“Who might know who this man is?” Jamie asked the clerk.
The clerk shook his head. “At Lady Linnet’s instruction, I tried to bribe a couple of the others who had been involved in the scheme.”
“Others? I thought you said there was one man?”
“I am persuaded that one man planned it. A very clever man. I suspect he parceled out just enough of the gold and goods to the others to get the cooperation he needed.”
“Give me a name,” Jamie said.
“While I could not find where the bulk of the gold went, I did discover that a small portion of it went to Alderman Arnold and to”—he cleared his throat—“Master Mychell.”
“Where is your father now?” Jamie asked the girls.
Both shook their heads. Giving up their father was too much to expect of them.
“Come with me, Woodley,” Jamie said, rising. “We are going to find a certain alderman.”
“Wait,” Lily said, leaping to her feet. “We’ve more to tell you!”
“Quick. Out with it.”
“The man with the cane said he knows someone who’ll pay him to get his hands on the lady. ‘And once this fellow has her,’ the man says, ‘the whoring bitch will be no more trouble to anyone.’ ”
“Lily!” her sister scolded.
“That is what he said!”
Jamie squatted in front of Lily and took hold of her arms. “Did he mention this other man’s name?”
“Aye, but ’twas a noble name what’s hard to remember,” Lily said, scrunching her face up. “Pom-o-tee? Pom-o-ray?”
Pomeroy. A chill went through Jamie, and he heard Mistress Leggett’s voice in his head talking about a man driven by mad lust. Somehow Pomeroy had become connected with these merchant thieves.
“God bless you two,” Jamie said, putting his hand on top of Lily’s red curls. “Martin, see the girls home safely.”
“We should return alone, same as we came,” Rose said, rising to her feet. “If I’m seen with a young man, Father is sure to hear of it and ask questions.”
Jamie was surprised to hear that Mychell was a watchful father. But then, even rats cared for their young.
“You could use a second sword,” Martin said, slanting his eyes toward the elderly clerk.
Martin was young and had no fighting experience, but he did have sharp eyes, a good sword arm—and no fear at all. And most persuasive of all, Jamie had no time to get anyone else.
“Come then,” he said. “You can watch the door for me while I pay an unexpected visit.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
As best Linnet could tell, two days had passed since she awoke in this room. All she had to mark the passage of time was the appearance of her keepers every few hours to bring her food and water and empty her chamber pot. There were three of them: goat, pig, and fox. At least, those were the names she gave them because of the masks they wore.
It gave her hope that they bothered with the masks. If they meant to kill her, why would they care if she saw their faces? She pushed away the thought that they might wear them to hide their identities from one another.
The first day she had made herself hoarse with screaming. When her keepers did not bother to admonish her, she understood no one could hear her and saved her strength. She made herself eat for the same reason. If they gave her a chance to escape, she would be ready. How she would escape with her leg shackled to the bed by a four-foot chain she did not know. At least her wrists and ankles were no longer tied together.
Her keepers moved about silently, ignoring her questions and entreaties as if they were deaf. They never spoke a word, until the last time they brought her a tray of food. Then, for the first time, she heard them whisper to each other.
“Tonight is the full moon.”
“ ’Tis time then. He will come.”
Who would come?
Which of her enemies would it be? Would it be the merchant she had been looking for? Though she did not know him, he would know her. After she had cornered Mychell, she had made no secret of who she was or her intention. That had been a mistake. She should have pursued him with stealth, as she had done with the merchants in Falaise and Caen. But she had grown impatient.
But how had she come to be held by witches? What was the connection between the merchants she had upset and these silent creatures in masks?
One thing was certain. Her drive for revenge had brought her to this place—alone and chained to a bed in the dark. Both Francois and Jamie had warned her again and again that her efforts were dangerous. But she had wanted justice.
Nay, she had wanted more than justice. She had wanted revenge. Was this her punishment for attempting to serve the final reckoning that belonged to God?
In the long hours on this narrow cot, she had ample time to dwell on her actions. What had she been seeking, truly? She thought she understood it now. Ironically, what she had wanted was to feel safe.
All these years she had been trying to put back the pieces of her grandfather’s business—as if that would bring back her grandfather and the safety of her early childhood. His death had left her at the mercy of every sort of evil the world had to offer. She and Francois had each other, but a child needs more than another child.
Ironies abounded. By fighting to regain something lost to her forever, she had closed the door on the love and security Jamie offered her. But the truth was that she had expected to lose Jamie from the start. After losing so much else in her life, she had been afraid to let herself believe Jamie’s love could be lasting.
But was it? If he did love her, why was he about to wed someone else? She tossed and turned on the narrow cot. How could he do it?
She must have eventually drifted off to sleep, for she awoke abruptly to the sound of the door closing. She sat up, her skin prickling with awareness. Someone was inside the room with her; she could feel him staring at her in the darkness.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Show yourself.”
She heard a whoosh and gasped as a flame appeared inches from her face… on the palm of an outstretched hand. The flaming hand appeared to float in the darkness, unattached to any human form. As her eyes adjusted, she discerned a sleeve above the hand and then the outline of a figure in cloak and hood.
Linnet tried telling herself it was all trickery and illusion, but her hand shook violently as she crossed herself.
The figure’s hood was pulled low, making him appear faceless. Using the flame rising from his palm, he lit the candle next to her bed. Then he closed his hand in a fist, and the flame was gone.
“A marvel, is it not?”
The figure’s deep voice was male and familiar. With a sweep of his arm, he threw back the hood to reveal his face. This was not a new enemy. Nay, this was the man with the oldest grudge against her.
Sir Guy Pomeroy.
“You look rather pale, my dear. Did I surprise you?” Pomeroy said. “I cannot tell you how gratifying that is.”
“I should have guessed you were involved in this,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice calm. “But devil-worshippers, Sir Guy? After you accused me of using dark arts to kill your uncle, that is a trifle unexpected.”
“How better to divert suspicion than to accuse you of my crime?” he said, his teeth gleaming white in the dim light.
“Divert suspicion?” She sucked in her breath. “Are you saying you…”
“In ten years, it never occurred to you that I had a hand in my uncle’s death?”
Why would it? Her husband seemed to have one foot in the grave from the time she met him.
“He enjoyed torturing me—parading you in front of me, when he knew how much I wanted you,” he said, his voice seething with bitterness. “Then he would say you made him feel so ‘young’ that you were bound to be with child soon.”
Linnet had no notion her husband had provoked Pomeroy with such lies. In sooth, he had been a sickly man who rarely pressed his attentions upon her during their brief marriage.<
br />
“I could not risk losing my inheritance, could I?” Pomeroy said. “You should be grateful I did not poison you as well.”
“I suppose the death of a healthy sixteen-year-old would be more suspicious,” she said.
“Precisely,” he said, his black eyes gleaming. “That is what saved you, my dear, for I was very angry with you at the time.”
Her heart pounded in her chest, for she could think of no reason that would stop him this time.
“There are those in our coven who have high ambitions—exceedingly high ambitions,” he said. “To gain his assistance for what they seek, the dark angel will require a blood sacrifice of the highest order.”
“You believe in this foolishness?” she blurted out. “You have always underestimated me.” Pomeroy clenched his fist and leaned so close she smelled the onions on his breath. “Do not do so now. You will soon see that all is possible when we call upon the great Lucifer and his demons.”
He was serious. Her hand went to her chest. “Tell me you have not given your soul to the devil.”
“I hold the power of life and death in my hands,” he said, holding his hands out, palms up. “I can obtain all that I desire. First, my uncle’s lands. Then, the friendship of the powerful. But I had to be tested again and again to prove my commitment before the dark lord would grant me my last desire. The thing I wanted most.”
His eyes burned into her like glowing coals. “But now, at long last, I have you.”
Sweat broke out on her palms, her forehead, and under her arms.
“When you learn how to call upon the dark lord,” he said with a ghostly smile, “you, too, shall have all that you desire.”
“Nay,” she whispered. “I shall never do it.”
“Your pathetic tools cannot bring you the vengeance you seek,” he said. “For all your efforts, you do not yet know who hatched the scheme against your grandfather, do you?”
When she could not find her voice to answer, he leaned close again and shouted in her face, “ Do you?”
She swallowed and shook her head.
“But I do.” He straightened and spoke in a calmer voice. “The man you seek used subterfuge and layers of intermediaries. While many merchants were aware of the scheme, only three knew who pulled the strings. So when you came to London asking questions, he was content to stay hidden and bide his time.”
Linnet could not help herself. “Who were the three who knew him?”
“Leggett, Mychell, and Alderman Arnold.”
No wonder the man had felt safe. Leggett was dead, Mychell hated her for driving him into debt, and Arnold would fear losing his position as alderman if his part was revealed.
“Others knew bits and pieces, but they were afraid to talk,” Pomeroy said. “Besides, you were a foreigner with close ties to the queen. Everyone suspected you both of being spies for the dauphin.”
Pomeroy’s eye twitched as he gave her a thin smile. “But when you went to Gloucester, my dear, that changed everything. Gloucester asked a few questions. Suddenly this merchant had reason to fear the hidden threads would be revealed and spun together… and lead to his door. He delivered you to me on a platter.”
Linnet licked her lips. “How… how did he know you wanted me?”
“Let us say, we have mutual acquaintances.” His eye twitched again. “But I shall turn on the man who gave you to me, as a serpent turns and bites his own tail, for your enemies shall be mine now.”
She crossed herself again. Mary, Mother of God, protect me.
“Some of my brothers and sisters in darkness are angered by my decision to take you. They fear your disappearance could draw attention to us.”
Was one of them Eleanor Cobham? Was that why Eleanor gave her warning?
“Others want to use you as our blood sacrifice, but I have refused them,” Pomeroy said, his voice steadily rising to fill the small room. “For you are meant to be my bride in darkness, the goddess to my priest.”
He was mad.
She told herself that if he meant to rape her, he could have set upon her as soon as he entered the room. Chained to the bed, she could do little to fight him. He talked of her being a bride. Did he want a ceremony of some kind to justify the deed?
“I shall never be a bride of yours,” she said.
“I tell you, you are worthy,” he said, his eyes glowing. “Even I did not see your special power until these last weeks. But I was right when I called you sorceress all those years ago. I see that now. I have watched how you pursue your enemies and know we are kindred spirits.”
“Nay, I am not like you.”
“Are you not? What has driven you? Love? Mercy?” He gave a harsh laugh. “Nay, you are filled with hatred, as I am.”
But she did love. She knew with utter certainty she would give her life to protect Jamie or Francois.
Yet, the hard truth was that she did not put their happiness first. She meant to, once she had punished those who had hurt her and righted the wrongs of the past. Jamie’s words came back to her, choking her: Love is not what you consider after every other blessed thing. She wanted to weep for her failings.
“When you cross over into darkness, we will be one with the great Lucifer,” Pomeroy said, his eyes wide and staring, “and one with each other.”
“If you harm me, Jamie Rayburn will kill you.” Her own words surprised her, and yet as soon as she said them she knew them to be true.
Pomeroy’s fingers went to a deep scar across his cheekbone that she did not recall him having before. As he traced it with his fingertips, his eyes scorched over her.
Then he lunged for her. She screamed and tried to scramble to the far side of the bed, but he caught her and hauled her toward him. Bile rose in her throat as he held her with his face against hers, his greasy hair pressed to her cheek.
“Tonight I shall cast the spell, and you will accept your place at my side,” he said, his hot breath in her ear. “Until then, I shall have to restrain you.”
“Jamie!” she screamed.
The cloth was over her mouth, the distinctive medicinal odor filling her nose and mouth and numbing her lips.
“James Rayburn will be dead soon,” he said against her ear. “And you will think of him no more.”
Chapter Forty
Jamie rode across the City, his mind on that day in November when he and Francois had seen Linnet approach the fat alderman in Westminster Hall. That was also the day he and Linnet had begun their affair. Those few days in her London house had sealed his fate. Though he had tried to fight it, he was hers from that time forward.
Nay, he’d been hers since Paris. He had loved the girl who defied convention and dragged him behind the shrubbery… the girl who looked him in the eye and told him she loved how he touched her… the girl who ignored her father’s attempts to restrict her and refused to meet his expectations.
But the girl was nothing compared to the woman Linnet had become. She was fierce in her loyalty, awesome in her determination, courageous, clever, and witty. None could match her. God had given him a second chance with this beautiful, avenging angel of a woman, and what had he done? He’d left her at the first sign of trouble.
Please, God, let me find her. Once he did, he would never let her out of his sight again.
“Master Woodley,” he called over his shoulder to the clerk, who followed on a pathetic mule, “where precisely in the Cheape is Alderman Arnold’s house?”
“Not far from Saddlers’ Hall and Saint Paul’s Cathedral.”
When they reached the alderman’s house, a prosperous-looking, three-story wooden structure, the servant who answered the door insisted Arnold was not home.
Jamie pushed past him, saying, “I shall see for myself.”
“Sir, you cannot—”
“Martin, hold him while I have a look about,” he said without looking back.
Other servants trailed him as he went from room to room searching for his quarry; none made the mistake of attempting t
o stop him.
When he entered the largest bedchamber on the second floor and found it empty, he cursed in frustration. “Damnation, where is that overripe snipe!”
He turned to find a maid with a saucy look about her leaning in the doorway. She slanted a look toward the huge wooden-framed bed and pointed at the floor. Jamie nodded his thanks and motioned for her to leave. Dropping to one knee, he reached under the bed and hauled the alderman out by his tunic.
“God’s blood, you are a sorry excuse for a man,” Jamie said as he held the alderman against the bedpost. “Tell me who was involved in the scheme to destroy Lady Linnet’s grandfather.”
“That was ten years ago,” the alderman said, his eyes darting about the room. “You cannot expect me to recall it.”
“I can and I do.” Jamie lifted the man off his feet. “If you want to live, you will tell me what you know. I want names.”
“You would not dare harm me. I am an alderman!” Jamie slammed him against the bedpost. “I am a desperate man, Alderman, and I’ve killed better men than you. Pray, do not test my patience further.”
Good God, the man was wetting himself! Jamie dropped him and took a step back in disgust.
“It was Brokely, the mayor’s father-in-law, who was behind it all,” the alderman said in a high voice. “The rest of us played small parts or turned a blind eye—and profited very little.”
“Did Mayor Coventry know of this?” Jamie demanded. The alderman shook his head. “Coventry was not mayor then, of course. But he would not have countenanced it, if he had known. No one knew his father-in-law was behind it, save for me, Mychell, and Leggett.”
“But you led others to believe the mayor had been party to it, did you not?”
When the alderman was slow to answer, Jamie pulled his dagger and touched the point to the man’s throat.
“Aye, we did,” the alderman squeaked.
“And when Lady Linnet came asking questions, you spread the word that there would be trouble if the truth came out.”
“And it would cause great trouble, indeed,” the alderman said, raising his eyebrows. “The King’s Council will take any excuse to remove the restrictions on foreign merchants, and that would destroy us.”
Knight of Passion Page 27
