Louvaen squeezed his hand. “She’ll have an entourage with her. You and I need to figure out where we’ll put everyone. Do you want to make a few plans tonight?”
He shrugged. “Why not? Finish your dinner. I’ll stoke the fire in the parlor. Bring the teapot.”
They sat side by side in the parlor and drank two pots of tea between them as they made plans for accommodating a much larger household. The fire had burned low in the hearth when Mercer gave a huge yawn and stood up. “I’m off to bed, Lou. You?”
Still worn out herself, she readily agreed. They bid each other goodnight at the top of the stairs, and Louvaen watched her father fondly as he scowled at his door before disappearing into his room. She’d wager he hadn’t slept alone in his room since her return to Ketach Tor. He missed the comfort of his affectionate neighbor.
Once in her room she readied for bed. Falling asleep this time wasn’t so easy. She stared into the blackness above her with dry, gritty eyes. Her thoughts flitted back and forth between ways to avoid Jimenin and the puzzle of Isabeau’s curse.
Guided by the accepted truths that no curse could withstand true love or its kiss, breaking this one seemed simple. How very wrong they were. The nonborn Louvaen had broken one part with her declaration of loving Ballard. Cinnia had broken a second part by proclaiming her love for Gavin. The only thing left to breaking the third was for Gavin to remain the faithful son and not attack and Ballard: or vice versa.
They hadn’t counted on the nature of the curse—almost sentient in its intent to fulfill its caster’s will. It had reacted like a rat cornered, raising a flux that sent Ballard into paroxysms of madness and pain and transformed Gavin into an abomination. No matter Ambrose’s powerful magic or the devotion of the women who loved them, the two men would have to save themselves and each other. Louvaen struggled to find hope in such an outcome when the next flux promised to reduce them both to creatures of unthinking savagery. That the two would turn on and destroy each other seemed inevitable.
Jimenin’s worrisome deceptions were nothing compared to this disaster. “Such misery you have wrought, Isabeau,” she said before drifting off to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Louvaen awakened to a foul-smelling hand clamped over her mouth. She swung her fist, surprising her attacker with a blow to the head that numbed her arm. He grunted and jerked away. Louvaen lunged from the bed, kicking and flailing as the man pawed the hem of her night rail. She fell against the table, knocking the wrapped dagger to the floor. Her hand closed around the hilt, and she landed one last kick on the intruder before bolting for the door. A thud sounded behind her—a body tripping over the chest at the foot of her bed—followed by a round of curses.
Ribbons of moonlight spilled through her father’s open bedroom door, providing the only illumination in the hallway. Louvaen’s heart, already pounding in her chest, jumped to her throat. “Oh no,” she whispered. “Papa.” She sprinted toward the stairs, clawing frantically at the dagger. Wrapped and sheathed, it was useless to her.
She was balanced on the top tread when a tremendous force struck her from behind and sent her flying. Louvaen twisted, dropping the dagger to clutch empty air before her hands tore into cloth and lacings. A startled cry echoed hers, and the man who had sneaked into her room toppled down the stairs with her. Her head smacked the wall and then the edge of a stair as they pitched toward the first floor and crashed sideways through the banister before coming to a halt.
Dizzy and certain she’d broken at least one something, Louvaen kicked herself free of her attacker and staggered to her feet. He lay unmoving next to her dagger in a watery pool of moonlight. She lunged for the blade, snatching it close. The sinister click of a flintlock being cocked froze her in place.
“Hold, Louvaen or I splatter Mercer’s brains all over your pretty parlor.”
Had there ever been a voice more hated than Gabrilla Jimenin’s? Louvaen braced a hand against the wall to steady herself and peered into the flock of shadows shifting and turning before her. She squinted in the sudden brightness of a lit oil lamp and spotted her father gagged and bound in one of the parlor chairs. His eyes were huge as he struggled against his bonds.
“What have you done to my father, you pig?”
Jimenin, his face bisected by the scabbed wound she’d given him that day, clucked and shook his head. “No need for name-calling, mistress. I haven’t done anything to him. I needed him quiet for a moment until you came downstairs.” He eyed the destroyed banister and his unconscious henchman. “Not quite what I envisioned when I sent that idiot to fetch you. He was supposed to drag you down the stairs, not throw you down them.”
Jimenin stood next to her father, a loaded flintlock resting casually in his hand and pointing just as casually at Mercer’s head. He was armed with a sword and brace of pistols and was garbed in black traveling leathers. His men surrounded him—at least a dozen crowded into her small parlor; wolves waiting to do their leader’s bidding.
Mercer inhaled a harsh breath when Jimenin jerked the gag down. “Lou! Are you all right?”
Jimenin snorted and mocking laughter filled the room. “It’d take a lot more than a tumble down the stairs to defeat that vicious tarleather you sired, Mercer. Look who’s down and who’s standing.” He gestured to his still senseless minion and motioned to another. “See if he’s dead. If not, rouse him. We need to leave soon.” He pointed to Louvaen’s covered dagger. “Put whatever that is on the floor and kick it to me.”
She clutched the hilt tighter. She wouldn’t hesitate if he’d asked for her night rail, willing to stand naked before a host of thieving lackeys than give up the one physical reminder she had of Ballard. “It’s just a hairbrush,” she lied, already mourning the inevitable loss.
“I wouldn’t trust you with a wooden spoon. Hand it over.” He emphasized his impatience at her stalling by nudging Mercer with the pistol.
She placed the dagger gently on the floor, a clear indication that what she held was far more precious than a hairbrush. One of Jimenin’s henchmen handed the bundle to his master.
The don shook the dagger free of the silk. His eyes lit with an avaricious gleam at first sight of the sheath. “Far more interesting than a wooden spoon,” he said softly. He handed the flintlock to the man who’d given him the knife and unsheathed the blade. Admiring murmurs from his men accompanied his low whistle. Louvaen’s teeth ground together. He glanced at her, then at the blade before settling a longer stare on her. “This is either a gift from one warrior to another or one lover to another. Which is it, Mistress Duenda?”
“None of your business, you thieving gleet.” The idea he’d guess her relationship with Ballard sent a crawling shudder down her spine.
He shrugged, sheathed the knife and tucked it into his belt. “No matter. I now have a fine weapon to add to my collection.” He smirked at her growl and reclaimed the flintlock.
“What do you want, Jimenin?” Mercer addressed his captor for the first time since Jimenin had removed the gag.
The other man’s smirk widened to a grin, flashing a mouth full of stained, yellowed teeth. “You know what I want, and you’ll tell me how I can get her.”
Louvaen rolled her eyes—the only parts of her that didn’t ache after her hurtle down the stairs. By all the gods, would this never end? “Cinnia is married, Jimenin. Why can’t you leave her alone? Leave us alone?”
“Because I get what I want, and a hasty marriage isn’t an obstacle. Especially when that sop de Lovet is her husband.”
