Anne Stuart by Prince of Swords Page B

young lordling who would make her quite happy. She could reassure Lady Barnett that her daughter would make a fine match. Signorina Varvello would spend an enjoyable season on the Continent, where she would find the answer to her dreams, and elderly Miss Hamilton would rediscover her missing locket.
    Throughout the safe, happy futures she could feel him watching her, his slanted amber eyes sliding over her ordinary little body like his bold, elegant hands. She didn’t like him. He upset her in ways far different than Josiah Clegg did.
    Clegg she simply despised, for the venal, bullying, dangerous creature that he was.
    The man who watched her was dangerous as well, in far different ways. He unnerved her, pulled her attention away from the cards and toward him, and she found herself fiddling with a stray curl that had come loose from her tightly coiled mane of hair.
    “ My turn,” a young woman said gaily, throwing herself into the vacated seat. “Tell me my fortune, O mysterious one!”
    She was astonishingly fair, almost as beautiful as Fleur. Her eyes were bright with joy and good health and the knowledge that she was well loved.
    Jessamine took the cards in her hand slowly. “And you don’t need to tell me whom I’ll marry,” the lady said. “I’m already married. I want to know how many children I’ll have.”
    “ Besides the one you’re carrying?” Jessamine asked softly, flipping the cards.
    “ But I’m not—” The woman stopped. “That is, I didn’t know...”
    Jessamine looked up and smiled. “A healthy boy, Lady Grant, for you and your husband, in eight months’ time.”
    The clamor that arose after that pronouncement was deafening, and Jessamine cursed her flapping tongue. She should have kept her mouth shut, offered some vague, conventional hopes, and left it at that. Lady Grant would discover soon enough that she was pregnant—she didn’t need Jessamine to impart that information.
    Her head was pounding, her stomach was knotted, and her hands were shaking from the strain of the afternoon. There were at least half a dozen more young women eager to hear their future, and the very thought made Jessamine drop the cards in a clumsy pile.
    She reached down to pick them up, but a hand covered hers. She already knew that hand too well.
    “ Miss Brown is exhausted,” he said. “I’m sure the rest of you will excuse her.” He already had his hand under her arm, helping her to her feet, and she was too tired and bemused to protest.
    “ Glenshiel, you are a bad man!” Lady Plumworthy said. “I promised my guests that they would have their fortunes told.”
    “ And so they shall. On some other occasion.” He was leading her from the room, and she had no choice but to go with him. She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him; it was all she could do to regulate her uneven heartbeat.
    A few moments later she found herself sitting in a small, quiet salon. A glass of wine had appeared out of nowhere, and the door was closed against the intruders—except that the intruder she most dreaded was already there, leaning against that very door, watching her.
    “ Who are you, Miss Brown?” he asked in deceptively polite tones. At another time she might have admired his voice—it was deep, elegant, and undeniably soothing. Like the purr of a great cat.
    She was slowly regaining her composure and her defenses. “No one of any consequence, sir.”
    “ Just an ordinary witch, is that it?”
    “ I’m not a witch!” she shot back, still unnerved by the suggestion.
    “ No, of course you’re not,” he said, pushing away from the door and coming closer. He was much taller than she’d realized—his wiry grace minimized his height. He leaned down so that he was close, dangerously close, and his voice was soft and seductive. “You’re Miss Jessamine Maitland, formerly of Maitland Park. Aren’t you?”
    She looked up at him in absolute horror. “You’re the one who’s the witch,” she