by Lois Greiman
“But you can feel—”
“Shh,” he said.
She turned toward him, ready to protest, but he pressed a finger to her lips. “Do you remember her last conversation with Shaleena?” he asked.
She scowled. She was so beautiful when she scowled. Almost as beautiful as when she slept or smiled or laughed. He tugged the gown from her shoulders. They were perfect. He kissed the right one.
“She defended herself,” she said.
“For the first time since her arrival at this house.”
She opened her mouth again, but he kissed the corner of it, shushing her.
“Because of you. Because of your faith in her,” he said. “There are worse things than lies, my love. And indeed, sometimes lies are truths yet unseen.”
She lifted her gaze to his, soul on fire. “Why are you so good?” she whispered.
“Because I have you,” he said, and kissed her again.
Outside Lavender House, Shaleena sat in dark silence. She could not sleep. Rarely slept, in fact. Tonight was no different. Thus, she had slipped outside to gather strength from the waxing essence of the garden around her. The purity of thyme. The peace of loosestrife. The magic of wolfsbane. The experience would have been better, fuller, if she were sky-clad, but the boy named Cur was often slinking about, and he made her feel…naked.
But this night it was thoughts of another that disturbed her solitude. Someone unseen. Someone…
Joseph!
Anger surged through her. Why was he here? Pretending he was another. It was insulting enough that he had fooled the others into believing he could be trusted. But to make her uncertain of her own thoughts, to make her imagine things that were untrue…that was unforgivable. Madness did not suit her. She was not the type to take her own life. Even less so to spend her days in an institution gabbling at the walls.
Swiping moisture from her cheek, she rose to her feet. None would see her cry. None had. Not for years. Not since she had realized she was alone. A serving girl in a foreign land, carrying her master’s grandchild.
So much for love, for devotion, for all the sweet delusions he had whispered in the pulsing heat of the darkness. She had learned much that winter: Men lie. Hearts break. Babies die. Life continues, even when you hope it will not.
But perhaps the most important lesson learned was that she was strong. Stronger than any impostor. Not that this Joseph professed to know her. He merely watched her, but there was something in his eyes…Something that said they had shared hope, passion, dreams. But it could not be. Mariano was dead. She had seen to that herself. And this intruder would meet the same fate if he was careless.
But in the end it wasn’t Joseph she found beneath the ancient rowans.
“Why are you here?” She asked the question from inches behind the giant intruder and waited for him to gasp, to start. But he did neither of those things. Instead, he turned slowly toward her. And it was in that instant that she felt another’s presence. So, the pretender, too, had felt the Celt’s presence and come out of hiding. Good.
“Might this be the house where Mrs. Nettles lives?” His voice was little more than a growl.
She raised an impervious brow at the sound of it. “You must be the Scotsman?”
He paused, his brows lowered. “I am a Scotsman.”
She studied him, circling. So what she had heard of him was true. He was strong. Yet his power was not attributed to his size alone. “Why have you come?”
“I was told the lady was…” He paused. She could sense some emotion in him. Frustration perhaps, or worry barely restrained. “I heard there was trouble at the fete this night.”
“Oh? And what fete might that be?”
Impatience ticked in him. “Is she well?”
“Tell me, Scotsman, did you come all this long way…” She glanced about, but if he had a mount nearby, she could not see it. “…on foot, in the dark of night just to pose that question?”
He stared at her.
She smiled. “I believe you came for other reasons,” she said, and, reaching up, touched his chest, just below his loosed cravat.
He stood, unmoving but for the massive muscles that twitched heavily beneath her hand.
“Is she well?” he asked again.
She shrugged. “That is a matter of some discussion,” she said, and flicked open the top two buttons of his shirt. It was a gift of hers, this ability to undress men so neatly.
“Discuss it now,” he said.
“Physically, I believe she is well enough,” she said, and circled him, skimming her gaze down his length. The man called Joseph was behind her and to the right some forty strides, unseen in a copse of horse chestnuts.
“Well enough?” asked the Celt, and turned his head to watch her over his shoulder. His neck was broad and corded.
“Unharmed so far as I know,” she said. “But mentally…” She shook her head and trailed her fingers across his back. Even there she could feel the shift of his muscles. “She is not terribly strong.”
“I think you’re mistaken.”
She laughed as she faced him again. “So, are you her champion then?” she asked, and, reaching up, flicked open two more buttons.
He caught her wrist and her gaze, grip unyielding as a vise.
“What are you to her?” he asked, but she barely heard the question, for her attention had dropped back to his chest.
“Tell me, Scotsman,” she said, attention welded to the dark furrows that scraped his skin. “How did you come by those scratches?”
He lowered his gaze to his own chest, but at that moment, there was a rustle of sound.
“Leave him be,” Joseph said.
She jerked toward him, temper flaring as she pulled her wrist from the Scotsman’s grasp. “Who are you to tell me what to do? Who are you at all?”
Silence filled the darkness, then, “You know me.”
“You lie!” She hissed the words.
“Not to you, Becca.”
A sob tore from her throat. “I know no one by that name.”
“That is unfortunate. She was everything to me once,” he said, and stepped toward her.
“Everything!” she spat, and choked a laugh. “You left…” She caught herself, fighting off the madness of hope. “I am not this weak-kneed maid you speak of.”
“You loved—” he began, still approaching, but she jerked her hands up, palms out, mind burning with power, throwing him back a half a pace, where he remained, frozen.
“Love is for cowards!” she hissed.
“Then a coward I am,” he said, and, wresting free of her spell, took a broken step forward.
“What goes on here?” rumbled the Scotsman, and she remembered, just barely, that they were not alone.
She lifted her chin. “This man is attempting to molest me, giant. You were once a soldier. ’Tis your duty to protect and defend.”
He watched them both, eyes shadowed. “And I would do so if only I knew which needed me protection the more.”
“Protect her,” Joseph said, and with his words, illogical anger flared in Shaleena’s soul yet again.
“I don’t require your help. I don’t need any man’s help.”
“Require it? No,” Joseph agreed, and suddenly his tone was filled with such tender agony that she felt the very fabric of her heart rend. “For you are strength itself,” he said. “But love, it can never come too—”
“I do not love!” she hissed, and, gritting her teeth against hope, raced back into the shadowy refuge of Lavender House.
Chapter 13
Les Chausettes were gathered in the parlor when Faye made her way down the stairs. It was yet some hours before dawn, but she could hear their voices rising and falling in a soothing cadence. Darla, quiet but firm. Francine, perceptive but wary. Beatrice and Heddy and Ivy. All different. All powerful. They would be sitting in a rough circle, Shaleena on the elegant divan beside the well-dressed hat stand, Madeline near the door. Lord Gallo presen
t but mostly silent, tending the teapot on the sideboard.
“And what of you, Rosemond?” he asked now. “Were you able to discern anything in the ashes?”
“A bit,” she said, “but I shall need more time to consider the—”
Her words stopped abruptly as Faye entered the room.
“Faerie Faye,” Madeline breathed, and stood, expression troubled, gilded fire crackling behind her as she set her teacup aside. “I thought you would sleep for some hours yet.”
Faye glanced about the room at the sisters of her heart. Ella had returned to Lavender House, leaving her family behind in the small hours of the morning.
“Are you well?” she asked now, and Faye nodded, unsurprised that they had all gathered here at such short notice. It was their way.
“Physically at least,” she said, and smiled, hoping to emulate others. Others who were not so damaged, who were not such cowards. She drew a careful breath. This was her time. Her time to protect, to do. She would not let her coven sisters solve her problems and in so doing risk themselves. It was, after all, entirely possible that whoever had attacked her had done so because he knew of her powers.
“Come back, witch.”
The words were singed into her soul. She would find the culprit and, if she deemed him a danger to the others, she would rid the world of him. No matter his identity.
Madeline glided across the room to take her hands in her own. “And have you any idea who might have attacked you?” she asked, brows lowered.
Fear stalked her. Uncertainty haunted her. “No,” she said, and felt the first niggle of a headache strike her brow. “Indeed, I think…” She swallowed her terror, straightened her spine. “I believe an apology is in order.”
“An apology?”
“It is because of your kindness that I am…” She paused and skimmed her gaze from one face to the next, lighting on each for just a moment and feeling the impact of their presence in her life. “…that I am alive. It is because of your tolerance that I am a Chausette,” she said, and felt a strange twist of pride at the word. “Because of that…because of your faith in me, I will become more than I am.” She forced a smile. It felt watery, but she drew strength from it. “Surely I can withstand far worse than a fright.” She let her attention drift to Ella, for of them all, she had endured the most. “For each of you has.”
Tears shone in Ella’s eyes, but there was something besides sadness in her expression. It might have been pride. But seeing it was too difficult, for it might well be misplaced. Faye shifted her gaze to the others, knowing that each was stronger than she.
“What are you saying?” Maddy asked.
“Perhaps Shaleena was right,” she said, and carefully avoided looking at the redheaded member of their coven, though she was, for once, fully clothed. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”
“So you think you were dreaming?” Ella asked.
“Yes,” she said, and finally turned toward Shaleena, but the other was atypically silent. Indeed, she looked nothing but weary, her eyes red-rimmed, her brow troubled.
“What of the bruise on your cheek, then?” Madeline asked.
Faye refrained from touching the tender spot, refrained from remembering the all-encompassing fear. “I was…After some thought I believe you were right, Madeline. I think I did fall asleep. And when I awoke I was disoriented. I thought the angel was an interloper. ’Tis a silly thing to place an angel in the library. A foolish—”
“The Scotsman was in the garden.” Shaleena’s voice fell into the room like droplets of undiluted hemlock.
Every eye in the room turned to her, but she was not gloating. Indeed, a scowl marred her smooth, alabaster features.
“The Scotsman?” Faye whispered.
“Our garden?” Ella asked, and rose to her feet, ever graceful.
“When did this occur?” Lord Gallo asked. His tone was level, but there was the suggestion of tension in his tone.
“Near to midnight perhaps,” Shaleena said.
“And?” Madeline’s tone was curt, waiting for more information. At some unknown time she had become the heart of the coven. None could say quite when.
“He said he had come…” Shaleena paused, still thoughtful. “He inquired about the girl’s health.”
“Faerie’s?” Ella asked.
“Why?” Faye’s voice was breathy to her own ears.
Shaleena shook her head as if to dispel some unwanted thoughts. “He had heard there was trouble.” She turned her eyes to Faye, her own still solemn, unlaced with their usual caustic gaiety. “Or so he said.”
“Is there reason to believe he was lying?” Maddy asked.
Shaleena turned her attention to Madeline. “He is a man.”
But she had always seemed to appreciate men. Or at least appreciate using them.
“Did you question him further?” Lord Gallo asked.
Shaleena turned toward him and blinked as if drawing herself from a trance. “No,” she said simply.
“That’s unlike you,” Madeline said. It was an understatement of astronomical proportions. Generally, if someone appeared uninvited on Lavender property, Shaleena made the Spanish Inquisitors appear congenial by comparison.
“There was…another distraction.”
Maddy exchanged a glance with her husband. “In our garden?” she asked.
Shaleena shrugged. Perhaps the motion was meant to seem dismissive. It did not. “I sensed something.”
“Is this something still alive?” Ella asked.
Silence reigned for a moment, then, “It turned out I was wrong. It was no one of import.”
“You were what?” Ella asked.
Shaleena raised her chin, jaw tensing. “I have admitted before that I was wrong.”
If that was true, it was not in Faye’s recollection.
“So you investigated the other noise?” Madeline asked.
“Yes.”
“And you found nothing?”
“That is what I said.” Shaleena’s tone was becoming terse, crisp with anger.
“No. It is not. You said—” Ella began, but Lord Gallo interrupted.
“And what of the Scotsman?” he asked.
“He left.”
“You let him get away?” Ella asked, and the last of Shaleena’s unexpected patience erupted in a black explosion of rage.
“Why are you here?” Jerking from the elegant divan, she faced Ella across the room. “Do you not have a husband awaiting your return? A child! Some would die for—” She paused, unspoken words trembling on her lips.
Stunned silence dropped into the room, but Lord Gallo rose smoothly in the echoing quiet. “Let us all relax a bit,” he said. “There is no need for agitation. Faerie Faye is safe. We are all safe.” He glanced at the others, letting his gaze linger on his wife for a moment as if to make certain he was correct. And for the first time Faye fully realized the truth: He was neither coolly aloof nor quietly scheming. He was passionate. For her…his wife. Indeed, he would die for her. Would give his life without a second’s hesitation. Strangely, it made her want to cry, but she stifled the emotion, clasping her hands carefully together.
“I am perfectly well,” she agreed. “And given my tumultuous past…” She tried to smile at the understatement. “I think it likely that my mind simply fabricated—”
“There were scratches on his chest,” Shaleena said.
Faye’s heart lurched in the abrupt silence.
“What?” she whispered.
Shaleena turned toward her. But again the glee was notably absent. Though Faye could sense no other emotion on her. “Did you not fight him?” she asked. “The man in the library, did you not try to escape his grasp?”
“In…in my dreams,” Faye said, but the battle was already lost. Her greatest fear was coming to life yet again. The one man she thought she could trust. The one man she needed to believe in had betrayed her.
“You are making a serious accusation, Shaleena,” Lord Gallo warned.<
br />
“You truly believe the Scotsman—” Ella began, but Faye stopped them with a raised hand. The room had gone breathless.
“I did not mean to bring him to this door. To cause you trouble.”
“We have no proof that he will cause trouble,” Madeline said. “No reason to assume he is anything other than what he proclaims himself to be.”
“And what is that exactly?” Gallo asked.
Madeline shrugged. “A soldier, decorated yes, but a simple man of—”
“He is not simple,” Faye said, and knew she was right. He was more than he appeared. Much more. And he was interested in her. Why? It was not unheard of for powerful men to sense the gifts that her kind embodied. It was also not unheard of for them to wish to usurp those gifts. It had happened before, just months ago within her own coven, in fact. Had caused the death of a gifted young woman, had driven Ella from Lavender House.
Faye would not let that happen again.
“I will not allow him to harm you,” she said, and though she felt weakness like a cancer inside her, she also felt the strength, growing like a windblown fire.
“Let us not do anything hasty,” Lord Gallo said.
“Not hasty,” Faye agreed, “but final.”
“What are you saying?” Madeline asked. She was scowling. Faye knew that without looking.
“You have protected me long enough,” she said.
“Shaleena could well be mistaken,” Ella said. “About the scratches. About everything. After all, it was, I presume, dark in the garden last—”
“There were scratches!” Shaleena snarled. “On his chest.”
“And how do you know that?” Ella challenged. “Why do you notice the Scotsman when there’s another who would give all for your—”
“Elegance,” Gallo warned quietly.
But Shaleena’s eyes had already narrowed. “What have you done?” she hissed.
“You have steeped us in your bitter guilt long enough,” Ella said.
“What have you done?” shrieked Shaleena and jerked her hand upward. A sphere of fire shot from the hearth and into her palm. She heaved it at Ella, but it was devoured in an instant, engulfed in a burst of flame that roared past Shaleena to consume the hat stand in a fountain of gold.
