“Yes,” replied Pierre, though his tone suggested quite the opposite.
Matthew shot an inquiring look at Françoise, who pursed her lips and nodded grudgingly.
She returned her attention to getting me ready, wrapping me in a thick linen towel. Françoise had to have noticed the other marks on my body, those I had received over the course of that one interminable day with the witch Satu, as well as my other, later scars. Françoise asked no further questions, however, but sat me in a chair next to the fire while she ran a comb through my hair.
“And did this insult happen after you declared your love for the witch, milord?” Françoise asked.
“Yes.” Matthew buckled the dagger around his waist.
“It was not a manjasang, then, who marked her,” Pierre murmured. He used the old Occitan word for vampire—“blood eater.” “None would risk the anger of the de Clermonts.”
“No, it was another witch.” Even though I was shielded from the cold air, the admission made me shiver.
“Two manjasang stood by and let it happen, though,” Matthew said grimly. “And they will pay for it.”
“What’s done is done.” I had no wish to start a feud among vampires. We had enough challenges facing us.
“If milord had accepted you as his wife when the witch took you, then it is not done.” Françoise’s swift fingers wove my hair into tight braids. She wound them around my head and pinned them in place. “Your name might be Roydon in this godforsaken country where there is no loyalty to speak of, but we will not forget that you are a de Clermont.”
Matthew’s mother had warned me that the de Clermonts were a pack. In the twenty-first century, I had chafed under the obligations and restrictions that came with membership. In 1590, however, my magic was unpredictable, my knowledge of witchcraft almost nonexistent, and my earliest known ancestor hadn’t yet been born. Here I had nothing to rely on but my own wits and Matthew.
“Our intentions to each other were clear then. But I want no trouble now.” I looked down at Ysabeau’s ring and felt the band with my thumb. My hope that we could blend seamlessly into the past now seemed unlikely as well as naïve. I looked around me. “And this . . .”
“We’re here for only two reasons, Diana: to find you a teacher and to locate that alchemical manuscript if we can.” It was the mysterious manuscript called Ashmole 782 that had brought us together in the first place. In the twenty-first century, it had been safely buried among the millions of books in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. When I’d filled out the call slip, I’d had no idea that the simple action would unlock an intricate spell that bound the manuscript to the shelves, or that the same spell would reactivate the moment I returned it. I was also ignorant of the many secrets about witches, vampires, and daemons its pages were rumored to reveal. Matthew had thought it would be wiser to locate Ashmole 782 in the past than to try to unlock the spell for a second time in the modern world.
“Until we go back, this will be your home,” he continued, trying to reassure me.
The room’s solid furnishings were familiar from museums and auction catalogs, but the Old Lodge would never feel like home. I fingered the thick linen of the towel—so different from the faded terry-cloth sets that Sarah and Em owned, all worn thin from too many washes. Voices in another room lilted and swayed in a rhythm that no modern person, historian or not, could have anticipated. But the past was our only option. Other vampires had made that clear during our final days in Madison, when they’d hunted us down and nearly killed Matthew. If the rest of our plan was going to work, passing as a proper Elizabethan woman had to be my first priority.
“‘O brave new world.’” It was a gross historical violation to quote from Shakespeare’s Tempest two decades before it was written, but this had been a difficult morning.
““Tis new to thee,’” Matthew responded. “Are you ready to meet your trouble, then?”
“Of course. Let’s get me dressed.” I squared my shoulders and rose from the chair. “How does one say hello to an earl?”
Chapter Two
My concern over proper etiquette was unnecessary. Titles and forms of address weren’t important when the earl in question was a gentle giant named Henry Percy.
Françoise, to whom propriety mattered, clucked and fussed while she finished dressing me in scavenged apparel: someone else’s petticoats; quilted stays to confine my athletic figure into a more traditionally feminine shape; an embroidered smock that smelled of lavender and cedar, with a high, ruffled neck; a black, bell-shaped skirt made of velvet; and Pierre’s best jacket, the only tailored article of clothing that was remotely my size. Try though she might, Françoise couldn’t button this last item over my breasts. I held my breath, tucked in my stomach, and hoped for a miracle as she pulled the corset’s laces tight, but nothing short of divine intervention was going to give me a sylphlike silhouette.
I asked Françoise a number of questions during the complicated process. Portraits of the period had led me to expect an unwieldy birdcage called a farthingale that would hold my skirts out at the hips, but Françoise explained that these were for more formal occasions. Instead she tied a stuffed cloth form shaped like a doughnut around my waist beneath my skirts. The only positive thing to say about it was that it held the layers of fabric away from my legs, enabling me to walk without too much difficulty—provided there was no furniture in the way and my destination could be reached if I moved in a straight line. But I would be expected to curtsy, too. Françoise quickly taught me how to do so while explaining how Henry Percy’s various titles worked—he was “Lord Northumberland” even though his last name was Percy and he was an earl.
But I had no chance to use any of this newly acquired knowledge. As soon as Matthew and I entered the great hall, a lanky young man in soft brown leather traveling clothes spattered with mud jumped up to greet us. His broad face was enlivened with an inquisitive look that lifted his heavy, ash-colored eyebrows toward a forehead with a pronounced widow’s peak.
“Hal.” Matthew smiled with the indulgent familiarity of an older brother. But the earl ignored his old friend and moved in my direction instead.
“M-m-mistress Roydon.” The earl’s deep bass was toneless, with hardly a trace of inflection or accent. Before coming down, Matthew had explained that Henry was slightly deaf and had stammered since childhood. He was, however, adept at lip-reading. Here, at last, was someone I could talk to without feeling self-conscious.
“Upstaged by Kit again, I see,” Matthew said with a rueful smile. “I had hoped to tell you myself.”
“What does it matter who shares such happy news?” Lord Northumberland bowed. “I thank you for your hospitality, mistress, and apologize for greeting you in this state. It is good of you to suffer your husband’s friends so soon. We should have left immediately once we learned of your arrival. The inn would be more than adequate.”
“You are most welcome here, my lord.” This was the moment to curtsy, but my heavy black skirts weren’t easy to manage and the corset was laced so tightly I couldn’t bend at the waist. I arranged my legs in an appropriately reverential position but teetered as I bent my knees. A large, bluntfingered hand shot out to steady me.