Chapter 4
The fortune teller who referred to herself as the Siren explained on the tavern floor that Andromena must say she was at Rat’s Castle to have her palm read. Andromena naturally assumed it was just a disguise to get the real information from her blackmailer.
That idea flew out of Andromena’s head the moment she stepped into the Siren’s Divination Room. The elaborate layout managed to both match Andromena’s expectations of a seer’s parlor while defying them entirely.
Of a certainty? No one would put this much effort into a facade.
Downstairs, Rat’s Castle looked just like its name: a dirty, smelly, rat-filled ruin. But up here, it could be one of those magical places her brothers recounted in their travel stories.
Andromena walked about the improvised parlor.
The space here was clean and well kept, unlike the area downstairs that had not seen fresh paint in forty to fifty years. It also abounded with evidence of the occult.
Burgundy and gold velvet curtains framed a mahogany-footed table at the center of the room. A tasseled green tablecloth hung halfway down that bold piece of furniture. Various decks of neatly stacked cards flanked a mirrored glass ball.
On adjacent white walls, framed in matching gold, hung Goya prints of Witches’ Flight and Witches’ Sabbaths.
Hand-colored charts of stars covered the remaining space.
Pausing by a table, Andromena stared at a circular star wheel.
Its many equal slices looked just like the famed holiday mincemeat pie the McQuoids fought over every Christmas.
The Siren wasn’t simply a go-between for Andromena and her blackmailer; she was—in as far as fortune tellers went—a true seer who wielded genuine influence and commanded deep respect among everyone in the establishment.
She wore her power better than her silk cloak, pushing her hood back to reveal her face and showing she did not fear the viscount or his search.
Andromena decided the diviner’s name suited her. Long, blonde hair, very nearly white, fell in a fold about her shoulders. Her complexion was as fair as porcelain. Forget a mere diamond of society; this young woman was the storied mermaid her brothers and all sailors heralded.
The Siren kept her stare locked on Andromena, who felt the heavy stare of the trailing woman at every single stop. Her all-knowing eyes penetrated. They said, ‘I know all your secrets, and also the future on the verge of unfolding for you’. That stare pitied.
Charlatan or not, the Siren was connected to the man who held Andromena’s future in his hands.
The scruff of velvet fabric, and the catch of metal on metal, pulled Andromena’s attention to Edgar.
The viscount strode about the room, his chin high and his broad shoulders filling and shrinking the parlor. Through his search, he offered her a glimpse of the fearsome rival he made on the open waters.
He remained to the left of the window, sweeping his gaze past the glass before snapping the curtain shut and repeating the search on the other side. For an instant, she had a vision of him.
Her breath stopped.
Even with the viscount’s colossal pride, it was hard not to admire the air of self-assurance and strength he carried the way foppish and lesser gentlemen carried canes and monocles.
She cursed him for that and herself for being as impressed as the ladies who threw flowers at his feet.
Her gaze snagged on a sinister, hand-carved mirror; its scrolled ivy twined like snakes, and she intercepted an all-knowing smile from the Siren.
Heat trickled into Andromena’s cheeks.
Whatever the woman thought she saw, she didn’t.
Edgar was right earlier when he called the woman a charlatan. It would be far too easy, all too easy, for anyone to see the Andromena and the viscount here together, and make the same assumption about their association.
They couldn’t know their history. Their past, more specifically. How he tricked her and deceived her, and made a fool of her. And how much she hated him for it and how each of them went out of their way to let the other know how much they disliked one another.
Edgar put his looming frame between them, briefly disconnected from the horror of what she had done.
“The room is clear.”
The edge of her mouth tipped up.
“Are you annoyed at being denied a fight?” How very man-like of him. Never had she heard this man’s temper drawn short. She was really quite enjoying it.
“I’m annoyed at being here.”
That she believed, regardless of his disdain for her, he was an honorable man. He was motivated through loyalty to the Earl of Culross, and through that connection, to Andromena and the rest of the McQuoids he thought so poorly of.
“Thank you so much, Edgar,” she uttered softly.
A frown pressed his lips.
“For protecting me tonight, and for allowing me to do this.”
Reheating his blade, he pulled at his cloak. “Yes… Well… I will be outside.”
He pinned a warning look on the Siren. “Ten minutes.”
She stared as he let himself out.
Who knew the only way to silence Viscount Kerr and send him running was to offer him gratitude, she thought bemusedly to herself.
“Are you betrothed?”
Startled, she faced the seer.
“To the viscount. I had not seen the news nor heard of any public announcement…”
The idea was so utterly preposterous, Andromena couldn’t get her tongue around any words.
“I take that as—”
“No!” She sliced the air with her hand. “You wouldn’t have heard an announcement on account there wasn’t one. There is nothing between the gentleman and me—formal, informal, or otherwise.”
The Siren hazarded an even more ridiculous possibility: “You care about one another.”
Laughter welled in her throat.
If there had ever been a doubt the woman was a fraud, this settled it.
Just like before, the Siren’s eyes possessed that wise, strange shine.
Underneath the weight of the seer’s grave look, Andromena lost her amusement.
“Shall we, Miss Smith?” The Siren signaled the smaller chair before claiming the ornate mahogany throne for herself, and dousing Andromena with the ugly reminder of why she was here—to do the bidding of a blackhearted stranger.
The Siren’s fine garments, rich rooms in Rats Castle, and knowledge of the ton revealed her deep ties to the nobility.
Andromena’s mouth tightened.
No doubt the young woman colluded with the gentleman.
“First, we have the business portion of our meeting,” the Siren said after Andromena seated herself.
“Is there any other reason I would be here?”
The young seer ignored that outburst. From out of thin air and with a sleight of hand, the Siren placed a small folded bit of parchment on the table.
The ethereal creature moved so ceaselessly between otherworldly and lady, grounded in the ton, it left Andromena spinning. Maybe that was her natural ability, one she employed to disarm her clients.
Either way, deliberate or not, it had the desired effect on Andromena. She stared at the parchment but made no move to touch it.
“I must see you open it, Miss Smith.”
A sour taste coated her tongue. “A gentleman you work with?”
“We ain’t here to talk about me.”
The slight cockney there ruined the otherwise perfect illusion the woman was of noble origins, but more, Andromena’s question ushered in a frostiness.
She made herself take the note that would have devastating implications upon her family.
She read.
Though your birthright ties you to the peerage, you and your kin are far closer to thieving, lawless pirates.
If your lineage were cleaner, I would not have hesitated to make you, my wife. I’ve even showered you with flowers.
Andromena’s mind sped through the cards she had read from bouquets that had arrived. Most were personally delivered. Others not.
Fret not. It might not be too late, dearest, Andromena.
But you will use your pirate skills for my gain. You are to obtain an antique coin. Bring it to New Bond Street, where you will meet a seller. He will accept the piece on my behalf. And then you are free to go.
If you fail to appear when you are supposed to, the price will be exacted. An even a heftier one.
Your connections will not help you. Your ties to Dukes, Earls, and privateers are nowhere near the power I yield.
Should you enlist their assistance, should any of them learn this, not a single gentleman will pay the price.
Nor will your sisters. It will be their daughters and sons—your beloved nieces and nephews.
With all the trauma your weaker sister, the Countess of Culross, survived, it would be a shame to set her recovery back with the loss of a child.
Andromena stared at the black ink, written in a flawless hand.
Your servant.
Bile burned her throat.
Underlined three times with the meaning clear—she was this man’s servant.
He hadn’t buried his disdain under mention of having courted her. Instead, he had used it to accentuate her inferiority and call her unworthy of a match.
She didn’t give two figs on Sunday what this man thought of her fitness as a bride. A coward who hid in shadows and exploited a woman’s innocuous adventure could never be one to make her feel badly about herself.
What he could do and what he had done was make her feel bad for what she had done that night she’d convinced Fleur and Meghan to sneak out to Lord Rutland’s.
With a chilling incisiveness, he had cut right to what mattered most to Andromena—her family. It meant he was very familiar with the McQuoids and Smiths. But that could make him anyone. The McQuoids and Smiths were notoriously known for their tight-knit bond.
He was wrong in one way, though: if one of her older brothers, younger brothers, cousins, nieces, or nephews were being harmed, it would break her into a million shards.
But to harm one of her siblings’ or cousins’, children, and the anguish that would bring to them, was something that would kill her in every way that death could not.
Somehow, Andromena’s fingers were steady when she took the page and tucked it away.
“Is this all, madam?”
When she looked up, the earlier ice had since melted from the young diviner.