Cards & Caravans Read online

  Cards & Caravans

  By Cindy Spencer Pape

  Book five of The Gaslight Chronicles.

  Belinda Danvers isn’t a witch. But that won’t stop them burning her at the stake...

  Connor McKay can tell at a glance that Belinda’s magickal powers are minimal at best. She can’t be guilty of murdering village children. There’s something suspicious about her arrest and lightning-quick sentence. Unfortunately, telling anyone how he knows would mean revealing his own powers. He’s been sent by the Order of the Round Table to help and he can’t just let her die.

  Escaping from jail and running from vindictive villagers in her grandfather’s steam-powered caravan is more excitement than Belinda’s had in years. And despite the danger—or maybe because of it—she loves the time spent with her sexy rescuer. But there’s more to his magick than he’s letting on...

  There’s something going on that’s bigger than the two of them. It’s time for good to make a stand.

  52,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  It’s a known truth among the people who have to nag me to meet the deadline on these letters that I get writer’s block when I sit down to write them. I’m always excited to tell you about what’s in store for the month, but I often get stuck figuring out how to start it off. So these letters are always late (sorry, people in production!). I had particularly bad writer’s block this month, so I was especially impressed when I realized that this March, all of the authors with books releasing at Carina Press have written multiple books, and many of them have long careers in writing. How do these authors do it, writing multiple books a year, for years, creating new worlds, new characters and unique stories? It’s amazing to me, even after ten years in this industry, that there are people with this gift. And I’ll admit it, I’m a little jealous they have that gift. But I’m thrilled to introduce you to the books releasing this month from these incredible authors.

  I know it’s a little past Valentine’s Day, but it’s always time for chocolate and romance, and Christi Barth brings us both in A Fine Romance, the second contemporary romance in her Aisle Bound series. And if you missed the first book, Planning for Love, make sure to grab that as well!

  We have six! other authors joining Christi with sequels. Lynda Aicher heats up the pages with an emotionally gripping, smokin’ hot BDSM romance, Bonds of Need. Dee Carney also offers up lust and love in one package in her erotic paranormal romance sequel, Hunger Awakened.

  Veteran author Vivi Anna brings us The League of Illusion: Prophecy, a steampunk romance with an illusionist, a hunt for a missing brother, an incomplete map and a psychic! Relative newcomer Nicole Luiken follows up her debut fantasy romance, Gate to Kandrith, with the second in this duology and the conclusion to the story, Soul of Kandrith.

  R.L. Naquin offers the sequel to Monster in My Closet, her debut novel. In Pooka in My Pantry, empath Zoey Donovan is marked for pickup by Death. But when she refuses to die on schedule, she has a to-die-for reaper to deal with. And watch the battle of wills between a female gunship pilot and a combat controller hero in romantic suspense Tactical Strike by Kaylea Cross. Kaylea’s first book in this series, Deadly Descent, remains one of Carina Press readers’ favorite romantic suspenses!

  Alyssa Everett follows up her debut offering, Ruined by Rumor, with a new historical romance, though it’s not a sequel. In Lord of Secrets, he’s her new husband...and he’s strangely reluctant to consummate the marriage. What secrets are keeping them apart, and keeping him from her bed? If you like your historical romance with a paranormal twist, returning author Laura Navarre brings us Magick by Moonrise, which combines Tudor England with the Faerie kingdom of Camelot. When the two worlds collide, can a fallen angel’s passion for an innocent Faerie princess save both realms from destruction?

  Carina Press authors W. Soliman and Cindy Spencer Pape both return with installments in their ongoing series. In Lethal Business, W. Soliman brings us back to The Hunter Files with another Charlie Hunter mystery, where Charlie must answer the question: “Why kill the survivors of a sinking ship?” And Cindy Spencer Pape continues her popular steampunk romance series, The Gaslight Chronicles, with Cards & Caravans. Knight of the Round Table Connor MacKay has met his match in fortune-teller Belinda Danvers.

  Last, this month we welcome to Carina Press contemporary romance author Kate Davies with the first in her Girls Most Likely to... trilogy, Most Likely to Succeed. Though Kate is new to Carina, she and I have worked together as author/editor for years, and I’m happy to have her writing for Carina Press. I hope you enjoy Kate’s charming contemporary voice as much as I do.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  This book is for romance readers who are just discovering steampunk, and steampunk readers who are opening up to romance. Thanks for making genre-blending a viable way to write fiction and for being willing to accept a world that transcends both. Being a part of this is truly amazing.

  Acknowledgements

  As usual, I need to thank the Untitled Writers’ Group and Anny Cook for their critiques and my editor Melissa for her untiring work on my books and this series in particular. To my children for putting up with me typing in the family room and mostly, to my husband for his unwavering support, even to the point of buying steampunk costumes and wearing them in public.

  I have played fast and loose with the Scottish legal system of the Victorian era for the purposes of this story and hope any inconsistencies don’t offend any readers. Since steampunk is, by its very nature, alternative history, I decided that a few other things, like witchcraft laws and trial procedures, might well have developed somewhat differently than they did on our own timeline.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Scottish Lowlands, September 1859

  “Guilty as charged on both counts—witchcraft and murder.”

  Belinda Danvers gasped as the sheriff pronounced the verdict. Her knees tried to buckle, but she refused to swoon in front of these lunatics, even if they hadn’t given her anything to eat since breakfast the day before. Crying out her denial was equally pointless. She’d already protested her innocence until her throat was raw. The village elders had decided she was a witch. They’d convinced the sheriff and there was nothing more to be done about it. She listened to the sentencing with nausea roiling through her empty stomach.

  “The murder charge will be sent to the High Court of the Justiciary to decide. As witchcraft is a local matter, our judgment on that will take precedence.” The sheriff banged his gavel. “The murder charge will be dealt with posthumously. The witch is to be burned at the stake, tomorrow at dawn, in the center of the village green. May God have mercy on her soul.”

  Don’t cower to these jackals. Her head held high, she glared across at Squire MacLellan, the magistrate, who stared back with a snide grin. Alderman Douglas, beside him, radiated nothing but venomous fury. On the alderman’s far side, his cousin Mr. Engle looked on with a beatific
smile. Here was the man at the root of all this. No one had called her witch in the ten years she’d lived in Shadwick—not until he came. If she had possessed the power to curse a man, he’d have been the one, along with his lecherous cousin and maybe even the pompous squire. She’d have never taken her anger out on innocent townsfolk—especially children. She blinked back a tear at the thought of those three young lives lost during the last month to cholera.

  The sheriff, who’d come from Dumfries just to try her, banged his gavel on the wooden table that served as a makeshift bench at the front of the village hall. There was something not quite right about his robes and wig—they were shabbier than she’d have expected and didn’t fit properly, which didn’t make sense as the sheriff should be a wealthy man. The wig kept slipping down over his left eyebrow. Was he truly the sheriff? And if this was a trial, why hadn’t she been given a chance to hire a barrister? Not that there was one in Shadwick, or that anyone here would have represented her anyway.

  As the bailiffs—otherwise known as Squire MacLellan’s two stoutest footmen—hauled her back to the tiny gaol, the chains around her ankles clanked and weighed her down. She looked out over the sea of faces, people she’d considered friends. People she’d helped with her cough tinctures and burn salves. She’d trusted them, considered herself a part of this community for over a decade.

  Now they all looked away. Here in the Scottish borderlands, old beliefs still ran strong. They lived in an era where a telephone could allow a person to speak with someone in London, or a dirigible could take one to Paris in mere hours. But let one minor cholera epidemic sweep the area, and everyone was all too ready to blame the village witch.

  As they marched her toward the gaol, she stole a glance at the clock on the village hall. Half past two. Almost teatime. Sunrise would be neither early nor late this close to the autumn equinox. Even giving them some time to bumble about, and a little while for the fire to take her, in less than twenty hours, she’d be dead.

  “Pray for your soul, witch.” Mr. Engle stood outside the cell door as they locked her in. “Not that it will do you any good.” His smug smile left no doubt that he’d accomplished what he’d come here to do. Find a witch and have her killed.

  Belinda looked him in the eye and said, “If I do possess the power to cast a curse, shouldn’t you be afraid? Sleep well, Mr. Engle.” She turned her back to them and stepped over to the hard wooden bench. She sat with her spine straight, arranging her filthy skirts as neatly as possible. “If you dare.”

  * * *

  Sir Connor MacKay sat at his desk in the Edinburgh headquarters of the Order of the Round Table and twiddled a pen in his hand. There hadn’t been much supernatural activity for him to handle since he’d transferred here. Truthfully, the Edinburgh office hadn’t needed another Knight in residence, but Connor’s father, who managed this branch, had taken pity on Connor and allowed him to move up from London. It was too bad the Order didn’t have an office in Hong Kong or Bombay. The farther he got from England and the woman who’d broken his heart, the better.

  “Telephone for you, Sir Connor.” The voice of Alasdair Stuart, his father’s longtime secretary and assistant, broke Connor out of his gloom.

  “Isn’t Sir Fergus here?” Normally, the head of the office took all calls personally. Surely Connor hadn’t been so lost in his thoughts that he’d missed his father leaving. Even if he had, Sir Matthew Gavin, the other Knight in residence, was Connor’s senior and should have been summoned in Sir Fergus’s absence.

  “Sir Fergus is in.” Alasdair tipped his head toward the inner office, his lips tight with disdain toward Connor, the Order’s second-youngest Knight at twenty-five. “This caller specifically asked to speak with you.”

  “Odd.” Connor made his way to Alasdair’s desk in the anteroom to Fergus’s office, and the only telephone on this floor the building. Ignoring Alasdair’s grimace, Connor sat on the edge of the man’s desk to pick up the receiver. “Connor MacKay speaking.”

  “Sir Connor, thank you for taking my call.” The deep, slightly accented voice was familiar, but Connor couldn’t quite place it. “This is Fernando Smith. You came to my circus in London with Inspector—I mean Superintendent—Liam’s young lady and fixed the roundabout. Then you rescued my nephew Nicky.”

  “Of course I remember you, Mr. Smith.” The gypsy carnival had been part of his ill-fated courtship of Winifred Hadrian, who was now blissfully married to Police Superintendent Sir Liam McCullough. Smith’s nephew had been one of dozens kidnapped and used as part of a plot to kill the Queen. Connor, Liam, Wink and the rest of her family had saved the day. Unfortunately, Liam had gotten the girl, so Connor fled to Scotland. “How is Nick doing? Any residual effects from the metal suit?” Nick and others had been turned into living automatons. Most of the victims hadn’t survived, but Smith’s nephew was one of those who had.

  “He’s well, thank you.” Husky emotion laced the older man’s tone. “Thanks to you and your people.”

  Connor cleared his throat. “Excellent. Now, Mr. Smith, what can I do for you?”

  “I need to ask for yet another favor, and Superintendent Liam said you were now in Scotland.” Smith’s voice sounded troubled, even over the less than perfect telephone line.

  “I am,” Connor said. “Is the carnival up here now?”

  “No, we are in Birmingham.” Smith paused. “I told you, perhaps, that my older brother Leo also ran a circus before he died?”

  “I knew the carousel had belonged to your brother.” Where was the man going with this? Connor tapped his pen on a notepad, making Alasdair wince.

  “Leo also had a granddaughter, a beautiful girl named Belinda. I believe she is in some kind of trouble,” Smith said.

  “What makes you think so?” Connor had met Smith’s grandson, a lad of sixteen or so. Was this girl about the same age?

  Smith cleared his throat. “Do you remember Madame Zara, the fortune-teller with our troupe?”

  “Of course.” What the old gypsy woman had predicted in their last investigation had been uncannily correct.

  “Belinda’s mother was her niece, so they are kin as well. Zara was doing a reading and she saw danger for Belinda. Deadly danger,” Smith said.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Belinda does not have a telephone or teletext at her farmhouse, so I tried to contact the innkeeper in the village. His wife is her friend, and has taken messages before, you understand.”

  “Yes.” Connor tapped his pen again. “Go on.”

  “The innkeeper was very rude. He said he would have nothing to do with the witch, and she would soon get what she deserved. Then he rang off quite sharply. That is all I know.”

  “Damn, that doesn’t sound good.” As a practioner of magick himself, the word witch made the hairs on Connor’s neck stand up. “What’s the name of the village? Oh, and I’ll need Belinda’s surname.”

  “Mrs. Belinda Danvers. And the town is Shadwick, perhaps thirty miles east of Dumfries.” Smith spoke over enough noise that Connor thought he must be in a pub as well.

  “Mrs. Danvers? She’s married?” She must be older than he’d thought.

  “Widowed,” Smith rumbled. “Her husband had a farm near this village. She has lived there even after his death, although she is not such a good farmer as she might be. Times have been hard, so she makes a few things from her herb garden. Balms for the skin, willow bark teas, that sort of thing.”

  “She’s an herbalist?” Connor made a note. “So that’s why they called her a witch.”

  “Perhaps.” Smith’s tone hardened. “Also, like Zara, she has some skill with the cards.”

  “So she could have been accused by someone who didn’t like a reading, or whose skin condition didn’t clear up. Right.” Connor jotted the last bits of information. “I’ll have to check with my superiors, but I should be able to run down there this afternoon. Do you know if Shadwick is on the train route?” His steam car was being modified by his
sister Melody, an engineer, and therefore out of commission.

  “I believe so,” Smith said. “Thank you, Sir Connor, once again. If you have news, you can reach me at this pub. I will check back each evening for messages.”

  “Very good. I’ll ring back immediately to let you know when I’ll be on my way.” Connor rang off and knocked on the door of his father’s office.

  He laid out the situation for his father, and Sir Fergus nodded his gray-streaked head. Other than the gray, the dark auburn was the same as Connor’s own, as were the pale blue eyes. Connor hadn’t inherited his father’s freckles, which he considered a small mercy.

  “All supernatural crimes in the realm are supposed to be under the jurisdiction of the Order,” Fergus said. “If someone’s practicing black witchcraft, or lynching so-called witches, it’s within our bailiwick to investigate. Besides, we’ve not had much else to do in the last week. Go ahead. Just be back at the Tower within two days. Miss your grandparents’ anniversary celebration, and your mother will have your hide.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” It was only a little lie. Connor’s grandparents deserved the huge party planned for their sixtieth wedding anniversary. Connor didn’t want to disappoint them, but he wasn’t looking forward to seeing all their family friends—including the Hadrians and McCulloughs. “I’ll catch the first train I can. Hopefully I’ll be back tonight, in time to drive down with you and Mama tomorrow.”

  “Good. Travel safely, son.”

  “Yes, sir.” Connor clasped his father’s hand and left the office. “Alasdair, do we have a train schedule around here somewhere?”

  * * *

  Of course Shadwick doesn’t have a train station. What could I have been thinking? After a dusty train ride, Connor had been forced to ride the last five miles on a worn-out rented horse—in the pouring rain. Scottish weather was unpredictable at best, and Connor hadn’t dressed for the sudden storm. Now he was edgy, soaked and his arse was getting sore. He was a big man, so the livery stable had given him a cart horse rather than a regular riding mount. Based on appearance and gait, this one was three steps from the glue factory—if it made it that far.