Path of secrets, p.1
Path of Secrets, page 1
part #6 of The Andari Chronicles Series
Path of Secrets
Kenley Davidson
Page Nine Press
Copyright © 2019 Kenley Davidson
All rights reserved.
Published by: Page Nine Press
Editing by: Theresa Emms
Cover Design, Layout, & Formatting by: Page Nine Media
This is an original work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and incidents are products of the creative imagination of the author or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), businesses, institutions, places, or events is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner without the written consent of the author, excepting short quotations used for the purposes of review or commentary about the work.
http://KenleyDavidson.com
Dedicated to Bethany Johnson, who like Lady Norelle is an inspiring mentor to young women who need role models now more than ever. For her commitment to sharing both her time and her wisdom with our daughters as they grow up and give shape to their dreams, we are forever grateful.
Contents
Books by Kenley Davidson
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Thank You
The Series
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Books by Kenley Davidson
THE ANDARI CHRONICLES
Traitor’s Masque
Goldheart
Pirouette
Shadow & Thorn
Daughter of Lies
Path of Secrets
THE ENTWINED TALES
A Beautiful Curse
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One day her mother said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she has been very ill…”
Little Red Riding Hood set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village. As she was going through the wood, she met with a wolf…
Charles Perrault, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge
Prologue
In the end, the old woman was not difficult to persuade. She had her objections, of course, and a rather large number of unreasonable demands. But the offer of a holiday in the south proved irresistible, and at length, she was packed off at the head of a caravan so large, one would have expected royalty be traveling somewhere in its midst.
He was, of course, informed in no uncertain terms that he would be held responsible for anything untoward that befell her precious—and utterly pretentious—house. Her threats regarding the windows alone ranged from having him horsewhipped by the king, to ensuring that he was never received by any reputable hostess again should the glass suffer so much as a single crack.
He doubted the king would be interested in attempting violence against his person, and he couldn’t imagine being a guest in any place the old woman might consider respectable. But he could pretend well enough, so she’d departed with the smug conviction that she was aiding one of the king’s most trusted courtiers in a matter of great importance to society.
Even if neither of those things was actually true.
The girl would be arriving soon. She would be well-protected, of course, but her safety was hardly his concern. What mattered was his knowledge of what she carried, and the message that had reached him only hours ago: The basket is moving north.
The basket, and its rumored contents.
Very few were privy to the knowledge of what had been seized from the hold of a seemingly innocent merchant ship while it lay in Andar’s largest harbor. Very few, and none outside of the Crown’s most trusted advisors, and yet, somehow, word of the discovery had spread. Curiosity was rampant, payment had been offered in exchange for information, and promises had been made—promises that had yet to be fulfilled.
Thankfully, even the curious did not yet understand the true nature of what had been found. If the full details ever became known, it would mean war, and it was therefore vital that the traitor be discovered before he or she made good on the promise of stolen information. Wars, after all, were almost always counterproductive, even in his line of work. Therefore, preventing them had generally proven to be the wisest course of action, if not always the most straightforward.
And anyway, he’d been paid for his trouble, so he set about making the house ready with deliberation and conviction.
The girl must not be allowed to realize that anything was amiss, other than the obvious—she’d been told that her grandmother was dying, so she would expect a dark, somber atmosphere. Even the lack of servants could be explained away, by the demands and crochets of an unreasonable old woman.
No one would realize the truth until it was far too late to do anything about it.
Chapter 1
No matter how hard she tried, Miss Batrice Reyard couldn’t escape the apparently universal truth that unmarried ladies of a certain rank were expected to enjoy embroidery.
She didn’t.
Not that she wasn’t proficient. Need a rose frame? She knew the stitch for that. A pansy border? She could create one without needing any sort of pattern. In eight colors. But part of the reason she’d run away from home at seventeen was a decided distaste for anything involving needles.
So how could she have ended up here, more than two years later, in the drawing room of Lady Something-or-Other, bending her head over an embroidery frame in less-than-willing imitation of all the other young ladies in attendance?
Oh, right. Because she was supposedly being sponsored at court, and her sponsor believed it would be beneficial for her to polish up her public persona.
Batrice couldn’t have disagreed more. There was nothing wrong with her personality, thank you. Or her accomplishments. She’d suffered through five years of an exacting governess and was perfectly adequate at etiquette and all of the other traditional skills.
Or had been, she reflected, as her needle stabbed into the tip of her index finger for the third time that afternoon.
Besides, her sponsor was actually supposed to be giving her spy lessons.
Or whatever it was called when one was in training to become a secret agent of the Crown. Batrice hadn’t expected it to be all thrills and excitement all the time, but was it too much to expect at least a few thrills? Or even the tiniest of intrigues?
Thus far, her lessons seemed to consist primarily of learning to convince the world that she was the least interesting person alive, which required a temporary return to the incredibly dull life of a debutante. A life that Batrice thought she’d left behind when she ran away from home and became an actress.
As she muttered a decidedly unladylike word under her breath, Batrice glanced around the drawing room and almost giggled when she encountered at least two other rebellious glances. Miss Coralynne Smythe was stabbing her needle through her work as though determined to commit murder by silken thread, and Zolanda Fidgins had spent the past hour pulling out one stitch at a time with glacial slowness. As Zolanda was quite sprightly in all other circumstances, Batrice reasoned that it was likely a ruse, and she wasn’t the only one wishing she were elsewhere.
It wasn’t likely, though, that either Coralynne or Zolanda had considered the consequences should they suddenly flip off their chairs and walk across the room on their hands. In Batrice’s experience, acrobatics wasn’t something young ladies thought about with much regularity, and the general reluctance of society to celebrate such talents had made it difficult to find much time to practice since she’d arrived in Evenleigh.
Her mentor had assured her that this process of deception—of pretending to be a proper debutante—was necessary. To be an effective agent, Batrice would need to be reconciled with both her family and with society as a whole. Such connections would supposedly provide her with the perfect cover for future activities, but Batrice wasn’t at all convinced that her mentor’s reassurances were more than a load of complete twaddle.
The drawing room door opened and Batrice looked up from her work once more, hoping to find that it was finally time for tea. But no. An overfed and over-enthusiastic lap dog entered the room, panting and drooling on the carpet as it tugged on its leash in an effort to reach Lady—what was her name again? The dog was followed by a neatly starched servant who observed its behavior with a slightly curled lip, waiting only for the mistress of the house to cease fawning over his furry charge before he bent to pick it up and, theoretically, remove it from the room.
The dog, sensing an end to its fun, neatly eluded the servant’s grasp and took off in a circle, wrapping his leash around the man’s ankles and bringing him crashing to the ground.
A chorus of gasps erupted.
“I’m so sorry,” her hostess started to say, but to Batrice’s delight, it was much too late for sorry.
As the fallen servant muttered a decidedly impolite word, the startled dog began to pull away from the scene of its crime. And as its ruffled collar was entirely too loose, it soon slipped off, leaving the delighted ca
Gasps became shrieks, young ladies jumped to their feet, and embroidery frames were flung aside as two decorative tables went flying, accompanied by the sound of shattering porcelain.
It was the most fun she’d had in weeks, Batrice decided, as she observed the proceedings with a broad grin.
The flushed servant scrambled to his feet while the lady of the house split her phrases between berating him and calling futilely for her darling Bitsy to “stop running about and be a good boy for Mumsy, won’t you lovey?”
It was in the midst of this carnage that yet another servant appeared in the drawing room doorway.
Batrice watched as his eyes widened, a brief smirk appeared, and then a proper, polite mask of indifference settled over his face.
“Miss Reyard,” he announced over the din. “I believe your carriage has arrived.”
Her carriage? She didn’t have one. She was expecting to be delivered back to Evenburg by Lady—Heppelwhite! That was her name—after the day’s activities were concluded.
But trust fate to intervene the moment her life became truly interesting. Batrice dutifully packed up her embroidery as the dog ran out of energy and flopped down beneath a settee, forcing his humiliated keeper to crawl under it in pursuit. She was just exiting the room when she heard Lady Heppelwhite marshaling the other young ladies to abandon the shambles of the drawing room for a restorative tea.
Batrice allowed herself a single martyred sigh as she marched towards the front door, regretting the missed tea and wondering what she’d done to deserve such injustice.
But her good humor was restored when she saw whose carriage awaited her in front of the Heppelwhites’ town house—her noble sponsor had arrived to fetch her in person.
According to Batrice’s parents, it was nothing short of a miracle that she’d ended up in her present position, but in reality, the situation was more convoluted than miraculous. It had begun by her running away from home at seventeen, and culminated in a series of fortunate circumstances involving spies, a countess, and several attempted murders, at the end of which she’d found herself a position with Andar’s Ministry of Information. Which was really just Lady Lizbet Norelle—the most fascinating, brilliantly manipulative woman it had ever been Batrice’s good fortune to meet.
Rather than announce her actual intentions towards Batrice, Lady Norelle had written to Batrice’s parents, insisting that she be allowed to sponsor their youngest daughter, promising to introduce her to many eligible young men and see to her safety for as long as she was allowed to stay at Evenburg.
The Reyards had never been more than minor gentry, so despite having disowned Batrice after she joined a troupe of touring performers, they hadn’t hesitated to abandon their moral high ground when presented with the possibility of a relationship with the king’s sister-in-law. Such an invitation was an unexpected and nearly unheard of honor, so they had, predictably, returned a letter of their own filled with very proper sentiments of gratitude. It never once mentioned the last words that they’d exchanged with their wayward child.
On the day she first left home, her mother had sobbed uncontrollably and begged Batrice to just plunge a dagger into her heart that instant because it would hurt less than watching her ungrateful daughter throw away everything they’d lavished on her.
Her father had said something that began with “mark my words,” and ended with “no daughter of mine.”
They might have been reading a melodrama. With such examples as that, was it any wonder Batrice had decided to become an actress?
But her two years with a traveling company had ended when the owner insisted she marry him. At nineteen, she didn’t mind a bit of flirtation but wasn’t ready to settle down, and in any case, she wouldn’t have chosen an often-drunk forty-year-old with excessive back hair who fancied himself a comedian.
A footman in royal livery opened the door of the carriage with a stiff bow and handed her inside, where Batrice collapsed on the rear-facing seat and subjected her mentor to a narrow-eyed gaze.
“You knew exactly how awful that was likely to be when you promised I would attend, didn’t you?”
Lady Lizbet Norelle smiled, the very picture of serene and self-contained royalty. Not that she was royal by birth—her sister had been married to Andar’s King Hollin before her early death—but Lizbet had been an essential part of Andar’s government for so many years, no one really remembered that she was only the daughter of minor gentry herself.
Nor did very many people outside of Evenleigh realize that Lizbet was one of the main guiding forces behind the Crown, in no small part because she managed it without being either traditionally commanding or classically beautiful. Instead, she was an average looking, middle-aged mother of two with a deceptively gentle demeanor and imperturbable temper.
“I’m sure I have no idea to what you are referring,” she replied, her hands folded neatly in her lap. “Today was an invaluable opportunity to be seen in the company of other young ladies who are a part of the society to which you aspire.”
“To which you aspire for me,” Batrice muttered, settling her embroidery basket beside her on the seat.
“Did you make any progress today?”
“In what respects, my lady?” Batrice asked innocently, holding up her embroidery frame.
Lady Norelle surveyed Batrice’s attempts at embroidery and burst out laughing.
“My dear, I do believe you’re even worse with a needle than Princess Trystan, which is saying quite a lot.”
“Why thank you, my lady,” Batrice replied brightly. “I assure you, this kind of failure does not occur without effort. My mother once proclaimed that I couldn’t be any worse if I tried, and I can confidently report that I proved her wrong within a fortnight.”
“It’s healthy to have goals.” Lady Norelle’s eyes twinkled with amusement, which reminded Batrice of the only reason she hadn’t long since left the palace behind. Lizbet Norelle was, in Batrice’s mind, nearly perfect.
She was smart, practical, and laughed at things that were actually funny. Plus she didn’t try to pretend that embroidery was good for anything except giving the appearance of doing something ladylike while surreptitiously listening to state secrets or plotting to blow something up.
Not that Lady Norelle would admit to having blown anything up. But Batrice rather hoped she had.
Lizbet held out her hand for the frame, and Batrice handed it across the carriage.
“It’s a fascinating design, my dear. Are these…”
“Daggers,” Batrice replied, blinking innocently. “Also drops of blood. They will eventually encircle a heartfelt saying of some sort or another. Probably ‘Death To My Enemies.’”
“Subtle,” Lady Norelle noted, with a commendably straight face. “I predict your future drawing room will be the home of notably direct discourse.”
“And perhaps a suitably timed stabbing or two,” Batrice added sweetly. “But unlike most ladies, I would use actual knives.”
Lady Norelle handed the frame back without comment, so Batrice bent her head over it and focused her attention on creating a tangle so elaborate no one would ever expect her to undo it. It was her own invention, and she was quite proud of it.
“I’ve received a letter,” Lady Norelle said, after the carriage had traveled a block or two in silence.
Batrice was determined to prove that she had learned her lessons and did not express even the slightest interest in the letter or its contents.
