Betraying Season (33 page)

Something snapped inside Pen. “Stop it!” she cried. “I don’t want to hear any more. Have you been listening to yourself? Do you know how ridiculous this story sounds? Your mother told me about you, you know. All about your drinking and roistering and wenching through Europe. Did you have to tell any of your conquests there such an outrageous story to get them to go to bed with you?”

He drew back. “None of that is true! I never—”

“I saw you! I saw you flirting with Charlotte Enniskean and her cousins. And Doireann told me how you are at parties and balls—”

“Oh, I see. So you’ll listen to Doireann and Mother, but not me?” he said in a harsh voice.

“Whose story do you think is more believable?” she retorted. “Your mother is a
Banmhaor Bande.
She could never use the Goddess’s magic to kill an innocent girl like the queen—the Goddess would never let her, and she knows it.” She took a deep breath and slipped out of the high bed, crossing to the door as she spoke. “I’ll give you ten seconds to get down that ladder. If you are not on your way down by the time I reach ten, I will open this door and scream. Very loudly.”

“Pen—”

“One.” She pointedly put her hand on the doorknob.

He climbed off the bed and turned toward the window. “Fine. That’s your choice, then.”

“Two.”

“Go ahead and help murder your dear friend the queen. Her death can only benefit me.”

“Three.”

He slid one leg over the window’s edge. “Pen, think about what you’re doing—”

“Four.” She rattled the doorknob menacingly.

“All right!” He swung off the sill and onto the ladder but still stared at her through the window. “Good-bye, Pen Leland. If we meet again, maybe in London next season, you’ll pardon me if I don’t pursue an acquaintance with you. It’s hard to chat about the weather when one’s heart is breaking—”

“Five!” To her horror, she had begun to cry.

He gave her one last anguished look and disappeared from sight.

Pen slid to the floor and huddled there against the door, knees drawn to her chest, still staring at the window. After a few moments, the top of the ladder vanished too. But it was nearly an hour before she could bring herself to go to the window and shut it against the night air that now seemed to have grown bitterly cold.

The next morning Pen slept late. It had taken her several hours after Niall left to stop crying and calm herself sufficiently before exhaustion could do the rest and send her into a deep but unrefreshing sleep. She finally awoke just past ten and dressed hurriedly, pausing only to bathe her eyes in cool water in an attempt to keep them from looking too red and puffy—an attempt that wasn’t entirely successful, as she saw when she looked in the mirror.

She needn’t have worried. When she slipped into the breakfast room, where chafing dishes of eggs and oatmeal and the local sausage still simmered gently on the sideboard, it was to see Lady Keating uncharacteristically slumped in her chair at one end of the table, staring at a half-drunk cup of coffee. There was no sign of Doireann.

“Good morning. I’m sorry I slept so late—I suppose our hard work caught up with me,” Pen said brightly, sidling toward the food. If she could busy herself with eating, Lady Keating might not notice her swollen eyes and reddened nose.

“Good morning,
cinealta
Penelope. Don’t apologize; I didn’t get here much before you.” Lady Keating did not even glance up.

Pen paused. Lady Keating’s words had been spoken in a dull monotone, so different from her usual resonant, slightly theatrical tones. “May I bring you a plate?” she asked. “Eggs? Toast?”

Lady Keating didn’t stir. “No food, thank you, though you are a dear to offer.”

Something was evidently very wrong. Pen stared down at the dishes. She didn’t feel much like eating either, but that might make Lady Keating think that there was something wrong with
her.
She took some scrambled eggs and toast and a sausage and seated herself, not too close to Lady Keating. One of the footwomen appeared from nowhere with a fresh pot of coffee and filled their cups, then vanished once again.

Pen picked up her fork and resolutely attacked her eggs while covertly watching Lady Keating. Should she ask her what was wrong? Might she be ill? That would explain her refusing to eat, though if she were that ill she probably would have stayed abed. Had she received some bad news, then? Or had something upsetting happened during the night, something that—

She nearly dropped her fork. Could Niall have been found on the grounds? Did Lady Keating suspect that he’d tried to see her . . . or maybe even succeeded?

But Lady Keating’s mood did not seem to be aimed at her. What could it be, then? “Shall we be going up to the hill this morning?” she asked, pouring milk into her coffee and trying to sound offhand.

Lady Keating stirred. “Yes, we shall, but it will just be the two of us for this morning.”

It was on the tip of Pen’s tongue to ask why Doireann wouldn’t be working with them, but something in the grim edge to Lady
Keating’s voice stopped her. Could this bad mood have anything to do with Doireann, then? Had Niall gone to see her as well? Or did Niall even have anything to do with this?

Surely Lady Keating would have said something if it did, though, if only to ask if he’d attempted to see her. So evidently Niall had gotten away from Bandry Court without getting caught. Was he already on his way back to Cork? Or back to Kinsale, where he could forget his sorrows in Charlotte Enniskean’s willing arms? Surely he hadn’t expected her to believe that his own adoring mother had locked him up in their house. . . . Pen mentally shook herself. No more thinking about last night.

She stole another look at Lady Keating. Whatever had happened to put her in this mood, she wouldn’t add to it by telling her about Niall’s clandestine visit. After all, she’d handled him quite well on her own, if she did say so herself.

“Thank you for the loan of your book, ma’am,” she said instead. “I found it very interesting.”

Lady Keating looked up with a hint of her old smile. “Ah, yes. So you read it?”

“Not the entire book, but all the parts that you had marked. I can finish the rest later if you wish me to.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. Not unless you wish to.” She seemed to be trying to throw off her gloom, at least to some degree. “When you are finished eating, shall we go and get a little work done before luncheon? Nothing too strenuous, I don’t think, but I’m not sure that circle raising
is
strenuous for you anymore.”

Pen warmed under her praise. Dear Lady Keating. “Oh yes, let’s. I’m done.” She took a last sip of coffee and rose from the table.

It was just her and Lady Keating working on magic alone together not only that morning, but also the afternoon and next day. Pen couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief, though without Doireann they could not raise as potent a circle. Her attitude had been so much more changeable lately, bouncing between friendliness and hostility without any apparent cause, that Pen felt constantly on her guard with her.

Lady Keating seemed pleased with their work, though. Under her tutelage, Pen began to be able to better control the amount of energy she put into a spell or magical command, so that she did not waste it and tire herself out. Raising the circle had become second nature to her, so that she no longer had to watch Lady Keating for cues but could close her eyes and go inward, gathering and strengthening her will to make her augmentations even stronger.

As they returned to the house that afternoon, Lady Keating slipped her arm around Pen’s waist and gave her a gentle hug. “Sometimes I—” she began, then trailed into silence.

“What?”

“Oh, sometimes I can’t help wishing that you and I had come together sooner, so that I could have taught you more. I feel that we are so alike in so many ways—our strengths and abilities . . . not that I’m disparaging your dear Mrs. Carrighar, of course, but if you’d been born my daughter . . .” Her voice became ever so slightly wistful. “I would have been a very happy woman if you were my—but this is just idle daydreaming. We are not allowed to choose our families in this life, alas.”

She shrugged and went on to speak of something else, but Pen hardly heard her. Lady Keating wished she were her daughter. Pen
loved her own dear mama and was sure Lady Keating must love Doireann, but Lady Keating would have chosen
her
.

At the house, Pen paused before opening the door. “May I tell you something?” she asked, feeling shy but determined.

“Of course you may.”

“I . . . I know it sounds silly and childish, but while I am here with you, you
are
my mother.”

“Ah, my dearest girl.” Lady Keating’s green eyes grew misty. “You are indeed my child.” A slightly strange smile touched her lips, but before Pen could decipher it, she drew her into her arms and embraced her tenderly. “You are truly mine.”

Doireann did not make an appearance for the next two days, not even for dinner. Only on the third morning was she at the breakfast table when Pen came down. Her mumbled “good morning” was sullen and her manner chilly, as if Pen, not she, had been avoiding everyone for the last few days.

Lady Keating, when she came in, hardly even acknowledged Doireann’s presence. She ate her breakfast in wintry indifference, addressing an occasional remark only to Pen, which was uncomfortable in the extreme but seemed to confirm her guess that Lady Keating’s bad mood must have had to do with Doireann.

Fortunately, their mutual frostiness didn’t extend to their work up on the hill. Doireann slipped into her place in their circle raising as if she’d never been away, her power casual and almost lazy but still measured and strong. She seemed surprised, though, at the advances Pen had made.

“At this rate, she’ll be ready for the full ceremony in no time,” she said to Lady Keating as they stood on the hilltop.

Pen wished Doireann would stop talking about her as if she weren’t there. “A full ceremony?” she asked.

“She was ready several days ago,” Lady Keating said coolly, then turned to Pen. “Doireann is referring to a circle raising by the light of the full moon. The moon is, of course, the Goddess’s planet. When we work the Goddess’s magic under it, it enhances the circle.”

Circle raising by the light of the full moon . . . like in the book Lady Keating had given her to read? Pen turned to Lady Keating, who nodded slightly as if she knew what she had been thinking.

“Yes, Penelope. Tomorrow night is the full moon, the perfect time to perform the
draiocht
for Niall. Between the power we have already raised together and what we will summon under the moon’s light, we will surely succeed. We shall practice this afternoon, but I shall require all day tomorrow to prepare.”

“Jolly good. I can catch up on my sleep, then.” Doireann yawned and stretched. “Come on, Pen, let’s go for a walk before luncheon. Have you seen the river yet? We crossed over part of it when we got here, down near the gatehouse and the spinney. It’s not much of one, but deep and wet enough for me to get thoroughly muddy in when I was small, whenever I felt particularly cross with Nanny.”

Pen gave her a quick, measuring look. Evidently Doireann was in a good mood this morning. Did she alternate every quarter hour according to a schedule, or were her mood swings entirely random?

“What a charming idea! Yes, let’s do that.” Lady Keating linked arms with Pen and gave Doireann a wide smile.

Doireann did not smile back and, without another word, stalked down the hill ahead of them. Pen watched her rigid back as they picked their way down the slope and into the meadow below. Either
the quarter hour had passed and it was time to change moods, or she did not want her mother joining them.

Why? Why would Doireann have wanted her alone? She’d seemed to avoid being alone with Pen until this sudden about-face. But being alone with Doireann the sleeping lioness was not what she felt like doing right now. She squeezed Lady Keating’s arm in gratitude. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“I thought you might prefer that I came,” Lady Keating whispered back, and patted her hand.

Dear, dear Lady Keating.
Pen swelled with affection. She
was
like a mother to her.