Page 13 of The Lady is Trouble

Scamp, Yank, Scandalous Scott.

For once, she planned to do something aside from living up to her hideous reputation.

Chapter 5

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows.

~John Clare

Lyon, France

Sidonie pacedthe length of the cavernous dining room in her family’s estate, her skirt tangling around her legs with each step. Her breath came so rapidly black edged her sight. She clutched her throbbing head and studied the crude paintings on the wall through muted perception, the plush carpet her bare feet sank into providing no comfort.

Everything was a grotesque blur, a moonlight-and-shadow nightmare.

Nothing could ease the chill. Not the roaring fire in the hearth, or the fur cloak wrapped around her. The frost was bone-deep. Unrelenting and merciless. The visions arrived without any promise of containment. Ghastly, with sharp teeth and glowing eyes, they nipped at her in vicious little bites. She was unable to sleep more than an hour at a time. Unable to eat. Her life had ground to a halt while her contemporaries married and had children, things she had once longed for.

Desired.

Her former friends and lovers feared her after the tragic incident at the theatre. She would never be allowed to return to French society. That horrible night, the crimson wash beneath her feet, spiraled through her mind. She halted in the middle of the room, her shout echoing off the castle’s stone walls.

She drew a soothing breath that did little to soothe. The scent of spices—ginger, cardamom, thyme, turmeric—stung her nose.Putain d'enfer, those had not helped.

Opium, absinthe, prayers.

Her only hope for a future without the visions was the girl.

The healer. The granddaughter.

A whisper floated through her mind.Piper.

Sidonie snaked her fingers through her hair and yanked the snarled strands until her scalp tingled. Desperation drove her to recall the latest vision—when she never wanted to step into that world again—and examine it for clues to the healer’s location. Sliding to the floor, she let the images carry her away as if they were a river and she flotsam. Flames, smoke,chaos. A girl,no, now a woman, dropping to her knees on a brick path. Strong arms encircling her, offering protection. The force of emotion—fondness, exasperation, attraction—flowing between the two was deep-seated. A compelling force when joined, they would pose a test if challenged as one.

But there was danger in their joining as well. She lifted her head. A vulnerability. She would have to strike when they were at their weakest.

Sidonie’s men had failed three years ago, finding the earl when she wanted thegirl. Killing him in their stupidity and getting killed themselves, which had sent the healer into hiding. Even if he had lived, the earl’s knowledge was useless. Had he not proven this at their first meeting, when Sidonie was little more than a child? Her father believed the earl could cure her madness, but his chronology proved to be simply the scribbles of a man fascinated with the occult. He’d been fascinated withher, a true dreamer he’d called her, a curse that had consumed her entire, miserable life.

She’d not wanted to know what she was—she’d only wanted to rid herself of her curse.

She wanted the dreams afforded others in their thoughtless indulgence. Lovers, family, a future. When all given to her was death, destruction, and terror. Blood dribbling down the steps of a Roman theatre while the world watched. Whilehe, the man she had once thought would be hers, watched.

She groaned and dug her nails into her scalp. Another vision intruded, this one bringing the scent of pine, earth, woodsmoke. A forest set around a shimmering lake. Stones the color of fresh cream. Protection, unease, yearning.Love. Heart thudding, she stood on unsteady legs.

The healer was no longer in London.The man was with her, a protective force, but their vulnerability, the crack in the façade, remained.

With a sudden mental tug, the vision was yanked from her mind.

A theft.

Someone else close to the girl with considerable skill. Someone expendable should they stand in her way as death was becoming commonplace.Everyonewas expendable. Even the healer, should it come to that.

The vision had been clear, and even with the interruption, she’d seen enough. She could identify the trees. The lake. Those milky-white stones. She would remember enough this night or another soon to get close to the girl.

Or, expendable herself, she would die trying.

Finn gasped and yanked himself from the dream. A bead of sweat tracked his cheek, and he dashed it away. His breath shot from his lungs as if he’d taken the stairs at Harbingdon at full speed. Kicking at the damp counterpane, he palmed his stomach and swallowed past the queasiness.Damn. He could feel the woman’s desperation, hermadness, thrumming through his mind like hammer blows. Whispers with a cat’s-claw bite.

The stench of spice and decay pushed him over the brink.