Suddenly, Thea didn’t feel so tired after all.
She was preparing to greet Lord Luxborough, when she was distracted first by the appearance in the doorway of a grinning, gray-haired man, whose sleeves marked him as a bishop, and then by the zealot, who addressed her again.
“Yet you visit his devil’s lair, my lady,” the zealot said, continuing their peculiar conversation. “Be you a witch?”
She bestowed upon him the imperious look she had been practicing all day. “If you please! I am the countess.”
After a quick glance at Luxborough, the man recoiled in horror. “You came back from the dead!”
“I did what?”
“First did he kill you with his sorcery!”
“He did what?”
“Then did he raise you from the grave!”
Thea hesitated. As ludicrous as the rumors about Luxborough’s first wife were, she could not quell her curiosity about the kind of woman he had married.
“I am his second wife,” she said quietly, so Luxborough could not hear. “What can you tell me of the first one?”
“He poisoned her, ensorcelled her, enslaved her to his devilry.”
“That sounds like a lot of work. Why would he do all that?”
“Because he is a demon! A witch! A sorcerer! A—”
“Yes, yes, I comprehend that part,” she interrupted impatiently. “But if he has all this power, why use it to harm his wife? This has always puzzled me. Consider, if you will, the plight of a woman accused of witchcraft because two days after she argues with her neighbor, the man gets a pox on his tickle-tail. And this man, he says, ‘By George, that woman must have caused this pox through the power of the Devil. If she can do magic, she won’t use her magic to get a decent house or some gold, by George no, her only use for magical powers is to put a pox on my tickle-tail.’”
The zealot blinked at her, then tugged at his hair. “Have you a demon inside you, my lady?”
“I am rather hungry. Does that count?”
“Beware the beast! Kill you, he will!”
Oh, for pity’s sake. Thea was hungry and her feet hurt, and the best way to stop nonsense was with more nonsense.
“But after he kills me, he will raise me from the dead,” she proclaimed loudly. “Like he did his first wife. Like he did a thousand women.”
“He… What?”
“Oh yes!” she cried. “A thousand women, killed and raised to make an army of the dead! Beware the day when an army of dead wives marches on London. Beware, little man, beware.”
The zealot stared at her, wide eyed, and when he spoke, his tone was perfectly rational. “You’re mad.” He looked past her to the earl. “She’s mad.”
Thea turned. Up on the steps, the bishop was laughing, holding his belly as his shoulders shook. Luxborough elbowed him in the ribs, which only made the older man laugh harder.
Yet a smile played around Luxborough’s lips too, as he came down the last steps toward her. He was in his shirtsleeves, which might be why his shoulders looked so broad, and his wine-red waistcoat hugged a narrow waist and hips. How fascinating it was, that a man could have such broad shoulders and powerful thighs and yet such narrow hips.
Until Luxborough, Thea had never noticed how fascinating men could be.
“You continue to astonish me, Countess,” Luxborough said. “That you make such a response.”
She dragged her gaze off his torso and looked up to meet his eyes, humor glinting in their brandy-colored depths. Again, she felt that little skip of dismay-masquerading-as-excitement. “Response to what?”
“You were screaming at Dudley about an army of dead wives.”
“Oh. Yes. Right. I forgot.” Then his words sank in. “Dudley? You know him?”
“His name is William Dudley and he— Oh hell.” Luxborough’s curse startled her. He gripped her forearm, and she was so surprised by the firmness of his fingers that she did not seek the cause of his alarm, until he said, “It’s Ventnor. Go inside now.”
Needing no encouragement, her knees so weak she feared they might fail her, Thea picked up her skirts and ran inside. She raced straight past the bishop and into the front parlor, where she stood behind the curtain to watch, heart racing, nausea building, as Lord Ventnor’s carriage arrived.
It was a grand coach-and-four: a shiny black carriage pulled by four perfectly matched gray horses. The viscount’s coat of arms was emblazoned on the side, and on the back rode three footmen, also perfectly matched: all the same height and build, dressed in the same royal-purple livery, with the same white wigs on their heads. They leaped down the moment the carriage stopped. One pulled open the door, one folded down the steps, the third unrolled a royal-purple carpet on the street.