Her Ladyship's Curse

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know what you’re taking on with this one, Kit?”

“Absolutely.” After today I intended to steer clear of all the Walshes.

“Well, then I’ll let you get on with it.” Bridget stood and brushed some crumbs from the emerald satin. “Rose Room’s at the end of the hall on the left. Take as long as you like, but Kit”—she caught my arm as I went past her, and tugged me close for a careful hug so neither of us would be stuck by the pinned bodice—“whatever this personal business is between you and the lady, finish it now. You don’t want the Hill coming down on your heels or your head. That deathmage, either.”

I walked down to the Rose Room, where Betsy stood on guard outside the door. She ignored me entirely, so I did the same and stepped inside, where I found Lady Walsh pacing back and forth, her gait rapid and jerky.

“Milady,” I said, closing the door but not moving too far from it. “You asked to meet with me?”

She came to an abrupt halt, moved toward me, and stopped again to take a deep breath. I could almost hear her governess talking inside her head: A lady does not rush. A lady does not lunge. A lady does not throttle.

“Miss Kittredge, your advice to me has resulted in the unhappiest of situations.” She spoke as if she couldn’t unclench her teeth. “I followed your suggestion to entice my husband to discover the panel under my bed.”

“You dropped your ring, and he found it.”

She nodded tightly. “When Nolan discovered the panel, he became quite furious. In truth, I have never seen my husband so angry.”

She had called me here to tell me that it had worked? “I’m sure he’ll see to your protection, Lady Walsh.”

“Indeed he will not.” Her stiff expression began to waver. “He accused me of being disloyal to him.”

“Disloyal?” I echoed. “For getting cut up in your sleep by some intruder? Has he gone off, then?”

“Nolan believes I am responsible for the passage,” she snapped. “That I am using it to commit adultery. He even accused me of drugging him each night to prevent him from discovering my infidelity.” She straightened her spine and looked down her nose. “Because I took your advice, he is now threatening to divorce me.”

“But when you showed him the cuts on your hands, didn’t he . . .” As she shook her head, I groaned. “For the love of Jesu, milady, you have to show him your wounds.”

“I can’t.”

I wanted to shake her until her pearly teeth rattled. “They’re the only proof you’ve got of what’s being done to you.”

“There is no more proof.” She stripped off her gloves and thrust both hands at me.

Lady Diana didn’t have a mark on her. The ugly words had vanished, as if they’d never been cut into her skin. I took hold of her hands, checking them to see if she’d somehow disguised them with face paint, but all I felt was smooth skin. She didn’t even have scars. “This is not possible.”

“But it is, as you see.” She sniffed. “Now do you believe it’s a curse, Miss Kittredge?”

“No.” I held on to one hand as she tried to pull away. “Be still.” I took my magnifying glass out of my reticule and held it just above the skin. Examining one hand turned up nothing, but on the other I discovered a tiny fragment of dark red clinging to one of the fine hairs of her skin. When I gently nudged the fragment with my fingernail, she made a pained sound. When I plucked it off, the hair came with it.

“What are you doing?” Lady Diana demanded.

I carefully transferred the fragment to a bit of paper and folded it up. “Collecting evidence.” I pointed to one of the padded benches. “I have to go and consult with someone on this. If you want to know the truth, you’ll wait here for me.”

Bridget generously provided me with her carri, which I drove back to my office building. I left it parked at the curb and dashed down to the Dungeon, making my way through clouds of steam as I shouted for Docket.

“Hold on to your hatpins, gel.” The old man emerged from the steam, wearing but a towel wrapped around his skinny hips. “Come back later, Kit. I’m having a soak.”

I glanced at the contraption behind him, which resembled a giant teakettle. “A soak, or a boil?”

“That’s just the collection chamber.” He pointed to some hastily rigged pipes hanging over it. “Steam comes down from there, and the gap between me and the pipes cools it enough to make it tolerable. It’s a heathen practice. I’m calling it the Waterless Bathe.” He grimaced. “Haven’t worked out what to do about soap, though.”

I shook my head. “Get some clothes on, mate. I need you to look at something under the scope.”

Once he was decent, Doc brought me over to one of his workbenches fitted with a large vertical tube standing in an adjusted bracket. “Let’s have it.” When I gave him the folded paper containing the fragment I’d removed from Lady Diana’s hand, he opened it and gently placed it under the tube.

As he looked through the gogs he’d fitted to the magnifying tube, I explained where I’d found the fragment, and what had been done to Lady Diana. “She claimed the cuts didn’t hurt, and she never found any blood on her nightdresses or linens.”

Doc grunted. “I’ll wager all the wounds vanished within a day of her finding them as well.”

“How did you know?”

“She wasn’t cut, love.” He moved away from the scope, searched through some jars on a nearby shelf, and then handed me a jar of thick, dark-red liquid. “Wound paste. They made it out of animal blood mixed with a strong resin. My guess is someone used this to paint the words on her and scored the lines as they dried to make them appear like real cuts. You need a solvent to remove it or it acts like a new scab. If she tried to pull it off herself, she’d bleed.”

I’d never heard of such a thing. “Who uses this stuff?”

“Anyone with the know-how, I suppose,” he admitted. “It’s an old soldier’s trick. Cowards resort to it to prevent being sent into battle.”

“And you?”

“Sometimes I need an extra week or two to pull together the rent.” He ducked his head. “Me showing the landlord a wound that’s temporarily laid me up usually does the trick.”

And here all this time I’d been bartering with him. “Can I borrow this?” When he nodded, I took the jar and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “The next time you need help with the rent, mate, you come to me.”

By the time I got back to Bridget’s, Lady Diana had worked herself into a frazzle.

“Where have you been?” she snapped as soon as she saw me. “How could you leave like that? Nolan expected me home an hour ago. He’ll be furious.”

“Hang Nolan,” I said, and held up the jar of wound paste. “This is what was used on you.”

I repeated everything Doc had told me, and with every word Lady Diana’s face grew pinker. Once I’d detailed how the paste simulated wounds, I told her the rest of what I’d worked out.

“Your assailant assumed you would hide the wounds from your family and deliberately placed them on portions of your body that could be easily covered. By removing them the next night, he could make you think you were under the influence of a malignant spell. Or perhaps . . .” I wasn’t sure I wanted to complete my other thought.

“Tell me,” she urged.

I chose my words carefully. “Perhaps to tamper with your wits.”

“No one could be that evil.” She pulled on her gloves. “I am a devoted wife and stepmother. I treat our servants well. I have never inflicted harm on another person in my life. Why would anyone take such horrible vengeance against me? I’ve done nothing.”

I thought of the words that had been written on her skin. “You and your family profited by your marriage to Lord Walsh, which was arranged so that he might obtain another heir. To someone in your household, that makes you a greedy slut.”

Her head snapped up. “You will not speak those words to me,” she said through white lips.

Oh, now she was putting on airs. “Would you rather your husband say them in open court?”

“He will not, if you would come to dinner on Friday and tell my husband how you discovered the panel.”