Shadow's Curse (7 page)

Which went against every nursery tale known. The wolf in those stories was the villain. Not the hero.

Which would David turn out to be?

“Have I a boil on my neck or a carrot sprouting from my ear?”

Her fingers tightened on her bag, but she refused to be intimidated. “You don’t look well.”

“I once had three bullets pulled from my body with a rusty fork.” He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth as the hackney swung round a corner, throwing him against the side of the carriage. “That, Miss Hawthorne, was a walk among the daisies compared to this. Are you afraid I’ll die and not keep our agreement?” The corner of his mouth curled in a mocking smile.

She wasn’t used to humor from men, either. It unnerved her almost as much as his unearthly good looks, and that shocking kiss, and . . . well, everything about him unnerved her.

“It had crossed my mind,” she answered sharply.

He chuckled—actually chuckled. But while Mr. Corey’s chuckle sent ice water rushing through her veins, David’s low, quiet laughter buzzed her insides and made her pulse race.

Score a point for the truthful woman
.

By the gods! Those words had not come from his mouth. She’d been staring at those full, perfectly formed lips curled in a sly smile like an addle-pated debutante, and they had definitely not moved. No, those words—by gads, even his amused and cynical tone of voice—had appeared in her mind.

“You’re a telepath?” The realization chilled her to her core, making her jerk halfway from her seat, the bag tipping from her lap.

Between one breath and the next, David reached out, grabbing the handle before the bag struck the floor, the discordant clang of a bell rattling her already rattled nerves.

“What the hell is in here?” he asked. “The family silver?”

She grabbed the satchel, resettling it on her legs, wrapping it even more tightly to her chest. “I asked my question first.”

He shrugged, the effort drawing a fleeting grimace. “Fair enough. I’m a path. Not a reader, Fey-blood. Your thoughts are yours to keep. Couldn’t read you even if I wanted to. It’s your turn. What’s in the bag?”

She felt her chin rise in automatic defiance. “I didn’t take anything that wasn’t mine, and my reasons for leaving my brother’s house are too numerous to mention.”

“I’m a good listener.”

She shot another nervous glance out the window. So far, there had been no sign of Corey’s henchmen in hot pursuit, but she’d be a fool to think he’d give up without a fight. He’d not risk such a loss of face as to have his intended bride slip her leash. She tried not to recall the feel of his hand closing around her neck as he issued his vicious threats. To do so would shatter her fragile nerves. She needed to remain calm and in control if she wanted to win her way to freedom. She forced herself to take a slow relaxing breath. “The man you saw with my brother—they call him the king of the stews.”

“I know Victor Corey. Aside from his criminal empire, the villain holds markers from half the
ton
. He’s got ministers, MPs, and more than a few peers in his pocket. Your brother plays with dangerous friends.”

“He’s not a friend. Branston borrowed heavily when we first came to London. Far more than we could ever pay back, even should we have made a success of the business.”

“So Corey decided to accept your maidenhead as compensation. Crude but not surprising, given the man’s past. That still doesn’t answer the question. What’s in the bag? And what business are you in?”

She fiddled with the leather strap, shifted upon her seat. “These are my bells. I use them in my work.”

“Which is . . .?” He motioned with his hand.

“People come to me after a death.”

“You’re a gravedigger?”

“They come for solace, not for spades.”

He lifted a brow. “Now I am intrigued.”

She pinched her lips together in a frown. What was it about their every conversation that left her flushed and flustered? Annoyed with herself, she blurted, “Pull your mind from the gutter. I’m a traveler into death. A summoner of souls. A necromancer.”

*  *  *

There was no time to pursue what had suddenly become a very interesting conversation. The slam of a pathed sending ripped across David’s mind—a scream of terror, a plea for help.

Shit. When it rained, it bloody well poured.

He rapped on the roof, signaling the driver to pull over. “Stay here, Miss Hawthorne. Sit tight. Say nothing.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

But he’d already swung from the hackney, only a slight hitch in his stride as he hurried toward Cumberland Place, senses on alert for any possible trouble.

Carriages jammed the street and men and women crowded the flagways; laughter and conversation floated on a damp spring breeze. Lamps blazed from
the windows and above the door of No. 3, while liveried footmen stood at attention on either side of the marbled steps leading to the fan-lit entryway. Of course. The Fowlers’ ball was tonight. He’d been sent an invitation. In fact, Lady Fowler had brought it to him herself, stayed far longer than was necessary, and returned home much happier than when she’d arrived.

A smug smile curled his lip. The woman was wasted on that dottering old baronet she’d married.

“What’s going on?”

David whipped around to find Callista standing behind him. “I told you to stay with the carriage,” he growled.

“You didn’t think I’d let you sneak off that easily, did you?”

“I’m not sneaking.”

“You certainly look as though you’re sneaking.”

He closed his eyes on a deep calming breath before he answered. “I’m reconnoitering. You really don’t trust me, do you?”

“No,” came her curt response, but there it was again. A tiny curve of her lips, a brightness to her eyes. She needed to do it more often. It smoothed years from her face. Unfortunately, the current situation didn’t exactly seem well suited to smiles and laughter.

He shook off the distracting thought and bent all his attention back to the problem at hand. The sending had stopped abruptly, the mental shout of surprise and then alarm had fallen silent. “Something’s not right.”

She peered over his shoulder at the aristocratic throng clogging the pathways and making their way up the wide steps. Tilted her head, a look of intense
concentration on her face, eyes locked on an invisible distance.

“My house is just there.” He motioned to the far end of the crescent. “It seems quiet, but—”

Callista’s body jerked as if she’d been struck, her eyes wide and midnight black in a face drained of color. “The door into death is open,” she said in a shaky voice.

“What the hell does that mean?”

She flashed him a determined glance. “It means someone’s died. Violently, by the feel of it. ” She grabbed his hand and tugged him back toward the hackney.

Questions fired like gunshots through his frazzled brain and his body ached with every second he couldn’t lie down and collapse in a heap. He dug in his heels. “Wait. If we’re going to make it farther than Islington, I need money and clothes.”

David swung around, the blood draining from his head into his ankles in one vicious rush. On the front steps of his house stood his worst nightmare in the flesh. Cold, empty eyes, a lipless slash of a mouth curled at the edges into a permanent snarl, and a whippet-thin body that nonetheless bore the strength of the strongest of beasts—Eudo Beskin.
I know you’re out there, St. Leger. The traitor Kineally’s dead.

The enforcer’s sending threw David back in time to the moment two years ago when the Ossine had come for him. He had explained. Then he’d pleaded, and finally he’d fought. But there had been no escape. His stomach clenched as memories of pain churned his insides and sizzled like fire along his limbs.

He sent up a prayer for Caleb Kineally. There
would be no funeral pyre. No rites or rituals to help his soul pass through the Gateway to the land of their ancestors. As punishment for his crimes, he would be buried in the ground, staked with silver through the heart to hold his spirit fast to the earth for all eternity.

Should have known you were involved with these rebels,
Beskin continued.
Should have killed you when I had the chance.

David took Callista’s arm. “We need to get out of here now!”

She took a few scrambling paces after him until she dragged to a halt. “Stop! Those men that just rounded the corner. I recognize the tall one. He’s Mr. Corey’s lieutenant. They must have followed us.”

Two men strolled up the flagway as if out for an evening walk. Nothing in their outward appearance spoke of murderous intent, but David knew dangerous men when he saw them—the way they carried themselves, the expressions in their eyes. Neither had come here tonight looking to dance.

“Come,” David said in a hushed voice. “I have an idea.” Outflanked, he made the only move he could in this deranged chess match. He dragged Callista Hawthorne through the jewel-encrusted perimeter of the Fowlers’ guests.

“Hey, now!”

“The nerve of some people.”

“He’s ripped my train with his big feet.”

“Oof! How dare you, sir!”

David and Callista elbowed their way to the top of the steps, where Lady Fowler welcomed her guests. Her eyes lit with delight when she saw David coming toward her, and she spread her arms as if she meant to
crush him to her ample bosom. “Mr. St. Leger! What a lovely surprise.”

Damning the woman’s big mouth and parade-ground bellow, David cringed as all eyes swiveled in his direction. Revealing no hint of the growing anxiety tightening viselike in his gut, he bent over Lady Fowler’s outstretched hand, hoping his knees didn’t give out and send him straight into her lap. “You’re a vision as always, Lady Fowler. The belle of the ball.”

She gave a coquettish laugh and smacked him playfully with her fan. “You’re such a tease, sir. I’m merely the evil stepmother tonight.” She leaned close, her lips brushing his ear. “God, but I’m wet for you, my darling man.”

David snapped to attention, yanking Callista up the final step to stand beside him. “I hope you don’t mind that I brought my . . . second cousin with me. She’s from . . . uh . . . Dorset. Turned up out of the blue today. Couldn’t leave her at home all alone. You understand. Family duty and all that.”

A frown creased Mrs. Fowler’s penciled brows and pouted her full red lips while she eyed Callista as one might a stray puppy. “I certainly understand the odious pressure of family responsibility.” Her narrowed gaze moved from Miss Hawthorne’s thick woolen travel cloak and leather satchel to David’s odd, haphazard attire.

He grinned. “I apologize, my lady. I came straight from ‘dress like your favorite dustman’ night at my club. Silly, but then, you know what revels go on at these places. Bad as the old school days.”

“Yes, of course,” she answered smoothly, her wary expression growing more than appreciative as her
gaze leveled off somewhere south of his waist. “If only our local dustman had your masculine attributes, sir,” she purred.

Out of the corner of his eye, David saw Corey’s men approach, though the press of Mayfair’s finest held them back from making a full frontal assault. Beskin, on the other hand, crossed the street like a hound on the scent, his sneer positively fiendish. David doubted a minor obstacle like a mob of mere humans would stymie him for long.

“Yes, well, I’d love to chat, but is your daughter within?” He edged Callista and himself around Lady Fowler and ever closer to the door. “Such a sweet girl. Full of . . . verve.”

“Really? I don’t remember your ever noticing Harriet. She’s just inside by the—”

“No worries. I’ll find her myself.” David made a final storming of the breach, dashing past the proud mother and into the entry hall.

“What are you doing?” Callista hissed.

“Saving our asses,” David answered. “No one will risk barging into the Fowlers’ drawing room after us.”

“We barged in.”

“But we—or at least I—was invited. That’s different.”

“Fine. So, we’re in. How do you propose we get out?”

“Just stay close, follow my lead, and try not to draw attention to yourself.”

Callista pinched her lips together. “A bit late for that advice, wouldn’t you say—Mr. St. Leger?”

He acknowledged the hit with a smile and took her hand. Together they shoved through a gaggle of
girls in virginal white hovering by the stairs, a cluster of rowdy young men by the punch table, and a row of stern matrons overseeing the couples on the dance floor like high court judges. Most were too caught up in their own amusements to notice an oddly dressed couple scurrying through the crush. And the few who recognized David and raised a voice in friendly greeting were left behind with a tossed grin and a wink. Luckily, Callista didn’t seem to notice the appreciative nods or knowing nudges.

“We’re almost there,” David encouraged. “Freedom is through those terrace doors and across the garden to the mews beyond.”

“Then what?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Oh, Mr. St. Leger!” toodled Lady Fowler above the din. “We need to speak.”

That was one raised voice that would not be so easily fobbed off.

“Bugger all. Quick. In here.” David dragged Callista through the closest curtained archway into a tiny alcove full to the brim with wraps, coats, hats, umbrellas, and cloaks. Trapped. No other way out. They were pressed together on the six inches of floor space not taken up with cast-off outerwear, Callista’s body snug against his.

“Is this supposed to be better?” she asked, her breath whispering against his throat.

“Much,” he answered as her warmth, combined with the tingle of Fey-blood magic, shivered over his skin.

“Mr. St. Leger? I have some lovely etchings I want to show you,” Lady Fowler’s voice sounded from just
outside their refuge, a slight predatory edge coloring her tone. “I think you’ll find them exquisite.”

“Etchings?” Miss Hawthorne scoffed. “Really?”

A ringed hand gripped the curtain to draw it aside.

Frantic, out of ideas, and because, damn it, this whole horrible mess could be laid squarely at Callista Hawthorne’s door, David kissed her—again.