Nicholas: The Lords of Satyr (25 page)

“Trouble?” Nick asked, pulled the red-faced boy away. He massaged and squeezed Jane’s breast, but the milk still refused to come. The baby’s cries turned pitiful. In desperation, he resorted to laving her nipple himself. He pulled the tip of her breast deep into the cavern of his mouth and worked it with a suctioning motion.

Finally he was rewarded when a warm liquid spurted onto his tongue. Milk.

He set their son at her breast again. The tiny lips rooted for the nipple and began to feed with gusto. Jane murmured and shifted at the unfamiliar sensation, but she didn’t awaken.

When their child was somewhat satisfied, Nick joined in the feast, pulling Jane’s other nipple into his mouth. He quickly brought down the milk this time and then settled the boy at the second breast to finish feeding.

He positioned a pillow at the headboard and lay against it. As he watched his wife give sustenance to their child, he stroked her hair. Something shifted inside him, and the darkness lifted just a little. Sunlight fell across the bed, and he felt it enter his heart.

The hours passed, and he saw to it that their child fed several times. The nursing served a dual purpose. As a result, Jane’s body would be largely mended by morning.

He kissed her hair as she slept.

“We’ve made a beautiful son, Jane.”

“L
et me in at once, fool!” hissed Izabel.

Jane hurried down the stairs to intervene in the scene unfolding at the front entrance of the castello. Signore Faunus held Izabel at bay while she attempted to cow him into admitting her.

Over his shoulder, Izabel spied Jane. Her face paled when she took in the new slimness of her niece’s waist.

“You’ve lost the child?” she asked tremulously.

Jane avoided the question. “Signore Faunus, please allow my aunt to enter. She is unwell.”

Noting the older woman’s pallor, Nick’s servant reluctantly moved aside, and Izabel rushed past him into the grand entry.

“Do sit,” Jane told her, indicating a chair.

Izabel sank into it like a deflating balloon, her anxious eyes fixed on Jane’s flat belly. “I came to inquire as to your health, but it appears I have left it too late. The child is gone?”

Signore Faunus hovered in the doorway.

“Some tea perhaps, signore?” Jane told him.

He puffed up, readying a protest, but her glare banished him to the kitchen.

Jane turned back to Izabel, who had begun to weep.

“These things happen,” she told Jane. “You must get with child again as soon as possible.” She grasped Jane’s sleeve, her grip surprisingly strong. “Promise me you will try.”

Jane was reminded of another promise—one she’d made to Nick that morning before he’d slipped into the forest. A threshold secreted in the sacred gathering place would give him passage to ElseWorld, he’d told her, and he would return to her tomorrow morning.

She’d given him her word she wouldn’t tell her family of the birth just yet. Though he’d bespelled the servants into thinking her pregnancy had lasted the expected nine-month term, he would have to be with her in order to work his magic on the minds of other Humans they encountered in the outside world. Once bespelled, they too would accept the notion that she’d conceived on their wedding night and carried her babe a full Human term.

A sudden, faint cry echoed down the stairs, forestalling any attempt Jane might have made in keeping her promise.

Izabel’s chin lifted, her expression suspended like that of a surprised deer. The cry came again, and her head swiveled in its direction. Jumping up, she gathered her skirts and raced upstairs.

Jane followed, wringing her hands and watching as Izabel tried one door after another. She finally yielded to the inevitable and opened the door to her bedchamber.

Izabel swept inside and over to the crib that stood in one corner. She clasped its railing and gazed at the child with an expression akin to reverence.

“Yours?” Izabel breathed. She read the truth Jane wasn’t skilled enough to conceal.

Jane waved the day servant away so that she might say what she must. “Tell no one, Aunt. The birth must remain a secret.”

“I understand. An early child.”

Jane disliked having to confirm such suspicions, but to protect her new family and honor her husband’s wishes, she kept her lips firmly sealed.

“A son?” Izabel asked hopefully.

Jane nodded. “Vincent.”

Izabel flicked away the small blanket, uncovering him. Tears filled her eyes. “He’s beautiful.”

For some reason, the sight of the older woman’s hands on her son unsettled her. Jane gathered the bedclothes around him and lifted him from the crib.

“Thank you,” she murmured, tucking him close.

Izabel seemed to come back to herself. “You must bring him to the villa for a celebration of his birth.”

“Soon. When I’m certain the world won’t look upon him and label him a bastard.”

“You’d wait so long? Your father will be anxious to see him.”

A denial that Signore Cova was her father crowded her throat, but Jane held it back. “I doubt he’ll want to see me or my child. He made his opinions quite clear when I last visited.”

“You must make peace immediately,” Izabel urged. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll have him forbidding you to see Emma.”

“No, Aunt. Nick has my promise on this.”

“Can’t you reason with him?”

“Perhaps. But he’s away at the moment.”

A cunning look flashed in Izabel’s eyes, gone before Jane could analyze it. “Where to?”

“I can’t say,” Jane hedged.

“I suppose there are women whose favors may be bought in many locations.”

Jane gasped, hurt by the insinuation. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“His kind are never satisfied with the attentions of one woman. In fact, he came to me recently, and we discussed the possibility of a visit to my bedchamber at a more opportune moment.”

Jane stepped back, her arms clasping her child so tightly he squirmed. “Leave this house.”

Izabel’s expression turned menacing.

“Signore Faunus!” Jane shouted.

They heard his prancing footsteps on the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“I’ll see myself out,” Izabel said. With a last look at the child in Jane’s arms, she swept past Signore Faunus and his tea tray, downstairs, and out of the castle.

From her window, Jane watched Izabel’s hired carriage depart. A flash of bright blue darted from it into the garden, startling her. A face peered up at her from the shrubbery and then ducked away. Emma?

She left Vincent in a servant’s care and hurried downstairs to investigate.

Something stirred in the night, awakening her. Half asleep, Jane rose from her bed, instinctively making for her child’s crib. Her hands fumbled amid the blankets for him, growing panicked when he wasn’t there. Instantly alert, she swept her palms over sheets still warm from Vincent’s small body.

“She’s awake,” said a voice.

Jane whirled around, her eyes quickly locating the figures of two women through the gloom. She’d known Izabel would return but not so soon. And not by dead of night, with others.

“What have you done with Vincent?” Jane demanded.

“Signora Bich has him,” said the other figure—Signora Nesta. “He’s a darling. Barely fussed at all when she stole him. Not colicky like some babes.”

“Signore Faunus!” Jane shouted toward the hall.

“Now, Faunus was a different matter,” tsked Signora Nesta. “Pitched a veritable fit until we knocked him over the head and tied him.”

Jane reeled with the knowledge that her child had been stolen and her guard incapacitated. Until Nick returned tomorrow night, or Raine returned from his travels, only Lyon remained as a distant protector. Nick had bade her to summon him on the slightest pretext of concern, but it was impossible to do that without Signore Faunus or servants available.

A candle was lit, and tension tightened its screw within her. She must find a pretext to draw them into the hall before they saw—

She moved toward the door. “Take me to Vincent. Once I see he is unharmed, we can discuss whatever it is you have come for.”

Izabel snapped her fingers, and Signora Nesta scurried to block the exit.

Thwarted, Jane whipped toward Izabel. “What do you hope to gain by stealing my son?”

“You took something that belongs to me,” said Izabel. “It’s only right that I take something of yours.”

“A fair exchange,” agreed Signora Nesta. “Vincent for Emma.”

“Where is she, by the way?” demanded Izabel. “Emma!”

“Aunt?” Emma sat up in the bed she’d been sharing with Jane. Swallowed in one of Nick’s shirts, she looked younger than her years, defenseless.

“There you are, dear,” said Izabel.

Emma hugged her knees guiltily. “Don’t be angry at Jane. I sneaked a ride here from the villa on the back of your carriage this morning. She didn’t know I was coming.”

“Get up now, there’s a good girl,” Signora Nesta told her, rousting her from the bed.

“I’m not a baby,” said Emma. “Please don’t speak to me as though I am.”

Signora Nesta’s eyes permeated the dimness to study the girlish curves of Emma’s ripening figure. “No, my son will be glad to know you’re growing up quite nicely.”

Emma’s eyes rounded. She dashed to Jane’s side, and Jane tucked an arm around her protectively.

“What does she mean?” Emma whispered.

“You are to marry my son in but three years,” Signora Nesta explained.

“No!” breathed Jane.

“I can choose my own husband if I want one,” cried Emma.

Izabel ignored their outbursts. “Jane was promised to Signore Nesta but married another,” she told Emma. “The family honor rests on you taking your sister’s place.”

“But he’s twice her age! She’s only thirteen,” Jane protested.

Signora Nesta shrugged. “He will keep himself busy with the whores while he waits for her to ripen.”

The door adjoining Nick’s room opened, and all eyes turned to see Signora Ricco step through.

“I don’t find it,” she told Izabel.

Izabel bit off an expletive and then took both her nieces’ arms to drag them toward Nick’s door.

“Show me the hidden chamber,” she said, all but throwing them into his room.

“What?” asked Jane.

Izabel calmly slapped her, leaving a bright red mark on her cheek. “Don’t waste my time with evasions.”

Emma shrieked, rushing at her aunt, but Izabel easily subdued and held her.

“I won’t help you until I have Vincent,” said Jane.

“Your sister will pay for your reluctance.”

Jane had never seen Izabel’s eyes so pitiless. Thinking to buy time, she gestured toward the mirror. “The chamber I assume you seek is behind this mirror, but I don’t know how to open it.”

Signoras Ricco and Nesta hurried to the mirror and began working manicured fingers around its edges, eventually finding the latch. When the mirror opened, Izabel waved them all inside.

Jane balked. “Emma’s too young for such things.”

Izabel smiled cruelly. “Let your sister see what you get up to with that husband of yours. Then we’ll see how eager she is to remain with you.”

Jane tried not to panic as she and Emma found themselves ushered into the secret chamber. She was Emma and Vincent’s only ally here and had to keep her wits.

Izabel and Signora Ricco explored the chamber with euphoric wonder. Jane’s eyes flicked to the entrance. Signora Nesta stood sentry, bodily blocking it.

Emma’s intelligent gaze roved the room curiously. Jane sensed the questions forming on her lips.

“Look away, Emma,” she murmured, pulling her sister close. “This isn’t for young eyes.”

“Let her look,” said Signora Nesta. “I’m sure my son will appreciate any education she receives in this area.”

Izabel and Signora Ricco sniggered as they haphazardly gathered an array of devices into slipcovers they had torn from Nick’s pillows.

“How did you know of this room?” Jane demanded.

Izabel smiled wickedly. “I had your husband’s father in my bed many years ago.”

“I see.”

“The Satyr are so annoyingly closemouthed. But between the sheets, he was quite free with family secrets, thinking no doubt to wash my mind clear of them with a potion he offered me afterward. I took the potion. He insisted. But I tricked him and didn’t drink it. My mind remained clear, and I remember everything I learned that night.”

“And what was that?”

“Don’t pretend ignorance,” said Izabel. “I know how Satyr change when their lust peaks.”

Jane pressed her hands over Emma’s ears, and Emma struggled in annoyance.

“I know the Satyr aren’t Human,” Izabel went on. Her eyes narrowed on Jane. “Just as I know you are not.”

“Later, Izabel,” cautioned one of the other ladies. “Remember our true purpose here tonight.”

Emma shook off Jane’s hands, frowning at her. “I hate when people do that. I’m not a baby to be shielded.”

“I’m sorry. I thought it for the best,” Jane told her.

Izabel moved to the side of the room and lit the candelabra. When she lifted it from its sconce, a door Jane hadn’t known existed swung open, revealing a spiral stair leading downward.

Izabel smirked. “I see by your expression I know more of the workings of the castello than its mistress. Come.”

Holding the light, Izabel took the lead, and the others trailed her. The stair swept them downward, far below the castello. Eventually it ended in a cool, dark crypt. Its walls were lined with double rows of barrels stacked on their sides three high as far as the eye could see.

“It’s cold,” said Emma, her breath making small puffs of fog. “And spooky.”

“Hush, girl,” Signora Nesta chided. “Spooks are spirits of the devil. Never speak of them.”

“There
are
spooks in this castle,” said Emma. “I’ve seen one.”

“Hush, I say, or you’ll get a smack,” said Signora Nesta. “I look forward to the day you’re given over to my son’s care. I’ll see that you’re guided by a firmer hand than you’re used to.”

Intent on her objective, Izabel ignored her friend’s subtle insult. She led them unerringly along the corridor until it eventually opened outside and they entered copse surrounded by a ring of statues.

Emma shivered. “What are all those statues? Where are we?”

Izabel exhaled reverently. “The sacred place.”

Under her feet, Jane saw the grass brighten. Tiny, gray mushroom caps reared their heads. The others would see!

She had little time to register the scene or to worry. A sudden mist descended, obscuring the statues and the landscape they graced. As the fog shifted and swirled, various portions of the stone bodies came and went from view.

“What a ghastly night it’s suddenly become!” groused Signora Nesta.

“Almost as bad as London,” Signora Natoli agreed, appearing from the mist. “My skirts grow damp.”

Izabel laughed, her gaiety echoing eerily along the stones of the glen. “They won’t trouble you for long, cara.”

The others chortled.

In the distance, Jane heard Vincent cry out. A woman’s voice soothed him.

“Vincent!” She darted into the mist, turning in circles and quickly losing her way. “Where are you?”

Another woman stepped from the fog. Signora Bich. Ignoring Jane, she spoke to Izabel. “I’ve given the child a dose so he’ll quieten.”

“Good. There’s nothing worse than the cry of an infant to spoil a mood,” said Signora Nesta.

“Where is he? Take me to him,” Jane demanded, her eyes threatening. She lay a hand on Izabel’s arm, hoping a melding would help her learn his location.