Knight of Passion (34 page)

Who the devil were they? Sisters, that much was clear, though one was still a child and the other all voluptuous curves. Their
faces, however, were like mirror images, ten years apart.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and to say, “Good day to you.”

“We are here to see Lady Linnet,” the older one said. Her voice was breathy, and she leaned forward as she spoke.

“We’ve come to warn her!” the younger one shouted over her.

Perhaps the clue he’d prayed for had come in the form of these two big-eyed girls.

“Come inside, quickly,” he said.

The older girl was staring at him with her mouth slightly open. When she took a step forward, the younger girl grabbed her
arm and held her back.

“We do not know him,” the younger girl hissed at her sister. Then to Jamie she said, “If Lady Linnet is not here, we are willin’
to speak with her brother.”

“He is not here either, but I am Sir James Rayburn, the man Linnet is going to marry.”
If he ever got his hands on her again.

“Then we’ve no time to waste,” the younger girl said, pulling her sister over the threshold past Jamie. “Not if you want a
wife who is aboveground.”

Once they were in the solar, the girls, whose names he learned were Rose and Lily, told him what they knew.

Rose, the older girl, spoke first. “Our father agreed to help Lady Linnet.”

“She had him over a barrel, ’tis why he did it,” Lily put in.

Rose smoothed her skirts, then looked up at Jamie from under thick, dark lashes. “Since Father is a member of the guild and
she is not, he sold her cloth under his own name for a percentage of the profit.”

“He cheated her, ’a course,” Lily added.

Rose gave her sister a sideways glance, then cleared her throat. “He also agreed to make inquiries—”

“Nose about, she means,” Lily said, nodding. “But he never meant to.”

“You do not know that, Lily,” Rose said.

Lily crossed her arms. “Ha. Father lies like a—” “Girls, please,” Jamie said, putting his hands up. “Tell me what you know.”

“We overheard Father talking to a man,” Rose said. “We hid under the stairs to listen,” Lily said, “like we always do.”

Rose’s breasts rose and fell as she heaved a sigh. Jamie glanced at his squire, who was staring with openmouthed admiration
at the older girl.

“Father said that frightening Lady Linnet wasn’t likely to work,” Rose said.

“Aye, he says ‘the only way to stop that one is to have her restin’ on the bottom of the Thames,’ ” Lily added. “ ‘’Cause
she is stubborn as an ox.’ ”

Rose cleared her throat again. “Father asked the other man how he wanted it done, but the man said he did not need Father’s
help.”

“That’s when the other man starts talkin’ ’bout witches and sorcerers,” Lily said, her eyes wide.

“Is this true?” Jamie fixed his gaze on Rose, though he knew in his soul it was.

“Aye, sir, I swear it,” Rose said.

“What does this man who came to see your father look like?” Jamie asked.

“We was sent up to our bedchamber before he comes,” Lily said. “An’ we can’t see much from under the stairs.”

“But he had an old voice,” Rose said.

A mercer with an old voice. God have mercy on him.

“Did he use a cane?” Master Woodley asked.

Lily nodded so vigorously, her curls bobbed. “A fancy one. All’s I could see was the bottom, but it was all silvery and carved
like a cat’s paw.”

“Could it have been a lion’s paw?” Master Woodley asked.

Lily nodded again.

Where had he seen a walking stick like that? At the edge of his mind, he could see a cane and a glint of silver…

“Lady Linnet was looking for a man with a cane like that,” Master Woodley said.

Jamie had believed it was Pomeroy she was intent on murdering that day at Windsor, despite her denials. But perhaps it had
been someone else—this man with the silver-clawed cane.

“Who might know who this man is?” Jamie asked the clerk.

The clerk shook his head. “At Lady Linnet’s instruction, I tried to bribe a couple of the others who had been involved in
the scheme.”

“Others? I thought you said there was one man?”

“I am persuaded that one man planned it. A very clever man. I suspect he parceled out just enough of the gold and goods to
the others to get the cooperation he needed.”

“Give me a name,” Jamie said.

“While I could not find where the bulk of the gold went, I did discover that a small portion of it went to Alderman Arnold
and to”—he cleared his throat—“Master Mychell.”

“Where is your father now?” Jamie asked the girls.

Both shook their heads. Giving up their father was too much to expect of them.

“Come with me, Woodley,” Jamie said, rising. “We are going to find a certain alderman.”

“Wait,” Lily said, leaping to her feet. “We’ve more to tell you!”

“Quick. Out with it.”

“The man with the cane said he knows someone who’ll pay
him
to get his hands on the lady. ‘And once this fellow has her,’ the man says, ‘the whoring bitch will be no more trouble to
anyone.’ ”

“Lily!” her sister scolded.

“That is what he said!”

Jamie squatted in front of Lily and took hold of her arms. “Did he mention this other man’s name?”

“Aye, but ’twas a noble name what’s hard to remember,” Lily said, scrunching her face up. “Pom-o-tee? Pom-o-ray?”

Pomeroy.
A chill went through Jamie, and he heard Mistress Leggett’s voice in his head talking about a man driven by mad lust. Somehow
Pomeroy had become connected with these merchant thieves.

“God bless you two,” Jamie said, putting his hand on top of Lily’s red curls. “Martin, see the girls home safely.”

“We should return alone, same as we came,” Rose said,
rising to her feet. “If I’m seen with a young man, Father is sure to hear of it and ask questions.”

Jamie was surprised to hear that Mychell was a watchful father. But then, even rats cared for their young.

“You could use a second sword,” Martin said, slanting his eyes toward the elderly clerk.

Martin was young and had no fighting experience, but he did have sharp eyes, a good sword arm—and no fear at all. And most
persuasive of all, Jamie had no time to get anyone else.

“Come then,” he said. “You can watch the door for me while I pay an unexpected visit.”

A
s best Linnet could tell, two days had passed since she awoke in this room. All she had to mark the passage of time was the
appearance of her keepers every few hours to bring her food and water and empty her chamber pot. There were three of them:
goat, pig, and fox. At least, those were the names she gave them because of the masks they wore.

It gave her hope that they bothered with the masks. If they meant to kill her, why would they care if she saw their faces?
She pushed away the thought that they might wear them to hide their identities from one another.

The first day she had made herself hoarse with screaming. When her keepers did not bother to admonish her, she understood
no one could hear her and saved her strength. She made herself eat for the same reason. If they gave her a chance to escape,
she would be ready. How she would escape with her leg shackled to the bed by a four-foot chain she did not know. At least
her wrists and ankles were no longer tied together.

Her keepers moved about silently, ignoring her questions and entreaties as if they were deaf. They never spoke
a word, until the last time they brought her a tray of food. Then, for the first time, she heard them whisper to each other.

“Tonight is the full moon.”

“ ’Tis time then. He will come.”

Who would come?

Which of her enemies would it be? Would it be the merchant she had been looking for? Though she did not know him, he would
know her. After she had cornered Mychell, she had made no secret of who she was or her intention. That had been a mistake.
She should have pursued him with stealth, as she had done with the merchants in Falaise and Caen. But she had grown impatient.

But how had she come to be held by witches? What was the connection between the merchants she had upset and these silent creatures
in masks?

One thing was certain. Her drive for revenge had brought her to this place—alone and chained to a bed in the dark. Both Francois
and Jamie had warned her again and again that her efforts were dangerous. But she had wanted justice.

Nay, she had wanted more than justice. She had wanted revenge. Was this her punishment for attempting to serve the final reckoning
that belonged to God?

In the long hours on this narrow cot, she had ample time to dwell on her actions. What had she been seeking, truly? She thought
she understood it now. Ironically, what she had wanted was to feel safe.

All these years she had been trying to put back the pieces of her grandfather’s business—as if that would bring back her grandfather
and the safety of her early childhood. His death had left her at the mercy of every
sort of evil the world had to offer. She and Francois had each other, but a child needs more than another child.

Ironies abounded. By fighting to regain something lost to her forever, she had closed the door on the love and security Jamie
offered her. But the truth was that she had expected to lose Jamie from the start. After losing so much else in her life,
she had been afraid to let herself believe Jamie’s love could be lasting.

But was it? If he did love her, why was he about to wed someone else? She tossed and turned on the narrow cot. How could he
do it?

She must have eventually drifted off to sleep, for she awoke abruptly to the sound of the door closing. She sat up, her skin
prickling with awareness. Someone was inside the room with her; she could feel him staring at her in the darkness.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Show yourself.”

She heard a whoosh and gasped as a flame appeared inches from her face… on the palm of an outstretched hand. The flaming hand
appeared to float in the darkness, unattached to any human form. As her eyes adjusted, she discerned a sleeve above the hand
and then the outline of a figure in cloak and hood.

Linnet tried telling herself it was all trickery and illusion, but her hand shook violently as she crossed herself.

The figure’s hood was pulled low, making him appear faceless. Using the flame rising from his palm, he lit the candle next
to her bed. Then he closed his hand in a fist, and the flame was gone.

“A marvel, is it not?”

The figure’s deep voice was male and familiar. With a sweep of his arm, he threw back the hood to reveal his
face. This was not a new enemy. Nay, this was the man with the oldest grudge against her.

Sir Guy Pomeroy.

“You look rather pale, my dear. Did I surprise you?” Pomeroy said. “I cannot tell you how gratifying that is.”

“I should have guessed you were involved in this,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice calm. “But devil-worshippers,
Sir Guy? After you accused me of using dark arts to kill your uncle, that is a trifle unexpected.”

“How better to divert suspicion than to accuse you of my crime?” he said, his teeth gleaming white in the dim light.

“Divert suspicion?” She sucked in her breath. “Are you saying you…”

“In ten years, it never occurred to you that I had a hand in my uncle’s death?”

Why would it? Her husband seemed to have one foot in the grave from the time she met him.

“He enjoyed torturing me—parading you in front of me, when he knew how much I wanted you,” he said, his voice seething with
bitterness. “Then he would say you made him feel so ‘young’ that you were bound to be with child soon.”

Linnet had no notion her husband had provoked Pomeroy with such lies. In sooth, he had been a sickly man who rarely pressed
his attentions upon her during their brief marriage.

“I could not risk losing my inheritance, could I?” Pomeroy said. “You should be grateful I did not poison you as well.”

“I suppose the death of a healthy sixteen-year-old would be more suspicious,” she said.

“Precisely,” he said, his black eyes gleaming. “That is what saved you, my dear, for I was very angry with you at the time.”

Her heart pounded in her chest, for she could think of no reason that would stop him this time.

“There are those in our coven who have high ambitions—exceedingly high ambitions,” he said. “To gain his assistance for what
they seek, the dark angel will require a blood sacrifice of the highest order.”

“You believe in this foolishness?” she blurted out. “You have always underestimated me.” Pomeroy clenched his fist and leaned
so close she smelled the onions on his breath. “Do not do so now. You will soon see that all is possible when we call upon
the great Lucifer and his demons.”

He was serious. Her hand went to her chest. “Tell me you have not given your soul to the devil.”

“I hold the power of life and death in my hands,” he said, holding his hands out, palms up. “I can obtain all that I desire.
First, my uncle’s lands. Then, the friendship of the powerful. But I had to be tested again and again to prove my commitment
before the dark lord would grant me my last desire. The thing I wanted most.”

His eyes burned into her like glowing coals. “But now, at long last, I have you.”

Sweat broke out on her palms, her forehead, and under her arms.

“When you learn how to call upon the dark lord,” he said with a ghostly smile, “you, too, shall have all that you desire.”

“Nay,” she whispered. “I shall never do it.”

“Your pathetic tools cannot bring you the vengeance
you seek,” he said. “For all your efforts, you do not yet know who hatched the scheme against your grandfather, do you?”

When she could not find her voice to answer, he leaned close again and shouted in her face, “
Do you?
”

She swallowed and shook her head.

“But I do.” He straightened and spoke in a calmer voice. “The man you seek used subterfuge and layers of intermediaries. While
many merchants were aware of the scheme, only three knew who pulled the strings. So when you came to London asking questions,
he was content to stay hidden and bide his time.”