The Lady of Secrets (37 page)

You had best take great care.

Mary’s warning echoed through Meg’s head. But she felt less fear than she did an oppressive weight settling over her heart. It was too late for taking care, too late for any hope of a peaceful resolution if the gossip she had heard was true.

Everyone from an ostler idling against the fence to a pair of urchins begging for coin: All were too eager to impart the terrible tale of how the innkeeper’s wife had been brutally murdered two nights ago.

“I heared they cut old Mistress Keating up into a hunnerd
pieces,” one of the boys told Meg. He looked far too young to be taking so much relish in such a gruesome tale. He grinned, displaying missing front teeth, until his older friend elbowed him in the stomach.

“Tell you all about it for ha’penny, mistress,” the older one said, sticking out his grubby hand. But the younger boy would not be repressed.

“It was witches done it. They cut her up and fed her to the devil’s hound. Then they leapt on their brooms and vanished and no one can find them.”

“I hope they swoop back and grab you, you prating doltard. You shoulda kept quiet ’til they paid us.”

The two boys might have come to blows, but Seraphine intervened, offering them both a coin. She plied them with questions they were unable to answer, but Meg had heard enough.

She approached the inn door, her stomach knotted with dread. She heard Seraphine calling out for her to wait, but she steeled herself and plunged inside.

The taproom was no more appealing than the inn’s exterior, the floor strewn with soiled rushes, the aroma of sour spirits fouling the air. Meg espied the portly innkeeper at once, serving up tankards of ale, laughing and jesting with his customers.

Keating looked so little like a man suffering from the shock and grief of a murdered wife that Meg entertained a fleeting hope that the gossip from the inn yard would prove unfounded. When Seraphine joined her, the eyes of every man present turned in their direction. Meg doubted that respectable women ever crossed the threshold of such a rough den, especially not one as beautiful as Seraphine.

Seraphine appeared impervious to the stir she was creating,
but Meg’s cheeks burned from all the leers and ogling stares. As the innkeeper ambled toward them, Meg sought for words to frame her inquiry after the Rivers sisters without arousing the man’s suspicion.

But Keating forestalled her with a grin. “Ah, I know what you ladies be after.”

“You—you do?” Meg asked.

“That’ll be a penny apiece.”

“A penny? For what?” Seraphine demanded.

“That’s what I’m charging for visiting the chamber where the terrible slaughter of my poor Lizzie took place.”

Meg’s jaw dropped open and Seraphine gasped.

“You are
charging
people to see the room where your wife was murdered? What manner of ghoul are you?”

Keating shrugged his beefy shoulders. “A practical one. My Lizzie was a hardfisted woman who knew how to rake in a coin. She would have been the first to applaud my enterprise. And if it comes to calling someone a ghoul, my fine lady, I am not the one traipsing all over town to have a gander at a blood-spattered room.”

When Seraphine drew in a furious breath, the innkeeper raised his hands placatingly. “Not that I blame you. I enjoy a good thrill myself. But it is only fair I should be compensated for providing it.”

“My friend and I are not thrill-seekers, you fat, impudent rogue. All we desire is inform—”

“Pay him, Seraphine,” Meg said quietly.

“What! Meg, you surely cannot wish to view this—this room of horrors?”

“Pay him.”

Seraphine frowned. But she must have seen the resolve in Meg’s face. Although she grumbled under her breath, she
fished two coins out of her purse and slapped them into Keating’s outstretched palm.

The man smirked and directed them to the chamber above the outer stairs. He gave Seraphine a broad wink. Meg could tell she was torn between wanting to box the man’s ears and intercepting Meg. But Meg was too quick for her, darting out of the taproom.

She was halfway up the stairs before Seraphine caught up to her and grabbed hold of her elbow.

“Meg, wait. There is nothing to be gained from your viewing a room that can only add to your nightmares. We are too late, surely you must see that. Those Rivers sisters have gone too far. They have committed murder and will have to answer for it. You may as well let the magistrates deal with them. You cannot save them now.”

“I know that. But I am not convinced the authorities will be able to find them. They have not been able to do so thus far. And you heard what Mary Waters said. Those women are determined to revive the coven of the Silver Rose. I can no longer help the Rivers sisters, but I must stop this madness from spreading and I still need to know if my mother is somehow behind all of this.”

“So you think to do what—find some clue in that room that the officers overlooked?”

“Perhaps. It is not my strongest gift, but you know that sometimes I am extraordinarily sensitive to the atmosphere of a place where violence has been done.”

“I know that, my dearest friend, which is why I would not have you enter that chamber for any price. But if you insist upon doing so, let me go in first.”

Meg shook her head. “The witches are long gone, and unlike
James Stuart, I have no fear of ghosts. There is no longer anything or anyone in that room who could hurt me.”

But as soon as she entered the chamber, she realized she was wrong. The room was so small that the man’s large presence seemed to fill it.

He stood with his back to her, studying something on the wall. Meg’s pulse skipped a beat, the breadth of those shoulders, the tilt of the head, the unruly mass of hair so familiar to her, she recognized Armagil before he turned to face her.

He looked as startled to see her as she was him. Until she had set foot in this room, she had resigned herself to never seeing him again. Her heart hammered with an unbearable mixture of joy and pain. Other than his initial surprise, it was impossible to tell what Armagil might be feeling.

“You!” Seraphine cried in a voice thick with loathing. Her hand groped to where her sword should have been and Meg was mighty glad it wasn’t there.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

Unperturbed by Seraphine’s angry greeting, Armagil replied, “I imagine the same thing you are. I heard the gossip about the murder and came to see for myself.”

“What, there was no bearbaiting or hanging today to afford you better entertainment?”

“I’m not seeking to be entertained, only informed as to the whereabouts of the women who committed this crime. I believe they may be the same ones who tried to poison me.”

“And what a pity they didn’t succeed.”

“A pity indeed,” Armagil drawled. “Because my landlord is a fine fellow and then he could have been the one to profit handsomely by exhibiting my lodgings.”

Seraphine had to bite back an urge to smile and that appeared
to make her angrier than ever. Meg could tell that her friend ached to give Armagil a tongue-lashing he’d not soon forget.

Meg hastily pulled her aside and in urgent whispers convinced Seraphine to desist. Perhaps in other circumstances, she would not have succeeded, but as much as Seraphine burned to avenge the wrong she perceived had been done to Meg, she could not do so without revealing to Armagil how badly hurt Meg had been. And if there was one emotion Seraphine fully understood, it was pride.

She was less compliant when Meg urged her to retreat belowstairs and question Keating and the kitchen girl more thoroughly about the Rivers sisters. Meg knew that despite Seraphine’s best efforts, she would not be able to contain herself if she remained in Armagil’s proximity too long.

After an intense whispered exchange, Seraphine conceded to her wishes, but not without a fierce warning glare at Armagil.

When the door closed behind her, an awkward silence fell. Armagil attempted to smile. “I appear to have fallen from the countess’s good graces. Not that her opinion of me ever was very high.”

“She is merely overprotective of me, always fearing I am some fragile creature easily hurt.”

And have I hurt you?
Armagil’s eyes asked the question even if he did not. Meg found it easier to avoid looking at him and focus on the room instead. She had feared she would be assailed by a powerful aura of terror and rage. But Armagil’s presence was so overwhelming, it blocked every other sensation except for awareness of him.

All she had were her eyes to rely upon and there was little to be seen except evidence that the occupants of this chamber
had abandoned it in some haste—the rumpled bed, a few stray belongings left behind. Chief of these was an empty wardrobe chest stained with what appeared to be blood.

Meg could not bring herself to inspect it more closely. Instead, she bent and picked up a stray piece of ribbon and rubbed it between her fingers. Silky, a soft shade of blue, it spoke to her of innocence and girlish dreams, completely at odds with the violence done in this room.

She touched it to her cheek and was filled with an inexplicable sense of sadness and disappointed hopes. Conscious of Armagil’s eyes upon her, she lowered her hand.

“There is little here to be seen,” she said.

“No. I would be inclined to demand that Keating return my penny. Except for
this.
” He stepped aside to reveal what the breadth of his shoulders had concealed, the symbol painted on the wall.

Meg’s stomach clenched, the sight of the pentagram smeared in blood far more disturbing than the stained trunk. She felt the first icy whisper of the room’s aura and the ribbon dropped unnoticed from her hand.

She forced herself to approach the wall. She was loath to admit it, but she was grateful for Armagil’s solid presence at her side as she inspected the symbol.

“It is a pentagram, is it not?” he asked. “The mark of the devil.”

Her throat had closed. She cleared it and struggled to respond in a dispassionate tone. “Not necessarily. In a proper pentagram, the top of the star represents the spirit. The other four points are the elements, earth, air, fire, and water. It is usually considered to be a good sign, a protection against evil.”

“When it is not painted in blood,” Armagil said dryly.

“Y-yes. And whoever fashioned this inverted the star, so that it is pointing upside down.”

“That is significant?”

“It shows that her spirit has become enslaved by her carnal desires. She needs to face the darkness within her before it rises up to take complete control of her.”

Except that it already had. Meg rested her fingers near the tip of the star. She was assailed by a maelstrom of rage, pain, and hatred. She snatched her hand back, her senses reeling.

She swayed and might have fallen if Armagil had not caught her.

“Meg?”

Seized by an uncontrollable shivering, she could not answer him. He drew her into his arms and held her hard against him. She burrowed against his chest, grateful for his strength. He stroked her hair, murmuring something she could not understand, but it didn’t matter, the tone was so soothing and gentle. His tenderness and warmth gradually drove back the darkness.

She could have clung to him forever, but as she regained her senses, she felt confused by his behavior. When she risked a glance up at him, he smiled.

“Better?”

She nodded.

“What happened?”

“I—I don’t know. Sometimes I just sense things I wish I didn’t. When I touched the wall, it was as though I could feel the witch’s darkness.”

She expected him to recoil, but he didn’t.

“Is that another of your—er—gifts?”

“Yes.”

He sounded more curious than wary, more like the man
she believed she had known, the Armagil who had made love to her so passionately, not the one who had turned cold and all but ejected her from his bedchamber. Her heart ached with such hope it was painful, but she could not bring herself to trust the emotion or him.

As she drew away from him, he seemed reluctant to let her go. Meg stepped back and tried to read his eyes, but he averted his gaze.

“Why did you really come here, Armagil?”

“I already told you. My reason is the same as yours. I am on a witch hunt.”

“Does that include me?”

“I do not regard you in that light.”

“That was not the impression you gave me when we parted.”

“That is because I am an oafish clod. I admit I was shocked by what you told me. When you confessed to being Megaera, it left me overwhelmed. I was not sure what to think or feel.”

“And now?”

He risked meeting her gaze and for the first time gave her one glimpse behind the barrier.

He loved her.

Meg’s breath caught in her throat. Armagil had experienced the same powerful emotion that she had when they had lain together. But it frightened him and not because of her strange heritage. So what was it? Something in his own past perhaps? Some terrible event that left him estranged from his family to the point of denying his own father? For one moment, she could see the shadow of the tenderhearted boy he had once been. But Armagil lowered his lashes, shutting her out.

Something had turned him into the hardened man he had
become, afraid to risk his heart. But Armagil loved her in spite of himself. That thought brought a tremulous smile to her lips, but she suppressed it. It would be unwise to push him any further, force him into avowals that he was not ready to make.

“You are determined to track down these witches and yet I find it hard to believe that it is because they poisoned you,” she said. “You have so little regard for your own life.”

“I lost all my coin dicing at the tavern last night. I could afford no other amusement.”

“And how did you even find this place?”

Her question clearly caused him unease. “I heard gossip about the murder and I am familiar with a man who has an uncanny knack for knowing about crimes that take place in the city.”

“What man?”

Armagil replied grudgingly. “Gilly Black.”

“Your fath—” Meg started to gasp, but checked herself at the sight of Armagil’s scowl. She amended, “Mr. Black. You reconciled with him?”