Betraying Season (2 page)

“So you’ve seen her, then. How very interesting.” For a fleeting moment, Lady Keating’s face resumed that icy expression. It melted into a smile once more. “In that case, you must come and visit us tomorrow, and tell us all about it. Doireann and Niall—my daughter and son, of course—will be fascinated to hear your stories.”

The carriage slowed and drew to a halt, and Pen saw the blue-painted front door of the Carrighars’ house outside the window. But Lady Keating held her back.

“I shall send Padraic and the carriage for you. Will three o’clock do?”

Her voice was warm and pleasant. But Pen could hear the note of command underlying it and thought about pleading a prior
engagement. Why was this rather alarming woman being so friendly to her, a total stranger who had badly spooked her horses?

“Dr. Carrighar is an old acquaintance and highly esteemed in this city. It would give me great pleasure to make his guest feel welcome here,” Lady Keating continued, with a wistful smile.

Ah, so that was it. Having Dr. Carrighar’s guest to tea would be a social coup. Well, why shouldn’t she go? Lady Keating was probably just eager for London gossip. And it would be diverting to socialize a little, since Ally’s condition was, of late, rather more miserable than “interesting.” She would probably just spend tomorrow lying on the couch in the parlor again, a basin nearby in case her meager lunch of tea and toast made an unfortunate reappearance. Not surprisingly, her symptoms had kept them from undertaking any social engagements since their arrival.

“Thank you, Lady Keating. I should love to come.”

“Wonderful! We shall see you at three, then.” She glanced out the carriage window. “There, I told you it would rain again. Well, that’s an Irish spring for you.” She rapped on the shutter. “Sean! The umbrella for Miss Leland!”

Pen managed to climb the steps of the Carrighars’ house without having her eye put out by the umbrella inexpertly wielded by the freckled boy, and paused to wave at the carriage. Just as the maid opened the door, she saw Lady Keating staring through the carriage window at her. There was a peculiar hint of satisfaction in her smile.

Niall Keating was reading by the drawing room fire when he heard his mother return from her round of visits. He slipped a ribbon into his place, then let the book carelessly drop to the floor as he yawned and stretched. The light was really too dim in here to read
by, especially anything as long-winded (and in such small print) as a monograph on the effects of the new railroads on political stability in the German principalities. An interesting topic, though Niall cynically wondered if the author held stock in any rail companies. But what else did he have to do but read, stuck here in town under his mother’s thumb? If she wouldn’t listen to him, he’d have to take matters into his own—

“Niall! Doireann! I want you!” Mother called from the front hall.

Niall shrugged to himself and rose. He could picture her discarding her cloak, gloves, and bonnet like a python shedding its skin, knowing without a backward glance that one of the maids would be there to gather them up and take care of them. Niall could never decide whether to be amused or disturbed by his mother’s feudal behavior.

She breezed into the drawing room and stopped short when she saw him. Her eyes sparkled like polished peridots set in the carved ivory of her face.
“Mo mhac,”
she cried, holding her hands out to him. “My son! Where is your wretched sister? I’ve news, important news! This might finally be the opportunity we’ve waited for!”

“His wretched sister is right here,
dear
Mother.” Doireann stood with her back to the closed drawing room doors, wearing a malicious smirk. Niall knew she took great delight in her ability to move noiselessly through the house, terrorizing new housemaids.

Lady Keating ignored her sarcastic emphasis. “Ring for tea, Niall, darling, and come sit down. I think I’ve found a way out of the difficulties your sister has placed us in.”

Niall was about to ask what difficulties, when he looked up at Doireann and saw her glare with cold green eyes nearly identical to their mother’s. Relations between the two women had been worse
than usual lately. His mother and sister were coldly polite to each other most of the time, but they reminded him of boxers, constantly circling each other, looking for an opening. Mostly their bouts were private. Niall was grateful for that fact.

Mother ignored Doireann. “We are expecting a guest for tea tomorrow. A young lady who seems to possess all the qualifications your sister once had. As soon as I saw her I knew—”

“Qualifications!” spat Doireann, as if it were a rude word. “Is that what I am? A set of attributes for your use?”

A knock stopped her. One of the downstairs maids, her face carefully blank, came in with a tea tray that she set down on the table by the sofa. Niall murmured his thanks to her, but she had already turned toward the door.

Mother and Doireann didn’t even seem to notice her entrance; they sat rigid in their seats, eyes locked as if they still carried on their argument in words inaudible to others.

“Aren’t you one to talk about being used, Mother?” Doireann continued after the door had closed behind the maid. She smiled a soft, dangerous smile.

Mother grew very white and still. “How dare you!”

“Besides, I’m stronger than I was before.” Doireann tossed her black side curls proudly. “Is that what’s bothering you, Mother dear? Having someone in the family who is as powerful as you?”

Unexpectedly, Lady Keating laughed. “As powerful as I? I am a
Banmhaor Bande,
and I doubt you’ll ever be my equal, even if you are my heir.” She stared at the teapot. It lifted itself and poured a thin brown stream of tea into a cup. The milk pitcher followed suit, and then the cup and its saucer drifted into her hand. The ancient ring that she wore, silver and green, seemed to glow faintly in the firelight.

Niall glanced at the door, but it was safely closed. Why did Mother have to do things like that, especially here at the town house? It was one thing for her to be so careless at her own house at Bandry Court; all the servants there were used to demonstrations of their mistress’s unusual abilities, having worked there all their lives. How many times had he asked her to think before she did things like pouring tea without touching the pot? It would hardly do for a servant to drop dead of shock. But with the mood she was in, Mother would probably not be willing to listen to him.

He concealed his irritation as he usually did, though it was getting harder and harder to do. “What exactly is so important about this guest?” he asked as he poured a cup of tea by more usual means and passed it to Doireann, who was glaring at the teapot so hard that it should have shattered.

Mother’s brow smoothed, and a smile Niall didn’t like crept across her face. “Yes, our guest.”

“Thank you, Norah,” Pen said as the maid took her damp cloak and hat. Despite the boy and his umbrella, she had gotten soaked in the dash from Lady Keating’s carriage to the door. Why did Irish rain seem wetter than the rain at home? “How is Mrs. Carrighar?” she asked.

“Well, her lunch left not long after you did, if you take my meanin’, miss,” the maid whispered with a grimace. “Cook’s hopin’ she’ll take a little sago puddin’ for her tea. She’s in the parlor, a-layin’ on the sofer. Mrs. Carrighar that is, not Cook.”

Pen chuckled and crossed to the closed drawing room doors. She paused on the threshold to check the state of her skirts. Still damp around the hem from the puddle, but maybe Ally wouldn’t notice. She opened the doors a crack and peeked in.

Ally—Melusine Allardyce Carrighar, really, but Ally for as long as Pen could remember—lay on the green brocade sofa, her pale face borrowing something of its color. Her dark hair was loose on her shoulders, and a woolen throw covered her dressing-gown-clad figure. Seeing her with her hair down and still in her nightclothes in the middle of the day—Ally the indefatigable, the energetic—was disconcerting. If this was what childbearing did to women . . . Pen shook her head.

As Pen watched her, Ally stirred and, without opening her eyes, said, “Good afternoon, Pen. Please inform Cook that I loathe sago.”

“You said that about dry toast and weak tea, too.” Pen slipped through the doors, shutting them behind her. “How are you feeling?”

Ally opened one eye and stared at her balefully. “How do you think I feel?” She paused and sniffed. “Are you wearing perfume?”

“Does it bother you? A lady offered me a ride home in her carriage and she’d rather bathed in it, I think. Is it so bad? Shall I go change my gown?”

“No, it’s not that bad. It’s just . . . strange.” Ally shivered and drew her robe closer around her throat.

Pen pointed at a straight chair near one of the windows. It scuttled obediently across the room and settled itself next to Ally’s couch.

“The apothecary said he didn’t have anything for queasiness that you hadn’t already tried. Isn’t there
anything
the Carrighars can do to help you?” She seated herself and took Ally’s limp hand.

“I set Michael to reading through my grimoires to see if there weren’t any charms we could try, and Dr. Carrighar tried two spells this afternoon that only made things worse. Fortunately, their effects were temporary.” Ally shut her eyes again, as if to block out
an unpleasant memory. “His strength is theoretical magic, anyway, but I don’t have the heart to remind him of that fact.”

“Really?” Pen smothered a grin. “What did he do to you?”

“You sounded distinctly like your brother when you said that. Unlike young boys, true ladies do not take a prurient interest in unpleasant bodily functions, Penelope.” Ally opened both eyes that time and raised one eyebrow at Pen. “You just wait until it’s your turn to start a family.”

“As I’m not married nor even acquainted with many eligible gentlemen right now, I think children are hardly a concern for me,” Pen said with a small sigh. “One does require a husband first, so I understand. And I’m not here to find a husband. I’m here to do what I should have done before and learn magic.”

“You should have stayed with your sister at Galiswood and studied with her,” Ally reminded her gently. “Then you could have gone into London right at the start of the season and accomplished both.”

“I know I could have. Persy wrote that Lochinvar was coming along well with his magic lessons. But I—I didn’t want to. Three’s a crowd, you know.” Pen looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.

Her sister had been wandering around in a veritable pink-tinged cloud ever since her marriage to their neighbor back at home, Lochinvar, Viscount Seton. While visiting them last November, Pen had more than once come upon them entwined in an embrace that made her blush and back away on tiptoe. She was thrilled that Lochinvar and Persy were so obviously in love, especially after the rocky start to their courtship. But it wasn’t always comfortable to be around two people so engrossed in each other.

Ally was right, though. Persy could have tutored her very well. Since their magical escapades in London last May saving Princess
Victoria, Persy had realized that she was, indeed, a powerful witch, as powerful as Ally was.

Well, she’d studied and practiced enough all these years. If Pen had worked half as hard at her magic, she might have been of some help in saving the princess. Instead, Persy had been forced to rescue
her,
too.

“You’ve come a long way with your studies here. I saw you summon that chair just now.” Ally’s voice broke into her thoughts. “It took very little effort, didn’t it? This time last year, you would have twisted your face and turned red before the chair even twitched.”

“Oh, pooh.” Pen made a mock-indignant face.

“And I know how hard it was for you to accept Michael as your teacher since I’ve been ill,” Ally added, reaching out and taking Pen’s hand.

“Well . . . I’ve gotten over it, I think.” It
had
been hard at first. Michael Carrighar had been in on the plot to bewitch Princess Victoria. Switching from viewing him as an enemy to accepting him as her beloved Ally’s husband had taken time. But she had learned to because Michael’s devotion to Ally was as evident as Lochinvar’s to Persy.

“I know you have, and we’re both grateful,” Ally murmured.

“Grateful for what?” Michael himself poked his head around the door just then and grinned at them.

“That human gestation is not as long as equine.” Ally made a face at him as he came into the room, followed by Norah with the tea tray.

Pen smiled and gave up her seat by Ally to him.

“How’s my dearest wife? Oh, look, Norah’s brought us an excellent tea,” he said, nodding his thanks to Pen as he sat. His odd eyes—one blue, one brown—twinkled at her.

Ally peered up at him. “I’m perfectly dreadful, thank you. And do not think that you are going to convince me with your appalling cheerfulness to eat anything right now.”

“Would I do that to you?” He pulled a hurt face and smoothed her hair back from her forehead.

“In a moment, and you know it.” But Ally turned and softly kissed his hand.

Pen sat back in one of the armchairs by the fire and listened to them banter. It must be wonderful to feel cherished and loved and so part of each other. Michael was actually talking Ally into sitting up and taking a few sips of sugared ginger tea. No one else could have done that, not even her.

Were all happily married couples like this, finishing each other’s sentences half the time? She felt a pang of—not jealousy, but of exclusion. Three was a crowd here, too, just as it had been at Galiswood.

“You shall be doubtless pleased to hear,” proclaimed a voice from the doorway, “that I have at least discovered the reason for your debilitation, my dear.”

Dr. Carrighar, Michael’s father, nodded solemnly at them as he came in and took a seat by the fire opposite Pen.

“I think we already knew the cause,” Michael muttered to Ally.

“Shhh,” Ally murmured back, but a faint pink stole into her cheeks.

Pen rose and went to the table to pour a cup of tea for the doctor. He thanked her as he took it and stretched his legs, clad in their old-fashioned hose and breeches, toward the fire. The silver buckles on his shoes gleamed in the firelight.