Aidan
watched her hold up her wrist so that the sunlight could sparkle on the little
coral bracelet he had bought her at the last booth. Her fingers were sticky
from candies, and her bonnet hung by its ribbons down her back.
He
might have been able to pretend she was a child again, caught back five years
in some delightful enchantment, if it weren't for Cassandra's continued
attempts at matchmaking. And if it weren't for the fact that half a dozen
village lads kept stealing up to Cassandra to present her with necklaces woven
of wildflowers and dainty sweets to nibble on. The smile she flashed in
gratitude was one that would break the poor lads' hearts. Of that much, Aidan
was certain. God knew, it was slowly demolishing his own.
Aidan
swerved around a vendor's cart, tempted to scoop up a bright-skinned orange,
hoping the sweet sting of the fruit would distract him from his thoughts, but
Cass had uttered a squeal of pure delight and was off, hastening toward the
cluster of bright painted carts at the far edge of the fair. Aidan grimaced as
he noticed which campsite had lured his headstrong daughter.
"Trust
Cassandra to single out the most disreputable gypsies in the entire fair."
He grumbled beneath the brim of Norah's bonnet as he regarded the two gypsy
women bickering over their goods.
Herbs
were bundled up on gossamer veils spread across boards between two wagon
tongues. Cards bearing the strange figures of the Tarot were scattered out to
lure the curious to peer into their future. Sinister-looking vials were lined
up in a rainbow of mystic colors. Aidan didn't even want to guess what they
contained—distilled lizard's blood and spider's legs, or warts scraped from an
old woman's nose.
From
the looks of the older of the two crones, the caravan needn't fear running
short of that particular ingredient for some time to come, Aidan thought in wry
amusement. The unsightly blemishes clustered about the gypsy woman's nose like
bubbles in a washerwoman's tub. But Cassandra seemed to see no further than the
bright black eyes of the woman.
Aidan
could only be grateful for that girlish oblivion, for neither did Cassandra
notice the way the crowd of fairgoers melted away wherever Aidan chose to wander.
But he sensed that Norah was aware of the arctic glances, the way the lowliest
crofter's wife snatched her children from his path, as if afraid he bore some
fatal disease, some wickedness that could be passed to another by the mere
brush of his hand.
He
had scanned the crowd for hours now, searching for some sign of the Irish
rebels he had encountered the night before, wondering which, if any, of these
people were hiding a wounded, frightened fugitive from the king's justice
somewhere in their pathetic little cottage.
It
wasn't his affair.
That
stubborn bastard Gilpatrick had made that clear enough last night. And God
knew, it should've been a lesson Aidan had mastered long ago, when he was ten
years old.
He
had done his damnedest to dismiss thoughts of wounded rebels and arrogant
soldiers, burning stables and a gaping wound in a boy the age of his own
cherished child. He had plunged into the fair determined to focus on
Cassandra's pleasure and that of the woman who sat so quietly, so strangely
solitary, beside him.
But
from the instant they had drawn in sight of the bustling crowd, a restlessness
had stirred in Aidan, a chafing sensation deep in his gut that had left him
edgy and off balance.
Guilt.
That was what he attributed it to, plain and simple. A few loose scruples
rattling around somewhere in his psyche that he hadn't managed to pickle in gin
or stamp out like embers drifting across dry tinder. That was the trouble with
tendering even the most minuscule of scruples: Left unattended, they could flare
up into the most uncomfortable brush fires. And before a man knew what he was
about, he was taking insane risks—interfering in arrests, surrendering fortunes
fairly won at the hazard table.
Aidan
shook himself inwardly. No, there was only one table he should be focusing on
at the moment, and that was the one full of gypsy wares that his daughter was
poring over with unabashed delight.
Cass
leaned over the collection of herbs and flowers, her nose poked into a bunch of
dried yarrow, until she dissolved into a fit of sneezes.
"Miss
Linton, did you ever hear anything so amazing?" Cass cried, turning to
where Norah stood and thrusting the bundle into the Englishwoman's hands.
"Madame says that if you stitch this into your clothes it can ward off all
manner of sickness. And if you distill this nightshade and a person drinks it
up, they will believe whatever you tell them."
"How
convenient," Aidan muttered. "Perhaps I should lay in a supply for
the next time you get into one of your stubborn fits and won't stop arguing
with me."
Cassandra
laughed, tossing her curls. "Better to put it in your own porridge, Papa.
That way you would know that Miss Linton is the perfect bride for you."
"Cassandra."
Norah set the yarrow down hastily, color creeping along her cheekbones. "I
really wish you would not discuss this."
Aidan
caught Norah glancing at the keen-eyed gypsy women, felt her gnawing
discomfort. "You had best prepare yourself, my dear," he warned.
"When Cassandra desires something, she is like a dog on a bone. She'll
gnaw on your nerves, give you no peace until she gets her way."
Those
great dark eyes peered up at Aidan from beneath the sweet curve of bonnet brim,
eyes too serious, a mouth too soft. "We do not always get what we want
most. It's a lesson Cassandra will learn someday, whether you will it or
not."
The
warning made Aidan wince, not in resentment, but rather because it was true.
His eyes shifted to his daughter. Cassandra had darted over to finger the glass
vials, holding them up to the sun so that the light glinted through the strange
mystic colors trapped beneath the glass.
"What
is this one for?" she demanded, holding up a rose-colored liquid.
Madame
hobbled over, squinting at the vial. "Ah. Powerful, is that one. Very
powerful. To heal the heart that is bleeding inside."
"You
mean if someone is having palpitations, it can cure them?" Cassandra
asked. "Why, I think that Mrs. Cadagon's grandmother has a weakness in the
heart. Miss Linton, do you think I should take this to her?"
Aidan
felt Norah stiffen, her discomfort rippling over him in waves. But he cut in,
"Absolutely not. I'll not have you poisoning poor Granny Cadagon,
Cass."
"He
is right, your papa," the gypsy said. "Is not heart bleeding from
wounds of the flesh, but from a far more savage knife blade."
Cass
gave a delicious shudder, her gaze flicking again to the vial. "What knife
blade is that?"
"Love."
The woman hobbled toward Norah, scrutinizing her with those strange eyes, and
Aidan felt the brush of Norah's skirts against his thighs as she edged a trifle
closer to him.
"Do
you know the bite of that knife, me lady?"
"N—No.
Of course not."
"Pah!
You have the look of a wanderer about your eyes."
"A
wanderer?"
"One
who journeys through time, searching.... Would you like me to see if this
journey is the one you find him?"
"Him?"
"The
sea to your storm, the sun to your moon. He who is crystal-blue water to the
thirst that burns inside you."
"No.
I had very much rather not."
"Oh,
please, Miss Linton!" Cassandra begged, her eyes sparkling. "Let
Madame conjure over you! It gives me the most delicious shivers!"
"Your
hand, me lady. Give it to me."
Norah
glanced from Aidan to Cassandra, and he could tell she was loath to disappoint
the child. He took possession of her hand.
"It
might be amusing," Aidan allowed, unbuttoning the glove at the fragile
pulse-point of her wrist. "After all, it's just so much nonsense. A mere
parlor game." With feather-light touches, he stripped the delicate kid
away from each of her fingers—fingers suddenly trembling. He could only hope
from his seductive touch, and not from her nervousness about the whisperings of
the occult that clung about the carts.
He
would have caressed Norah's hand a moment longer, but the gypsy captured
Norah's fingers in bony claws, turning her palm to the sunlight. The hag bent
so close her coarse mane of hair obscured that tender palm from Aidan's sight,
and he could almost feel Norah squirming with discomfort as those gnarled
fingers traced the lines that marked her hand.
"You
have journeyed far," the woman said, "far and alone, sent off by an
ill wind from the isle across the waves."
"She
guessed you are from England!" Cassandra enthused breathlessly.
"She
knows I am English by my accent," Norah protested resolutely. "It
would be obvious to anyone who heard me speak."
"Would
it now, doubter of the mysteries? And perhaps your accent would also have me
knowing that your papa died when you were... four?"
Norah
gasped, and Aidan felt a strange prickle at the back of his neck.
"'Twas
as though your heart was torn from your breast, dearie. Gone. Everyone gone.
Alone." The gypsy clicked her tongue, shaking her head. "Poor little
one... abandoned in a room of... blood?"
Aidan's
brow furrowed as a sick feeling stirred in his stomach. The gypsy was speaking
about Norah Linton's past—
her
past, not the chamber Aidan had put her in
the night before. Yet could he ever walk through that door and not wonder if
indeed he had blood on his hands?
"You
will be torn by the thorns of three great trials," the gypsy continued. "Great
love. Great pain. That and... betrayal at the hands of... of a man."
Aidan
stilled, the words seeming a portent of doom—a whispered warning about the
price to be paid should he wed this woman. Love—she would never have it as his
wife. Pain—that she could suffer in plenty. Betrayal—in that the Kanes of
Rathcannon were masters.
"Pah!"
The other gypsy shouldered her compatriot aside. "She thinks she tells the
fortune, she does! See into the future, handing down a sentence that the poor
bonnet lady will be betrayed by a man? And what woman hasn't been, a dozen
times or more? You, my fine sir, give me your hand, and you shall see true into
tomorrow."
Aidan
felt an absurd urge to jam his hands into his pockets, to walk away, laughing,
scorning the gypsies' arts. But a niggling fascination stirred inside him.
Silent, he stripped his own glove from his hand, then held it out to the
conjurer as if he half expected the old woman's touch to burn him.
"Tragic
is the babe born on Whitsuntide, fine sir." Aidan hated the chill that
crept down his spine at the woman's quavering purr.
"He
was born on Whitsuntide!" Cassandra gasped. "Miss Linton, he was!
Mrs. Cadagon told me so! How remarkable!"
"'Tis
nothing to rejoice in,
cailin,"
the gypsy warned. "A fatally
dangerous time to be born is Whitsuntide. The babe born on that day is destined
to die a death o' violence, or"—the woman's voice fell, hushed—"to
send another dancing into death's arms before 'tis their time."
Cassandra's
cheeks lost their bloom. "Dancing into death? What does that mean?"
"Murder,
child. The babe born on Whitsuntide is destined to kill another."
Aidan
felt his blood chill, heard a tiny sound from Norah—the merest breath, as if
the gypsy had touched a place that was raw.
"My
papa wouldn't hurt anyone!" Cassandra exclaimed, most put out by such dire
predictions. "He's brave, and good, and—and he was a hero in the
war!"
Aidan
shoved aside his own discomfort, forced his voice to be light, teasing, in an
effort to soothe his daughter. "Cass, I'm certain Madame Gypsy doesn't
want to hear tales of my exploits. Besides, my nurse made certain she broke the
curse."
"Your
nurse?" Norah was gazing up at him with wide eyes—eyes a little
frightened, as if someone had just walked over her grave.
"She
was stuffed to the top of her kerchief with superstition. Warned my mother that
I was foredoomed, and that there was only one way to break the spell."
"What
could it possibly be, Papa?"
"Dig
a grave and lay me in it."
"Merciful
heavens!" Norah gasped.
"Oh
Papa, how awful," Cassandra said, wide-eyed.
"My
mother was understandably hesitant about the whole procedure, but considering
the tendency to devilment already cast upon me by my ancestry, she thought it
wise to take the precaution. So Nurse Dunne whisked me out when I was but three
days old and made her magic over me. Of course, it remains to be seen if I was
saved that night or if all I got was an extremely dirty backside. Now, it seems
to me we've all had enough of this deviltry. I saw some lovely pastries down
the way—"
"But
'tis not all I saw upon your palm, sir," the gypsy said, barring his path.
"'Tis a devil pact I see marked upon your skin. A wager with
Mephistopheles himself that you entered into long ago."