by Lois Greiman
“Ahh. Only of your beauty,” he said.
She raised a skeptical brow.
His features remained perfectly schooled, but his coffee-dark eyes were smiling. “Lady Redcomb suggested that I may have better luck if I were a bit more…flowery.”
“Did she also say you should refrain from sounding like an idiot?”
And now his eyes laughed, though his lips remained unbowed. “She may have failed to mention that.”
“Then let me be the first to inform you, Sir Drake, you should also refrain from—”
“Why did you lie about last night?” he asked again.
She kept her gaze absolutely steady. “You might also refrain from accusing a lady of fabricating a story for no particular reason.”
“’Twas not an accusation.” They spun across the dance floor. She was like magic in his arms, like a kite on a silken string, filled with promise, with freedom. “Simply a question. Why would you say Shellum bested the bastards?”
“Perhaps this will surprise you after your long years at sea, sir, but ladies of quality do not go about trouncing thugs.”
“If I may be so bold…” he began, and twirled her again, making her think, perhaps, he would be so bold as to do anything he pleased. “Neither do men who are so inebriated they cannot tell their head from their arse.”
“Then perhaps I should sleep with Shellum after all.”
He stared at her, hypnotic eyes questioning.
“Since he is obviously a very talented man.”
“Able to trounce a pair of thugs while remaining absolutely unconscious?”
She tilted her head. “What makes you think there were two?”
“You are quite a remarkable woman,” he said. “But I doubt you could have stood against three.”
She laughed. “I admit, Sir Drake, I am rather impressed by your imagination.”
He tugged her an inch closer as the song flowed to an end. His eyes burned her. His burr deepened. “Does that mean you will share me bed?”
“That means, good sir, that I am leaving,” she said, and pulling from his arms, curtsied sweetly. “Thank you ever so for the dance.”
He released her, returned the bow, eyes sparking. “The pleasure was mine, my lady.”
“Perhaps,” she said, and left with all due decorum, but her heart was banging overtime against her ribs. Foolishness. All foolishness. Reeves would disapprove if he knew. And he would know. One glimpse of her face would tell him.
You are panting like a draft horse, Josette. Do you want others to die because you cannot control your own breath?
“Lady Lanshire,” called a cultured voice.
Ella found the place of quiet in her soul and turned, face placid, heartbeat slowing. Lord and Lady Bowles were plump and middle-aged. Happy in that way that she doubted she would ever understand. In that way that made her ache inside, for they had built a life, shared a family that laughed and cried and cared. “My lord, my lady, what a lovely gathering. Thank you for the invitation.”
“You’re not leaving so soon, surely,” said her hostess.
“I fear I must. I hope to ride to the hounds first thing in the morning.” Who was this Sir Drake and why was he so interested in thugs and gardens and who had trounced whom? “The two of you should accompany us.”
“Riding,” said Lord Bowles, and faked a dramatic shiver. “Perched atop one of those temperamental beasts like a cricket ball on a stile?”
“It’s not so horrible as it sounds.”
“No. I imagine ’tis far worse. Give me a nice brougham with a pair of placid nags or let me stay home with a blackberry cordial and the Times.”
“We are not much for equestrian sports, I fear,” explained Lady Bowles.
“But we are devils on the dance floor,” said her husband, and taking his wife’s hand, swirled her once before dipping her toward the carpet.
She giggled.
Smiling, Ella said her farewells and stepped outside.
It was quieter out of doors. She took a careful waft of night air and motioned to Winslow. He might have been all but deaf, but he kept a sharp eye, and in a moment had urged Dancer to draw her carriage up to the cobbled walkway. The gelding bobbed his head, ready to be off, and they soon were, trotting rhythmically down the rough-paved street.
Berryhill was not far from the Bowleses’ impressive manse, but it was humble by comparison. Located in the south of Camden, it had a tilting roofline and crumbling mortar. Nevertheless, it looked much as it must have a hundred years before. Winslow stopped the cob near her arched front door and dismounted to hand her down.
Impatience beat at her. She wanted nothing better than to bolt for the privacy of her property, but propriety was everything. England’s very existence seemed to hinge on a lady’s ability to wheedle away the hours, to gamble and dance and giggle behind her fan.
“Thank you, Winslow,” she said, and made her way up the meandering walkway. Her feet were silent on the cool, smooth stones, for she had abandoned her slippers while in the carriage and carried them hidden in the folds of her skirt. No one met her at the door. Perhaps she flouted society too much in this case. Perhaps crowns would topple because she hung her own cloak on the brass hook that was anchored beside the door, but this was her home, and here she allowed herself a modicum of herself.
Her journey up the stairs was quiet, the product of long years of training. Or perhaps, more correctly, it was the product of fear. There had been a time, a seemingly endless period of darkness, that she wanted nothing more than to disappear, to remain unseen, unnoticed.
“And who are you today, my dear?” He was there again, peering at her, watery eyes bright and ungodly eager. He called himself Dr. Frank. But she knew him as Satan.
“I am myself,” she said, but her voice sounded raspy, broken, beyond terror, beyond hope. Her unborn child was dead. Her husband had betrayed her. There was little reason to live. And yet she did. “Just myself, Josette de Moreau.”
“And the demons? What of the demons?” he hissed.
Ella gripped the handrail in fingers turned to claws, felt the wood scrape beneath her nails, and remembered to calm herself.
All was well. She was safe. Home. Free. As was her sister.
But she had best think more clearly in the future. She’d made an error in judgment. She should not have spoken to Drake in the garden. Should certainly not have flirted so outrageously. Indeed, hindsight suggested that she should have returned posthaste to Merry May’s ballroom. Should have told her story with drama and flair. Maybe even should have swooned. But she had not. Instead she had allowed herself to be seduced by the humor and wit in an unknown man’s mesmerizing eyes.
Foolish. Idiotic. She knew better. Far better. Verrill too had had mesmerizing eyes. Mesmerizing eyes and a lying tongue. He had vowed to love her forever, when, in fact he had loved nothing so much as her inheritance. But that no longer mattered. None of it mattered. Not anymore, for those years were far behind her, left shackled in a dark, fetid cell.
The problems at hand were all there was to consider. What should she do now? Admit to the ton that she had, in fact, been the woman in the garden? The woman Shellum was proclaiming to have saved? Or let the story play itself out? The gentry, after all, were easily bored. Surely the tale would soon grow old.
Or perhaps, she thought…But suddenly her breath caught tight in her throat. Something was wrong. Something was different. Her palms tingled. Her bedchamber door was closed as it should be. No sinister shadows played upon her walls. All was quiet.
Yet there was an intruder in her house. She was certain of it. Reaching up, she slipped a pin from her hair and removed the tiny cap from its end. There was a fluid inside. A special liquid. The spike would slice through skin like a needle, would deposit the fluid deep inside. And all would go quiet.
Taking a deep breath, she visualized her room in her mind. It was large. All but empty save for a few pieces of furniture. Against the far wall was a l
one window, tall and narrow. It was locked from the inside. There were those who could open that lock. But only a few.
She drew a deep breath, forced herself to relax, and stepped inside, senses searching. The other’s identity came to her with immediate clarity, and her voice was steady when she spoke.
“Good evening, Jasper.”
He would be beside the door, hidden until she closed it. She turned to do just that, but he spoke first from the other side.
“You are becoming rusty, Josette.”
Her heart tripped in her chest. She calmed it, turned. Moonlight flowed through the window, glistening on her weapon.
“Am I?”
He saw the pin. She knew it. But neither spoke of it.
“What would happen if I intended you harm?”
She capped the weapon. “Do you?”
Perhaps there was the slightest irritation in his voice. “That is hardly the point.”
Replacing the pin in her hair, she took a step forward, past him, to pull the drapes shut. Darkness fell around them, soft and complete.
“I don’t have your gifts, Josette,” he said.
He had told her as much a host of times. It was a reprimand of sorts, reminding her that there were powers she had not yet tapped, abilities of which even she was, as of yet, unaware. Which did he refer to now?
“Do you think I can see in the dark, Jasper?” she asked.
She could sense his irritation. Or maybe she could see it, in a way that could not quite be explained.
“Regardless, a little light would be appreciated.”
“So you don’t like to be in the dark either, I take it.”
He was quiet for a second, then: “You’re being childish.”
It was true. She was. “Perhaps I’m allowed,” she said. “Because I am so wonderfully gifted.” Passing a candle, she swept her palm above the wick. It flared to life, illuminating the sharp planes of his face. He was barely taller than she, but there was something about him that had always made him seem larger than life. Still, it was his eyes that captured one’s attention. They were old, as old as death itself. And just as secret.
“Perhaps you have obligations,” he said, “because of those gifts.”
“Still afraid you haven’t gotten your money’s worth, Jasper?”
“No.” He took the room’s one chair. “You were a fine investment. Everyone agrees.”
“Everyone?” She had long suspected that the humorless Earl of Moore was intimately involved with the workings of Les Chausettes, but truth to tell, she no longer cared what great powers pulled the coven’s invisible strings. Not anymore. She had ceased to be one of the government’s secret pawns, ceased to be involved in the espionage, the crimes, the failings.
He ignored the question, as she knew he would. “I’ve been asked to request that you come back to Lavender House.”
“By whom?”
Perhaps he was frustrated, but he would not show it. No pacing or swearing for Jasper Reeves. No emotion whatsoever, in fact. He did what he must. If people died, they died.
And they had.
“A child is—”
“No!” She pivoted toward him, stopping his words before she heard more. Before she was sucked in, drawn under, drowned. “Don’t say it.”
“Elizabeth is—”
“I said no!”
“It wouldn’t be difficult. Not for you.”
Anger flared in her soul, set a-kindle by seething frustration and the deep etching of pain. “It shouldn’t have been difficult with Sarah.”
Tension swallowed the room. He rose to his feet, but the movement was smooth. Controlled. She should have stabbed him with the damned pin just to get a reaction.
“I am sorry about her.”
“Are you?”
He paused for a second, then: “It wasn’t your fault.”
She almost took a step back. Was she so obvious that even Jasper Reeves could read her? “I never said it was.”
Another pause. “Lady Redcomb suggested you might blame yourself.”
Madeline? Why? Why was Maddy talking about her at all? And why did he always refer to her sister by her title, while Ella was only Josette? A scared, scarred woman-child from another land. Then again, why did she care? He had never been anything but her employer…and her savior. For it had been he who Maddy had told of her sister’s powers and subsequent incarceration. He who had found a way to secret Ella from the hideous bowels of La Hopital.
But she squelched the thought. The anger. The gratitude.
“Actually…” She dropped her slippers, sat down on the bed. “I blame you for Sarah’s death.”
He watched her in silence. “She wasn’t a Chausette. There was nothing—”
“She was a person!” she snapped, and found that she was standing again, facing him, anger seething from every pore.
“I can barely protect your—” He stopped himself. Firelight flashed across his eyes.
She watched, surprised by his passion, but perhaps she shouldn’t have been, for he did protect. He kept them safe from all outside forces so he might decide how best to spend their lives.
“She had already revealed herself to Grey,” he said, his voice perfectly level once again. “She couldn’t be trusted with the secrets of Les Chausettes. No matter how gifted she may have been.”
“So you allowed her to die.” Her voice was filled with venom. Rancid with time and bitterness. Perhaps she was being unfair. And perhaps she didn’t care.
“I had no way of knowing it would come to that.”
“The truth is, you didn’t think her worth the trouble.”
“She didn’t have your gifts, it’s true.”
“You have no idea what her gifts were. She was young. Untrained.”
“She was a wild card and a show-off.”
“As was I.”
He remained silent for a moment, letting her think. “Maybe once,” he said finally.
And he was right. By the time he had found Ella, chained and battered and filthy, she had been little more than an empty shell. Wanting nothing more than to hide. To be left undisturbed with her madness. If she had powers, she would not show them, not to anyone, no matter if they swore to love her always. That much she had vowed. But in the end, those same powers that had damned her, had saved her. For it seemed there were those who were looking for women with her gifts.
“Sarah could have been trained,” she said.
“We could not afford to become involved. You know that. It could have compromised the—”
“Damn the program!” she snapped. “You simply didn’t think her worth your time.”
His eyes aged yet again. “You’re right,” he said, and she felt herself wilt, her anger melting toward bitterness.
“Get out, Jasper,” she said, but he remained as he was, silent, watching her.
“I think we may have been wrong,” he said finally.
She turned away with a snort. “I shall alert the Times.”
“About Grey,” he added.
She glanced back, stiff, breathless. “What are you talking about?”
“We have reason to believe his was not the body found in the fire.”
A thousand questions leaped through her mind. She kept them at bay, sifted carefully through them. “The house was rented to him.”
“Yes.”
“His belongings were inside. The items she…the items he forced her to steal.”
“Some of them, at least.”
Silence stole in, dark, stifling. “You think he’s still alive,” she breathed.
“Yes,” he said.
And outside the window, quiet as a secret thought, evil smiled at the night.
Chapter 8
Who was this Grey? What had he done to Sarah? How had he done it? And perhaps even more importantly, could he do it again? To someone else? Someone Ella loved.
Beneath Ella, her blood bay mare trotted rhythmically along. Perhaps it was not perfectly
acceptable for her to ride alone down the wending streets of London, though her status as a wealthy, titled widow allowed her nearly as much leniency as her own flaunted eccentricities. But just now she cared little for the social mores of the day; Madeline’s image dominated her mind, and with it came a dozen errant memories. Memories of them playing together on a distant riverbank, discovering secrets, awed by fledgling powers they dared not admit. Memories of them wrapped in a faded counterpane, bare toes tucked beneath white nightgowns as they whispered into the night about hopes and dreams and promises.
Promises to care, to protect, to guard their secrets with their very lives.
But Ella had failed. Had failed and had paid. She would not be so foolish again.
Wisdom was needed. Wisdom and power. Thus she went to the one person she had gone to for years. The world called her Lady Beauton, but the women of Lavender House knew her simply as Vision.
The old woman’s cottage was covered in ivy, her garden riotous, her walkway uneven. Dismounting unaided, Ella turned toward the aging man who shambled toward her. His face was as black as mistreated shoe leather, his belly as round as a pumpkin, straining the buttons of his scarlet livery. He was, and always had been, strangely proud of his portly form.
“It is good to see you, my lady,” he said, and took Silk’s reins in one broad hand.
“I can barely see you at all, Gets,” she said. “With you becoming as thin as a reed.”
He chuckled. The sound was deep and melodious. “Don’t you know it is a sin to lie, my lady?”
“Tantamount to gluttony, I believe,” she said, and he laughed as she made her way toward the front door. It opened before she reached it. A long, narrow face and faded blue eyes greeted her from beneath a tilted mobcap.
“Lady Lanshire, we’ve not seen you for some time.” There was a reprimand in the woman’s voice. The kind that can only be found in servants who have been faithful for years beyond count.
“My apologies,” Ella said, and stepped inside. “I’ve been quite busy.”
“Well…” She closed the door and strode briskly away, leading into the interior of the house. “I suppose the regent’s foolish doings seem important to some. More important than an old woman’s loneliness.”
