The Vampire & Her Witch

”My lady,” Devlin said quietly, stepping closer as they moved into the market proper. ”Our ’host’ should be near the trout stalls. He said he’d be inspecting the morning’s selection for the manor’s kitchens.”

Jocelynn nodded, turning away from the scene of Owain’s men dragging a hapless fisherman away in order to search for the mysterious Master Jean.

She’d been trying to find a way to meet with him ever since the night he’d prepared a dinner for her that included both her favorite pudding and a version of Ashlynn’s favorite fish. The meal had been a message, but what it meant, she’d never been able to learn as an endless stream of servants seemed to conspire to keep her too busy preparing for tomorrow’s Grand Ceremony to visit the kitchens.

Master Jean seemed to be just as frustrated with the situation as she was, and last night, when she’d returned from Ashlynn’s memorial, there had been a message waiting for her with an invitation that sounded so reasonable, even Owain wouldn’t question it. A bride should have a voice in her own wedding menu, after all, and Jean had given her the perfect excuse to leave Lothian Manor for their meeting while appearing to be nothing more than a cook currying favor with the future marchioness of the manor.

But Jocelynn’s father had taught her to read the meaning beneath a person’s words and deeds the way a fisherman reads the currents of the seas, and she would never have believed that Master Jean just wanted to win over a powerful patron. Not when he seemed to know her and Ashlynn better than anyone who’d lived their entire life in Lothian March should.

”Devlin,” Jocelynn said quietly as she and the former captain threaded their way through the crowds. ”Do you think,” she started hesitantly, prodding her mind to work through the haze of her hangover. ”Do you think that this could be a trap?” Jocelynn asked as her eyes swept the marketplace, looking for signs of people who didn’t seem to be there for the market.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know what she was looking for. As much as she’d grown up on stories of cutthroats and pirates, or smugglers who lurked in the shadows under the piers, as the privileged daughter of a count, she’d never set foot in that world.

It was one thing to know that unwitting maidens could be lured into dangerous places where they were kidnapped for ransom or worse, but it was something else entirely to know how to recognize those men when they worked to blend in with the crowd.

”Any meeting away from prying eyes is dangerous, my lady,” Devlin responded, easing the long, curved knife at his hip in its sheath. ”But the market makes for a poor place to spring a trap,” he said, nodding in the direction of a nearby pair of guards.

”One shriek will be enough to bring half a dozen men or more,” he added quietly. ”And if I add my voice to yours, every guard in the market will come to protect the next marchioness.”

”Don’t, don’t do that,” Jocelynn said, balling her hands up into fists as she thought about what would happen if Owain’s guards had to rescue her here. If Owain thought she was trying to slip his net, then he might not let down his guard enough, even on their wedding night, and if he was on his guard...

”Let’s just, let’s just find Master Jean,” she said, firmly pushing down thoughts about what lay in wait for her after the wedding feast. The time would come too soon, whether she wanted it to or not. The important thing was to take care of her people first, before she did something that couldn’t be forgiven and put everyone who followed her in danger.

A few minutes of wandering the market later, they found Master Jean near the eastern end of the market, standing before a long stone counter where a fishmonger was laying out the morning’s river trout on a bed of crushed ice. Jean was younger than she’d expected, a man in his late twenties with a slender build and dark curly hair that he kept shorter than the current fashion.

He wore a simple cook’s tunic beneath a heavy leather apron, and his hands moved with quick, precise gestures as he pointed to specific fish, lifting gills and pressing flesh with the practiced efficiency of a man who had spent his life selecting the finest ingredients to prepare his best dishes for the most discerning of guests.

But there was a sharpness to him that didn’t quite belong to a simple cook, one that reminded Jocelynn of Captain Albyn. His dark eyes swept the market with a restless awareness that went beyond a cook’s concern over the quality of the morning catch. He seemed to have an extra awareness of the pairs of guards roaming through the marketplace, adjusting his posture ever so slightly to keep his face angled away from them whenever they passed by.

Through the haze of her hangover, Jocelynn attributed the sharpness to ambition. Becoming a master of kitchens at his age required more than talent; it required the kind of relentless, calculating focus that would make a man notice everything in a room the moment he entered it. Perhaps that focus was what had the eye of the infamous Black Merchant whose restaurant Jean managed and whose reputation for obtaining rare, exotic, and occasionally forbidden treasures was spoken of in whispers even among the highborn ladies of Lothian Court.

”Lady Jocelynn,” Jean said with a practiced bow. ”Thank you for coming. I hope the early morning hour hasn’t been too unkind to you,” he said lightly. ”I’m afraid that circumstances have conspired to prevent me from meeting you any other time,” he said, subtly acknowledging that his efforts to reach her had been thwarted just as much as her efforts to reach him had been.

”I’ll survive,” Jocelynn said, nodding in understanding. ”It’s always best to find out what the nets have caught early in the morning anyway,” she added carefully. ”Before anything has had a chance to spoil. Why don’t you show me what you’ve found, and we can discuss the menu for tomorrow’s feast?”

”Of course, my lady,” Jean said politely. ”I think you’ll find that I have some good options for you to consider...”