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“And who sends this message?”
Mr. Quincy goggled at her; she had apparently gone off script. “You must follow me, for you alone can tame the Wild Lion of Wales!” He threw his arms wide, imploring; then he flung them to the left, into the wood she and Alwyn had hiked to view thecursio. When she did not move, he flung them again in the direction he wished her to go.
She should take the time to leave a note for Timothy but reckoned that would ruin the narrative flow of the showman’s production. This was not the work of a friend and was likely driven by malice, but the need to know what this little drama was about was too much for her.
“Lead the way,” she said, and he did.
Once out of sight of the cottage, Mr. Quincy veered off west and into a part of the wood that did not invite trespassers, at least not of the two-legged variety. The deep underbrush and the closely grown trees would suit the smaller Shapeshifters, the mice and the squirrels and the ferrets. Her foot slid on the mulch of leaves, on earth that never saw the sun. Brambles—again, lovely for the mice—tore at her skirts, at her coat. Having such a large figure to follow did not help, as Mr. Quincy, despite the size of his frame, wafted through the narrow spaces between trees and bushes like a vapor. Low-hanging branches slashed at her face, she slipped and slid again, into the oppressive dark, and up ahead, in the first example of a clearing they’d yet to come across, the actor stumbled and started to fall to his knees. Tabitha darted forward; as she reached for him, he eeled out of her grasp, and she lost her balance and tumbled into a pit.
A pit. That had been camouflaged with cut branches. A pit dug in the middle of the wood where no one her size would wander. She picked up one of the branches, from a tree she’d never come across. She sniffed it, and it smelled like nothing, chewed on a leaf (she could hear Llewellyn’s outraged growl in her ear) but tasted nothing. She stood and felt her ankle give; she had turned it just enough to be painful. “Wonderful,” she muttered. “Mr. Quincy? If you would lend a hand? I find myself in difficulty—”
A figure appeared at the edge of the pit to perch like a gargoyle. “Oh, yes, you are indeed in difficulty.”
“Asquith.” Tabitha would not bother with the title she suspected was wholly fictional. “How unexpected.”
“Barrington. How easily you fell into my trap, figuratively and literally.”
“I won’t say this comes as a complete surprise.” Tabitha took another step and did her best to suppress a wince.
It was not missed by the sharp eyes of the snake Shifter. “Oh, no, have you come to harm? Whatever will happen when the Duke of Llewellyn finds out? It is well-known he does not Change. Will he do so, to save his sweet virgin bride?”
“I am none of that,” Tabitha muttered. She waved a branch of the strange plant. “What is this?”
“It is calledneem,” Asquith said. “It is known to hide the scent of those who wish it hidden. For example, aversipelliswho does not wish to be known as one. It will prevent your scent to be discovered.”
Except for the fact her scent could be followed this far and thus lure Llewellyn straight into Asquith’s clutches. “And it grows wild in this place? I wouldn’t think it was allowed. That sort of deception could prove dangerous.”
“I cultivate it myself and brought it with me.”
“In one of your trunks? That was well plotted.” Tabitha tossed aside her branch of neem after slipping some leaves in her coat pocket. “I suppose that comes from churning out those novels at the rate you do.”
“You think yourself so worldly with all the traveling you have done, but when it comes to commerce, you know nothing.”
Tabitha heard Mr. Quincy mutter, “Where am I?” and saw Asquith strike, whipping out her chain and pendant and letting it sway until the man settled. Tabitha looked away, for even as far down in the ground as she was, it had a dreadful effect on her.
“As I was saying,” Asquith began, and the chain once again vanished from sight, “I require far more to sustain my lifestyle than I can earn as a writer, despite my devastating popularity. You would be amazed at what a lord or an earl would pay to avoid being exposed in one of my stories.”
Tabitha tried her ankle again; she had wrenched it comprehensively. “No one would believe it.”
“No human.” Asquith left simpering behind; her voice was as hard as the rock at the bottom of the pit. “But aversipelliswould read the truth between the lines, and it would not go well for the lord or the earl.”
“I understand His Highness does not involve himself in these matters. Whose authority would you expect to render justice?”
“It would be a very rough form of justice, Barrington, and nothing to do with the crown.” Asquith brushed her hands, encased in those scaly gloves, down the front of her expensive pelisse. “I have risked my ensemble to come here to you. You will be guarded by that easily influencedhomo plenus—it was child’s play, really—until I release him from my power. I will put it about that you have been abducted. Perhaps your suitor will become paralyzed by grief, and therefore easily snared by the sort of poachers his kind often attract.”
“He will look for me.” She knew he would, and it was an equally terrible outcome.
Even in the dim light of the deep wood, Tabitha could see the lady author’s nasty smirk. “That, too, is an acceptable twist of plot.”
Eighteen
The pageant wagon, axle repaired, stood in all its glory on the edge of the village green, transforming the heart of Lowell Close into a theater. While many larger vehicles of its kind had a second story to double the playing space, this one was modest yet by no means the lesser for it. One of the long sides of the wagon folded down in front to form a platform; curtains hung from the base to the ground on all sides to conceal the wheels and provide a changing room and a place for props to be easily retrieved during the run of the show. A painted garden hung as a backdrop, and a bench was set in the center, with banners concealing offstage left and right. It looked as any traveling playing space would but for the bear crouched in the corner.
The bear, who was becoming increasingly distraught. Alwyn wanted to ask Miss Barrington—Tabitha—what she saw when she looked at the creature, for she would see that something was not right.
Every stratum of the Lowell Pack was represented, from the servants and footmen in the Hall to the shopkeepers and crafts folk of the Close, to their Alpha and Gamma, who moved throughout the crowd greeting one and all. The Humphries were present, and it was all Ben could do to keep his cubs from running onto the stage to get a closer look at the ursine participant. The Duchess of Osborn had a composed look on her face that Alwyn perceived as boding ill, or at least unusually watchful for a pleasant day of entertainment. Lowell’s duchess had the same stillness about her, like an eagle in an eyrie, waiting patiently for its prey.
Alwyn discerned a counterpoint to Lowell and Gambon’s movement: that bee, and that goat, and that frog, in a pincer movement, whispered into the ears of all they met. Nods and determined expressions fell in their wake, and casually, but with purpose, the multitude drew in a protective phalanx around the Humphries cubs.
