The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil

by Heidi Cullinan

Emily stumbled into the foyer, letting go of the door. Whitby swung it wide and stepped into the small entry room, filling it half with his size and the rest with his presence. His cane tapped sharply upon the flagstone floor.

  “Your sister has in her possession an item belonging to the House of Perry and Whitby,” he said.

  “Madeline is not a thief,” Emily said, but she could not manage to bring her voice above a whisper.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Now Lord Whitby stood directly in front of Emily. “I have full authority as lord of this parish to search in entirety any and every house of every suspected criminal, be they commoner or lord or witch. I will exercise this right now.” He nodded over his shoulder at Alan without taking his eyes from Emily. “Boy. You have been given your instructions.”

  “Yes, sir,” Alan said, his voice thin. He hurried into the house and began rummaging through every drawer and tin and bottle in the foyer.

  You can’t do this, Emily wanted to shout, but she couldn’t seem to make her throat work. Whitby had turned away and was directing Alan where and what to search, sending him now into the parlor, but he kept one eye on Emily the entire time, pinning her in place with his gaze. But even with Whitby’s glare keeping her in place, she still startled when Timothy came sailing into the room.

  “What’s this?” he asked, feigning surprise. He sidestepped Whitby and drew Emily out of the corner before either she or Whitby realized what he’d done. “Darling, what is this?”

  Darling? Emily blinked at him. Alan stopped his progress in the sitting room and looked up sharply. Timothy drew Emily against his side—his right, as he still had his knife visible on his left, and it flashed in the light.

  “Lord Whitby,” Timothy said, coolly but with a deferential nod. “What can we do for you and your companion this early in the morning?”

  “Do not interfere, Catalian,” Whitby replied laconically, but there was a tic in his cheek.

  Timothy ran his hand over Emily’s shoulder absently as he narrowed his eyes at Alan. “Who is this? Why did you bring your footman into my lady’s house, Whitby?” He feigned surprise as Alan glared at him. “Oh, forgive me, Lennox. I did not recognize you.”

  Footman? Emily had to bite her lip to keep from smiling as Alan stiffened and turned pink. Oh, she would love Timothy forever for that. Timothy slid his hand absently down to her elbow, making her shiver. She would have fidgeted, as this touching was making her uncomfortable, but Whitby was still staring at her. Something told her this was part of Timothy’s plan, though what this would accomplish she could not possibly imagine.

  “This is an investigation.” Whitby planted his cane and kept his eye now firmly fixed on Timothy. “You will not interfere.”

  Whitby was speaking very quietly, but Emily still cringed and began to sweat. Madeline had told her once that she thought there was something magical about Whitby’s voice, but she hadn’t been able to pinpoint what or how. Now Emily had no doubt. The man had but to speak and she couldn’t move.

  Timothy, however, seemed to have no trouble. He spoke with calm apology. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Lord Whitby—not without your son’s explicit authorization.”

  Emily forgot to breathe. Across the room, Alan didn’t look much better.

  Whitby planted his cane a little farther in front of him and leaned harder on it. His voice was barely above a whisper now, but it was a razor. “You cannot allow?”

  Timothy didn’t so much as flinch. “I’m very sorry, but no, I cannot, and I should specify that the authorization for the search must be in writing. We must observe these legalities carefully, my lord. I’m sure you understand.” And as Emily tried not to faint and Whitby seemed to be coalescing into a localized thundercloud, Timothy drew Emily a little closer to him and leaned down to place a tender kiss against her temple. “I must protect my bride.”

  Alan dropped the curio box he had been holding and started forward, his face a fiery red.

  Whitby snorted. “This is a farce.”

  “You made no mention of this yesterday when you were in town!” Alan shouted at Timothy. “You’re a molly. A foreign molly.”

  “I was.” Timothy smiled down at Emily, and it did strange things to her insides, especially when he also stroked her cheek. “My lady charmed me. I can’t say I’ll never look away from a well-set codpiece, but my heart is hers.”

  “Pervert!” Alan practically gagged.

  Emily stiffened and leaned a little closer to Timothy, glaring back at Alan. Timothy kissed her again and looked almost serenely at Whitby.

  “You can’t be married.” Alan was seething now. “The priestess hasn’t been through in a month!”

  Timothy was still looking at Whitby, and his smile turned a little wicked as he shrugged and said, “Catalian ceremony.”

  Emily didn’t know what that was, but Alan’s mouth fell open, and he stared at Emily as if she’d just stripped naked in front of them all.

  “It’s perfectly legal,” Timothy said, still to Whitby. “Even Etsians with no claim to my country have used it with some success.”

  “This is all ridiculous,” Alan sputtered. “Even if you were married, we can still search this house!”

  Timothy looked almost pityingly at Alan before turning back to Whitby. “Would you like to explain to him, or should I?”

  Whitby’s nostrils flared slightly, but this was his only acknowledgment of irritation. “An equerry has rights equivalent to that of a lord, unless his lord waives them.”

  “But you are his lord!” Alan cried.

  “He answers first to my heir, and second to me.” Whitby’s smile was thin but terrible. “My heir will answer to me.” He looked with distaste at Emily. “In the meantime, we can do nothing here. An equerry’s wife is a socially delicate position, but her legal question is sound.”

  “But we can just search—” Alan said, then cut himself off when Whitby raised a hand.

  “We will not involve the law in this matter. This is a temporary delay.” He looked thoughtfully at Emily, then smiled slowly as he added, “Though we could insist on a challenge. The trouble with Catalian ceremonies is that it is conveniently impossible to prove the ceremony actually occurred. “

  Whitby was looking pleased, as if he were certain he had called Timothy’s bluff, but now the Catalian’s grin was feral. “Precedent has been set there too.” He lifted an inquiring eyebrow at Alan. “I think my lady would be a bit bashful, but she is a dutiful wife and will do what she needs to do to protect her family and the law.” When Alan only glared, Timothy sighed and turned to Emily, taking her face gently in his hands. He bent his face to hers slowly, his eyes deep and dark, and for a second Emily was lost in them. He was so beautiful and exotic and full of strength and love and pain. And then she shook herself out of her trance so she could listen to whatever he was going to whisper to her. But his mouth did not move to her ear, and his eyes hooded, half-open, fixed now on her mouth.

  Goddess save me, he’s going to kiss me.

  He did—and it was no chaste, sweet kiss. It wasn’t even tentatively exploring like Stephen’s, but it wasn’t brutal, either. It was carnal. Emily whimpered as he gently tipped her head to the side and deepened the angle. One of his hands slid delicately down her back, making her shiver, but the other stroked gently at the back of her neck, his fingers trickling over her skin until he seemed to find a place he particularly liked. He pressed gently, first with one finger, then another, then another, all the while his thumb massaging firmly against a soft point on her spine. Emily felt her heart flutter and expand, all her nervousness and fear rippling away like pools in water. Without realizing what she was doing, she wrapped her arms around his neck and let her fingers tangle in his hair as she opened her mouth wider for him, sighing and meeting his tongue boldly in an erotic dance as he took the kiss deeper and deeper still. She was dimly aware of Alan sputtering and shouting in the distance, but he seemed so far away, and she didn’t care. She didn’t even blink whe
n she heard Whitby’s terse, “Enough,” and when Timothy drew back from the kiss, she sagged and shut her eyes, feeling bereft.

  Timothy kept her close, and his hand stayed at her neck and the base of her spine, still massaging her gently. “Is there anything else we can do for you, my lord?” His voice was cool and even, as if he were not affected at all. Emily, her head still swimming, gave in to the fight and let her forehead fall against his chest, her fingers sliding against his shirt.

  She opened one eye in time to see Alan, his face practically purple now, come charging toward them, but Whitby stopped him with his cane, striking him hard across his middle. “Tell my grandson he will hear from me very soon,” he said. Then, shepherding Alan out with smart raps of his cane against his backside, they were gone.

  Timothy didn’t let go of Emily, for which she was grateful, as her dizziness hadn’t abated and she wasn’t certain she could stand. He shifted her with him as he moved to the door and threw the latch, then murmured gently to her as he led her down the hall to the kitchen, still half embracing her, his hand never leaving her neck. He seated her at her rocking chair beside the fire and brushed a kiss against her forehead. “I have to leave you for a moment,” he said gently, still applying his fingers in their strange pattern against her spine. “But I will be back very quickly. Take deep breaths and hold tight to the arms of your chair.”

  What have you done to me? Emily wanted to ask, but she couldn’t seem to speak. He lifted his hand from her neck, and she began to spin—her head did, at any rate. She cried out softly as she felt herself swirling away, arousal and confusion swimming inside her. She felt as if he were still kissing her, all the strange sensations rising and cresting inside her but never releasing. Emily tipped her head back against the chair and tried to breathe, but it was difficult to keep a rhythm. She felt jumbled, almost lost—

  He pulled her hands from the chair, forcing a warm mug into her hands, then helped guide it to her lips. “Sip generously,” he urged her, still gentle as a lamb. “The water is only tepid, just hot enough to release the oils of the herbs.” Emily drank. The tea was thin and oddly sweet and sharp at once. “Sweetroot, lemon balm, and honey.” He made her drink again. “It’s swifter with cardamom, but I doubt you have any of that in Etsey.”

  “Workshop,” Emily whispered, coming back to herself. “For spells. Very expensive—six loads of lavender for one ounce.”

  His soft laugh made her feel warm, but the erotic edge to her thoughts was fading. “It’s not expensive in Catal.” He stroked her hair. “Feeling better?”

  She opened her eyes and watched Timothy come into focus. “What did you do? It was—it was magic!”

  “Not magic. Just science and a dash of art, I hope.” He sat back on a stool he’d dragged in front of her and looked rueful. “I’m very sorry, but I knew it had to be good to get rid of Whitby. That was the riturla mohra, according to my culture, but Etsians like to call it the ‘courtesan’s kiss.’ They believe it to be nothing more than an erotic trick, but that isn’t so. It was very sacred in the pleasure gardens, employing the disciplines of energy, erotica, metaphysics, and a few things I fear will not translate. There were strict rules for its use—I broke six or seven of them just now, for which I apologize.”

  Courtesan’s kiss. “It was as if you took me out of my own mind. It was so—” Emily couldn’t decide if she should be embarrassed or not. “I didn’t…I didn’t know kisses could do that.”

  “Yes. Etsians do seem to have a difficult time with the concept of sex as an art and metaphysical discipline. If it isn’t rigidly confined or twisted and confined to dark corners, your minds unravel at the merest thought.” He sighed, but he was smiling devilishly. “You are a sensual and beautifully responsive partner, Miss Emily. I can tell. You are wasted on the magistrate’s son.”

  Emily blushed hotly and stared down into the tea. She was beginning to feel as if she were herself again, but she could tell it would take some time for that strange fire inside her to die down completely. Thankfully she no longer wanted to jump into Timothy’s arms and beg him to take her hard against the floor. She blushed again and rubbed at her cheek. “What…what do we do now?”

  “We need to find what Whitby is searching for,” he said, rising to his feet.

  “But what was he searching for?” Emily asked. “Madeline took nothing of his.”

  “She took the demon out of Jonathan.” Timothy stared into the fire, grimacing. “Before he disappeared, Jonathan told me he’d let it slip to Whitby that Madeline had removed it, and now Whitby is intent on taking it back. We cannot let that happen.”

  “But we need to search for them!” Emily stood, then had to grip the mantel to stabilize herself. “We need to find Madeline!”

  “Much as it pains me, I must insist we find this captured daemon first, Miss Elliott. Jonathan would argue it is the more important point. Whitby in possession of the demons was something that greatly disturbed him. And at this point, we can likely assume the pair of them are together and can help one another. We can hope this, if nothing else.”

  Emily thought of that black fog and all the nightmares that lived inside it. “But I don’t know what she put the daemon into.”

  “It will be something she brought with her or something she took away from the abbey. There was precious little in that room, so we can assume for now it was something she brought from here. She almost certainly brought it back.”

  “She would hide it,” Emily said. “She would hide it in her workshop. Nothing in the cottage is secure enough for something like that.”

  Timothy nodded, looking grim but pleased. “I assume the workshop is locked? Do you have a key?”

  Emily nodded and started toward the sink basin, catching chairs and the table for support along the way. “There is a spare behind the water pipe.”

  He steadied her briefly as he slid past her. “I will fetch it. Where on the pipe?”

  “The top.” Emily leaned hard against the table and watched Timothy open the basin cupboard doors and wedge himself beneath. “On the back, tied with string. The string is painted gray to match the pipe. It is in a small scrap of waxed fabric.”

  “To make it appear as a patch, not a key storage,” he finished, his voice muffled by the cupboard. “Well done.”

  He struggled for a moment inside the cupboard, backing out once to remove his knives before reinserting himself, contorting to stick his head back inside. Emily watched his long legs bend, extend, then shift open, tightening his strange pantaloons taut against his groin. Emily felt herself begin to heat again, and she went back to her chair, reaching down to the floor for the space where she had left her tea. She would be finding that cardamom once they were in the workshop; she didn’t care how much lavender she had to sell to replenish it.

  “Ha! I have it,” he called, crawling back from beneath the basin. He stood, holding the key before his face as he nodded at the door. “Are you ready, Miss Emily?”

  Emily downed the last of the tea in one gulp and set it on the table. “Yes,” she said and followed him to the back of the kitchen. But as she stood on the stoop, she looked back at the room, feeling sudden reluctance to leave. She let herself linger for just a moment, then shut the door tight, found the key from her pocket, and locked it before turning away to follow Timothy across the garden.

  * * *

  Emily and Timothy sorted quickly and quietly through Madeline’s workshop. It felt strange for Emily to be inside without her sister. She had to force herself to search thoroughly and not simply gloss over everything in an effort to keep from feeling she was prying. Timothy seemed to have less of a compulsion, but he did take exceptional care with every item he shifted and inspected.

  They amassed a small and hodgepodge pile of items on the sofa, but none of them seemed too likely to contain a daemon.

  “We don’t have everything she had with her that night,” Timothy said. “The skull isn’t here, to start.”

 
“She said it was broken.” Emily frowned at the workbench. “She had her rune cup with her, though. I thought that was strange, because the runes weren’t inside it. And I don’t see it here now.” She looked down at the floor, at the rug in the center of the room. “I think we need to search her cellar.”

  They had the rug moved and the cellar door open within moments, and Timothy insisted on going down alone. Emily lit a lantern and held it over the opening for him. The cellar was small and close and crowded. Timothy sifted through boxes and crates, blowing at thick dust and batting away cobwebs as he searched. “Nothing here looks as if it’s been disturbed for some time.”

  “She would magically shift the dust and put it back to make it appear that way,” Emily said. She gestured with the lantern at a shelf behind him. “Try there.”

  “It’s all old books,” he said. “Though—wait. Here’s a chest.” She heard him struggle with it, then peered down into it with him as he propped it on a middle rung of the ladder. She watched him take out a leather-bound journal, a silver candlestick, and a broken watch.

  Emily smiled a little sadly. “Her father’s things. I didn’t know she’d kept them.”

  Timothy glanced up at her. “Her father? Not yours?”

  Emily shook her head. “I’m my mother’s bastard.”

  “But you bear her husband’s name.” His eyebrows lifted. “Unusual for this country. I am impressed with Hamilton Elliott.”

  Emily laughed sadly. “It wasn’t for love of me but his pride. Hamilton pushed my mother to abort me, then to give me away, but she wouldn’t. He formally adopted me to dull the scandal and keep people from publicly shunning either my mother or me, but he never showed me any affection.”

  “Ah.” The awkward moment expanded between them, and he sifted through the box again. Then he paused. When he spoke, he sounded cautiously excited. “I think this may have a false bottom.” He braced the box against his leg, tugged smartly at the side, then laughed in delight as the bottom half of the box fell away in his hand. “Yes! And—” He paused, reached inside, then drew his hand back quickly. “Yes. The cup is here.” All the joy was gone from his voice. “It contains the demon.”