Wicked Nights With a Lover (The Penwich School for Virtuous Girls #3)(2)

Madame frowned slightly and turned the cup around, her movements suddenly quick. She glanced from the cup to Mrs. Danbury’s animated face and released a heavy sigh. When she returned her attention to the dregs at the bottom of the teacup, her frown deepened into a scowl.

“What?” Mrs. Danbury asked shrilly. “Dear woman, tell me what you see!”

The woman set the cup down with a decided click on its saucer and motioned impatiently for Mrs. Danbury’s hand. The widow quickly stretched her arm across the table, losing her lily-white fingers in the diviner’s grasping ones.

Madame Foster bowed her turban-swathed head and closed her eyes as though in prayer. For moments, she said nothing. Only the ticking clock on the mantel could be heard in the hush.

Marguerite leaned forward in her chair, duly impressed with the intense expression on the woman’s face. It was like she wasn’t even in the room anymore but transported elsewhere. A truly affecting performance. To her credit, she was quite the convincing charlatan.

With a sharp breath, Madame Foster dropped Mrs. Danbury’s hand. Shaking, she rose quickly to her feet, her many bracelets clanging together on her arms in her haste. “That is all for today,” she said in clearly affected accents.

“What? No! No!” Mrs. Danbury lurched to her feet. “What did you see? You cannot leave. I’ll pay you anything … you must tell me!”

With an unladylike mutter, Marguerite stood, unable to witness another moment of this farce, certain the female was only working at some ploy to extort more money from the pathetic and far too gullible widow.

Then something happened.

The diviner turned—looked away from the widow. Only Marguerite still saw her face. And she could not help wondering why she should feign such distress at that moment, free from the widow’s view. Madame Foster’s eyes, glassy and panicked, darted to the door, eager for escape. She skirted the table, avoided Mrs. Danbury’s stretching hands. “I cannot—” she mumbled.

“Please, whatever you saw … whatever it was … wouldn’t you want to be told? To know?”

Halfway to the door, Madame Foster froze.

Feeling invisible, and not unhappy for that fact, Marguerite looked back and forth between the two women, wondering how she had ever come to be trapped in such a mad scene.

Slowly, Madame Foster turned, her gaze narrow and thoughtful. “That depends.” She advanced slowly, moistening her lips. “Do you wish to know the hour of your death? Should anyone wish for such knowledge?”

Marguerite sucked in a breath, a shiver chasing down her spine. Oh, no. She wouldn’t be so wicked, so irresponsible as to pretend …

Mrs. Danbury nodded doggedly. “I’ve lived half a century.” She drew a deep, ragged breath. Marguerite read the fear in the lines of her face, heard it in the quaver of her voice, however much she presented an image of bravado. “However much time I’ve left, I would want to know.”

Madame Foster nodded, pursing her lips. “Very well.”

Marguerite strode forward, intent on putting an end to this madness and stop the swindler from placing an expiration on Mrs. Danbury’s life. Except she didn’t move swiftly enough.

“The truth, as I saw with my own eyes, is that you’ll not live out the week.”

Mrs. Danbury screamed, clutching a hand to her great bosom as she fell, plummeting like a sinking ship to the Persian rug.

With an inelegant snort, Marguerite wondered if the lady’s death had not arrived upon that very moment. Prostrate on the rug, she greatly resembled a corpse.

Helping Mrs. Danbury to the settee, Marguerite glanced around to find the cause for all the trouble gone. Vanished like a wisp of smoke.

Determined to stop the culprit and bring her back, force her to confess that she was a liar and a charlatan, Marguerite patted her patient on the arm and raced from the room after her.

“Wait! Stop!”

Madame Foster shot a frightened look over her shoulder and pushed her considerable girth harder toward the front doors.

Younger and significantly lighter of foot, Marguerite caught up with her and snatched her by the end of her bright blue shawl. “Oh, no you don’t! You’re not going anywhere until you march back up there and tell Mrs. Danbury she’s not going to die this week!”

Madame Foster tugged on her colorful shawl, twisting it around her arm. “I won’t do any such thing.”

“You miserable wretch. This is not a game. Have you any idea what you’ve done to that woman?” Marguerite stabbed a finger toward the stairs.

“You think I enjoy this? You think I like letting people know their less than promising destinies? Usually, I lie. But not about something like this.” She jerked her turbaned head toward the stairs. “Mark my words, that woman will be dead before the week is out, and she deserves to know she has so little time left. I’d wish to know.”

“You mean to explain to me that you believe this rot?” Shaking her head, Marguerite hissed, “Never mind. I don’t care. March up those stairs and take back everything you said before I call the Guard. Tell Mrs. Danbury it was a mistake.” Marguerite waved a hand wildly. “Tell her you had another look into your crystal ball and you were wrong … you saw her eighty years old in a rocking chair—”

“Try to consider if it were you. Wouldn’t you want to know?”