Quintspinner (29 page)

He seeks to own you. Be very careful,
the silent mentor in Tess’s head suddenly cautioned.

“Overstep?” Tess glared up at Edward, her belligerence resurfacing.
And when did you get well enough to come out here?
She silently pondered this, surprised at the strength in his grip. She shrugged her shoulders as if to loosen a disagreeable shawl but his hold on her only tightened. Edward stared down at her.

“You know how to
breathe,
surely,” he taunted her. “And as you’ve hit your target,” he scowled at William, “your lessons with my betrothed are done. Forever. At this time
I
have some lessons for her.”

With their engagement being common knowledge, Edward had noticed that the doctor seemed unconcerned if Tess were occasionally alone with Edward in his quarters. Now, seated across from him at the small table in the privacy of his cabin, Tess held Edward securely in her gaze and launched her direct inquiry before he had a chance to start their conversation.

“Where did you obtain this ring?”

Momentary surprise flickered across his face as Tess’s question hung in the air between them. She had barely spoken to him at all during his period of convalescence. Yet now ….
Her confidence has grown.

Edward studied the lines of her face, trying to determine an answer that would contain an acceptable amount of detail. He had questions of his own to ask her and he doubted that Tess was any match for him in the area of obtaining information, even from a reluctant informant.

“You shall have your answer to that after you reply in kind. I should like very much to hear how you came to have the tourmaline ring in your possession. Blue tourmalines are very rare, you know.”
What happened after I left the old woman’s place?

Tess pressed her lips together. She was nervous, Edward could tell.
She’s fidgeting with the ring. She couldn’t possibly know the power available to her ….

“I have no story to tell,” Tess began. “I acquired it in a simple boring fashion.” She glanced down at the ring and then back up to Edward’s face.

Edward’s eyes locked onto hers, staring back intently at her. It seemed to him that Tess was choosing her words carefully

“It was a gift to me, a remnant from a brief but intense friendship.” Tess lips lifted in a small smile. “A gift,” she repeated. “Nothing more.”

Edward’s eyebrows arched slightly, briefly exposing his surprise at her words, and then his face resumed its neutral expression.

“Such a handsome ring as that is hardly a simple gift,” he argued, “although I can believe that someone would easily find one so beautiful and clever as yourself to be worthy of such an endowment.” His voice was smooth, too smooth, but Tess would not miss the underlying misdoubt in his statement.

“I am intrigued and wonder who it was that gave
you,
now my
fiancée,
such a priceless item, and in fact I believe the details of your complete story would be of great interest to me.” There was no mistaking the challenge in his voice.

“And why would that be?” she charged in return.

He studied her face for a few silent moments as he again decided how much to reveal to her.

“I was briefly acquainted with it in the past,” he began slowly, “and I had believed it to have been lost to its previous owner through an untimely sequence of events.” He paused, then suddenly reached out, capturing her left hand with his own. Tess pulled back but her hand remained firmly caught in his grip. Ignoring her recoil, Edward drew his fingertips lightly across the surface of both rings. He pulled her closer to him and held her hand up, brushing it across his own cheek.

“Tell me, Tess, what do you know of the significance of these rings? Of their powers?”

Tess dropped her eyes to her lap.
What does she know? How did she get the ring? Get on with the telling of it!
Edward took a long calming breath. To rush her now would only make her defensive and wary.
Wait. Give her time.
She raised her eyes to meet his gaze and for long moments she and Edward stared at each other as though trying to outguess the other’s next move in this mental game of chess. The creaks and groans of the ship, the muted shouts of the crew, and the cracks of the sails in the winds, punctuated the conversational silence between them.

“I think that you know more about them than I do,” Tess finally spoke aloud.

Edward leaned across the table, closer still, his face continuing to be a mask, showing no hint of threat or anger.

“Tell me how you came into possession of the tourmaline ring,” he urged her again, “and I will, in turn, tell you–nay,
teach
you–all that I know about them both.”

Tess pulled her hand from Edward’s grasp and let it fall protectively to her lap, buried amidst the folds of her skirt. She was nervously fingering the rings on her hand again, and he wondered what he could say to persuade her to use him as a confidante.
Why does she hesitate? What reason would she have to fear me?

A slow look of calm and confidence settled over her and Edward knew success was forthcoming. She had made her decision. She wanted to know what he knew.

Needed to know.

Tess struggled to put her questions into some kind of logical order
. The rings’ powers? Yes.
She was curious about that
. How did he come to have the healing emeralds?
That too, was a puzzle. But more importantly, she put one question at the top of her list, above all the others.

What was it about them that had been worth killing for? Worth dying for?

It was what she knew about Edward and the tourmaline ring that had kept her silent to this point. It was what Edward knew about her and the tourmaline ring that urged her to begin speaking.

Tess casually splayed her left hand back up on the tabletop to focus Edward’s attention on the rings. As she began her story, Tess slowly slipped her right hand down the outside of her skirts to her lower shin and noiselessly slipped the small dirk from its sheath fastened just above her ankle by two red silk strands. She was grateful for William’s lessons. The small knife’s handle, fashioned out of polished bone, had come to feel as comfortable as an old friend’s handshake. Familiar. Warm and smooth in her palm. She just wished it wasn’t so headstrong in its flight path.

Best to be ready for anything. Just in case.

“The ring was given to me by an old woman,” Tess began quietly, her eyes never leaving Edward’s face. “With her dying breath, she gave it to me.”

Edward’s features tightened in confusion, then hardened in dawning recognition.

“The old seer? The one they called the Crone?” he asked unable to conceal the astonishment in his voice.

Oh my God! This is it!
Tess thought, and she sucked in a large, shuddering breath.
I’m making my own confession to the executioner.

“Yes,” she blurted out. “That’s the one!” Under the table, she squeezed the handle of the dirk in her hand, running the pad of her thumb lightly over the sharp edge of its blade, reassuring herself of its potential.

“I was there, in the back room, when you paid your last visit.”

Edward’s dark eyes blackened further in mounting anger. His eyebrows knotted together and his jaws clenched.

“You … you were there?” he hissed.

Tess glared back, her own mouth silently set in a belligerent grimace, as her heart continued beating wildly against her chest wall.

Edward’s simmering fury was palpable in the air.

“You!” he repeated, shaking his head slowly from side to side, as though he could not believe his own conclusion.

“You … attacked me. It was … you.” It was a statement, no longer a question requiring any confirmation.

“You attacked
her!”
Tess spat out her own accusation. “How could you!” She shuddered with her own rage. “She was just an old woman. No threat to you!”

Edward snorted. “Do you have any idea of the value, of the
power
of the rings? Their ability to
corrupt
is
equal
to their ability to
promote!”
he snarled. “Yes, I know this first hand–even
I
was overcome with greed!

“My emerald ring was a poor fit on me and therefore not dependable for me. Weak in its supposed power to heal. Not even with certain–adjustments–that I made, was it satisfactory on me!” His hand slid over his upper left chest and he scowled. “And what need of the power
to heal
did I have anyway?

“But
hers!”
His eyes shone even in their strange blackness, sending a cold chill down Tess’s spine. “Hers was the tourmaline spinner! Tourmaline! It was mined in the days of ancient peoples and a new supply of this gem has never been found since. Do you understand? So very rare! It becomes charged with power when it is exposed to heat–that is why, when it is handled, it seems to
glow!

“Its power is that of prophesy. Now
that
would have been useful to me! Its assistance would have enabled me to guide those in high places, those with the power to change the course of history, to make certain choices!” His eyes narrowed as he continued. “I could have molded outcomes that would have affected governments, countries, whole populations!”

“You attacked an old, defenseless woman over a piece of jewelry, for your own personal gain!” Tess’s accusation interrupted Edward’s tirade. His brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“Personal gain? Perhaps, as a corollary. But can one as young, as sheltered as you, grasp the enormous consequences of having one’s monarch choose to spend a larger portion of his country’s taxes in areas that would strengthen its trading position? To be able to help him decide with a new level of certainty which wars would be worthy to fund and which would not? Or what about which decrees to make to keep the population satisfied and loyal, to avoid civil unrest? What price could you put on that?” He broke off from his rant and closed his eyes.

Tess hoped that he had a recollection of the tiny stone room, with the old woman’s face floating tauntingly behind his closed eyelids
. Yes! Recall those horrid details. May they haunt you forever!

Edward opened his eyes, but his stare was distant. “The ring’s power
had
to be passed on. To one who could use it for the good of our country.
She
was the greedy one, using it to satisfy the curiosity of the pathetic rich, receiving only a few coins in exchange, squandering its power.” He glowered at the memory and shook his head again.

“Even so, I never expected that she would go so far to keep it from me … that she would cut her own fingers off!”

“What?” Tess gasped.

“Yes!” Edward’s face snapped back towards Tess’s. His voice shook, partly in revulsion and partly in morbid admiration. “The foolish old woman grabbed a blade and severed her own fingers! Right in front of me! She was about to throw them
and
the ring into her hearth’s fire!” He glared at Tess, his chest heaving with the ferocity of the telling of the story.

“When I reached out to stop her, she twisted out of my grip and crashed backward onto the floor. And before I could help her, we were–
I
was–attacked from behind. He reached up and gingerly touched the dent on the back of his skull.