by Alexa Egan
“This afternoon I saw Signore Ventrella. He had a bandage wrapped around his hand. Maybe he attacked Lucan. He was in and out of the drawing room last night.”
“Ventrella can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. You think he attacked Lucan and came away with nothing more than a cut on his hand?”
“He might have surprised him. Or he had help. Perhaps whatever these Naxos are, they’re stronger and more powerful than normal humans.”
“Or perhaps the Naxos is simply the name of some exclusive gentleman’s club Sir Dromon sought entry to without success. Whatever it is, it’s not enough to accuse someone of attempted murder,” he reasoned, trying to look disinterested and unimpressed. Anything to turn Sarah from this line of reasoning.
“Why would Lucan be trying to tell us about a gentleman’s club? No, there’s something linking the Naxos to the Imnada. I know it. Maybe we can find a reference among Duncallan’s books. He’s been studying the shapechangers for years.”
“Exactly. So, don’t you think he would have recognized the word as soon as Lucan uttered it?” Sebastian handed the book back. “I appreciate your help, but you need to leave. If anyone catches you sneaking up here, Lucan’s life and all Duncallan and I have been working toward will be put at risk. You would be put at risk.”
“What about Christophe and the Naxos? If the prince is linked to the attack on Lucan, I want to know before I . . . before I become his wife,” she said, smoothing her hands down her skirts, her expression bland as milk.
“His wife.” Sebastian’s hands curled around the windowsill, his gaze focused upon the hills stretching gray and lifeless toward the northern tree-lined ridges, his mind seeing Sarah tumbled and starry-eyed, beckoning her husband to bed.
But he was not that husband. And soon she would be someone else’s wife.
It was time to put that dream away once and for all.
“I can help, Seb.” She lifted her eyes to his, gray as the snow-heavy clouds beyond the window lit with flecks of gold. “We could work together to figure out what happened.”
“‘We’? There is no ‘we,’ as you pointed out earlier today.”
Though the thought tantalized with possibilities, all of them ending in tossed skirts, lowered breeches, and unbridled passion. A hard angry knot seemed to lodge in his chest, sucking the air from his lungs. He wanted to touch her, loosen the tight coil of her hair until it spilled over her shoulders and down her back. His hands became fists as the knot threatened to choke him. Wanting had nothing to do with it. He needed to keep her safe and away from Sir Dromon Pryor. Sebastian knew nothing of this mysterious Naxos, but Pryor’s menace was very real.
“Do you know how much I’d love to tell you Christophe is involved? But I can’t. Marry your prince, Sarah. Marry him and be happy, but leave the Naxos to me.”
* * *
“Miss Sarah, why are you still here? The dinner gong sounded ten minutes ago.” Hester entered the bedchamber, last night’s evening gown slung over her arm, a sewing basket gripped in her hand.
“Did it? Oh bother!” Sarah looked up from her reading, head aching with obscure scholarly Imnada references she could barely decipher. So much for her boast to Sebastian. She could barely puzzle her way through a few hundred pages. Whatever the Naxos were, the Imnada had done a good job of erasing any trace of them.
Almost relieved to lay aside her task, she marked her place and rose with a lazy stretch. “I’m famished.”
Hester groaned, eyes snapping. “Look what you’ve done to the back of your gown. Wrinkles from waist to hem. A fine figure you’ll make downstairs with all those lords and ladies.”
Sarah checked herself in the cheval mirror, frowning at the rumpled creases marring the delicate lilac satin and silver lace. “Perhaps they won’t notice.”
“The gentlemen might not, but the ladies surely will.” Hester put down her load and set to fussing. “If you insist on dressing prim as a minister’s wife while you’re here, the least you can do is dress like a fashionable minister’s wife.” She straightened, folding her arms with a satisfied tilt of her head. “There now. The worst is fixed. The rest you can disguise with some subtle staging. Stand close to the walls. Or sit quick so none can see your back.” She grabbed up her work basket.
“Where are you headed?” Sarah asked.
“Not sure what you got up to last night, but this hem’s nigh ripped to shreds. I’m taking it to the housekeeper’s room to mend. Light’s better there.”
“So’s the gossip, I’d wager.”
“Have to find out what’s what somehow, don’t I?” Hester chuckled as she left the bedchamber. “Now get a move on or you’ll miss the soup course.”
What gossip would Hester discover among the Sharrow House servants? Did they know of Lucan and the existence of the Imnada? Would they pass along tales, or would loyalty to James and Katherine keep them silent? She brushed off her worries as useless. Lucan and the Imnada weren’t her problem. She needed to focus on the connection between the mysterious Naxos and Prince Christophe . . . if there was one.
As she draped a silk shawl across her shoulders, she continued to turn over the conversation between Signore Ventrella and Christophe. What on earth could an Italian prince have in common with a Cornish baronet? Perhaps she needed to look at other connections to see where they led. There was Lucan. She knew nothing beyond the fact that he was a shapechanger. Not even his surname. But Duncallan had mentioned someone else. He’d told Sebastian to send a note to Gray de Coursy. And Gray de Coursy was well known to all of London.
What did the Ghost Earl have to do with the Imnada? Was he a shapechanger? The idea should have been ludicrous, but after last night she ruled nothing out, no matter how insane it sounded. She grabbed up her Debrett’s from the bottom of the pile, leafed through the index until she found it—Morieux, family name of de Coursy. Turning to the page, she skimmed the entry, her eyes widening as they settled on the family’s longstanding seat of power in . . . Cornwall. Coincidence? She didn’t believe it for a second.
“You are late, too, my dove?” Prince Christophe leaned against the door frame, the starched white of his linen accentuating the olive tone of his skin, an enormous ruby tucked into the folds of his cravat. “Wonderful. We will arrive together and give them much to speculate about.”
She closed the Debrett’s and placed it back among the stack on her table. “They already do, thanks to your letting everyone know about the bracelet you gave me. This will only add to their assumptions.”
Christophe entered her bedchamber, taking her hand and kissing the underside of her wrist, mischief dancing in his gaze as he glanced at her bed. “Let them assume. We’re to be wed. There’s nothing to offend about that.”
As always, the musky sweet scents of cloves and cinnamon tickled her nose as she slid free of him with a smile. “You know I haven’t made up my mind.”
“Why do you hesitate? Is it to make me jealous? To whet my desire? I could never want you more than I already do. You know that. We were meant for one another. So, say yes and we will announce it to the world and their looks of disdain will become looks of envy.”
Christophe’s flair for the dramatic made arguing futile. If he believed she was his destiny, nothing she said would sway him. Then with a confidence bordering on effrontery, he crossed to her dressing table and flipped open the lid to her jewelry case. Destiny was one thing. Pawing through her possessions was pushing it too far.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “We’re certainly not married yet.”
Ignoring her, he rifled through the contents, laying aside an amber cross, a brooch she’d bought with her first wages, a pair of silver earrings. “Such dribs and drabs, my darling. When you are mine, I shall deck you in jewels.”
“That may be, but until then my things are my own and not to be trifled with.”
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“I wish only to see you sparkle as these other women do.”
He poured the bracelet from the small velvet bag in the case’s bottom drawer, palming it in his hand. The charms gleamed in the candlelight, ruby and emerald, sapphire and topaz, opal and tourmaline. For a moment, her vision blurred as a spearing pain burst against her temples. She staggered as the room dipped and swirled, cold biting into her bones despite the roaring fire.
“Wear it tonight, my treasure. You’ll be the most dazzling woman in the room.” Christophe’s words steadied her balance and calmed her headache. He tipped her chin up with a single finger, his expression both supremely confident and strangely confused. “You are a special woman, Miss Sarah Haye. Sometimes I think I would risk eternity to make you my wife.”
Even as he clasped the bracelet around her wrist, she knew she should argue, but Christophe would simply laugh and tease and hear what he wanted to hear. This was both one of his most appealing traits and one of the most aggravating.
“There now,” he said, once more the suave charmer, any brief flicker of doubt extinguished. “It brings a sparkle to your eyes and makes you shine.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek. “We can go to dinner now and laugh, knowing what sordid ideas are flitting through their heads.”
The bracelet seemed heavier tonight, as if the weight of her decision rested in every gold link and shimmering jewel. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss dinner altogether.”
He laughed, the candlelight carving shadows into the hard angles of his face, turning his angelically handsome face into something dark and almost irresistible. “My man was wrestling with my cravat. What’s your excuse?”
She cleared her throat and sought to put a few more feet between herself and Christophe’s overpowering personality. “I was immersed in a book and lost track of the time.”
His brows rose. “You were reading?”
“Why do you sound so surprised? I may not know French, be able to paint a watercolor, or play the pianoforte like a dainty Society miss, but I’m not completely ignorant.”
“And what has you so enthralled?” He glanced at the pile of books, selecting a volume on Imnada origin theories she’d been unable to decipher much beyond the preface. His expression wavered, a line appearing between his dark brows. “What’s this?”
She snatched it from his grasp. “A book of fairy tales.”
“Oh? And what sorts of tales does it tell?”
It was her turn to shrug and offer a casual wave of her hand. “The usual. Creatures who change into animals. Monsters from foreign worlds. You know the sort of nursery stories I mean.”
“Is this what you think they are? Nursery stories?”
“Of course,” she answered coolly, no hint of her thundering heart revealed in her voice or her manner.
“I’m not believing you, mia Sarah.” He stepped close, his eyes unfathomable as he searched her gaze. “I’m thinking you know very well these things are real. For you are one of these nursery stories, too, aren’t you?” He did not wait for her denial. It would be pointless anyway, she saw that now. He knew of the power she possessed. Of the magic she hid from the world. “You are Fey-born, my Sarah. The blood of the Summer Kingdom of Ynys Avalenn flows in your veins.”
Her throat closed around a held breath as her hands crushed the delicate fabric of her skirts. So much for wrinkles. “What do you know of the Other?”
“I read too. Books like the one you hold. And then there are other things I know without needing to read them in a book or learn them from a teacher. Things like this.”
His hand moved from the book to the air just above and to the right of her head. Like a priest offering absolution, his spread fingers poised, his words a mumble that might be prayer or curse for all she knew. “You’re powerful, Sarah. Full of life. Of energy. It’s what drew me to you. And now, I’m ashamed to say that when I am with you I forget who I am . . . what I owe my people . . . what they expect of me . . . You make me yearn for a life I don’t understand.”
His pupils seemed to dilate so that there was only a deep emptiness fringed by thick dark lashes. His lips curved into a full sensuous smile as he dropped his hand to thread his fingers with hers, the ancient gold of the bracelet soft and warm as butter against her skin, the charms seeming to glow in the candlelight. A flop of ebony curls fell across his forehead, giving him an oddly boyish look despite the solemnity of his expression.
“Only the most powerful magic could do such a thing,” he said, his voice like velvet.
“I can persuade an audience they’ve stepped into the story they’re watching on the stage until they forget the crowds and the noise and the world beyond. That’s the art of a great actress. Not a great sorceress.”
“You make these humans believe in things that aren’t there and places that don’t exist. That is influence, power born of your blood. I know of such power, and I believe in things that don’t exist . . . like beings from other worlds and monsters who change shape. That’s what makes us perfect together.”
“I . . .” She could drown in those eyes and the promises they held. A glittering future. A pampered existence. A life of luxury and beauty. A life so far from the filthy crime-ridden lanes and squalid back alleys off Billingsgate market that it might as well be on the moon.
“Should I be jealous, mia Sarah? Is there someone who already holds a piece of your heart? Someone you yearn for though you know he is not right for you?”
“What?” She shook off the delicious hum of melting limbs and soft words. “No . . . there’s no one.”
His smile widened, but the warmth leached from his face or perhaps it was her own misgivings making it seem as if he’d distanced himself. “Is it Lord Deane? I see how he watches you, how he pushes himself at you.”
“His Lordship means nothing. I simply need time to think. My independence is precious. I’m loath to give it up without due consideration.”
His face looked heartbreakingly sad. “Of course, Sarah. But I’m afraid your time . . . and mine . . . is running out.”
4
The guests were all at cards. Tables had been prepared in a set of comfortable rooms with a buffet arranged for those who wanted refreshments between hands. Outside, snow swirled in a gale north wind that backed in the chimneys, now and then sending smoke rolling thin and high over the intent faces as they played. Sarah used one of these blasts of sooty air as an excuse to rise from her place across from Katherine and plead a few moments to refresh herself. Sebastian looked up, but she refused to meet his gaze. Christophe, too, followed her progress as she wended her way between tables. She offered him a pleasant smile before slipping out the door and up the stairs.
He would not leave his game. Not while he was ahead in the betting. She had time.
Upstairs, the sconces guttered and dripped and the floors creaked with every footfall, but she ignored her misgivings and continued past her bedchamber, around the corner, up the next set of stairs, before pausing outside the door to Christophe’s apartments. Her hand shook only a little as she lifted the latch and stepped inside. The room was larger than hers with fine appointments and an enormous tester bed draped in damask. A doorway opposite led into a comfortable dressing room complete with writing desk, leather armchair, and a handsome cabinet of leather-bound volumes. The whole place smelled of Christophe; a combination of cloves and cinnamon, brandy and tobacco.
A fire blazed in the hearth, but the light it cast was too dim for her purpose. Summoning the mage energy she was born with, she whispered a quick household spell, setting flame to wick. Taking up the candle, she passed into the dressing room. Knowing she had only a few precious moments, she began at the desk. Drawers yielded little beyond writing paper, pens, and bottles of ink. A journal looked promising, but it held only laundry lists and menu suggestions from the mistress of Sharrow House circa 1802. Perhaps as Christophe’s secr
etary, Signore Ventrella kept all correspondence with him. A search of his room might be next if nothing of interest turned up here.
She moved on to the enormous walnut armoire. Clothing for every occasion including a coronation, but not a shred of incriminating evidence and no mention of the Naxos, Sir Dromon Pryor, or the Imnada.
Momentarily stymied, she stood with hands on hips in the middle of the room, huffing a stray curl from her forehead. Were her suspicions unfounded? Had she misheard the conversation between Signore Ventrella and Christophe? Was she letting her actress’s imagination run away with her?
No, she refused to believe she could have been so far off the mark, especially after Christophe’s behavior earlier this evening. Cold shivered up her spine as she recalled the way the prince had stared into her eyes as if he were sifting through her brain. She’d once thought that intensity blazingly romantic. Under the current circumstances, it just seemed sinister and stoked her fears higher.
A clock sounded the half hour. She needed to get back downstairs before her absence was remarked upon. In a final flash of an idea, she turned her attention to an ornate enameled traveling case beside his bed. Flipping open the lid, she found watches and fobs, jeweled tie pins and expensive rings and trinkets of every metal, including silver. Christophe wasn’t Other. But if what Sebastian said about the Imnada and silver was true, he wasn’t a shapechanger, either.
So what did that leave? And why was she very afraid she wasn’t going to like the answer?
She lifted out the case’s upper tray to sift through the jumble of treasure below. A small ormolu box held eight glass vials containing a greasy viscous liquid. Perfume of some kind? She unscrewed one of the caps and sniffed. A thick rancid odor stung her nose and brought tears to her eyes. Definitely not a scent she’d want to dab behind her ears unless she sought to attract maggots.
She quickly returned the cap and placed the vial back among its companions before searching every nook and cranny of the case, even the lining. It was loose in one corner, and she shoved her fingers into the narrow gap between the fabric and the outer wood. Yes, there was something. A cold rounded metal edge. Grooved indentations. She pulled the object out to find herself holding a gold notched disk about four inches in diameter with odd symbols etched into the face. An ancient coin? A medallion without a chain?