Whisper the Dead (The Lovegrove Legacy) (8 page)

It was over an hour later by the time Gretchen finally escaped to the ladies’ parlor set aside for torn hems and discreet chamber pots. Rumor had it the waltz was to be played next and so the room had cleared down to hairbrushes and half-empty champagne glasses. She found her cousins on a settee, sharing a plate of iced cakes.

“I thought you’d be waiting for the waltz,” she told Penelope as she stole a forkful of her icing.

“And I thought you were in the library.” Penelope raised an eyebrow. “You’re all sweaty. Were you bowling on the back lawn again?”

“I did that once. And no.” Gretchen dropped into a chair. “I may have crumpled up my mother’s dismal list but she clearly hasn’t. Every man on it has sought me out for a dance.” She licked the last of the frosting off silver tines, then swallowed slowly, as though an afterthought. “Emma?”

“Yes?”

“Why are there moths all over your antlers?”

She slumped resignedly against the cushions. “I have no bloody idea.”

There were over a dozen of them, from tiny white moths to mint-green luna moths, gypsy moths, apple sphinx moths, and a giant death-head’s moth, with its skull pattern watching them carefully. They clung to Emma’s honey-hued antlers, like she was the only candle in a dark house.

“They won’t go away.”

Frowning, Gretchen stood up. She waved her fork menacingly. “Shoo!” “Go on!”

“I can’t think why we didn’t try that ourselves,” Emma pointed out drily when the moths shifted slightly but would not fly away.

“That
is
odd,” Gretchen admitted. “Even for a girl with antlers.”

“It occurs to me that our definition of ‘odd’ has certainly changed in the last few weeks.” Emma snorted. “But now I can’t leave the parlor. When I try, they hover over me, just out of reach of the Fith-Fath glamour.”

“It’s like a crown,” Penelope added. “It’s rather a pretty effect. You know, if you’re fond of insects.”

They watched Emma circle the room, calling up the glamour and letting it slide away. The moths trailed her like the sparks of a falling star.

Penelope stood up so abruptly the plate fell off her lap. “Snake,” she said in a particularly calm voice, pointing to the carpet. A small green grass snake slid over the hand-knotted pattern.

Emma stepped out of its path. It circled around, as though trying to seek her out. “What the devil?”

Two more snakes emerged from under the nearest chair, gliding in her direction. Another slithered down the hall, toward the crowded ballroom. The strains of the promised waltz played prettily, punctuated by a startled shout. Behind them, an insistent tap sounded at the windowpane. They glanced over to see an osprey clicking its beak against the glass. The white feathers of its chest glowed.

“Is that … a giant bird?” Gretchen asked, bewildered. “I don’t remember balls having quite so much wildlife.”

Emma gulped, going pale. “Moth, snake, and osprey.” Thunder growled outside, a direct result of her anxiety. “The Sisters’ familiars,” she said. “The ones I bottled.”

“What does it mean?” Penelope asked, climbing onto a chair to escape the attention of a large snake with viciously colored scales.

“It means we need to get out of here.” Gretchen hazarded a guess. “Now. Before the Order catches wind of this. We’ll have to use the window,” she added, already striding over to the nearest one not currently occupied by a giant bird. She poked her head out gingerly to make sure there weren’t any more ospreys or, worse, couples sneaking kisses in the bushes. Chaperones, in her experience, didn’t make one more virtuous, merely more creative. She popped back inside. “It’s clear.”

Emma nodded, her lips moving as she muttered the Fith-Fath glamour. Her antlers faded, as though they’d been painted over. The moths clung to nothing at all, defying most scientific
laws. Gretchen threw a leg over the windowsill and leaped out. Her white gown ballooned around her ankles. She fought her way clear of the daffodils and bounced right off a rather rudely solid shadow.

Tobias.

“Not you again,” she groaned when his hands closed around her upper arms. She knew it wasn’t to steady her, as she wasn’t the least bit wobbly. He was as stern and unyielding as the statues lining the dance floor. “My Lord Killingsworth,” she exclaimed very loudly, warning off her cousins. “I didn’t take you for the type to lurk in bushes. What would the etiquette books say?”

“Where are you going?” he asked her sharply.

She raised her eyebrows. “That’s none of your business.”

“I am your Keeper; therefore, you are my business,” he informed her.

She pulled free of his hold. The imprint of his fingers was warm on her bare arms. “Nothing about me is yours, my lord,” she told him. “So find another occupation.”

“And yet I remain.”

“Yes, and it’s rather rude actually.” Rain began to patter through the garden. His gold buttons gleamed in the faint light spilling out of the open window. He looked over her shoulder. If he looked too carefully would he see Emma? A moth drifted between them.

“The rain will ruin your pretty coat,” Gretchen said hurriedly, seeking to distract him. He peered down at the water stains with irritation. “You should go inside where it’s safe,” she added sweetly. Fog curled through the garden, haloing the lights.

“I must insist you accompany me, Lady Gretchen.”

The fog was rather insistent too. It pushed against them, clinging to the walls of the house. If she let him lead her away, Emma could slip away. The shadow of another large bird passed over, white as hot ashes.

“Oh very well,” she sighed, exasperated. She stalked away, not realizing that Tobias had extended his arm to assist her, like any polite gentleman. Her voice drifted behind her. “Are you coming or what?”

By the time they’d circled the house and crossed the patio to the ballroom doors, the buzzing in Gretchen’s head was incessant, overpowering the violins.

Tobias paused, frowning at her. “Are you ill?”

She shook her head even though she was a little queasy. The vibrations in her head made her feel awful. She swallowed grimly and focused on the annoying sound, trying to hear the voices of dead witches as Mrs. Sparrow had told her. She pressed on her temples, trying to alleviate the pressure. She thought she caught the fragment of a word, then nothing.

She closed her eyes. It was just as loud, but it seemed to be coming from Tobias, and not the strange collection of familiars as she’d assumed. She focused harder, following it to its source. It took a long moment and it made her feel disconcertingly brittle. She pointed to his left pocket. “One of your charms is off.”

“I think not.”

She rolled her eyes, then stopped when it made her head hurt.
“I’m a Whisperer, remember?” She stuck her hand in his coat pocket and yanked out the offending charm. It was a cracked wolf’s tooth, leaking magic. “And this thing is like a nail in my skull,” she added, tossing it into the bushes. “Now if you’re very lucky, I might not cast up my accounts on your very shiny shoes.”

“I’d consider it a kindness,” he said mildly, following her inside. She didn’t notice his outstretched hand, waiting to steady her if she fainted.

She saw Penelope almost at once, chatting with a muscular young man. She smiled cheerfully, looking just like a happy debutante at a ball and nothing like a girl who had just helped her cousin escape through a window. Emma, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen.

“Gretchen,” Penelope said. “This is Ian Stone, my very own Keeper. He has read all of Shakespeare, so I think I shall keep him. Also, he is going to dance with me.”

“I’d be honored,” he replied, not betraying a flicker of reaction to being ordered to dance. “I’m just glad I’m in your good graces. That poor bloke this morning will limp for a month from that dog bite.”

Penelope sniffed. “Serves him right for lurking.”

“It’s probably for the best.” Ian winked at Gretchen. “I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have passed your cousin’s literary inquisition.”

“I wonder if you could fetch us some wine before we dance,” Penelope asked. “While my aunt is studiously pretending not to see us.”

“Of course.”

“I like your Keeper much better than mine,” Gretchen remarked once he’d walked away. He was all smiles and amiableness. Nothing like Tobias.

“He can quote
Macbeth
,” Penelope said. It was all that mattered to her. He could have smelled like an old shoe and she wouldn’t have cared, as long as he had the proper appreciation for Shakespeare and gothic novels.

“What about Emma?” Gretchen whispered.

“She’s gone,” she whispered back. “I had to distract that pestilent, ill-bred canker blossom Virgil.”

“Does he suspect anything?”

“I don’t know. An osprey made a mess on his shoulder.” She grinned over the top of her fan. Her mother had painted it with a scene from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, complete with Oberon, Titania, and Nick Bottom, with his donkey’s head. Gretchen wondered if her aunt would paint Tobias with a donkey’s head. Penelope stood on her tiptoes. “Have you seen Lucius anywhere?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Blast.”

Ian returned with their wineglasses before she could find Lucius. Unfortunately, he also returned with Tobias. “Apparently there was a snake in the ballroom earlier,” Ian told them. “Everyone is flying into the boughs over it.”

Tobias frowned. “That is rather unusual.”

“Probably came in from the gardens,” Penelope said airily. “You know how dramatic everyone gets. You’re not afraid to
waltz, are you, my lord?” she asked as the orchestra began to play again.

“Snakes and all?” Ian bowed with a smile. Penelope glanced at Gretchen and Tobias.

“You should dance too,” she suggested archly. “So no one suspects why you’re really here, Lord Killingsworth.”

Gretchen widened her eyes threateningly at her cousin. She was clearly reading too many gothic romances and Keats and those other poets. It was rotting her brain. Didn’t she realize that Gretchen didn’t want to dance with Tobias? She wanted to
kick
him.

He appeared to feel the same way, if his stiff posture was any judge.

“I’m sure Lord Killingsworth can spy on me just as well from over there,” she said.

“And yet why waste a perfectly good waltz?” he returned, holding out his arm in invitation. She saw the dare reflected in the arch of his eyebrow. He didn’t think she’d accept. Her hand settled on his arm, slapping down as though to swat an irritating fly.

“Now look what you’ve done,” she said, cheerful despite herself. She refused to let the Order steal her sense of humor away completely. “You’ve punished us both by daring me to accept.”

“It’s an honor, I assure you.”

The buzzing began almost before he’d started speaking. She smiled at him wryly. “It’s no use lying to a Whisperer,” she said as he led her to the dance floor. “Surely you must know that.”

“I …” He looked surprised and, possibly, chagrined. She must have imagined that. Still, she’d flustered him, and it was
the most emotion she’d ever seen on his perfect face. He finally looked nineteen instead of ninety.

The music swelled around them, violins and pianoforte braiding together seamlessly. She felt nervous for no good reason, especially when his arm went around her waist, drawing her closer. His eyes, the hard blue of a winter sky, met hers. She thought she heard a wolf howl. She swallowed, suddenly terrified that she was going to start babbling.

The music seemed to get louder but everything else faded. She was acutely aware of the light pressure of his hand on her lower back and his fingers clasped around hers. The candles in the chandelier overhead dripped beeswax, but he steered them effortlessly around it. She’d never really understood the fuss people made over the waltz. But now she was afraid she understood it a little bit better.

And then, because nothing seemed to go smoothly in the witching world, a dull ache built inside her chest. It wasn’t the kind of swoony feeling Penelope talked about. It was more like her wolfhound’s teeth gnawing on her ribs. She flinched when her witch knot flared briefly, as if traced by an invisible dagger. She was surprised she wasn’t bleeding through her white gloves.

She was even more surprised when Tobias whirled her away from the others to press her against the wall.

Moira had just finished stealing mandrake roots from a witch’s back garden when she ran into Maddoc. “What are you doing out and about?” he asked.

“The usual,” Moira said. “You?”

“Heard Rovers found a body in the Thames and wanted to sell the bones.”

She froze, thinking of Strawberry. “And did they?”

Maddoc shook his head. “Near as I could tell they were dog bones.”

Moira released her breath. She couldn’t bear the thought of her friend being used for foul magic.

“Still,” Maddoc continued. “I thought I smelled lemon balm and black magic. Best stick together tonight.” He nodded around the corner to a narrow alley that stank of cats and gin. “We’re up there.”

They ducked into the crooked lane where a ladder was set against the wall, behind a stack of broken barrels. The last three rungs were rotted through, but the rest was sturdy enough. No one ever looked back here, or at least no one sober enough to take notice.

Moira followed Maddoc up to the roof, climbing nimbly over the railing. She straightened just as a posy of purple-and-white violets hurtled at her face. She snatched it out of the air before the petals went up her nose.

“Some bloke left those for you,” Cass said, pouting slightly. She was wearing her usual lavender-and-black dress, but she’d taken off her veils. She never did like to share the attention, especially when it came to the other lads. She and Moira only tolerated each other because Moira couldn’t have cared less about the lads and because Cass knew they needed each other. It was tricky enough being a Madcap, never mind a girl alone in London.

Moira frowned at the posy, wrapped tight with a fluttering ribbon. Cass would want to weave it into her hair. Moira just wanted to know if she could sell it at the markets. “Who the hell would bring me flowers?”

Cass sniffed. “Exactly my question.”