Both men gripped her elbows tightly, moved her closer to the leader. When they released her, she swayed on her feet. Glancing down, she saw the beautiful crimson carpet and thought it looked like blood pooling at her feet.
Where were her shoes?
The leader—had she ever learned his name?—leaned toward her like a buzzard perched upon a limb, waiting for its prey to die. He said something to her, but the words were lost in the curious fog surrounding her mind.
A chill was spreading through her body. She felt as if she were becoming slowly frozen. Everything was slower than it should have been, including her comprehension. When the two men ledher to a table covered in cloth, a warning bell pealed, but any sense of danger felt distant and obscure.
The leader came and opened her robe, pushing it back from her shoulders. She no longer felt any kindness from him. Instead, he reminded her of something dark and dangerous and sharp: a cat’s claws, a parrot’s beak, a knifepoint. She took a step backward and realized that both men were standing stood behind her, blocking her escape.
Laughter came from far away. Were they laughing at her innocence or her gullibility? Or for her sheer naïveté to believe something good might come from her foolishness?
She should never have come. She should never have left Uncle Bertrand’s home.
A man ran a knife from the top of her collar all the way down her bodice. He cut through each successive layer of her clothing, ruining the expensive whalebone corset she’d inherited from her mother, as well as her only shift, one of the few garments she’d brought with her from Scotland.
When she was naked, she was lifted on to the table. Staring up at the rosette of plaster above her head, she told herself it was a dream. A garish sort of nightmare in which she was imagining horrible things.
People were looking at her. She could feel their gaze. The cloth was cold on her back, her buttocks, and thighs. Could she be cold in a dream? The tips of her toes were frozen, and her nose felt the same.
She heard the sound of laughter again. She was Veronica Moira MacLeod, the daughter of a Scots man of letters and his beloved wife. Her father had always told her that a question was the purpose of a trained mind. Why, then, was she being ridiculed for wanting answers to her questions?
The room was spinning, and the cold was growing worse. Was she dying?
She felt the brush of cloth against her feet and managed to raise her head. He was standing at the end of the table, stroking the back of the knife up her leg. She felt herself tremble, but couldn’t seem to move.
His hand was scorching on her skin, parting her knees.
The howl of a wolf startled her into semi-awareness. Wolves didn’t live in London. A blur of motion jarred her, made her jerk. She turned her head to see a man wrestling with the leader. He was shouting. Something bright and metallic caught her eye, like a pretty talisman dangling in the air.
Two men joined the fight. Thunder sounded, so close she couldn’t hear for a moment. The sky separated, rained down, pieces of it falling on her.
God had come, then, to rescue her. Thank You, God.
Her eyes were so heavy she could barely keep them open to see the struggle.
God was winning, but of course He would.
Suddenly, she was upright. No, not upright, but slung over someone’s shoulder. Did God carry a sinner in such a fashion?Oh, God, I have sinned. Please forgive me.Something hard was digging into her stomach, dislodging the ice. She wasn’t feeling very well suddenly and wanted to warn God.
She was miserably uncomfortable, her stomach lurching, her head whirling. Her bottom was cold.
He set her back on her feet, better for her stomach but worse for her head. The room was spinning again. She reached out and gripped God’s sleeve only to realize it wasn’t God at all, but a man, a stranger.
She tried to get her balance, realizing she wasn’t in the same room. Instead, she was in a hallway, being draped in a scratchy brown robe.
The stranger was gripping her wrist with one hand and pulling her after him. She stumbled behind him, wishing hewould stop. They were descending steps, long, steep steps that made her dizzy. She flailed for the banister, heard an oath just before she was upended again.
A black cloud was falling over her, something dark and frightening and overwhelming, stripping her of thoughts and feelings.
She succumbed to it with a sharp feeling of regret.
Chapter 2
Night draped over London as if to silence the noise, a mother’s protective blanket over the child of the city. London didn’t sleep. Instead, the night was always punctuated by the rhythmic clicking of carriage wheels as they traveled over cobbles laid down hundreds of years ago.
Even in this quiet and sedate square, lights flickered beyond the draperies, indicating that sleep wouldn’t visit some inhabitants that night. In the distance was the sound of laughter: a raised voice from a neighboring house, a faint far-off protest, whether male or female, he couldn’t tell.
Here, nature didn’t quiet to rest; night wasn’t surrendered to nocturnal creatures like in Virginia. Or perhaps the cycle of life was present in London as well, except the owls, ferrets, and foxes had been replaced by their human counterparts.
