Page 30 of A Potion for Passion

Chapter Sixteen

Lawrence struggled to hide his annoyance. Why couldn’t he have chosen a different tent in which to shelter? Any tent would be better than this one.

He recognized the circular table with its heavily embroidered cover and the red velvet curtain appliquéd with alchemical symbols and signs of the Zodiac. He could smell the soporific scent he always associated with this place.

With this woman.

There before them sat Daisy Bunyan, the painted fingernails of her left hand stroking the Tarot cards laid out before her. In her right hand she held a steaming cup of coffee. Daisy Bunyan, known to the world as Madame Grimoire, put her bone china cup on the table with a clink and stared at them, her kohl-etched eyes popping in surprise.

Lawrence grinned sheepishly. Then he noticed a second coffee cup on the table. This could get awkward.

Daisy stood, her brassy earrings twinkling in the light of her oil lamp, her dark eyes glinting. She was still a good-looking woman, despite the excessive cosmetics on her face and the long black wig she insisted on wearing over her brown curls. The fortune teller looked from him to Flora and back again, and he hoped she could read the plea in his eyes.

“Have you come to hear your fortunes?” Daisy asked in a deep voice, using an accent entirely her own invention.

Thank the stars! She hadn’t given him away. And Flora mustn’t be given away, either.

“We have, indeed,” he said, bowing.

Spectacle and atmosphere were everything to Madame Grimoire, and he smiled with wry amusement as she thrust the mundane-looking coffee cups out of sight. “I’m Dr. Campaign, and this is my new assistant, Madame Julietta from Paris.”

“Indeed?” Daisy’s dark eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline.

Hah! This felt good. She deserved to be made to feel jealous. He hadn’t forgotten how she’d strung him along when he was young and vulnerable, and came close to breaking his heart. Well, now he had a proper lady at his side, and he was going to make the most of it. He slid an arm around Flora’s waist.

Fortunately, she didn’t object. Instead, she nodded her head regally at Madame Grimoire and said in a passable French accent, “Enchanté, Madame.”

Oh, but he was enjoying this! What a marvelous game of dissembling. Which woman would be most successful in hoodwinking the other?

Daisy indicated the table. “Be seated, good sir and madam. Each reading will cost a silver sixpence.”

As Flora reached into her reticule again, he put his hand over hers. “I’ll pay,” he said, giving Daisy a hard look. She had no right to charge either of them, after the pleasures she’d taken with him.

“But that will confuse the Fates,” Daisy said. “Let the lady pay for herself. And if the Fates decree it, I’ll tell your future for no charge.”

Perhaps it would be wiser not to pursue this charade any further, but he could sense Flora’s excitement. The poor woman had probably never even seen a fortune teller before, let alone had a reading. He sighed. “Whatever you say.”

Daisy took Flora’s coin, bit it, then tucked it away beneath the table. His mind flipped back to the two coffee cups she’d secreted there. She clearly wasn’t alone. Who was concealed behind the red velvet drape?

Daisy gazed intently at Flora, then commanded, “Give me your hand.”

Flora held out her hand, palm upwards, and Daisy pretended to examine it minutely, after which she rolled up her eyes and made a strange humming noise. The expression of astonishment on Flora’s face almost made him laugh aloud. Then he heard a rustle behind the curtain, and his amusement faded. Thankfully, he still had a knife in each boot.

“You have a secret known only to the dead,” Daisy said.

Flora nodded, looking spellbound.

“Your heart has been broken, but not on purpose. It is now healed and ready to be offered again.”

Again, Flora nodded, her lips parting on a gasp. He had to admit, Daisy was good at guessing.

Was that another sound from behind the curtain? It was hard to tell with the rain clattering like shrapnel against the tent.

“You feel all the time like a fish out of water,” Daisy continued, “a mote of chaff in the wind. Your world slowly crumbles like the quaking earth, and the spar you cling to becomes a snake in your grip, and you’re drowning. Oh!” Daisy shook herself and patted the speechless Flora’s hand.

The fortune teller really did lose herself in her imagined drama.

“Forgive me,” she said. “The spirits have departed. What I passed on to you just now may not be as bad as it sounded, trust me. If you’re sensible, madam, no harm shall come to you. You’ll eventually find your port and drop your anchor. All will be well. But only if—”