Knight of Passion (35 page)

Linnet could not help herself. “Who were the three who knew him?”

“Leggett, Mychell, and Alderman Arnold.”

No wonder the man had felt safe. Leggett was dead, Mychell hated her for driving him into debt, and Arnold would fear losing
his position as alderman if his part was revealed.

“Others knew bits and pieces, but they were afraid to talk,” Pomeroy said. “Besides, you were a foreigner with close ties
to the queen. Everyone suspected you both of being spies for the dauphin.”

Pomeroy’s eye twitched as he gave her a thin smile. “But when you went to Gloucester, my dear, that changed everything. Gloucester
asked a few questions. Suddenly this merchant had reason to fear the hidden threads would be revealed and spun together… and
lead to his door. He delivered you to me on a platter.”

Linnet licked her lips. “How… how did he know you wanted me?”

“Let us say, we have mutual acquaintances.” His eye
twitched again. “But I shall turn on the man who gave you to me, as a serpent turns and bites his own tail, for your enemies
shall be mine now.”

She crossed herself again.
Mary, Mother of God, protect me.

“Some of my brothers and sisters in darkness are angered by my decision to take you. They fear your disappearance could draw
attention to us.”

Was one of them Eleanor Cobham? Was that why Eleanor gave her warning?

“Others want to use you as our blood sacrifice, but I have refused them,” Pomeroy said, his voice steadily rising to fill
the small room. “For you are meant to be my bride in darkness, the goddess to my priest.”

He was mad.

She told herself that if he meant to rape her, he could have set upon her as soon as he entered the room. Chained to the bed,
she could do little to fight him. He talked of her being a bride. Did he want a ceremony of some kind to justify the deed?

“I shall never be a bride of yours,” she said.

“I tell you, you are worthy,” he said, his eyes glowing. “Even I did not see your special power until these last weeks. But
I was right when I called you sorceress all those years ago. I see that now. I have watched how you pursue your enemies and
know we are kindred spirits.”

“Nay, I am not like you.”

“Are you not? What has driven you? Love? Mercy?” He gave a harsh laugh. “Nay, you are filled with hatred, as I am.”

But she did love. She knew with utter certainty she would give her life to protect Jamie or Francois.

Yet, the hard truth was that she did not put their happiness first. She meant to, once she had punished those who had hurt
her and righted the wrongs of the past. Jamie’s words came back to her, choking her:
Love is not what you consider after every other blessed thing.
She wanted to weep for her failings.

“When you cross over into darkness, we will be one with the great Lucifer,” Pomeroy said, his eyes wide and staring, “and
one with each other.”

“If you harm me, Jamie Rayburn will kill you.” Her own words surprised her, and yet as soon as she said them she knew them
to be true.

Pomeroy’s fingers went to a deep scar across his cheekbone that she did not recall him having before. As he traced it with
his fingertips, his eyes scorched over her.

Then he lunged for her. She screamed and tried to scramble to the far side of the bed, but he caught her and hauled her toward
him. Bile rose in her throat as he held her with his face against hers, his greasy hair pressed to her cheek.

“Tonight I shall cast the spell, and you will accept your place at my side,” he said, his hot breath in her ear. “Until then,
I shall have to restrain you.”

“Jamie!” she screamed.

The cloth was over her mouth, the distinctive medicinal odor filling her nose and mouth and numbing her lips.

“James Rayburn will be dead soon,” he said against her ear. “And you will think of him no more.”

J
amie rode across the City, his mind on that day in November when he and Francois had seen Linnet approach the fat alderman
in Westminster Hall. That was also the day he and Linnet had begun their affair. Those few days in her London house had sealed
his fate. Though he had tried to fight it, he was hers from that time forward.

Nay, he’d been hers since Paris. He had loved the girl who defied convention and dragged him behind the shrubbery… the girl
who looked him in the eye and told him she loved how he touched her… the girl who ignored her father’s attempts to restrict
her and refused to meet his expectations.

But the girl was nothing compared to the woman Linnet had become. She was fierce in her loyalty, awesome in her determination,
courageous, clever, and witty. None could match her. God had given him a second chance with this beautiful, avenging angel
of a woman, and what had he done? He’d left her at the first sign of trouble.

Please, God, let me find her.
Once he did, he would never let her out of his sight again.

“Master Woodley,” he called over his shoulder to the
clerk, who followed on a pathetic mule, “where precisely in the Cheape is Alderman Arnold’s house?”

“Not far from Saddlers’ Hall and Saint Paul’s Cathedral.”

When they reached the alderman’s house, a prosperous-looking, three-story wooden structure, the servant who answered the door
insisted Arnold was not home.

Jamie pushed past him, saying, “I shall see for myself.”

“Sir, you cannot—”

“Martin, hold him while I have a look about,” he said without looking back.

Other servants trailed him as he went from room to room searching for his quarry; none made the mistake of attempting to stop
him.

When he entered the largest bedchamber on the second floor and found it empty, he cursed in frustration. “Damnation, where
is that overripe snipe!”

He turned to find a maid with a saucy look about her leaning in the doorway. She slanted a look toward the huge wooden-framed
bed and pointed at the floor. Jamie nodded his thanks and motioned for her to leave. Dropping to one knee, he reached under
the bed and hauled the alderman out by his tunic.

“God’s blood, you are a sorry excuse for a man,” Jamie said as he held the alderman against the bedpost. “Tell me who was
involved in the scheme to destroy Lady Linnet’s grandfather.”

“That was ten years ago,” the alderman said, his eyes darting about the room. “You cannot expect me to recall it.”

“I can and I do.” Jamie lifted the man off his feet. “If
you want to live, you will tell me what you know. I want names.”

“You would not dare harm me. I am an alderman!” Jamie slammed him against the bedpost. “I am a desperate man, Alderman, and
I’ve killed better men than you. Pray, do not test my patience further.”

Good God, the man was wetting himself! Jamie dropped him and took a step back in disgust.

“It was Brokely, the mayor’s father-in-law, who was behind it all,” the alderman said in a high voice. “The rest of us played
small parts or turned a blind eye—and profited very little.”

“Did Mayor Coventry know of this?” Jamie demanded. The alderman shook his head. “Coventry was not mayor then, of course. But
he would not have countenanced it, if he had known. No one knew his father-in-law was behind it, save for me, Mychell, and
Leggett.”

“But you led others to believe the mayor had been party to it, did you not?”

When the alderman was slow to answer, Jamie pulled his dagger and touched the point to the man’s throat.

“Aye, we did,” the alderman squeaked.

“And when Lady Linnet came asking questions, you spread the word that there would be trouble if the truth came out.”

“And it would cause great trouble, indeed,” the alderman said, raising his eyebrows. “The King’s Council will take any excuse
to remove the restrictions on foreign merchants, and that would destroy us.”

“Where can I find the mayor’s father-in-law?” “Brokely retired to his estate a few miles outside the
city several years ago. He is in poor health and travels little.”

“All the same, he visited Mychell’s house recently, did he not?”

The alderman’s eyes shifted from side to side. “I would not know about that…”

“Do not leave your house tonight,” Jamie said, jabbing his finger into the man’s chest. “And for God’s sake, wash yourself
before I come back for you.”

Jamie sent Master Woodley to wait at Linnet’s house and left Martin to watch the alderman’s house.

“If he leaves, I want to know where he goes,” he ordered. “But do not follow him inside any buildings. You are to stay out
of trouble, stay out of sight, and keep your distance. Do you hear me?”

Martin nodded.

Jamie rode at a full gallop for Brokely’s estate, cursing himself for not helping Linnet get to the bottom of the plot earlier.
She could squeeze their purses, but some men only did as they ought with a blade at their throat.

It was growing dusk when he finally reached Brokely’s enormous manor house on a quiet stretch of the Thames. Since a house
this size would have a great many servants and guards, he could not push his way through the front door as he had at the alderman’s.
Instead, he tied his horse and worked his way to the house through the shrubs and tall reeds along the riverbank. The wind
still held the bite of winter, but there was a hint of spring behind it.

The growing darkness put him on edge, and a sense of urgency nipped at his heels. Soon—he must find her soon.

Here in the heart of England, defenses were minimal
and guards lax. On his second try, Jamie found an unlocked door and slipped inside. He had learned from his uncle Stephen
that if you acted as though you had a right to be in a place, no one was likely to question you.

Jamie passed some men talking among themselves as they put their tools away for the day. They barely spared him a glance as
he crossed the yard and entered the house from the back.

’Twas a different matter when he burst through the doors to the hall. Every servant turned to stare as he stood at the entrance,
his sword in his hand. An old man sat alone wrapped in a blanket next to the hearth.

“Brokely, your son-in-law sent me,” Jamie said, deciding to get the information he needed through subterfuge this time. “I
suggest you send the servants away while we talk.”

“How did you get into my hall? Who are you?” The old man pounded his cane on the floor as he shouted. It was a distinctive
silver-clawed cane.

“The mayor believes you know the whereabouts of Lady Linnet,” Jamie said.

Brokely’s eyebrows flew up. A moment later, he waved the servants off with his swollen, knobby hands, saying, “Shoo! Shoo!”

Jamie sighed. Pressuring old men and soft merchants was unpleasant. Give him a good fight against a worthy opponent any day.

“Your son-in-law has learned of what you did to Lady Linnet’s family,” Jamie said.

“ ’Tis high time Coventry knew and gave me proper thanks,” the old man said, banging his cane again. “If not for my fortune,
he would not be mayor today. And I’m not
ashamed of what I did to get it. ’Twas only because my daughter insisted, that I kept quiet.”

So the mayor’s wife knew—and the mayor did not. “Was it she who gave you that fine cane? It must have cost her a pretty penny.”

“She, at least, is grateful for all I’ve done for her.” “Then she must be grateful to her husband as well, for she gave him
a cane just like it,” Jamie said.

“Bah. I don’t know why she set her sights on that prattling dog. But ’twas my money that bought him for her.”

“Money you stole from an honest man who had fallen ill,” Jamie said. “Have you no shame for that?”

“He was a foreigner who made far too much profit than ought to be allowed on English soil.” Brokely shook his head. “I only
wish I could have done it sooner. But that foreign devil was a clever bastard.”

“The mayor says that if you wish to see your daughter and grandchildren again,” Jamie said, taking his lie a step further,
“you will tell me what has happened to Lady Linnet.”

“He would not dare.”

“You know damned well he would,” Jamie said. “I suspect that is why your daughter kept it from him all these years.”

“Coventry always did have a pole up his arse, the self-righteous fool.” The old man spat on the floor. “The ungrateful son
of a—”

“Tell me now!” Jamie shouted. “What have you done with Lady Linnet?”

“I’ll tell you, but it will do you no good now.” Brokely turned his gaze to the darkened window. “ ’Tis the full moon tonight.
You are too late.”

Linnet heard the chanting in her dream before she awoke. The pounding rhythm pulsed through her, increasing the violent pain
in her head. A familiar dankness clung to her skin and was heavy in the air she breathed. She came to full wakefulness in
a sweat of fear, knowing where she was: behind the secret door at Winchester Palace, where the witches met.

At first, she was too frightened to open her eyes. The flicker of candlelight and shadows played against her eyelids. She
took in a slow breath, then opened her eyes a crack.

Even though she expected to see them, she gasped at the sight of the figures whirling and twisting within a ring of candles
on the floor. As before, the figures wore grisly masks and animal hides.