Betraying Season (30 page)

“I’m going to tell you a rather startling story,” he said quietly to Doherty. “Don’t react strongly to anything I say and, for God’s sake, don’t go spitting your whiskey all over the place again. In case you hadn’t already noticed, I’m not exactly free to come and go as I please.”

“I, er, had noticed that.”

Niall ignored the hint of sarcasm in his tone. “Miss Leland has gone with my mother and sister to my mother’s house in the country. My mother and sister are also witches.”

Doherty’s eyes widened. “Go on.”

“My mother wants Miss Leland’s help to perform a spell. Miss Leland is unaware of the exact nature of this spell, but if she performs it and then finds out, she will be devastated. I tried to prevent this from happening, but I failed.”

“What is the purpose of the spell, may I ask?”

“To kill the queen.”

To Doherty’s credit, he kept his countenance better than Niall had expected. “Are you joking, Keating? Your mother wants to assassinate the queen?” he asked. “Why?”

Niall smiled and nodded as if he and Doherty had just shared an amusing bit of gossip. “To put the Duke of Cumberland on the throne.”

“But why?”

“Because he’s my father.”

Doherty whistled quietly. “I think I need another drink.” He held his glass out to Niall, his hand shaking. Niall poured him a double, and he downed it without seeming to notice.

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “Your mother wants to remove the queen and needs Miss Leland’s help. But if Miss Leland knew this, she would not help.”

“She’s the queen’s friend. She and her sister saved the queen last year from a similarly unpleasant plot.”

“Mother of God.” Doherty sat in silence, as if digesting what he had heard. “So what about you?” he asked at last. “Don’t you want to be able to traipse off to London and let them all gossip about your being the king’s bastard? What have you got to do with it that you’re being kept prisoner in your own house?”

“I tried to make it so that Pen could not be used in my mother’s spell.”

“What, did you tell her about it?”

“I couldn’t. I didn’t know if she’d believe me, and I was afraid she’d think I’d been in on the plot all along. But my mother lied to me too. It was an accident I found out about it at all.”

“So what did you do then, man?”

Niall steeled himself. “I tried to seduce her. Mother needs a virgin for her ritual. If Pen were not a virgin—”

This time Doherty did react, leaning forward and glaring at Niall. “And you had the nerve to preach to me for just trying to kiss her! Why, you blackguard—”

“Quietly, damn it!” Niall growled. “And I’m not a blackguard. I intend to marry her. I’ve already written to her father to get permission to propose to her. It’s not as if I even want to bed her before I should . . . but I have to.”

Doherty subsided against the back of his chair, glowering. “Let me guess the rest. Your mama found you in a compromising position, whisked Miss Leland off to the country, and left you here to cool your heels.” He grinned suddenly. “Serves you right, I think.”

It was deucedly difficult not to leap up and wipe the grin from the idiot’s face. “So Pen gets to help kill the queen she adores without knowing it, and I lose the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

Doherty made a rude noise. “So what am I supposed to feel sorry about, apart from Miss Leland’s grief? What good have that fat lot of German kings been for Ireland? Will the death of another one of them be such a loss? And why shouldn’t I be glad that you lose Miss Leland? Maybe it gives someone else a chance at her. Like me.”

“You fool.” This time Niall didn’t bother to hide his scorn. “You utter, bloody fool. If Victoria goes, who will be king? The Duke of Cumberland, who hates the Irish and is totally opposed to Irish
independence. Your reading room will be closed down so fast it will make you dizzy, and you and all your political friends will find yourselves in gaol or transported inside of a year.”

Doherty looked deflated. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Obviously not. And since when do you think Miss Leland would ever even think about giving you a chance? She’s a viscount’s daughter and a duke’s granddaughter and will be back in London before you could ever begin to try to earn your way back into her good graces.”

“You don’t know that,” Doherty protested, but Niall could see that it was just bluster. Doherty knew well that Pen would never view him with anything but dislike.

“Look,” he said, leaning forward slightly and catching Doherty’s eye. “You owe her. She got you out of a dangerous situation and healed your not-inconsiderable injuries. If you really want to show gratitude to her, help me figure out a way to get out of this house so that I can stop my mother and save Pen from perverting her own magic and killing her friend.”

Doherty stared at him, and Niall could sense the wheels turning in his mind. “I owe her,” he echoed quietly, uncertainly.

“You certainly do,” Niall replied just as quietly, then fell silent and watched Doherty struggle with himself.

“If I were to help you . . . how are they keeping you here, anyway? Leg shackles at night?”

“Magic, thanks to my mother.” Niall nodded with his head toward a window. “If I try to go through a door or open a window, something grabs me around the neck and half chokes me to death. If I even touch the window or try to open it, I feel it. Far more effective than shackles.”

“Really?” Doherty looked interested. He stood up quickly and went to the window, running his hand over the frame. “I don’t feel anything.”

“No?” Niall joined him, and glanced back at the door. The first footman stood there, peering at them suspiciously. “I’m just pointing out a mutual acquaintance’s house to my friend here,” he said with a casual wave. “If it makes you feel better, you can watch us from there.” Still casually, he put a hand on Doherty’s shoulder and rested the other on the edge of the window.

Doherty stiffened.

“Feel it now?” Niall muttered. His cravat had already begun to feel too snug.

“Jesus!” Doherty gulped. “That’s one hell of a repelling spell she’s put on there. It’s on every portal, you say?”

“Well, I haven’t tried to escape through the chimney yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she had that covered too.” Niall took his hand off the window and the pressure on his neck eased. “My mother doesn’t do things by halves.”

Doherty was silent, regarding the street below them through narrowed eyes, but Niall could see that his attention was focused inward, not on the passing traffic. “Your watchdogs in the hall,” he murmured after a few minutes. “They don’t have magic, do they?”

“Not as far as I can tell, though I don’t know them. Mother hired them specifically to watch me while she’s gone. They know there’s a spell on the house, but that’s it, I think.”

“That helps. Put your hand back on the window.” Doherty fell silent again, with that inward, probing look on his face. “Good,” he said. “There’s no alarm spell on it that I can feel. She won’t know if I’ve broken it.”

Niall forced himself to take slow, deep breaths to counteract the choking sensation that crept over him again and nodded wordlessly. He hadn’t even considered that possibility. Mother had been in a hurry to prepare to leave for Bandry Court, though, and perhaps the precaution had slipped her mind. Thank God for that. “Can you break it?” he whispered.

“I don’t know. It’s . . . where the hell are these women getting all this power?” Doherty sounded torn between admiration and annoyance.

Niall let go of the window frame again.
“Can you?”

Doherty didn’t respond, but this time Niall sensed that his silence was one of indecision, not concentration. He waited, not daring to breathe too loudly, and watched Doherty wrestle with himself.

“All right,” he finally said, exhaling. “But I’m doing this for Miss Leland, not for you or the queen or anybody else. I repay my debts.”

“If I am able to, I’ll tell her,” Niall promised. He wanted to laugh in triumph and relief, but restrained himself. “In the meanwhile, I thank you.”

“If I can do it, that is,” Doherty added, running a hand along the window frame again. “Don’t be getting your hopes too high yet.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not really. Just stand here and be quiet. I need to work through you, since the spell affects only you. Again, please?” He nodded at the window, and Niall reluctantly placed his hand on it once more.

Doherty began to murmur, a low, indistinct flow of words. Good; at least it would still appear to the footmen as if they were talking quietly. Niall closed his eyes and caught a few rolling
r
’s and crisp vowels. Latin? But Mother always cast her spells in Irish, for the
Triple Goddess. Would Latin work on her magic? Then the choking sensation started again and he focused on his breathing, letting Doherty’s words wash over him.

“I’m not getting it.” Doherty broke off his low chant. “I can’t break through it. When I push on it, it flows away and re-forms around me like water. It’s not any magic I’m familiar with.”

“The Goddess,” Niall hissed through gritted teeth. “It’s her magic. Can’t break it. It bends.” He’d learned that much from living with his mother and sister all these years.

Doherty groaned. “It figures. I can’t get away from her lately, can I?” He resumed his low chant, this time in Irish.

Niall hung grimly on to the window, trying not to show by his face or posture that he was slowly being throttled, lest the footmen come in and stop them. Dark shadows began to edge his field of vision as he stared out at the street.

“Ah!” Doherty exclaimed. “I see now. But it’s smooth—can’t find an edge to pry it loose.” He chanted again, a little faster this time.

Purple dots were dancing in front of Niall’s eyes, and his lungs felt as though they were being squeezed shut. If Doherty didn’t find a way around the spell soon, he’d—

The pressure vanished. He let his hands fall to his sides and gulped in a great, shuddering breath, and another. Next to him Doherty swayed slightly, his face a peculiar shade of pasty white under his red hair. “Whiskey,” he muttered, and turned away from the window.

“Wait a minute,” Niall croaked. Deliberately, he placed both hands on the window.

Nothing. He was free.

He managed to walk back to the sofa without staggering as his breathing and heartbeat slowly returned to normal. Doherty sat
down opposite him and groped for the decanter once more, breathing hard. The footman eyed them with a faint scowl on his face but moved back to his station in the hall.

“Thank you,” Niall said again, after they’d both had another whiskey in silence.

Doherty shrugged and leaned forward to set his glass on the tea tray. “So what will you do now?”

Niall glanced at the footmen. “Wait until night, and then leave for Bandry Court.”

Some color came back into Doherty’s face. “I could go with you.”

“No. Thank you, but I think I need to go there alone.”

Doherty looked disappointed. “I suppose.” Then he shook his head. “I still can’t get over it. First Miss Leland and then your mother. Women’s magic . . . I’d never have thought it could be so powerful.”

Niall smiled to himself. If only Pen could have heard him say that.

Pen stood in the rose garden behind the house, hand in hand with Lady Keating. A gentle breeze played across the back of her neck, drying the beads of perspiration there and on her forehead. The cloudy weather that had accompanied them to Bandry Court had not lingered, and the last four days had been lovely. But it wasn’t the day’s sunny warmth that made her sweat just now.

They’d stood this way for hours, as they had several times each day since their arrival. Lady Keating had not lied when she said that they would work on the Goddess’s magic together, and work hard. Pen had found it necessary to take a post-luncheon nap each day after their daily morning session so that she had the strength for their afternoon and evening work.

But the hard work was exhilarating as well as exhausting. Her stamina was increasing with the practice, and so was a sense that as she improved, even greater heights would be attainable. The feeling of power she’d had when healing Doherty seemed puny now compared with the energy that flowed through her during her work with Lady Keating.

Before her, Lady Keating inhaled and closed her eyes. Pen felt her
cradle the power they’d been raising, smoothing its rough places and augmenting it. Eight times they’d passed it back and forth, adding to it with each passage, until Pen thought she could almost see it, a glowing, seething mass of energy inside the circle formed by their joined hands. This was the largest amount they’d raised yet, and her arms and legs trembled at the thought of the weight of it. No, not weight—though it felt like a physical load, sometimes. It was the
intensity
of the magic, its sheer size and concentration, that made her feel as if they were holding up an invisible millstone.

Lady Keating nodded at her. “Penelope,” she said quietly, “are you ready?”

“I’m ready.” Pen braced herself and took a deep breath as Lady Keating passed her the shimmering mass.

“When we get to this level of power, we must work a little differently. It is no longer a matter of conscious effort, but of surrender, in a way. Hold it gently,” she murmured. “It will never be greater than you can bear. In circle rituals, the power we make is limited by the weakest member. The magic is still here, so you must be strong enough to hold it. Do you understand?”