the vial and blew out the candle. When everything was restored to the string bag, its top securely tied with a knot only she knew how to undo, she tucked it into a drawer of the dressing table, closed the drawer, and locked it. She stood, smoothing her skirts and tidying her hair, waiting the few moments it would take for her eyes to cease their gleaming and her belly to ease its ache.
When she was sure nothing untoward would show on her face, she went to the door and opened it.
“Antoinette,” she said. “We will have to dress in the bedroom. This room is far too small for both of us.” She turned to see that Annis was already in her dinner dress, her pearls around her neck, but she was stretched full length on a brocade settee. “Something wrong, Annis?”
Annis made a face. “I don’t know exactly. I felt fine, but suddenly—it’s my stomach. I feel a bit queasy. Achy.”
Frances schooled her expression into one of sympathy. “Ah, poor thing. I don’t believe you ate a thing at lunch, did you? What you need is a good dinner. I will hurry to dress. The dining room is expecting us at eight.”
It had taken a bit of persuasion and a substantial sum of money for Frances to acquire the letter of introduction to Lady Whitmore, who lived in Mayfair. “Not precisely on Grosvenor Square,” Frances explained to Annis as they rode in the hired carriage for their first London call. “But close enough, I think, to be considered a good address.”
Annis appeared to have recovered from the first effects of her rite. She was cheerful this morning. She liked the open carriage, which allowed her a good view of the stucco-fronted houses facing the park and a glimpse of the Gothic facade of the Houses of Parliament ranged along the river.
Annis protested at first over making a social call instead of going to the British Museum, but then, under the influence of Frances’s newly established authority—Witch’s blood and claws—she subsided. Frances smiled to herself and wondered why she had not made this happen sooner.
She thought Annis looked rather well, thanks to the choices she had made for her. She wore a visiting dress of white cotton trimmed with pink lace. Frances had personally overseen the dressmaker’s work, and she was pleased with the results. There was a matching pair of gloves. Annis’s waist was not as small as Frances’s own, of course, but she was a good bit taller, and that was to be expected. Frances would have liked wider, more fashionable sleeves, and tighter at the wrist, but Annis had insisted she needed to be able to use her arms. Her hat was wide brimmed, with a plume of the palest pink Frances could find. There would be no more bent and stained straw hats.
Frances’s own appearance was perfect. Her waist was tiny beneath her creamy printed cotton, the corset cinched as tightly as Antoinette could manage. Her hat was also of cream, with curling feathers that grazed her cheek, and her gloves were cream silk with threads of gold. She looked, she felt certain, expensive. A proper lady. No one would guess at her origins.
The carriage swept along the road at a good clip. The driver, a man recommended by the hotel, was respectably dressed in a long-skirted coat. When they reached the Whitmore house he jumped down to hand the ladies and their maids out of his carriage.
Frances shook the creases out of her skirts as Antoinette adjusted the feather on her hat. Velma stood idle, staring at nothing, making Frances snap at her. “For pity’s sake, Velma! Don’t just stand there. Check Annis’s buttons. Tuck her hair back.”
Velma’s sallow cheeks went scarlet. She poked at Annis here and there, not to much effect, then stood back again, her head hanging. Annis stood limply, not even intervening to protect Velma from Frances’s temper as she usually did. Frances gave an impatient click of her tongue as she turned to survey the house they were about to visit.
This one wasn’t Georgian, like the homes nearest Regent’s Park. It was newer, narrower, built of colored brick, with a bow window and an elaborate set of double doors.
Frances’s catlike smile curved her lips. Allington House was much bigger than the Whitmore house, and far grander, with more elaborate ironwork and generous gardens. She would not feel intimidated in the least.
She straightened, patted her purse, where her letter of introduction