The Would-Be Witch Read online

  “Are you certain that Martin is not the man?” Miranda asked, knowing full well that there could be no lies or prevarication when it came to the cards.

  “No.” Her mother’s reluctant answer was barely above a whisper. “You know full well your brother would never allow it, Miranda. Allworth is an Outsider.”

  “Damien will have no choice but to reconcile himself to Martin,” Miranda said. “Especially since he is the only man likely to ask for my hand. I cannot understand why you dislike him so. He is considered quite handsome and his bloodlines are excellent.”

  “I have heard better recommendations for a horse.” Lady Wodesby snorted. “And I daresay you might find more intelligence in a good thoroughbred than you would in Sir Martin Allworth. By comparison, Hester is a veritable Athena.”

  “Martin is a man of few words,” Miranda said, her lips pursing into a straight line.

  “And those precious few that he utters, his Mama places on his tongue,” Lady Wodesby retorted. “An echo of a man, if ever there was one, petticoat ruled. . .”

  “Now I begin to understand . . .” Miranda tilted her head, skewering her mother with a look. “This sudden urge to visit Town and put up the knocker at Portman Square after nearly a year’s absence. You knew full well that Martin and his mother had invited us to dine with them this week. And we had to decline because of your prior engagement. How did you manage to secure Lady Enderby’s invitation upon such short notice?”

  “I had received Hester’s request for our presence weeks before Martin’s Mama decided that your dowry might be a sufficient inducement for an alliance,” she replied with a sniff. “Especially now that his pockets are to let.”

  “Temporarily,” Miranda said, startled. “But how did you know of Martin’s financial troubles?”

  Lady Wodesby looked everywhere but down at the basket upon the floor.

  “Thorpe! I should have known,” Miranda fumed catching the marmalade cat’s calm gaze. “He was eavesdropping again.”

  “You do not imagine that I would allow you to be unchaperoned,” her mother said. “I cannot help it if Martin is careless with what he lets slip before the servants.”

  Thorpe hissed defiantly.

  “There is no need to defend me, Thorpe,” the older woman declared, “nor to excuse yourself. If anyone owes an apology, it is Miranda, for she knows that we both want the best for her, and Martin Allworth is certainly far from the best.”

  “I shall not apologize to Thorpe, Mama. Especially if he chooses to talk in Familiar Felinish, as if I am not present.” Miranda closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to stem the sudden tightness in her throat. Mama simply did not understand the realities of the situation, Miranda told herself. Lady Wodesby’s world was governed by a different set of rules. “Mama,” Miranda began, blinking back the tears. “Martin may very well be the best that I can do. The disaster of my one and only London Season has long passed and though my fortune and face were well enough a decade ago, the Wodesby name was a burden I could not overcome.”

  “Our heritage? A burden? Were it not for a Wodesby, Arthur’s court in Camelot would have failed utterly.” Lady Wodesby’s chin rose in indignation. “Our lineage is more exalted than that of that trumped up Mad Hanoverian that sits upon the throne.”

  “And how many men are knowingly willing to take a descendent of Merlin to wife unless they themselves are of the Blood?” Miranda persisted, her voice rising despite her determination to leash her annoyance. “What manner of husband would wish a woman whose power surpasses his own?”

  “Yet, you, a woman of the Blood, would consider a cipher such as Martin?”

  “Martin has nothing to fear from a woman who has no powers at all.” She tried to keep her voice steady, but there was no masking the pain. “I may be Merlin’s kin by birth, but everyone is well aware that I am a cripple.”

  Thorpe let loose a furious hiss.

  “There is little use pretending otherwise, Thorpe.” Miranda calmly gave voice to long held conviction. “I may be the Keeper of Scrolls, but everyone knows that the post is no more than a sugar-tit to keep a child from crying.”

  Lady Wodesby protested. “Why, those records were little more than a dragon’s nest when you took charge. Spells, potion receipts and craft journals, all mixed higgledy-piggle with the records of maledictions and remedies. Now every proceeding is duly registered, and the histories are in excellent order. Just last month Morwenna Gwynn discovered that charm to prevent cave-ins among the Arcanum and it is only due to your organization.”

  “A librarian or skilled secretary would have been more than equal to the task,” Miranda said with a sigh. “It is far past time for the acknowledgement. There is not a shred of magic in me.”

  “You are an excellent seer of character.”

  “When one is well-trained in the arts of facade, it takes no more than shrewd observation to see beyond artifice,” Miranda countered relentlessly. “For all that Papa was the Chief Mage of Albion, I will never be a witch like you are, or have as much power as Damian can summon with his little finger. Everyone among the Seven Covens has been kind, but even they cannot hide the pity in their eyes when I attend spring rites and stand round like a dead stick of hazel. I cannot foretell, or make rain, or even charm the simplest of warts. The cards of the Tarot Deck are but pieces of pasteboard to me. Is it any wonder that there is not a man among the Coven families who would offer for me, in spite of the fact that I am a Wodesby of The Wode?”

  A tear spilled from the corner of Lady Wodesby’s eye. “I have tried, my dear, as has every member of the family. There is not an incantation or charm that we did not wield. When you came to your woman’s blood and nothing changed, Papa and I even attempted to wake the Grandfather of Us All on your behalf, but he did not answer us.”

  “You risked rousing the Merlin?” All weeping was forgotten in horror. More than one had died attempting to break the spell that Nimue had used to place The Merlin in eternal sleep. Some had lost their powers entirely. “Mama! You should never have taken that chance.”

  “I would go back to the Merlin’s Tree again, if I thought that it might help you,” her mother said as she slipped into the seat beside Miranda and clasped her hands. “You are my daughter.”

  Those four words held a wealth of love, yet Miranda could not let the matter rest. “There is only one means to fulfill Aunt Titania’s augury, Mama, and that is outside the Blood. Martin will be quite biddable; he will let me continue my work because it holds no interest for him. In fact, there is no need for him to know about the existence of the Families who bear the Blood at all. If I am to marry an ordinary man, it might as well be Martin.”

  “‘Ordinary’ encompasses a considerable field and Martin is definitely at the most unexceptional end of the range,” Lady Wodesby commented. “But if he is your Fate, there is little that I can do to change it, much as your brother and I might object.”

  But one look at her mother’s face belied her composed tenor of acceptance. It was clear that Lady Wodesby would do everything in her considerable power to prevent the match.

  . . .

  It was just before sunset when the coach slipped into the shadowed mews behind Jermyn Street. From his perch on the driver’s seat, Adam, Lord Brand, surveyed the deserted stretch of small gardens and stables. As he had hoped, the equipage excited little notice, being almost indistinguishable from a common hired carriage in this busy part of London. Only a knowing observer could discern the true nature of the vehicle, built for speed and maneuverability.

  Nonetheless, before the Marquess of Brand halted the carriage, he made certain that he was well out of sight. The rear exit of Professor Gutmacher’s Hall of Wonders was an all too short walk away and it would not do to take chances.

  Under normal circumstances, Adam’s initial pursuit of his targets was, by necessity, discreet in nature. In the past year, he had exposed not only the names, but the methods used by many of London’s knave necro
mancers, mountebank mystics and hum-gumption healers. Ironically, his string of success and the accompanying notoriety had made this mission all the more difficult.

  Despite Adam’s explicit request for Lord Sedgewick’s discretion, word of his recent wager had become the tittle tattle upon every tongue. Sedgewick was sufficiently certain that Doctor Gutmacher’s methods were genuine and had laid a bet of five hundred pounds. Rumor had it that half the Ton was now attending Gutmacher’s demonstrations, if only to be present when Lord Brand finally fulfilled his pledge to unmask the erstwhile professor as a fraud. The fanfare meant that Gutmacher was forewarned. His confederates would do their utmost to keep his nemesis from the hall.

  “Adam, I cannot believe that you mean to go through with this absurd masquerade,” Lawrence Timmons declared as his nephew climbed into the cab and discarded the concealment of broad-brimmed hat and driving coat. “‘Tis foolish beyond permission to enter the lion’s den.”

  “I have accepted the bet, Uncle Lawrie,” Adam declared, his square jaw jutting in a frown, as he pulled a dressmaker’s box from beneath the seat. “And I am surprised by your seeming lack of confidence in my abilities. I hear that even Lord Ropwell has risked five hundred pounds upon my success.”

  “So, the blighter thinks to tow himself from Fleet on your coat tails, does he?” Lawrence said with a derisive snort. “I would think that a man such as Ropwell who is a regular patron of charlatans would make his bets against you instead of in your favor. Why every would-be ghost-Talker in Town has seen that man’s face.”

  “I wonder what he will use for payment should I lose?” Adam asked, pulling a shelf with a mirror from an inset beneath the driver’s box. “There are more of Ropwell’s vowels about Town than one would find in Mr. Johnson’s dictionary. ‘Tis said that he is searching for the family jewels. Apparently, his wife secreted them somewhere prior to her death,”

  “They say a good deal more than that,” Lawrence added, his brow furrowing in a look of utter condemnation. “None of it good.”

  “It’s a shame that Ropwell might come out more the winner of this wager than I will after the expenses I have borne,” Adam lifted a voluminous silk gown gingerly by the shoulders and shook it out in a rustle of pea green. “Madame Robard charged a small fortune to create this to my specifications in time for this evening.”

  “And swore you to secrecy, no doubt.” Lawrence sighed as he rose to assist in the struggle to slide the gown over his nephew’s head. The younger man’s height, well-nigh to six feet tall, made the cramped confines of the carriage an extremely difficult setting for a dressing room.

  Adam laughed softly. “Actually, the modiste looked upon it as a most excellent challenge. Eef I can make the seigneur look like une femme, then every chienne in town will flock to me.” Adam said, mimicking the seamstress’s heavy accent. When his tousled Apollo finally emerging from a fount of white ruffles at the neck, he carefully worked his arms into the sleeves and pulled the front in place “Well?”

  The older man sat back in his seat to eye his nephew critically.

  “We might just carry it off,” Lawrence said, nodding as he scrutinized the costume. Madame Robard’s creation was a marvel of deception, its padded folds transforming the marquess’ masculine frame into that of an aging female. The cunningly fashioned facade of sagging charms, dowager’s hump and strained seams was virtually indistinguishable from the figures of those ample matrons who presided over many a fashionable salon and ballroom.

  Although Adam wore full evening dress beneath, not a trace of Weston’s work was visible. Even the snowy fall of immaculate necklinen vanished beneath the swaths of lace. Still, though the garment contrived to stoop those broad shoulders and conceal his athlete’s physique, there was nothing the least bit frail and feminine about the Marquess of Brand. His chiseled features, a pleasing plane of aristocratically sculpted chin and cheek, were undeniably male.

  “You will never pass muster as a crone, dear boy,” Lawrence remarked with a rueful shake of his grey head.

  “Not done yet,” Adam said, setting an actor’s box of paint on his makeshift vanity and taking a small pot from the top of the coach lantern. Dipping a finger into the tin, he skillfully spread a waxy substance to simulate the tracks of wrinkles near his eyes. Next rouge was applied with the heavy hand of a woman with failing eyesight.

  Lawrence looked on in amazement as his nephew transformed himself. “You put me in mind of Great-aunt Sophronia. Ugliest woman that ever walked on the face of the earth. I had never remarked the resemblance till this moment, somehow. ‘Tis the gown, I suspect, her taste was almost as hideous as her phiz.”

  “I think it rather becoming,” Adam retorted, batting his thick lashes in a parody of femininity. “Will you fasten up the back, please?”

  “As becoming as a pair of Hessians on a rooster,” Lawrence grumbled, fumbling with the row of buttons. “Damme, I never thought to spend my graying years playing abigail to a thirty-four-year-old man. How do you mean to shed these hideous rags when the time comes?”

  “The front is very lightly stitched,” Adam explained, reaching beneath the seat to unearth an elaborate wig. “All I need do is rip it away and step out of the skirts. Then ‘Herr Gutmacher,’ or Bob Taylor, as his Mama named him, will be exposed for the charlatan that he is. Taylor is as much a graduate of the University at Heidelberg as I am King of Prussia. The flash houses of Covent Garden were the only school that he can honestly lay claim to.”

  “You do realize that it may not be all that simple to enter the hall,” Lawrence cautioned, reaching to tuck a stray wisp of his nephew’s chestnut hair underneath the powdered curls. “As we passed, I saw a burly fellow out front, an apostle of the Fancy, by the look of him. The fighter was giving a careful eye to anyone walking through that door.”

  “Only one guard tonight.” Adam chuckled as he glanced at the small mirror on the wall. “There were three bruisers there yesterday. Likely, Taylor believes himself safe. Heaven knows that I have told everyone from the potboy to the Archbishop that I fully intend to be at Lady Enderby’s entertainment this evening. Herr Gutmacher does not expect me.”

  “I should have realized that something was havey-cavey when you agreed to attend Hester’s affair!” Lawrence exclaimed in growing dismay. “Hester’s husband is a dear friend of mine, for all that his wife is something of a widgeon and she is in alt at the thought of you gracing her table. You cannot be so unkind as to cry off at this late hour? She has even acquired a famous magician to entertain.”

  “So I have heard and that is why I have chosen to attend.” Adam said, his lip curling in mockery. “However, I must in all honesty confess that I tremble at what Lady Enderby has in store far more than I fear anything that Herr Gutmacher might try. The woman is a matchmaking menace.” Adam feigned a shudder and touched his glowering companion lightly on the shoulder. “Have no worry, Uncle, I have no intention of disappointing the lady. We might be a trifle late, but I hope we shall have a tale to tell in compensation for our tardiness. Ouch!” He grimaced as he maneuvered the hairpin to anchor the wig fully in place. “Damned thing must weigh a stone,” he muttered, patting the curls into place. “It was no wonder that Grandmama Lawrence was plagued by perpetual megrims.”

  “The lice were none too pleasant either, as I recall. There were veritable hordes of them in those old perukes. Occasionally even a mouse or two,” Lawrence added his brow arching.

  Adam turned, his hand rising involuntarily in search of a sudden phantom itch until he saw the older man’s lip quirk upwards. “And you dare call me unkind. Now I shall imagine all manner of vermin running about my skull for the balance of the evening.”

  “Serves you right, boy, for cozening me into this,” he grumbled. “I shall account you lucky if a mere megrim is the only consequence of tonight’s lark. If the half of what you have said about this fellow Taylor is true, he will not take this humiliation in good grace.”

  “That is why I want
you to leave as soon as I make my move,” Adam said, trying to impress his uncle with the gravity of the situation. “Wait for me at the reins, as we planned, in case there is a need to make a rapid exit. In fact,” he reflected, taking a brush from the Chinese box and dabbing it in carmine, “maybe you ought not to come in with me at all.”

  “Nonsense, might as well be in for a pound as a penny,” Lawrence said, then drew an awed breath as he took in the full effect of his nephew’s disguise. “I cannot credit it! You are the image of great-aunt Sophronia!”

  The devil danced in Adam’s eyes, and his baritone dropped to a crone’s cackle. “Aye, Nevvy, a gel in Drury Lane taught me a thing or two about painting the face.”

  “And knowing you, I suspicion that you taught her a thing or two in return,” his uncle retorted. “I would say that you look at least a century old.”

  “La, not a day over eighty!” Adam declared, slapping him playfully on the hand with a folded fan. “So ye think I’ll do?”

  “Your own father wouldn’t know you,” Lawrence assured him.

  “That is significant of nothing, I fear.” Adam picked up a pair of lace mitts and began to jam his fingers in blindly.

  “Here, allow me, Aunt Sophronia, before you rip those gloves to shreds,” Lawrence said, giving the young man’s wrist a gentle squeeze, offering what comfort he could with that small contact. “Your father loved my sister to distraction, but he might as well have gone to the grave with your mother.”

  Two pairs of brown eyes met, mourning the immutable past.

  Adam shook his head, picked up an ivory headed cane and allowed his uncle to hand him out the door.

  “Shall we go, Nevvy, and see if Professor Gutmacher can cure what ails me?” Adam asked, his tones rising to an old-woman’s pitch as they walked toward the entry. “Way I hear it, the man’s wonderful electric machine can cure everything from the flux to the French disease. Who knows? By tonight I may be walking without this cane.”