she always was, by the particular sweetness of her employer’s expression, the charm she exuded as naturally as breathing. “Please.” She spread her hands, long-fingered and graceful in the deep sleeves. “An argument of the heart. You know how it is.”

  Still smiling, she gestured at the Main Pavilion. “I have cool sherbet and spiced wine awaiting your pleasure and Cook has prepared a special supper. You wouldn’t be so cruel as to disappoint him. All is well here.”

  A disarming twinkle. “Our Mistress Meg has everything under control. As usual.”

  Succumbing without a struggle, the little group straggled back toward the larger building. At Rose’s discreet gesture, the apprentices shepherded them along, practicing their sidelong glances and small talk.

  Rose drew the sniffling Tansy to her side. “Come and find me the moment you know,” she murmured to Meg.

  “Yes.” Meg smoothed her skirts, her heart pounding. Folding her hands before her, she willed herself to be calm. In the five years she’d been Housekeeper at The Garden, there was little she hadn’t seen, nothing she hadn’t been able to cope with. “I’ll do that.”

  A crisp nod and Rose glided down the path in the wake of her customers.

  Meg turned to the older man. “Captain, if you would be so kind?”

  “Sergeant,” he said absently, completely comfortable in his skin. “Mistress, it’s—There’s a lot of blood.”

  “Thank you for the warning.” But when he stood aside and Meg stepped over the threshold, the smell took her by the throat. “Sweet Sister,” she whispered, reeling.

  It didn’t seem possible that two bodies could contain so much blood. The silver-shot, misty gray hangings that gave the pavilion its name were splashed with great gouts of it, Shalla-Mae’s white-blond hair clotted scarlet. Mercifully, Meg couldn’t see he
r face. The courtesan lay slumped in a graceless sprawl of arms and legs beside the wide bed. Gods, she would have hated to be found so, pretty Shalla-Mae, so careful of her dignity. Her patron, a handsome man in his mid-thirties, hung half off the mattress, his face contorted, a long wound lacerating his throat, just below the ear. They were both naked. On the floor, just beyond Shalla-Mae’s clawed fingers, lay a silver blade with an ornate hilt.

  Meg dropped to her knees, reaching for the girl’s shoulder, but the Sergeant stayed her hand. “She cut her own throat,” he said. “You don’t want to see it.”

  Meg drew back, swallowing. “No,” she agreed. She lifted troubled eyes to his swarthy face. “But I don’t understand. They were going to sign the bedding contracts this evening. Cook and I made them a special celebration supper. The Duke was besotted. I think he truly loved her.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “Shalla-Mae? She was thrilled, swept off her feet. She even bought him a gift.” Meg rose. “Aargh, gods!” The fabric of her gown clung to her legs, cold and heavy where she’d kneeled in the pool of blood.

  “Steady there, Mistress.” The Sergeant’s big warm hand closed over her arm, and for a moment, another voice echoed in her head. My Steady Meggie.

  “I’m all right.” She hadn’t thought of John for some time now. Not since last night, on the edge of sleep.

  “A gift?” said the younger soldier. “What sort of gift?”

  Meg glanced at his hard face, the long white scar on his chest. If he’d lived, Nathan Lammas would look like this now, be this sort of man. Sternly, she disciplined her thoughts before they could stray to John for the hundred-thousandth time. Rose was depending on her. “A corset, Shalla-Mae told me, a beautiful corset.” She gave a wry smile. “The sort men like.”

  “Is this it?” The Sergeant held out a bundle of black velvet. Correctly interpreting Meg’s hesitation, he said, “It was on the floor over there. But no blood.”

  Meg took it from him. “Must be.” The plushy velvet was luxurious under her fingertips, like the pelt of some beautiful animal. “She would have been stunning in it, so fair against the black.”