If all Leo had said about the rumors were true, Sinjin’s calling on Nuala would only encourage them. But it was far better to meet her openly than attempt to arrange another private rendezvous, which Nuala would surely refuse in any case. And she would have Lady Orwell’s company to lend respectability to the visit.
The time for social calls had nearly expired by the time Sinjin had made himself ready. He left his card with a parlor maid and wondered what he might do if Nuala wouldn’t see him. Beating down the door would certainly attract attention and do nothing to regain Nuala’s trust.
To his surprise, the parlor maid returned and invited Sinjin to enter. He was kept cooling his heels in the entrance hall until Lady Orwell appeared.
The young woman paused at some distance from Sinjin, reserved in her half-mourning, punctiliously courteous.
“Lady Charles is not at home, Lord Donnington,” she said after the briefest of curtsies. “If you should care for tea…”
Sinjin felt as tongue-tied as a schoolboy. “Thank you, Lady Orwell. Can you tell me when Lady Charles is to return?”
“That I do not know.” She gestured toward the stairs and led him to a door to what Sinjin presumed was the drawing room. He hesitated, seeing no reason to remain, but as he met Lady Orwell’s grave gaze he began to wonder if he had had in some way misjudged her. This was not a woman expecting imminent engagement to a man she had been assiduously pursuing.
Had Melbyrne decided against courting her? Was this the face of a woman spurned, grieving for a lost love?
Guilt had already taken up residence in Sinjin’s gut; it took little enough to add to its weight. He followed Lady Orwell into the drawing room, set his hat on the table and waited while the young woman excused herself with a murmur of apology.
Left alone in the room, Sinjin noted that it was strangely absent of any trinkets or decorations that suggested a woman’s personal touch. It was clean and uncluttered, almost masculine…perhaps not so surprising when one remembered that Nuala had only been resident in London for a short while.
Unable to sit still, he rose and stalked around the room. By sheer chance he happened to glance behind one of the chairs near the mantelpiece. A painting leaned facedown against the wall.
Glancing toward the door, Sinjin lifted the painting away from the wall and turned it over. It was a portrait…a portrait of Nuala, recently painted but oddly anachronistic in style, as if it had been rendered centuries ago. Nuala’s hair was bound up under a prim cap, and her dark dress bore a similarly prim, wide collar.
The clothing of another time. But Nuala’s face was unchanged…solemn, her gaze looking out at the viewer with a deep and abiding sadness.
Sinjin closed his eyes, the image burning under his eyelids. There was something familiar about the gown Nuala had chosen to wear for the portrait. Something that drove him back to last night’s inexplicable occurrence.
Fire. Fire and agony, a woman’s triumphant face as she raised her arms and worked her black magic. Hatred beyond anything this world could contain…
Lady Orwell was just returning as Sinjin reached the door.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but I must be going. I thank you for your hospitality.”
She gazed at him with eyes that seemed far older than her years. “I shall tell Lady Charles that you called.”
“I am grateful.” Sinjin bowed shortly and strode for the front door. A woman was entering the house just as he reached the end of the hall. She was small and mousy, with unremarkable brown hair and eyes, but when she stopped to stare at Sinjin he was instantly aware that she was not as ordinary as she seemed.
Sinjin had had enough of extraordinary women. He tipped his hat and bowed, intending to continue on his way, but his feet refused to obey his will.
“Lord Donnington,” the woman said, though they had not yet been introduced.
“Mrs. Summerhayes,” Deborah said, coming to join them, “may I present Lord Donnington, the Earl of Donbridge. Lord Donnington, Mrs. Adolphus Summerhayes.”
Sinjin bowed again. “Madam.”
The young woman continued to stare with a strangely unconscious rudeness. “Have you come to see Nuala?”
Her frank question left Sinjin temporarily speechless. Lady Orwell stepped into the breach.
“I have informed Lord Donnington that Lady Charles is not at home,” she said.
“Oh,” Mrs. Summerhayes mumbled, as if her thoughts were far away. “You can’t go on as you are, you know,” she said to Sinjin. “There are too many things left undone.”
“Lord Donnington was just leaving,” Lady Orwell said quickly.
“It isn’t over,” Mrs. Summerhayes said, as if Lady Orwell hadn’t spoken. “You must purge yourself, Lord Donnington, or he will ruin you both.”
“What is she talking about?” Sinjin demanded of Lady Orwell, aware that he had begun to perspire. Deborah made no answer. He turned back to Mrs. Summerhayes. “To whom are you referring?”
She blinked. “Hasn’t he told you?”
“Who?”
Her gaze focused again. “Forgive me,” she said in a small voice. “It is not my place to interfere.”
Sinjin’s skin had gone icy cold. “Who wishes to ruin us?”
As if she had felt his chill, Mrs. Summerhayes shivered. “I cannot…see clearly,” she murmured. “There is one who plagues you. One who speaks with your voice.”
How could she possibly know? “Nuala…Nuala told you….”
Mrs. Summerhayes took a deep breath. “Is it your desire to know the truth, Lord Donnington?”
“For God’s sake.” Sinjin glanced again at Lady Orwell, but she had vanished. He could feel his knees begin to turn rubbery, his brain to fill with fog. “Make yourself plain, madam.”
“I will help you,” she said, “for Nuala’s sake.”
“Help me? Help me how?”
“I can draw him to you. Make him…speak.”
“Who is he?”
But she had returned to her strange inner world. “Come to my house when you are ready. I shall do what I can.”
“What are you?”
“I speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.”
Then she wandered away, into the shadows of the corridor that disappeared behind the staircase. Sinjin stared after her, laughed under his breath and slammed his hat more firmly on his head.
She was mad. As all the Widows were mad, in one fashion or another. But she knew things she shouldn’t have known. She had looked into his soul. She had seen the…thing that had frightened Nuala.
I speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.
Ludicrous. Beyond ridiculous.
Sinjin waved his carriage away and walked briskly back to his club. Male acquaintances tipped their hats as he passed; young women simpered and curtseyed. He paid them no heed nor noticed his surroundings until he nearly collided with Felix Melbyrne.
“I say!” Felix said. He backed away, removed his hat and played with the brim in a nervous manner, though his smile remained fixed in place. “How are you, Sin?”
Sinjin grunted, in no mood for conversation. Felix wasn’t put off.
“I know I was a poor guest at Donbridge,” he said slowly. “I couldn’t bear to see Lady Charles…That is, I had reached the conclusion…” He swallowed. “Sin, I’m going to ask Deborah to marry me.”
The declaration penetrated Sinjin’s consciousness. “Marry her?”
“Yes. I love her.” His smile became almost fierce. “You won’t stop me, Sin. Not this time.”
If it was outrage Felix wanted, he was to be disappointed. “Good luck,” Sinjin said gruffly. “If you will excuse me…”
“You…you don’t object?” Felix stammered.
“You are your own man, Felix. You may do as you choose.”
“Then…have I your blessing?”
“If you require it, yes.”
Melbyrne’s grin became positively incandescent.
“Thank you, Sin. I shan’t forget this.”
He was off before Sinjin thought to ask what had precipitated this sudden urge to propose. It didn’t really matter. The boy had never been committed to the Forties in any case.
Sinjin took a few more steps, stopped again, glanced at his watch and looked back the way he had come.
Where the hell was Nuala? And what would he do when he found her again?
Destroy her.
Dragging his hand across his face, Sinjin banished the evil voice. He would keep it buried with enough whiskey to drown a whale.
Until she returned.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NUALA KNELT BEFORE the graves, head bowed.
The headstones were crumbling. They bore no names, no adornment; no one who did not know precisely where they were located could have found them.
That was how it had been meant to be, so no vengeful witch-finders could despoil the graves. Not that much had been left to bury, but at least some dignity had been granted the remains of the bodies left behind.
Mother. Nuala laid her palm on the grass that covered Mrs. Moran’s resting place. Father, next to his beloved partner and wife.
There were others, nearly all of whom Nuala had known, worked beside, loved. Gregory, Sally, so many who had fallen.
The flowers Nuala had brought stirred in the wind. With barely a thought she sent the breeze away. She had been looking for peace here, some explanation for her returning powers, for what she had heard in Sinjin’s voice and seen in his face. She had hoped for some gentle spirit to explain what she must do, how she might earn an end to the memories.
But the graves were silent. The rustling leaves in the nearby wood made no answer. The small animals who crept so near had no advice to give.
Slowly she rose, automatically brushing the soil and grass from her skirts. She wandered back along the barely visible path through the wood, beside several fields and into the village. It, too, was a quiet place, never touched by the witch-hunts. To these farmers and villagers, such horrible events might never have occurred.
Nuala retreated to her small room at the inn and lay on the bed, praying that a few hours’ rest would bring some clarity to her mind. It did not. At dinnertime she descended to the dining parlor, prepared to eat another meal alone with her thoughts.
“Mind some company, gal?”
Nuala emerged from her brown study and glanced at the old woman in surprise. She hadn’t seen the woman before; she might have been a fellow guest at the inn, or simply one of the villagers come in for a meal or a gossip with the innkeeper. Her appearance was unremarkable, her clothing very plain and patched, her skin weathered from much time spent out of doors. A straggle of thin, gray hair peeked out from beneath her bonnet.
“Please,” Nuala said, indicating the chair next to hers.
The old woman sighed as she sank into the chair. “I see yow sittin’ aloon here and thought ya might like a talk.”
“That is very kind of you, Mrs….”
“Simkin.” She signaled to the barmaid, with whom she was clearly acquainted, and grinned at Nuala. Her teeth were surprisingly white, and all seemed to be present.
“You’ve come a long way, haven’t yow, gal?” Mrs. Simkin asked, meeting Nuala’s gaze with watery blue eyes.
Nuala relaxed. In over two centuries, she’d had far more dealings with common folk than the Society of which she was now a part, and she was almost grateful to be called something other than “Lady Charles.”
“I have, Mrs. Simkin,” she said. “All the way from London.”
“Huh.” The old woman cocked her head. “More’n just from Lonnon, I think.”
The air felt a little cold in spite of the warm weather. “We all make many journeys in life, do we not?”
Mrs. Simkin laughed. “Aye, that we do. Wise yow are, for such a fine lady.”
Before Nuala could answer, the barmaid arrived with two pint glasses of ale. Mrs. Simkin immediately picked up her glass. Nuala left hers untouched.
“Come on, then, gal,” Mrs. Simkin said. “Yer not too fine for a pint, or I ain’t old enough to be yer granny.”
Nuala couldn’t help but smile. “It’s been a very long time,” she said.
The old woman set down her glass and studied Nuala with a grave air. “What is it, then?” she asked. “What’s troublin’ yow? It’s him, innit?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s plain as day, gal. Yer runnin’ away.”
The ale exerted a suddenly powerful appeal. “What makes you assume such a thing, Mrs. Simkin?”
She shrugged. “Comes to me sometimes. Feelin’s I get.”
The old woman might have been talking about Nuala herself, of those long years when feelings had guided her in her work.
“We’re both of us different, yow and me,” Mrs. Simkin said. “That’s why I have advice to give yow, unasked though it be.” She finished her ale and stared pointedly at Nuala’s glass. “Might be best if yow drink up, gal.”
Nuala made no move to take it. Was it possible that she had found another witch, a survivor of the dark times? “What advice do you have for me, Mrs. Simkin?”
“There are things yet undone atween yow and this man. Runnin’ away won’t ease yer pain.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
The blue eyes narrowed in their nests of wrinkles. “Lyin’ don’t suit yow, gal.” She placed her hand at the small of her back and groaned, regarded her empty glass with disfavor and turned her unyielding gaze back to Nuala. “Yow understand well enough. Yow think yer afraid of him, but it’s really yourself yow fear. That’s why yow have to go back.”
“Of course I intended to return. I only came to Suffolk—”
“—because yow thought the answers would be here. But they lie in yer own heart, gal.”
Nuala stared at the nicks in the well-worn surface of the table. The old woman was correct. She would not find answers here. What was there left to do but return and face Sinjin again?
“You are right, Mrs. Simkin,” she said slowly. “I will find nothing more in Suffolk.”
The old woman nodded, though she didn’t smile. “Beware yer anger, gal. It lies at the root of the evil yow fight.”
Her anger? Was that what the old woman had meant when she’d said that Nuala feared herself more than Sinjin? Hadn’t she been angry with Sinjin from the beginning…angry that he’d held her to blame for Giles’s death, angry that he had kept Felix Melbyrne from Deborah, angry that he had made her feel…
Nuala rose, making quite certain that she was steady on her feet before she let go of her chair. “Thank you for your advice, Mrs. Simkin,” she said, laying several coins on the table. “I shall keep it in mind.”
“There is something stronger than anger or hatred,” the old woman said before she could walk away. “It is the one thing yow have lacked since the day of yer sin.”
Nuala turned back, feeling faint. “Who are you?”
But the other woman got up and hobbled away without another word, never slowing until she was out the door.
Suppressing her impulse to follow the old seer, Nuala spoke to the innkeeper and arranged for a carriage to be brought round in two hours’ time. She retraced her steps to the graveyard and knelt on the giving earth.
“I understand now,” she said. “You sent me the answer I needed, even if it was not the one I hoped to hear.”
Leaves swayed, and a mouse rattled through the grass. Nuala lowered her hand, and the tiny rodent scurried into her palm.
“Is that what I’ve been missing?” she whispered. “Is that why the price has not yet been paid?”
The mouse twitched its whiskers at her, leaped from her hand and scurried away. Nuala got up, touched each of the headstones in turn, and made her way back to the inn.
THE WRITING IN THE LETTER was as ugly as its sender.
Deborah laid the sheet of paper facedown on her desk and gazed out the window at the black, star
less sky. She need never read it again; its contents were seared into her mind, misspelled scrawls that nevertheless made their meaning clear.
Bray had given her five days. Five days to pay the man before he released his “evidence” of her low birth to the gutter newspapers, those cheap and common scandal sheets whose editors had no compunctions about printing scurrilous items that might embarrass the nobs with their fancy carriages and palatial houses.
Strangely enough, Deborah hadn’t been alarmed by the threat. She had told herself that the low papers were scarcely to be believed when it came to the most pernicious gossip. She knew that hardly anyone in Mayfair or Belgravia was likely to read them. And she had promised to wait for Ioan to confirm or deny the existence of the “witnesses” Bray had claimed he could produce as evidence of Deborah’s shameful origins. She had placed her faith in Ioan’s certainty of Bray’s deception, and so she had not paid the blackguard a single penny.
But now she understood that such hopes and assumptions had been misplaced. The five days had passed, and Bray had made good on his threats. He had sent Deborah a copy of the testimony given by the “landlady” who had agreed to confirm his assertions. It was plain, unadorned and entirely convincing. There were others just like the landlady who were prepared to come forward, and not all of them could have been bribed or bullied into supporting Bray’s story.
So it must be true. The sooner Deborah accepted the consequences of that truth, the better. The papers containing the sordid news might already have been released. In the best of all possible worlds, no one in Society would ever learn of the scandal.
But she would know. She could never forget.
Returning the papers to the desk drawer, Deborah found that her thoughts were strangely clear. The best thing she could do now was quietly leave London. Her parents—the only parents she had ever known—had left her a cottage at Baden. She might not merit the title she had received from Lawrence, but the cottage was hers by law. There she would be safe.
Nuala ought to be told. But she had gone out of town again, clearly preoccupied with troubles of her own—doubtless involving the earl of Donnington—and Deborah had no desire to add to them.
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