The girl laughed. “Ye could say that.” Then she stopped so quickly Sorcha, walking and gawking at yet another painting, almost ran her over. “Have ye done this before?”
“Eaten?” Surprise sent Sorcha’s tone into a more feminine register. Lowering it again, she asked, “What do you mean? Of course I’ve eaten.”
“Hmmm.” The girl ran her gaze over Sorcha. In a voice laden with suspicion, she asked, “Who sent ye?”
“MacMurtrae the horse trader.”
“Are ye sure it wasn’t the constable?”
“No.” The constable? Why would Eveleen think it had been the constable? “It was MacMurtrae. I just sold him two horses. Well, a horse and a pony.” Sorcha couldn’t resist bragging, “I got more than he wanted to give.”
Picking up Sorcha’s hand, Eveleen examined it. A sudden, gamine grin blossomed on her lovely face, and she folded the fingers into Sorcha’s palm. “This is too guid. Madam will never forgive me if I dunna include her in the jest.”
This place just got odder and odder. “What jest?”
Walking back to the big double doors, Eveleen knocked.
A low, cultured contralto voice called, “Come in.”
Opening the doors with a flourish, Eveleen gestured Sorcha inside.
The small parlor was decorated in aqua and furnished with tastefully feminine furniture. Potted flowers grew and bloomed in massive porcelain vases. Heavy drapes covered the windows, and candles lit the room. Their dancing flames illuminated the face of the extraordinary woman—an immense woman in height and breadth, dressed in a loose flowing robe and an all-encompassing, paint-splotched apron that emphasized her tremendous proportions. Her chins stairstepped from her chest to her face with nary a glimpse of her neck. Her jaw was square, her mouth a tiny red rosebud. Her nose was an indeterminate blob, but her eyes... her wise brown eyes reminded Sorcha of Mother Brigette.
The lady stood before an easel, holding a small brush laden with scarlet paint, and the acrid odor of mineral spirits mixed with the scent of flowers.
Posed against a background created by blue velvet stood a young woman of perhaps twenty-five, clad in nothing more than a flower over one ear and a sheet tied at one hip. She stood in silhouette, her blond hair rippling down her back, her arms outstretched to capture some unseen treasure.
Sorcha’s jaw dropped. She knew her grandmother would tell her that princesses were never nonplussed, but color climbed in her cheeks and she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the extraordinary scene.
Tear her gaze away? She couldn’t even blink.
“This is Madam Pinchon.” Eveleen shut the door behind her and leaned against it. “Madam, this youth”—she winked at Madam Pinchon—“came t’ the back door asking for something t’ eat.”
“Did he indeed?” Madam was the owner of the contralto voice—and, from the work on the canvas, also the artist of the paintings in the corridor. The canvas showed a pale nymph, surrounded the blue shadows of trees, reaching for a silver moon.
Enthusiasm swept away Sorcha’s awkwardness. “You’re a marvelous talent. But you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“Nevertheless, I appreciate the compliment.” Madam extended a hand.
Sorcha took it and noted the short fingers, the broad palm, and spatulate fingernails with pigment under the cuticles. “Salt of the earth,” she whispered under her breath.
Madam laughed, a full, hearty laugh. “Exactly.”
“Madam has the sharpest ears in Scotland, so be careful what ye say,” Eveleen advised.
The girl with the upraised arms spoke. “She knows more than any of us care t’ have revealed. But she is most discreet about disclosing it.”
“You, on the other hand, are not at all discreet about my secrets,” scolded Madam. “I prefer my victims unaware.”
“Victim?” Sorcha tried to take a step back, but Madam still held her hand.
“It’s simply an expression.” Madam released her. “I would never hurt you.”
Sorcha believed her. With her voice, her size, her presence, it was impossible not to. But she also realized—this was not an inn.
She just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
The posing girl shifted uncomfortably. “Please, Madam, can I put my arms doon now?”
“We’re done for today.” Madam cleaned the brush with mineral spirits. When the girl started to walk across the room, seemingly unconscious of her nudity, Madam said, “Helen, clothe yourself. There’s no need to discomfit our young client.”
Helen stopped and blinked at Madam. “Ye think I’m going t’ discomfit this youth? Because all the fellows I know would gladly pay t’ see me—” Helen focused on Sorcha. Her green eyes grew wide and astonished, and she said, “Oh!”
“Yes.” Madam washed her hands in the basin beside her brushes. “Oh.”
Sorcha looked down at herself. Had she forgotten to button something? Then she caught Helen exchanging a smile with Eveleen. They seemed to speak without words, and in a way, this place reminded Sorcha of the convent.
Yet it wasn’t a convent.
“Young man, sit.” Madam lowered herself into a large armchair and waved Sorcha to the one opposite. When Sorcha had obeyed, she asked, “Do you believe in the art of palmistry—that is, of reading your fortune in your hand?”
“It’s nonsense,” Sorcha said firmly. Then she wavered. “But I have an immense curiosity about my future.”
“Then you’re in luck.” Madam lifted one plump finger. “I’m a gypsy. What I see is not nonsense, and if you cross my palm with silver I can read your fortune. Have you any silver?”
“Yes, I have a lot of silver.” Sorcha couldn’t resist. She had to brag again. “I made a wonderful sale of two horses—not horses, really, but a pony and a horse—”
Madam waved her to a stop. “First—tell no one, no one at all, when you possess a wealth of silver. You never know who can hear you, and you put your life at stake. And second—all it takes for me to read your palm is one small coin. Do you have a small coin?”
Abashed, Sorcha sorted through the heavy pouch at her belt, brought out the smallest coin she could find, and handed it to Madam. “You remind me of Mother Brigette.”
“Mother Brigette?” Madam placed the coin on the polished table beside her. “The mother superior of the convent at Monnmouth?”
Eveleen gave a snort, then covered her mouth with her hand.
Helen giggled and carried a candelabra over to place on the table beside them.
Madame’s small eyes were alive with clever amusement.
Their glee hurt Sorcha’s feelings and put her on edge. “Do you know Mother Brigette?”
“Yes.” Madam’s laughter died. “A woman of kindness and charity. She suffered much tragedy in the loss of her family.”
Sorcha’s wariness faded. Mother Brigette had made it clear few people knew of her misfortune. That Madam did meant somehow, sometime their paths had crossed. For Mother Brigette to confide in Madam meant Mother Brigette had respect for the huge lady, and that knowledge made Sorcha comfortable enough to place her hand in the cup of Madam’s.
Madam turned it over, looked at the fingernails, then outlined the shape of Sorcha’s palm. “Danger hems you all around.”
Sorcha blinked in astonishment. “Yes!”
“But you miraculously survive. That’s because—look at the stubbornness in this hand!”
Madam wasn’t right about that. “I’m not stubborn. I’m most amenable.”
“That’s what you think you are, not what you are. The last years have changed you and fired the metal in your soul.” Madam smiled as if well pleased. “You refuse to submit to death no matter how closely it presses you.” Then she started. She turned Sorcha’s hand toward the light of the candles. She paled.
“What is it, Madam?” Helen leaned close. “What do you see?”
Sorcha looked from one woman to the other in alarm.
“Your fingertips... they show the signs... y
ou have touched death!” Madam stared at her. “When? When were you ill? When were you hurt? Your palm shows no sign of that!”
“I’m never ill and I’ve never been hurt. Not seriously.” Ridiculous that Madam should believe such a thing. Yet...
She was buried alive.
And she didn’t care. Somewhere close, water seeped into a pool, and the slow drip which had once driven her mad now contributed to her indifference. Her world was sorrow and loneliness. She was dying, and she welcomed the end of desolation, of grief, of anguish.
Her fingertips touched the skeletal hand of Death...
That dream. The dream that had brought her out of a sound sleep and haunted her ever since.
“Then you went with another to the threshold of heaven—or hell.”
Madam’s eyes stared hypnotically into Sorcha’s, trying to force her to acknowledge something Sorcha didn’t want to talk about. Didn’t want to remember. “No. I didn’t.”
“Did you bring him back?” Madam whispered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you don’t, either!” Sorcha closed her hand into a fist.
Eveleen and Helen gasped and looked warily at Madam.
So people didn’t usually speak so bluntly to Madam. But Madam shouldn’t be insisting when Sorcha wanted her to stop.
Madam straightened. “What temper!”
Sorcha took a calming breath. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“No, I meant here.” As if nothing awkward had happened, Madam opened Sorcha’s hand and pointed to the pad under her little finger. “You have a terrible temper.”
“I don’t have a temper.” Madam must be reading the wrong hand. “I am most affable. Everyone says so.”
Madam traced a line that bit deep across Sorcha’s thumb. “You are too quick to judge.”
“That’s not true, either. I think things through.”
“You’ve never been tested,” Madam answered firmly. Fixing Sorcha with a stern gaze, she said, “Remember, it is you who, at the crossroads, chooses your path. You cannot see clearly if the red mist is before your eyes. Wait until it dissipates, then make your decision and speak your mind.”
“I’m almost too meek. Everyone says so.” Sorcha added the ultimate argument. “Grandmamma says so!”
Madam paid no heed to her contention. “You have a great work ahead of you in your land, but first you must struggle through the challenges.”
That was true, anyway.
“Put your faith in God, and your hand in the grasp of the one who loves you. You already know the one.”
“You mean a man? You see a man?” Sorcha searched her own palm, trying to spy this man of whom Madam spoke. All she saw were calluses from the hoe and shovel, and lines crisscrossing the pale, dry skin. There was no man. The only man she knew was Arnou and he didn’t love her. At least... he’d never indicated that he loved her.
“Take that hand. Then you will have great happiness. Great happiness!” Madam squeezed Sorcha’s hand.
And Sorcha couldn’t take Arnou’s hand, not in the way Madam meant. He was a fisherman from Normandy. She was a princess.
“You’ll want to hurt him, but don’t. Teach him. He’s been hurt enough.” As Madam moved Sorcha’s fingers and watched the changes in her palm, she shook her head as if she pitied this mythical man.
Oh, why was Sorcha even contemplating this? Obviously, palm-reading was absurdity at its finest. Again she pulled away.
Madam let her go. What Sorcha had assumed was a parlor game was now a celestial outline, and no matter how absurd Sorcha thought it was, Madam’s small, dark eyes were completely earnest.
The other women must have seen the doubt in Sorcha’s face, for Eveleen advised, “Ye should listen t’ Madam. It’s scary the way she’s right.”
“It’s true,” Helen added.
“But she can’t be right this time,” Sorcha said. “What she said just isn’t true.”
Madam smiled as if she weren’t at all offended. “In the end, we’ll see who is right.”
“Besides,” Helen said with sly amusement, “I’ll wager she knows something about ye that ye never imagined.”
“No one here’s going t’ take that wager.” Eveleen smiled.
Madam chuckled, a warm, deep laugh that made her whole body jiggle.
Sorcha looked from one to the other. “You’re laughing at me again and I don’t know why.”
“If I tell you your deepest secret, will you believe what I read in your hand?” Madam asked.
Madam knew her deepest secret? Sorcha pulled the collar of her cloak closer around her throat, lowered her voice, and said, “Sure.”
Leaning forward, Madame touched Sorcha’s cheek. “The clothes are a poor disguise for your beauty, Your Highness.”
“How did you... ?” Sorcha jumped. She stared at her palm. She saw no crown, no throne, no marking that signified her gender or her royalty. She thrust her hand at Madam. “Did you see that here?”
“We know a lot aboot the difference between men and women,” Helen said. “Eveleen guessed ye were a lass. So did I.”
Sorcha wore a boy’s clothes. She had deepened her voice. Apparently that wasn’t enough. “All right, you saw through my disguise. But why would you call me Your Highness?”
Eveleen sat in a chair.
Helen perched on the arm.
“Less than a fortnight ago, a man came to us. He had money. He had a good horse that ran like the wind. He was ugly as the devil, and he wore black. All black.”
Sorcha took a startled breath. “The man who... ”
“Tried to kill you?” Madam finished for her.
“How did you know?” Now Sorcha believed in Madam’s prognostications. How could she not? Madam was telling her her deepest secrets.
“He drank deep,” Helen said, “and he confided in me that he was an assassin sent to murder the princess of Beaumontagne. I urged him to tell me more.” Helen’s eyelids drooped in sultry invitation. “He said he was one of many men who were offered a reward to kill this princess who lived in a convent. He said a prince had been sent to bring you home, and that all he had to do was follow him, slaughter you, take your necklace as proof of his deed. He said he was the only one who’d taken to the road, that the rest of the shiftless assassins were waiting on the way to Edinburgh or in the city itself. He said he’d catch you for sure and he’d have twice as much money as before.”
“The assassin found me.” Sorcha wet her lips. “The prince did not.”
“But you survived the assassin,” Eveleen said.
“Yes.”
“Good for you,” Helen said. “He was a braggart and lousy in—”
Madam cleared her throat.
Helen snapped her mouth closed.
“We all have secrets here.” Madam leaned back and folded her arms across her ample belly. “So, Your Highness, it is your turn. I’ll give you a clue—this isn’t a convent. Guess our deepest secret.”
Sorcha heard the babble of women’s voice as they passed outside the doors. The aqua in this room was flattering to Helen, to Eveleen, even to Madam, and probably to herself. The gold candelabra showcased the candles, and the soft brilliance they cast highlighted each seat so deliberately she detected a master hand at work. A love seat, the couch, and the chair were upholstered in dainty needlework, and the wood trim was a light oak, airy and open. The room was a gem in itself, and filled with lovely women, it would be a showcase.
Realization dawned. “You’re... ladies of the night. And this... this is a house of ill repute!”
“The best house in Glenmoore,” Eveleen said.
“The only house in Glenmoore,” Helen added.
Sorcha couldn’t believe her good luck. No woman she’d ever met had had the fortune of meeting a prostitute. She’d wager not even Grandmamma had visited a bawdyhouse and here Sorcha was, in the middle of the parlor with Glenmoore’s finest! “I asked that horse trader out there where
I could eat.”
Eveleen and Helen collapsed in an entwined heap of merriment.
“That MacMurtrae.” Madam smiled. “He’s a sly one.”
“Aye, ye can eat here,” Eveleen said, “but ye can’t eat here, if ye know what I mean.”
Wide-eyed, Sorcha shook her head.
“Aye.” Helen pushed at Eveleen’s shoulder. “She’s got virgin written all over her.”
“That she does,” Madam said.
Sorcha wanted to ask questions, to unearth all the mysteries about men and women, to be the smartest, most savvy princess in all of Europe. One question covered it all, and it burbled from her lips. “What do you do with men?”
Madam laughed out loud, something Sorcha thought happened but rarely. “The answer could take mere minutes or long days.” To her girls, she said, “Take her down to the kitchen and feed her. She’s hungry.”
Someone knocked loudly and insistently at the outer door.
Madam used her hands to heft herself to her feet. “I’ll go see who seeks to disturb our peace.”
The girls took Sorcha’s arms and led her toward the door. “We’ll get ye a meal, and ye can tell us what ye do know about men.”
“Thank heavens! I’m starving.” But Sorcha had to tell Madam one thing. One very important piece of information. Turning back, she said, “My name is Sorcha.”
Madam’s eyelids drooped over her wise old eyes. She murmured, “Sorcha.”
Sorcha knew her name was carved in the stone of Madam’s mind, and if something happened to her in this bleak land, if one of the assassins succeeded, Madam Pinchon would know who to tell, and what to put on her lonely tomb.
Chapter 11
Rainger pounded on the small, inconspicuous door with the knuckles he’d used to knock the information and the smug laughter right out of MacMurtrae.
The horse trader had sent Sorcha to a whorehouse. A whorehouse! She’d been in there for a half hour while he’d been searching for her, and she hadn’t come out—he’d knocked that information out of MacMurtrae, too. Dear God, what was she doing in there? What were they doing to her? He had visions of Sorcha saying things that would make the prostitutes laugh at her. Seeing things that would shock and dismay her. Doing things out of ignorance, things that would confuse her and destroy her innocence. If someone didn’t open this door soon, he was going to kick it down.
The Prince Kidnaps a Bride Page 9