Anne looked away. The day crept toward its zenith, and sounds of life penetrated the walls. Voices in the taproom. Horses outside. A carriage, a child’s cry. They seemed near, and yet distant, echoes from dreams of other lives.
What would the men in the taproom say, were she to hurry downstairs and proclaim that the Devil was real, that magic was real, and she herself possessed it? They would call her mad. And if she demonstrated her new power, they would run away in terror, or perhaps revive the custom of burning witches.
Her mouth tugged in a sardonic smile. Let them try and burn her. She would blow out the flames with a wave of her hand.
Unless they bound her hands. Then she might be burned. Already, she thought she could smell her flesh being charred, flaking away from bone to be borne aloft on currents of heat.
Leo would come to her aid. Shoot them all down, or use his fists to knock them senseless, then cut the ropes binding her to the stake and take her far away to safety.
She shifted onto her back. No indulging in fantasy, in fairy tales. The world is not so kind as to give us heroes and rescues—not without a price.
“Unquiet thoughts make for a poor lullaby.” Zora spoke softly, her voice smoky and subtly accented.
Anne turned her head to look at the Gypsy. Zora set the primer on the floor and crossed her wrists in her lap. Odd that the Gypsy would choose to sit on the floor rather than the nearby chair, yet she looked perfectly comfortable. Her dark gaze moved over Anne, clever and astute, rich with a worldly knowledge Anne could only envy.
“I hated him, too,” Zora murmured.
Anne frowned. “Leo?”
“Whit.” The Gypsy shook her head. “That gorgio fascinated me, yes, but I knew what he was, what he had done. He’d taken so much from me—my family, my freedom. I wanted nothing to do with him.”
“But I thought ... you seem so very ... in love.” It hurt Anne’s throat even to say that word, love, yet she had seen the way Lord Whitney looked at Zora, the way he touched her, and there could be no other word to describe it. He would do anything for Zora, and she for him.
Zora’s gaze warmed, and her mouth curved into a small, private smile. “Oh, most terribly. Yet he spilled more than a little blood to earn it.”
This conversation was stranger than Zora sitting on the floor. Anne did not know this woman. In truth, she and the Gypsy could not be more different. The rings gleaming on Zora’s fingers and the ropes of shining necklaces draped across her bosom seemed like emblems of distant, exotic lands.
Yet there was a point of convergence for her and the Gypsy: Hellraisers.
“I don’t want Leo’s blood spilled.” Anne shuddered to recall the angry lacerations over his body.
Zora shrugged. “If, Duvvel willing, we survive our task, you won’t have to see him again. If that’s what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want.” Anne turned to look back at the ceiling. She lay her forearm across her eyes.
“Hard men to love, these Hellraisers.” Zora’s words were wry, yet tinged with deeper emotion. “Harder still to not love them. But I think there is a reason why Livia chose to give magic to you and I.”
“Because we might get close to the Hellraisers.”
A definite smile sounded in Zora’s voice. “Because we’re strong.”
The door opened. Someone entered the room. Anne did not remove her arm from where it lay. Only one person would come inside—and she knew the purposeful sound of his footfall. He never tiptoed anywhere. Certainly not with her.
“The door was locked,” Zora said.
“I had the innkeeper give me another key.”
Of course he did. Leo could make anything happen through force of will.
Untrue—he had not made Anne love him. That, she had done all on her own.
“I want to be alone with my wife,” he said.
“I don’t think she wants to be alone with you,” answered Zora.
Before Leo could retort, Anne spoke. “It’s all right. And I’m certain Lord Whitney would rather have you with him than sitting on the floor in here.”
“I left him in the taproom,” said Leo.
Anne thought she could hear reluctance in Zora’s movements as she rose. But the Gypsy walked quietly from the room, shutting the door behind her.
Anne and Leo were alone.
“Here’s some stew and bread.” As he said this, she heard a bowl being set down atop a table, and the rich scent of cooked meat and the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread drifted through the room.
“I’ve no appetite.”
He expelled a breath. “Think what you will of me, Anne, but don’t starve yourself out of spite.”
Taking her arm away, Anne looked over to where he stood near a small table. Arms crossed, feet braced wide. He had borrowed some of Lord Whitney’s clothing—a serviceable green coat and waistcoat, in addition to the shirt, but no stock, so the collar of his shirt fell open to reveal the strong sinews of his neck, the shadow at the base of his throat. Hair wet, undone, and slicked straight back. Yet he had not shaved. Golden stubble lined his cheeks. He was dangerous as a buccaneer, and blade-handsome.
Yearning and need throbbed through her. And sorrow.
“Spite? Is that what this is? Spite?” She sat up, and the room tilted. Truly, weariness took a toll. And, she admitted to herself, hunger. “How very petty of me. To be out of temper when I discover that my husband is in league with the Devil. And had been lying to me for the whole of our marriage. What a dreadful virago I am.”
His expression hardened. “Don’t,” he growled. “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”
“As truth ill becomes you.”
Snarling in frustration, he dragged his hands through his hair. Anne watched his every movement with a greedy pain. She wished she could despise him. How simple everything might be.
“It was a mistake,” he ground out. “A goddamned mistake.”
“Putting too much sugar in one’s tea is a mistake. Giving one’s soul to the Devil in exchange for dark magic deserves a grander sobriquet.”
He crossed the room in two long strides, until he loomed over her. “You’re a woman possessed of a good imagination. Imagine this: You are offered your heart’s desire. What you want more than anything in the world. The cost of this gift is never mentioned, only its advantages. All you have to do is hand over the smallest trinket, and you finally possess that which you’ve always coveted.” Anger and need darkened his eyes as he stared down at her. “Imagine it, Anne. Put yourself precisely in that situation and then judge me.”
She stared up at him. This fierce storm of a man, devastating as a hurricane. She did as he asked; she envisaged herself in his position. Months ago, before she had met him, what might she have wanted so badly? A place of her own. A husband, family.
She did have those things, and lost them. Both because of Leo. But to keep them, to keep him ...
The other Hellraisers were men of wealth and aristocratic privilege. Leo had wealth in abundance, but not the proper breeding. She knew so much about him now, how much he craved access into a world that barred him entrance, his pride. His need for acceptance.
All of those things he had been offered. Few could have resisted the temptation. Saints, perhaps, and Leo was far from beatification. God knew she was no saint.
“The lies, Leo,” she said at last. “All those untruths I swallowed, like a credulous patient gulping poison instead of medicine.”
“What was I to tell you? How could I even begin to broach the topic? ‘Lovely day at the Exchange, my dearest, and by the by, I made a bargain with the Devil.’”
She shoved up from the bed, shouldering past him. “Do not be flippant about this. You’ve no right to ridicule me.”
He let out a breath. “True. I’ve only my self-abnegation. And your hatred of me. Both justly earned.”