Читать книгу Lord of Sin - Susan Krinard - Страница 7

London, 1889

“I SHALL NEVER MARRY AGAIN!”

Deborah, Lady Orwell, faced her interlocutors bravely, chin up, dark hair perfectly coiffed in spite of her prolonged state of grief. She still wore black even after eighteen months of widowhood.

Nuala sighed. A quick glance about at her fellow widows convinced her that Lady Orwell’s bid for membership would face less than unqualified support. Most had been out of mourning for at least two full years, and none found their grief so intolerable as this young girl who could not possibly have much experience of the world.

I shall never marry again. That was the credo of the Widows’ Club, the common ground that brought them together. For her part, Nuala had few doubts about her fellow members’ sincerity. But this girl—this naive girl who had married so young—would have ample opportunities to love again.

Not that her suffering should be taken lightly. Nuala still grieved for her husband of six months, Lord Charles Parkhill, though she had known from the beginning that their union would be of short duration. Had he lived longer, she might have come to love him, might have become more than a companion and nurse to comfort him in his declining days.

But never could she feel the sort of love Lady Orwell professed. That was almost two and a half centuries behind her.

“My dear Lady Orwell,” Tameri, the dowager Duchess of Vardon, said gently, “we must consult on your case. Will you make yourself comfortable until we return? Shenti will provide you with anything you require.”

Lady Orwell sniffed very quietly. “Of course,” she said. “I quite understand.”

The ladies rose. They followed Tameri out of the Gold drawing room and into the larger Silver, where they settled themselves in the somewhat uncomfortable wooden chairs the former duchess had commissioned when she had furnished the town house in the Egyptian style. Reproductions of ancient gods gazed down upon them with various degrees of severity and benevolence: gods with the heads of cats, of crocodiles, of jackals. Not for the first time, Nuala found herself distracted by their glittering stares.

Once such gods had presided over a potent mystic tradition, perhaps the precursor to the magic Nuala’s own people had practiced for millennia. That which she had once practiced, before…

Nuala brought herself back to the present and looked at each of her fellow widows in turn. Frances, Lady Selfridge, sat in her chair with the straight back of a lady born, but her “mannish” clothing—tailored jacket and nearly bustle-less skirt—conveyed a decided air of austerity. Lillian, Lady Meadows, was her precise opposite: dressed in flowing pastels with a modest bustle, her pretty peaches-and-cream coloring was a direct contrast to the vivid tones of the orchids she adored.

Mrs. Julia Summerhayes, who tended to dress in drab browns and grays, was a spiritualist, a follower of Madame Blavatsky. She regularly held séances in her own town house, though Nuala herself had never participated. Nuala had withheld judgment as to whether or not the young woman really possessed the powers others claimed she did.

At the moment, the young woman was looking intently from one face to another as if she were attempting to read her companions’ minds.

Garbed in loose, Aesthetic dress, Margaret, Lady Riordan, was as ginger-haired as Nuala herself, with aqua eyes that might have been painted on one of her colorful canvases. A brilliant artist, she had just begun to have her works shown in some of the smaller London galleries. Her gaze was far away, focused on some interior landscape; she would doubtless hear only a small part of what was said.

Clara, Lady John Pickering, was, at the settled age of thirty-three, the eldest of the group save Nuala herself—a devotée of the sciences of chemistry and astronomy. In spite of her unusual interests, hardly considered suitable for a woman of any age, she wore a very traditional dress complete with corset and heavily draped skirts. As she met Nuala’s gaze she pushed her spectacles higher on the bridge of her nose and smiled encouragingly.

Last, but hardly least, was the dowager duchess herself. Her given name was Anna, but she called herself Tameri and would answer to nothing else when among friends. In keeping with the fantastical nature of her surroundings, she wore a dress modified to suggest both a woman of fashion and the reincarnated Egyptian princess she purported to be. Pleated linen draped her arms and fell in cascades from the front of her bodice, and a heavy, bejeweled collar decorated her long and graceful neck. She possessed such a regal air and such a large fortune that few in Society dared to mock her, even in their own most private circles.

Compared to Tameri, Nuala was only a dull country mouse. For years she had taken on so many forms, so many personae, that it had been strange to fall back to what she had been when she was born: a not-unattractive woman who appeared to be no more than twenty-five years of age, with untidy ginger hair and very ordinary gray eyes. Charles, who had died in the countryside he so loved, had left her a courtesy title, a house in the city and all the money she might need to make her way in London; his mother, Victoria, the dowager Marchioness of Oxenham, had done the rest. All the appropriate introductions had been made, cards and calls exchanged, and Nuala was free to move in a society that had never been a real part of her world.

Now she was bound to pass judgment on a young woman who, in some ways, was not much different from herself…a girl who had been married a mere three years and had little experience of London. Deborah was quite alone, her husband, the late Viscount Orwell, having broken off with most of his relations long ago, and though she had a modest town house and income, she had few real friends in the city.

Tameri almost inaudibly cleared her throat. She caught up the circle of widows with her green-eyed, majestic stare and brushed the spotted cat from her lap.

“We shall take the usual vote,” she said in her quiet, commanding voice. “Frances?”

Frances rose, tugging at the hem of her jacket. “Ladies,” she said with a tinge of reluctance, “I vote no. It is my opinion that Lady Orwell has insufficient experience to commit herself to our way of life. I find it very likely that she will wish to marry again.”

“I agree,” said Lillian very softly. “She is so lovely and amiable…she is sure to find just the right husband before another year is out.”

“Perhaps,” said Clara. “But some of us were just as young when we made the decision to remain free.”

“Indeed,” Tameri said. “It is quite impossible to know the girl’s mind, but she has a sincerity about her that I find admirable.”

“She must be here,” Julia Summerhayes murmured. “There is a purpose in this, though I cannot yet see it.”

Tameri arched a black brow. “Indeed?”

But Julia had nothing else to say. Tameri turned to Lady Riordan. “Margaret?”

Maggie lifted her head, blinking as if she had just been woken from a deep sleep. “I beg your pardon?” she murmured.

“You must listen, my dear. What is your opinion about Lady Orwell? Shall she be permitted to join our little club?”

Aqua eyes blinked again. “I should like to paint her.”

Frances rolled her own intense blue eyes. “That is all she ever thinks of,” she said tartly. “Perhaps she ought to abstain.”

“I agree,” Tameri said. “The count is two nays and three ayes.” She fixed her gaze on Nuala. “And you, Lady Charles? What is your opinion?”

Nuala knew that the matter of Lady Orwell’s acceptance lay in her hands. She could not fault Frances and Lillian on their logic. But Lady Orwell’s grief was deep, and she would not surrender it easily.

The companionship of a group of women both older and more experienced than she would surely have a beneficial effect upon her, as their company had done for Nuala. Tameri had been the one to approach the more experienced widows when she had formed the club; they had been meeting in one another’s houses for discussion of the arts, politics and social justice for several years. But they did not forgo Society’s pleasures. If Lady Orwell lacked the proper introductions to Society, the Widows, odd as they might seem to their peers, could certainly obtain them for her.

Yet Nuala couldn’t help but return to the central point. Deborah was sweet, but spirited. She was undoubtedly lovely. Should the right man come along…

Nuala’s thoughts began to take a dangerous turn. She imagined Frances matched with a man who shared her passion for justice and women’s suffrage. Such unusual men, as unlikely as it seemed, did exist. Lillian could do wonderfully with a husband who indulged her love for her flowers and appreciated her warm and giving nature. Males of an Aesthetic persuasion were not difficult to find in London these days; one of them would surely suit Maggie to perfection.

Clara might be harder to match, but a forward-thinking man with a similar interest in the sciences might possibly be found. Julia was hardly alone in her belief in the unseen. And Tameri—

Stop. It was wrong, worse than useless to think this way. Her days of matchmaking were over. Her last attempt had hardly been an unmitigated success. Far from it. Nearly three centuries of atonement had not taught her humility. She had only grown more arrogant.

She had at last accepted that such arrogance was why her powers had deserted her. She had begun to lose them before she had left the estate of Donbridge, two years before she had gone to Lord Charles to be his nurse and caretaker. It had been like losing a limb. Like losing her family again. Like losing her heart, the very essence of what she was.

Now she couldn’t so much as bring a flower into bloom, let alone two deserving people together.

Once she had possessed magic such as had not been seen in generations. And she had done with that magic what no witch was permitted. She had crossed the line from white magic to black, with no stop at gray in between.

Once you have walked into the Gray, the elders had said, the Black Gate is only a step beyond. But she had stepped through without thinking, without considering the price. Not only exile, but an endless span of days and years and, finally, centuries.

And guilt. The sickness of knowing that she had used her abilities for evil. The gradual acceptance of her new work for the good. The hope that one day she would have done enough.

But good works alone were not sufficient. Ultimately she had failed, and the magic was gone. As it should have been taken from her on the day of her sin.

She shook off her wretched self-pity. She had learned to live without magic. If she was no longer a witch, she could be something else.

I can be Lady Orwell’s friend. Surely there was nothing wrong with that. She had not dared to have real friends in her old life. But now that she had settled in London, she must find a new purpose, new challenges to fill her empty days. She must learn to adapt to this world, as Charles would have wanted.

Perhaps she and Lady Orwell might do it together.

“Have you reached a decision, Nuala?” Tameri asked.

Nuala snapped out of her reverie and faced the dowager. “Yes,” she said. “The girl is very much in need of peers who will not judge her decisions. It would be a kindness to let her join us.”

“Even if she fails to keep the vow?” Frances demanded.

“Let us accept her as a provisional member, then. If within a year she is still resolved to remain as she is, she may be fully inducted.”

The group was silent. Frances frowned and then shrugged. Lillian nodded, content to go along with the majority. Maggie popped up in her chair, her short ginger hair falling into her eyes. “I quite agree,” she said.

“Then let it be done.” Tameri rose, her golden earrings swaying. The widows followed her out of the drawing room. Lillian dropped back to walk with Nuala.

“You know she cannot keep the vow,” Lillian said softly, placing a plump hand on Nuala’s arm.

“Perhaps not. But sometimes we must think of the welfare of others above our own preferences.”

“Oh, yes.” Lillian smiled. “She is such a dear child. I should hate to see her unhappy.”

Nuala squeezed her arm. “Perhaps she will take an interest in orchids.”

“Oh, that would be lovely.”

They walked into the corridor and continued on to the Gold drawing room, where the others were already seated. Lady Orwell glanced from face to face, her anxiety manifest in the way she clenched her hands in the folds of her black skirts.

“Please be seated, Deborah,” Tameri said.

The girl sat, nervously adjusting her clothing with pale, slender hands.

“You have been accepted,” Tameri said, “on a provisional basis. You will not be required to take our oath as yet, but will become fully one of us if you find you have no interest in remarriage after one year has passed.”

Lady Orwell leaned forward in her chair. “I assure you, Duchess—”

Tameri raised her hand in an attitude reminiscent of the kings and queens depicted on the drawing room walls. “We do not stand upon formality here, Deborah. But in order to become a provisional member, you must put off your blacks. Half-mourning is permissible for the time being. You must not judge the interests of any of your fellow members, nor may you speak of anything you see or hear during our meetings. Is this acceptable to you?”

“Oh, yes, Duch—Tameri.”

“Excellent. We shall rely upon your honor.” Tameri smiled her exotic, secretive smile. “Now that our formal business is concluded, I suggest that we enjoy our tea. Babu!”

She clapped her hands, and one of her footmen, dressed in spotless white linen shirt and trousers, entered the room and bowed. He took his mistress’s instructions and retreated, while Deborah stared after him.

Nuala wished she could take the girl aside and assure her that everything would be well. She would have much to learn, but among so many unusual women she was certain to find the courage to be herself, not a ghostly figure doomed to a life of widow’s weeds.

And would you not give anything to be with Christian again?

Nuala let her mind go blank as the tea was served. But it was all a sham. She could not forget a single day of her long life. That was a witch’s curse. Her curse.

For her, just as there would be no more magic, there would be no other man. And that was as it should be.

I shall never marry again.