Haunted Hearts (14 page)

“Zeus, too? Apollo, and Cupid? And what of Thor and Odin and Freya?”

“All of them. Every one from the time when man first attempted to put a name to the forces that make up our lives,” he said, his eyes alight, his tone that of a preacher who was encouraging a curious child.

“And what form does your worship take?” a voice interjected. It was Lord Ewald. Olivia turned to him, relieved to have him join the conversation, for her mind was buzzing. She’d never heard, never suspected, such society existed, and now she found herself in their very heart. One part of her wanted to rise and ask for her carriage at once to return home, where everything was just as it always had been--but there was another part, too, that wished to hear the answer to the question Lord Ewald had just asked.

Lord Quinn turned to him, but now some of his benevolence slipped just a little. “We pray,” he said, staring into the other man’s eyes. “We meet once a week for the Sabbath. We dance. We sing. We praise nature, for it is the embodiment of one side of our Mother. Other than that, we do little enough. We are a benign organization of like souls.”

“No ceremonies, my lord?” Ian pressed. “I believe the Druids used to throw live cats into fires, and sacrifice goats. Do you enact any of those ‘traditional’ activities?”

Lord Quinn sat up straighter. “Only symbolically. Such as our march tonight. Though I won’t say there is never a sacrifice made, but, think, a cat or a goat is also of the Mother, and therefore undeserving of cruelty. If an animal is butchered, then it ought be done humanely, by a skilled laborer in the art. We insist upon such reasoned acts.”

Ian inclined his head, acknowledging the concept. “I believe clothing was optional at the Druids’s ceremonies, as well. Is that true among your fellows?”

The room fell silent. Quinn put his palm to his face, resting his elbow on the arm of his chair, the posture meant to be relaxed, where his voice was not. “Why do you ask?” he said softly.

Ian looked around the room at the tight faces, and then shrugged elegantly. “I am merely curious. I have lived in many lands, some where every inch of a native’s person was hidden, others where near all is exposed. I am not so shocked by, let us say, some people’s need to feel less restricted than others.” He turned toward Olivia, speaking mostly to her as he said, “My apologies, my lady. Ladies,” he included the others seated around the table with a glance, “for the indelicacy of the conversation.”

She nodded that the apology was accepted, for she was beyond words. A woman, leaning forward in her chair farther down the table, eyes avid, murmured that no apology was necessary.

“Lord Ewald,” Quinn replied. “As I say, our group is made up of like-minded persons, but that is not to say we all practice our faith identically. I leave it to the individual to decide what part clothing plays in exercising their beliefs. Which, if you consider, is not unlike most people, whether they go to church or tabernacle or temple.”

Lord Ewald inclined his head. “I cannot argue your point.”

Olivia noted a few fleeting smiles, and once again turned her eyes down to the table. She did not even slide a glance toward Ewald.

The meal proceeded, as normally as might most any other late-night meal. To Olivia’s relief the conversation turned to ordinary discourse. She spoke with Lord Quinn, but in deference to Miss Lyons’s attempts to entertain the man, she chose to soon look across to Mr. Turrell, who, encouraged, regaled her with a tale of one of his hunting exploits.

Manners--and Olivia admitted the obligation matched her own inclination, despite her irritation with him earlier--meant she must include the other diner near her, so she turned to Lord Ewald. “My lord, I know your parents are no longer with us, but have you any family in England?”

“After a fashion. Arthur, my brother, is a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. But he seldom is free to come to London.”

From his tone, it was easy to see he wished it was otherwise. Olivia looked down at her plate in order to slice some beef.
A lack of family interaction is something we have in common,
she noted.
That, and being strangers among this gathering. And,
she glanced up into his eyes and found him considering her with a frankness that unnerved her a little even as it thrilled her,
an undeniable attraction, at least on my part.

He dropped his voice. “Might I ask you a personal question, my lady?”

“Yes.” She was not, however, obliged to answer.

“Why do you come to Lord Quinn’s affairs?” Her eyes must have widened, because he went on. “You are not of their ilk. Or do you seek to be?”

She almost rebuked him, but he’d been her protector several times tonight, and perhaps he’d earned her answer. “Freedom,” she said. “Life. These people are…” She cast a look about the room. “They are unique. They are decidedly alive and awake, whereas,” she sighed, “I’d been sleeping.”

He stared at her, not with censure but rather as though he truly evaluated what she’d said. He gave her a slow smile, transforming his face from manly handsomeness to something more that tugged at Olivia’s inner being. That mouth…it knew how to smile. How to commiserate. How to be part of melting her time-frozen soul…

He lifted his wineglass in her direction. “We are both coming into new lives, my lady. A toast, to a kindred spirit,” he said, lifting the glass toward her, where she’d belatedly raised her glass in kind. His words warmed her more than did the wine. A kindred spirit--was that why they’d been drawn together that night of the masquerade? Why they seemed to always end in each other’s company?

Her gaze wandered beyond him, to the end of the table. Lord Quinn was looking directly at her, over the rim of the wineglass he swirled with deliberation. She looked away, a little startled to note he was upset with her.

The moment was interrupted when a syllabub, made of jellied blackberry wine and sweet cream, was brought in as the final course. Its stately wobble as it was wheeled in on a cart caused Mr. Turrell to make a comment comparing it to their overweight Regent, so that even Olivia had to smile just a little. After all, an insult to a royal was hardly the most astounding thing about the evening.

After the treat had been consumed, Miss Lyons set aside her spoon and stood. “Let us withdraw to the women’s salon,” she said to the ladies around the table.

Olivia could not help herself; she flashed a quick glance at Lord Ewald. She’d fled his side earlier tonight, yet now she was loath to leave him. He met her gaze levelly, and leaned forward to say quietly, “We’ll meet again after the port.”

She nodded at him, and trailed somewhat reluctantly after the ladies as the men pushed back their chairs and stood, preparing to find spirits and cheroots.

As she stepped onto the threshold of a parlor Miss Lyons had designated as the women’s room, she couldn’t help but gape.
Now why should this shock me, after all that’s gone on tonight?
she asked herself, almost amused. The room was like no parlor she’d ever seen. It was lined with shelves stuffed full of old, thick tomes. Scattered among them were oddities: jars of liquid that held suspended some insect or small creature; bunches of herbs tied with ribbon or hanging from the overhead ceiling beams; small boxes with labels that read
borage, lemon balm, rue
, and more. An assortment of vials and glass jars were lined up on a large, thick tabletop, and sheets of paper, quills, and inkpots were scattered over the surface, giving the impression someone had just left their work to attend to some other pressing matter. There was the look and smell of an apothecary’s shop.

“Richard’s research,” Miss Lyons said, taking up Olivia’s hand and pulling her into the room. “Richard” being Lord Quinn, of course. If Miss Lyons yet resented Olivia, only the tightness of her fingers on Olivia’s gave any sign of it now.

Servants had arranged a hotchpotch of chairs around the fireplace, the nine other women looking to Miss Lyons. She released Olivia to settle in a high backed chair of dark leather, her hands folding in her lap as she gazed at the assembled ladies. “Now, as to refreshments, what complaints do we have today?” she asked, reaching for a book that was on a small table near her elbow.

Olivia quirked her head, puzzled, but then another woman spoke up.

“I still have that ache in my knee when the weather is cool, as it has been.”

“Alfalfa tea for you zen, my dear. Let us have it brewed from the seeds rather zan the leaves to see if zat will increase its potency for you.”

“I am still weak. My heart, my disposition,” a Mrs. Sedley exclaimed. “So I suppose it should be bark of the cherry tree tea for me again.”

The other ladies nodded.

“I have quite lost my cough,” another said with a smile.

“Ah, was zat from use of ze kerosene, turpentine, and pure lard poultice?” Miss Lyons asked, with a hostess’s smile.

“No, it was the heated mutton tallow and lavender.”

The other ladies murmured approvingly.

“Is zat all our concerns, ladies? Excellent. Let me just ring and give our requests to ze staff. While we wait, would you mind, Clara, reading to us from where we last stopped?” She handed the book she’d been holding to a young woman settled on a footstool next to her.

“Let me see,” Clara said, opening the book and scanning the pages. “Ah yes. If you recall, we were partway into the relief of colds.” She cleared her throat delicately and read, “’Solution the First. Make a tea from the leaves of boneset. Drink the tea when cool, not hot, as it will make you ill taken so. Leaves may be dried for winter use. Solution the Second. Put goose-grease salve on chest.’”

The ladies tittered at the use of the body-part word, but Clara didn’t blush or stammer, reading on. “’Third. Eat onions roasted in ashes. This is good for children as well. Fourth…’”

She read on as Olivia’s eyes flicked around the room. As nearly always in Lord Quinn’s universe, everything was slightly odd: the room’s stillroom-like
accoutrements
, the ladies reading medicinal receipts from old books, the ordering of unusual teas--none of which was peculiar in itself, but placed altogether they near to made the hairs on the back of Olivia’s neck stand up. Perhaps it was seeing the preserved creatures? And the many scents not blending well in the close air? Twice she parted her lips to say she believed it was time to go home now, but twice she bit back the impulse, not wanting to offend. Really, what harm could come of any of this? And after all, wasn’t she the very same lady who had promised herself she would never be retiring and missish ever again?

Clara read until a tray was carried in, with three separate teapots upon it.

Miss Lyons poured for Olivia, without consulting her.

Olivia hesitated over her dish of tea, but then decided even if she was made to sip at an alfalfa brew, surely it would not be such a terrible thing, for the other ladies accepted their various teas with no demur.

To her relief, her first sip informed her that her serving had come from a pot filled with perfectly ordinary Ceylon tea. She glanced over the rim of her cup at Mrs. Sedley, who made a little grimace every time she sipped her cherry bark tea, and gave thanks she was not required to do the same.

When the tea had been consumed, and the subject of poor Princess Caroline’s latest sartorial faux pas exhausted, Miss Lyons rose. “Come, ladies, ze gentlemen should be ready for our return. It is time for ze women’s ending ritual.”

As the ladies stood, Olivia put aside her teacup with uncertain hands. She could not like the sound of the word “ritual.” She slowly rose to her feet as well, only to have her hand taken up on either side by two of the ladies. The group, forced by the furniture, formed an oval, rather like some prayer circles of which Olivia had been a part, although they’d never held hands. Miss Lyons raised her face, assessing each woman in the circle before she spoke.

“Oh, Great Mother, we zank you for the gifts of your soil, and zank you also for imbuing zem with the healing properties of which you have so wisely given zem.” She centered her attention on Olivia. Somehow her expression did not match her words; where she spoke humbly, her features seemed haughty, almost as if she were laughing under her reverent words.

“Now let us dance,” she said.

Olivia startled as the woman next to her, Lady Lichfield, raised her voice in a chanting moan, the words either nonsense or in a tongue other than any of which Olivia knew. One by one the other ladies joined in, their voices blending with the simple melody as they began to step to their left, a long winding circle of dance with simple, forward-and-back footsteps.

Olivia was propelled along for a moment, but then the room’s many scents made her head swim, and the chant disturbed her, and the dance struck her as a bit more pagan than she cared for it to be. She snatched her hands free, pressing them into the folds of her skirts so they might not be caught up again. This was too much, too bizarre. This…this rite might not be sacrilegious, but it felt perilously close. There was a point beyond which one’s presence did not signify independence and courage, but rather giving in to pressure and participating in what was untrue to one’s self.

The circling stopped, as did the moaning song, as the ladies turned as one to stare at Olivia.

“Is she not with us?” one lady asked.

“Apparently not,” Miss Lyons said blandly, but there again was that not quite hidden smug smile.

“I--! These are not my ways,” Olivia said. “You must pardon me. I must go home now.” She turned and hurried to pull open the salon door--which she was a bit relieved to find unlocked. The last sight she had of the room was of Miss Lyons making soothing motions with her hands. But then Olivia was out of the room, sucking in fresher air, and hurrying away from the disturbing scene, beyond the reach of their voices.

She was almost running by the time she left the hallway and came into the dining room. The men were gathered in one corner, sitting with pipes and cheroots, and snifters balanced in their hands. They turned as one when she made her sudden appearance.