Where it led, however, was to another clearing, no bigger than a parlor, with two more paths leading away. It took Thea several ragged, relieved breaths until she was calm enough to notice what lay at the center of the clearing.
A grave.
The grass around the gray stone was carefully tended. A morning glory vine clambered exuberantly over the tomb and headstone, pink blooms winking among its glossy green leaves. A pair of little blue birds perched on the headstone, chattering at each other, before flying off to their next appointment.
Thea crouched beside the grave and she knew, even before she tenderly parted the vines covering the headstone, whose name she would see.
Katharine Jane Landcross.
She traced the engraved letters and then the dates: Katharine had been twenty-five years old when she died, nine years earlier. The only other words were from the Bible: “Come unto Me and I will give you rest.”
“What is your story?” she whispered. “What happened, Katharine?”
A sound: She spun and stood, shrinking into her cloak. Luxborough, coatless and hatless, was heading right for her, striding along one of the other paths so fast his hair bounced and his shirtsleeves billowed. His face… Oh, how awful and evident was the displeasure on his face.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, though she knew he could not hear.
He had given her one rule—not to come into the woods—and she had broken it. The story of his late wife still haunted him, and she had barged right in. He was clearly upset and he had every right to be, and oh, she could not bear it! Before she even knew what she was doing, Thea had whirled about and was running back down the path she had come.
What a coward she was, to run like this! The right thing would be to face his anger and disappointment, but those two things had always made her weak, and now she was embarrassed and guilty too, and oh, she could not face him. So run she would, and keep on running. Run back to the house, where she would run to Gilbert and run away. Helen would surely be married, and Luxborough would not be sorry to see her go.
But back in the clearing, a glimpse of what she thought was another person had her shoving open the door to the stone cottage and dashing inside to hide. She shut the door and waited, struggling to listen over the rushing of her blood: nothing. Once her eyes had adjusted to the gloom and her lungs had recovered from her exertion, she turned.
And found herself nose to grin with a human skeleton.
With a cry, Thea leaped backward, slamming into the wooden door. A heartbeat later, she laughed at her own fright.
The skeleton hung from a hook and made no attempt to attack her, even as she sidled near. She poked one bony shoulder. It swayed and grinned. Well, it couldn’t help that, poor thing.
Fascinated, Thea looked around. The skeleton’s domain proved to be a single room, with a stove in one corner and dried herbs on the walls. Dominating the space was a huge battered table covered with glass receptacles and various items whose names Thea could not guess, let alone their purpose. Also on the table was a row of large jars in which floated strange shapes. She drew closer. Was that…? A snake with two heads! And a strange creature like a misshapen, half-formed baby, with thumbs on its feet and a long curling tail. And there— She lifted her eyes to a shelf holding a collection of invitingly fat books, whose spines bore the words “Materia Medica.”
Then the door slammed open. Rafe filled the doorway, a looming silhouette against the light.
Thea could not see his face, and she supposed he could not see hers in the gloom. Her fingers gripped the wooden edge of the table, and when he turned his head, the angle showed his clenched jaw, his tense shoulders. Sourness flooded her throat, the familiar taste of having been a disappointment.
Hands aching, she released the table, wiped her palms over her skirt, and straightened her spine. No more cowardice. That was not who she wanted to be.
“Have you found what you were looking for, then? Proof that what they say of me is true?” His voice was harsh, unlike the confused, gentle man whose embrace had calmed her the night before. “My evil sorcery? My poisons? My cruelty? How you must fear me now.”
She feared him.
Rafe wanted to throw back his head and howl. Tear the door off its hinges and smash every glass vessel in the room. Then she’d have a reason to fear him!
His own fault. Threatening her friend. Teasing her for a kiss. Being surly and silent and solitary. Wandering about while intoxicated on bhang. No wonder Thea feared him. Just as Katharine had feared him, at the end.
Blast it! Thea had not feared him last night.
Not when she had taken his hand, or softened her body against his. In his drug-addled memory, the feel of her danced over his skin like quicksilver. Last night she had looked after him, and trusted him. And just now, when he saw her darting through the clearing like an inept spy, he had laughed and set out to talk and tease.
Until he saw her face, with its patent apprehension.
“You found my dead wife’s grave,” he snarled.
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice was anxious, her face pale.
Damn her, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Damn them both, he should bundle her into a carriage and send her away forever. He should take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. But neither was possible, so he thumped the table and the glass vessels rattled.
“Do you want to know how she died, you with your endless questions? Did I poison her? Ensorcell her? Or was it commonplace cruelty that made her flee? Do you ask yourself what kind of monster I must be?” Fury stole his reason, taking charge of his tongue and turning him irrational. He waved an arm at Martha’s curiosities and the instruments of her science. “You must be pleased to have found such excellent answers—Demons. Poisons. Sorcery.”
“Rafe. I mean, my lord. Please.”
Worried. She sounded worried. Fearful.
Rafe grabbed the skeleton’s bony hand in a grotesque wave. “Do you imagine I killed this one too? Or that these are instruments of my evil?”
He bounded across to Martha’s collection of curiosities, flicked the glass jar holding the two-headed viper.
Thea edged closer, her head tilted.
“Yes, indeed, I practice witchcraft and this snake is my familiar,” he snarled. The monkey fetus: “This baby is the Devil’s spawn. And behold—the remains of a human sacrifice.” He slammed his hand down on the jar holding a horse’s heart bigger than a cabbage. “This is the heart of a virgin.”
“That heart is giant,” she said, eyeing it dubiously.
He glared at her. “The virgin was a giant.”
She studied the heart, clearly not squeamish, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were big and round. Her lips were pressed together. Her shoulders slightly shook.
She was trying not to laugh.
Rafe’s irrational rage evaporated as quickly as it had come. Bloody hell. If only he could go back, start this conversation differently. Because if it started differently, it might end differently. It might end with them laughing together. With him pulling her into his arms and kissing her as he had dreamed of kissing her last night.
Instead he… Oh, the devil take him. What a fool he was!
Hot embarrassment slithered over his skin. In a few strides, Rafe reached the door and yanked it open.
“My lord?”