seize her stepdaughter by the throat. She hissed, “You will go back to him. Apologize. Tell him you’ve changed your mind.”
Annis took another step back, but she managed to say, though her mouth had gone dry, “No. I will not.”
“Lady Eleanor and I—”
“It doesn’t matter, Frances. This is between James and me.”
One of Frances’s hands had tightened into a fist. The other was a claw, the fingers curled, the nails sharp, and Annis braced herself for the attack that seemed imminent.
“You will do as I say,” Frances growled, in a voice Annis didn’t recognize. The cat’s smile was now a tiger’s snarl.
Annis shook her head, though inwardly she trembled. “I’m not going to marry him.”
“Any normal girl would leap at the chance to become a marchioness. I would be thrilled if I were you!”
“You’re not me, Frances! We’re different. I will apologize, but I’m going home.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“Do you think you can stop me? I have my own means, you know.” That was a slight exaggeration. Annis guessed she had enough money in her purse to buy passage for herself and Velma, but not a penny more.
Frances spun away from her, facing the wardrobe, her shoulders high and tight, one fist still clenched against her hip. Annis watched her, her own hands clasped before her breast, fighting a sense of terror that was out of all proportion. She was bigger than Frances. She was younger, and stronger, and yet…
She heard Frances draw a long, noisy breath. She watched her drop her shoulders and release her hand. Frances gave a tiny, almost undetectable shudder, and turned back.
Annis gaped anew at the change in her.
Her stepmother’s eyes no longer burned with that terrifying wrath. Her cheeks were smooth, and her lips curled. Her hands were relaxed by her sides. She said sweetly, “You know, Annis dear, there’s a telegraph office in Seabeck Village. Should you decide to go through with your mad little plan, I will wire your father. Black Satin will be sold before you reach New York.”
“No!” Annis cried. Her hand dropped from the moonstone. “You won’t do that! If you do, I’ll—I’ll tell Papa—” Her voice broke, and she twisted her fingers together so hard they ached.
Frances’s kittenish smile intensified, and her eyelids drooped lazily. “What?” she purred. “What will you tell him?”
“I’ll tell him that you—that you’ve been—”
“Oh, come now,” Frances said, just showing her little white teeth. “Let’s have it all out in the open, shall we? You’re threatening to tell your father I’m a witch.”
Annis gaped at her stepmother. “You—you—spied on me! On me and Harriet!”
“I observed you. Of course I did. What you were doing concerns me, after all.”
“So you admit it!” Annis cried, her composure in shreds. “You’re a witch! You magicked poor James, and you tried to magic me!”
“And what do you think your father would say if you told him that, you idiot girl?”
Annis didn’t respond. Breathing hard, as if she had run a mile, she turned to her dressing table and started pulling the pins out of her hair.
She knew the answer to Frances’s question, of course.
Her father wouldn’t believe a word of it. He would think his daughter had lost her mind.
Tea was an ordeal. Annis was again seated at James’s right, but neither of them spoke a word to the other, nor did they touch their food. Annis felt Lady Eleanor’s sharp gaze throughout the meal, and she knew there was trouble ahead. She should never have come. She should never have allowed herself to be used this way. When she had given in to Frances’s scheme, she had thought only of herself and getting home to her horses. It had never occurred to her that some young man might be harmed.
And now she had to fear for Black Satin as well. Frances didn’t make empty threats. She might be vain and selfish, but she was no weakling. She had proved that already. She was capable of doing just what she had said.
And Papa? She couldn’t trust him. He had been content to let Frances use her however she wished. What else might he do to keep Frances from pestering him?
When the meal ended at last, she and James parted without a word or a glance. James went into his library. The rest of the guests followed Lady Eleanor out to the garden to observe the midsummer flowers in bloom. Annis followed, but at the first opportunity she slipped away into the woods to be alone,