Page 89 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

“Where has Gordon gone?”

“I don’t know. Don’t care.”

“Does Mr. Wallace have another house? Did he go there?”

“I thought you wanted only one thing.”

“It turns out I didn’t,” Thisbe replied. “Where does Mr. Wallace go when he leaves London?”

“Don’t know. Never asked. He never took me with him.”

“You have a singular lack of curiosity.”

“Safest that way, I’ve found.”

“I must say, you are providing very little return for our money,” Thisbe said sourly.

“Told you I didn’t know about it.”

It was clear they would get nothing else out of him, so Thisbe and the dowager duchess returned to their carriage.

“There now,” Cornelia said as she settled into her seat. “We’ve found out who has it. Now we must get it back.” She leveled a stern gaze at her granddaughter. “We have a duty. We owe it to our ancestors.”

The duchess’s echoing of the words from Thisbe’s dream the other night sent a tingle through her. “Grandmother...” She wasn’t sure why she felt the sudden need to confide in her grandmother; it was scarcely the sort of relationship they had. Perhaps it was their shared mission today. Or perhaps it was the fact that only her grandmother would find her words believable. “I have been having a dream lately. About a woman. There’s a fire and—”

Her grandmother grabbed Thisbe’s arm. “You saw her? Anne came to you in a dream?”

“She looked like the portrait of Anne Ballew in Uncle Bellard’s book,” Thisbe admitted. “But I don’t believe in such things.”

“What you choose to believe doesn’t change what happened.”

“Have you ever had a dream like that?”

“No.” Cornelia sighed. “But she is known to come to our family at times. It’s rare, but my grandmother said that her mother dreamed of Anne. No doubt this theft of her Eye has raised Anne’s spirit. That is why she came to you—it is you who must find it.” She nodded, pleased with the explanation for her own lack of a vision of Anne. “Did she speak to you?”

“That was what made me think of it. She said that I ‘owed’ her something. I’m not sure what.”

“Naturally. It makes perfect sense. You are the one whom the Eye calls. I was so sure it was Olivia...but that doesn’t matter now.”

“But it doesn’t call to me. When you showed it to me, I didn’t feel any tie to it. Not even a tingle.”

“No doubt it was blocked by that boy’s presence.” Cornelia used her favorite term for Desmond. “He is somehow connected.” Thisbe thought it was better not to mention Desmond’s aunt’s belief that he was Anne’s descendant. The duchess went on, “I think you must have his help, however dangerous it is for you to be around him. You must be very careful.”

“Grandmother, you don’t really believe that you can see into the future, do you?”

“Of course not.” Cornelia raised her eyebrows. “Don’t be silly. I didn’t see the future. I saw the curse of death on him.”

“Curses aren’t real. That’s absurd.”

“It’s absurd to ignore the truth,” the dowager duchess retorted, and her eyes suddenly flamed with a fire that was, frankly, unsettling. “I saw it written on him as well as I can see your face. I see it still. One of his kind will kill one of ours. He is bound by it, just as you are bound. I don’t know how or when, but sooner or later you will die because of him.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

AFTER THAT DIRE PRONOUNCEMENT, Thisbe and her grandmother returned home in silence. Thisbe would have liked to be alone for a few minutes to think, but her brothers and Desmond were in the hall, tossing a ball about with the twins, talking and laughing as Con and Alex shrieked and ran after the balls. The three of them looked almost as disreputable as they had the evening before. Their clothes, at least, were clean now and their hair combed—though Desmond’s thick mane, of course, tended to flop every which way.

However, their bruises had had time to develop and their cuts and scrapes to begin healing, so that now their faces bloomed with black and blue, accented here and there by scabs. She supposed it was a better look than blood. At least this time Desmond didn’t have a black eye.

The twins spotted Thisbe and the duchess and ran toward them, jabbering, and the men all turned, as well.