The Huntress (36 page)

But to her surprise, Sander’s grip tightened on hers, a strangely exultant look on his face.

“No, what Cat has done is delayed him, given us our chance.”

“Delayed who? Our chance to do what?”

“Escape.”

Before Meg could protest, Sander wrenched her arm, all but yanking her off her feet. She tried to hold back, but he dragged her ruthlessly along, growling one urgent word in her ear.

“Run!”

Chapter Twenty

T
HE THEATER WAS EERILY SILENT IN THE FADING LIGHT, THE
actors and the servants who cleaned the Crown long ago gone home. Meg cowered against the tiring-room wall, her arms bruised and sore from Sander’s rough grip.

They would be safe hiding at the theater, he had insisted when he had half-forced, half-coaxed Meg into fleeing to the Crown. But Meg had begun to fear that the one she needed saving from was the boy prowling the tiring-room like a caged tiger. The boy she had once trusted with all her heart, believing he was her friend, had abruptly transformed into this alarming stranger.

Meg felt confused, frightened, and angry in a way that she had not since the days she had lived with her mother in Paris. Sander appeared as tense as she. He dragged his hands through his hair, starting at every sound like some harried beast.

Meg eyed him reproachfully. “You have to let me go home,” she insisted for the tenth time. “I think Cat was hurt. I have to help—”

Meg broke off, shrinking back when Sander rounded on her. He raised his hand. But when she braced herself for the blow, Sander lowered his arm with a frustrated sigh.

“Damnation, Meg. Don’t you understand?” he pleaded. “I am trying to rescue you.”

“Then why don’t I feel rescued?” she retorted. “I feel more like—like I am your prisoner.”

And she well knew what that felt like, Meg thought bitterly. She had learned long ago from her own mother what it was to be held hostage to someone else’s schemes. But she had never imagined Sander to be scheming anything…until now.

“You saw that man coming after us?” Sander demanded. “His name is Ambroise Gautier. He works for the Dark Queen. He forced me to lure you out of the house. I didn’t want to, but if I had not complied, he would have killed me and just found another way to get at you. I hoped to find some way for the two of us to escape and I did, thanks to Mistress O’Hanlon. If she had not provided a diversion, you would be in Gautier’s clutches by now.”

“My
fianna
is not a diversion. What if Cat was—” Meg trembled. No, she refused to believe that Cat had been killed. Her friend was too fierce, too strong to be so easily bested. Even now Cat was likely searching for Meg. And no doubt her papa was, too.

The thought heartened Meg enough to arch her head and challenge Sander. “You claim to be saving me. Why should I believe you?”

“Because I was honest with you about Gautier. I explained everything.” Sander braced one hand on the wall above her head and leaned down closer to her. “And I know you can read eyes. What do mine tell you?”

Meg stared at him fiercely, attempting to pierce those blue depths. She could see that he was partly telling her the truth, at least about not wanting to surrender her to Gautier. But the rest of his thoughts were so murky and—

Meg caught her breath as she was struck by the realization that Sander had not explained everything.

“How—how do you know of the Dark Queen? Or anything about reading eyes?” she faltered.

“I know a good many things. Like who you really are.”

Meg’s heart missed a beat, but she tipped up her chin. “What do you mean? I am Margaret Elizabeth Wolfe.”

“No, you are not,
Megaera.
” He smiled and patted her cheek. “My Silver Rose. I am a member of your coven, one of your devoted followers.”

“My followers were all women. I—I mean I don’t have a coven. I—I don’t have the least idea what you are talking about.”

Sander laughed. “You require proof, my young queen?” He shrugged out of his doublet and shoved up the sleeve of his shirt, displaying his forearm. Meg stared at the scarred brand of the rose carved into his white flesh. She blinked, scarce able to believe her eyes.

“No, it’s not possible.”

“You give me little credit, Meg. I am a brilliant actor. I can play the role of a woman to perfection.” Sander coyly fluttered his lashes. “A pity you never had the chance to see me perform. There are some shrewd—or perhaps I should say
were
some—clever women in the coven, but none of them ever guessed I was born crested, not cloven.”

Meg cast a dazed look up at him. “But why ever would you do such a thing?”

“Why? Because I have been fascinated with the forbidden arts ever since I was a young lad. My parents apprenticed me to a blacksmith, but I had no liking for the trade. I saw quickly that it would be nothing but a lifetime of hard, backbreaking, sweaty labor. I realized I was meant for better things when a strange man passed through our village.

“Master Gervais was a Frenchman by birth, what you would call a
gitan.
But certainly no ordinary gypsy. He was a man of many accomplishments, actor, musician, conjurer, and fortune-teller. He took a liking to me and I ran off with him to London. He taught me all that he knew of magic and performing, even how to speak his language. When we could not find work among any of the acting companies, we made a fair living with Gervais’s scrying ball, conjuring up the voices of angels to console poor grieving folk.”

“You mean you cheated people,” Meg said indignantly.

“Belike we did. But we were convincing enough to get accused of necromancy. Gervais was convicted of sorcery and hung. I was
fortunate
enough to receive a lighter punishment.” Sander laid sarcastic emphasis upon the word. “All they did was hack off my ear. That was when I realized something about justice. It is dispensed according to the size of one’s purse and one’s rank.

“What is considered a crime in a poor man is often a mere eccentricity among the great. So I set about finding myself a more powerful patron.”

“Lord Oxbridge.”

“Yes, Ned. His lordship has a, er, penchant for handsome and clever young lads. When he realized I shared his interest in the occult, he became quite taken with me. Enough to let me accompany him on one of his journeys to France and that was where we first heard of your legend, Megaera.”

“My name is Meg,” she insisted stubbornly, but Sander ignored her.

“We stumbled upon the coven by pure chance when we were traveling through Brittany. Ned and I thought it might be amusing to pass me off as a woman and see if I could insinuate myself into the group.”

“You would not have been so amused if those witches had discovered your secret. They would have torn you apart.”

“No doubt. Most of your devoted followers are a trifle demented. Rabid man-haters, every last one of them.”

“I begin to understand why.”

“Nay, do not hate me, Meg.”

When Sander tried to stroke her hair back from her brow, Meg shied away, glaring up at him.

“My eyes never lied to you when you read my thoughts and I conveyed how much I admire you, how astonishing a woman you will be when you are grown. I joined your coven as a jest at first, out of mere curiosity. But I became more and more intrigued with what I heard about your powers and the
Book of Shadows.
When we learned that you had been brought to England, Ned and I resolved to find you.

“You can’t imagine how astounded Ned was when you turned up here in London under our very noses. If your papa had wanted to keep you hidden, he should have been more discreet.”

Sander chuckled. “But no one likes to perform at center stage more than Master Wolfe.”

“Don’t you dare speak of my papa in that sneering tone,” Meg cried. “He—he has never been anything but generous and kind to you.”

Sander shrugged. “He’s a fool for all that. He has no idea of the kind of power you possess, does he? I was not sure how much I believed myself. So I set about slowly to win your trust.”

“Which I never should have given.”

“The more time I have spent in your company, the more amazed I am. You are so quick and clever. Your followers claim that only you could translate the
Book of Shadows
and I believe it.”

“It hardly matters because I no longer have the book.”

“Now
that
I don’t believe. You have had me procure some mighty strange things from the apothecaries, to say nothing of those precise instructions you gave me for acquiring those intriguing lenses. What did you do with those, I wonder? And what potions have you been brewing?”

Meg compressed her lips and turned her head away, but Sander caught her chin, forcing her to look at him.

“You also have the most extraordinary memory of anyone I ever met. I’d be prepared to wager you have most of the spells of that book stored in your head, hmmm?” Sander stroked his fingertips lightly over her brow. “And your father would have you waste your life embroidering samplers and playing the lute very badly.”

Meg thrust his hands away. “What do you want from me?”

“Why, only to help you become the powerful sorceress you are destined to be.”

No, what he wanted was to use her, to acquire her power and knowledge for himself. Meg could read that much in his eyes. She wondered why she had not seen it sooner.

A memory stirred, Cassandra Lascelles’s cold voice echoing in her head.

“You have learned to read eyes well, Megaera. I sense that you have begun to fancy yourself very clever, my daughter. But there is a danger in waxing too smug, especially with a man. You can be tricked into seeing what you want to see in his eyes. What he wants you to see.”

Her mother was right. Which left Meg tormented with the question: what else had Maman been right about?

“I have no interest in becoming any kind of sorceress. I demand that you take me home. Right now,” Meg cried shrilly.

But she was stilled when Sander clapped his hand over her mouth. He cocked his head to one side, listening intently. The sound of footsteps. Someone was crossing the stage, approaching the back of the theater.

Cat? Papa? Meg quickened with hope. But when she sought to thrust Sander’s hand away and cry out, he seized her about the waist. Crushing her to him, he muffled her more ruthlessly.

Meg struggled, kicked, and tried to sink her teeth into his palm. Sander cursed when she stamped down on his foot.

“Don’t be a fool, Meg,” he whispered harshly in her ear. “What if it’s Gautier? Do you really want to end up at the mercy of the Dark Queen?”

Sander’s words caused her to freeze. She ceased her struggles with a tiny whimper.

“Now be quiet.”

When he was satisfied with her compliance, he released her. Thrusting Meg behind him, Sander drew out his dirk and stood poised, tense, waiting.

Meg scarce dared breathe as the footsteps hesitated, then came closer, heading straight for the tiring-room. Her hand moved instinctively toward the hidden pocket in her gown, but it had been a long time since she had armed herself with her syringe. Not since the day Cat had become her
fianna.

A floorboard creaked beneath the weight of a heavy foot. Whoever approached was making little effort to conceal their presence.

“Sander?” a man called softly.

Sander expelled a long breath and sheathed his knife. Parting the tiring-room curtain, he replied. “Ned, over here.”

Lord Oxbridge ducked behind the curtain, what little daylight remained outlining his sharp aristocratic profile. Sander might have been relieved to see him, but Meg regarded Ned Lambert warily.

“Sander, where the devil have you been? I have been looking everywhere for you.” His lordship’s gaze flicked in Meg’s direction. “And what is she doing here?”

“It is a long story. Suffice it to say there is another contender here in London striving for the prize. We can’t afford to wait any longer, Ned. We have to take the girl and leave England tonight. As soon as it gets dark we—”

“None of us are going anywhere. Especially not
her.
” The look his lordship directed at Meg was so hard and angry, she shrank away from him.

Sander appeared startled by Lord Oxbridge’s vehement words, but he recovered, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I know you hoped I would coax her into telling what became of the
Book of Shadows,
but we’ve no time to worry about that now. It doesn’t matter anyway. I believe the girl knows most of the spells. Megaera
is
the book.”

“Damn the book,” Lord Oxbridge interrupted impatiently. “Do you think I care about any of that—that sorcery now? Don’t you know what has happened to my sister?”

Sander blinked. “Oh,
that.
Yes, I had heard Lady Danvers was taken to the Tower. It proved most convenient actually. I was able to use the tidings to get rid of Master Wolfe so I could—”

“Convenient?”

Sander made haste to amend his tone. “I did not mean that precisely. It is most unfortunate about your sister, but she appears to have brought it all upon herself, smuggling in a priest to say mass in your home. You are fortunate it is not you in the Tower.”

“Jane only did what I should have had the courage to do myself.” A red tide of color flooded Lord Oxbridge’s cheeks. “I should have been the one arrested. I was the one who furbished that secret room with all the occult symbols in my stupid quest for the philosopher’s stone.”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“You haven’t heard the worst of the accusations against my sister? Jane is accused of plotting to use witchcraft against the queen. I have no notion how it is possible, but somehow they have come to believe that Jane is the Silver Rose.”

Silent and forgotten, Meg followed the exchange between the two men with growing consternation. She thought of Lady Danvers with her sad, haunted eyes, but still so kind, gifting Meg with what was now her greatest treasure, that scrap of the coronation carpet. And now that same gentle lady was imprisoned in the Tower, accused of being the Silver Rose in Meg’s stead?

Meg was horrified when Sander started to laugh. Lord Oxbridge looked as though he wanted to strangle Sander and Meg could not have blamed him as she had another daunting realization about her once-beloved friend.

Sander Naismith was completely selfish, had no true empathy for anyone save himself.

But faced with his lordship’s glare, Sander struggled to contain his mirth. “S-sorry. But you must see the absurdity of it yourself. The saintly Jane suspected of being an evil sorceress? You have often complained yourself of how tiresomely virtuous your sister is.”