Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) (6 page)

Sarah offered her a schoolmarmish stare. “ ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’ ”

“And: ‘Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage,’ ” Bianca countered.

“Tish tush. We could trade quotes all night. You say they’re all interested in bedsport only, but you don’t know that for certain. You can’t tar all men with one brush.”

“If the brush fits . . .”

Sarah’s expression took on a rarely seen solemnity, all the more forceful for being so unusual. “Banter aside, Bianca, you can’t hide forever. What are you really afraid of?”

“Shall I list them alphabetically or in order of importance?” she quipped, but Sarah’s gaze remained implacable.

Bianca met it without flinching, though her mind saw naught but dark memories. “You want to know what I fear?” she answered softly. “I fear love’s end. I fear looking into my husband’s eyes and seeing nothing but indifference where once I saw desire. I fear the heavy hand of jealousy and hate when all I crave is an affectionate caress.” She scowled, banishing Lawrence’s shade back to the recesses of her thoughts. “When one has been burned, it’s only a fool who places his hand back into the fire.”

“Or an optimist.” Sarah’s face broke into a smile. “Mark my words, Bianca. One of these days a man will make you forget that odious husband of yours.”

Bianca responded with an unladylike snort. “Only if he whacks me over the head and I wake with amnesia.”

*   *   *

The normal backstage bustle and chaos had quieted, most of the actors long since departed for engagements elsewhere. Only a few hardy souls remained—some prop and scene men organizing for tomorrow’s performance, dressers tidying up costumes, maids dumping trash and sweeping passages, clerks counting tonight’s till.

Bianca sat rubbing lotion into her hands, delaying the moment when she had to leave the serenity of her dressing room for another more difficult performance. That of carefree, glittering actress, bubbling with enthusiasm and sparkling with wit.

She grimaced at her reflection as she affixed her earrings. It might be hell sometimes, but it certainly beat the alternative—home to an empty house with only her thoughts for companionship. Better to exhaust herself dazzling the crowd than to lay awake for hours pondering the choices that had landed her here.

“Mrs. Parrino, are you in?”

A question hardly worth asking, since Mr. Harris, Covent Garden’s manager and her boss, had not bothered knocking before barging through the door.

She rose to sweep the long draping silk of her scarf across her bare shoulders. “Just on my way out. Can it wait until tomorrow? I’m due to dine with the Astons and Lord Pollian.”

“Actually, mum. It can’t wait.” Mr. Harris rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet, his red face redder than normal, his wig askew on his stubbled head. “You see, Mr. Kemble and I have been discussing the situation.”

“What situation is that?”

“The . . . uh . . . the recent and unfortunate death of your . . . your particular friend, Mrs. Parrino. Now, I don’t normally make it any of my business to poke my nose into the talent’s lives. Long as you show up for work sober and you bring in an audience, you can do as you like on your own time.”

“That’s very liberal and decent of you.”

“But there’s a time when I have to make a stand and
that’s when one of my company is being talked about in the same breath as a murder.”

“Who would that be, Mr. Harris? And don’t tell me it’s Sally Randall. You know her. She threatens to kill off her no-good philandering husband every other day. We all know she’s talk and no action.”

“It is not Sally Randall. I’m afraid it’s you. The stories are running like fire that you had that fellow murdered in the park last week.”

Bianca’s stomach tightened into a knot, her palms instantly clammy as she was reminded of the days and weeks following Lawrence’s death when the fear of arrest hung over her like a pall. It had never happened, the coroner ruling her late husband’s fall an accident, but the irony wasn’t lost on her now. Cleared of a killing she’d caused only to be suspected of a killing she knew nothing about. Cosmic justice at its most absurd?

“Does anyone believe these stories?”

“Not much, no. But I can’t have my Rosalind suspected of murder. It’s not proper.”

“Do you believe I killed Mr. Kinloch?”

“Of course not. I think I know you better than that. But it’s not what I think that counts. It’s what the public thinks. Mr. Kemble doesn’t want any trouble, not with the place barely recovered from the last riots. Remember what happened in oh-nine? And that was over ticket prices! Imagine the tumult if our lead actress is carted off the stage mid-soliloquy by the Runners. We’d have the place in ashes around us.”

“What do you propose I do, Mr. Harris? Pronounce my innocence like Anne Boleyn before the sword? If we gave credence to every rumor afloat in London, Princess Charlotte’s paternity would be in doubt and
Lord Asbury would be selling his wife’s services to Mr. Keeling for fifty pounds and use of his shooting lodge in Perthshire.”

“Be that as it may, I’m going to have to ask you to step aside. Just until the gossip cools off and a new story catches fire.”

“Mr. Harris—”

“Tomorrow night will be your last performance. That should give Sally time to prepare to take over. Think of it as a chance to rest. Take a little trip. Visit the seaside or the lakes. Go north for the shooting. Anything.”

“Just don’t turn up at your theater.”

He nodded, smiling now that she had agreed without throwing a scene. “It’s only until things get back to normal. Then you return, good as new.”

“Is this a suggestion or an order?”

He grabbed her hand, pumping it as if he were drawing water from a well. “Thank you for being a jolly good sport, Mrs. Parrino. A week. A month. We’ll be in touch.”

She removed her sweaty hand from his grip with a thin-lipped smile. “That would be an order, then.”

*   *   *

From his position across from the theater’s stage door, Mac glanced up at the night sky. Clouds spread thick and reaching, a waxing orange moon slipping in and out between streamers of dank fog.

It was almost Silmith, the night of the full moon. In every clan holding from Ireland and Scotland to Wales and Cornwall, the Imnada would be paying tribute to the mother goddess. The Ossine would be offering
tribute to her power. Younglings who’d reached maturity would be allowed on their first hunt beneath her watchful gaze. Promised mates would be joined in marriage, their first hours together blessed by her magic.

And under her harsh silver glare, swift and brutal punishments would be meted out to any transgressors of clan rule.

He shut that memory away, focusing instead on the ease with which he’d shifted to his panther aspect tonight, his body’s transformation as smooth and fluid as the muscles beneath his glossy hide. He would enjoy the respite while he could, for as Silmith gave way to the waning quarter moon of Berenth, the debilitating violence of the curse intensified as ancient magics warred for control of his body. He hated the moonless nights of Morderoth, for then the shift became impossible, and he spent those long hours of darkness trapped in his human form, crushed between the goddess’s powers and the Fey-blood’s spell.

But could an end to the suffering be close at hand? A way to break the cycle of dawn and dusk that had come to rule his life? If Bianca Parrino spoke the truth, Adam had found the answer. But how? What had he discovered? And why hadn’t he informed the rest of them? Elation and fury warred within Mac. Was Adam’s silence a betrayal of their friendship? Or had he meant to tell them all and been killed before he found the chance?

Damn it to hell!

To be so close to freedom, then have the solution die with his friend, knotted Mac’s gut. But there was still a chance, and Bianca Parrino was the key.
He had known it as soon as he laid eyes on her. As if the mother goddess herself had offered him a sign by searing Bianca’s image on his mind, he’d been drawn from the sanctuary of his rooms despite the risks, her arctic-blue eyes acting like a lodestone.

He had to discover what she knew.

He had to see her again.

The performance had ended hours earlier. Crowds spilling from the theater like bees from a kicked hive. Loud, raucous laughter, shouts for passing hackneys, the jangle of harness as carriages jostled for the curb. Society men in elegant black with rainbow-hued women on their arms. The crude excitement of clerks and shopkeepers, lawyers and military men in glittering gold and silver braid. The fluttering fans and swaying hips of courtesans and demireps.

Then they were gone, the streets of Covent Garden empty as the theatergoers moved on to dinners and balls, clubs and concerts. The night would ring with the clink of china and the sparkle of witty conversation. Flirtations and scandal. Jealousies and petty vengeance. And finally, in the darkness, men and women would come together in passion. Hold each other close as the bliss subsided and sleep stole over them.

For Mac, night had become a purgatory to be survived. As long as he lay under the curse, there would be no woman to share more than a quick emotionless coupling. He was
emnil,
dead to the clans. Forbidden a marriage within his own race and burdened with the certainty that no human female would ever see him as more than a monster to be slaughtered as Adam had been.

For him there would be no home or family to replace the one stripped from him. No wife or lover to
replace the beautiful Lina, who’d spurned him for the freak he had become.

Unless . . .

He stretched, loosening the pent-up swarm of excitement tightening his muscles.

. . . unless he broke the curse.

If Adam had been able to find a way to do it, so could Mac.

The moon had barely moved in the sky before the door opened. Even concealed beneath a heavy cloak, Mac recognized her. The velvety spice of her perfume, the slight musky scent of her creamy skin. The gleam of her shimmering hair.

Coming up on his haunches, Mac growled low in his throat.

Bianca spun around, eyes darting from shadow to shadow.

Pulling himself together, Mac sank back. Stupid mistake. He should know better.
Did
know better. He’d spent six years being professionally invisible for Wellington’s army in the field. Now barely a year shuffling papers at the Horse Guards and he was losing his edge.

Bianca stood for a moment haloed by the light within until someone inside the theater called to her. Then she turned, illuminating the curve of one pale cheek and the sweep of dark lashes, the slender column of her throat and the dimple kissing her chin. If he weren’t positive that she had no idea he was watching, he’d have sworn the pose was for his benefit. Sultry and yet uncontrived. A woman who knew her sexual power and took pleasure in it.

She remained thus for the barest of moments. Then a change in the light, a shift of her body, and her icy
radiance became the chalky pallor of exhaustion. The deep wells of her eyes turned to shadows. The regal pose more closely resembled a woman bracing for a painful blow.

“I’ve changed my mind, Martha. I think I’ll just go home to bed.” Even her voice held a weary, forlorn air.

She headed toward Bow Street, Mac sliding from his alley hiding place to follow, one more shadow among the dark. Sometimes he wished his aspect had been sewer rat. Inconspicuous would have been a hell of a lot safer.

As she passed the front of theater, Mac caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A figure stood hidden behind one of the four portico columns, the pinprick light of his cheroot giving him away.

Mac paused as the stranger stepped out behind Bianca, his steps slow but certain.

Dread and frustration settled like a brick in Mac’s gut. Did this stranger have anything to do with Adam’s death, or was he merely a random footpad bent on an easy score?

The stranger’s pace sped up. Mac closed in pursuit, the hair rising on his back as excitement warred with anticipation, his tail lashing in growing anger.

Bianca crossed over Russell Street, still unaware of the danger behind her.

The footpad stank of sweat, cheap gin, and cruelty. Mac lengthened his stride, muscles strung taut, body alive with a feral bloodlust.

Intent on his target, he never sensed the dogs until they launched themselves at him with furious growls and teeth like razors.

Behind you, Bianca! Run!

The blast of his pathing was all he had time for before the pack struck.

*   *   *

Bianca lay in bed, a damp, chilly breeze from her open window lifting the curtains. Raising gooseflesh on her arms. Rolling over, she burrowed deeper beneath the blankets. Turned back with a hefty sigh. Stared up at the ceiling. Examined her nails. Punched her pillow a few times.

Nothing. She was bone tired, her body screaming for much-needed sleep. And yet her brain whirred like a top.

Adam’s murder . . . Captain Flannery’s visit . . . Sarah’s chiding . . . and the coup de grâce—her sacking by Harris. It all buzzed round in her head like gadflies.

Overwhelmed only by the last and strangest experience of the evening—a voice.

She’d heard it in her head. Loud. Insistent.

Too shocked to do anything but obey, she’d scampered the last few feet to the safety of the hackney stand and thrown herself into the closest carriage. Glancing back, she’d spotted a large man in greasy coat and battered hat. And then the hackney rounded the corner, and she could breathe again.

That’s when she questioned herself—and her sanity. Was she hearing voices now? Not even in her worst days after Lawrence’s death, when she’d been jumping at every shadow, had she heard any voice but her own, reassuring her she would be all right. He couldn’t hurt her again.

Tonight’s voice had not been hers.

Surrendering to the inevitable, she threw back the covers with a groan and, wrapping herself in a dressing gown, crossed to the window to look down on the rainy street below. A few lamps still flickered, but dawn lurked as a faint smudge in the east. Already the coal man was out with his sack, and there came the hollow rattle of a barrow as a dustman passed. Beyond that, the view was gray and misty. The houses across the way bleak and cheerless, their windows empty of life.