Marissa Day (33 page)

Still Jane said nothing. She would not beg or plead or fumble for proofs that did not exist. She’d only talk herself into knots.

“Very well.” Miranda shook her head. Then, she seemed to reach a decision. “There is one other thing you should know, Lady Jane.”

“What is that?” Jane asked.

“You are with child.”

Jane’s frayed temper snapped in two. “You are impertinent and disgusting!”

“I am also a Catalyst,” replied Miranda coolly. “As such, I am connected to the currents of life and magic in the world, and in the people around me. You are with child. It has not been long, but it has happened.”

It could not be true. This woman could not know any such thing about her. She was trying to frighten her, about Thomas, about what she had done with him.

And yet, and yet, she spoke so plainly, and her gaze was so steady.

“I cannot be pregnant,” Jane said quietly. “I am barren. I was married for five years and did not once conceive.”

“I cannot answer as to that. Whatever did or did not happen with your husband, you have conceived now. In a month or two you will have your own proof. Whatever you choose next, you also have a child to consider.”

A child. Thomas’s child. Thomas was in danger of his life, a prisoner of the Fae, condemned as traitor by them and these Sorcerers, and she carried his child. The world turned over once more, and Jane could not see how it would ever be righted.

“Can you leave me alone for a little?” she whispered. “I need . . . I need a moment.”

A flicker of sympathy passed over the woman’s face. “I’ll be right outside,” she said by way of reassurance and warning. “Call if you should need anything.”

Miranda left, and Jane heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in a lock. She swallowed hard and despite the protest from her aching, exhausted body, she climbed out of the bed. She’d been given a clean nightdress at some point. The garment was a bit tight across the bosom and the hem a couple of inches too short. Her feet were healed, but remained stiff as she staggered to the window to push back the drapes.

She looked out from a third story of whatever house this was. A city garden stretched out long and narrow below her. A high brick wall topped with iron spikes hemmed in beds of daffodils and neatly trimmed lilacs, as well as the burgeoning green of the tidy kitchen garden. Jane rattled the window sash and worked the black iron latch, to no effect. She suspected that if she hammered on the glass she would find it did not break.

Not that she was sure what she would do if she could open the window. She was not even sure where she would go. When she had woken, she only wanted to fly back to Thomas, to break his chains and set him free. Now, sickening doubt filled her heart. She felt all the old loneliness wrapping around her, smothering her, but it was worse now, because it could never be lifted again. Because if Thomas had deceived her, she would for the rest of her life know herself for a fool, and a helpless, ridiculous woman with judgment that was not merely faulty but dangerously reckless.

And a child? She laid her hand on her belly. Was it really possible she was carrying Thomas’s child? Tears and laughter both threatened and she was not sure which hurt worse. All these years she believed that children were denied to her. Now . . . now she had one, but the father might be at best a soldier lost in a war, at worst an agent of a cunning and murderous enemy. And she had not even stopped to think of the possibility of a baby when she lay down with him.

My father’s daughter after all.
She rested her forehead against the cool windowpane.
Only I gambled with passion’s stakes, and may have lost the whole world. Oh, well done, Jane. Was there ever such a gamester?

Behind her, the door opened. Jane lifted her head and made herself turn slowly. She composed her features. She would not show her jailers her confusion.

They all entered the room, Miranda and her two men.

“Good news, Jane,” said Miranda. “We were in time. The duchess is delivered of a healthy baby girl.”

Jane staggered and pressed her hand against her stomach. “Thank Heavens,” she murmured. “And Her Grace is well?”

“Very, I am pleased to report.”

“What of Mrs. Beauchamp . . . my doppelganger?”

“There we were less successful.” Marlowe growled and folded his arms. “Your absence was much remarked on, and angrily. I’m afraid you’ve lost your position.”

She looked from one of them to the other. “Then I have lost my only chance of proving what I say is true.”

“Not quite,” said Rathe. They were casting sideways glances at each other. Clearly another mysterious, silent conversation was being held. “We must admit that your arriving in time to save the heir to the throne speaks well in your favor.”

“And, if what you say is true, if Thomas Lynne has turned against the queen, a Fae knight would have a great deal of useful information for us. Because even if their plans to interfere with the birth have failed, their Glorious Majesties will not stop here.”

Painful hope swelled Jane’s heart. “What must I do?”

Rathe’s dark eyes bored into hers. “You must consent to a truth seeing.”

“What is that?”

It was Miranda who answered. “The truth seeing will allow the three of us to share this bond that seems to lie between you and Thomas Lynne. We can use that to determine whether his actions were sincere when he sent you to us.”

The idea of these three parading through her emotions did not appeal. What if they saw what she had done with Thomas, the way they had loved each other? They’d condemn her as a wanton, as indecent. Jane shook her head. Surely with Thomas’s life at stake, that was the smallest triviality.

She drew her shoulders back. “And if you see that what I have said is true?”

“Then,” said Corwin Rathe, “we will do our best to rescue Thomas Lynne.”

T
hey came for him at twilight.

A slow scraping filled the cell. Thomas lifted his aching head to see the door push open. What Jane had seen as solid marble, he saw as icy white light lying over the wooden door of the butler’s pantry. His silver chains were real enough, but they too were frosted with the spell light to sap his will and energy. The nail he had given Jane had been his only protection, and that was gone now. If he was left here, the chains would simply drain his life away. It would be a slow, despairing death, but not the worst that could be imagined.

Therefore, of course, it would not be granted him.

Jane’s away,
Thomas told himself yet again.
That’s all that matters. Jane is free.

Three soldiers dressed in leather kilts and molded breastplates like ancient Roman soldiers entered the cell. The queen did not send any of the mortal soldiers he had once lead. Perhaps she did not trust them to drag their captain before her in his chains. These three were elven knights, each a mirror image of the other with pale gold hair, pure white skin and eyes like carrion crows. They were also strangers to him, at least in their current form.

The first of them gestured toward Thomas. The light coating the chains turned to crackling fire, and an unseen force hauled him to his feet. That same Fae, clearly this little detail’s captain, stepped close. Thomas knew what was coming and tried to steel himself for the blow. Pain exploded in the side of his head and he fell sideways into the arms of his captors. His feet scrabbled at the floor but could find no purchase. The world swayed and spun as they dragged him from the cellar and out into the waiting carriage. Somewhere beyond the pain that blurred his eyesight, Thomas was aware his captors had shifted form, becoming three immaculately attired gentlemen. If he squinted, he could see the elven knight beneath the facade, as he could see the chariot beneath the closed barouche, and the silver ring bolt to which his magical chains had been fastened. He let his head loll sideways, feigning a greater weakness than he felt. Although he was not sure why he bothered. There was no escape, and he knew it. But his mind could not convince his body of that. Body and heart still wanted to live. The two-thirds of his being that had withstood battle, storm and starvation, that had dared the wrath of Queen Bess for the sake of a few Spanish trinkets, believed there would be a chance. It whispered that if he kept his wits about him, he still might find a way to escape these three—who probably didn’t have an independent thought in their immortal heads—and to make his way through London and back to Jane.

Jane wouldn’t give up,
murmured his heart to his mind.
Jane would not let you give up.

Thomas felt a smile curl on his lips. Even now that he’d put her irretrievably beyond him, she still shaped him. Or perhaps it was just the freedom that came with a death sentence. Having nothing left to lose did convey a remarkable sense of liberty. He would not be able to hurt Jane anymore. As for the damage he had done to her heart . . . well, anger was a fine balm for such hurts. She would be angry, and she would outlive the pain. For she was strong, his Jane, a fighter and a survivor. She would find her way.

That thought should have comforted him, but it was harder than any blow to bear his captors could have dealt. Thomas turned his face to the carriage wall.

“He’s still awake.”

“You didn’t hit him hard enough.”

“I’ll fix that.”

The next blow brought only darkness.

 

 

Thomas lay in Jane’s arms. She was so warm and sweet. She rocked him, but too roughly. Why was she rocking him so roughly? He wanted her to stop. It made his head hurt.

Jane . . .
Thomas tired to say.

A gate in Hyde Park?
muttered a strange man.
How did we miss . . . ?

Thomas.
Jane again. Her voice filled with love and fear. For him. All he had done and all he had been, and Jane still loved him.
Can you hear me? Answer me, please.

Slowly, memory filtered into the blackness of his mind, along with the pain and a good dose of nausea. He was captured. He was being taken to judgment. He was weak as a kitten from his magical bonds and two blows to his head. About all he was good for was being sick over the boots of his captors, which would be satisfying but not very useful.

And he could hear Jane.

They?
“They” needed him to open his eyes to see? Slowly, he realized Jane was with the Sorcerers. Jane was speaking to him through the bond he had forged for them.

Jane was going to get herself killed.

The thought focused his mind instantly.

But it was no use. While she could touch him through their bond, she would come to him. The sympathetic magic held sway in her heart and he himself had done this to her. Thomas shut his eyes, and did what he should have done when she had escaped from their basement cell.

Good-bye, Jane.
He moved will and heart, twisting hard.

But nothing happened. The bond did not break. He tried again, straining every sinew of his inner self. But it was no good. He could not break the bond alone, not anymore. Jane had claimed it for hers, and Jane was holding on tight.

No.
She answered calmly.
Not like this.

She ignored this as well.
We’ ll be there soon, Thomas.

The guards around him were stirring. He saw their heads lifting one by one, like hounds catching a strange scent.

Quiet,
said the man’s voice sharply. Silence descended in Thomas’s heart and mind. His guards shifted uneasily. He made himself lie limp and still, and they quieted. But Thomas’s thoughts did not. For Jane had said, “We’ll be there soon.” Not “they’ll be.” We. She was coming to him, straight into danger.

That, he could not permit. No matter what the price, he could not be the cause of bringing any more danger to Jane. He wasted precious seconds cursing himself for sending her to the Sorcerers. He had thought they would shelter her. How could he have failed to realize they would use her to get to him? He was a rich prize for the crown’s magical agents. Of course they would risk her to get to him.

Thomas felt the moment the wheels left the cobbles and turned onto the gravel lane of Hyde Park. He had but a handful of moments to make his decision. He knew the ground here. The last of the daylight outside had faded, but that wouldn’t slow the Fae down at all. But if he could run . . . there was the Serpentine not too far from here. There was the iron gate to Kensington House. The wards might not stop him now that the queen had withdrawn her favor, and as a mortal, iron made no difference to him than any other metal.