by Lois Greiman
“We were dearest friends,” Rennet continued, but it was another lie. Faye felt it like a pinprick to her temple.
“You were present for the duel then?” she asked.
“For the duel? Indeed not,” he said, and executed a delicate shudder, which shook even his elegant hands. His hair was thick, golden, and carefully brushed away from his brow. His eyes were blue and bright and false. “Had I known his intent, I would surely have warned against such a bag of moonshine.”
“You think duels foolish things?” she asked.
“Lady Mullen—Charlotte—has proposed to do away with them forever.”
“Lady Mullen?”
“Surely you’ve heard the phrase, ‘mild as Mullen.’ ’Tis said she’s ever so kindly and quite pretty. But it’s her autumn fetes that have made her famous. They’re most instrumental in raising funds each year for the Foundling Hospital. At any rate, she abhors duels ever since her husband was killed some years ago.”
“Thus you abhor them, too?”
“Most certainly,” he said, then grinned sheepishly, flashing perfect teeth as he leaned infinitesimally nearer. “If you’re going to get yourself winged in the process.”
“So Lord Brendier was only struck in the…” she began, but suddenly her eyes caught a flash of metal. Or maybe it was more subliminal than that. Maybe she didn’t notice the man’s brooch at all. Maybe it was his eyes, as gray and somber as a wolf’s. Maybe it was his steely expression, or his clenched hands—or his sheer size!
He stood in the doorway, towering over his contemporaries, and there was nothing Faye could do but stare, breath caught in her throat, heart pounding like a trapped animal’s. And suddenly all her refinement, all her careful training sloughed away like water from a gargoyle’s roaring maw, and she was young again. Young and small, with Lucifer’s heavy footfalls pounding on the forest floor behind her.
She spun about, ready to flee, to run as she always had. To beg for forgiveness. But something caught her arm. She stifled a scream.
“Mrs. Nettles,” Rennet said, and a modicum of sanity settled into her reeling brain. “Are you quite well?”
She nodded once, though every quivering instinct insisted that she escape. Sheer power of will allowed her to stay, though the nape of her neck was already damp with chilled perspiration. She should have thought to bring a handkerchief, but she had never yet remembered one, though she perspired like a Thoroughbred when nervous.
“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Not a ghost. He was real. Would always be real. At least in her mind.
“You’re as pale as alum.”
Behind her, the bewigged orchestra played a sweeping waltz, but it only sounded discordant to her pounding head. Conversation swirled around her as elegant couples gossiped and conversed, flirted and lied.
She could feel the deceit boiling around her like acid.
Her captor tilted his golden head at her and smiled. “Perhaps you should lie down.”
Off to Faye’s left, a man bellowed a laugh. The noise sounded maniacal, echoing in her brain.
“There are empty beds aplenty above stairs,” he said, and winked. “Not that I would know.”
She’d been a fool to pretend she was prepared for this. A fool to pretend she would ever be prepared.
“Perhaps you are overwhelmed by my manly charms,” he said.
She should answer. That much she knew. She should smile, converse. Perhaps flirt a bit. It was far more likely she’d turn into a speckled rock and fall off the face of the earth.
Across the room, the giant stood alone, surveying the room. His eyes were deep-set and intense, his hair sable, his skin dark. And his body…Beneath the midnight green of his fitted coat, his shoulders looked as wide as a carriage, his thighs as broad as cannons. How the devil had she ever thought she would be able to approach him?
Her captor laughed. The sound was happy, lighthearted.
She stifled a wince, knowing she should emulate that gaiety. Should laugh, tease, lie. She managed an arched brow. When scared witless, try haughty; it was, perhaps, Madeline’s most practical advice.
“Perchance some fresh air is in order,” Rennet said, and, clearing his throat, steered her toward the open double doors.
But just as she turned, he found her, speared her with his eyes, caught her. She felt the contact like a strike to her heart.
“Tell me, Mrs. Nettles, where is Mr. Nettles?” She heard Rennet’s words like nothing more than a mumble in her mind, for the giant Scot was watching her. Did he know she’d been sent to ferret out his secrets? Did he know already that she suspected him?
“Mrs. Nettles?”
“Yes?” She yanked her gaze from McBain and pulled her tattered decorum around her like a cloak.
“Your husband—”
“Is dead.” It was part of the story she’d been given. The story she’d painstakingly memorized. “Drowned.”
“I am—”
“Fell through the ice while returning to our modest but happy home in Imatra.”
Rennet drew a deep breath. They were still moving toward the doors. Beyond the arched portals, the darkness of the garden called to her. “So you’re a widow.”
Across the room, the giant stepped toward her.
Panic reared inside her, striking with flinty hooves, but Rennet had a hold on her arm, and she dare not bolt. Dare not cause trouble. Not again. Not after the oboist. But how was she supposed to know woodwinds would make such an ungodly racket when they were mysteriously flung into the percussionists behind them? She’d only been trying to escape a madman. Or perhaps he had just been a suitor. It was so demmed hard to tell.
“Here we are. Hold up now,” Rennet said, tugging her to a halt, and she managed, just barely, to remain where she was, for the greatest threat seemed to be behind her. The noise, the lies, the peopled, opulent ballroom looming like an ogre in the background.
Here, the gardens stretched quietly around her, garbed in vast, soothing darkness, dappled with compassion, imbued with hope. Faye filled her lungs and tugged her arm carefully from her self-appointed escort’s. The minty scent of pennyroyal calmed her, drew her in, enticed her to step deeper into the darkness, to drink in the night, to let it shiver across her senses. It was quiet here, away from the madness of the crowd. Thick, contented hedges grew in a curved row. Blooming vines twined cozily over arched arbors, and potted palms stood sentry atop the stone wall to her right.
“Forgive me. I fear I’ve been quite rude,” said Rennet and eyeing her, took another sip from his flask. It gleamed dully in the moonlight. “I should have thought to bring you out of doors as soon as you began looking as if you were about to swoon.”
She glanced toward the lighted doorway behind her. No demons poured out to devour her. Indeed, the yawning entrance was empty, but that hardly meant she was safe. “I was not about to swoon.” Perhaps.
“Ahh, how disappointing,” he said. “I do so love to catch angels as they fall.”
Maybe McBain hadn’t even seen her. Perhaps he had been looking at another, and it was simply her own “highly developed survival skills,” as Madeline called them, that had made it seem as if he were bearing down on her like a wolf on its prey.
“That was a compliment,” Rennet said, and, grinning, bent slightly at the knees to look directly into her eyes. “Deserving of a smile. You can smile, can’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, and scowled a little, trying to remember what she had planned to ask Rennet should the opportunity present itself.
“Good.” His lips quirked up even more. He was probably charming, but she had known such men in the past. Tenning had been as cultured as a pearl, lavishing her with gifts, with compliments. There was, after all, a reason for her fears; she wasn’t completely mad. Perhaps.
“I simply do not,” she said, and dared him to think her eccentric. Better that than the truth.
Rennet stared at her for a moment, then, “You don’t…sm
ile.”
“Not generally.”
“How do you feel about laughter?”
It was often false and therefore made her head pound like a smithy’s rounding hammer. She knew it was strange. Good God, she knew she was strange. No one had to tell her. But they had. Though the vernacular changed: odd, gifted, magical. It all meant the same thing.
“So, you don’t smile, and you don’t laugh,” he surmised. “What do you do, then, Mrs. Nettles. When you are not setting men agog with your astounding beauty?”
“I…” What? Tried to forget? Tried to remember? Tried to survive? “I…read a good deal.”
“Read?” His brows were raised again, his lips quirked up in an expression that some might find beguiling. But she wasn’t beguiled. Terrified, maybe. A little nauseous. But definitely not beguiled.
“Yes.”
“And what does a rare beauty like you read? Sonnets to match your beautiful countenance?”
“The Times mostly,” she said and glanced toward the house again, lest someone spurt from the doorway and pounce on her. “Politics. But journals too.”
“Journals.”
“Yes.” It was why she was here, after all. Why she had forced herself from Lavender House, her home, her sanctuary. Because there was evil. And perhaps Madeline was right. Perhaps she could make it better. Negate a bit of the sort of pain she herself had caused.
“What kind of journals?”
“Those regarding battles mostly,” she said, and glanced behind her once again.
“Ahh…” He laughed. “A bloodthirsty little pixie are you?”
She snapped her eyes to his. Wondering if he could somehow sense the truth in her. Wondering if he was right.
“Not at all,” she said, and hoped to God he couldn’t hear the terror in her voice. “I am merely interested in the goings-on of the world.”
“Good God, you’re not one of those dreaded bluestockings, are you?” he asked, drinking again, and at that, she almost did smile. For that was exactly what Les Chausettes were.
Of course, they were also witches.
“As I said, I’m merely interested,” she repeated.
“Well really, lovey, I would think you could find something more intriguing than all those ghastly battles.”
She raised a brow at him. “Such as?”
His grin cocked up. He reached for her hand. She was tempted to step back, but there would be little point. The stone wall was only inches away. She had nowhere to go, thus she stood very still, letting him encircle her cold fingers with the heat of his. “Are you certain you were once wed?”
“Why do you ask? What—” she began, but managed to stop herself. He was only teasing, after all. Thinking himself clever. Therefore, she must stick to the story she’d been told time and again: She was the widow of a wealthy merchant, now self-sufficient, able to make her own way in the world.
But there were days she could barely manage to piece together two coherent sentences. Today would not be one of those days though. It would not.
“Quite certain. He was called…” she began, but suddenly the fictional name was gone. Completely erased from her mind.
“Mr. Nettles?” he guessed.
“Albert,” she said, remembering suddenly and managing to imbue her tone with a smidgen of wryness for his foolish wit.
He lifted her hand to his lips. Panic spurred through her as he kissed her knuckles, but she didn’t yank her arm away. Didn’t scream. Didn’t even kick him in the groin, though she had been trained to do just that should the situation call for it. Surely such restraint was a reason for some pride, but she could feel that restraint crumbling, and covered with words.
“He was seven-and-twenty,” she said. “Born the third day of June in the year of our Lord, 1782. Died on January twenty-first, 1807. He inherited his father’s shipping business five years before. He had no brothers. His sisters were named Edna and Ivadel.”
“Indeed,” Rennet said, and kissed the underside of her wrist. But there was something funny about the way he spoke. Almost as if he were amused.
She winced but held steady, stifling the fear.
“He had fair hair, blue eyes, and stood five feet, nine inches in his stocking feet.”
He kissed the inside of her elbow and glanced up. “I myself am a bit taller then,” he said. “But that’s hardly the true measure of a man, is it?”
“I believe one would have to take his mass into consideration as well,” she said, and glanced about, hoping to God that Madeline was near. Or Ella. Or any of her coven sisters. Anyone to wrest her from this pounding misery.
“I believe we both know what matters to a woman.”
If only that were true. “Do we?”
He laughed, low and private. “It’s length, not height,” he said, and, stepping up close, pressed his crotch against her thigh.
Terror shot through her, paralyzing her throat. She tried to yank away, but he held her arm.
“Or is it girth that concerns you?”
“Only if it fastens my saddle,” she said, and he laughed.
“A witty minx, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.” Her voice sounded breathy. “But I fear I must go now.”
“Go? Don’t be silly. The night is young. Young and beautiful. Like you,” he said, and wrapped an arm about her back.
“Release me.” She tried to jerk back, but a hedge was to her right, the wall behind her.
“Come now, don’t be so standoffish. I understand you might be shy after…” He leaned back, but still held her hips to his. “How long has it been since your husband’s passing?”
“Please—” she began, and he laughed.
“I love it when women beg,” he said. “Try this, ‘deeper Rex. Harder.’”
Terror wafted over her in deep shades of the past. “I’ll be of no use if I’m defiled,” she rasped.
“What?”
“I’ll…” she began, but fragments of reality came drifting back. She was no longer a child. No longer bound. No longer defenseless and scared and used like a weapon to ruin the lives of others. “Release me,” she said again and tried with all her might to inflect her voice with the gruffness Ella could conjure on command. But she did not have that lady’s astounding gifts. Only unpredictable powers of her own.
“Never fear,” he said, and kissed her neck. “I shall make certain it is as pleasant for you as it is for—” he began, but suddenly he was ripped away, torn from her as if a strong wind had taken him.
One minute he was standing before her. The next he was stretched out beside the wall like a tossed caber.
And in his place was Rogan McBain. His eyes struck her like a lance, freezing her to the ground.
He knew the truth! She could see it in his ungodly eyes. He had heard that she suspected him and had come to silence her.
He loomed over her in the darkness, shoulders so broad they shadowed the moonlight, blocked her escape.
Panic sliced her, ripping through her reality, throwing her into turmoil. She reached for the wall, longing for support. She had no wish to harm anyone. No wish, and yet the potted palm flew from the ledge like a launched cannonball.
The clay pot struck the Highlander directly in the face. He staggered backward, but she didn’t wait to see if he’d fall. Didn’t wait to see if he’d follow. Instead, she fled, leaping past him, scrambling like a hunted hare through the pennyroyal and away.
Chapter 2
“You what?”
“You what?”
Lord and Lady Gallo sat very still, watching Faye as if she had suddenly sprouted fangs. They’d remained in the evening finery they had worn to Lady Tell’s, he in his formfitting breeches and cutaway coat, she in the powder blue gown that flattered her comely figure and contrasted nicely with the ivory divan occupying the north wall of the parlor. Beside it, a scrolled hatrack reached toward the ceiling, bearing a trio of frilly chapeaus.
Despite its somewhat unorthodox uses, inclu
ding mock battles and conjuring spells, it was an extremely elegant room. Still, for a moment, Faye was tempted almost beyond control to hide beneath the delicate Queen Anne chair in which she sat. That, however, might be considered a bit odd for a woman her age. Thus, she straightened her back, cleared her throat, and glanced toward the hearth with the hidden compartment.
Stopping in the doorway to Faye’s left, Shaleena glanced in, then smirked and entered. Faye refrained from closing her eyes, though the other was sky-clad yet again.
“I struck him with a potted plant,” she said, for the truth was too seductive to be ignored. It drew her, pulled at her, though she managed to refrain from admitting that she had not meant to harm the towering Scot. Failure to control one’s powers was a serious threat to all of Les Chausettes. “A fan palm, I believe.”
“But—” Lord Gallo began.
“Why?” Madeline finished.
Shaleena chuckled.
“I simply…” Faye shot her gaze to Shaleena, then dropped her attention to her hands. The knuckles looked rather pale. “I’m not entirely certain,” she said, and loosened her grip somewhat.
“Not certain.” Lord Gallo’s voice was steady but low, so perhaps Faye only imagined the frustration in it.
“I believed him to be…evil,” Faye said, and indeed, he had seemed to be the very embodiment of Tenning’s threats. He seemed to be Lucifer himself, come to find her once again.
Shaleena smirked as she sauntered nearer. “Better evil than scared out of your wits,” she said.
“Shaleena,” said Lord Gallo.
“I’m not scared,” Faye said, but her voice was faint. Even the least gifted would know she was lying.
“You’re a timid little field mouse who doesn’t—”
“Shaleena.” Gallo said again. He never raised his voice. Indeed, his tone rarely varied, but his warning vibrated through the house. “Leave this room.”
“I’ll not—” Shaleena began, but he stopped her.
“This moment or forever,” he said. There was finality in his tone, firmness in his expression.
Naked and angry, she left.
