…when he’d allowed himself to be tricked.
Sophia hadn’t gone west at all, had she? She must have gone north, and then either she’d told the man there to fool him, or he’d decided to do it out of some drunken sense of malice. If Sophia didn’t want to be found, what did that mean? Was she in danger? Did she not love him?
Both of those thoughts felt like knives to the heart. Sebastian sat there, wondering, while Sir Julian’s carriage conveyed him to the gate.
“I’ll need a fresh horse when I get there,” Sebastian said.
“A fresh horse?” Sir Julian asked.
“I’ll have to ride hard.”
As hard as he had coming here, because he wasn’t going to stop. He was going to ride back to the crossroads, and then ride north. He was going to ride as far as he needed to. He would do whatever it took.
He had to find Sophia.
CHAPTER NINE
Angelica found that she quite enjoyed the freedom that came with riding alone. There was no need to ride in a rickety carriage to accommodate maids and ladies-in-waiting too delicate to mount a horse. There was no need to ride side-saddle, as propriety might have demanded had she been following along after a hunt. Even her riding clothes were a distinct improvement on the usual confinements of corsetry and tightly laced dresses.
Then there was the prospect of being rid of Sophia at the end of this. That was a pleasurable thought in itself.
Of course, there were downsides to the journey. Angelica didn’t like being away from Ashton for so long, because she had no doubt that the other women of the royal court would plot and scheme while she was away. Briefly, Angelica found herself thinking of some of the women whose reputations she had destroyed: the marchioness who had found herself the subject of unceasing rumors about what she did with her serving girls, the daughter of an earl who had found her unguarded comments about Rupert’s behavior relayed back to him.
It wouldn’t have to be much: a word in the right ears suggesting that her absence involved running off with some man, perhaps, or some time spent prying her friends loose from the circle Angelica had so carefully built. Not all plots involved a knife, although Angelica certainly had no problems with those that did.
No, the less time she spent away from the city, the better.
Besides, what did the country beyond it actually have that was so good? Angelica spent as little time as possible on her parents’ country estate, and tried to confine it to those portions of the year when there were likely to be festivals and dances in a long, slow circuit of all the houses in the Shires. That at least offered opportunities for entertainment in the spaces away from the city where there were fewer eyes on her.
Without that, the countryside mostly seemed to be an endless expanse of trees and blank, boring fields. Angelica knew that such things were necessary to produce food, but did there really have to be so many of them? It seemed like a waste of space that could be used for more civilized things. Even an inn or two that didn’t look as though it was about to fall down would be an improvement on what Angelica had found so far.
She kept riding, her horse seemingly tireless as she made her way through streams and over hills, along roads and down through forested sections. That was only to be expected: the beast was, after all, of the finest stock that her father had been able to bring in from the continent’s stables. Blood mattered in these things, as in so much else.
Perhaps if Sebastian could be brought to realize that, then he would cease this nonsense of trying to find Sophia. Then again, Angelica knew what men could be like. Probably he would continue to follow after her like a lovesick puppy for as long as she was out there somewhere. Angelica would need to deal with that if she was ever going to convince him that their bloodlines were too well suited to ignore the possibility of a match.
When she came to a fast-flowing river, Angelica found signs of what had probably once been a ferry crossing. The rope to pull it across was long since gone, though. It meant that she had to ride parallel to the river for close to an hour before she found a patch of water shallow enough to ride through. Had Sophia had to do this? Had she had to ride her stolen cart back up along the riverbank until she could find the road again?
From time to time on the road, Angelica passed people. Mostly they looked like common folk, walking from field to home and back again. Some of them looked like tinkers or traveling merchants. Angelica stopped everyone, wanting to make sure that she was still on the right path.
After all, she knew exactly how easy it was to send someone on the wrong route.
“You there,” she called down to a man in rough clothes. “Have you seen three women on a cart, one of them with red hair?”
“Aye,” the man said, as if that were an appropriate way for him to talk to his betters. “I saw them. They came to the inn. The Braen brothers were there, and the eldest… well, she set a beast on him the likes of which I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t seen it.”
“Set a beast on him?” Angelica said.
“Like a great cat it was,” the man replied, “but it was like a thing possessed!”
Angelica laughed at that. “With fire in its eyes and smoke curling from its fur?”
The yokel stared up at her. “You might not believe it, but I saw what I saw.”
Half of it deep drowned in beer, no doubt. Angelica could no more believe that Sophia had summoned some kind of demon cat than that she could fly. To avoid having to listen to any more of that drivel, she rode on.
There was a village some way ahead. Sophia rode toward it and stopped at its inn, handing her reins off to a stable boy with the kind of smile that would probably have him stumbling about his work with thoughts of her.
She went inside, and one look at the place told her that the food would be a thousand miles from quail or venison, or spun sugar or fine wine. Even so, she ordered stew, sitting by herself and sipping watered beer that tasted as though the barrel had been open for a month. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she held up a coin for the room to see.
“Do any of you peasants have information on a woman with red hair named Sophia?” she asked. “Do you know where she was going?”
“A woman like that passed through,” one man called. “She headed off in the direction of the old bridge and the estates in Monthys.”
Angelica tossed the coin vaguely in his direction, letting the men scrabble over it as she left and snatching the reins to her mare from the boy who was scrubbing her down. She didn’t want to stay in a flea-infested wreck of a village like this one moment longer than she had to.
Instead, Angelica rode on along tree-lined roads and between hills with almost sheer sides. It was colder here than it had been in the south of the country, but she would worry about that once she had found Sophia. Maybe she could make a bonfire out of her cart, or a cloak from this demon cat she was supposed to have.
Angelica was still thinking of that with amusement when two figures stepped out of the rocks ahead of her. It was obvious from the start what their intentions were; innocent people didn’t hide like that, or wear half masks and broad hats to disguise themselves. One was a man, one a woman, although they were both dressed in shirt and breeches, with long jackets and scarves. The richness of their clothes suggested that they could have belonged to nobles, although it was also fairly obvious that if they had, they had been stolen. A band of plaid in the colors of one of the clans suggested that these were thieves down from the mountains to the far north.
Highway robbers were things out of stories, to Angelica. Typically, she traveled with enough companions and bodyguards that anyone foolish enough to attack them would quickly find themselves hanging in a gibbet as a warning to others. Alone, though, things might be more difficult.
She tensed to kick her horse into a gallop, and the woman raised a pistol.
“I wouldn’t,” she said, her accent thick with the burrs to be found across the border. “’Twould be a shame to put a hole in such prett
y riding clothes.”
Angelica drew to a halt, considering her options. In the stories, highway robbers were always dashing and courteous, eloquent and fair to those who didn’t try to trick them.
“Get down,” the man said, in a clipped voice that had no hint of courtesy. He had a pistol of his own now. If Angelica tried to run, she had little doubt that she would die.
“There’s really no need for violence,” she said. “I’ll cooperate.”
“Oh, do you hear that?” the woman said, with a sneer in her tone. “She’ll cooperate. As if she gets a choice.”
“Maybe she’s expecting us to kiss her hand and thank her for the privilege of robbing her,” the man said with a laugh. “Well, thank you kindly, milady. Now give us all your gold or we’ll put a lead ball between your eyes and take it anyway.”
Angelica could feel the fear rising in her, but pushed it down as her hands went to her belt.
“Quickly, quickly!” the woman snapped, holding out a hand.
Angelica continued to fumble at her money pouch, and at one of the vials nearest it. Finally, it came loose. Angelica threw the pouch over with one gloved hand to land at the woman’s feet.
“You’ll pick it up and hand it to me properly,” the woman snapped. “You think I’m a servant to scrabble around for your coins? Kneel and give me it.”
“As you say,” Angelica said. She didn’t have to act to let fear seep into her voice. She knelt, picking up the bag and simultaneously dropping a small stream of clear liquid onto it from the vial that she’d palmed. She held it up. “Please, just don’t hurt me.”
“Just don’t hurt me,” the woman said in an imitation that amused no one but herself. She snatched the bag from Angelica’s hands, taking it in one fleshy palm. “Haven’t you worked out yet that you don’t get to decide?”
“We can do what we want,” the man agreed. His hand settled on Angelica’s shoulder. “Maybe we’ll take this pretty riding dress and the horse, leave you to stagger back to a village in an under-shift.”
“Maybe we’ll take you,” the woman said, “and sell you for what you’re worth.”
Shock flooded through Angelica at that prospect. “I’m not one of the Indentured. No one would take me without their mark!”
The man laughed at that. “Oh, she’s had a sheltered life if she thinks that a mark can’t be applied to a calf. Shall we take her?”
The woman shook her head. “It’s too far back. You want her, have her, maybe I’ll take a turn too, but we cut her throat after.”
“Please,” Angelica begged. “I’ve given you what you wanted. There’s no reason for this.”
“Except that we want to,” the man said. He pulled away his mask. The features underneath were flat and ugly, a long way from any image of a dashing robber that had ever been painted. “Up.”
He hauled Angelica to her feet, pushing her back in the direction of a flat rock covered in moss.
“Please,” Angelica tried again, but the man’s hand tangled in her hair. “I’ll do anything you want, just let me live.”
“How about we see what you do, and then decide?” the man shot back. “What do you reckon, Elsie? Elsie?”
He was obviously waiting for an answer from his partner in crime, but the woman wasn’t answering. Instead, her hands were clawing at her throat, gasps starting to come from her as she staggered amidst the moss.
“What’s happening?” the man said. “Elsie, talk to me.”
“She can’t,” Angelica said, her hand going to the folds of her dress. “Poison can make that kind of thing difficult.”
“Poison?” the robber echoed. He turned back to her, and now the amusement was gone from his features. Now there was just anger. “You poisoned her?”
“Yes,” Angelica said with a smile. “I don’t know why that is such a hard concept to understand.”
“You—”
They were already close, so Angelica didn’t have to move forward much. Her hand just had to rise, bringing with it the wickedly sharp stiletto it now held. The blade was perhaps six inches long, but less than the width of a finger. Angelica thrust it up like a needle under the robber’s ribcage, hearing him gasp as the blade went in.
“The heart can be difficult to find sometimes,” she whispered, holding him almost as close as a lover. Behind them, his real lover was falling to the grass, twitching as the poison started to claim her. “There’s a young man… his heart is proving to be very difficult indeed.”
The robber didn’t respond, because he was too busy gasping in pain.
“Then again, it’s not a knife I’m trying to use with his,” Angelica said. “Your heart seems to have been easy enough with one.”
She stepped back before she pulled the stiletto out, because she didn’t want to get blood on her riding gear. She pulled it clear and the blood spurted, and then the robber toppled forward. Angelica considered the two of them for a moment and then went over for her coin pouch, very carefully washing it clean using the thieves’ water bottles.
On impulse, she set about robbing her attackers more thoroughly, taking their pistols, then one of the masks that they’d used, and a hat. She even took the clan plaid from the woman, because it occurred to her that there might be a situation where it would come in useful as a way of blaming the barbarous thugs.
She could, for example, leave it beside Sophia’s body when she killed her.
CHAPTER TEN
Kate ran to Siobhan’s wood with all the speed of her fury behind her. She plunged between the trees, shoving branches out of the way as she hurried toward the spot where the fountain stood. She half expected the wood to try to push her out, to try to shrink from her anger, but instead she found it almost drawing her forward so that she found the standing stones, the crumbling stairs, and finally the overgrown space where the fountain stood.
“Why so angry, Kate dear?” Siobhan asked. She stepped from the trees on the far side of the fountain. “Was my task not to your liking?”
Kate’s hand closed on her sword. If she plunged it into the witch, would it kill her? Would it feel any better than it had when she’d just murdered a young woman? Siobhan was a long way from innocent.
“You know it wasn’t,” Kate said. “You just had me murder someone!”
“I told you that it was what I wanted before you set out,” Siobhan said. She moved closer, sitting on the edge of the fountain, and it shimmered, moving from its crumbling present to the glory of the past in a moment.
“I didn’t think you meant it!” Kate shouted back. “I thought it was a test.”
Siobhan shrugged. “I am not responsible for what you think, apprentice. And it was a test. A test of whether you could bring yourself to kill on command. I even explained that test for you. And you passed. Well done.”
“Well done?” Kate snarled. “Well done?”
She rushed forward, grabbing for Siobhan, her hands fastening in the silk of the other woman’s dress.
“Consider carefully what you are about to do, Kate,” Siobhan said. “I always do.”
“I don’t care what you do,” Kate snapped back, but she still pushed Siobhan away from her. The woman of the fountain stood tall in the middle of it, and now the plants around the edge of the clearing rustled as they moved. Kate could see brambles rising up like whips. One, just one, lashed out, gouging a line of blood down Kate’s arm. Kate forced herself not to react. She wouldn’t give Siobhan the satisfaction of it.
“Don’t you?” Siobhan said. “I could choose to flay the skin from your body. I could break your mind and leave you an empty thing at my feet. Are you sure you don’t care what I choose to do?”
Would those brambles really be enough to stop Kate if she leapt at Siobhan? Somehow, Kate doubted it, but even so, she couldn’t bring herself to try.
“She was innocent, Siobhan,” Kate said. “I followed her. I read her thoughts. There wasn’t an ounce of cruelty in her, and you still had me kill her. I smothered her
because I thought you would tell me to stop. I didn’t even give her a clean death.”
“Perhaps you should have taken me at my word about wanting her dead,” Siobhan said. “These things have their consequences, if not for you, then for others.”
She said it as if the perfect solution would have been for Kate to simply stab Gertrude Illiard the first time she saw her, without asking questions, without agonizing over it, without so much as questioning the necessity of becoming a murderer.
“Do you even understand what this means to me?” Kate asked. “Do you understand how much it hurts?”
“Rather less than some of the alternatives, I imagine,” Siobhan said. Her hand stirred the fountain’s waters almost idly, and the reflections in it shifted to show the hellish place that housed the spirits of those who had betrayed her. Within it, Kate could hear the pitiful screams of the souls held there.
“Is that it?” Kate asked. “Is that your answer? More threats?”
The thought of that only fed her anger. She would kill Siobhan before she allowed her to send her to that place. She had kept her side of the bargain.
“Just a reminder that you are my apprentice,” Siobhan said, “and you were required to perform the tasks I set.”
That might have been good enough for some people. It had been the reason Kate had forced herself to go along with it, but it hadn’t been the whole of it. She’d known that she had no choice, but no, that wasn’t true. Siobhan had given her a choice. She could have chosen whatever vile fate the woman of the fountain had chosen for her instead. She could have been brave enough to suffer, and a young woman would have lived.
“At least tell me why,” Kate said. “You wouldn’t before, but tell me now.”
“It was necessary,” Siobhan said.
“That isn’t an answer,” Kate shot back. She thought about Gertrude as she’d been when Kate had followed her. She thought about the diary she’d found. “There was nothing evil about her, Siobhan. Why could you want her dead?”