Page 8 of A Honeymoon of Grave Consequence (The Unexpected Adventures of Lady and Lord Riven #2)
“Ah, well.” He left it at that, but when she glanced in his direction a moment later, she found his brows furrowed in a frown.
“Are you unhappy to have missed tonight’s soiree after all?” She set down her open sandwich, grimacing. “I am sorry. Perhaps?—”
“No, no. That isn’t it.” He gave her closest arm a reassuring stroke.
“I was only wondering how exactly this mysterious baroness could have come across our address in the first place. I gave Atkins explicit instructions not to pass on the details of our stay to anyone else when he arranged it—and both of our staff members here have promised not to give out our names or titles during any visits they may make to local taverns or shops, for the sake of our privacy.”
“I don’t believe either of them would break our trust,” said Margaret. “Our host doesn’t seem the type to go out in the world and spread gossip about his guests, either.”
“True enough—but on that note, I forgot to tell you something , as well.” As Lord Riven shifted into an upright seated position, the covers fell to his waist to display a pleasing amount of his wide, gold-dusted chest. Margaret gazed upon it with proprietary pleasure.
..until his next words acted like a splash of cold water.
“There is a very small and manageable social event taking place tonight in this very inn—in fact, in less than an hour, now—and we’ve both been honored with an invitation.”
“Oh, no, really?” Margaret tipped her head back against her headboard with a groan. “But surely they don’t really wish for my presence. I could simply?—”
“Think of it as your penance for destroying our other invitation,” said her husband drolly. “And, far more importantly, for insulting me with the implication that I would ever be anything but proud to stand by your side in any circumstances.”
“Oh, very well.” She sighed heavily. “If this truly matters to you...”
“Thank you, my dear.” He leaned over for one final kiss before rising from the bed and beginning to regather his scattered attire.
“As we are planning to stay at least a month, I would prefer the other residents of our inn to meet you for themselves rather than relying on any distorted stories. However, I promise...” His voice was muffled behind the cotton shirt he was pulling over his head.
“Once you endure this evening’s torment, I won’t ask you to speak to another soul for at least a week. ”
“If only!” Margaret couldn’t hold back a sigh of yearning .
Still, she was fully clothed in plenty of time, with her husband’s assistance for the excessive number of tiny buttons and hooks that lined the backs of all her new, fashionably bustled Parisian evening gowns.
When she glanced into the mirror, her usual plain chignon—which she’d perfected over years of living alone in her scholarly quarters—looked satisfyingly neat.
Even the reflected image of the room, looking horribly empty behind her, couldn’t throw her off kilter after the evening’s revelations.
Tonight, she didn’t need any mirror to reassure her that her husband was still safely by her side. She was in no danger of losing him after all. So she lifted one lip in a sneer at her own irrational fears as she turned away from the dusty glass...
And a sudden piercing flash of light speared the corner of her vision, making her jerk to a halt with a gasp, clapping one hand to her eye.
“My dear?” Lord Riven was already waiting at the door, but he frowned and started forward as her vision cleared. “Are you unwell?”
Still blinking as she lowered her hand, Margaret turned slowly back to the mirror.
Pitch darkness pressed at the room’s un-shuttered windows; in the soft glow of the gas lamp, that dusty oval of glass above the vanity looked as ordinary as ever, with no hint as to what could have caused that momentary, blinding effect.
Had she imagined it? No, she couldn’t have; her eye was still smarting. Had something about the angle of her vision caused the reflected light from the gas lamp to simply strike her in the wrong way?
If she’d ever turned her studies to the science of light, she might know...but as it was, the rest of the inn’s residents were waiting, and the last thing she needed now was to offend them even further by being late.
“I am perfectly well,” she assured her husband, and she managed a smile as she took his outstretched arm, the discomfort already fading. “Truly, it was nothing worth worrying about.”
She would never be so heartless as to ask him to look into a mirror for her sake. He might be larger and stronger, but that would never stop her from protecting him from harm.
Luckily, there were no other mirrors to be found on their dark path along the hallway, down the stairs, and through the unlit, interconnected rooms of the ground floor.
The first two sitting rooms were empty, as was the shabby library, but the eerie sound of an unusually deep and resonant flute, playing a yearning tune in a minor key, trailed through the air like a summons to tug them forward towards the second large dining room.
Light at long last flickered from the crack beneath that closed door. Instinctively, Margaret’s hand tightened around her husband’s arm as they approached it.
Coming to a halt, he dropped a kiss on her hair. “We can leave after the first hour,” he whispered too softly for even the keenest of supernatural senses to overhear from the next room.
Only an hour . Taking a deep breath, Margaret lifted her chin and pushed the door open.
The flute cut off with a squeak, and in the sudden silence that followed, Margaret found seven pairs of eyes all fixed on her with varying degrees of wariness, fear, and horror.
It wasn’t the first time she had found herself the center of such hostile attention.
Years of being the only female student in most of her courses had taught her how to keep her expression unwaveringly fierce and full of disdain, no matter which insults might be whispered—or called out without shame, to gusts of laughter and table-rapping approval from her classmates—whenever she entered a classroom.
However, it had been years since she’d entered a room full of strangers with the hope of somehow, miraculously making herself liked ...so she had no idea how to arrange her features now as she stood, frozen under their silent regard, the fire- and candle-lit room blurring around her.
Fortunately, her husband was already stepping forward to shield her with a graceful bow and a thread of steel underlying his cordial greeting. “My friends, we deeply appreciate your invitation. I believe most of you haven’t yet had the honor of meeting my wife, the famously brilliant Lady Riven?”
Margaret couldn’t help wincing at that description, but manners drilled into her from childhood compelled her into movement, her head lowering and her legs jerking into a polite curtsy.
As she rose, she met Fr?ulein Leonie’s glowering gaze from the other end of the semicircle of seven chairs that had been arranged around the looming flautist.
Oof. So much for hoping to be liked or at least tolerated! Setting her teeth together, she braced herself to be excoriated once more.
To Margaret’s shock, though, the nachzehrer only frowned and looked silently down at her clasped, clawed hands on her black-robed lap. It wasn’t a welcome by any means, but it was enough of a relief to grant Margaret the courage to take in the rest of the semicircle in detail for the first time.
Only four of the assembled chairs were occupied. The flautist, a young man clad in an evening jacket and trousers far too loose for his tall and narrow frame, loomed in front of the fire, face shadowed, gripping a pale and oddly-shaped flute, which almost looked as if...
Aha . Yes, that flute—or rather, pipe—had definitely been made from human bone. An arm bone, if Margaret’s estimation was correct, making him one of the famous soul-pipers of the Black Forest. No wonder his music had acted as such an effective summons!
That moment of scholarly identification settled her nerves nicely.
Looking around from the perspective of an experienced academic, rather than the awkward girl who’d run afoul of every unspoken social rule in her aunt and uncle’s household, Margaret was able to take in her husband’s introductions as he made them.
“Of course, you’ve already met Fr?ulein Leonie.” Lord Riven gave the girl a brief smile that might have seemed friendly if he hadn’t taken care to expose a dangerous glint of fangs along the way. “But may I now introduce Herr Fischer?”
The slight, dark-stubbled, and nervous-looking man in the chair directly to Leonie’s left hunched even further into himself with his introduction. His fingers beat a rapid tattoo against his leg as he gave a jerky nod that shook his unfashionably long, glossy black hair...
The exact same shade, Margaret noted, as that of the giant raven’s feather she had found early that morning—presumably upon Herr Fischer’s return from a long night of hunting and flying. Even without the extra clue provided by his surname, she would have drawn her own conclusions.
She had read about the Black Forest’s famous night ravens, of course, but she had never met one in real life until now.
It took all her willpower—and the memory of Leonie’s furious face that morning—to swallow down the immediate stream of questions she wanted to unleash.
Sealing her lips shut, she only smiled and nodded before turning to the older, brown-haired woman who sprawled, seemingly boneless, across the next chair like a queen lazily surveying her domain.