Page 81 of The Lady is Trouble

Piper brought her head up slowly. Too quick a movement, and she would lose consciousness. Leaving the present for even a moment could not happen again, as it had invoked her captor’s rage, lunacy unlike any she’d ever experienced.

Sidonie.

The woman chasing her for weeks through Finn’s dreams had a name. And a horrific past Piper had spent two days mired in. Being caged in Sidonie’s mind was worse punishment than being beaten and tied to a chair—worse punishment than anything she could imagine. Healing was not the word for what she’d done, stitching together Sidonie’s awareness with gossamer thread. The edges tattered and uneven, Piper had made a patchwork quilt of the mess but, impossibly, left gaping holes.

Gaping holes the woman’s sanity was draining from like blood from a wound.

But what had Piper’s skin stinging like a razor was being scraped across it: Sidonie had no aura. Only skin, bone, and madness. There was no way to save her, no matter the initial spark of hope Piper had held. No possibility for her to do anything but play this game until Julian found her.

Please, Jules, find me.

“My grandfather,” she whispered from bruised lips bruised. The room was overly warm. A fire raged in the stone hearth; the windows were closed to hold in the heat. Yet Piper shivered, tremors racking her body, the ropes binding her to the chair holding her up. The scent of Frankincense pressed, and her stomach heaved. “When?”

Sidonie paused in the middle of her trek across the room, a route she had repeated a thousand times without a hint of exhaustion slowing her. Her pupils were such a startling shade they appeared crimson in the firelight; her hair snarled, a black demon hanging down her back; her clothing well-made, speaking of affluence, but from another era. Piper shrank back helplessly as Sidonie leaned over her, the brooch she had relinquished in return for a sip of water glistening from its perch on the woman’s collar.

Devil.

No more.No more.

Sidonie thumped her hand against her chest. “Il y a longtemps. You understand?”

Piper swallowed, her head beginning to pound. Her French was dreadful. That governess had only lasted a week. “A long time?”

“Long ago.” Sidonie blew out a disgusted breath. “Senseless American.”

“A good thing…my gift is from the English side, then.”

Sidonie struck Piper across the cheek before she could prepare for the attack. With a snarl, the madwoman drew her arm back to deliver another blow.

“I can’t heal if you strike me senseless. Remember the last time?” Piper wiped the blood coursing down her chin on her shoulder, astounded her words were strong when she felt as feeble as a child. If Julian waited too long, Sidonie would kill her.

“Your grandfather wasknown.”

Piper gazed through the eye not swollen shut as Sidonie resumed her circuitous route. Blindfolded when they brought her in, Piper didn’t know exactly where they were. A secluded manor. South, if her sense of direction was correct, less than an hour by carriage from Harbingdon. If Finn had enough time to dream, they would eventually find her. She simply needed to keep Sidonie from putting a knife through her neck as had been threatened multiple times.

In between impassioned demands to heal.

“Known?” Piper asked, directing Sidonie back to the conversation. Talking had proven effective at diminishing her wild ranting.

Sidonie turned in a fraught swirl of aged velvet. “Known! Even in Lyon. My father had contacts who requested a meeting with the Occult Earl. An ambassador. Or maybe it was the Baron who—convoité moi—wanted me.” She waved this away as if her past were nothing. Her accent worsening with her agitation, Piper struggled to comprehend her speech. “Desperate, all of them, to keep me from an asylum. Imagine, a trip to England in the dead of winter.Froid.”

She halted, her gaze seeking Piper’s. “Your grandmother tried to help me.”

Piper straightened, gasping in pain. She had battled the knots securing her legs to the chair for hours with little success, leaving abraded, tender skin. “I was…too young to remember her.”

Sidonie gestured frantically with each pass across the carpet. “Her eyes were kind. She didn’t look at me like a, like amonstre. Like my family! Like everyone! Curse that I am, that Ihave, my thoughts stopped her heart.” She dropped to her knees before Piper, her passionate gaze appealing for understanding. “I didn’t mean to kill her. You must understand. Youmust.”

Piper shuddered. Her lungs burned, her vision blacking at the edges.

Breathe, Piper.Defenseless if you faint.

Sidonie gripped Piper’s knee, both of them trembling. “Before. Before she died, your grandfather told me there was another. Stronger. Someone to help me.UnAmericain. I never forgot you were my savior. But years passed, and…youramoureuxhid you well. Too, the beautiful boy. He distorted the communication traveling between us. He is not my friend.”

I can’t help you.

Sidonie took one look at the miserable validation on Piper’s face and exploded. Bounding to her feet, she set about todestroy. Pages ripped from books; porcelain tossed to the floor; paintings ripped from the wall. The guards standing in each corner observed as indifferently as those at Buckingham Palace, apparently not the first time they had seen this feverish display.

A tear tracked Piper’s cheek. She could not survive this encounter.