Murder by Magic by Rosemary Edghill

Author:Rosemary Edghill [EDGHILL, ROSEMARY]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: FIC003000
ISBN: 9780446510547
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2007-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

Two days later, in her sumptuous mansion beside the river, the beautiful Albine de Ambreville was reclining on a sofa draped with leopard skins when a servant came in to announce visitors.

The Countess declined to rise when Jaucourt and his friend entered the room, though she did extend a pale, somewhat damp and trembling hand to the Lord Constable.

He sketched only the briefest of bows, and Montjoye hung back by the door, looking haggard, haunted, and sleep-deprived. They had spent the last forty-eight hours experimenting with unclean magics, and the taint was still on them.

“I take it,” said Albine to the Constable, “this is not a social call?” The hand he had so pointedly ignored was withdrawn. It fell into her lap, where it lay like a broken piece of shell, against the sand-colored satin of her gown.

“Madame, it is not,” Jaucourt answered sternly. “I have come to arrest you for the murder of Prosper de Rouille. Though there may be charges of fouler things as well, by and by.”

She regarded him with heavy-lidded eyes. “But why, Jaucourt, should you suspect me? What brings you here?”

“Not what, but who: Damien Alincourt. I had some difficulty bending him to my will; the spell that was on him was amazingly powerful. Then, too, I began by asking the wrong questions. I wanted to know who it was that enslaved him, but that was a name he was unable to speak. When I finally thought to ask who carried the soul trap to Château Lezardz=, he gave me your name readily enough.”

“I see,” said Albine with a lazy movement. “But why, after all, should I deny anything? I’m not ashamed of what I have done. That is,” she admitted with a faint blush, “one need not apologize for crushing a snake like de Rouille, though the means I employed were far from clean. About that much I do feel some shame. But I had a father and a brother to revenge. And I mean to release Alincourt’s spirit eventually—which is better than he could have expected from the man who sold him to me!”

She rose slowly to her feet, her hands extended before her, her almost impossibly slender wrists held together. “What, Lord Constable, no chains? No manacles? But this is a most genteel form of arrest!”

“Madame de Ambreville,” said Jaucourt, “there will be chains and manacles enough, later on. In any case, I am not your gaoler. Out of respect for the Count, your husband, I thought we might accomplish this in a dignified fashion.”

He felt, rather than saw or heard, Montjoye make an embarrassed movement by the door. “But before we go, perhaps you will answer one question for me: who was the black magician that sold you the soul trap?”

She tilted her head, regarding him obliquely. “If I give you his name, would it go easier with me later?”

Jaucourt shook his head in quick denial. “Unfortunately, I can make no such promise. Indeed, madame, I can promise you nothing.”

The lady shrugged.

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