bathing nymphs on the ceiling. She was plump, her cheeks rosy, and her hair was a cloud of red and gold, rather messily pinned up.
“Male painters are quite fascinated by buttocks, aren’t they?” the woman said in a surprisingly throaty voice. “And quite pink ones at that.”
Her eyes dropped and she glanced at the other ladies in the room. “Have I missed anything?”
Freya rolled her eyes. “Do you remember my sister Elspeth?”
“Elspeth?” Lucretia looked suspicious. “The same Elspeth who used to steal the strawberry jam when she visited our nursery for tea?”
“I do love strawberry jam,” Elspeth said dreamily.
Lucretia narrowed her eyes.
“How wonderful to see you again.” Messalina smiled, crossing to give the younger woman a hug. She stood back to examine Elspeth’s face. “Though I’m not sure I’d recognize you without Freya’s prompting. You were only five, I think.”
“I was six,” Elspeth said, and she fixed her light-blue eyes on Messalina. “And I remember you because you read to me once.”
“I did?”
Elspeth nodded solemnly. “Poems. Elizabethan poems. I don’t believe I understood a word, but I liked the sound of your voice. That summer before it all happened.”
It was long ago—fifteen years—but they all knew the date. It was when Aurelia Greycourt had died and Ran de Moray had been maimed.
For a moment no one spoke.
And then Lucretia said, “And you stole my top.”
She was glaring at Elspeth.
“Did not,” Elspeth replied far too quickly. “You gave it to me.”
Lucretia placed her hands on her hips. “I didn’t. I left it by that awful bust of some Roman emperor in the library. And when I came back it was gone.”
“Hmm,” Elspeth murmured thoughtfully. “No, I remember you gave it to me when we were having tea in your nursery.”
Lucretia’s face looked like a thundercloud.
Fortunately, at that moment Pea came in with the tea.
“Oh, bread and jam,” Elspeth said. “Is it strawberry, do you suppose?”
She smiled at Lucretia.
Messalina blinked and glanced upward at the painted ladies on the ceiling. When Elspeth smiled she looked rather like an old master’s beauty.
Lucretia sat next to Elspeth—apparently to guard the jam.
Messalina sighed heavily as she gestured for Freya to take one of the chairs while she sat on the other.
She poured the tea. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Freya took a cup. “Tell me.”
Messalina explained what had happened when she and Gideon reached London and how she’d been forced into marriage.
When she finished, Freya said, “I wish I could have been here.” She shook her head and glanced at Elspeth. “But Kester and I had gone to fetch Elspeth from the Wise Women compound. My sister was in training to be the Wise Women’s next Bibliothacar—the keeper of our history and books.”
Lucretia looked between Freya and Messalina. “Wise Women?”
And Messalina realized with a guilty start that she hadn’t told Lucretia about them.
But it was Elspeth who replied to Lucretia. “We are an ancient society of women, descended some believe from priestesses who guided these isles before the Romans came.” Her eyes lit. “Our history is really quite fascinating, for instance—”
Freya cleared her throat. “Perhaps it’s our modern history that’s most pertinent at the moment.”
“I think I disagree there, Sister,” Elspeth said gently.
“Ancient priestesses?” Lucretia burst out. “Is this a jest?”
“Oh no,” Elspeth said earnestly. “We’ve a compound in—”
Freya loudly cleared her throat.
“—the north,” Elspeth said without missing a beat. “We have—had—nearly two thousand people there, including children and men—”
“Wait,” Lucretia interrupted, looking intent. “How can there be children if this society is made up of priestesses?”
Elspeth smiled a little condescendingly at Lucretia. “Priestesses who aren’t from a male-led religion. We have never been celibate. But in any case, we no longer call ourselves priestesses. We’re Wise Women. Although,” she continued with an academic air, “you do bring up an interesting aspect of our society, namely sex with men. There are quite a few differing opinions—”
Freya coughed. “Perhaps we should return to the main point.”
“Yes.” Messalina’s brows knitted. Did she truly want to leave Gideon anymore? “I’d thought perhaps…”
“That the Wise Women could help you?” Freya exchanged a grim glance with Elspeth. “No, I’m afraid they can’t.”
“Not since the closing,” Elspeth said sadly.
“What closing?” Messalina asked.
Freya pursed her lips. “The leaders who have come to power in the Wise Women have decided to isolate the compound.” She met Messalina’s gaze. “They intend to close the Wise Women to all outside influences. The Women who didn’t agree with that ruling left.”
“And went out into the wide, wide world,” Elspeth murmured, watching Lucretia pile jam on her bread.