“Of course.The upper floors of this building are all occupied with the women who work in this shop.You must do that, too, naturally.To earn your keep.”
A job.An actual laboring position.Lady Tascott would faint dead away.“Yes, of course I will.Thank you.”
The door opened, and the shadow man slipped back in.He handed Lady Guinevere a little silk pouch and returned to a corner of the room.He leaned against the wall, crossed his ankles and his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.Doubtful he was actually asleep.With his air of rugged danger, Diana should feel wary of him, but she didn’t.Lady Guinevere’s rather casual treatment of him gave Diana courage.
Lady Guinevere shrugged her shoulder, and the bird flew off to a golden perch.She opened the silk pouch and sniffed its contents before pulling the drawstrings and handing it to Diana.
“What is it?”Diana asked.
“One of my specialties.Sleep with it, keep it on your person during the day, and you’ll heal more quickly.Open it up and breathe it in if you feel a headache coming on.”She strode for the door.“I’ll show you your room.”
Diana followed her into and across the bustling shop, batting back low-hanging vines and dodging the yellow blurs of darting potions mistresses.
“What are you good at?”Lady Guinevere asked, opening a door that appeared out of nowhere and stepping into a cool, dark stairwell.
“Good at?”
“Yes.Painting?Conversing?Needlepoint?Other ladylike accomplishments?Oh!Pianoforte?”
“I am good at none of those things.I”—Diana cleared her throat as they turned on the first landing—“research, I suppose.And care for sickly relatives.”
“Those are useful skills.What do you research?”At the next landing, Lady Guinevere opened another door and led Diana into a long hallway lined with doors on either side.“Ah.Right here.”She pulled a key from her pocket, and the first door gave way.
Diana stepped into a simple room.Narrow bed, blue curtains, table and washbasin.No fireplace, but the bed seemed piled high with blankets and pillows.A tiny writing desk sat beneath a window that looked out onto the busy square.A far cry from her Mayfair bedroom.“Goddesses.”
“Pardon?”Lady Guinevere threw open the one small window and the sounds of the street below rumbled in.
“I research goddesses.And byresearchI mean read everything on them I can find.Which is not much.”
“Now, thatisuseful.”
Diana laughed, a brittle sounding thing.“Hardly.”She dropped onto the bed.
“You’re exhausted.I’ll have some food sent round, and a hip tub.”She tilted her head.“A plant, too.Yes, that might cheer the place up a bit.”She made for the door, mumbling, “Books.Researchers need books.”
“Thank you,” Diana called out before she could fully shut it behind her.Paltry words.Too tiny for the gratitude alive and growing inside her, too big to contain, so loud even with all the other emotions clamoring for attention.
Lady Guinevere’s head appeared, and her grin appeared, too.“You are most welcome.Now rest.”The door clicked softly closed, but it was not a final sort of sound, like a lock hitting home or a vase breaking.It sounded inexplicably like safety, like respite after walking across the wide, gently rolling moors in a lightning storm.
Diana fell onto the bed, her fingers flirting with the back of her skull where it had hit the wall.It throbbed.Everything was muddled.She opened the pouch and breathed deeply, and the pain receded.Odd that Diana could shift what men saw, paint the world around her to her own whims—if she could learn to control it, that is—but she could not truly touch it.Until she’d inherited her grandfather’s magic, she’d never considered how… useless it was.She could glamour away the growing lump at the back of her head, but she could not heal it.
Lady Guinevere, though…
Oh God, she was going to cry again.And why not.Her cousin, her groom, had tried to kill her not an hour ago.Her secret was out.Now she was not only trying to avoid a marriage, she was escaping death.
