One With the Shadows
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Contents
St. Martin’s Paperbacks Titles by
Susan Squires
Praise for
New York Times
Bestselling Author Susan Squires
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank Lisa Rowen for her expertise in tarot reading in the early nineteenth century. I borrowed her knowledge and even some of her words. If I’ve gotten anything wrong, the fault was entirely my translation of her facts into my fiction.
One
Rome, the Eternal City, 1822
As Kate moved past the footmen into the glittering salon, conversation hushed. The heavy veil she wore gave her an air of mystery, but it did not prevent her from picking out her potential marks. A young man lounged by the window, his cravat tied much too carelessly. His coat, though of a noxious green, had been cut by an excellent tailor, and his watch fob sparked with diamonds. His weak chin was merely icing on the cake. And over by the ornate table laid with sweetmeats and small cakes, a beefy woman was practically wringing her hands in anticipation. A plump pigeon ready for the plucking.
Kate strolled into the center of the room. It smelled of human bodies, not all of which had bathed in the last few days, various clashing perfumes, and the pungent earthiness of snuff. Tonight she was Kathleen Mulroney, descended from all-seeing Druids. She had been called Katerina Petrova, Catherine von Duesing, and a hundred other names, but underneath she was Kate, just Kate, because that was the only name she’d had growing up on the streets of London.
Now that she’d riveted the attention of the room upon her, she made her curtsy to the delicate woman who was the hostess of this gathering. “Mi buona amica, Marquesa Trasemeno, I have come to reveal the secrets of the future to your guests.” Her Italian was nearly flawless. Kate had an ear for languages. She spoke six or seven. There had been no choice but to learn languages after she and Matthew had fled his gambling debts in England to earn their livelihood wandering across the Continent. She had never called him “Father” or “Papa,” even when he pretended that was what he was. To her, he was always just Matthew. But Matthew was dead and the obligation of earning her living now fell to her alone.
The room hummed again with conversation, much of it concerning her. She stood, a still center to the activity, in shimmering gray, her veil hanging from a silver Spanish comb pushed into the knot of hair at her crown. She let the tension build while she studied her surroundings. The house was Baroque, like much of Rome, its ceiling made of carved and gilded wood which framed oil paintings darkened with age. Tapestries depicting armies frozen in some grand victory lined the walls, and Aubusson carpets softened the marble floor. The whole was lit by candles set in chandeliers and sconces. Ornately carved chairs of heavy wood placed around the room looked so uncomfortable everyone elected to stand as they laughed and gossiped. The Romans were a voluble and silly race, easy to dupe.
And that was a good thing. Much depended upon tonight. It had taken her three weeks to worm her way into this invitation. She was running low on funds after her sudden, necessary exit from Vienna. If tonight was successful she would have perhaps a month of fleecing the fools lured into dependency on her predictions and advice with expensive private readings. If she was careful, Rome would add a pretty penny to the fund that would one day let her escape this life.
Best she get on with it. This was the part she hated most. She picked out a chair that looked almost like a throne at the head of the room. It commanded a view of the salon. There was plenty of room to allow people to cluster round her.
She straightened. “Signore and signori.” Her soprano cut through the chatter.
She turned and faced the room.
What are you afraid of?
she chided herself.
You’ve faced their surprise and pity a thousand times before, and at this rate, you’ll do it a thousand times more. Best get used to it.
She had been trying to get used to it for seven years now.
“I shall connect with the Unseen,” Kate continued, “that you may see your future in my cards.” She performed a mental drum roll as they gathered around her, those in the back straining to see. Well, see they would. She closed her eyes and lifted her veil.
At first they clapped. But then they would look closer. She waited. She didn’t even flinch at the little gasp one woman gave. Her mirror showed her every day what they were seeing. Her complexion was fair in contrast to her dark hair, her face heart-shaped, her mouth a bow that lied about her innocence. But it was the delicate white net of scars that snaked over her temple and spread out over her left cheekbone like a fractured spiderweb that made them gasp.
“I have been marked by the forces of the universe, even as they granted me sight into matters beyond the pale.” Or marked by Matthew. She opened her eyes and another gasp went round the circle. The lenses she had ground in Zurich gave her eyes a pearly opalescence. At least they could be removed, unlike the scar, though she couldn’t be seen outside her rooms without them.
She sat on the huge throne of a chair, dwarfed by its carved gargoyles. “Who would like to see their future?” No one stepped forward. She expected that. “Do none of you wish advice on matters of finance, matters of love? My cards see all.” Of course they wanted to see their futures, the silly geese. But in front of everyone? Ahhh, now that was a different question. The weak young fop pulled at his cravat. He would be the first to book a private session, but he had not the courage for a public reading. At least these days she kept her clothes on in the private readings.
She turned her eyes to the heavyset woman who wore an unfortunate cherry satin dress. Eagerness and uncertainty warred across the woman’s face. She was past her prime. But her cheekbones and her well-opened eyes said she would have been a beauty once. Jewels dripped from her bosom, heaving just now in expectation. Expensive ostrich feathers nodded from her tiara. Overdressed. She would not be here if she were not respectable, but Kate was willing to wager some impoverished aristocrat had saved his estates with a wealthy merchant’s daughter.
Kate tilted her head and smiled. “Signora? Yes?”
The war was over. Uncertainty lost out. The woman beamed, looked self-consciously around, and stepped forward. “If you insist,” she murmured.
“Draw the signora up a chair,” Kate commanded. She opened her reticule of gray velvet embroidered with swirls of silver. An elderly gentleman provided a chair. She felt the crowd’s attention, which had shifted to her cherry satin mark, snap back to her. The foppish young man placed an ornate table in front of her. The back of her cards showed black with a spray of gilt stars. It was a beautiful deck. She had had it made to her own specifications in Prague during a time when she and Matthew were flush. Her mark settled herself with much rustling of skirts.
“Signora, may I ask your name?” Kate began sweetly.
“Baronessa Luchina di Martigana.”
“Baronessa.” Kate nodded her respect for the title and offered her deck. “Will you shuffle? The cards must feel your destiny.” The baronessa’s eyes had a subtle puffiness, her nose, under its powder, was a little red. She had been crying. She didn’t wear black, not even an armband. Difficult. She studied the baronessa’s face. Deep sadness. Deeper than warranted by the death of a beloved pet, or losing too much at cards. And then there was the arranged marriage. How did that fit in? But there … she wore a simple ring—too simple for her normal taste. It was one of those grisly mementos intricately braided from human hair. Ahhhh. Good thing Kate had spotted it. Bereavement did not end with the wearing of black.
Kate took the pack and fanned it, face down across the table. “Take a card.” The crowd of glittering Romans grew silent. “This card will be your past.” The baronessa took a card after much hesitation and laid it down. The queen of swords. Excellent. “It has been more than a year, yet still you grieve,” she said quietly, and watched the baronessa’s tears well as the crowd murmured their surprise.
“How could an English woman newly arrived in Rome know that?” The older man dressed in chocolate brown was plaintive.
“Hush, Horatio, the cards know, that is enough.” His wife’s expression was rapt.
The baronessa couldn’t speak, but only nodded.
Kate nodded to her and the baronessa chose again. The king of cups. “He was the love of your life,” Kate continued. “People thought the match convenient on both sides, but they did not reckon with Aphrodite. She blessed you both.” She paused for effect as the baronessa collected herself. “But let us turn to your future.” She nodded and the baronessa chose again.
Let it be one I can weave into a story she wants to hear.
The card she drew was the tower struck by lightning.
Drat. What can I make of this?
A hiss of dread went around the room. No one could miss that the card was ominous.
“That seems bad,” the baronness said, her expression worried.
Better play for time.
“Our first trump card. They signify the large, moral questions, the life-or-death questions, the Destiny questions.” The crowd always liked lore they didn’t understand. Kate smiled. “This one is a sign of change. There will be an upheaval in your life.” That was a safe prediction. She could use it later in many ways. She wouldn’t say what the card really meant. And she wouldn’t think about the uneasy feeling in her stomach. It almost felt as though someone would die. “We will get clarity from the next cards.”
What does this woman want to hear?
She could fit almost any card to the story, once she got the story right. The conflict between their social mores and their most secret desires rendered people vulnerable to suggestion. Of course the woman would want to find love again, even if she couldn’t admit it to herself yet. They all wanted to find love. And Kate, who didn’t believe in love at all, always predicted it for them. But that was too easy. She wanted to amaze the crowd with her first reading. A thought struck her. She knew what this woman wanted to hear.
The baronessa chose a card with trembling fingers. It almost didn’t matter what it was. The four of wands. Perfect. “This is a card of family. See the manor house?” She touched her temple, the one with the scar. “I think … I think that in conjunction with the tower, this means that your heritage is not what you thought.” She rubbed the scar. “You will find you are of birth more noble than you suspected … and an uncle lost will be found.”
The crowd gasped. The baronessa’s eyes grew big. Kate would be long gone before they realized that the prediction wasn’t going to come true.
The crowd stirred. A murmur started somewhere in the back. Did someone dare to distract her audience? She hadn’t yet promised the baronessa love. Kate felt an energy in the air, vibrating almost at the edge of consciousness. Something trembled inside Kate in response.
“Urbano, you dog, I heard you were back in town.”
“You look haggard, man. Hard living?”
Kate heard the hostess of tonight’s soirée say, “Gian, it has been too long.”
The crowd parted as though it were being cut by a knife.
Kate blinked. The man who strolled to the center was … was quite literally the most beautiful man Kate had ever seen. His skin was palest olive and flawless, his hair a cascade of dark curls around his head and down over his neck, his features in perfect proportion. But it was his eyes that riveted one. They were light, a kind of green she had not seen in Italy and intense as she had never encountered. He was big. His black coat was cut to fit his broad shoulders exactly, and his trousers could not conceal the muscle in his thighs. He had a weary grace about him. And in spite of the fact that he pretended to lounge in front of her, one hand in his trouser pocket, he was clearly the source of that electric feeling in the air. It was almost as though he vibrated with … maleness. And Kate felt something stir in her she had not felt in a long time.