Twilight of a Queen (35 page)

“Meg, I—I know that Xavier’s confession about being employed by the Dark Queen shocked and hurt you. But I believe him when he said he never meant you any harm.”

Meg’s only response was an incredulous lift of her brows.

“Only consider. If Xavier had wanted to abduct you, he had plenty of opportunity to do so.”

“Maybe he was just biding his time, studying the island. Maybe even now, he has scurried like a lapdog back to his mistress to report to her, to return here with a troop of soldiers.”

“Xavier wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know that?” the girl demanded scornfully. “You have no ability to read eyes.”

“No, I don’t.” But Jane felt she had come closer to understanding Xavier than anyone. Flawed the man might be, reckless to a fault, but he did have his own code of honor. But she could not expect to convince Meg of that.

Instead she said, “Think about it logically. Xavier cannot return to the queen. She is hunting for him too. He left Faire Isle to prevent her soldiers from coming here, putting us all in danger.”

“Oh, for the love of—” Meg broke off, biting her lip. At least Jane had succeeded in provoking some sort of reaction
from the girl. Stomping past Jane, Meg took an agitated turn about the bedchamber.

“Xavier never thought about anything but himself. His lies were exposed so he tore off out of here to save his own skin.” She rounded on Jane, flinging her hands up in exasperation. “How can you keep defending him? After the way he seduced and abandoned you?”

Jane’s cheeks fired. “He—he didn’t—”

“Don’t tell me that. I can read it all in your eyes, Jane. He broke your heart.”

“If Xavier hurt me, it is more my doing than his. He never made me any false promises. He never once said that he loved me.”

“Then that’s at least one thing the man didn’t lie about. How noble,” Meg said. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Jane. But someone is going to hand me over to the queen’s soldiers. I saw it all happen in my crystal. If it is not Xavier, who else could it be?”

“You rely too much upon those visions, Meg.”

“Do I? Maybe it is because my crystal was the only thing that I ever could trust.”

Meg flounced over to the window, locking her arms across her chest and lapsing back into a brooding silence. Jane ached for her. The girl had always seemed too mature for her years and she appeared to have aged to a frightening degree these past few days.

She felt as though she was abandoning Meg by going to Paris. But she had never been adequate to deal with Meg’s visions. Even if she stayed, she knew that Meg would continue to shut her out. There was only one person who could help Meg now.

Approaching the girl, Jane touched her tentatively on the shoulder. “You can always trust Ariane, Meg. She will look after you, keep you safe.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.” Meg managed a taut-lipped smile. “You needn’t worry about me, Jane. I can look out for myself.”

She looked and sounded so much like Xavier in that moment, Jane was torn between the urge to laugh or cry. She embraced Meg, but the girl remained so stiff and unresponsive, Jane was obliged to give over the attempt.

She returned sorrowfully to her packing. Meg went back to staring out the window to block out the sight, determined not to feel any grief over Jane’s departure. She was so angry at Jane for being so blind, loving Xavier, defending him.

But Meg was even angrier at herself for trusting Xavier, giving him the power to hurt and disappoint her. She supposed she ought to be grateful to the man for snapping her out of the dream world she had been living in, imagining that she could bury her past, shake off her dark legacy as the Silver Rose.

He had demonstrated all too clearly that the Dark Queen had not forgotten about her, that somehow the old witch had figured out Meg’s secret, that the
Book of Shadows
was still lodged in the recesses of her memory.

If the queen could not have the book, she would never rest until she gained possession of Meg herself. Even though Xavier had failed, Catherine would simply send someone else even more ruthless. The queen was relentless and she would not care who else she hurt and destroyed in the process. Meg and everyone she loved would remain in danger.

There was only one way this could end. The crystal had shown Meg that time and time again. She just hadn’t wanted to accept it. There was only one solution, only one way Meg would ever know peace from the threat of the Dark Queen.

And that was only when one of them was dead.

T
HE SUN BEAT DOWN UPON THE STREETS OF PARIS. IT WAS
not even noon and Xavier was already sweating beneath the trappings of his disguise, the beard that he had grown to conceal his features, the large soft-brimmed hat and the boot-length cloak.

As he approached the Hôtel de la Reine, he longed to remove his hat long enough to mop his brow, but he did not dare. Not yet.

It was a miracle he had made it this far. The journey to Paris had taken him far longer than he had expected, constantly having to change routes to avoid patrols, any beady-eyed official or miscreant rogue who might be anxious to claim the reward for Xavier’s capture.

He had been further daunted by the number of troops
ringing the city itself, keeping careful watch over the city gates. But a conversation he’d overheard between two of the sentries had led Xavier to an embarrassing discovery.

All of these troops had been posted to counter the duc de Guise, should the duke and his army decide to defy the king and try to enter Paris.

Xavier’s mouth twisted wryly. It was a bit of a blow to his self-importance to realize that the Jaguar was of little significance compared to a possible invasion. He might have had a good laugh at his own vanity, but the more Xavier saw of the current state of Paris, the less humor he could find in the situation.

If he had thought Paris a city on edge last autumn, he now found the tension here as unbearable as the heat. Everywhere he looked he saw resentful, unsmiling faces. Tempers were short, voices rough, and glances suspicious. Quarrels seemed to break out over nothing, violence ready to erupt if a man breathed the wrong way.

Xavier only hoped that Jane had thought better of her plan to come to Paris. He intended to make enquiries, see if he could find her cousin’s residence. It would relieve his mind greatly to discover that Jane had remained on Faire Isle, but knowing the woman’s infernal sense of duty, he doubted it. If Jane was here in the city, likely she would not be too pleased to see him. But at least Xavier would be able to ascertain if she was all right.

That is, if he didn’t find himself dangling from a rope on a gibbet first.

Xavier slowed his pace as his steps brought him nearer to the Dark Queen’s palace. If he had any sense at all, he would change his mind and beat a swift retreat. There
were far too many ways in which this mad scheme of his could go awry.

Jambe and Pietro had nearly deafened him on the journey to Paris with their ceaseless efforts to dissuade him. But they had had no more luck than he had, trying to persuade them to turn back. They had remained as stubborn as he. By the time they had passed through the city gates, they had all been hot, weary, and as bad-tempered as the rest of Paris.

Xavier had pushed them so hard on the last leg of the trip, Jambe and Pietro had all but collapsed upon reaching their inn room.

Their exhausted slumber had afforded Xavier the opportunity he needed to slip away. They could swear at him later if they wished. He hoped he would still be around for them to curse, but he was resolved.

The insane risk he was about to take had to be his alone. As he gazed up at the Hôtel de la Reine, his breath caught in his throat. He saw a familiar form silhouetted in one of the windows, the queen in her unrelenting black garb. She seemed to be staring straight at him, her mind reaching out like the delicate legs of a spider, probing his disguise.

He ducked out of sight and then chided himself for being such a fool. He had never succumbed to the legend of the Dark Queen and her extraordinary powers of perception. But he was taking no chances. The element of surprise was all that he had in his favor. If he was seized by her guards before he gained access to her presence, it was all up with him.

Xavier waited until the queen vanished from the window
before stepping back into view. He had finally been able to get rid of that damned splint. The bone had healed, but his arm was nowhere near its former strength.

Not that it mattered. If Catherine set her guards upon him, it was not likely he would be able to fight his way to freedom and escape. Everything depended upon his wits, his—what had his father called it?
His unholy talent for deception
.

Since knowing Jane, Xavier felt as though he had lost some of his taste for chicanery, his skills had grown a trifle rusty. His honest mermaid had been a far too wholesome influence on him.

He was going to have to dig deep into the darkest part of his soul to conjure forth his old ability to lie, charm, and deceive as he never had before.

His success, nay, his very life depended upon it. And perhaps Meg’s as well.

THE QUEEN LEANED HEAVILY ON HER CANE AS SHE MADE HER
way to her salon. When Catherine swayed on her feet, some of her ladies gave an audible gasp, but they had enough sense to keep their distance. Glaring, Catherine dared anyone to try to rush to her aid. She steadied herself, concealing how disconcerted she was by her own weakness.

Seized with an inflammation of the lungs shortly after her conversation with that Pechard woman, it had been weeks since she had been able to get this far from her bed.

Rumors had circulated that Catherine was dying. She had heard that the citizens of Paris had prepared bonfires
to be lit as soon as her death was confirmed. She took a deep satisfaction in depriving them of their celebration.

She longed to stand defiantly at her window and show them all that the Dark Queen was not finished yet. But in a city so tense, Catherine was in as much danger from an assassin’s pistol as she was from the weakness of her own aging body.

The last time she had glanced out she thought she had seen a rather sinister figure lurking in the street. Garbed in a long cloak, his features obscured beneath the brim of a large hat, he had seemed to stare straight up at her window.

She consoled herself that it had all been a trick of her rheumy eyes. When a cart passed by, the fellow had appeared to have vanished into thin air.

This is what it is to become old, she reflected bitterly, to live in fear of shadows.

Catherine made it as far as the chair by the hearth and all but collapsed into it. Her ladies hovered nearby, whispering amongst themselves. The young had an irritating tendency to do that around the old, the infirm, the dying. As though an advance in years suddenly rendered one deaf, blind, and inane. Catherine had resolved never to tolerate it herself.

Rapping her cane against the floor, she said, “Despite what you all may be hoping, I am not at death’s door. If you have anything to say, speak aloud or hold your tongues.”

Her attendants fell silent, exchanging uneasy looks. Mademoiselle de Bec approached and sank into a trembling curtsy.

“We were only trying to decide if we should trouble you. There is someone here demanding admittance if it please Your Grace.”

“It does not please Her Grace. Do I look in any condition to receive anyone? Unless it is my loving son come to make tender enquiry after his mother’s health?”

When de Bec could not meet her eyes, Catherine snorted. “No? I thought not.”

“It is not the king.” The girl nervously retreated a step. “It is Captain Xavier.”

“What!”
Catherine was stunned for a moment, then she snarled, “You are either a liar or a fool. I received word but yesterday that Xavier must be dead. He was swept overboard in a storm just before his ship broke up.”

“No, it is indeed the captain, Your Grace, or else it is his ghost.”

“And a mighty hale and handsome one,” one of the other ladies dared venture with a giggle. One black look from Catherine and the girl’s smile was erased.

Xavier alive and returned to Paris? Well, if any man was bold enough to cheat death, it would be that arrogant rogue. But cheating
her
was another matter, and then daring to swagger back into her own palace!

Catherine was seized by such a spasm of fury, her pulse throbbed dangerously behind her temple. She took short breaths in order to calm herself.

Her first impulse was to send for her guard, demand to know how Xavier had slipped past them. Then she would have Xavier’s neck stretched from the nearest tree in her garden where she could have the satisfaction of watching.

But her curiosity won out. She would like to hear what
excuses the man had to offer before she had his lying tongue cut out.

“Send him in,” she commanded as she struggled to her feet. How did he dare return to her without carrying out the orders she had paid him to do? Unless… he had.