Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Her child's voice was soft and insubstantial as a ray of sunlight, but Grayson heard the underlying fear, a fear that had been part of her for a long time. "If I tell you, he'll know exactly where I am. I told you, Max, he always knew where I was. Even when I was quiet and hiding he knew where to find me." She paused, frowned. "But once I was so scared I sort of pulled inside myself, let my mind go blank, and he didn't find me. But then he did. I tried it again, and I felt him looking, looking, but then he lost interest and went back to his books and potions. Until later."

Grayson looked at her clear gray eyes, eyes deep with magic. And he knew she'd cloaked herself without realizing it.

Max lightly cupped a small hand in his, knew he had to tread carefully. His potions? He couldn't find her but then he did? Max had always hated anything he couldn't understand, couldn't explain or grasp, but now everything had changed. He said quietly, "It's time, past time. Is he part of your family? Tell me, Crispin, all of it."

It was clear she didn't want to, but Max said nothing more, kept his eyes on her face. Grayson could see she trusted him implicitly, ah, but she was so afraid.

She darted a look at Grayson and said, "I lived with my parents in our house at 33 Holland Square. We were very happy. My papa—Viscount Fielding—loved trains. My aunt told me he invented things to make them better and he owned shares and loved to ride everywhere in them even though Mama said they were dirty and loud. My aunt told me he and my mother died when their railcar went off the tracks and plunged into the Detmer River. I was four years old." Her breathing hitched and tears swam in her eyes. "I look at their portraits, and I scarce remember them."

Max pulled her against him for a moment, rubbed her back, then set her away from him. So she was Laurence Sandifer's daughter. He said, "I knew your father. He was kind to me, a charming man, and yes, he was obsessed with trains. I never met your mother. Tell me what happened after your parents died."

"Aunt Cora and Uncle Reginald moved in. He was my father's younger brother and the new Viscount Fielding. I loved them. They took care of me. We were happy, then everything changed three months ago. My uncle changed. When my aunt was out of the house, he would yell at me, slap me, threaten me not to tell my aunt or he would hurt me more. I didn't understand. My aunt found me crying, and I couldn't help it, I told her. I knew she believed me because I realized she was now afraid of him too. But then one day I heard them yelling at each other. Miss Briggs, my governess, pulled me away and took me up to my room. She knew my uncle had changed, and she knew when he hit me. She was afraid too, for me and my aunt and for herself. But she didn't know what to do. There was no one to help us.

"Then my aunt fell down the stairs and died. My uncle dismissed all the servants, even Miss Briggs. It was just the two of us. He didn't have to pretend any longer. He beat me whenever he wanted to, and as I said, he could always find me no matter where I hid.

"Max, I knew so many really good hiding places, but he'd still find me.

"He changed a bedchamber into a sort of laboratory. I snuck in once and saw him mixing something in a glass bottle. It was sort of thick looking, a green and brown. It looked really nasty. I knew he drank it three times a day. Once he saw me while he was drinking this awful potion and he smiled, licked his lips, and watched me while he drank down the entire glass.

"He was mean and vicious and acted like a madman. Sometimes I heard him speaking to himself, a dark voice filled with hate and spite. I didn't understand, but I knew he wasn't my uncle anymore and I knew I had to escape." She fell silent, looked down at her soft leather slippers.

Grayson said, "What did you do, Crispin?"

She swallowed, looked up. "I put laudanum in his drink—I knew it made people sleep. It was in a labeled bottle on a shelf in his room with a lot of other bottles. I was with him—he usually kept me with him, sometimes he locked my wrist to a chair arm so I couldn't run and hide. That day he forgot to lock my wrist to the chair arm, and when he turned away to do something, I dumped the whole bottle of laudanum into that horrible green drink." She shuddered. "It took a long time, but finally he fell asleep in his chair in front of the fireplace. That's when I ran. But I was in a ragged dress—you saw it—and I knew I had to have something else to wear, and that's why I was in your armoire, Max. I planned to tie my belt around your shirt and it would look better than what I was wearing."

"Where had you planned to go?"

"To the police."

"That was very smart," Grayson said, but he imagined if she'd made it to the police, they would have taken her back to her supposed uncle, of course. He was, after all, Viscount Fielding, a peer.

She said, "I know he pushed my aunt down the stairs. I saw him looking at her portrait over the fireplace in the drawing room and he laughed, called her an old cow. My real uncle loved her—they loved each other, and me." She swallowed. "One night I asked him who he was."

Grayson leaned forward. "That was very brave of you. What did he say?"

She looked at Grayson and saw a man like Max, strong, solid, and she wondered if his son loved him as much as she'd loved her father and her uncle. And she recognized there was something more to him, something deep and mysterious, and when he looked at her, as he was now, she felt comforted, safe. She licked her lips again, shot a look at Max, then said in a clear child's voice, "He laughed and laughed and rubbed his hands together and said, ‘Why not?' He ordered me to call him Master Prithius. He said he could do anything—taking over my pathetic uncle was nothing. He could rule the land and the seas, and people like my uncle were fools and weak, and he would use me in the future when I was no longer a child, if I pleased him. He told me how lucky I was. He'd chosen me. And he laughed, a horrible sound. He always laughed, and most of the time there was no reason to. He said laughing was the only thing humans did he liked. So I knew he wasn't human, he was some sort of evil spirit.

"He left most nights after he'd tied me down to my bed, to go on one of his pleasure parties, he called them, and always he'd laugh that horrible sound, rub his hands together. Once he said the ladies adored him, always welcomed him, and wondered about their dreams when they woke up the next morning and felt guilty. I looked in one of my papa's dictionaries and looked up evil spirits and there was this drawing of this creature, long and slithery like a snake, and his head was flat and his eyes looked like they were burning. It said he was an incubus and he visited ladies, went into their dreams and had intimate relations with them. I didn't understand. I still don't.

"He's evil and scary. He looks like my uncle, but he isn't. I'm afraid my uncle is dead. I love him—he's kind and loved to tell jests and he loved my aunt. And he's gone. And Prithius killed my poor aunt because she knew he was bad and evil and he had no use for her."

Grayson slowly nodded. "Yes, he did. He also couldn't take over more than one person, and he chose your uncle." He looked at this young witch and knew the incubus Prithius had come to London for her, but he didn't say it aloud, not yet. "What is your name?"

"Lilybeth."

Grayson said, "Did Prithius call you Lilybeth?"

She cocked her head at him, and he could practically see her thinking. "He never called me anything. Wait, I remember, after one of his pleasure nights, he called me Lilith."