A Breath of Frost (9 page)

Blast.

She crossed behind the carriage, hiding behind its bulk. She hovered there uncertainly, running through curses under her breath. The coachman, overhearing her, gave a startled guffaw. “I didn’t know goats could do that,” he said.

She smiled at him weakly. Her mind raced as she tried to imagine a way past the butler. If he was anything like Jenkins she would need nothing short of magic.

A carriage pulled ahead of her hired cab and disgorged young gentlemen and ladies who should’ve known better. They were a riot of colorful silks, all hats askew and crooked cravats. They stumbled across the sidewalk, arm in arm. They headed toward the bachelor apartments like a flock of geese constantly changing leaders mid-flight.

Finally, a little luck.

Emma crept close enough to smell the port from the open bottle the young man with red hair swung negligently from his fingers. One of his friends was singing a song about a sailor and his sweetheart. It put her poor cursed goats to shame. She trailed
after them, trying to appear part of the festivities without actually drawing their attention. The butler nodded to the gentlemen and politely refrained from noticing the women at all.

Oil lamps burned in the foyer, casting wavering light over the marble floor and doors opening onto rooms down the hall. The balustrade of the staircase was shaped like a buxom mermaid. She’d never drown with proportions such as those. The party trampled up the steps. Nerves had her palms tingling. She rubbed them on her dress.

That was when she noticed the light spilling out from the front opening of her cape.

Light spilling from
her
, in fact.

She gasped, holding up her hands. She squinted at the flare of light, as bright as the Pickfords’ curtains when they caught fire.

Something was very wrong with her.

“What’s that, eh?” Someone slurred at the top of the stairs, blinking owlishly. “Bloody girl’s on fire.”

Emma gasped and leaped into the potted ferns and ficus trees grouped together on the landing. It occurred to her that she was spending a lot of time hiding in shrubbery lately.

“You’re foxed,” one of his friends laughed, slapping him so hard on the shoulder they both nearly fell headfirst down the stairs. The mad flailing to regain their balance distracted them from Emma. She stayed huddled behind the leaves, trying not to hyperventilate.

Her left palm was
glowing
.

She rubbed it hard on her dress and the glow dimmed but didn’t fade away completely. Her hands, all evidence to the
contrary, felt perfectly normal. If her eyes had been closed, she’d never have guessed anything out of the ordinary was happening.

The glow weakened, the light like molten iron boiling in a blacksmith’s shop. It poured and ran into new lines, like the blade of a newly forged sword under a hammer. The pattern was simple, curving into a four-leaf clover minus the stem.

Floorboards creaked as the party made its way into one of the rooms. A voice carried up the stairs from the back of the house. She couldn’t stay here. She curled her fingers into a fist, trying to hide the strange glow. It made her feel vaguely sweaty to look at it, as if she’d climbed too high up a tall tree and couldn’t find her way back down.

She forced herself up to the first floor, which was sectioned off into bedrooms with small attached private parlors. She knew Godric had a room overlooking the street, as he’d told them stories of hiding under the bed when he saw his parents’ carriage pull up to the curb.

However she had no idea which room belonged to Cormac.

This seemed so much easier in novels. And the
Times
made it sound as if housebreaking were as easy as buying muffins from a cart.

She forced herself to stop sneaking glances at her palm and concentrate. The door at the end must be Godric’s since it faced the street. The voices of the group she’d followed inside were a dull roar at the other end on the right. She moved slowly to the room beside her, listening at the door for a moment. When she reached for the doorknob, it turned easily. She craned her head inside.

And promptly slapped her hand over her own eyes, nearly blinding herself.

Subterfuge was a dangerous business.

And she could have lived a full, happy life without ever seeing William Purejoy’s backside.

She pulled the door shut hastily with a smothered apology. Well, it was meant to be an apology. She couldn’t help the laugh that choked out of her. Something thumped against the door and she leaped back. It sounded like a shoe. Or a chair. If he was that peevish about his privacy, he really ought to use the bedroom and not the parlor rug.

By process of elimination, Cormac had to be behind one of the other two doors, assuming he was at home. And unoccupied.

If he was with a girl, she really would have to stab him.

She pushed the next door open an inch, half-afraid of what she might see. She released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding when she saw nothing more exciting than embers in the fireplace grate and the outline of a chess set on one of several tables. The faint glow from the mark on her palm gave off just enough light that she could move about without running into the furniture. There were books, a tea tray, and a crystal on the windowsill. But no convenient letter addressed to him, or portrait of a family member on the desk.

As it turned out, subtle hints weren’t necessary.

She was pushed against the door, secured by a steady iron grip.

“Well, now, what have we here?”

The Chadwick town house
was rather grand from the outside, boasting to Mayfair that a duke’s granddaughter was in residence. The boast was deliberate, a poke at those who still whispered, nearly twenty years later, that said granddaughter had eloped with a man with no land and no title, and against her father’s wishes at that. That he was wealthier than most of the aristocracy was both a balm and a sting.

Behind the white Grecian columns was a snug home with all the warmth of a country cottage. In fact, the Chadwicks vastly preferred their country house to living in London but had insisted on being in town for Penelope’s first Season. They were a small family but a close one; case in point, Penelope went straight to her mother’s upstairs parlor. It was a haven where corsets were denied, shoes kicked off, and the art on the wall was courtesy of her mother’s own talent with absolutely no historical value whatsoever.

“
Maman
, you’re still awake at this hour?”

“I was waiting up for you.” Lady Bethany sat on a settee piled with embroidered cushions, the most prominent sporting a lopsided swan with three feet. It had been Penelope’s first attempt and she’d been so proud of it, despite the crooked stitches. Her mother had never allowed it to be tucked away or replaced. She was currently drinking from a pot of chocolate and reading a salacious novel full of doomed maidens and ruined castles. Or was it doomed castles and ruined maidens? Penelope was desperate to find out. She leaned against her mother with a small sigh.

“Was it dreadful, my darling?” Bethany asked, slipping a ribbon into her book to mark the page. “Dancing debutantes and fortune hunters?”

“Worse.”

She raised a dark eyebrow. “Worse? Goodness, how did you manage that? I remember those horrid balls.”

“Mr. Cohen called me fat,” she replied, wrinkling her nose. “I didn’t even know I
was
fat until this wretched Season.”

“Mr. Cohen is a sad young man who does not deserve you.”

“That’s what Emma and Gretchen said.”

Bethany smiled her serene smile. “I assume they used more lurid language. But I did warn you, kitten. I don’t see why you insist on having a Season. You don’t need to marry. Your father has set you up with an inheritance to rival what mine would have been.”

“If you hadn’t married Papa.”

“Yes.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Not for a moment,” she replied. “Friends who blow with the wind are not friends at all. I found a good man with a good heart. And he fills out his jacket rather nicely, if I do say so myself.” She reached for her cup. “I love your father and I’d be happy to be Mrs. Chadwick instead of Lady Bethany, if your
grand-maman
wasn’t so …”

“Invested?”

“I was going to say violent,” she returned drily. “You know she loves my title, and your own, more than we ever shall. More than my own mother did.”

“I know. That’s part of the reason I agreed to this Season. It makes her so happy.”

“She wouldn’t want you to trade your happiness for hers, whatever she might have to say on earls’ sons and vouchers to Almack’s Assembly Rooms. She never had a Season. She can’t understand.”

Penelope stole a sip of rich melted chocolate from her mother’s teacup. “I know. But I want what you and Papa have. I want love.” She gave a dreamy sigh, perfectly able to picture it: a man with wide shoulders and tousled hair, reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets as they rode through a summer storm.

“You’ve time enough for that, surely.”

“I hope so. Because I also know perfectly well that I only receive the invitations I do because of my inheritance and my uncles’ connections. Being the niece of two earls with impeccable reputations does wonders.”

“Those men are pompous bores but I suppose they have their uses.” She made a face. “Cora has outshone them in dull
propriety, which is saying something. I never thought a sister of mine would turn out so bland. You never can tell, can you?”

Penelope knew perfectly well that Gretchen’s mother had equally damning things to say about Bethany, though being boring was never one of her sins.

“Don’t let them change you.” Her mother stroked a hand over her hair. “Did you get caught in the rain?”

“You could say that.”

“That sounds rather ominous,” she teased. “Should I be shivering?”

“No, of course not. It’s only …” She shook her head dismissively. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Papa would say I’ve read too many novels.”

“
Pish
, there’s no such thing,” her mother replied instantly. “As well he knows.”

“I felt … odd. Too much excitement, I suppose.”

Bethany looked at her. “Did you remember your rhymes?”

“
Salt for meat and salt for defeat
,” Penelope recited obediently. She shook her head. “
Maman
, some of your rhymes have never made sense,” she added with a kiss to her cheek. “Good night.”

She was at the door when her mother spoke quietly. “Oh, before you go, hand me that ring, would you? The one in the dish just there.”

“Of course,
Maman
.” The little porcelain dish painted with violets had been there for as long as Penelope could remember. She’d played with its trinkets as a little girl. Her favorite was the small silver bell that tinkled merrily when she shook it. The
ring was a simple pewter band, set with tiny seed pearls. She’d handled it before, wondering at the dark spots that never scrubbed clean and the one pearl on the edge, melted flat.

So there was no explaining what happened when she touched it.

The world tilted suddenly until she wasn’t herself anymore.

She was the girl wearing the ring. Her hand seemed to glow briefly. She could see the ring gleaming on her finger by the lamplight. No, not lamplight.

Firelight.

She was dressed in a simple white shift and there was snow falling lightly. Rope tied her tightly to a wooden post, chafing her hands and neck raw as she struggled to free herself. Her hair was untied, long and blond, utterly unlike her regular dark curls. Smoke billowed thickly around her, choking her. It made her feel listless, drugged.

Not just snow, but thin white ash, drifting in the cold air.

She heard the snap of the flames as they ate through the hay packed between the logs, as they traveled mercilessly toward her, hungry and insatiable. The winter moon watched unblinking. People pressed closer in a circle around her, held back by fear, smoke in their lungs, and guards with spears. Ice and snow melted in the town square, running in rivulets on the cobblestones and catching the moonlight.

This isn’t real
, Penelope thought frantically, even as other alien thoughts braided with her own.

I won’t let them hear me scream
.

It was an empty vow of course. No one can hold back the
screams, not even girls who aren’t really being burned at the stake.

The shriek ripped from her throat, echoing in the velvet-and-lace-trimmed room. The smoke made everything hard to see, the faces of the silent crowd, her own mother in her favorite yellow dressing gown. Penelope coughed, choking.

And then her mother had her tightly by the wrist, flinging the little pewter ring onto the carpet. It lay there looking innocuous and pretty, just another bauble. Penelope gasped for breath, sweat dampening her neck. It took a long, painful moment for her to realize she wasn’t actually on fire. She was safe in her mother’s parlor with the candles and the chocolate pot.

Her father burst into the room, sword in his hand. The door slammed into the wall, knocking a painting off its hook. The glass cracked, shooting shards at their feet.