Marissa Day (31 page)

He didn’t bother to answer her. “Touch the nail on the window bars, Jane,” he said firmly. “It’ll work as well as it did on the chains. Once you’re outside, you must go straight to Rathe and his friends.”

Jane stared at the pathetic little nail in her hand, and then up at the marble bars that covered the slit of a window. “I don’t even know where we are.”

Thomas chuckled hollowly. “We’re in Fiora Beauchamp’s cellar. You’ll see when you get out.”

“What? How . . .”

“The Fae have folded their magics about it, as I folded a piece of glamour around the grove outside the walls of Kensington House to make the chamber for our tryst.” His voice faltered. “Hurry, Jane,” he croaked. “They’ll be coming soon.”

“Thomas . . .” A hundred mad plans ran through her head. She could scream, make a scene, bring the guards in, find a way to incapacitate them. That was what a heroine in a novel would have done. But she had nothing but bare hands and one pathetic horseshoe nail. She didn’t know how many were out there, or what powers they had.

“Don’t say anything, Jane,” whispered Thomas. “Just let me see you get away. I can do anything if I know you are safe.”

Jane bent swiftly and put her mouth to his, pouring the flood of feeling that filled her heart into the kiss. His mouth was so cold. She pressed hard against him, willing her warmth into him. She felt him yield to it, drinking in the love and desperation, returning it tenfold.

I will come back,
she swore in that kiss. Could he hear her? She didn’t know, but she made the promise anyway.
I will bring help.

When they separated, she did not look at him. If she did, her nerve would fail.

The tiny window was high up in the wall, almost right against the ceiling. Jane stretched onto her toes, with the nail pinched between her fingers. The tip of her fingers touched the marble bars.

But they were not stone. They were not even bars. Nor was the window as high as she’d thought it was. Jane saw an ordinary cellar window set incongruously in the solid marble wall. Its catch had been broken at some point and mended with a bit of knotted wire.

“Hurry, Jane,” breathed Thomas.

It was no easy feat undoing the wire with her numb fingers. The grimy window let in a bare trickle of uncertain gray light. It must be near dawn. Or perhaps it was dusk. Her sense of time had vanished. The rusty wire cut her fingers and she clamped her teeth shut around a hiss of pain. But, at last, the final twist came loose and she was able to push the window open. She braced her hands against the frame and heaved and struggled, kicked and pushed and, finally, she was outside.

Jane stood in a mews. A quite ordinary lane behind a quite ordinary house with dawn’s ordinary chill soaking into her frozen, sweating body.

Dawn. That was dawn that showed between the sleeping Mayfair houses. The world would soon be awake, and she had no way to explain her appearance, or her presence here. She had no money, nothing. Just herself and her knowledge of an impossible invasion that threatened England.

And Thomas was counting on her.

Jane gathered up the hems of her night-robe and began to run.

R
ed Fiora tripped lightly through the servant’s entrance to Kensington House. What a pleasant frame Lady Jane had. It was a treat to wear, like a well-made dress.

It was early. Servants with sleepy eyes moved about their morning chores. Before she crossed the tattered remains of the Kensington wards, she’d thought to clothe her borrowed form in the seeming of one of Jane’s modest morning dresses, so not one of them looked twice at her as she entered the kitchens. The cooks nodded their good mornings and made room for her as she helped herself to a cup from the cabinet and hot water from the kettle on the stove. None of them questioned her. None of them cared. They had their own work to do, getting the breakfast ready, and they kept their eyes on their chopping, mixing and frying.

Not one of them saw her take the little golden vial from her pocket. The sharp, mineral scent was lost under the smells of frying meats and baking bread. Fiora tipped a good amount of liquid from the vial into the cup. The water turned a pale, shimmering green. She picked up the cup and carried it away, and no one looked at her. No one at all.

Fiora headed for the servant’s stairs. How easy it had been to plunder the map of the place from Jane’s pathetically open mind. She’d thought Jane stronger than that, but she’d put up no fight at all.

“So, now Lady Jane.”

On the landing above her stood a man. Tall and dark, dressed only in his shirt, breeches and boots, a candle held high. Ah. This was the famed Captain Conroy. He was a figure of contempt in Jane’s mind, and, Fiora had to admit, there were good reasons for her feelings. This man was a greedy fool, but as Her Glorious Majesty had said, he might yet prove a useful fool as well.

“And what are you doing abroad at this hour?” She could feel the plans swirling inside him. Conroy looked at Jane and thought he might be able to use what he saw. No, more. He thought he could hurt her, make her pay for her theft of his private papers.

Fiora smiled Jane’s warm and open smile. “And wouldn’t you like to know, Captain Conroy.”

“I would,” Conroy replied blandly. “That’s why I asked.” His mind buzzed and spun like a top, propelled by all his shifting plans.

Fiora slipped up the stairs, until she stood right below him, and composed her face to Jane’s more serious expression.

“I am sorry, Captain.” She laced Jane’s fingers around the warm china cup. “I’ve had some thinking to do. I believe I have something of yours. You’ll have it back before the day is done.”

That stilled his racing mind. Fiora had to admire his control. She might have made a remark about the weather for all the surprise that showed on his face.

“And may I ask what brought on this sudden change of heart?” Conroy inquired.

“Sober reflection. I was wrong to make an enemy of you. I’d like to make it up, if I could.” She climbed one more step. Now she stood beside him on the landing. She straightened her back and sucked in her stomach so that Jane’s ample bosom strained against her dress, even while she dropped her dark eyes in a show of modesty. “I would be most grateful, Captain.”

She felt his gaze lingering on Jane’s breasts, so she held her breath, which swelled them further yet, and ensured her cheeks were nicely rosy by the time Conroy’s slow gaze reached them again.

“Well.” He didn’t trust her, but he trusted his own intelligence more. He thought this woman, the poor daughter of a foolish man, could be no real danger to him. She was plainly weak and changeable as all women were. “You should be in bed, Madame. But be sure we will be continuing this conversation later today.”

“Of course, Captain.” Fiora let her breath out in a long sigh she made certain he could hear. “Whenever you decide.”

Conroy stood aside and let her slide past. She felt his eyes on Jane’s round ass until she closed the door.

The corridor to the duchess’s room stretched out before her, broad and empty. Fiora moved more carefully now, more like Jane would. She had seen her enough over the years, she could match her ladylike carriage easily. Even as she assumed Jane’s proper manner, Fiora felt deeply humbled at her new understanding of her queen’s wisdom. She had not ever truly been exiled. She had been most carefully placed, so she would be ready against this moment when she could again serve.

A door opened, and for a moment, Fiora froze. Then she remembered she was snug within Lady Jane’s visage. Lady Jane had every right to be here, and Jane knew Fraulein Lehzen, this stern woman in her neat gray dress who stepped into the corridor.

“Lady Jane,” said the woman, her voice tickling all Jane’s memories. Lady Jane did not like her much, and trusted her less. “You are abroad early.”

“Good morning, Fraulein Lehzen,” Fiora smiled and nodded once. “The duchess woke and she was thirsty. Frau Seibold asked me to fetch her a tisane.” She held up the steaming cup she carried.

“So? Well, you had best take it to her then.” As Fiora moved forward, Lehzen moved aside, but her elbow joggled the cup, and the liquid inside splashed across the carpet and their skirts.

“You clumsy cow!” cried Fiora.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” Lehzen clapped a hand to her cheek. “I will go fetch another. You will tell Frau Seibold it is entirely my fault and I will be there in but a moment.” Rage rendered Fiora speechless. She would blast this foolish woman to cinders! But before Fiora could find her voice again, Lehzen had already disappeared down the stairs.

Fiora groped in her pocket for the vial and shook it. There were still a few drops. Would it be enough? It would have to be. She could not fail. She must not fail. She hurried down the corridor. If that idiotic creature hadn’t woken the whole palace with her shouting . . .

Fiora slipped into Jane’s chamber, and pressed her ear to the door connecting it with the duchess’s room. She heard nothing but breathing, and some very rude snoring. Fiora backed away. She must be very careful now.

Slowly, she breathed out, and summoned her magics.

She was nothing. A shadow, a breath of wind. Nothing to touch the mind of the lightest sleeper. It was difficult. This was more than a simple glamour; this was transformation. It was always easier to be something than nothing, and her heart hammered with the effort of becoming as close to nothing as she could without wholly dissolving herself.

When she was little more than a wisp of being, Fiora opened the door and slowly drifted into the room. Frau Seibold snorted and turned on her couch. The duchess lay beneath her pile of coverlets, her breeding stomach a great sloping hill in a quilted landscape. A glass and some drops of what Jane knew to be one of Frau Seibold’s strengthening tonics waited at the bedside table. Fiora directed herself that way. The vial in her pocket weighed her down like lead. She focused her will and lifted it out. Her faded fingertips could not grasp the stopper on the tonic bottle, and she nearly panicked then. The duchess stirred and murmured in German. Hearing her charge, Frau Seibold rolled over again. Fiora froze.

Gradually, the duchess settled back, and Frau Seibold murmured something that ended in another prodigious snore. Fiora summoned all her force of will and gently, gently, lifted the stopper on the tonic bottle. Slowly, drop by drop, she poured in the contents of the vial in her pocket.

The duchess turned again and sighed, and laid her hand on her belly. Frau Seibold snorted and coughed.

Fiora smiled, and faded away into Jane DeWitte’s room.

V
oices cut through the darkness that enveloped Lady Jane.

“Who on earth . . . ?”

“I don’t know, Madame. That’s why I thought it best to wake you.”

“Good Heavens! Bring her inside, Jacobs. Carefully now. Into the red room.”

She was being lifted and turned. She was a mass of pain. Her feet, her throat, her fists, they all hurt. Memory came back in lightning flashes that hurt almost as much as the physical pain. She’d almost been run down by a coal wagon as she dodged across the street. The horse’s hooves had brushed her hair back from her forehead as it reared.

“Miranda . . . what . . . ?”

“It’s Jane DeWitte.”

A pair of bravos had tried to pull her into an alleyway, and would have managed it if she hadn’t gotten hold of a building timber and brained the pair of them.

“Look at her feet. My God.”

She’d lost her slippers somewhere and the cobbles cut and tripped her. She should tell them that. It might be important. But things seemed to be happening in discreet packets with long stretches of dark in-between.