Were the guardsmen coming? She listened, holding the candle in her fist. She heard nothing.
There was a stain on her coverlet. Her heartbeat doubled as she held the candle over the wet spot and saw its milky sheen. It was his seed. His seed! The maids would see this when they washed the bedclothes! They would know!
No. No. She had to calm down. It was just one spot. She looked for others and found none. She started to clean it with the edge of her nightgown but then froze at the thought of the maids finding his seed on her nightgown and on her bloomers too.
Should she say that he had raped her?
No, she could not say that. Sorceresses were not raped. No one would believe that Nicolas had raped her once they learned she was a sorceress. Once everyone knew, they would think she had spellbound him.
All those times she had thought she was praying, she had been casting spells. When she had silently begged the heretic mob in the city to let them pass by, God had not answered her prayer. She had been casting a spell!
She had to clean this up. Still clutching the candle, she went to the tipi plant near the chamber pot and started ripping off leaves, swiping them over the coverlet, then against and between her thighs. She pulled more leaves, and more, and suddenly realized that she had used over half of them and the plant looked very bare now. She would have to hope that no one noticed. She stuffed the leaves into the chamber pot. It was full, and again she would have to hope that no one noticed. She was leaving clues all over the room but there was nothing she could do about it. It should be easier to cover her tracks now that she was a sorceress, not harder.
The coverlet was still stained. She felt wet seed on her bloomers. The candle dripped wax on her hand, and she yelped and dropped it. The candle snuffed out, and pale wax spilled across the coverlet. She stared at it, then carefully spilled more wax over the stain. She dripped more wax from more candles into her lap, onto the nightgown and even, with gritted teeth, one of her legs. He startled me. He scared me. I was carrying a candle and the wax got all over me.
There were no sounds from the garden. The dogs had calmed down and the guardsmen had not investigated further. She was mostly relieved, but partly angry that they had not done their duty. The rest of the house was quiet. Mistress Florain apparently still waited downstairs for Pamela. The servants apparently still slept. As far as anyone else was concerned, nothing had happened.
She did not know what to do now. Should she run downstairs breathlessly and tell Mistress Florain that Nicolas had come to her window? Should she wait until someone found Nicolas, and pretend to be still in shock when Mistress Florain came to tell her? Should she tell everyone then that she was the sorceress?
Would the sorcerer come here? Had he felt her power? Did he know what she had done? Had he known what she had done every single time she had used her power? Could he feel it, as some people said? Or would she have to tell him who she really was? Or were the tales wrong, and she was not the only one? Did Lord Natayl have to choose her? Did he have to agree to make her his successor? If he did, would he? Did she dare tell anyone about her power before Lord Natayl said so?
She heard the creak of wheels and the clop of hooves, and she froze. Was a carriage passing on the street or was Pamela coming home? Or was her father coming home? She listened, absolutely still, for fear that the slightest sound she made would keep her from hearing, and knowing. The carriage sounds faded, but then briefly grew louder before stopping. A moment later Tabitha clearly heard Pamela’s voice, then Lord Daniel’s, carrying around the mansion from the stable yard, calling out to bid the driver good night.
I will wait. When Pamela and Mistress Florain get to the sitting room, I will come out and tell them. I will tell them Nicolas fell.
It took so long for Pamela and Mistress Florain to get up the stairs. Tabitha rehearsed her story, and she found herself pressing her hands over her heart to try to slow its pounding. It was Alain all over again. She could not let a single hint of the truth be seen on her face, or in her voice, or through her manner. When she heard the sitting room door open, she took several deep breaths. She could do this. She had done it before. No one had ever guessed she had been with Alain. And this performance would be easier, because she did not have to pretend to be calm.
She opened the door and winced at the brightness of the oil lamp that Mistress Florain was lighting from her candle. Pamela saw her and smiled happily while she pulled off her gloves. “Tabitha! You are still awake!—Or did we wake you? Forgive me!” She dropped the gloves and started toward Tabitha with a profusion of apologies.
“No—no, I was awake.” She let her voice tremble. “He was here. He was in my chamber.”
Pamela stopped and stared. “Who?”
“Lord Bayard.”
Mistress Florain was now staring at her as well, and Tabitha gestured back at her door. “The window. He came in the window.”
“Did he hurt you?” the governess demanded. She hurried to Tabitha, placed her hands on her shoulders, and looked down from her great height. “Did he?”
“No. No. He fell.” She gestured helplessly back at the door again.
“Show me, dear.”
Tabitha led them to her bedchamber window. “I think he jumped.” Shaky voice. Shaky voice. “Or he fell.”
“He jumped when you screamed?” Pamela asked Tabitha as Mistress Florain opened the window and looked out.
“I … no … I did not scream, I, I told him to go …”
“You did not scream? Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Tabitha whispered, as if she could barely speak.
Mistress Florain gasped, and she leaned further over the casement. “My God.”
Pamela tried to look out the window, but Mistress Florain closed and latched it, her eyes huge with shock. “I have to tell the steward,” she murmured as she rushed out the door.
“What happened?” Pamela demanded, and when Tabitha only stared at her, she flounced to the window in a rustle of pink skirts and unlatched it again. She leaned over the casement much too far. “I don’t see anything.”
“He fell,” Tabitha repeated.
“Is he still down there?” Pamela asked. Then she turned around to look at Tabitha again. “My God. Is he dead?”
“I …”
“My God!” Pamela came over to Tabitha and put her arm around her. “Oh, Tabitha. Here, come over here, sit down.” She guided Tabitha to the settee. “Tea. You need tea. Where—oh, Lise, you are awake, hurry. We need you to run downstairs and get some hot tea for Lady Tabitha. Hurry. She has had a dreadful shock.” She got up and grabbed a blanket from the other chair, then draped it around Tabitha’s shoulders. “Are you sure he did not hurt you?”
“He never touched me,” Tabitha said faintly. She could still feel where he had been.
“Good. But why would he ever think you would—that you—oh!” Outrage was a strange emotion to see on cheerful Pamela, and at any other time Tabitha would have teased her about it. “The nerve of him! The—the nerve!”
Lise brought the tea just as Pamela noticed the candle wax on Tabitha’s nightgown. She woke more servants, who brought warm compresses to get the wax off Tabitha’s skin and a fresh set of nightclothes for her to put on. Tabitha shakily told them about the candle wax on the coverlet, and Pamela told them to bundle it all up and get fresh bedding. Tabitha sipped at her tea while the servants moved all around her, with Pamela directing them, incapable of sitting still, denouncing lords who treated fine ladies like common streetwalkers. At last Lise convinced her to change out of her evening gown and have some tea herself, and she settled into the large chair with her legs tucked under her and her cheeks puffed into a scowl.
When the servants had left with the wax-splattered fabric, Pamela said abruptly, “I am very lucky, I think.”
Tabitha looked at her and only just remembered not to raise an eyebrow or say anything teasing. “Lucky?”
“Lord Daniel is nothing like Lord Bayard or Sir
Alain or any of these other men. He has always been a perfect gentleman to me. Always. Other men think they can do anything! Jenevive’s horrible husband. The king always trying to get his hands on you. Lord Othot always staring at us as if he can see through our clothes. Sir Alain dragging some poor girl up to the attic. Lord Nicolas coming here thinking he could seduce you! We are all just things to them!”
Tabitha did not answer. She knew she had allowed Nicolas to treat her like a “thing”.
“But not Daniel. And not Andre either. They are better than that.” She looked up from her tea. “And your father the duke, of course. You deserve a husband like one of them.”
Tabitha nodded. She would never have a husband at all.
Pamela sighed, puffing out her cheeks and deflating them. “It will be the same as before. The same as the scandal with Sir Alain. People still ask me about what happened then. After this they will never stop asking about it. Or about this. Another man dead. It’s just so horrible.” She fell into brooding silence, and Tabitha did not break it.
When Mistress Florain finally returned to the sitting room, Pamela had fallen asleep in the chair. Lise had returned, but Tabitha had sent her away. Mistress Florain looked as haggard as Mistress Sabine had the day Alain had been found. “How are you feeling, dear?” she asked Tabitha, sitting next to her on the settee and putting her arm around her.
Tabitha shook her head. Mistress Florain sighed. “I told the steward. The walkway, down there in the garden, is being cleaned right now. Lord Bayard … he is being taken to Saint Edouard’s cloister, to the chapel there.”
Tabitha nodded. Saint Edouard’s was just down the street. It was where the household went to services. When they went to services tonight, Nicolas would be lying across the well before the altar. Just like Alain after she had killed him.
Mistress Florain was still talking. “… sent a messenger to your father the duke. I expect he will be here soon. He will want to speak to you. Do you feel like you can do that?”
“Yes,” Tabitha said, but slowly. “I can always speak to my father.”
“Good girl.” She squeezed Tabitha’s shoulders. “A terrible thing. A terrible, tragic thing.”
While Mistress Florain was helping Pamela get to bed, Lise came back to the sitting room and curtseyed. “M’lady, your father the duke requires your presence in his study.”
Tabitha nodded and followed Lise down the corridor to the other end of the house. Her father, still wearing formal evening clothes, was pacing the floor in front of the cold fireplace, and a rack of candles burned on the counting-table. One of the dogs on the rug by the door whimpered as Tabitha passed.
How could she have missed it? The dogs were all afraid of her. It was not mutual dislike, it was that the dogs could sense her power. All except the puppy, who had been too little.
Tabitha sat down in the chair in front of the counting-table, and Lise shut the door behind her as she left. The duke stopped pacing and looked at Tabitha. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Father.”
“He did not hurt you?”
“He did not touch me, Father.”
Her father sat down. “Tell me what happened.”
Tabitha remembered exactly what little she had said to Mistress Florain and Pamela, and now it was time to flesh it out. “I was asleep. I woke up all at once.” She took a deep breath. “At first I did not know what had awakened me. Then I saw that the window was open and he—he was climbing through. Into my bedchamber. I was frozen. I did not know what to do. Pamela, when I told her, she asked me why I did not scream, but I don’t know. I still don’t know. I whispered, what are you doing?” She stared determinedly at her hands, clenched together in her lap. “It took me a moment, but then I knew why he was there. I said, no, go, get out of here, what if someone catches you here? I—I was afraid. Not of him. I never thought he would hurt me. I was afraid that Mistress Florain would come in and that she would, that you would think that I had, that I had been flirting too much and encouraging him.” She bit her lip.
“Were you?” her father asked. She could not tell by his tone what he thought.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head in despair. “I don’t know. I told him to go, just go before Mistress Florain came in.” This was the part of the story where she had to be the most careful. This was the part that had to suddenly make sense once her father learned she was the sorceress. She took another deep breath. “He, he sat on the casement, with one leg out, then he turned around and asked me if I was sure. I whispered as hard as I could, yes, I was sure, go! I just wanted him to leave! Then he was gone, like he had jumped, or fallen. I was frozen. Then I went to the window and looked out, but I did not see him anywhere. I closed the window, but I could not sleep, and then when I heard Pamela and Mistress Florain in the other room, I came out to tell them what happened. Mistress Florain looked out the window and she saw. She saw him. She told the steward.” She covered her face with her hands and shook her head. “He is dead. I can’t believe he is dead.”
“It is not your fault.” Her father waited, but she could not answer. “Tabitha. Look at me.”
He believes me. Was it because she was his daughter, or because she was a sorceress? Hesitantly, she lifted her eyes. The expression on his jowly, bearded face was even more intent than usual.
“It is not your fault,” he repeated. “You need to believe that.”
“Yes, Father.”
He nodded. “I need to go to the palace and tell the king what has happened.”
She could not even imagine what the king would think when he heard that Nicolas had climbed up to her bedchamber. Would he be angry or would he laugh? “Yes, Father.”
“I will send a messenger to the Bayard family.”
“Yes, Father.” Did they owe the Bayard family a blood price for Nicolas? She wanted to ask, but asking might remind her father of Alain, and she did not want him to remember anything about how Alain had died.
But then he shook his head, wincing, and she knew that he was remembering that very thing. He sighed and stood up. “You should try to get some sleep.”
“Yes, Father.”
But of course she knew she would not be able to sleep, so when she got back to her room, she did not even try. She lay in bed so that she would seem asleep if Mistress Florain looked in, but her mind raced and looped and spun, over and over and over.
“Lady Tabitha.” A pause. “Lady Tabitha, wake up. Open your eyes.”
Tabitha did, to see Mistress Florain leaning over her in the candlelight. I fell asleep? Obviously she had, but how? How had she fallen asleep after what had happened with Nicolas?
I am the sorceress.
“I am sorry, dear, I know it is not yet dawn. But you need to get up and get dressed.”
“I don’t think I should. I still don’t feel right. It’s still so …” She let her voice fade.
“I know, dear. However.” Mistress Florain gave a sharp little sigh and stood up a bit straighter. “It’s the Lord Sorcerer. He has sent for you.”
He knows. He knows who I am. But does he know what I did?
“The Lord Sorcerer?” Tabitha pretended to be bewildered as she sat up in bed. “But why?”
“I think your father fears that you are the new sorcerer. Sorceress.”
“Me?”
“You were born at the right time, dear.”
“But I can’t do any magic.” Had the sorcerer felt her rage as she had pushed Nicolas out the window with her mind?
Why else would he summon her now, unless he knew?
“Maybe you need to be taught,” Mistress Florain suggested. “Or, maybe we are wrong, and the Lord Sorcerer wants to talk to you about something else.”
“About—about Nicolas? Did he know Nicolas?”
“I imagine he did, dear, but the Lord Sorcerer knows everyone.” Mistress Florain sat down on Tabitha’s bed. “Your father went to the palace to tell the king about Lord Bayard. The sorcerer joined t
hem and told them that it was time he met you. He said only then would he know for certain if you are the one.”
“But, but my father, my family! I am supposed to get married!”
The governess reached out and took Tabitha’s hand. “I know, dear, I know. Your father is upset. Of course he knew this was possible, but if you truly are the new sorceress—”
“But it’s not my fault!”
“He is not upset at you, dear. He is upset at the circumstances. Let’s not keep him or the sorcerer waiting any longer than necessary.” She stood up, lit another candle, pulled the bell rope to summon Lise, and headed toward Tabitha’s wardrobe.
They chose a dark blue gown, sober and plain, and a traditional cap and veil instead of a hat. Tabitha snapped at Lise more than usual as she tugged buttons and hooks into place, but everyone should expect her to be upset and tense, so she did not try to curb it, and Mistress Florain did not say anything about it. By the time she went downstairs, she felt ready to scream at anyone who deserved it, and she wished Beatris were there to give her a safe target.
Safe? No one is safe around me. Beatris is lucky I have not accidentally killed her.
Her father was waiting for her in the back foyer. He wore his Betaul swan tabard and a hooded cloak, and he barely nodded to her before gesturing toward the door. Outside, the sun had just risen, and the light stretched their shadows across the yard. Her father did not speak as he gave her a hand up into the carriage, and still did not speak as he sat down across from her and thumped the door to signal the driver to start.
All his plans are ruined. Even if he did not know for sure yet that that was true, she did. But she had to pretend that she did not. She had to pretend that she did not know she was the sorceress and that she had killed two men with her magic. She had to pretend so hard, she could not risk saying a word.
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