Free The Huntress by Susan Carroll Page B

hundred
bodhrans
were drumming away in her skull. She rubbed her temple. The futility of arguing with Martin le Loup had only aggravated her headache. She would just rest her eyes for a moment and recover some of her strength before she tackled the obstinate fool again.
    Cat was on the verge of drifting off when she heard the door creak. Opening her eyes, she saw the bedside candle flicker from a draft. Tensing, she realized someone had inched open the bedchamber door just far enough to peek inside.
    Le Loup returning in a more reasonable frame of mind? Cat doubted it. He would have no reason for being so stealthy. She started to call out, demand to know who was there when she caught a glimpse of a ghostly figure clad in white, a pale face that was all enormous green eyes.
    Shoving herself up onto her elbows, Cat said tartly, “Why don’t you come in, Megaera, and take a closer look?”
    The child froze like a coney caught in an eagle’s sight. Cat half expected the girl to bolt. But after a moment’s hesitation, Megaera stepped inside the room and closed the door.
    She approached the bed with a dignified carriage a princess might have envied, her slender frame garbed in a night rail of the finest white lawn, her dark brown hair spilling about her shoulders. Her face was framed by a lace-trimmed nightcap that might have looked well on a plumper, prettier girl but only served to accent the sharpness of Megaera’s features. Her dark brows stood out in marked contrast to her pale skin.
    A child of light and shadow, Cat thought with an inexplicable shiver. She struggled upward and swung her legs over the side of the bed, draping the sheet over her shoulder like a chieftain donning his plaid.
    Ridiculous, she thought, to be so wary of a wee slip of a girl, but she had already had a sharp taste of what this particular girl could do.
    Megaera halted about a foot away, devouring Cat with her eyes. Cat stared back just as fiercely, squaring off with her small nemesis.
    “My name is not Megaera,” the girl announced with a stubborn lift of her chin. “It is Margaret Elizabeth Wolfe.”
    “And mine is Catriona of the Clan O’Hanlon. Would you care to be telling me why you were lurking outside the door, spying upon me?”
    A hint of color crept into the girl’s cheeks. “I wasn’t lurking. I only wanted to see how you were faring.”
    “How kind of you,” Cat replied dryly. “Aside from the hole you punched in my back and the hammering in my skull from whatever concoction you shot into my veins, I am faring just grand. I’d like another look at that witch blade of yours. I never saw one before and I confess I am curious.”
    Meg’s lips tightened in a stony line. “I do not have the least notion what you are talking about.”
    “Don’t you? Then perhaps we had best call your father and ask him.”
    “No!” Meg’s hauteur vanished, her face suffused with something akin to panic. “Please, don’t do that. Papa has no idea that I—I—.”
    “Go about stabbing folk with your witch blade?”
    “It is not a witch blade. Its proper name is a
syringe
and I don’t go about stabbing people. Not unless I have to and—and I can’t show it to you because I don’t have it with me.”
    “Truly? I thought you might have been sneaking in here to take another poke.”
    “No!” Meg cried again. “I wouldn’t have poked you the first time if I hadn’t thought you were trying to kill my papa. Anyway it was only a sleeping draught.”
    “Only a sleeping draught?” Cat pressed a hand to her throbbing head. “I suspect much more of your sleeping draught and I might never have waked up.”
    The girl stiffened indignantly. “I know the right amount to use. Besides, if I had wanted to kill you, I could have just used poison. I am very skilled at brewing those, too.”
    “Oh, I don’t doubt that you are.”
    “I would never want to hurt you, but make no mistake, to protect my father, I would destroy you or anyone