A Breath of Frost (12 page)

One of them brushed past her and she smelled the musk and mud of its body. She stayed as still as she could even though some primal part of her wondered, quite loudly, if she shouldn’t be running for her life right about now.

“I swear I don’t hunt,” she offered, her voice sounding odd in the stark peace of the grove. Several deer lifted their heads at the disturbance. Their hooves were powerful, and she remembered the stable boy who’d had his leg broken last week by a peevish pony. If a pony could be dangerous, what about wild
deer? “And I don’t eat venison.” At least, not after today. “Anyway, I was here first.”

She was reduced to false bravado in front of placid, grass-nibbling deer.

The moment stretched on, impossible and beautiful.

But by the time she counted thirteen deer, Emma was decidedly nervous.

Especially since the last to push past the oaks was a stag, with a huge rack of velvet antlers, like polished and gilded branches. His fur was thick, turning from winter gray to summer red. He towered over the rest, all muscle and primal power. Another deer shifted to brush past her, making room for the stag.

When he bellowed, Emma jumped, adrenaline tingling under her skin. The sound was loud and ancient, wild in a way London folk couldn’t understand. This wasn’t a wildness to do with too much champagne or dancing until dawn. This was cave paintings and stories told after dark. It was primitive and as old as the stars.

The stag turned his head to stare at her.

She wondered if anyone had ever been eaten alive by a herd of deer.

When his eyes met hers, she felt the connection in her bones. The trees shivered and flattened under a sudden gust of wind, showing their leafy underbellies. The birds fell silent. Fear fled, too wispy and unnecessary to hold onto. Something akin to joy bubbled through her, like hot springs coming out of barren rock. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel lonely.

She lifted her hand, the one with the painted witch knot. She moved slowly, so slowly it was like being underwater. Her fingers hovered over the stag. She paused. A red bird darted over her head. The stag stayed still, patient.

“Please don’t bite me,” she murmured, barely louder than a breath, as she stroked his shoulder. When he didn’t snap at her, she dug her fingers into the thick fur. It was both rough and soft. She had the insane urge to lay her cheek on it. The knot on her hand felt warm.

And then her entire body felt warm. She could smell everything: the rich earth, the tender new grass, the crushed acorns, the faintly skunk-like odor of fox pups in a nearby den, the very sun on the hills. She felt different. Unconstrained.

Furry.

A quick, startled glance froze her breath in her throat and her every thought somewhere in the back of her head. She felt an urge to run, to bound through the forest. The wind tugged at the hem of her dress, revealing a leg now lengthening and narrowing and growing a sheen of red fur. Her bones shifted, not unpainfully, and bent at angles at odds with her body.

She’d traded an unearthly glow for fur. Not precisely an improvement.

Still, she abruptly and quite desperately wanted to believe in witchcraft. It was a far more beautiful justification than madness.

The deer around them continued to eat. A few stepped nearer, blinking those wide liquid eyes. Ears flickered. A head turned sharply. Several tails lifted, flashing white.

“What the bloody hell is—urk.” Gretchen strangled her own words, snapping her jaw shut so fast she nearly bit off her tongue in the process.

The deer scattered, going off in every direction, like a storm of shooting stars. The stag bellowed and charged away, flinging clumps of dirt at them. Emma stumbled back, ducking to avoid being skewered by an antler. Under the privacy of her skirts, her leg turned back into ordinary flesh.

Gretchen goggled at her. Before she could say anything, Penelope joined them, squeaking as she stumbled into the grove. Her eyes were wide. “I was nearly trampled to death by a herd of deer!”

“Emma was petting a stag like it was Lady Pickford’s pink poodle,” Gretchen returned with a quick grin. “So you’ll have to do better than that.”

“Last night I was burned at the stake.”

“You win,” Gretchen said as Emma struggled against the desperate pull to follow the deer and run wild over the hills. “And … what?”

Penelope shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. I touched a ring and suddenly I wasn’t myself anymore.”

“You didn’t think to choose to be someone who wasn’t being murdered?” Gretchen asked.

“I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter, Gretchen,” Penelope replied. “Believe me.”

Gretchen rubbed her ears. “You needn’t tell the truth so loudly.”

Penelope looked at her oddly. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t hear that buzzing?”

“No,” she said, glancing at Emma. “Do you?” They waited through a long pause, not receiving a reply from either a convenient swarm of honeybees or their cousin. “Emma?”

“Hmm?” Emma forced her attention back to the achingly empty grove and her very boring human self. “Sorry?”

“You ought to pay attention when your cousin tells you she was murdered.”

Emma blinked. “Neither of you look particularly dead.”

She snorted. “Perhaps not, but I did see Margaret’s ghost last night.” She shook her head sadly. “And then I read about it in the newspaper this morning.”

Penelope sank down into the grass, looking tired and perplexed. Gretchen stretched out next to her, staring up into the complicated tangle of oak leaves. Emma was the last to sit, tracing her fingers in the print left by a deer hoof. “Let me see your palms,” she said softly.

“Whatever for?” Penelope asked. “It was my legs the fire burned and I’ve already searched them for burns. It only
felt
as if it were happening to me.” She shuddered.

“All the same,” Emma insisted. Her cousins stripped off their gloves and held their hands out.

“What the blazes is that?” Gretchen burst out. Penelope snatched up a handful of grass and used it like a handkerchief, trying to rub the mark away.

“Don’t bother,” Emma told her. “It won’t come off. It’s called a witch knot. And at least they’re not glowing.”

“Is this some sort of prank?” Gretchen asked, tilting her
hand this way and that. The symbol was so pale, it was barely noticeable. “Because I don’t understand it.”

“Apparently, the Lovegrove sisters were witches. And since it runs in the family, we are too.”

Gretchen broke out laughing. “You’re not serious.”

Penelope smiled. “That’s something out of a gothic novel, Em. Well done. Are we tragic and misunderstood, doomed to wander unloved over the moors?”

“I’d prefer a moldering old castle,” Gretchen put in. “Something with damp, dark dungeons.”

“Unfortunately, I’m serious,” Emma said, rolling a cracked acorn under her fingers. “And I didn’t make it up.”

Gretchen rolled over. “Well, who told you such a ridiculous thing then?”

She squirmed. Both Gretchen and Penelope raised their eyebrows at her.

“Cormac,” she mumbled.

“Cormac?” Gretchen screeched. “That—”

“When did he tell you this?” Penelope interrupted before Gretchen could really get going. She’d happily eviscerate Cormac’s character for the rest of the day, given half a chance.

“Last night,” Emma admitted sheepishly. “When I snuck into his apartments.”

Gretchen sat up slowly. “You snuck into
Cormac’s
apartments?”

“Yes.”

“Without
us?
” She pouted. “I thought we agreed he was to be loathed and insulted at every opportunity.”

“He knew about the knot. And my mother’s trinket bottle. About us.”

“About us being witches,” Gretchen returned doubtfully. “I think he’s having a laugh at your expense. And I mean to make him suffer for it. As soon as possible.”

Penelope shook her head. “I think he’s right,” she said. “I relived being burned at the stake as a witch,” she said. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“And rain inside a carriage is impossible,” Emma added.

“Not if there’s a leak,” Gretchen grumbled. “And I’d like to know what else you did in the carriage.”

“Nothing more interesting than making it rain.”

Gretchen blew out a breath, ruffling the short hair at her temples. “You’re both serious.”

“You did just say you saw a ghost.”

“After drinking whiskey. Which is vile, by the way. And I didn’t see my hand glow.”

Penelope frowned. “But think about it. My mother’s always making us recite those silly rhymes. Perhaps they’re spells. She was even burning feathers and lavender outside my door last night. It smelled like death. I was too tired to tell her to stop though. That sounds suitably witchy, don’t you think?”

“No offense, but your mother’s always been eccentric, Pen. I mean, she’s an artist, after all.” Gretchen rolled her eyes. “And can you imagine
my
mother prancing about reciting spells? That’s where your theory falls apart. Rather spectacularly, I might add.”

Emma couldn’t help a chuckle. “The mind does boggle,” she agreed. “Still. Cormac was serious. And he seems to think other Keepers from the Order will be coming for us.”

“Who?”

“A kind of magical policing force.”

Penelope’s eyes widened with recognition. “That’s why,” she murmured, reaching into her reticule and pulling out two narrow iron hairpins set with tiny pearls. She wore one tucked into her curls. “Mother made me promise we’d wear these.”

Gretchen took one, frowning at it. “Iron?”

“She said it would keep us safe. She was most adamant.”

Emma slid the pin into her hair. Gretchen did the same with a disgruntled sigh. “Why hair bobs?”

“No one would suspect they were anything but decoration,” Penelope guessed. “You know how my mother is always going on about using society’s own preconceptions against them.”

“They must be magical,” Emma said slowly. “To keep us safe from the Order, I wonder?”

Gretchen glowered. “What do they want with us in the first place? We can’t have broken the rules already. And if they want us so badly, why didn’t Cormac take you away at the ball?”

Penelope smirked. “Because he’s sweet on her.”

Emma stared at her. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, he did kiss you.”

“That was months ago. And he’s kissed half the girls in London since then,” she pointed out. “We should go talk to your mother, Pen,” she added, changing the subject away from the very complicated Cormac.

“We’ll go first thing in the morning.”

“Why not right now?” Emma asked.

“Because my mother’s not at home right now,” Penelope said. “She’s helping one of her friends prepare for a ball.”

“And because
my
mother is having one of her supper parties.” Gretchen grimaced. “And you both told her you’d be there. More importantly, you also promised you’d save me from the tedium since I can’t escape to the library this time.” Her expression hardened. “Anyway, if the Keepers really are after us, like Cormac said, then we’re safer together. We’ll cut through the crowds on Rotten Row right now and then you’ll spend the night.”

“
Witches
,” Emma pointed out. “And
murderers
. Surely that’s more important than dancing and tea cakes.”

Gretchen didn’t look convinced. “You’d think so, but you know my mother.”

After a long dinner
of turtle soup, roast beef with stewed celery and asparagus, followed by syllabub decorated with fresh violets, the ladies retired to the drawing room. They sat demurely and chatted over champagne. Their daughters flipped through the latest issues of
La Belle Assemblee
for new dress patterns, wondering when the young men would join them again. There were twenty-four couples in attendance, with their various sons and daughters. Friendships were strengthened at such events, and matches considered. Accordingly, Lady Wyndham had invited mostly the parents of single young men and only a few girls so as not to appear too obvious.

Daphne and Lilybeth drifted toward the small card table in the corner that Gretchen, Emma, and Penelope had monopolized for their own purposes. The two girls’ white dresses gleamed like moonlight. Emma’s dark-green ribbons had already
begun to unravel from her hem and Gretchen was picking the stitches of her left glove, as she always did when she was bored.

Daphne clucked her tongue. “Gretchen, that hair pin is dreadful. It’s completely lost its shine.”

Gretchen just looked at her steadily. She didn’t blush or cringe, as most girls did when Daphne turned the sharp edge of her tongue on them. Lilybeth cringed beside her, even though she knew for a fact that her every hairpin and jewel was gleaming perfectly. She’d made sure of it.

“Daphne, go away,” Gretchen said plainly and without rancor. Daphne sucked in an offended breath. Gretchen shooed her as though she were a bothersome fly. “Go on.”

“Did you see how Daphne kept touching Cormac’s sleeve?” Penelope whispered, once Daphne and Lilybeth had flounced off.

In fact, Emma
had
noticed.

“I’m sure I didn’t,” she replied instead.