The Lady of Secrets

by Susan Carroll

  She’d be taken soon if she did not find someplace to hide. Amy forced herself to run faster even though her lungs felt close to bursting. Her gaze flicking from side to side, she spotted the opening to a narrow alley and shot down it.

  Pain blossomed in her side and her footsteps faltered. She could not keep up this pace any longer. In sheer desperation, she crouched down behind a rain barrel and shoved her fist in her mouth to stifle her labored breathing.

  She felt the hard knock of her heart against her rib cage and feared it might be loud enough to betray her. She listened, straining to catch the sound of her pursuers. She thought she heard footsteps hesitate at the mouth of the alley.

  Amy tensed, trying so hard to hold herself still that she trembled. She caught snippets of her pursuers’ conversation.

  “… thought she came this way … maybe doubled back and dashed into that tavern … no, sure she headed into the alley.”

  Amy suppressed a whimper of fear and panic. The moment seemed to stretch into hours before the voices faded away along with the footsteps. Perhaps the apprentices found the prospect of searching for her in the tavern far more enticing or decided the pursuit was not worth it, not if it led them down this foul alley stinking of urine and emptied slop basins.

  Whatever the reason for her salvation, Amy gulped with relief and gratitude. She waited for another ten minutes to pass before she dared remove her hand from her mouth and resume her normal breathing. Her hands still shook as she examined her prize. The velvet purse had looked promising enough dangling from the obese merchant’s belt. But when she undid the drawstring and emptied the contents into a palm, she blinked with outrage and disappointment.

  Pence! Just a few miserable pence. This was all she had risked her neck for?

  “That fat miserly bastard!” she hissed. She was so disgusted, she nearly hurled the coins down the alley. But she was in no position to scorn even this pittance. She returned the coins to the purse and slumped down with a mewl of despair.

  The devil only knew what sort of filth she was sitting in, staining her cloak. Amy was far too dispirited to care. Nothing had gone right for her since yesterday morning when Blackwood had ruined their test by making off with the silver rose.

  She had taken some consolation from the thought of the wretched doctor dying in agony, but even the satisfaction of that had worn off with Bea carping at Amy for her failure and incompetence. Her sister had complained relentlessly about what an idiot Amy was and how they were going to have to brew the poison all over again and the ingredients were so expensive and how they were running out of coin and time.

  Amy had hoped the coin from the merchant would solve that problem and the purse itself she had planned to stuff into Bea’s mouth and put an end to her cruel taunts. But it seemed she had blundered again, hazarding her life for nothing and leaving herself open to more of her sister’s mockery.

  Amy leaned her head back against the wall of the tenement building and sighed. She should have known better than to try to steal anything when her mind was in such a state of turmoil. Hadn’t her grandmother always warned her about that?

  “Never try to pick a pocket or cast a spell when you are distressed or angry, Amy, my pet. It can only lead to failure.”

  Perhaps that is why the curse that Granddam had inflicted upon James Stuart had never come to pass. Granddam had certainly not been in a calm frame of mind when she had cursed the king, not with the flames licking at her legs, blackening her skin and all.

  Years had passed since that dreadful day when Amy had watched her grandmother being burned alive. Yet she still remembered it, still missed Granddam with a terrible ache as though it had happened but yesterday.

  Tears filled Amy’s eyes and she blinked them back. “Never mind, Granddam,” she whispered. “You shall be avenged. Bea and I shall see to it, and then every dream, every wish you ever had for our coven shall come true, I promise you.”

  The thought heartened Amy and she struggled to her feet. She crept down the alley and stole a cautious look around before emerging. There was no sign of the merchant or those nasty apprentices. The street was even emptier than before, the shop fronts closed up, most everyone having scampered off home to their suppers.

  Amy knew she should make haste, too, with the light fading. The watch would be out soon to enforce the curfew. But the prospect of returning to her lodging held little appeal for her, not with Bea awaiting there in her foul mood.

  But if she lingered for a bit, Bea would go out soon, heading down to the wharves to earn some coin by spreading her legs for some of the sailors and dockworkers. Of course Amy would have to endure listening to Bea gloat about how much better she was at whoring than Amy was at being a thief. But that was tomorrow. At least Amy might enjoy some of her evening in peace.

  She wandered aimlessly until she found herself in the environs of Sir Patrick Graham’s house and realized she had flitted there like a moth drawn to the light.

  The place was no palace, but with its small tidy garden and smoke curling from the chimneys, it represented all that was snug, safe, and comfortable to Amy. The air had turned much colder with the sun setting. Amy shivered and pulled her cloak tighter as she crept into the garden.

  She was relieved to find it empty. If one of Sir Patrick’s servants caught her prowling about, she would be hard-pressed to explain what she was doing here. She hardly knew herself; hoping for a glimpse of Megaera perhaps.

  Bea might go on and on about the need to make certain the Lady of Faire Isle and Megaera were one and the same before approaching her, but Amy was convinced that she was. Whenever Amy gazed upon Margaret Wolfe, she just sensed it.

  That was because Amy was a fool who stubbornly believed whatever she wanted to believe, Bea would say. No doubt Amy was still credulous enough to go hunting for faeries beneath the bushes, she’d sneer. But that would have been quite stupid.

  No faery would choose to dwell anywhere in this hard, cold, crowded city. They would live in the wilds of the country where there were thick copses of trees and rugged hills where one could clamber to the top and feel free and breathe.

  Amy meant to live there herself one day if their plans succeeded. That is—when their plans succeeded and the ritual was complete and Megaera fulfilled all their dreams as Granddam had always sworn the great sorceress could.

  Amy would live on the grandest estate, wear the most beautiful silken clothes and bedazzling jewels. She would be quite the lady of the manor and maybe she would have a lord …

  Amy tipped back her head, gazing toward the upper story windows. No candles had been lit as yet, so she could detect no movement.

  She inched her way closer hoping for a sight of— She was honest enough to admit to herself it was not Megaera she hoped to espy but him.

  What if Sir Patrick was in his bedchamber, preparing to change his garb or stripping down for a bath? It would be so lovely to see him naked. Amy licked her lips and felt a squirming of sensation between her legs.

  She was sure he would be quite beautiful, all smooth white skin, all lean hard muscles, and with such an impressively large cock, Bea would bitterly envy Amy her possession of him.

  She had declared to Bea that she meant to have him for her pet, but Amy hungered for so much more than that. Even if she had to keep him in chains, she wanted Sir Patrick to adore her. So much so that even if she offered to set him free, he would beg her not to do so.

  “My beauteous Amelia, do you not understand that I will die if you send—”

  “What do you think you are doing here?”

  The angry demand startled Amy out of her dreams. She spun about with a hiss, her fingers raised like a cat’s claws, preparing to defend herself against one of the household servants.

  But it was not the gardener or even that horrid valet Alexander with his thick Scots tongue. It was him, Sir Patrick himself. The rays of the setting sun picked out the highlights of his hair, turning it to a burnished gold. Even his eyes appea
red to blaze a fiercer blue in the dying light.

  Amy’s hands fell limp to her sides. “Oh,” she sighed.

  “Answer me,” he snapped.

  She couldn’t. Couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, could hardly breathe.

  “What are you doing lurking in my garden? How dare you come here!”

  Never had she heard his soft, genteel voice sound so harsh. He glanced about him almost as though he were ashamed to be seen with her.

  No, not ashamed, she assured herself. Afraid. They shared so many secrets, no doubt he feared discovery.

  “Don’t worry. I was most discreet. No one saw me. No one knows that I am here.”

  “What do you want?”

  Amy summoned her most beguiling smile. “Why, I only wanted to see—”

  She raked him with her eyes, imagined stripping away his doublet, his shirt, and his trunk hose. He shuddered beneath her gaze. From desire? She could certainly feel the heat. Suddenly the oncoming night no longer seemed so cold.

  Except for his eyes. They had grown hard as shards of ice.

  “You were wanting to see Mistress Wolfe? You are too late. She is gone.”

  Amy stared up at him, wondering if she dared to trace her finger over the stern line of his mouth. She half-raised her hand when the sense of his words penetrated the warm haze enveloping her.

  “Gone? W-what do you mean, gone? Where did she go?”

  “I care not so long as she does not reside beneath my roof. So there is no reason for you to come here again.”

  “B-but you just allowed her to leave? To disappear? And after you promised—”

  “You would speak to me of promises, witch? After you pledged your word that you would cease tormenting the king if I fetched the Lady of Faire Isle to England?”

  “And we have!”

  “So it was someone else who nailed that dead cat to the palace wall and left a threatening message in blood?”

  “Oh,” Amy said in a small voice. “That.”

  “Yes, that.”

  She hated the sneer that marred his features. It made his handsome face look almost ugly.

  “The cat was my sister’s idea.” Amy spread her hands in a placating gesture. “You know what Beatrice is like, so impatient to have our revenge upon the king.”

  “And dropping deadly silver roses into my garden? Was that also part of her schemes?”

  Guilt flooded her cheeks. Amy gave him a nervous smile. “Roses? What roses? They are usually white or red, are they not? I have never heard tell of such a one as you described. Silver, did you say?”

  “Aye, exactly like the one that poisoned my friend Armagil.” Sir Patrick stepped closer, and for the first time, Amy noted the shadows that pooled beneath his eyes. He must have scarce slept at all last night, poor lamb, no doubt fretting over the ailing Blackwood.

  Armagil Blackwood was a spineless, useless excuse for a man who deserved whatever evil befell him, but she had forgotten that he was Sir Patrick’s friend, even though Blackwood was far from worthy of that honor.

  “I am so sorry if Dr. Blackwood is dying, but …”

  “He’s not. Mistress Wolfe cured him.”

  “… I am sure that—” Amy blinked. “She what? No, she couldn’t. That’s impossible unless—”

  Margaret Wolfe truly was Megaera.

  I knew it, Amy thought, barely able to restrain her dance of joy. Just wait until she told Bea. But Amy’s surge of triumph was brief as Sir Patrick stalked closer and she realized how she had just betrayed herself. His eyes blazed with anger and accusation.

  “I don’t know what hellish game you witches are playing at or why you wanted Margaret Wolfe fetched from her island. But whatever your foul plans are, they end now, do you understand?”

  His voice was hard, threatening. Amy didn’t like it. One of the things that she loved best about Sir Patrick was his gentle courtesy. She stumbled away from him, but she raised her chin in defiance.

  “You needn’t act so superior. You have foul plans of your own. You didn’t fetch the Lady of Faire Isle because we demanded it. You brought her here for sniveling James so he would not go into hiding and cancel your precious parliament. You needed Mistress Wolfe because you thought she could end his fear of the curse.”

  “Which she has done.”

  Amy’s mouth fell open. Megaera had cured Dr. Blackwood? She had lifted the curse from the king? No, this could not be right. These were not at all the actions of the dark sorceress Granddam had taught Amy to revere.

  “Margaret Wolfe has played her part,” Sir Patrick continued. “I have no more use for her and I never had any for you or your sister. If you possess any wisdom at all, you will disappear and never let me see or hear of you again.”

  Never see him again? The thought was unbearable to Amy.

  “But we both want the same thing,” she pleaded. “The destruction of James Stuart. Your plot to blow him up is very clever, but his death will come so fast. Bea and I just wanted him to suffer more, to know why he must die. But we’ll stop tormenting him from now on, I swear it.” Amy rested her hand upon his sleeve with a coaxing smile. “There is no need for such enmity between us. We are allies.”

  “Allies?” He shook her off savagely. “Do you think that I have ever wanted my holy cause tainted by your filthy witchcraft? You should perish in the same way your wretched grandmother did. But I am offering you a gift of mercy you don’t deserve. Leave here now. If you are not out of my sight in the next minute, I’ll summon a constable.”

  Amy’s lip quivered with a mingling of hurt and outrage. “You just try it and … and I’ll tell. Everything I know about you and your friends and your nasty—”

  She gasped as he shoved her up against the oak tree, one hand closing about her neck. He did not squeeze hard enough to cut off her air, just enough to bruise her throat. Amy’s pulse thudded, torn between fear and the dark thrill of having goaded him into touching her.

  “If you ever breathe so much as a word, I’ll snap your neck.”

  “Go ahead. Do it,” she rasped. “How holy will you be then? Just remember I have a sister, many sisters to avenge me. So you dare not hurt me. It is a hollow threat.”

  “As hollow as yours to reveal our plot. Do you actually think anyone would believe the word of a nothing like you?” he ground out between clenched teeth.

  “Mayhap not, but they’d investigate and your plan would come to nothing. You’d die a traitor’s death, your guts ripped out, your head stuck up on a pike.”

  “Not before I accused you of witchery and you end up like your evil grandmother, the flames licking the flesh from your bones.”

  “And then we’d all be dead and King James could do a merry jig on our graves.”

  Her taunt appeared to penetrate the haze of his anger. He kept her pinned up against the tree, although his hand eased away from her throat.

  “You see, we do still have need of each other,” Amy whispered. “I have power, more than you can imagine, just like my granddam. I can curse and cast spells, even love spells.” She wriggled suggestively against him.

  He sprang back, his revulsion unmistakable. “It would take far more than magic to make a man ever want to touch something as loathsome as you.”

  He glared at her, his contempt like a cold hard mirror that reflected not the comely seductive lass of her imagination, but a scrawny woman with matted hair, her tawdry dress and cloak stinking of the filth of the streets.

  Sir Patrick shuffled his heel as though scraping dung from his boots. He turned and strode toward the house without looking back. Amy rubbed her neck, furious tears spilling down her cheeks.

  Oh, he was cruel. He was horrid. She could have loved him forever, but now she hated him. Groping beneath her cloak, she clenched the hilt of her knife.

  THE CANDLE BURNED LOW, ITS FEEBLE LIGHT FLICKERING OVER the red-stained water in the basin. Amy huddled in the corner of her lodging, staring at her hands through the flood of her tears. She had
managed to cleanse them, but her knife was still encrusted. The bright shiny blade looked as if it was turning to rust.

  She needed to finish washing up, but she could not seem to rouse herself, her entire body trembling. Oh, what had she done? What had she done?

  “C-couldn’t help it. All h-his fault. He made me do it.” Amy rocked herself back and forth. She froze at the sound of the door opening.

  She heard Beatrice stumble inside and curse. “Amy! God curse you. You have tumbled your clothes all about the room again. You nearly made me slip and break my neck. When are you ever going to learn to stop being such a slattern?”

  Amy drew her knees in tight to her chest, but she was unable to muffle a sob.

  “Amy?” Beatrice picked up the candle and raised it aloft so that the light spilled over the corner where Amy crouched. “Oh, lord, what the devil is wrong with you now?”

  Her sister never had any patience with tears and Amy realized how pathetic she must look, her eyes swollen from crying, snot dribbling from her nose. But she had already borne enough for one day. She could not endure any more of Bea’s scorn.

  Amy wiped her nose on her sleeve. “N-nothing’s wrong. Leeb me ’lone.”

  Beatrice set the candle back down on the table. She must have noticed the red-stained water for she muttered another oath. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?”

  Her throat clogged with tears, Amy shook her head.

  “Your knife is all bloody. Did you do for someone? Who’d you stab?”

  Amy gulped and managed to get out, “H-his fault. All his fault.”

  “I daresay it was, whoever he might be. Was it just some varlet accosting you in the street or did you know him?”

  Amy responded by burying her face against her knees and giving way to another storm of weeping. Her misery must have appeared great enough to melt even her sister’s hard heart.

  Beatrice surprised her by plunking down beside Amy in her corner. She gathered Amy in her arms, pulling her close. “There, there, Amy, love. Tell me what happened. If some bastard has hurt my little sister, he’d best be dead or I vow I will gut him myself.”