I clamped my hand around her arm and shook her hard.
“Do not speak. Do not say another word. Your intentions are enough to buy you a noose.”
I stopped a moment, thinking with an icy clarity that should have surprised me.
“Are any of your brothers in London?”
“Jasper. He is at Hampstead.”
Jasper, he would do. He was a horse dealer, and a good one. During the season, he could usually be found in London, peddling prime horseflesh to the pinch-purses who would not pay the prices at Tattersall’s. I moved swiftly to the mantel, sweeping up the nearest bibelots.
“Take these,” I ordered, thrusting the Sèvres candlesticks and the porcelain Pandora’s box into her startled hands. “Go to Jasper. He will know where to sell them to get money for you to live on. I haven’t any banknotes in the house and I dare not ask Aquinas. Once Jasper has gotten some money for you, get straight out of London. Go anywhere, but not into Sussex. Stay as far away from me and mine as you can, and above all, do not send word where you are. In a few months, you should be able to rejoin your people, up north would be best.”
She tightened her grip on the pieces of porcelain, nodding slowly. “You understand that I would never harm you, lady.”
I regarded her coldly. “You were prepared to poison a member of my family, my own kinsman. You have already harmed me.”
She nodded sadly and turned to wrap the objects in paper. I instructed her to cushion them with waistcoats and shirts, and in a very few moments she was finished. She reached into her pocket and drew out a piece of knotted calico.
“Do you know what this is?”
I shook my head.
“It is a charm, made from the graveclothes of a dead Rom. This comes from Carolina. It is the strongest magic I can give you.”
I took it with reluctant fingers. “Magda, I do not—”
“You will need magic. Because of him, the dark one. I cannot tell his fortune, but he brings death. He brings ruination and despair. I hear weeping when he walks and the screams of the dead echo in his shadow.”
The words might have been a trifle melodramatic, but the effect was ghastly. Her voice was low and her eyes glowed conviction. Whatever she had seen, or thought she had seen in Brisbane, she believed it.
“Thank you,” I said, clutching the small charm.
She nodded and moved heavily to the door, cradling her parcels.
“You will see me again, lady,” she promised me solemnly.
“Not for a very long time, I hope,” I said as the door closed softly behind her.
I opened my hand and stared down at the knot that carried so much powerful magic. And I tried to remember where I had seen one like it only recently.
THE TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs, and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion,
For the fair, disdainful dame.
—John Dryden
“A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”
Perhaps the last activity to promise any diversion that night was an evening with my family. But almost as soon as the door closed behind Magda there was a knock at the door and I could hear the too-cheerful voice of the Ghoul.
