She laughed. The sound suddenly seemed unnaturally loud, and after a second she realized why. While they had been behind this screen, totally absorbed in each other, the dancers had left for the supper break. From the quality of the silence, it sounded as though even the musicians had left.
“We should probably go before we’re missed,” she said, rising reluctantly. “This isn’t a large enough party for us to disappear completely.”
“More’s the pity, but you’re right.” Niall rose too, but took her hand. “One more?” he asked, almost shyly.
She would have promised him a thousand more, but well-brought-up girls didn’t say such things. Well-brought-up girls didn’t usually kiss men they weren’t related to, either, but right now she didn’t care. She nodded and raised her face to his. He kissed her gently this time, with a careful respect that spoke more than words. Then he held out his arm to her, and they left the shelter of the screen.
The room was deserted, and the musicians’ instruments lay silent on their chairs in the far corner. A lively hum of laughter and conversation drifted up the stairs from the dining room below, filling the empty room with a ghost of gaiety.
No, not entirely empty. There was sudden movement near the door. As Pen blinked, Lady Keating rose from a chair behind one of the half-closed doors, gave them a radiant smile, and disappeared into the hall ahead of them.
Back at home later that night, Niall strode purposefully down the carpeted corridor to his mother’s room. He hadn’t bothered changing out of his evening clothes. The memory of Pen pressed against the waistcoat he still wore was like a good luck talisman. He couldn’t help suspecting he’d need all the luck and moral support he could get when he confronted Mother.
What would she say when he told her that he’d succeeded in making Pen love him, but that he loved her too? She’d have to give up her dreams of marrying him off to a German princess or whomever, because if he was going to ask Pen to marry him, then he was going to keep that pledge. And if he didn’t ask Pen to marry him, then Mother wouldn’t be able to do her magic to bring him and the duke together. It would be Pen or no one.
Not that he’d had a chance to ask Pen tonight if she would marry him—it had been enough for tonight to admit their feelings for each other. Tomorrow, as soon as it was a decent hour to pay a call, he’d go to the Carrighars’ and ask Pen if he could write to her father to state his intentions. He’d have to write to Papa, too, and maybe go to see him at Loughglass. Surely Papa would approve of Pen. Besides, if Papa gave his blessing to him and Pen, then there was little Mother could do to stop them.
Publicly, anyway.
Niall put that thought resolutely aside.
What about Pen’s friendship with the queen? Couldn’t they use that, somehow, to introduce him to the duke? The duke was the queen’s uncle, after all, and her heir until she married and had children. Surely a quiet word or two in the right ears could accomplish the same thing as Mother’s spells and rituals. It would be amusing to explain to Mother that she had indeed chosen Pen well—just not for the reason she’d originally thought. Oh, it would all work out after all. He’d have Pen, and Mother would see her dream realized without any subterfuge or trickery. He grinned to himself and nearly skipped the last few feet to Mother’s room.
Outside her door, he paused to collect himself. Cool and calm, that was the best way to face Mother. And maybe she wouldn’t be against him marrying Pen after all. She and Pen had become close; he’d seen her look at Pen sometimes with something in her eyes that wasn’t entirely scheming and predatory. Had his sweet Pen charmed her too?
He smiled and brushed his hand across his waistcoat again, then raised his hand to knock. A low laugh startled him.
“Mother?” he said, turning.
But the hall behind him was empty.
Then the laugh sounded again, and he realized it came from inside Mother’s room.
“I wish I’d seen Charlotte’s face when you made her petticoats fall,” he heard someone say, giggling. It was Doireann. “Jolly good way to get her off poor Niall. I’ll bet she doesn’t show her face in public for a month.”
“It was the only way I could pry the hussy off him, since he was being too polite to shake her and do what he was supposed to be doing with Miss Leland. Once she left, though, he seemed to make up for lost time. They emerged from behind a screen after everyone had gone into supper, and she looked downright starry-eyed. I tried to get a report from him on the drive home, but he was being unwontedly quiet.” Mother’s voice was briskly pleased, as if she’d just crossed several items off a long list of tasks.
“Hah. Was Niall looking starry-eyed too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He knows better than that. Now, I’ve already invited her to Bandry Court and she seemed willing to come. It’s time we finished up our preparations for the draiocht. We need to have it down perfectly so that we can do our parts and still manage her. Have you been studying your incantations?”
He smiled to himself and reached for the latch handle. This seemed like a good time to interrupt. He’d throw open the door and say, “Don’t bother. I’ve got a better way to get to the duke.”
“Yes, yes,” Doireann said crossly. “Really, Mother, killing the queen isn’t going to be any harder than any other long-distance spell we’ve done.”
Niall froze.
“As if you’ve had any experience in magic of this magnitude.” Mother had begun to pace; her voice grew clearer, then more distant, then clear again. “Even I’ve done it only once, and it wasn’t easy. I didn’t mean to remove both of your father’s brothers—only Valentine, who was threatening to tell your grandfather about my relationship with the duke. The last thing I wanted was for both of them to die, because that forced us to return to Ireland.”
“So that’s what it was! Poor Mother,” Doireann murmured. “Forced to come back and learn how to run Loughglass and be with her young daughter who’d been left to the care of nannies and governesses while she herself was gadding about London society and entrancing the Duke of Cumberland—”
“You were quite well taken care of at your grandparents’, and your father and I could not afford the house and staff needed to bring you to England with us. Now stop this chatter and pay attention,” Mother snapped. “You need to be perfect to the smallest gesture and syllable. As the Mother you are the anchor of the magic. I will be managing both the Crone’s part and keeping our Maidenly Miss Leland in line. Fortunately this spell isn’t reliant on a time factor as much as it is on will, so it can take all night if necessary. All we’ll have to do is make sure that the circle we raise is large enough and that Miss Leland gives her power willingly. I don’t think that will be a problem, thanks to Niall. I must say, I had my misgivings about him. I was afraid we’d cut too close to the queen’s coronation, which would have a protective effect and make our job a lot more difficult, but he’s played his role very well.”
Niall realized that he was clutching the doorframe to keep from sliding to the ground in a shocked heap.
“Are you quite sure of that? Don’t you worry that he might have been too convincing?”
“Doireann, I am simply too tired to spar with you on this. Niall knows better than to have taken too many liberties with Miss Leland. I made it quite clear that she had to be a virgin. Stop being so contentious, though I suppose I might as well ask the clouds not to rain. Just think, this time next year we’ll all be in London! Niall will be the son of the king of England—unofficially, true, but no one with eyes in his head will be able to ignore the truth. Especially not his father.”
“So, what’s next?” Doireann drawled. “Will you be changing English inheritance law so that he can become the Prince of Wales?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. All I want is for him to be acknowledged as who he is and to be given a place as befits his birth and qualities.”
“Hmm. Sorry, Mother, but the position of God has already been filled. Oh, stop gritting your teeth at
me. I’ll be happy enough with my London season and a big enough dowry to let me marry whom I choose,” Doireann said pleasantly, but with an underlying edge to her tone. “Not to mention that pretty ring of yours and Bandry Court someday.”
“Yes, yes, you’ll have what you wish. I keep my bargains.”
“And so do I, Mother dear. Just not in ways you’d always expect. Lord, I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed—”
“Not till you show me you’ve been practicing. Come on, I want to hear your invocation,” Mother commanded.
Doireann groaned but began to chant softly. Somehow—he wasn’t quite sure how—Niall made it back to his room without anyone’s seeing him. He staggered to the chair by the fire and slumped into it.
Mother was planning on killing the queen.
A memory from last June returned to him. Mother had greeted him that morning with luminous eyes and held out a broadside to him as he entered the sunny breakfast room at Bandry Court. He took it from her and glanced at it carelessly.
“So? They’ve been waiting for the old king to die for weeks, and now he’s done it. God rest his soul, and all that.” He tossed it on the table with a shrug and went to the sideboard for breakfast.
Behind him Doireann had snickered unpleasantly.
“Quiet!” Mother commanded. “Don’t you understand, Niall?”
“The king is dead. Long live the king,” he muttered, scooping eggs and kedgeree onto his plate. What did it matter to him, wasting his life at his mother’s beck and call, waiting for something that might never happen?
“Long live the queen,” Doireann corrected him, and tittered again. “It’s Victoria, dunderhead.”
“Be silent!”
At the tone in his mother’s voice, Niall turned around. She was glaring daggers at Doireann. He considered abandoning his breakfast and wheedling some toast from the housekeeper in her room, so that he wouldn’t have to witness yet another row between his mother and sister.
“With William gone, the duke is one step closer to the throne. Don’t you see?” Mother hissed.
There wasn’t any need to ask which duke she meant. “But the Duke of Cumberland is only next in line until Victoria marries and has an heir of her own,” Niall said. He cautiously set his filled plate on the table and reached for the teapot. “And that will happen soon. There are at least half a dozen princes in Europe ready to parade themselves in front of her for a chance to become husband of the queen of England, if Leopold of Belgium hasn’t already arranged a match for her with his nephew Albert.”
“But she hasn’t married yet, has she?” Mother’s eyes flashed angrily, but her voice was a low purr. “And until she marries and drops a brat, it is only her life between the duke and the throne.”
Niall swallowed a mouthful of eggs that had suddenly gone as dry as sand. “What do you mean, Mother?”
Lady Keating shrugged. “Or even if she marries, look at her cousin Charlotte, bearing a stillborn son and then dying herself. Life is full of perils for young women. Even royal ones.” She leaned back in her seat and took a sip of tea. “What I mean, my son, is that our time may be at hand. His time. Your time.”
Niall put down his fork. Mother’s eyes had taken on a cold, glassy cast that made him uneasy. “Mother—”
But then she had laughed. “Well, one can hope, can’t one?”
Now it sounded as though she was going far past mere hoping. That was how she was going to unite him with his father—to make the duke king of England as well as Hanover so that he would have to come back to London and then drag Niall there and establish him conspicuously in society, where it would be impossible to miss the resemblance between them. It was ridiculous, and horrifying and outrageous. And Mother was more than capable of accomplishing it, it seemed. Good God, if she’d killed Papa’s own brothers, why should she hesitate to bring about the death of a young woman off in London?
A young woman whom Pen Leland just happened to worship.
Mother wanted Pen’s help in assassinating her heroine, the person whom she’d already helped save once, for his benefit. She had so charmed Pen that the poor thing would be putty in her hands. And when Mother brought Pen to Bandry Court and invited her to practice magic with her . . . he remembered Pen’s wistful expression when she said, “You don’t know what a relief it is to have someone to talk to about this.” Pen would be thrilled to find out Mother was a witch, and would eagerly consent to work with her, and then it would be too late. But if Pen were to find out what Mother was plotting, if she were to find out that he knew about it . . . he gripped the arms of his chair. She’d hate him, and rightly so. If she even believed him.
No, the only thing was to stop Mother from doing this. But how? Niall rose from his chair and began to pace. Should he confront her with what he knew and refuse to be a part of it? Should he threaten to tell Papa or someone like Dr. Carrighar, who was versed in magic? That would be difficult, and it would create a breach between them that would never heal. And though he hated what his mother wanted to do, he did not want to make it public knowledge.
Could he beg Pen to return to England? No. There wasn’t time for that. Mrs. Carrighar was in no condition to accompany her, and it would be at least a couple of weeks before someone from her family could arrive to escort her home. Nor could he take her; he would never be able to convince her to run away with him, either, even if he proposed to her first.
If only they were in England! He would storm the archbishop of Canterbury’s offices at daybreak to obtain a special license and would have fetched Pen before a minister by noon. Or even Dublin, where the archbishop of Armagh did the same. But there was no other way to obtain a marriage license secretly or swiftly. Besides, he could not know that Pen would consent to marry him without her father’s permission.
So what else could he do? If he could stop Mother in some other way. . . . If he could do something to make it so that she couldn’t even attempt her spell. . . . He stopped pacing.
If Pen were no longer a virgin, she would be useless to Mother.
A nervous laugh rose to his throat. He loved Pen. He wanted to marry her, and he wanted to protect her from Mother’s plans. If he were to ask her to marry him . . . and then to take her to bed. . . .
It would be very wrong of him. But to save Pen from his mother, wouldn’t it be justified? After all, he would be marrying her in the end. It wasn’t as if he were going to ruin and then abandon her. Betrothed couples frequently got carried away before the actual marriage ceremony, didn’t they?
He sat down again because his legs had suddenly grown shaky. Good God; he was sitting here coldheartedly contemplating seducing a young woman.
No, said a part of him. Not coldheartedly. Not ever. And not just any young woman. You love Pen. You’ll be saving her. She would thank you, if she knew.
That made him smile, but only for a second. So did the thought that most men would be delighted to be in the position of rescuing a beautiful young woman by taking her virtue. Was there any other way?
He paced his room for another hour despite the fact that it was nearly three. When a dark gray, not quite light began to replace the blackness of night in his uncurtained windows, he sat down at his desk and wrote two letters, one to Papa and one to Lord Atherston, explaining his intent to marry Pen. As soon as it was light, he himself would see that they were posted. No matter what else he decided to do, wedding Pen was his ultimate goal. If he could think of some other possible way to stop Mother in the next day or two, fine. If not . . . well, if not, he would know that he was seducing Pen with the most honorable intent in the world.
It was two days before Pen returned to the Keatings’ house. The morning after the Whelans’ party, she awoke with a dull pain low in her stomach and blood on her nightgown.
Drat. Of all mornings, why did she have to wake up with her monthly inconvenience? All she wanted to do was run to the Keatings’ and see Niall . . . her Niall, her sweet, beautiful boy. But on the first day of
her courses, it was safest to stay at home so she could change the absorbent towels made of old folded linen as frequently as was necessary. Norah, bless her, brought her a warm brick wrapped in flannel to hold against her aching stomach and cups of chamomile tea, just as Ally always had. It was all the fault of this soft city living; when she was home at Mage’s Tutterow and could walk and ride as much as she liked in the fresh air, she never felt much discomfort at these times.
After breakfast she tried to settle down to do some reading for Dr. Carrighar, but her attention would not stay fixed on her book. Instead of the words on the page, she saw Niall’s burning eyes just before he kissed her and his smile after she told him about being a witch. Should she write to Papa and Mama and tell them about Niall, or would that worry them? Or maybe she should write to Persy and let her begin to drop hints to them about her feelings for Niall. After what had passed between them last night, Niall would surely be thinking about writing to her parents himself soon. And she should write to her brother Charles, too. Would Charles come to worship Niall the way he did Persy’s husband Lochinvar?
A soft tap at the door made her sit up straighter against her pillows and fix her eyes studiously on her book again. “Come in,” she called.
“Well, child, I’ve not seen ye for a while,” said a soft voice.
“Mrs. C—er, Mary Margaret!” Pen closed her book and folded back the quilt that covered her legs. “It has been a while. How nice to see you.”
The little lady—today in a lavender dress but still with her old-fashioned mobcap and fichu—edged around the door and shut it behind her. “No need to get up,” she said as Pen began to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. “I know why you’re there. A woman’s courses may be one of her connections with the Goddess, but they’re also a blasted nuisance at times and aren’t anything I miss at all. Is that chamomile tea in that cup? Good. I suppose that Norah isn’t a total fool, then.”
Betraying Season Page 18
