The Silver Rose (38 page)

“Ursula thirsts for any man’s blood.” Nanette giggled. “It is her favorite quaff.”

Cassandra drummed her fingers upon the windowsill. The idea came to her slowly, causing her lips to curl in a thin smile. “We shall send one other. A new recruit named Carole Moreau.”

“Your pardon, milady,” Nanette said. “But do you think it wise to send someone untried on so important a mission?”

“Ah, but Mademoiselle Moreau has risen high in the favor of our Silver Rose.”

Far too high, Cass reflected grimly. This would be a great opportunity to test the Moreau girl’s loyalty. And if she should fall in battle, dying heroically in the service of the Silver Rose, so much the better. A few quiet words in Ursula’s ear should be enough to arrange it.

Chapter Seventeen

B
REAKFAST WAS A
tense meal, Miri pushing around her food on her dish, feeling caught between the two men at the table. Martin was slouched down in an idle posture, making a hearty meal, but Simon seemed as little inclined for his breakfast as she. He maintained a morose silence. He wasn’t so cold and distant this morning, but there was a wearied sadness about him.

Madame Pascale had served them, but had gone off to tend to her morning chores, leaving the three of them alone. Miri sought to relieve the tension by speaking with forced cheerfulness.

“We shall have some relief from the drought at last.”

“How can you be so sure of that, my love?” Martin drawled.

“The frogs told me when I was down by the pond last night.”

Martin almost choked. He gave her a warning scowl, his message clear. Be careful what you say in front of the witch-hunter.

But Simon clearly astounded him, by agreeing. “I heard them as well.”

Martin scowled as though the two of them were in collusion to mock him.

“Frogs croaking is a sure sign of coming rain. You have never heard of such a thing before?” Simon asked.

Martin shrugged. “In Paris, if one wants to know it’s going to rain, one just sticks one’s head out the window.”

Silence descended again. Simon gave over all pretense of eating, shoving his plate away from him. Despite all of his steadfast efforts to avoid Miri’s eyes, his gaze locked with hers and she thought that she saw a frustrated longing that matched her own.

When she had sat alone by the pond, she had sensed Simon watching her through the darkness and had hoped that he might come to her so they could mend the rift between them. She wondered if he would have done so but for Martin. She felt ashamed of herself for wishing her dear, devoted friend hundreds of miles away.

Sighing, she made another effort to break the silence. “It was so lovely and peaceful down by the pond last night. I believe I am regaining my ability to connect with nature that I thought I had lost on Faire Isle.”

“Mon Dieu, Miri. Never tell me you have been caressing trees again,” Martin teased.

Surprisingly, Simon came to her defense. “When I was young, I used to do something similar. By stretching myself out on the ground, I thought I could feel the pulse of the earth. I haven’t been able to do that for years.”

“Maybe you just haven’t tried hard enough. Go a little deeper, like six feet under, Monsieur Cyclops.”

“Martin!” Miri rebuked him.

Simon winced at the insult. He got to his feet. “It is of no consequence. I have been called worse. If you will excuse me, I have work to do.”

He strode from the room, heading up the stairs. Miri frowned at Martin. “I realize you don’t like Simon. But you are here enjoying his hospitality.”

“It was only a jest. I make them often.”

“But I have never known you to be cruel before.”

“I have never been this jealous before.”

When she said nothing, he added. “That was your cue, Miri. Your next line should be, my darling Martin, you have no reason to be jealous.”

“This is not a performance, Martin.”

“If it were, it would be more a farce than a tragedy,” Martin groused. “Ever since I have arrived here, not only have I had to hear you defend the man, his people are going out of their way to point out to me Aristide’s virtues. What a great, kind man their master is, so fair and just, generous to the poor, protector of widows and orphans, the savior of beleaguered cows. He appears to have gone from the evil Le Balafre to Saint Simon in a single breath. It is enough to make a man dizzy.”

Miri gave a wearied sigh. “I wish I could make you understand about Simon. You have no idea what he has endured. What his life has been like.”

“And what of mine, Miri? Though I don’t go moaning about it, my youth was no day at the fair either. A bastard child, abandoned by my mother, not the least idea who my father is. Growing up in the streets of Paris, learning to survive by thieving and stealing purses. At least he had a family for eleven years.”

“That’s true, but you had the good fortune to cross paths with Nicolas Remy. My brother-in-law is a good and noble man. Simon was rescued by a lunatic, a half-mad witch-hunter. That he survived at all is a testament to his character.”

Martin slunk farther down in his chair, looking disgruntled. “Fine, if this is what you admire in a man, I am sure I could—could learn to deliver cows.”

Miri laughed in spite of herself at the idea of Wolf, with his penchant for fine doublets and shirts with lace cuffs, lying in the mud and blood of the barn.

“I could,” he insisted in an injured tone. “I have been thinking some things over. You feel that I never listen or really know who you are. I do. It’s just that having been so poor and risen so far in the world, it is natural I would want to give the lady I adore fine gowns and jewels and a grand home. But if you want me to live in a cottage out in the woods on Faire Isle, I would do that in a heartbeat.”

“Oh, Martin.” She reached across the table to press his hand. “You would be bored and miserable within a fortnight.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he insisted. “Not if I was with you.”

Miri only smiled sadly and shook her head. She knew this man far better than he did himself.

“The thing I regret most about what has happened between us is the day I took off that locket; I fear that I lost my friend.”

He smiled tenderly at her, carrying her hand lightly to his lips. “No, he is still here. Whatever happens, Miri, I promise you this. You have my friendship always.”

A
S
S
IMON RETREATED
into the fastness of his bedchamber, Miri’s soft laughter at something le Loup had said carried up the stairs. The man had an abundance of charm, the ability to make people around him smile and laugh instead of shrink back in fear. Traits Simon himself had once possessed.

Despite the animosity he had aroused upon his arrival, Martin had already done a great deal to mollify Simon’s people. Coaxing smiles out of Madame Pascale, even getting crusty old Jacques to laugh. He’d taken great pains to make amends to Yves, and not out of some desire to impress Miri or to manipulate the boy. For all the man’s grand gestures, there was a genuine kindness in his overtures to Yves. Simon might have liked the man for that, if not for the way Martin looked at Miri, calling her his love, all those honeyed phrases tripping from his tongue, the things Simon could never say.

Simon looked in the mirror above the washstand, desperately seeking some trace of the handsome, carefree boy he had once been. All that was reflected back to him was the weary, embittered visage of a man whose face was as scarred as his soul.

This room more than any other in the house whispered to Simon of dreams he had never acknowledged until now, hopes he had fashioned into the very walls when he had built this place.

The chamber and the bed were far too big for a solitary man; they cried out for the presence of a woman, a wife to hold fast in his arms on a cold winter’s night, the window seat a good place for her to stitch and dream, the large diamond-paned windows framing the sky for her, a view of the trees, the birds, and the animals in the yard.

The place at the foot of the bed would have been perfect for a cradle . . . except it was already occupied by the bitter reminders of his past, the trunk he seldom liked to open. All the diaries and records of his witch-hunts, journals that he had kept meticulously when he had been arrogant enough to believe his work was of paramount importance. He had stopped keeping the journals years ago, when he had started wanting to forget, not remember, the trials he had borne witness to.

Those diaries were full of the vituperative writings of a bitter and angry man. A man he was ashamed to have been, feared he might become again. The trunk was a Pandora’s box of all the evils in the world, of which he had been one. But now the box also might contain the answers that he sought, so he had no choice but to open it.

He lifted the lid and began sifting through years of dark memories, cases that he had tried. He wondered how many other mistakes he had made besides Faire Isle.

Many of the records of his earlier days had been lost in the fire at the Charters Inn. He had later tried to painstakingly re-create them with only his memory to rely upon. He sifted through the various journals until he found the one dealing with that last day at the Charters Inn. He flipped it open and it made painful reading because his thoughts that day had not been consumed with justice. They had been dark, full of bitterness, vengeance against Renard, anger with Miri for making him feel weak, hesitant about betraying her trust, trying to justify it to himself.

That time in Paris, he had been busily interviewing dozens of people, offering coin to anyone who would come forward with tales of those practicing witchcraft. He flattered himself at the time how much fairer and more just his approach was. Unlike his master, he did not torture anyone for information. He used more subtle weapons, clever questioning, intimidation, bribery.

He had learned to his cost that there were people willing to sell out their own mother for a sou. One notable example of that had been the woman who had betrayed Gabrielle Cheney.

Cassandra Lascelles. She had claimed to be Gabrielle’s friend, but for whatever angry reason, she was the one who had told Simon how to find the evidence necessary to arrest Gabrielle. She had been in possession of the Dark Queen’s ring and those damning medallions, which had disappeared along with the
Book of Shadows.

He still didn’t know to what extent Miri’s sister had been guilty of witchery or just mere foolishness. He hadn’t really cared. Her arrest had merely been a ploy to lure the Comte de Renard into a trap.

He had meant to investigate the Lascelles woman more fully at the time. It wasn’t the first time she had betrayed her own kind to witch-hunters. According to records left by his old master Le Vis, Cassandra had sought to save her own skin by naming her mother and sisters as witches. Ordinary betrayal would not have been enough to have saved her. But the girl’s youth and blindness had moved Le Vis to a rare display of mercy. After the raid on her home, Cassandra had disappeared for years, only resurfacing that summer when she had laid information against Gabrielle.

But Simon didn’t see how she could have been the one to steal the
Book of Shadows
amidst the chaos of the fire. Not only was the woman blind, Simon was certain she had been nowhere near the inn that day.

He had conducted no interviews, turning away all those eager to turn in their neighbors for a handful of coin. Besides his own men and the Cheneys, there was only one other person mentioned in his notes. A persistent, scrawny, filthy wench clamoring for admittance outside the kitchens. According to Simon’s records, her name was Finette and she had whined something about coming to claim a reward on behalf of her mistress, who had furnished Simon with information the week before.

The week before . . . about the same time Simon had arrested Gabrielle. He scowled. Was it possible this Finette was the witch who had made off with the
Book of Shadows,
and the mistress she served was Cassandra Lascelles? Could the Lascelles woman truly be the infamous Silver Rose?

As Simon pored over the journal, seeking further clues, he became aware of something drumming against the window. A sound he had not heard for so long, it took him a moment to register what it was.

Rain . . . and not those few pitiful drops that had teased France all summer with the prospect of relief. After all those false storms, the thunder and lightning that had yielded nothing but flash and noise, the skies had opened up at last, showering a healing rain down upon the parched earth. A genuine blessed downpour.

Simon rushed eagerly to the window, feeling his heart lift at the sight and he wasn’t the only one. Miri had raced out of the kitchen into the rain, heedless of the fact that she was getting soaked. True daughter of the earth that she was, she raised her arms, embracing the rain, twirling about in a joyous dance that brought a smile to Simon’s lips.

Wolf was apparently watching her from the safety of the doorway. Miri ran back to the house laughing and caught him by the hands, dragging him out. Simon half-expected the man to rush back inside like a scalded cat, but Martin laughed. The two of them locked hands, capering about in a wild dance.

Simon watched them, wishing he still possessed that kind of lightness of heart, was capable of such abandon. But instead he felt himself tense, his neck prickling with the uncanny sensation something was wrong.

He fast realized what it was. Elle. She had been left out in the paddock and she was behaving in skittish fashion, shying back, tossing her head. Storms upset her, but there was no thunder or lightning. If she wanted to escape the deluge all she had to do was trot through the side door back into the barn. No, whatever was upsetting her, it wasn’t the rain.

Simon pressed his face closer to the glass, attempting to peer through the driving rain. He was barely able to make them out. At first they seemed like mere shadows, but there could be no shadows where there was no sun. It was three figures creeping stealthily closer and even from this distance Simon was able to discern they were women.