Lois Greiman (28 page)

“I
’m told she is mending well.” Lord Nicol Argyle cleared his throat. “She sends her regards.”

“Where is she?” Will asked, and stared down at the courtyard beneath his window. Nearly ten weeks had passed since his return to Landow Manor. But still the place seemed strange to him. Quiet and empty, but almost peaceful. Perhaps the ghosts had given up, had gone away.

“At her home. Though they won’t tell us the location.” Will turned. Nicol glanced down and swirled the Scotch in his glass. How strange that it was no longer tempting.

“Us?” Will asked.

“Anna is trying to learn her whereabouts. But the English have given us little information. Only the…” He winced. “Only the few facts we were able to pry out of them. It seems they’re extremely protective of their…” He paused.

“Spies?” Will said, and found he was still stunned by the idea. She wasn’t a thief. Not in the proper sense at any rate. She was a spy, an agent of the English government. “I had no idea. ’Twas clear she was more than…” He drew a careful breath and reminded himself that the
world was not crumbling around him. All was well. His life was not in danger. There was no need to worry where his next meal would come from. And yet…He turned his mind aside. “So even Tatiana can’t find her.”

“We’ll keep trying, Will. The English have been cooperating with our troops. We worked well together in Darktowne.”

Will nodded, slowly, still trying to assimilate the facts. “Cask…a traitor.”

“It was a surprise to all of us. I never even considered it, didn’t imagine he’d…” The viscount winced. “I can’t believe he took his own life.”

There was a great deal that was difficult to believe. “No sign of Jack yet?”

“No. He’s a clever lad. I fear we’ll be hard-pressed to find him if he wishes to remain hidden, but the search goes on.”

“Peter?”

“He’s safe. Comfortable.” Nicol almost smiled. “An interesting chap. He sails for Teleere in a few weeks’ time. Laird MacTavish thought it best for him to leave Sedonia for a spell, after all the information he’s shared.”

“He’s been helpful then.”

“Extremely.”

“But nothing about Shandria’s whereabouts.”

“I don’t think he knows much, Will. Once she was returned to her own country…There’s been no trace of her. I’m sorry. Truly. More than you know.”

“No,” Will said, and shrugged. Pain skittered down his arm, but it hardly mattered. She was gone. “You needn’t be. I shouldn’t have asked for your help so soon after your wedding. ’Twas selfish of me.” He tried a smile and wished for a drink, not to drown reality necessarily, but to have something to do with his hands. “How
is your bride, by the by?” He reached into his coat pocket for a cheroot. No point in giving up all vices at once, after all.

Nicol produced a match. “She has a name, Will.”

“Of course,” he said, feeling a sliver of guilt. It seemed he’d been rather rude at their wedding. Rude, even before he’d stumbled idiotically out of the palace and into mortal danger. “I know she does. I didn’t mean—”

“I’m just not sure what it is,” Nicol admitted.

Will smiled at the viscount’s obvious discomfiture, then exhaled a waft of sweet smoke and allowed a bit of tension to drain away. “’Tis strange, isn’t it?” he asked. “You and I, noblemen, peers of the realm, attracted to…” He paused and took a seat by the fire. It danced with merry disregard. “Well, they aren’t exactly princesses, are they?” Though he was quite sure Nicol’s had once pretended to be.

There was a slight but intriguing pause. “Not exactly,” admitted Nicol.

Someday, perhaps, Will would investigate that pause, but not just now. He would allow his grief. See what came after. “But at least your lass wasn’t married, aye?”

“I’m sorry, Will. I—”

“No. My apologies,” he said, and, shaking his head, rose again, restless and foolish. “’Twas a shock is all. I never considered she might be wed. I always thought of Poke as the enemy. Her master. If I could just see her free…” His words crumpled to a halt.

“I’m sorry,” Nicol said, and Will managed to smile at his own pathos.

“Self-pity,” he said, and shook his head. “I should have given that up with the drink.”

“You’ve been through hell. No one could blame you if you’re a bit morose.”

He smiled. “She would.”

Nicol cleared his throat. “From what I heard, she’s an amazing woman.”

And gone. Out of his reach forever. Another man’s wife, according to English sources.

“Will—”

He started from his reverie. “I’m sorry. Yes. Of course. You should return to your bride.”

Nicol was frowning. Perhaps, Will realized, he was being rude yet again, but a rap sounded at the door, distracting him.

“My lord?”

He turned toward his housekeeper. She was a short, plump woman with a ready smile and a good soul. One that had taken Jack’s disappearance hard. Why hadn’t he realized that at the time? Why hadn’t he recognized the good as readily as the bad? “Yes, Mrs. Angler.”

“I’ve no wish to bother you, my lord, but a letter just arrived.”

“Thank you. I’ll be with you shortly,” he said, and forced a smile as he glanced back at Nicol. “I seem to be the height of fashion since my adventures. A few wounds and tales of derring-do and voilà, every deb from here to Londonderry is begging for a waltz.”

Nicol didn’t return the smile but extended a hand, then stepped up close to slap Will’s back. “I’ll stop by tomorrow,” he said.

“There’s no need for you to waste every day with me, Cole,” Will said, stepping back. “Truly. I’m well on the mend.”

“It’s been but a few weeks.” Nicol’s voice sounded troubled.

And the future loomed like a black mountain, but surely Will could still muster a modicum of backbone. “Buck up,
Cole,” he said, doing his best to sound cheery. “Or I’ll be forced to tell your wife you’re as soft as pastry filling.”

“Too late,” Nicol said, and in a moment he was gone. The house echoed with loneliness. Will turned into the silence, challenging it.

“My lord,” Mrs. Angler said, not two feet from where he stood and already handing over a sheaf of crumpled paper.

He took it with some misgivings. It was nothing more than a tattered scrap, stained and wrinkled and folded in two.

“I don’t mean to pester,” she said, looking worried. Had he always caused others so much concern? “But it seemed strange, being delivered so late and all.”

“Of course. Thank you,” he said, pacing back into the morning room and closing the doors behind him.

For reasons unknown, his hands shook when he unfolded the note. The letters scratched upon the parchment were spidery and irregular. The message was short. The signature shaky.

Will’s stomach knotted up tight. He read the missive again, then once more, before pacing the room. Finally, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the windowpane. The glass felt cold and smooth.

So she hadn’t abandoned just him. She had left Jack, too. In the back of his mind, he had wondered if she had somehow managed to take the boy with her. But no. She was alone with her husband, he thought, and couldn’t even guess if that should make him feel better or worse.

Or perhaps…He straightened slightly, staring down at the courtyard below. Perhaps it was a new twist. Perhaps someone was trying to lure him back to what remained of Darktowne. Perhaps there were scores to settle. Perhaps it was a trap. And perhaps, beneath his well-tutored smile and fetchingly brave stoicism, he didn’t give a damn.

Saint Andrews was silent when Will stepped beneath the ancient stone archway. The dark-stained pews marched away, empty and solemn. A candle flickered on the altar, blown sidelong by some unseen draft, like a ghost long past but still disgruntled.

His footfalls echoed on the hardwood floor. A scratch of sound hissed from the narthex, but when he turned there was no one to be seen.

“Jack?” He said the name quietly, and found that once again, despite everything, fear rode up his spine. How many of Wheaton’s men had survived Tatiana’s scourge of Darktowne?

Something creaked. Premonition crept along his skin. He turned with slow wariness. His muscles felt stiff, his lungs tight. He shifted his gaze—and caught his breath, for she was there, not forty feet away.

“Shandria.” He whispered her name like a prayer, like a sacred incantion, and though she said nothing, he knew it was she, for his heart was no longer dead in his chest but beat in hopeless longing to the rhythm of her breath.

She took two faltering steps toward him and stopped. Silence stretched like darkness between them. Emotions warred like storm clouds in his soul, but he tamped them carefully down, remembering. He was a baron again, after all, and she another man’s wife.

“So you are well?” he asked, and was surprised that
the words would come, so mundane, so matter-of-fact, when his life was nothing without her.

She nodded. Even with the hood, her face looked pale, her cheeks hollow. Was she in pain? Hungry? The thoughts ached through him, almost pushing him toward her, almost breaking his resistance. “And you?”

“Certainly,” he said. “Of course.”

She cleared her throat and glanced about. “I received a missive from Jack. I thought…He made it sound as if I were needed.”

Her voice was the same as ever. Dulcet, heartbreaking in its beauty. “I received the same letter,” he said, his tone sounding gritty against hers.

She dropped her gaze to her hands. They were gloved in soft, ivory suede. “I suspect he wished for us to speak,” she said. “Perhaps he thought we could…” She paused, and it almost seemed for a moment that her voice quavered. And it was that tiny weakness that drew him forward. But just one step. Just one before he caught himself. “Perhaps he wished for us to mend our differences.” She glanced up again, her eyes haunting from the shadow of the russet hood. She looked thin and fragile, fostering a host of unacceptable emotions. She was not his to coddle or even to contemplate, but he could remember how she’d felt in his arms. How she’d made his life worth living. “Where is he now? Do you know?”

“No,” Will said, and tightened his fist with his shuddering resolve. “I tried to hold him before, as you know.”

“No.” Her eyes felt like sunlight against his soul, but she lowered them in a moment. “I suspected there was a history between the two of you, of course. But he never said.”

She was wed, he reminded himself again. But did she love him? And what of her husband? Did he know the
truth? Did he realize she was everything, all that was good, all that was right with the world?

But Will had no right even to contemplate such things. No right to her at all. He forced his mind away. “He was caught stealing and was about to lose his hand,” he said, returning resolutely to the story. “Princess Tatiana stayed the punishment and insisted that I take him in. I fed him, had him tutored, took him here,” he said. “To this very church. But I could not make him stay.”

Silence again.

“Or wouldn’t,” he corrected. “Perhaps I didn’t want him to. Not really. He was a thief, and my wife had been killed by…” He cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry.” She glanced toward the door, then down at her hands where they worried each other. “Well…I’d best be gone,” she said, and turned away.

His heart ripped in his chest. He tried to speak, but she had already stopped, had twisted slightly toward him, though she didn’t catch his gaze.

“I want you to know…” Her voice was whisper soft, almost inaudible. “That I understand.”

He clenched his fists. “Understand what?” He could no longer control his tone, pretend all was well. For all was damnably wrong. He took one rapid step forward, then stopped himself. “Understand what?” he repeated, his voice low in the echoing darkness.

She gave him a hint of a twisted smile. Her eyes shone like silver in the candlelight. Bright as hope. But there was none. “If the situation were reversed…perhaps…perhaps I would feel the same.”

His throat was burning, his heart bleeding. Damn her for making him love her! “Oh?” he said, and breathed a painful laugh. “And how do I feel, Shandria? As if you
lied! As if you tore the very heart from my—” He was breathing hard, clenching his fists, struggling for control.

Her face was as pale as winter. “I won’t bother you again,” she whispered, and turned toward the door.

He caught her before she’d reached it. Caught her without intending to, without conscious thought. But his hand was tight around her arm, and his breath came in hard pants.

Her lips were trembling, her eyes wide, her cheeks wet with tears.

Will’s heart jolted to a halt.

“I didn’t know about your wife,” she whispered. “I would never have…” Her words faltered. “But still…” She raised her chin. “I understand why you’ve no wish to see me.”

The sanctuary fell into sacred silence. Will stood absolutely still, barely breathing, waiting for the world to make sense.

“You could have told me you are married,” he said.

She frowned, her mercurial eyes tortured, her bright mouth twisted. “What?” she whispered.

Anger flooded him. Anger and frustration and raw hopelessness. “Damn you!” he swore, and tightened his grip. “How dare you make me love you?”

They were inches apart. Her eyes were as wide as the heavens. She shook her head. “What?” she whispered again.

He rasped a harsh laugh and jerked his hand away, but God knew the things he wished to do to her.

“They told me you were a spy,” he said. “Told me why you were there, in the Den.” He longed to turn away, but he couldn’t help but look at her. Despite everything, he wanted nothing more than to drink her in, to kiss away
her tears, her hurts. “Told me you were married.” He laughed. “I shouldn’t have been—”

“They lied,” she said.

The world crumbled around the edges. Breath refused to come. Silence stretched out tense and quivering between them. “Lied?”

“I’m not wed, Dancer. How could I be…” she began, and laughed mirthlessly. “I’m rarely in one place for more than a few months. They send me—”