Betraying Season (24 page)

“So, what’s next?” Doireann drawled. “Will you be changing English inheritance law so that he can become the Prince of Wales?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. All I want is for him to be acknowledged as who he is and to be given a place as befits his birth and qualities.”

“Hmm. Sorry, Mother, but the position of God has already been filled. Oh, stop gritting your teeth at me. I’ll be happy enough with my London season and a big enough dowry to let me marry whom I choose,” Doireann said pleasantly, but with an underlying edge to her tone. “Not to mention that pretty ring of yours and Bandry Court someday.”

“Yes, yes, you’ll have what you wish.
I
keep my bargains.”

“And so do I, Mother dear. Just not in ways you’d always expect. Lord, I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed—”

“Not till you show me you’ve been practicing. Come on, I want to hear your invocation,” Mother commanded.

Doireann groaned but began to chant softly. Somehow—he wasn’t quite sure how—Niall made it back to his room without anyone’s seeing him. He staggered to the chair by the fire and slumped into it.

Mother was planning on killing the queen.

A memory from last June returned to him. Mother had greeted him that morning with luminous eyes and held out a broadside to him as he entered the sunny breakfast room at Bandry Court. He took it from her and glanced at it carelessly.

“So? They’ve been waiting for the old king to die for weeks, and now he’s done it. God rest his soul, and all that.” He tossed it on the table with a shrug and went to the sideboard for breakfast.

Behind him Doireann had snickered unpleasantly.

“Quiet!” Mother commanded. “Don’t you understand, Niall?”

“The king is dead. Long live the king,” he muttered, scooping
eggs and kedgeree onto his plate. What did it matter to him, wasting his life at his mother’s beck and call, waiting for something that might never happen?

“Long live the
queen
,” Doireann corrected him, and tittered again. “It’s Victoria, dunderhead.”

“Be silent!”

At the tone in his mother’s voice, Niall turned around. She was glaring daggers at Doireann. He considered abandoning his breakfast and wheedling some toast from the housekeeper in her room, so that he wouldn’t have to witness yet another row between his mother and sister.

“With William gone, the duke is one step closer to the throne. Don’t you see?” Mother hissed.

There wasn’t any need to ask which duke she meant. “But the Duke of Cumberland is only next in line until Victoria marries and has an heir of her own,” Niall said. He cautiously set his filled plate on the table and reached for the teapot. “And that will happen soon. There are at least half a dozen princes in Europe ready to parade themselves in front of her for a chance to become husband of the queen of England, if Leopold of Belgium hasn’t already arranged a match for her with his nephew Albert.”

“But she hasn’t married yet, has she?” Mother’s eyes flashed angrily, but her voice was a low purr. “And until she marries and drops a brat, it is only her life between the duke and the throne.”

Niall swallowed a mouthful of eggs that had suddenly gone as dry as sand. “What do you mean, Mother?”

Lady Keating shrugged. “Or even if she marries, look at her cousin Charlotte, bearing a stillborn son and then dying herself. Life
is full of perils for young women. Even royal ones.” She leaned back in her seat and took a sip of tea. “What I mean, my son, is that our time may be at hand. His time.
Your
time.”

Niall put down his fork. Mother’s eyes had taken on a cold, glassy cast that made him uneasy. “Mother—”

But then she had laughed. “Well, one can hope, can’t one?”

Now it sounded as though she was going far past mere hoping. That was how she was going to unite him with his father—to make the duke king of England as well as Hanover so that he would have to come back to London and then drag Niall there and establish him conspicuously in society, where it would be impossible to miss the resemblance between them. It was ridiculous, and horrifying and outrageous. And Mother was more than capable of accomplishing it, it seemed. Good God, if she’d killed Papa’s own brothers, why should she hesitate to bring about the death of a young woman off in London?

A young woman whom Pen Leland just happened to worship.

Mother wanted Pen’s help in assassinating her heroine, the person whom she’d already helped save once, for his benefit. She had so charmed Pen that the poor thing would be putty in her hands. And when Mother brought Pen to Bandry Court and invited her to practice magic with her . . . he remembered Pen’s wistful expression when she said, “You don’t know what a relief it is to have someone to talk to about this.” Pen would be thrilled to find out Mother was a witch, and would eagerly consent to work with her, and then it would be too late. But if Pen were to find out what Mother was plotting, if she were to find out that
he
knew about it . . . he gripped the arms of his chair. She’d hate him, and rightly so. If she even believed him.

No, the only thing was to stop Mother from doing this. But how? Niall rose from his chair and began to pace. Should he confront her with what he knew and refuse to be a part of it? Should he threaten to tell Papa or someone like Dr. Carrighar, who was versed in magic? That would be difficult, and it would create a breach between them that would never heal. And though he hated what his mother wanted to do, he did not want to make it public knowledge.

Could he beg Pen to return to England? No. There wasn’t time for that. Mrs. Carrighar was in no condition to accompany her, and it would be at least a couple of weeks before someone from her family could arrive to escort her home. Nor could he take her; he would never be able to convince her to run away with him, either, even if he proposed to her first.

If only they were in England! He would storm the archbishop of Canterbury’s offices at daybreak to obtain a special license and would have fetched Pen before a minister by noon. Or even Dublin, where the archbishop of Armagh did the same. But there was no other way to obtain a marriage license secretly or swiftly. Besides, he could not know that Pen would consent to marry him without her father’s permission.

So what else could he do? If he could stop Mother in some other way. . . . If he could do something to make it so that she couldn’t even attempt her spell. . . . He stopped pacing.

If Pen were no longer a virgin, she would be useless to Mother.

A nervous laugh rose to his throat. He loved Pen. He wanted to marry her, and he wanted to protect her from Mother’s plans. If he were to ask her to marry him . . . and then to take her to bed. . . .

It would be very wrong of him. But to save Pen from his mother, wouldn’t it be justified? After all, he would be marrying her in the
end. It wasn’t as if he were going to ruin and then abandon her. Betrothed couples frequently got carried away before the actual marriage ceremony, didn’t they?

He sat down again because his legs had suddenly grown shaky. Good God; he was sitting here coldheartedly contemplating seducing a young woman.

No,
said a part of him.
Not coldheartedly. Not ever. And not just any young woman. You love Pen. You’ll be saving her. She would thank you, if she knew.

That made him smile, but only for a second. So did the thought that most men would be delighted to be in the position of rescuing a beautiful young woman by taking her virtue. Was there any other way?

He paced his room for another hour despite the fact that it was nearly three. When a dark gray, not quite light began to replace the blackness of night in his uncurtained windows, he sat down at his desk and wrote two letters, one to Papa and one to Lord Atherston, explaining his intent to marry Pen. As soon as it was light, he himself would see that they were posted. No matter what else he decided to do, wedding Pen was his ultimate goal. If he could think of some other possible way to stop Mother in the next day or two, fine. If not . . . well, if not, he would know that he was seducing Pen with the most honorable intent in the world.

It was two days before Pen returned to the Keatings’ house. The morning after the Whelans’ party, she awoke with a dull pain low in her stomach and blood on her nightgown.

Drat. Of all mornings, why did she have to wake up with her monthly inconvenience? All she wanted to do was run to the Keatings’ and see Niall . . .
her
Niall, her sweet, beautiful boy. But on the first day of her courses, it was safest to stay at home so she could change the absorbent towels made of old folded linen as frequently as was necessary. Norah, bless her, brought her a warm brick wrapped in flannel to hold against her aching stomach and cups of chamomile tea, just as Ally always had. It was all the fault of this soft city living; when she was home at Mage’s Tutterow and could walk and ride as much as she liked in the fresh air, she never felt much discomfort at these times.

After breakfast she tried to settle down to do some reading for Dr. Carrighar, but her attention would not stay fixed on her book. Instead of the words on the page, she saw Niall’s burning eyes just before he kissed her and his smile after she told him about being a witch. Should she write to Papa and Mama and tell them about Niall,
or would that worry them? Or maybe she should write to Persy and let her begin to drop hints to them about her feelings for Niall. After what had passed between them last night, Niall would surely be thinking about writing to her parents himself soon. And she should write to her brother Charles, too. Would Charles come to worship Niall the way he did Persy’s husband Lochinvar?

A soft tap at the door made her sit up straighter against her pillows and fix her eyes studiously on her book again. “Come in,” she called.

“Well, child, I’ve not seen ye for a while,” said a soft voice.

“Mrs. C—er, Mary Margaret!” Pen closed her book and folded back the quilt that covered her legs. “It
has
been a while. How nice to see you.”

The little lady—today in a lavender dress but still with her old-fashioned mobcap and fichu—edged around the door and shut it behind her. “No need to get up,” she said as Pen began to swing her legs over the edge of the bed. “I know why you’re there. A woman’s courses may be one of her connections with the Goddess, but they’re also a blasted nuisance at times and aren’t anything
I
miss at all. Is that chamomile tea in that cup? Good. I suppose that Norah isn’t a total fool, then.”

“Oh, don’t say that about Norah. She is really very kind.” Pen pulled the quilt back up and settled her hot brick more comfortably against her stomach. “I had never thought about—about this business as having anything to do with the Goddess, though.”

“From what ye’ve told me, child, you weren’t knowing much about her at all before you came here, so that shouldn’t be any surprise. ’Tis a mortal shame your education was so neglected.” The old lady softened her tart words with a smile as she walked around to the far side of Pen’s bed and pulled up a chair.

“It wasn’t neglected. Ally was a wonderful teacher—you should meet my sister if you want to see how good she was. It’s just me. At home I never seemed to learn magic as easily or as well as I do here.”

“Hmmph. Doesn’t that tell ye something?”

Pen tried not to sound too hopeful. “I don’t know. Should it?”

“Don’t be dense, child. The Goddess chooses you—ye don’t choose her. If she thinks you belong to her, there’s not much ye can do to avoid her. If you find that magic comes more easily to you here in the Goddess’s land, could it be because it’s her magic you’re doing, and should have been all along?”

“I never thought about it that way.” She’d always thought about the Goddess—any of the old deities, really—as abstract concepts, cloudy and insubstantial. But if Mary Margaret was right, they were living presences. A mental picture of three women wrapped in shimmering robes and wearing the latest fashion in hats while sipping tea in the Carrighars’ drawing room made her smile. “I suppose that means I’ll have to stay in Ireland to study longer, then.”

“And maybe even find an Irishman to marry and make it permanent?” Mary Margaret’s eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “Oh ho! That’s a guilty expression if I do say so meself! So have ye got an Irishman in mind already that ye’re not owning up to?”

“Well, er, sort of. Last night at a party . . . Mr. Keating and I, we . . . well, his mother has invited me to her house for a visit—Bandry Court—and I can’t help wondering. . . .” She fell silent at the odd expression that crossed the old lady’s face.

“Bandry Court, did you say?” Mary Margaret said slowly.

“Yes. Do you know—”

A knock on the door interrupted her. “Penelope? Are you all
right? Norah said you’re not feeling well.” Dr. Carrighar’s rumbling voice held an anxious note.

“Come in, sir,” she called, then turned back to Mary Margaret. “I’m going to run out of chairs if I get any more visit—”

Mary Margaret wasn’t there.

Dr. Carrighar poked his head around the door. “I trust I’m not disturbing you. I thought I heard—”

Pen peered around the edge of her bed curtains. “Where did she go?”