The Lady of Secrets

by Susan Carroll

  Meg pressed Seraphine’s arm to let her know they had found the right shop.

  “Please, let me handle this,” Meg whispered as the woman emerged from behind the counter, wiping her hands on her apron.

  She approached them with a warm smile that reminded Meg so much of Patience, it brought a lump to her throat. The woman’s gaze skimmed over Meg and alighted hopefully on Seraphine, which didn’t surprise Meg. Seraphine’s exquisitely cut cloak and haughty carriage loudly proclaimed the prospect of an important and wealthy customer.

  Beaming, the woman dipped into a curtsy. “Good afternoon, milady. And how may I serve you?”

  “Well, I—” Meg began, trying to inch forward, but she was cut off by Seraphine demanding bluntly, “Are you Mary Waters?”

  The woman blinked, her smile wavering a little. “Why, yes, that is, I was afore I married my Ned. Now I am Mistress Robards.”

  “But your grandmother was Patience Waters.”

  “My grandmother was Prudence. Patience was my great-aunt.” Mary Robards’s expression became more guarded as she added, “But she died a long time ago and—and under very distressing circumstances.”

  Meg sighed. She had hoped to ease into this more gently, but Seraphine’s brusque questions left Meg no choice but to plunge in.

  “I know. Patience Waters was my nurse. My name is Margaret Wolfe.”

  The woman trained her gaze on Meg for the first time, looking her up and down. Mary paled and she actually recoiled from Meg.

  “You are not welcome here. You get out of my shop right now or I will fetch my husband or—or a constable.”

  Mary prepared to bolt, but Seraphine grabbed her arm. “You’ll do nothing of the kind.”

  “Release me at once or I—I will scream.”

  “ ’Phine, let her go.” Meg hastened to reassure the woman. “Mary, we mean you no harm. I just need to ask you a few questions.”

  “No! I want nothing to do with you or your coven.”

  “I don’t have a coven.”

  “Truly? Tell that to those witch friends of yours coming around here to purchase herbs.”

  Witch friends? Meg’s pulse quickened with the hope she might be on the right trail at last. Seraphine released the woman and Mary backed away, rubbing her arm.

  “Please, leave me be,” Mary directed her plea to Meg. “Isn’t it enough that you got my Aunt Patience killed?”

  “Meg did no such thing,” Seraphine snapped. “She was only a child, for mercy’s sake.”

  “Nay, ’Phine, I do feel responsible for Patience Waters’s death.” Meg turned sadly to Mary. “Your aunt was a most kind and wise woman, a true daughter of the earth. She acted as my nurse for the first five years of my life. She nurtured me and tried to protect me from my mother’s madness. When she learned of my mother’s insane plans for me, Patience confronted her. She threatened to take me away from Cassandra, spirit me off to the refuge of Faire Isle.

  “I—I overheard their quarrel. It was so loud and violent, I was frightened and started to cry. Patience came to soothe me. She told me not to fret, all would be well. She sang to me, rocked me to sleep in her arms and when I awoke the next morning—” Meg swallowed. “Patience was gone. I never saw her after that night. My mother said she had dismissed my nurse and she had returned to her own family.”

  “She didn’t!” Mary cried. “She never came back to us. She simply disappeared.”

  Meg nodded unhappily. “I was but a child, but even then I sensed my mother was lying to me. I always feared that Cassandra had—well, I know how ruthlessly my mother dealt with anyone who opposed her. Please believe me when I say I loved your Aunt Patience dearly. I would have given anything if I could have …”

  Meg’s voice thickened and she could not go on. Seraphine draped her arm around Meg’s shoulder and gave her a bracing squeeze. When Meg had regained command of herself, she said softly, “I am so sorry, Mary.”

  Some of the hostility had faded from Mary’s eyes, but she retreated behind the counter. “If you are truly sorry as you claim, then you will leave me alone and order your minions to do the same.”

  “I have no minions. In fact, I wish to find those witches you spoke of. I fear they might be trying to revive the old coven. I want to stop them.”

  “Then I wish you good fortune with that. Those two harpies seem as determined as they are terrifying.”

  “There are two of them?” Seraphine asked. “Do you know their names?”

  Mary cast a nervous look over her shoulder as though fearing she might be overheard and draw a curse down upon her head for telling. She leaned forward and all but whispered, “They are sisters, I believe. Their names are Beatrice and Amy Rivers.”

  Rivers? The same last name as the old woman who had cursed the king? Meg and Seraphine exchanged a significant glance, their suspicions confirmed. These were definitely the witches they were seeking.

  “And what did they want from you?” Meg asked.

  “At first, they but came to buy herbs. But they began hinting at other things, that there was some great day coming that would change everything for daughters of the earth, a new power that would arise and end the reign of men. They spoke of you.”

  Mary darted a half-wary, half-resentful glance at Meg. “How you would be their deliverance and their avenger. The Silver Rose.”

  Meg shook her head. “I am not this Silver Rose, Mary. I never was, except in my mother’s mad imagination.”

  “Aye, mad is the word for it,” Mary agreed. “I might have been able to shrug off all of these witches’ wild talk, if they had not been so terrifying serious and so determined that I join them in rebuilding the coven. They said if I didn’t, I would be very sorry.

  “I was too scared to ask what they meant by that. When I ordered them out of the shop, they went. I have not seen them for several days.” Mary shivered. “And I pray I never do again.”

  Meg moistened her lips. There was another question that she had to ask, even though she dreaded the answer.

  “Were these two sisters always alone? Were they ever accompanied by an older woman, very thin, very pale, and blind?”

  “No, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone like that.”

  If Cassandra Lascelles had been with these two women, Mary would have noticed. Meg’s mother had always had an unforgettable presence. The fact that Cassandra had not been seen with the Rivers sisters did not entirely rule out the possibility that she was still alive and behind all this. But Meg still breathed a little easier.

  “So do you have any idea where we can find these Rivers women?” Seraphine asked.

  “Yes,” Mary said, but she directed her reply to Meg. “You swear that you truly are not one of them. That you mean to stop them and—and you will keep them from ever returning to torment me again.”

  “I will do my best,” Meg said quietly. “I swear upon my honor as the Lady of Faire Isle and a true daughter of the earth.”

  Mary studied her for a long moment before saying, “They have lodgings at an inn near Westminster. The Two Crowns. That is where I was ordered to go whenever I stopped being foolish and decided to join them.”

  “Thank you. How can I repay you for your help?”

  “By staying far away from me and my family. I want naught to do with any of the old lore, even the white magic my grandmother and Aunt Patience practiced. It is much safer that way.”

  Mary Waters was not the only woman to feel that way. The numbers of the daughters of the earth were dwindling. Meg understood the fears of those who wished to abandon the ancient knowledge, but it saddened her all the same.

  Mary returned to her mortar and pestle, vigorously grinding marjoram into a fine powder. She did not even look up as Meg and Seraphine turned to leave.

  They were almost at the door when Mary called out, “Mistress Wolfe, wait.”

  She and Seraphine both paused to look back.

  “There is something more about those two sisters. The older one
, Beatrice, is so cold and cruel. I vow she could flay a puppy alive and laugh while she did it. But the younger one, Amelia …” Mary shivered. “For all she can sound so pleasant, she’s got a great emptiness in her eyes. Then all of a sudden she’ll look at you like the devil just lit a fire inside of her. She’s the dangerous one. If you do confront her, you had best take great care.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE TWO CROWNS BORE THE LOOK OF A LESS THAN REPUTABLE establishment, weeds overrunning the yard, the building itself showing signs of neglect. Paint had flecked off the inn sign, making one of the crowns look broken in half. Rather than a symbol of regal splendor, it more resembled the jaws of a trap.

  You had best take great care.

  Mary’s warning echoed through Meg’s head. But she felt less fear than she did an oppressive weight settling over her heart. It was too late for taking care, too late for any hope of a peaceful resolution if the gossip she had heard was true.

  Everyone from an ostler idling against the fence to a pair of urchins begging for coin: All were too eager to impart the terrible tale of how the innkeeper’s wife had been brutally murdered two nights ago.

  “I heared they cut old Mistress Keating up into a hunnerd pieces,” one of the boys told Meg. He looked far too young to be taking so much relish in such a gruesome tale. He grinned, displaying missing front teeth, until his older friend elbowed him in the stomach.

  “Tell you all about it for ha’penny, mistress,” the older one said, sticking out his grubby hand. But the younger boy would not be repressed.

  “It was witches done it. They cut her up and fed her to the devil’s hound. Then they leapt on their brooms and vanished and no one can find them.”

  “I hope they swoop back and grab you, you prating doltard. You shoulda kept quiet ’til they paid us.”

  The two boys might have come to blows, but Seraphine intervened, offering them both a coin. She plied them with questions they were unable to answer, but Meg had heard enough.

  She approached the inn door, her stomach knotted with dread. She heard Seraphine calling out for her to wait, but she steeled herself and plunged inside.

  The taproom was no more appealing than the inn’s exterior, the floor strewn with soiled rushes, the aroma of sour spirits fouling the air. Meg espied the portly innkeeper at once, serving up tankards of ale, laughing and jesting with his customers.

  Keating looked so little like a man suffering from the shock and grief of a murdered wife that Meg entertained a fleeting hope that the gossip from the inn yard would prove unfounded. When Seraphine joined her, the eyes of every man present turned in their direction. Meg doubted that respectable women ever crossed the threshold of such a rough den, especially not one as beautiful as Seraphine.

  Seraphine appeared impervious to the stir she was creating, but Meg’s cheeks burned from all the leers and ogling stares. As the innkeeper ambled toward them, Meg sought for words to frame her inquiry after the Rivers sisters without arousing the man’s suspicion.

  But Keating forestalled her with a grin. “Ah, I know what you ladies be after.”

  “You—you do?” Meg asked.

  “That’ll be a penny apiece.”

  “A penny? For what?” Seraphine demanded.

  “That’s what I’m charging for visiting the chamber where the terrible slaughter of my poor Lizzie took place.”

  Meg’s jaw dropped open and Seraphine gasped.

  “You are charging people to see the room where your wife was murdered? What manner of ghoul are you?”

  Keating shrugged his beefy shoulders. “A practical one. My Lizzie was a hardfisted woman who knew how to rake in a coin. She would have been the first to applaud my enterprise. And if it comes to calling someone a ghoul, my fine lady, I am not the one traipsing all over town to have a gander at a blood-spattered room.”

  When Seraphine drew in a furious breath, the innkeeper raised his hands placatingly. “Not that I blame you. I enjoy a good thrill myself. But it is only fair I should be compensated for providing it.”

  “My friend and I are not thrill-seekers, you fat, impudent rogue. All we desire is inform—”

  “Pay him, Seraphine,” Meg said quietly.

  “What! Meg, you surely cannot wish to view this—this room of horrors?”

  “Pay him.”

  Seraphine frowned. But she must have seen the resolve in Meg’s face. Although she grumbled under her breath, she fished two coins out of her purse and slapped them into Keating’s outstretched palm.

  The man smirked and directed them to the chamber above the outer stairs. He gave Seraphine a broad wink. Meg could tell she was torn between wanting to box the man’s ears and intercepting Meg. But Meg was too quick for her, darting out of the taproom.

  She was halfway up the stairs before Seraphine caught up to her and grabbed hold of her elbow.

  “Meg, wait. There is nothing to be gained from your viewing a room that can only add to your nightmares. We are too late, surely you must see that. Those Rivers sisters have gone too far. They have committed murder and will have to answer for it. You may as well let the magistrates deal with them. You cannot save them now.”

  “I know that. But I am not convinced the authorities will be able to find them. They have not been able to do so thus far. And you heard what Mary Waters said. Those women are determined to revive the coven of the Silver Rose. I can no longer help the Rivers sisters, but I must stop this madness from spreading and I still need to know if my mother is somehow behind all of this.”

  “So you think to do what—find some clue in that room that the officers overlooked?”

  “Perhaps. It is not my strongest gift, but you know that sometimes I am extraordinarily sensitive to the atmosphere of a place where violence has been done.”

  “I know that, my dearest friend, which is why I would not have you enter that chamber for any price. But if you insist upon doing so, let me go in first.”

  Meg shook her head. “The witches are long gone, and unlike James Stuart, I have no fear of ghosts. There is no longer anything or anyone in that room who could hurt me.”

  But as soon as she entered the chamber, she realized she was wrong. The room was so small that the man’s large presence seemed to fill it.

  He stood with his back to her, studying something on the wall. Meg’s pulse skipped a beat, the breadth of those shoulders, the tilt of the head, the unruly mass of hair so familiar to her, she recognized Armagil before he turned to face her.

  He looked as startled to see her as she was him. Until she had set foot in this room, she had resigned herself to never seeing him again. Her heart hammered with an unbearable mixture of joy and pain. Other than his initial surprise, it was impossible to tell what Armagil might be feeling.

  “You!” Seraphine cried in a voice thick with loathing. Her hand groped to where her sword should have been and Meg was mighty glad it wasn’t there.

  “What the devil are you doing here?”

  Unperturbed by Seraphine’s angry greeting, Armagil replied, “I imagine the same thing you are. I heard the gossip about the murder and came to see for myself.”

  “What, there was no bearbaiting or hanging today to afford you better entertainment?”

  “I’m not seeking to be entertained, only informed as to the whereabouts of the women who committed this crime. I believe they may be the same ones who tried to poison me.”

  “And what a pity they didn’t succeed.”

  “A pity indeed,” Armagil drawled. “Because my landlord is a fine fellow and then he could have been the one to profit handsomely by exhibiting my lodgings.”

  Seraphine had to bite back an urge to smile and that appeared to make her angrier than ever. Meg could tell that her friend ached to give Armagil a tongue-lashing he’d not soon forget.

  Meg hastily pulled her aside and in urgent whispers convinced Seraphine to desist. Perhaps in other circumstances, she would not have succeeded, but as much as Seraphine burne
d to avenge the wrong she perceived had been done to Meg, she could not do so without revealing to Armagil how badly hurt Meg had been. And if there was one emotion Seraphine fully understood, it was pride.

  She was less compliant when Meg urged her to retreat belowstairs and question Keating and the kitchen girl more thoroughly about the Rivers sisters. Meg knew that despite Seraphine’s best efforts, she would not be able to contain herself if she remained in Armagil’s proximity too long.

  After an intense whispered exchange, Seraphine conceded to her wishes, but not without a fierce warning glare at Armagil.

  When the door closed behind her, an awkward silence fell. Armagil attempted to smile. “I appear to have fallen from the countess’s good graces. Not that her opinion of me ever was very high.”

  “She is merely overprotective of me, always fearing I am some fragile creature easily hurt.”

  And have I hurt you? Armagil’s eyes asked the question even if he did not. Meg found it easier to avoid looking at him and focus on the room instead. She had feared she would be assailed by a powerful aura of terror and rage. But Armagil’s presence was so overwhelming, it blocked every other sensation except for awareness of him.

  All she had were her eyes to rely upon and there was little to be seen except evidence that the occupants of this chamber had abandoned it in some haste—the rumpled bed, a few stray belongings left behind. Chief of these was an empty wardrobe chest stained with what appeared to be blood.

  Meg could not bring herself to inspect it more closely. Instead, she bent and picked up a stray piece of ribbon and rubbed it between her fingers. Silky, a soft shade of blue, it spoke to her of innocence and girlish dreams, completely at odds with the violence done in this room.

  She touched it to her cheek and was filled with an inexplicable sense of sadness and disappointed hopes. Conscious of Armagil’s eyes upon her, she lowered her hand.

  “There is little here to be seen,” she said.

  “No. I would be inclined to demand that Keating return my penny. Except for this.” He stepped aside to reveal what the breadth of his shoulders had concealed, the symbol painted on the wall.