by Mia Marlowe
“Good,” Grigori said. “As I said, this turn of events might well settle our problem, too. Two birds with one stone and all that. The best way to protect a lady is to marry her. Then thanks to the strength and reach of the Badewyn name, no matter who is threatening her, no one could touch her.”
“No one but you, you mean.”
Grigori laughed. “That’s right. No one but me.”
The anger that perpetually simmered inside Samuel boiled into quiet rage. There was nothing he could do about his situation, so he forced his attention back to the star chart. If only he were as cool and distant as the stars, it wouldn’t matter. But he was flesh and blood, and hot blood at that. So it did matter. It mattered very much. A muscle ticked in his cheek as he willed himself not to rant, not to lash out at the pitiable hand fate had dealt him.
Grigori would only find it amusing.
When Samuel finally mastered himself enough to look up at the window ledge again, it was empty.
While traveling with Uncle Rowney and Cousin Oswald, Meg had seen the seedy underbelly of London, the crowded markets and gaming hells. When the gang had roved through the countryside, they’d slept in cattle byres and had stolen eggs from under sitting hens for their breakfast. Her belly had knocked against her backbone more often than not. Under the Duke of Camden’s protection, she’d been introduced to the finest of everything, from His Grace’s elegant homes to the delights of his table to the astonishing new wardrobe he’d provided for her. She’d wanted for nothing while she bided under his care.
Her journey to Wales with Mr. Bernard introduced her to life among the middling class. The public coach in which they traveled was fairly clean, but when they approached steep grades, the passengers often had to disembark and walk up the hill to spare the horses, who were decidedly long in the tooth. Each evening, she and Mr. Bernard stayed at coaching inns, eating thick stews and barley bread for their suppers with their fellow travelers. They slept on benches in the common rooms, because the duke had thought it might occasion comment if they were to show sufficient funds to be able to afford a private room for Meg.
The goal was to blend in, to hide in plain sight.
Meg couldn’t have felt more invisible if she’d been exercising her gift. Then when she caught her first glimpse of Faencaern Castle in the distance, she wished she really could disappear. Forbidding didn’t begin to describe it.
They’d been walking since mid-morning. The coach had reached the end of its route and dumped them in a village whose name Meg couldn’t pronounce. The way from there wound steadily up, through a forest of oaks, birches, and mountain ash. Then the trees gave way to rolling moorlands. Barren peaks rose around them and finally Meg found herself trudging up one.
She had seen a few castles perched on high places. This was the first one up close. Situated on a barren crag, Faencaern seemed to have sprouted up from the rock itself, instead of being built by human hands. Its spires stabbed at a leaden sky. With no sense of softness or ease in its battlements, it was fashioned strictly for defense. When she and Mr. Bernard drew near enough to see that there were armed servants manning the turrets and patrolling the curtain wall, it struck her as more of a prison than a safe haven.
“How does His Grace know Lord Badewyn?” she murmured as she and Bernard were waved through the portcullis and into the bailey by an unsmiling guard. The iron grill clanged shut behind them.
“Lord Badewyn is one of His Grace’s most trusted sources of information.”
“He’s a spy?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. He is more like…a Watcher.”
“A what?”
“I confess I know little more than that,” Mr. Bernard said. “Like Lady Easton, I may be associated with the Order of the M.U.S.E, but I have no unusual qualities.”
“That’s not true.” Meg squeezed the old fellow’s forearm. “You are unfailingly dependable and kind. Believe me. Those qualities are quite unusual.”
Mr. Bernard smiled down at her as he lifted the heavy knocker that would gain them admittance to the great hall. “I only know that when Lord Badewyn warns of something, the duke takes notice. He trusts his lordship implicitly. If His Grace sent you here, you may well believe it is in your best interests.”
The heavy oak swung open to reveal a rough-hewn fellow. He was dressed in nothing resembling a livery. His waistcoat was a faded shade of red, covered by a full-skirted knee-length jacket of somber gray wool. A neckerchief, which looked as though it had never seen a bit of starch, was knotted carelessly beneath his Adam’s apple and he wore breeches instead of trousers. The porter’s clothing might have belonged to the previous century, but the fellow himself displayed none of that era’s exquisite manners.
“Well?” the man said. “Who might you be?”
Meg had been surrounded by genteel folk for so many months, the porter’s bluntness shocked her to her toes. Bernard, however, was totally unperturbed.
“I am Mr. Bernard, steward to the Duke of Camden and this is Miss Anthony, His Grace’s ward. We present ourselves here at Faencaern Castle at the duke’s behest.” When the fellow didn’t respond, Mr. Bernard added, “I believe Lord Badewyn is expecting us.”
“He’s expecting someone,” the surly fellow admitted. “But we’ve naught but your say-so that you twain are the ones he’s looking for.”
Meg dug through her reticule and came up with a letter embossed with the duke’s seal. “I have a letter of introduction from His Grace.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess.” The porter took the missive and shoved it into his waistcoat pocket. Then he waved them in. He screwed his mouth into what passed for a smile if one wasn’t too picky about it. “Mr. Bernard, you’ll take yourself across the bailey to the common house. That’s where us servants sleep. A room has been prepared for you, I’ll warrant.” The fellow cast a jaundiced eye at Bernard. Like Meg, the steward had dressed down for their travels, but his apparel was still several notches up from the porter’s tired ensemble. “’Tis not so fancy as you’re used to, I’ll be bound, but you’ll find it clean and dry.”
For accommodations in Wales, that was evidently high praise.
The porter looked down his crooked nose at Meg. “You’ll be waiting here for his lordship then. I’ll be telling him where to find you.” And with no further comment, he turned on his heel and left her gaping after him. She’d become accustomed to the duke’s beautifully run household. None of His Grace’s servants would be so rude to a guest.
“I apparently must go, too,” Mr. Bernard said to Meg. “And if you have any correspondence you’d like me to deliver, please write it tonight. I will begin traveling back to London on the morrow.”
“So soon?” She’d hoped to have Mr. Bernard near her for the duration of her stay. His familiar sagging face was such a comfort. Panic began to gnaw her nerves.
“My duties require my presence elsewhere, but I urge you not to fear. Remember, His Grace trusts Lord Badewyn with your safety. That means we should as well.” He gave her a quick bow, as if she really was a lady, and took his leave.
Meg was alone in the long hall and feeling very small indeed. She cast about in her mind, trying to remember what Lady Easton had taught her.
A lady is always confident, but she never pushes herself forward.
Meg was feeling anything but confident and there was no one around to push herself forward to. Still, she needed to do something to screw up her courage. Setting down her valise, she decided to explore a bit. The hard leather soles of her practical traveling boots clacked on the flagstone floor. The sound echoed off the stone walls as she wandered farther into the great hall.
Pennants wavered from the high beamed ceiling, adrift in meandering air currents. Along one wall about midway in the space, there was an enormous fireplace with a spit large enough to roast an ox whole. At intervals, small niches had been carved in the stone walls. In one, there was a sculpture she recognized as some Greek or Roman god or other. He w
as clad in only a well-placed leaf or two. Little wings sprouted from his ankles. A real lady would be able to name him. She scolded herself for not attending more closely when Lady Easton had taken her to the art museum a few weeks ago.
A brilliantly colored triptych, featuring the Madonna and Child in the center panel, filled another niche. She couldn’t say who the figures in the side panels might have been, but they were dressed in far richer clothing than the Holy Family could have afforded.
Then she came across a tapestry that covered so much of the gray stone she had to stand with her spine pressed against the opposite wall in order to see it all. The work had dulled with time so that the colors tended toward muted blues and faded greens. There were so many figures in the scene, it took her a while to puzzle it out. Usually, tapestries depicted great battles or triumphal processions, but that didn’t seem to be the case here. There were no knights in armor or war horses with hooves raised to strike.
In the foreground, people cowered in distress. Their mouths gaped in fear, their hands clasped importunately toward heaven. In one corner, a lone woman stood, her belly swollen with child. She shielded her eyes from something hurling toward her, but did not stoop low like the others. The something tumbling from the threadbare sky seemed to be a man.
At least, Meg thought it was a man at first. A pair of wings with a span wider than that of the swans at Kensington Garden fell with him. She moved closer to the tapestry and stretched out her hand toward the ancient threads.
“Don’t touch that!”
Guiltily, Meg thrust her hands behind her and turned to look up into the face of the most terrifyingly beautiful man she’d ever seen.
I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
~ Luke 10:18, King James Bible
Chapter Three
Meg supposed it wasn’t right to think a man beautiful, but this one was. Of course, his clothing was only slightly less out of date than his servant’s had been, but Meg spared little thought for that oddity. The man himself was so astounding, it didn’t matter how he was dressed. His features were more regular and well-formed than any Greek statue ever thought about being. His dark hair was too long for fashion, but if he made an appearance in London, Meg laid odds that every dandy in town would desert his barber, trying to copy this man’s style. It might have been a trick of light, but he almost seemed to have an inner source of illumination that gave him a slight glow in the dim hall.
Her insides wavered a bit, as if she’d accidently swallowed a drunken faery.
And then there were his eyes.
His pupils were fully dilated, so at first she thought they were as black as a lump of coal and smoldering with as much tightly contained heat. But then she noticed the thin circle of palest gray around the edge of his irises. In normal light, when his pupils relaxed, the effect of those pale eyes would be almost feral, like a wolf in the woods whose eyes glinted soullessly in the dark.
Could this be Lord Badewyn?
There was something larger than life about him. He moved with the sturdy grace of a military man, but his brow seemed to belong to a poet or dreamer. Even so, the deep crease in that brow betrayed the fact that he was a bit uncomfortable, as though the flesh that housed his spirit was a devilishly tight fit.
Meg knew better than to trust appearances. Lord Badewyn’s jaw-dropping outsides might turn feminine heads from here to Brighton, but his insides might be cruel and selfish. She pressed a gloved hand to her chest. It wouldn’t do to let her insides continue to flutter over him until she knew him better.
A Watcher, Mr. Bernard had named him. Since she’d joined the Order of the M.U.S.E., she’d learned that she was not alone in possession of an unusual ability. She accepted that there were any number of people in the world whose gifts marked them as different. But what on earth might a Watcher be?
“Step back,” he said in a softer tone. It was no less an order than his previous thundered one.
“I didn’t touch it.” Meg took a step back. Lady Easton would be proud of her for not pushing herself forward.
“You were about to. That tapestry is old beyond reckoning. Sometimes I think just looking at it will cause it to disintegrate.” He squared his shoulders and gave her a curt bow from the neck. “You will pardon me, I hope. I don’t normally greet guests with a shout.”
“Only the ones who are about to commit a grave sin.”
His mouth twitched in a half smile that disappeared so quickly Meg thought she might have imagined it. “I doubt you know much about grave sins.”
You might be surprised. Meg was dressed like a lady of modest means and, thanks to Lady Easton’s training, she could do a fair imitation of one, but she’d been raised as common riffraff. A wellborn miss could afford the luxury of fine manners and a clean soul. A hungry one only knows her belly needs filling and will do anything to ease the dull ache.
“You must be Miss Anthony,” he said.
“Were you expecting any other stray women to turn up on your doorstep?” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could contain them. Lady Easton would be aghast. One of the first lessons on how to be a lady involved not saying everything that popped into her head. Unless she was in the Duke of Camden’s presence, and feeling thoroughly overawed by His Grace, minding her tongue was one of the hardest rules for Meg to follow.
“No, we are expecting only you. We actually don’t receive many visitors.” He glanced around the barren hall. “I can’t imagine why.”
“I can. Not everyone finds charm in cold stone, you know.” Oh, piffle! I’ve done it again. She needed to change the subject quickly before she offended him further. Meg started to extend her hand for him to shake, but then remembered that wasn’t proper either and drew it back in haste. Botheration! There were so many rules to remember, it was hard to keep them all straight.
“So you must be called Lord Badewyn.” Stating the obvious didn’t require a response, and since silence yawned between them, she added, “Probably because Prince Charming is already taken.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth. At least his looks matched Meg’s imaginings of the fairytale hero, even if his abrupt manner didn’t. When Lady Easton first discovered Meg was illiterate, she’d begun teaching her to read by reading aloud together. Fairytales had caught Meg’s fancy and she’d worked hard to puzzle the words out for herself. She was half in love with the heroes in those stories. Now she faced the embodiment of them and, judging from the way her insides quivered, she must be three-quarters in love with him already.
This will never do. Lady Easton would have a fit if Meg discarded all her training simply because the man was handsome enough to tempt a gaggle of nuns! Meg drew a deep breath to settle herself lest she grovel at his feet in a quivering puddle.
His mouth was curved with amusement.
He’s probably used to quivering puddles.
But Lord Badewyn was too polite to laugh at her. Or say aloud whatever popped into his head.
Heat crept up her neck. She forced her gaze away from the breathtaking lord and back to the tapestry. Pointing to the figure tumbling from the clouds, she asked, “Who is that supposed to be?”
His brows arched in surprise. “Most people assume it is Lucifer, falling from heaven.”
“Oh.” Meg had attended church regularly with Lady Easton since she joined the Duke of Camden’s household. It was the done-thing for upper and lower classes alike. But when Meg had been growing up rough with Uncle Rowney, her sacred education had suffered as badly as her secular one. There were plenty of holes in her knowledge.
“However, this tapestry does not depict the fall of the Prince of Darkness,” Lord Badewyn said. “People tend to forget that when Satan was cast from heaven, he took a third of the angels with him.”
“Oh. And this is one of those angels. I should have known by the wings.”
He shook his head. “Actually, that is a common error. Most angels do not have wings. The maker of this tapestry was taking a
bit of poetic license.”
Surely that was wrong. Meg had seen enough stained glass windows decorated with angels to know they had beautiful wings. “If they don’t have wings, how do they fly?”
He stiffened, as if she’d asked a question that was too personal for so short an acquaintance. “Not being an angel, I’m sure I don’t know. Perhaps they merely think about being somewhere else and there they are.”
Meg cringed inwardly. That seemed personal, too, because it pretty much described how she operated when her spirit left her body to go Finding. For the first time in her life, someone had an inkling of what she experienced, even if it was only a guess about some other sort of being entirely. He was the most devastatingly handsome thing in trousers she’d ever seen, and she dearly hoped he lived out the whole “handsome is as handsome does” adage. She was more than willing to try to find out, but she wasn’t sure she wanted this man to have such an open window to her soul.
At least, not until she was sure he was willing to accept what he might find there.
“You have a number of lovely things on display,” she said as she wandered away from the tapestry and toward the next niche. It was occupied by something that didn’t seem to be an object of art. The circle of brass was etched with all sorts of lines and symbols. A second smaller circle was situated on top of part of the larger one. A lever allowed the smaller circle to be moved. The device was pretty enough to be merely decorative, but Meg doubted it. The thing was pregnant with mystery and purpose. Meg reached up, intending to move the lever to see what it would do.
Before she could touch it, Lord Badewyn picked it up and brought it down for her to examine more closely. By doing so, he also kept her fingertips from making contact with it. He didn’t shout this time, but by not allowing her to handle it herself, he made her feel as if she were an urchin with her nose smashed against the bakery window, unworthy to touch, to sniff, to even be in the same space with such delights.