Chapter 4 #2
Andromena would have preferred that to the piteous expression she now wore.
She rose.
The Siren caught her before she was all the way up. “Oi can tell your future.”
“You’ve done enough for me.” Disdain and bitterness permeated.
“Let me read yer palm, Miss Smith—for both of us.”
For both of them?
The Siren was as much a stranger to Andromena as the Rookeries were. Still desperation needed no introduction. It bled straight through the clash of the girl’s proper English and rough Cockney.
Andromena looked down at the palm the girl was begging to read.
A gentleman of the ton should not move in the furthest fringes of impolite society, yet he did.
He cared nothing for Andromena’s family.
He toyed with her the way her twin’s feral cat, Stalk—a fat-bellied mouser named for its awkward stalk—toyed with half-dead mice.
He forced her into St. Giles in the dead of night, pressing cruel demands upon her.
A girl like the Siren, who was barely on the cusp of womanhood, would fare far worse.
That’s why, moments later, she was not only seated, but had her glove off, and her hand positioned in the other woman’s palm.
“Please, do not feel you have—”
“Shh. I cannot see the lines clearly and understand what they’re saying without complete silence.”
Andromena gave the young seer the quiet requested.
As the Siren turned her hand, brought it closer to her eye, and traced the lines with her fingertip, Andromena realized the girl was much younger than expected. Despite her mature demeanor, she seemed no more than thirteen or fourteen years old.
Women held no power in the world. A young girl born to London streets would have even less.
“This line here is your heart line,” the Siren said, touching the large crease that stretched across Andromena’s palm. “For some, it only begins at the index finger and is a sign of high standards, matters of the heart, and contentment in love.”
She touched the base of Andromena’s middle finger. “If it started here, that would mean you put your own needs first. That is not you.”
If it were, Andromena wouldn’t be sitting across from the seer now.
A faint furrow settled in the girl’s small brow.
Her heart studded to a halt. “What?”
Silent, the Siren continued her scrutiny.
Andromena tensed in her seat, about to give a more forceful nudge when the seer carried on.
“Yours sweeps in a long, graceful curve from the edge of your palm all the way to your ring finger. A short, straight line would have marked you as a practical soul—someone level-headed and guarded, who keeps their feelings locked away. But yours tells a different story.”
The Siren—having rightfully assumed her seer’s name—lifted her head, reacting to Andromena’s hand as if it were a strange object, as though she had only just remembered she was seated there.
“I believe you share your feelings freely; do you not?”
“According to you, my line tells that.”
“Ahh, cynicism, like your friend outside… he is a bad influence.”
“You have no idea,” she said under her breath.
Edgar shouted a warning. “Five minutes.”
They ignored him.
“Yes, but Oi believe the palm lines. Yer the one who doesn’t.
” A small smile touched the girl’s mouth.
She went back to her reading. “The longer the line in the curve is, the more it indicates a person who shows their emotions and freely gives affection to those who deserve it.” A frown replaced the earlier smile.
“And, sadly, to those who do not. They are not worth your efforts, but you give them anyway.”
The Siren touched a nearly indiscernible, horizontal crease between the bottom of Andromena’s smallest finger and the largest crease of her palm surface area. “Here is the only line women ever care about. You have many, sky-pointed lines.”
Andromena eyed those parts the seer spoke of.
“They signify close family attachments. And children.”
Pain scissored through her.
That was what brought her here—children. They were not flesh of her womb, but she loved them as much as if they had been.
Suddenly, the Siren touched Andromena’s hand, and the tip of the girl’s finger turned ice cold.
The seer’s posture stiffened.
A heavy weight dropped in Andromena’s belly. Her fingers bent.
The Siren strengthened her hold and locked Andromena into the reading. “There will be marriage.”
That blank look was there again. It came from a woman who saw the truth and wanted to escape it.
Suddenly, Andromena wanted to escape, too. What started as a simple favor now was far too real. Without meaning to, Andromena had started to believe.
“He isn’t the right man for you, and he isn’t your destiny. But he will try to force his way into your life anyway.”
The Siren spoke in a fast, rough rush. Or was that just Andromena hearing her own heavy breath?
“He will steal your choice. He is darkness and—”
Gasping, Andromena snatched her hand away and pressed it to her heart.
The Siren lifted her head; a heavy column of blonde-white hair slipped over her shoulder. She opened her eyes slowly, her empty stare growing more focused until she returned fully from whatever far-off place, she’d transported herself from.
A place in Andromena’s future.
Maybe she was the silly ninny Edgar mocked her as. Or perhaps during her reading, the young girl had revealed enough accuracies about Andromena’s personality. But the Siren made her a believer.
“It can’t stop ’ere. It can’t. Let me finish.”
Feeling weak as she had never been before, she did the unexpected. Andromena looked to the door to call for Edgar.
“Please, Miss Smith!”
What nightmare had haunted the young girl, making her beg Andromena to stay and find any glimpse of light in the bleak future? Desperate for that same comfort, Andromena reached out and took the Siren’s hand in return.
With a bowed head and quiet breath, the Siren went back to checking.
The girl studied, looked at both hands, angled left, then right, and raised them closer to her face. She raised them both closer to her face.
The entire time, Andromena willed her palms’ lines to show the same happy future all her fellow McQuoids found.
“There is death in here…”
The door blew open. The only thing stopping the panel from hitting the viscount was the foot of his leather riding boot.
Edgar leveled his gun on the Siren. “The young lady is finished here.” Except for the harsh edge in his voice, the statement could have been about the weather.
He directed his next words to Andromena. “Let’s go, darling.”
Andromena knew he only defended and protected her for Lord Culross. Still, she had felt alone for so long that, for a single moment, the sense of loneliness was gone. Warmth suffused her cold bones.
The Siren spoke, reminding Andromena that she and Edgar weren’t alone. “Let the lady decide for herself, my lord.”
He saw something in Andromena’s eyes—a mystery even to her. The viscount advanced closer. “Well, darling?”
“I’m fine, Edgar.” Andromena gave him a careful smile. “I’d like to finish. Please.”
He swept his gaze over the divination parlor, and then returned all his focus to Andromena.
“Two minutes, darling.”
Her heart certainly did not flutter. That steady thumpthumpthump-thumpthumpthump was merely the beat of indignation.
She glared at his broad back as he left.
How freely he called her ‘darling’! With the casual way he dropped endearments, it was no wonder ladies sighed when he walked past. They were the true ninnies.
“Don’t fret yourself, Miss Smith.”
Andromena startled.
Worried? What was she worried about—?
With her next breath, the Siren reminded her.
“Your palm sends off heat and energy, but interruptions like the one from yer bossy friend can’t change yer palm lines, won’t alter a reading.”
Andromena’s heart fell heavily. “I was less worried about that than…”
Together they looked at Andromena’s palm.
“What I shared before?”
She managed to nod.
The young Seer picked up her examination.
“This line here? This is the fate line,” she touched another part of Andy’s hand, “and this is the line of Venus. The two are intertwined.” She ran an index finger along a line that curved to a point around her thumb.
“Your Venus line is clear and deep. It means your journey in life will be smooth and stable.”
“That hardly fits with marriage to an evil m-man.”
The Siren was nothing more than a charlatan.
Tears clouded Andromena’s eyes, forcing her to pretend an intense interest in her Venus line.
“I know what you’re thinking, Miss Smith.”
No, she didn’t.
“This is the fate line,” the Siren said, indicating the vertical crease that extended up to the middle of Andromena’s palm. “The stronger it is, the greater the indication that a person has a definite purpose, and an even greater ability to shape her own destiny.”
“I take it you offer the same assurance to all the women with grim futures?”
“I ain’t a liar. The palm line does the speaking.”
In a sign of how seriously she took her craft, the young woman sounded far more offended when her skills were questioned.
Edgar let himself in. “Time is up.”
Any other time, Andromena would have told him where to go with his high-handedness. Not today. She just wanted to go.
She got herself up on wooden legs.
The Siren remained seated but before Andromena took a step, the beautiful girl grabbed her. “Ye shape your own destiny, Miss Smith. Ye can’t forget that.”
That’s what the young seer urged. Andromena pulled her cloak back into place, weighed down by a fresh threat from her persistent blackmailer and the grim future waiting for her. No love. No happy marriage. Nothing.
Curse her existence.
She had zero control, a bleak future, and a long, uncomfortable carriage ride ahead with the worst witness to her misery: Viscount Kerr.