Between Two Thorns (22 page)

“I don’t think you’re a silly girl.”

“Then stop treating me like one,” she snapped.

He almost turned on his heels, but decided on a different course of action. She was trying to keep him away with words; no matter what he said, she had a way to shoot him down. The only way he was going to get close enough to test her was to stop talking.

The plan was to gather her into his arms and kiss her passionately, pressing the opal to the back of her neck as he did so, in the hope that she’d be so caught up in the clinch that she wouldn’t notice. He gently put a hand on the back of her waist, and she jumped and looked at him in surprise.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he slid his hand up her back, slowly, gently.

“I want to show you that it’s not all bad,” he said, slightly concerned by how she winced as he moved his hand upwards. Did she find it so unpleasant? “I want to stop treating you like a silly girl and as the woman I’m going to marry.”

He slipped his hand upwards to brush the back of her neck, leaning closer as he gently angled her towards him, pressing the opal against her skin as he did so. He hoped she would accept the kiss, but instead she started to move away. He caught hold of her arm with the intention of pulling her into an embrace that all of the young women he’d kissed on the Grand Tour would have melted into.

He wasn’t expecting the yelp of pain. Keeping the opal in place and her as close to him as he could with his hand on the back of her neck, he looked down at the arm she was trying to pull away from him. Without saying a word, he rolled the top of the glove down to expose her skin, revealing a deep purple bruise and then another only inches away.

Speechless, he let go of her neck, dropped the opal into his pocket without taking his eyes off the injuries and pulled down the other glove. Two horrendous bruises covered that arm too, and he wondered if the reason she’d flinched when he ran his arm up her back wasn’t because she’d resented his touch but because there were other bruises.

She looked terrified, but not of him. “Your brother?” he asked, but the immediate shocked expression told him it wasn’t Thomas. “Your father?”

She looked away and he let her go. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said in a timid voice, not the one he was used to.

He was too furious to speak so he left her on the balcony hurriedly pulling her gloves back up to cover the evidence. He no longer cared about what the opal could tell him.

 

23

 

Cathy sat hunched over her dressing table, head propped up on her hands. She ached all over. Where she wasn’t hurting from the beating she was stiff from the seemingly endless dancing.

She felt sick with worry. William looked furious when he saw the bruises but she had no idea what was going to come of it. If anything did, she knew it wasn’t going to be good.

She got up and paced. It was all she did these days; she lay on the bed, she sat at the dressing table, she walked back and forth. This was the ultimate punishment: being locked in a room with only herself for company. No books, not even innocuous ones, and, of course, no television or internet. She was driving herself mad. All of the things she was missing out on, all of the worlds she was being denied, and the endless speculation about Josh and whether he was still staying with that coat hanger of a woman haunted her.

Surely Josh would be bored of the redhead by now. Perhaps she was doing the woman a disservice but Cathy knew Josh valued a woman’s mind more than her looks; she herself was the proof! She had to get back to Josh, explain it all and apologise. If she could find a way to escape and stay hidden, she could protect him too, surely? She pushed to one side the fear that he wouldn’t want her back.

She had to get out of the Nether and hide again, but her current plan was as flimsy as a mille-feuille pastry: to escape when William took her to Mundanus.

That’s as far as the plan had got and it had two major flaws. One was that she would be married by then, the second was that Lord Poppy would be able to find her, even if she did manage to wheedle another Shadow Charm out of the Shopkeeper. If she could find out how the Fae lord tracked her down, there was a chance she could stay hidden, but without that knowledge the risk was too high. Being an Iris would add another layer of complication to the pudding; rich and powerful families weren’t generally known for their sympathy when it came to any potential disgrace in Society.

She fantasised about climbing out of the window and somehow making it down to the gravel three storeys down without breaking her neck and out of the grounds without being seen. She made constant mental lists of what she’d do next; speaking to the Shopkeeper was always first, and there was a Way to the Emporium from Aquae Sulis. Getting there without being seen would be difficult. Next a mad dash to Manchester, going to one of her friends, getting the keys to the storage place… then it all unravelled, unable to keep its own integrity so far from anything realistic.

When she ran away the first time she was in Cambridge and had only a minder who liked his whisky too much and a chaperone who never wanted to leave the house as the modern life of Mundanus terrified her. She had the time and the means to research her options and carefully formulate a plan. Now she was locked in her room, high in a house in the Nether, full of staff briefed to keep a close eye on her, with hourly checks that she was still there and not up to mischief. Her father was never going to underestimate her again.

His comment about disowning her kept coming back. That’s what she really needed: to be completely abandoned by the family and kicked out of the Nether. For anyone else in Society it was a terrifying threat, being denied a life of privilege and condemned to aging and scrabbling for survival. For her, it would be bliss.

But being disowned would earn the wrath of Lord Poppy, against not only her but the rest of her family, and as much as she hated her parents and her sister, she didn’t want to cause them that amount of distress. They simply wouldn’t be able to cope. Elizabeth would probably be taken in by another family as she was too beautiful and talented musically to lose to Mundanus, but her parents would be broken. Tom, with his own household now, would escape the worst, but still be devastated.

She leaned forwards until her forehead was on the polished wood, wishing she could climb out of her skin and fly away. The memory of Will’s kiss made her groan with embarrassment. She just couldn’t handle his attention. He was obviously trying so hard and he was right; she did keep throwing it back at him. Her stomach twisted with guilt. It wasn’t his fault he’d been betrothed to such a freak. He must think so little of her, not able to even be polite, but every time he tried to be civil it made her want to scream with rage at his efforts to weave her back into being a little doll, existing only for male attention and care. Having seen what life could be, she couldn’t pretend to play the game he’d urged her to.

“There has to be a way out of this,” she muttered. “Don’t give up. Don’t–”

She heard the doorbell clang in the hallway below and the sound of the butler’s shoes clipping across the tiled floor. Hurrying to press her ear against the bedroom door, she chewed her lip, wondering if it was William, and what disaster his discovery was going to bring.

It was impossible to tell who had come; she couldn’t make out the voices, but she deduced it was a woman from the sound of the shoes on the tiles. Lucy?

The sound of the drawing room door closing relaxed her; it must’ve been a guest for her parents. She sat heavily on the bed, tired of this life already. She wanted to play Mass Effect and eat chocolate and forget about it all, just for a few hours.

Then she heard footsteps running up the stairs and towards her door. Her stomach tightened as the key turned in the lock and the maid came in.

“The mistress says you’re to be dressed for a visitor,” she said breathlessly, rushing to the wardrobe, which had been filled with new dresses.

“Who is it?” Cathy asked, glancing at the door, which had been left open. She felt so tempted.

“The Censor herself!” the maid said, pulling out a cream day dress matched with a jacket to cover the evidence of her father’s beating.

“She wants to see me?” Cathy said, now in a full-blown panic. “Why?”

“She wants to take you out for tea,” the maid said, closing the door and beginning to unhook the back of the simple day dress Cathy had been put into that morning.

“Me?” Cathy mumbled, trying to puzzle it out. Had William said something to her? Was the Censor going to ask her about the bruises?

Should she tell the truth? The Censor was her aunt, after all, but there was no love lost between them, and the Censor would be keen to avoid any embarrassment seeing as the beater’s wife was her only sister.

By the time she’d been laced into the new dress and the jacket buttoned high, she’d decided to let the Censor speak first and bring it up if it was on the agenda. That was probably what form would dictate anyway.

The Censor was waiting in the hallway as she descended the stairs. Cathy’s sweating hand gripped the handrail so she didn’t trip over the frills of her petticoat.

“Good morning, Catherine,” her aunt said with a smile as her mother lingered nearby, watching.

“Good morning, Lady Censor,” Cathy replied, curtsying at the bottom of the stairs.

“Your mother tells me your diary is free today. I trust you have no objection to spending the day with me?”

Cathy shook her head, surprised. “No,” she said as her mother glared at her. “Not at all. On the contrary, I would be delighted.”

“Good. Off we go then. It was lovely to see you, Isabella,” she said to her sister, who smiled and withdrew as Cathy was escorted out of the house.

The Censor’s carriage was waiting. Just the fact of it being outside their house would be remarked upon as others passed. Everyone wanted to have the Censor pay a personal call, especially now the Master of Ceremonies was out of the country.

Once they were inside and skirts arranged comfortably the door was shut and the carriage moved off.

“How was the soirée at the Peonias’ last night?” the Censor enquired and Cathy wondered if it was the first test.

“Very popular,” she said, not wanting to commit herself to saying anything about William.

She readied herself for the next question, but when they rounded the corner the Censor drew the curtain over the door’s small window and her false smile faded.

“You and I are not going to Lunn’s and we will not be having lunch. I had to say that to get you out of the house.”

“Where are we going?”

“That will become clear soon enough. Now you need to listen to me carefully. The people I’m taking you to will tell you what you need to do. I want you to do exactly as you’re told.”

“What people?”

“Be quiet and listen. This is very important. If you do not obey their instructions perfectly, I’ll know and I will personally see you destroyed. And I’m not talking about being shunned by Society, I’m talking about ensuring you’re sold into slavery and made to suffer for the rest of eternity.”

Cathy blinked at her. “I’m your niece.”

“An accident of birth will not protect you if this is not a success.”

Cathy gritted her teeth, forcing the abuse she wanted to spout at the woman back down her throat. “I’m also Lord Poppy’s favourite,” she finally said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t be too happy if you were to–”

“Listen to me, you stupid little girl. Your brief flirtation with success is utterly inconsequential. You may be Poppy’s favourite today, but I am the Censor of Aquae Sulis and if I tell my patron you failed to cooperate, she’ll have no difficulty in correcting Lord Poppy’s opinion of you.”

“I’d be more likely to succeed if you tell me what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“As I said, the people involved will tell you everything you need to know. When this is over, if you’re successful, I’ll take you home and you will not tell a soul of what has transpired. If I hear even a hint of gossip about anything other than you and me having lunch today, I will make good on my previous warning.”

“Is there no reward if I’m successful?”

The Censor’s lips curved into a smile that made Cathy shiver. “Only the satisfaction that you’ve been a good citizen of Aquae Sulis.”

Cathy didn’t ask any more questions. It was clear no answers would be forthcoming, so she sat there, bouncing up and down uncomfortably on the seat, daydreaming about leaping from the carriage and making a dramatic escape. She also imagined punching the Censor in the face. Neither came to pass.

They rode in silence, going steadily uphill. Cathy suspected they were heading out of Aquae Sulis. After a few minutes the carriage lurched to the left as they turned a corner sharply and the ground beneath them seemed far less even. It came to a stop and the driver knocked three times on the roof of the carriage.

“Remember what I told you,” the Censor said. She whispered a Charm of Openings as she touched the handle of the carriage door and then it was opened, revealing the blue sky of Mundanus.

Cathy was ushered out of the carriage. She almost fell down the steps when she saw the green field and felt the cool breeze. She glanced behind her, seeing the interior of the carriage appearing to float in mid-air, then it was gone as the Censor closed the Way back into the Nether. She realised she’d left her bag in there, not that it contained anything useful.

This was her chance. Cathy gathered up the absurd amount of fabric that made up the skirts of her dress, but just as she was breaking into a run her arm was grabbed from behind. She cried out at the pressure on one of the bruises as she was twisted around, not gently either.

The man wore a butler’s suit and was clean-shaven. Another man, wearing a trilby and raincoat, was leaning on crutches just behind him. He was too ugly and she had a horrible feeling he was an Arbiter.

“Are you Catherine Rhoeas-Papaver?” the butler said, not letting go.

“Maybe,” she replied, wincing at the pain. “Do you mind?”

He ignored her. She noticed a large car parked just inside the open gate to the field, and the city of Bath was visible over the downward slope of the hill.

“Blindfold her,” the Arbiter said.

“Now just wait a minute,” Cathy objected as the butler pulled the strip of black fabric from his pocket. “Is this really necessary? Will you please tell me what the hell is going on?”

The Arbiter stared at her. It was the closest she’d ever been to one and it was just as unpleasant as she’d been told it would be. “It is necessary. We’ll tie your hands if you don’t cooperate. And don’t think about bolting; this guy used to play rugby before he became a butler.”

She’d already given up on the idea. Running in a corset and fussy dress was not easy at the best of times; they’d easily catch her.

“I do apologise,” the butler whispered as he tied the blindfold.

“I’m going to check her for artefacts,” the Arbiter said, and then she felt hands patting her sleeves and fingers feeling round the inside of her jacket collar. He even prodded at her hair, making her twist her head away as best she could. “Anything you want to declare now?”

She shook her head and then was steered across the field, stumbling over the little hillocks of tufty grass, the bruise complaining all the way.

“Put her in the boot,” the Arbiter said and she heard it being opened.

“But–”

She was scooped up, dumped in and the boot slammed shut before she could present her argument. It was locked and she struggled into a more comfortable position, finding it hard to breathe when corseted and crumpled up against a jerry can. It smelt of oil and was horribly uncomfortable. She tried to rein in her panic at being locked into such a small space.

The car rumbled into life, the entire boot vibrating, then it set off and she was thrown about inside as it drove across the field. It improved slightly once they were on the road. By the way she slid into what felt like a toolbox she deduced they were going downhill and presumably back into the city.

She shoved the blindfold up onto her forehead, but it was pitch-black and disappointingly unlike the car-boot interiors she’d seen in films, which always seemed to have just enough light to see the action. She fumbled for the lock, but it was useless, she couldn’t feel any way to unlock it from the inside.