by C. J. Archer
Nicholas flexed his cramping fingers around the reins. "The woman who owns these things."
"They’re mine." The man gathered up the skirts and chemises and stuffed them back in the bags.
"Women’s clothes?" On a different day, under different circumstances, Nicholas would have doubled over with laughter at the vagabond’s appearance. Dressed in a gown with his own worn hat and muddy boots, he looked like a runaway player from one of the theaters up the road, and not a good one either.
But Nicholas had no laughter in him.
He tossed the man a coin. "Tell me where you found those bags and I’ll let you keep the gown and your life."
The man scrambled in the mud for the coin. He bit it, nodded his approval then closed his fist around it. "Down that lane there." He indicated the narrow lane behind him.
Nicholas dismounted, his heart thudding wildly. He felt dizzy as he asked his next question. "The lady these bags belong to...is she...?"
"Dead?" The vagabond chuckled, revealing several crooked, blackened teeth. "I dunno now do I? Nothin’ movin’ in there ’cept rats."
Nicholas let out a pent-up breath. He put a hand up to the horse’s warm neck to steady himself as the dizziness resumed. "Then where is she?"
"Like I said, I dunno. The bags were just sittin’ there. I waited and no one came to get ’em so I thought maybe the lady didn’t want ’em no more." When Nicholas didn’t say anything he added, "If you don’t believe me, go look yerself." When Nicholas started to walk off, the vagabond called after him, "Sure I can’t keep the other stuff?"
"You got that gown, now get out of here."
The vagabond picked his skirt up out of the mud and left, muttering that the blue one would have suited him better than the green.
Nicholas tied his horse to a post and drew his sword. He strode into the lane, scanning the rubbish for signs of life. Apart from the rats gnawing at discarded animal bones, nothing moved. No one, alive or dead, lay amongst the debris and filth.
Relief gave way to hope. Somehow she had been parted from her belongings, but that didn’t mean she was...dead.
There was only one reason she would have been separated from her clothing—her powers had been rendered useless.
The apprentice must have caught up to her. Knowing about her magic, he must have been prepared and somehow disabled her witchcraft and kidnapped her. It was the only possible explanation. With Isabel’s powers, even the strongest footpad would come off worse in an attack. Fox must have duped her. What he might have done afterwards made Nicholas sick. He didn’t want to think about the possibilities.
He untied his horse and mounted. For the first time since learning of her departure, the fog clouding his mind had cleared. He felt sharp, every one of his senses alert, his body ready for battle.
He looked up and down Bishopsgate Street Without. It was still busy but the traffic had lessened along with the sunlight. Soon the City gates would be closed and anyone on the outside would have to find lodgings at one of the nearby inns.
So many inns. If he had just abducted a woman who was probably unconscious, he would take her to a room in one of them. Maybe pretend she had fainted on a long journey and tell the landlord he needed a bed for her quickly.
That’s what he’d do and he was an expert at deception. His gaze settled on the nearest inn, the Swan, and he urged the horse into the stable yard.
***
Isabel awoke to the sound of hooves clacking on the stones outside the window. She tried to identify how many horses there were but everything kept fading in and out. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t the noise fading, but her.
The pain in her head had lessened a little but the ache in her shoulders had increased thanks to her awkward position in the chair. She wriggled to try and adjust the bonds but they were too tight. So she tried using her powers, concentrating on removing the ropes, seeing them untie in her mind.
Something moved. The knot at her wrists weakened and she could almost pull her hands free. She closed her eyes and focused, shutting out the background sounds of the inn. Every nerve in her body strained with the effort she put into releasing herself. The ropes loosened more. Almost there—
The tumbling of a lock broke her concentration. She opened her eyes and saw Fox enter the room. He closed the door behind him and watched her from a distance, his attention entirely on her, wary.
"Untie me now," she ordered him.
Her words seemed to release him from his stupor. He smiled and she couldn’t believe she’d never noticed how sly it was. "No."
"What do you want? What have I done to deserve this?"
He crossed the room to the table and poured some wine from the jug into one of the cups. He had discarded the long blue robe that marked him as an apprentice and only wore loose gray trunk hose, leather doublet and a plain flat cap. "Let’s just say I hate working for a woman."
She had no doubt he spoke the truth but it wasn’t the rentire reason for the kidnap. "Then you should have sought an apprenticeship elsewhere. Now, are you going to tell me why you’ve abducted me or am I going to have to guess?" Her headache had returned like an angry warrior wielding a club around her skull. But she wouldn’t let Fox see her pain. She wouldn’t show the little rat any weakness.
"Let’s discuss it over a drink." He held the cup to her lips. "Thirsty?"
The pungent smell of the wine roused her a little. She sniffed again. There was something else mixed with it. A bitter odor teased her senses, tingling inside her sensitive nose. If she’d been more alert, more like herself, she probably would have identified the herb but her head felt like it was wading through mud and singling out a single scent was impossible.
"What’s in the wine?" She blinked up at a blurry Fox standing above her.
He cocked an eyebrow. "You can’t tell? The great Isabel Camm can’t detect what herb is mixed in with her wine?" He chuckled deep in his throat. "Just a little something to keep you awake."
"Liar." Whatever it was, she doubted he wanted her awake. "I’ll not drink it." With renewed desperation, she focused again on her bonds. They were looser after her last attempt but not enough to free herself.
But with her pounding head and the extra distraction of Fox’s presence she couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t budge them. It was hopeless.
"Stop doing that!"
Her eyes snapped open at the menacing snarl in his voice.
"I know what you’re doing," he said. "I know you’re a witch and what you’re capable of."
"Which is why you’ve drugged me."
He smiled that sly smile again. Just like a fox. Appropriate. He returned the cup to the table but kept his gaze on her. Then he moved behind her and tightened the ropes. "Couldn’t quite do it, could you? How frustrating that must be."
She ignored his taunts. If she was going to get out alive, she needed to remain calm and in control of her emotions. It was the only way to find out what his plans were and then thwart them. But calmness eluded her—all she felt was a bone-shaking fear.
"Tell me why you’ve abducted me," she said, "and we’ll come to an arrangement. Do you want money?"
"Money?" He sniggered. "Not anymore. I have enough money now. What I want is to have my life back. I want respect. I want what’s owed to me—my apprenticeship."
She frowned but that only made her head ache more. "What are you talking about?"
He huffed out a breath and sat on the bed. "Where do I begin? Ah yes, with your father."
"My father?"
His youthful face turned hard, the mouth twisted. "He destroyed my father’s life, and therefore mine."
Isabel blinked at him. "Did my father know yours? Was he a customer at our Winchester shop?" Perhaps it was all a misunderstanding and she could help clear up the problem before he did something they both regretted.
No, not even she believed that.
Fox burst into laughter but there wasn’t a trace of humor in it. "You stupid bitch. My fa
ther was an apothecary too, just like yours. Better than yours. Until your father destroyed his reputation and his business. And my future."
Isabel’s heart skidded to a halt. Now she understood. Fox’s father was the third apothecary at Whitehall seven years ago. Aside from her Papa, there had been Pullman, Shawe and... She frowned. No one named Fox.
"What is your real name?" she asked.
He looked surprised that she’d guessed that much. "Finch. I decided to use Fox when I came to London."
"And my father discredited your father in front of his colleagues. Isn’t that right?"
"And the queen." He leaned forward on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees, but his casual position didn’t fool her into thinking he was anything other than alert to her every movement. "So you know what happened at the conference?"
"I know," she said. "And I’m sorry for the way in which Papa confronted your father and the other apothecaries about their...questionable remedies. He should have had more tact. But Papa was a plain speaker and I can imagine his accusations must have wounded. Shawe was one of the others, you know."
"I know. And your apology is much too late." He screwed up one side of his face in a sneer. "I don’t care anyway."
"About what?"
"About anything!" He stood. "My father died a poor, broken man because of your Papa. My mother was left with nothing." He stood over her and bent down so their faces were level. His eyes flashed in the dull light, either from tears or anger, she couldn't tell. "She worked herself to an early grave to feed me and my sisters. When we buried her, I vowed I would get my revenge."
She shook her head. "I don’t understand. My father is long dead."
He straightened, nodding. "It was the best day of my life when I found out. I felt...free. I decided to start again. I wanted to re-establish the family business in London, earn back my father’s good name and make a life for me and my girl, Betty."
Isabel felt nervous. If this had something to do with Betty breaking up with him then she was in trouble. Men could turn desperate when a woman they loved left them.
How desperate had Nick become when she left him?
But none of this told Isabel why Fox had abducted her. "A noble occupation for any young man," she said cautiously.
"Of course I needed an apprenticeship to open a shop in London. I applied to Shawe because my father had praised him after their meeting at Whitehall. Luckily he took me on." He laughed, the harsh snort reverberating around the room. "But just when everything’s going so well, you turn up and the nightmare begins again. The old man loves you like a daughter." He strode from one side of the room to the other, glaring at her every time he passed. "You could do no wrong with him and the old lady, even though your father nearly ruined him. Then Mistress Shawe dies and he’s ailing and you take over everything. Not me, who’s been there longer, but you. A woman. A stupid, insignificant woman." He suddenly stopped pacing. "My apprenticeship came to a grinding halt. I’ll never leave Shawe’s at this rate. Never set up on my own."
It definitely wasn’t the time to tell him he’d failed in nearly every component of his apprenticeship. Shawe couldn’t possibly recommend him for membership in the Grocers Company. Without that, Fox would never be allowed to open his own shop in London or even to settle down as a paid journeyman. And without a good, reliable income, he’d never find a decent wife.
"Then my Betty left me," he went on. "Says she’s got another man, someone with prospects."
Cold fingers of fear crept across Isabel’s skin. His reasons for hating her were completely irrational. He blamed her for Betty’s leaving—men had killed for similar reasons. "So you resent me," she said, carefully. "Why kill me now after all these years?"
"Kill you? I’m not going to kill you. You’re going to be arrested for witchcraft." He looked like a delighted schoolboy waiting for a congratulatory pat on the head from the teacher. "I couldn’t believe my luck when I found out you were a witch. I went to the Justice of the Peace straight away after my little visit to Ashbourne House this morning. But when you decided to leave London suddenly I knew I had to capture you and hold you until he could come. I’ve sent him a message. He’s on his way."
Panic seized Isabel, paralyzing her. She tried concentrating on the ropes again but nothing happened. She couldn’t focus enough to use her powers. What good were they if she couldn’t use them when she needed them most!
"So you tried to poison the queen too then?" She had to keep him talking, had to keep him occupied until she had enough strength to use her powers on the bonds.
He shrugged as if it were nothing. "Lord Croxley came to me with an offer. Said he would pay me a lot of money to poison the sweetmeats. I had access to poisons and could make a delivery to the palace without raising suspicions." He shrugged again. "I got only half my money since the queen’s stupid lady ate the sweetmeats instead, but half is still a nice amount."
His sanity was closer to the edge than she realized. She shivered at the coldness in his heart. If he could willingly commit murder and treason for money, then he would have no qualms about killing her if pushed. "And was it your father who tried to poison her seven years ago?" she asked, determined to continue talking to keep her own fears at bay.
"Yes." He smiled his slick smile again. "And he did it so your father took the blame. Very clever, don’t you think?"
"Yes," she said wryly. "Very. So he got his revenge, and yet you still think you need more."
"Having your father arrested didn’t stop my father’s business from failing. It didn’t put food on the table, or keep my parents alive."
She shook her head, genuinely confused. "So why try to poison the queen again? What could that possibly have to do with your vengeance against me?"
"You always think everything is about you," he sneered. "Well, it isn’t. It had nothing to do with you. I needed money to set myself up for when I left Shawe’s."
Finally she understood. "So all you needed to do was finish your apprenticeship," she said.
"Which I couldn’t do with you in the way, always telling Shawe how lazy I was."
"So you tried to make it look like I did the poisoning. With me gone, disgraced, you could take my place and dupe Shawe into giving you the recommendation you need."
It hurt her aching head to take it all in but she thought she had worked it out. Fox must have suspected all along that Nick was a spy and so to deflect suspicion from himself and onto her, he must have planted the note from Lord Croxley in her Herbal. Good Lord, he was a scoundrel of the worst kind.
Rage quietly rose within her, a slow burning fire. She would not let him get away with it. "So were you attempting to kill Nick too?"
"Your husband?" He laughed as if that were a great joke. "Of course. He wouldn’t arrest you like I planned, so I thought they’d send someone else upon his death, someone who would arrest you. Someone not under your spells." He shrugged. "Besides, it seemed appropriate. It’s because of you that my Betty left me. So I decided to make you suffer like I did by taking away the one person you love. I couldn’t believe it when I overheard you speaking in The Four Feathers. To find out he was your husband was a gift." He raised his eyes to the ceiling as if the gift had come straight from Heaven. "I decided then to kill him and watch you in pain. I already suspected he was investigating the poisoning, so eliminating him would serve two purposes."
"But you didn’t kill him," she said, defiant. "He’s too good to be beaten by someone like you."
"He had the devil’s help from you," Fox growled. He was little more than a silhouette on the bed now in the waning light. She hadn’t seen any candles or lanterns in the room so perhaps he would leave soon to get some. She hoped.
"But maybe its better this way," he went on. "He can watch you die on the gallows first." He lifted his face and she could just make out the twinkling in his eyes. "Maybe he’ll die later, like your mother did. Pine away for his lovely, sweet wife." He sniggered.
"Whatever
happens to me, Nick will make sure you don’t get away with treason."
"You think they’ll believe the man who married a witch? Especially when all the evidence points to the witch being the poisoner. No one will believe him when they find out his wife is a witch." He had it all worked out, every turn, every twist.
He was right. They wouldn’t believe Nick after her arrest for witchcraft. Not even Lord Ashbourne could save her with so much evidence against her.
Isabel pulled against the bonds at her wrists with renewed desperation. She tried to concentrate and focus, picturing the knots loosening, the ropes untying.
"I told you before, stop that!" Fox leapt off the bed and came at her, his fist raised.