The Lady of Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

Stop it,” Meg hissed. “I hate it when you do this.”
    “Do what? Honor my father by wearing the sword he gave me?”
    “I don’t object to you wearing it, so much as you itching to stick it in somebody.”
    Meg held her breath as she awaited the man’s reaction to Seraphine’s aggressive gesture. The moment stretched out before he lowered his gaze. He bent in a grave bow and disappeared into the inn. Meg’s relief was so keen, a tremor coursed through her. But Seraphine—damn the woman—actually looked disappointed.
    She eased her cloak back over her sword. “That’s that. Both of us are a little too much on edge, getting into a fret over nothing. Just some fool Englishman who has doubtless lost his way and seeks shelter from the incoming storm. He likely hoped to pass his time with some local wench.” Seraphine’s eyes danced with mischief as she added, “Just a hint, my dear. Next time you venture off your island, you really should try not to attract so much attention.”
    Meg choked between a laugh and a vexed oath. “Wretch! If men are of a mind to stare, it is always at you.”
    “But
you
are the one they never forget. I daresay it is those fey green eyes of yours. One look into them and a man is lost forever.” Seraphine teased, but there was a wistful note to her voice as well.
    Meg shook her head, dismissing Seraphine’s words as nonsense or wanting to because she had striven most of her life to be forgettable, to be invisible, hidden by the mists of Faire Isle.
    Perhaps she had overreacted to the stranger, her irrational fear just another part of the bleak legacy left her by her mother. For most of her childhood and youth, she had every cause to fear, to know what it was to be hunted. Every stray glance, every stare that lingered too long, every stranger who crossed her path could herald danger.
    But surely those days were long behind her now. Her great enemy, the Dark Queen, Catherine de Medici, was deadthese fifteen years and more. Meg’s witch of a mother, Cassandra Lascelles, was gone longer still, swallowed up by the waters of the Seine. Likewise Cassandra’s coven of fanatic devotees had all been destroyed, slain by witch-hunters or imprisoned, tried, and put to death.
    There was no one left to menace Meg’s peace anymore, no one to come after her. So why should the encounter with this stranger cause the back of her neck to prickle? Some voice inside her whispered that his coming here, his interest in her was no mere chance.
    When she was younger, she would have heeded that voice. As she grew older, she became less attuned to the fey side of her nature, more inclined to question her instincts, to dismiss her extraordinary senses as folly.
    Her pulse tripped nervously as she and Seraphine crossed the yard and approached the archway where the stranger had vanished. Meg wished that Bridget Tillet was a fisherman’s daughter, dwelling in some remote cottage far up the beach. More than anything, she wished herself back on her island.
    When Seraphine shoved open the inn door, they were beset by a cacophony of noise and overpowering scents, the odor of strong spirits and cooked meats mingling with the stench of unwashed bodies.
    At least the mystery of the absent villagers was solved. Meg’s heart sank as she entered the crowded taproom. Most of Pernod appeared crammed inside, every vacant stool and bench filled. Others leaned upon the bar counter, gesturing and arguing, the sound like the buzzing of a wasp’s nest that had been disturbed. Meg could make out little of what was being said, but the tone was unmistakable, angry and frightened.
    The traveler she had encountered outside sat a little removedfrom the locals. Of all the people present, he was the only one still and silent. Perhaps that was the very quality that drew her eye, that aura of isolation that clung to him, made him seem alone even in the midst of this crowd.
    As Seraphine closed the door behind them, all heads turned in