The Lady of Secrets (32 page)

Seraphine, of course, was furious with Meg for vanishing overnight and giving her such a fright. Consequently the countess had haughtily announced that she was no longer speaking to Meg. Which meant that Seraphine had spent the last half-hour alternating between scolding and demanding explanations.

Meg told her all the details of her audience with the king, including the subtle threat made by Lord Salisbury and Meg’s suspicions about Sir Patrick’s true identity. She was more hesitant when it came to relating all that had happened at Armagil’s lodging.

But either Seraphine was far too shrewd or Meg’s blush betrayed her. When Seraphine continued to pelt her with questions, Meg gave in. If Armagil could treat their encounter so cavalierly, then why couldn’t she?

“In the morning, we celebrated Armagil’s recovery by—by—I made love to the man.”

When Seraphine whooped and applauded, Meg tried to smile, but ended up biting down upon her lip instead.

“Oh ’Phine, I shouldn’t have. It was behavior unworthy of the Lady of Faire Isle, far beneath my dignity.”

“Oh, be damned to your dignity. Did you enjoy it? Did the man pleasure you?”

“It is hardly appropriate to discuss … yes, it was wonderful, wild, passionate, just as you predicted Armagil would be.” Meg attempted a careless toss of her head, but couldn’t quite manage it. She added wistfully. “He was also surprisingly tender.”

Seraphine’s grin faded. “Oh, no! I told you to take a lover, not fall in love.”

“I have not.” But her words lacked conviction even to her own ears.

“I warned you, Meg. Keep your heart out of it, keep your secrets to yourself. I hope you at least paid heed to the last part of my advice.”

Meg refolded a petticoat, steadily avoiding Seraphine’s gaze, but she could feel her friend’s eyes boring into her.

“Margaret Wolfe, never tell me that you felt obliged to
pour your heart out to the man about your entire past, your lunatic mother, your childhood as the Silver Rose.”

“All right. I won’t tell you.”

Seraphine groaned. “Oh, Meg, whatever is to be done with you?”

“I am sorry, ’Phine. I cannot sort myself like a woman dividing up her clothing into trunks, my mind in this one, my body in that one, my heart locked away over here. I am not fashioned that way, and for all you pretend to be so hard, neither are you. Have you ever taken any other lover beside your husband?”

“It is the way among the nobility, once one has provided one’s husband an heir, one is free to—”

“I do not care what one does—what about you?”

Seraphine started to shrug, but faltered beneath Meg’s steady gaze. “No,” she admitted softly, “there has never been any man but Gerard.”

“And there never will be. My heart is searching for the same thing you had with your husband, one man to love, to be true to forever.”

“You believe you may have found that with Blackwood?”

“No. He reacted as any sane man would to the revelations about my past, angry, alarmed, and revolted. I cannot blame him, although somehow I thought Armagil might have been different.” She sighed. “Perhaps I am not meant to find love.”

“Oh, Meg.” Seraphine hugged her fiercely, but Meg wriggled out of her embrace.

“We need to finish our packing,” Meg said dully.

The servant that Seraphine had engaged arrived to move their trunks downstairs. All of Sir Patrick’s household had made themselves scarce, no doubt as fearful of having such a witch in their midst as their master.

But Meg refused to leave without seeing Sir Patrick. She tracked him down to his study and entered the room unbidden, catching him by surprise.

He was examining a lock of hair, his face naked with grief. But upon Meg’s entrance, he shoved the hair back inside a locket, concealing both the memento and any emotion. He faced Meg, his features schooled into a mask of stony politeness.

“We are leaving,” she said. “But it is customary to thank one’s host for his hospitality.”

He dismissed her words with a curt wave of his hand. “No thanks are necessary. You performed a vital service and it is I who am in your debt.”

“I helped Armagil for his own sake and mine. You owe me nothing.”

“I was not referring to Armagil, although if you did indeed save his life, I am grateful. I meant what you did for the king.”

“Again, I did not do that for you.” Meg regarded him steadily. “I do not even believe you truly wanted him spared the terror of being cursed. If you did, I fear it is because you have plans of your own regarding the king’s fate.”

He averted his face, the color rising in his cheeks. “So you admit it. You have used your witch’s tricks on me. You are privy to my thoughts.”

“Only enough to perceive that you are a man in a great deal of pain. But this vengeance you are pursuing will bring you no peace or comfort.”

His mouth twisted bitterly. “Won’t it?”

“No, it will only end up costing you your life and perhaps even your soul.”

“There are some causes worth forfeiting everything for.”

Meg reached out to touch his locket. “Do you think she would agree? Is that what she would want for you?”

“Don’t speak of her to me. Don’t you even dare breathe her name. You know nothing about— Just stay out of my head, witch!”

He wrenched the locket away from her, trembling with anger. He strode away to the windows, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He did not face her again until he had regained control.

“You obliged me by coming to London and attending to the king. I am grateful for that. I did promise you safe conduct and I will make arrangements to send you back to Faire Isle.”

“That is kind of you, but I am not going back, at least not until I have found what I came looking for.”

“And what might that be?”

“The truth, Sir Patrick.”

“S
TOP THIEF!”

The angry bellow sounded in Amy’s ears. Heart thudding, she shoved her way past a drayman and a lanky shopkeeper closing up a storefront. At this late hour of afternoon, there was no longer much of a crowd for her to lose herself among.

Her only advantage was that she knew this part of the city well and her pursuer was a fat merchant who should have been easy prey if she had not been so clumsy when cutting his purse.

He huffed after her. She could have eluded him easily if he had not roused others to his pursuit, a pair of bored young apprentices who were clearly enjoying the diversion of the chase.

Feeling like a terrified hare with a pack of excited hounds nipping at her heels, she darted around a wagon that was
unloading merchandise at a tavern. She knocked over a few of the crates. That slowed her pursuers a little, but not enough.

She’d be taken soon if she did not find someplace to hide. Amy forced herself to run faster even though her lungs felt close to bursting. Her gaze flicking from side to side, she spotted the opening to a narrow alley and shot down it.

Pain blossomed in her side and her footsteps faltered. She could not keep up this pace any longer. In sheer desperation, she crouched down behind a rain barrel and shoved her fist in her mouth to stifle her labored breathing.

She felt the hard knock of her heart against her rib cage and feared it might be loud enough to betray her. She listened, straining to catch the sound of her pursuers. She thought she heard footsteps hesitate at the mouth of the alley.

Amy tensed, trying so hard to hold herself still that she trembled. She caught snippets of her pursuers’ conversation.

“… thought she came this way … maybe doubled back and dashed into that tavern … no, sure she headed into the alley.”

Amy suppressed a whimper of fear and panic. The moment seemed to stretch into hours before the voices faded away along with the footsteps. Perhaps the apprentices found the prospect of searching for her in the tavern far more enticing or decided the pursuit was not worth it, not if it led them down this foul alley stinking of urine and emptied slop basins.

Whatever the reason for her salvation, Amy gulped with relief and gratitude. She waited for another ten minutes to pass before she dared remove her hand from her mouth and resume her normal breathing. Her hands still shook as she
examined her prize. The velvet purse had looked promising enough dangling from the obese merchant’s belt. But when she undid the drawstring and emptied the contents into a palm, she blinked with outrage and disappointment.

Pence! Just a few miserable pence. This was all she had risked her neck for?

“That fat miserly bastard!” she hissed. She was so disgusted, she nearly hurled the coins down the alley. But she was in no position to scorn even this pittance. She returned the coins to the purse and slumped down with a mewl of despair.

The devil only knew what sort of filth she was sitting in, staining her cloak. Amy was far too dispirited to care. Nothing had gone right for her since yesterday morning when Blackwood had ruined their test by making off with the silver rose.

She had taken some consolation from the thought of the wretched doctor dying in agony, but even the satisfaction of that had worn off with Bea carping at Amy for her failure and incompetence. Her sister had complained relentlessly about what an idiot Amy was and how they were going to have to brew the poison all over again and the ingredients were so expensive and how they were running out of coin and time.

Amy had hoped the coin from the merchant would solve that problem and the purse itself she had planned to stuff into Bea’s mouth and put an end to her cruel taunts. But it seemed she had blundered again, hazarding her life for nothing and leaving herself open to more of her sister’s mockery.

Amy leaned her head back against the wall of the tenement building and sighed. She should have known better
than to try to steal anything when her mind was in such a state of turmoil. Hadn’t her grandmother always warned her about that?

“Never try to pick a pocket or cast a spell when you are distressed or angry, Amy, my pet. It can only lead to failure.”

Perhaps that is why the curse that Granddam had inflicted upon James Stuart had never come to pass. Granddam had certainly not been in a calm frame of mind when she had cursed the king, not with the flames licking at her legs, blackening her skin and all.

Years had passed since that dreadful day when Amy had watched her grandmother being burned alive. Yet she still remembered it, still missed Granddam with a terrible ache as though it had happened but yesterday.

Tears filled Amy’s eyes and she blinked them back. “Never mind, Granddam,” she whispered. “You shall be avenged. Bea and I shall see to it, and then every dream, every wish you ever had for our coven shall come true, I promise you.”

The thought heartened Amy and she struggled to her feet. She crept down the alley and stole a cautious look around before emerging. There was no sign of the merchant or those nasty apprentices. The street was even emptier than before, the shop fronts closed up, most everyone having scampered off home to their suppers.

Amy knew she should make haste, too, with the light fading. The watch would be out soon to enforce the curfew. But the prospect of returning to her lodging held little appeal for her, not with Bea awaiting there in her foul mood.

But if she lingered for a bit, Bea would go out soon, heading down to the wharves to earn some coin by spreading her legs for some of the sailors and dockworkers. Of course Amy
would have to endure listening to Bea gloat about how much better she was at whoring than Amy was at being a thief. But that was tomorrow. At least Amy might enjoy some of her evening in peace.

She wandered aimlessly until she found herself in the environs of Sir Patrick Graham’s house and realized she had flitted there like a moth drawn to the light.

The place was no palace, but with its small tidy garden and smoke curling from the chimneys, it represented all that was snug, safe, and comfortable to Amy. The air had turned much colder with the sun setting. Amy shivered and pulled her cloak tighter as she crept into the garden.

She was relieved to find it empty. If one of Sir Patrick’s servants caught her prowling about, she would be hard-pressed to explain what she was doing here. She hardly knew herself; hoping for a glimpse of Megaera perhaps.

Bea might go on and on about the need to make certain the Lady of Faire Isle and Megaera were one and the same before approaching her, but Amy was convinced that she was. Whenever Amy gazed upon Margaret Wolfe, she just
sensed
it.

That was because Amy was a fool who stubbornly believed whatever she wanted to believe, Bea would say. No doubt Amy was still credulous enough to go hunting for faeries beneath the bushes, she’d sneer. But that would have been quite stupid.

No faery would choose to dwell anywhere in this hard, cold, crowded city. They would live in the wilds of the country where there were thick copses of trees and rugged hills where one could clamber to the top and feel free and breathe.

Amy meant to live there herself one day if their plans succeeded.
That is—
when
their plans succeeded and the ritual was complete and Megaera fulfilled all their dreams as Granddam had always sworn the great sorceress could.

Amy would live on the grandest estate, wear the most beautiful silken clothes and bedazzling jewels. She would be quite the lady of the manor and maybe she would have a lord …

Amy tipped back her head, gazing toward the upper story windows. No candles had been lit as yet, so she could detect no movement.

She inched her way closer hoping for a sight of— She was honest enough to admit to herself it was not Megaera she hoped to espy but
him.

What if Sir Patrick was in his bedchamber, preparing to change his garb or stripping down for a bath? It would be so lovely to see him naked. Amy licked her lips and felt a squirming of sensation between her legs.

She was sure he would be quite beautiful, all smooth white skin, all lean hard muscles, and with such an impressively large cock, Bea would bitterly envy Amy her possession of him.

She had declared to Bea that she meant to have him for her pet, but Amy hungered for so much more than that. Even if she had to keep him in chains, she wanted Sir Patrick to adore her. So much so that even if she offered to set him free, he would beg her not to do so.