Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (33 page)

He would end this. He must. And soon. For there wasn’t much time left before Morderoth, a night, when not even the evil magic of the curse could overpower the will of the goddess. A night when shifting became impossible and the Imnada were at their most vulnerable. During the purges, the Fey-bloods had struck when the darkness of Morderoth stretched over the land.

Renata was the daughter of the chevalier.

She would know this.

She would use this.

Mac would be ready.

21

“I’m looking for
Aquameniustis
. A-Q-U-A-M-E-N . . . Have you heard of it?”

The nurseryman scrubbed a hand through his thinning hair before slapping his hat back on his head. “Naw, none of that, but we’ve got some fine hedgehogs.” He motioned toward a wicker cage where three of the bristly balls of fur appeared to be sleeping. “Good for beetles, they is. A right good price.”

“I don’t want hedgehogs,” Mac explained slowly. “I want bloody
Aquameniustis,
whatever the hell it is.”

The man shook his head. “Try the fellow at the end. He might have what you’re looking for.”

Since Mac had already spoken to the fellow at the end, as well as with ten other vendors, he merely nodded and turned away to pass among the market’s bustling crowds thronging the courses between wooden stalls heaped with fall vegetables, tottering crates, and barrels stacked man-high. Bands of frustration tightened his shoulders.

He had traveled the length and width of London,
or so it seemed. From the elegant offices of Reverend Hodges and the botanical society to the vine-cluttered shop of Dr. Newcomb of Seething Lane until he was sick to death of uncomfortable hackneys, greasy chophouse food, and musty offices and anterooms. Adam’s plant was a fiction, an invention, a fraud. Poor science, said one. Poor penmanship said another.

If only Bianca were there to help him.

Is that all you want with her? If you cared for the woman as much as you claim, you’d tell her so.

Gray’s comments continued to rankle like burrs beneath Mac’s skin, the tension in his shoulders sinking like a stone into his chest. Why hadn’t he declared when he had the chance? Was it gallant sacrifice, as he’d told himself while feeding draft after draft of the same unfinished letter to the flames; or was he the coward that Lady Deane and Gray claimed he was, unable to take that final and irrevocable step?

By now the morning sun had climbed through a filmy layer of smoke and cloud. Sweat had dampened Mac’s coat so that it stuck to his back, and his throat was chalky with thirst. He’d seen a tavern just beyond the market’s edge in Bedford Street. Some rashers and eggs were just the fortification he needed to continue his search.

He took a deep calming breath, only to catch a whiff of an all-too-familiar scent.

Bianca? Here? Or had he simply conjured her from his thoughts and a bad case of wishful thinking.

He scanned the shifting sea of faces.

A swirl of blue gown. A gleam of golden hair. Was that her just ahead, dodging that overturned cart of turnips?

He shouldered his way through the crowd, but by the time he’d bulled his way to the cart, she’d disappeared.

He paused between a vendor hawking carrots and parsnips and a greengrocer extolling the freshness of his young cucumbers and crisp new peas. Passed a keen gaze over the stalls ahead, nostrils flared for the elusive scent of her. Turned to the right. Jogged up half a row before the silvery bell of her voice floated on a musty breeze.

Two stalls away, consulting with a gentleman in apron and gaiters holding a tall, thin flower studded with delicate white blooms. “. . . for less than a hundred guineas. You’ll not find another like it in the city.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Well, thank you for showing it to me. It’s lovely, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

“P’raps another time, miss.” The man placed the flower back amid the potted blooms and shrubs around him. “Now, as I was saying: old Mr. Ringrose—he’s your best bet for what you’re asking for. If he don’t have it, no one does.”

“How much?” Mac asked over Bianca’s shoulder.

Bianca whipped around, flashing him a wide-eyed stare.

“The orchid? One hundred guineas, Captain,” the nurseryman answered.

“She’ll take it.”

Bianca stiffened. “I will not. It’s far too expensive.”

“Do you want it?”

Her gaze flicked longingly toward the plant.

“We’ll take it,” Mac repeated.

“No, we won’t.”

“It’s my money. If I want—”

“Thank you, Mr. Sullivan,” she said to the hovering
nurseryman, handing him a shilling. “This is for your trouble.”

Pocketing the coin, the man tipped his cap with a wink as Bianca turned to regard Mac with a cool, appraising gaze. Only the tight hold on her reticule and the slight trembling of her fingers gave her away. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here in search of that last bloody plant, but what the hell are you doing?” he growled. “What if Madame Froissart should turn up, or some more of her hired toughs?”

“So you did get my note. When I didn’t hear from you, I couldn’t be sure the major had found you.”

“He found me.”

“Were your hands broken? Did you have no ink or paper that you couldn’t dash off a sentence letting me know?” He wouldn’t say her comment dripped with sarcasm, but there was a definite waspishness to her tone.

“I should have, but—”

She held up a hand. “You’re right. It’s no longer my concern.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“No? What
were
you going to say? That you hoped buying me an expensive gift would make up for the fact I worried myself sick over you for the last few days? I warned you once, Mac Flannery, I can’t be purchased with pretty baubles. Just because you and I—”

“You and I what, Bianca?”

She flushed but met his gaze without wavering. “It doesn’t matter. Good day, Captain.”

“Hold on.” He grabbed her arm. “There was no ulterior motive in my offer.” She continued to spear him
with a doubtful stare. Heat prickled the back of his neck, and he dipped his head, suddenly self-conscious. “All right, perhaps a slight touch of ulterior motive. But you wanted the flower. I wanted . . . oh, hell, I wanted to see you smile.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “That’s absurd.”

“Is it?”

Just then, an enormous out-of-breath young man with shoulders wide as a ship of the line and a face like a platter bulled his way through the crowd. “You can’t be running off like that, mum. His lordship will have the skin from my back if I let anything happen to you.”

“There’s the answer to your question about my safety,” Bianca said. “As you can see, an entire regiment would find it difficult to outmaneuver Donas here.”

Risking a curt set-down or even a fist to the jaw, Mac tucked her arm under his. Now that he had her alone on neutral ground, he refused to let her escape without a struggle. “You’re dismissed, Donas. I’ll see Mrs. Parrino back to Deane House, where she will stay this time.”

A dangerous line appeared between her lowered brows, her jaw tightly set, but she didn’t argue or pull away. Instead, she nodded toward the footman, who looked as if he might do enough arguing and scene making for the two of them. “Tell Lord Deane I’ll be home by tea.”

Donas glowered at Mac. “I suppose, if you say it’s all right, mum, but—”

“Please.” She laid a gentle hand upon his arm, giving him a smile that would have called birds from the trees and the sun from the sky.

The footman caved, his broad face turning bright
red. “Very well, mum. I’ll let His Lordship know.” He turned to Mac with a stare that could strip paint. “But you better not let anything happen to her, ya hear?” He offered him one last threatening look and cracked his knuckles before disappearing into the crowds.

“It’s amazing how you do that,” Mac said, firmly tucking her against him lest she change her mind and go pelting after the besotted Donas. “One smile and he’s ready to charge the cannon’s mouth for you.”

“Don’t tease. He’s a sweet boy and takes his duty very seriously. You of all people should respect a slave to duty.”

Despite her queenly rebuke, Mac felt desire flood him as well as affection and an unexpected optimism. The woman he’d discovered at the Wallace farm was still there, just buried beneath a hard, frosty layer of winter. But, like the delicate petals of the
am’ryath,
it would take just the slightest warmth for her to bloom again.

He opened his mouth to say the words he’d penned over and over. The arguments he’d concocted as he stood outside Deane House.

A barrow bumped his knees. “Here, now, fella! Out the way, then.”

Coming to his senses, Mac moved aside, swallowing the explanations and excuses. He couldn’t speak. Not yet. Not until Renata Froissart had been dealt with and the curse had been lifted. He could offer nothing until then. But after . . . after, he would not let her go until she believed him. Until she trusted him again.

“I never meant to hurt you.” Hardly inspiring. He’d said it at least a hundred times to her since they’d met. No wonder she continued to eye him with obvious doubt and a dangerous glitter in her eyes.

“So you buy me a flower and think all is forgiven?”

A crowd of laughing men pressed through between them, their faces red with cold, fists tight about their sacks. For a moment he and Bianca found themselves separated as the group passed, and only Mac’s grab for her hand kept her from being swept along in their wake.

He shoved her into the alley between two stalls where the noise was muffled somewhat by the canvas draped across the crates of cabbages and turnips.

“You’re right, Bianca. From now on, I promise never to buy you anything. Ever. You could be starving and I wouldn’t deign to purchase you the smallest crust of bread. On my honor.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“See, I didn’t spend a penny and I succeeded anyway. You’re smiling.”

“I most certainly am not.”

“You are. It’s there. The tiniest hint of the smallest little smile, but it’s there.” Unthinking, he touched the corner of her mouth; her skin was cool, her lips warm.

A barrel-chested vegetable seller tucked his head out to growl at them. “Here, now, are you buying or gabbing? I’ve customers what can’t see the merchandise with ye blocking the way.”

“This isn’t the place for conversation,” Bianca said.

“You’re right.” Mac took her hand as they passed through the aisles toward the market’s edge.

“Have you found what you were looking for?” she asked.

He flicked his gaze over the porcelain curve of her cheek, one gilded curl peeping from beneath her stylish bonnet. A smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. “I begin to think I have,” he answered quietly.

“Really? I’ve come up empty-handed, though three nurserymen, including Mr. Sullivan back there, all said to call on a Mr. Ringrose. They say for anything out of the ordinary, he’d be the one to see.”

Surprise surged through him. “You’re still searching?”

Pink rose in her cheeks, her chin hardening defiantly. “It’s a puzzle, pure and simple, and I’ve always loved a good challenge. It’s nothing to do with you, so don’t get any ideas.”

Oh, he had ideas, all right. All of them indecent. Hope rushed in to replace his earlier exhaustion, and he had to clamp down hard on the smile fighting to break free. He jerked his head back the way they had come. “So, how do we find this Ringrose?”

“ ‘We’?”

“I promised young Donas. Remember?”

“He has a shop near London Bridge.”

As they fought their way through the crowds, small details took on heightened significance. Her long, tapered fingers resting lightly on his arm, the way her gown slid provocatively over her hips as she walked, the smell of her hair as she bent her head toward his. Unable to stop himself, he noted this new awareness of her with a mixture of joy and sorrow.

Bianca had become more than a means to an end. She
was
the end.

A woman he could love.

A life he might live.

Passing a young girl sitting cross-legged on the curb, he dropped a few pennies into her apron, accepting in return a bunch of faded blooms, which he held out for Bianca. “I know I promised no gifts . . .”

She shook her head. “Between the gleaming gold braid and the roguish Irish charm, the women of London must not stand a chance.”

“Too bad it’s only one woman I’m interested in winning over.”

She held the flowers to her nose, her expression softening. “You’re a ridiculous, irritating, infuriating man, Captain Mac Flannery.”

He pushed a curl off her cheek. Drank in the growing faith he sensed behind the beauty of her gaze. “You got it half right.”

*   *   *

Mr. Ringrose’s apothecary shop leaned drunkenly in the shadow of London Bridge, in an alley running behind the giant pipes and pumps of the nearby waterworks. Its windows were clouded with filth, its weathered signboard hanging from one rusted chain. The stench of feces, dead fish, and mud stung Bianca’s eyes and choked the breath from her throat even through the handkerchief she pressed to her mouth.