Page 46 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
Lady Strauss set the flask down and stared at her hands. “Have you got any plans?”
“I’ve spoken to Richard. I’m hoping he’ll be able to think of something.”
“I still say that he might prove a more appealing target, if you’re wanting to distract her from your brother.”
“Perhaps,” said Hester. “I also thought, perhaps, that Samuel might rekindle something with Penelope…” She trailed off.
Imogene looked at her teacup, looked at her flask, and then pushed the tea aside and simply swigged it.
“No?”
“If I were Penelope, I’d think twice. That is a great deal of ruthlessness to put oneself in the path of—”
Someone screamed.
It was a woman’s scream, full-throated and bloodcurdling, a scream of agony or terror or both together. It rang out shockingly close, barely muffled by doors and walls.
“Dear god!” Hester shot to her feet, heedless of the pain in her knee. Imogene lunged for the door and flung it open before the echoes had even died away.
Two footmen pounded past. Doors opened all along the wing. Hester heard Richard’s voice shout a question.
Another scream, scarcely softer than the last, ripped through the house.
Richard and the footmen flung themselves at a particular door. Hester hobbled toward them as the hallway filled with servants. “It’s Penelope’s room!”
“Mrs. Green!” Richard slammed his shoulder into the door. “Mrs. Green, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
The door refused to yield. Hester grabbed one of the maids. “Get the housekeeper! She’s got the keys!”
“No time,” said Richard grimly. He nodded to the footmen and all three put their shoulders to the door. “On three…”
The door was old oak, elegantly carved. It held. The latch did not. The door slammed against the wall with a boom that echoed through the house like cannonfire.
“What the devil…?” Samuel and Lord Strauss crested the stairs. “What’s going on?”
Richard cursed softly, but with astonishing venom. Hester could not remember the last time she’d heard him swear like that. He stepped into the room and Hester heard him say, “Penelope, what’s going on?”
“Out of my way,” Hester told a footman. He tore his eyes away from the scene inside the room and blinked down at Hester.
“Ma’am—begging your pardon—this is no sight for a lady’s eyes.”
Not the sort of phrase you want to hear when your friend may be injured. Hester gritted her teeth, wedged her cane between the doorframe and the footman, and let him decide whether he wanted to use force to stop her.
He did not. She got her head around the edge of the frame and her mouth sagged open.
Penelope Green stood in the center of the room. She was holding a long knife and blood had spattered her dressing gown in lurid scarlet. Her eyes were huge and her mouth worked but no sound came out.
Hester’s first wild thought was that Penelope had somehow nicked herself opening a letter.
Her second was that people did not bleed like that from nicks. Her eyes followed the line of blood down, to a heap of black and white cloth lying against the wall. Black and white, dyed dramatically red, with an outflung hand as white and waxy as a lily.
My god, it’s her maid.
“Penelope,” said Richard, in a very calm voice, “it’s all right. Everything will be all right.” He took a step forward, his hands held up in front of him. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but we can fix it.”
“No,” whispered a small voice. “No, no, no…”
Hester’s gaze jerked sideways. Evangeline was huddled on the far side of Penelope and the maid, near the door to the balcony. Her gown did not appear bloodied, but her hair had fallen from its coiffure and hung over her face.
