Read Online The Cursed Towers by Kate Forsyth - Free Book Online Page A

blood-stained linen and packing up her herbal potions. Wondering that Bronwen should have remained so quiet during the uproar, she bent over the cradle and what she saw made her suck her breath in sharply. Bronwen was awake, her silvery-blue eyes wide open, babbling happily to herself. In her tiny hands she held the Lodestar, shining white. Panic rushed through Isabeau's veins. She glanced up and saw Lachlan's scepter still lying on the chair where Meghan had left it, though now the silver claws were empty. Somehow Bronwen had called the Lodestar to her while everyone else was distracted with the birthing. Her pulses pounding, Isabeau wondered what to do. Lachlan rarely let the scepter out of his hand, and he would be greatly enraged if he realized what Bronwen had done. Isabeau could not take the Lodestar from the baby, though, for it was death to anyone but a MacCuinn to touch it. If Meghan had still been in the room, she could perhaps have taken the Lodestar without Lachlan noticing it had gone missing, but the sorceress had taken the dead baby away to prepare for burial.
    Just then the Righ glanced up and saw her hovering in indecision over the cradle. Even as he frowned in interrogation, his eyes followed hers to the scepter and he saw at once that the Lodestar was gone. Color rose in his swarthy cheeks and just as quickly drained away, leaving him a sickly yellow. With a falcon's shriek he leapt to his feet, his wings extending, and was across the room. Isabeau shrank back. He seized the glowing orb and wrested it from the baby, who at once began to wail. To Lachlan's horror, the Lodestar slipped from his fingers and flew back to the baby's outstretched hands. He grasped it again, while Bronwen bellowed with disappointment, her face turning scarlet.
    Isabeau darted forward and snatched Bronwen from the cradle. Lachlan's face was set in a mask of fury, his eyes glaring. "Do no' dare touch her!" Isabeau cried, cuddling the little girl to her chest. She saw his hands clench into fists, every tendon in his body taut with anger. With a cry, Isabeau turned and fled the room, Bronwen sobbing disconsolately. Outside all the bells in the city began to ring in triumph at the birth of the new heir to the throne, but to Isabeau they seemed to toll a warning. The House of Wanton Delights was the most exclusive brothel in all of Lucescere. Within its crimson-hung walls the most beautiful and exotic of whores were available to anyone who could afford the exorbitant prices charged by Black Donagh, the proprietor. An immensely fat man, he lounged at his ease on a couch among gold-tasseled cushions, fondling a slender young boy with one ring-laden, pudgy hand, the other toying with the embroidered hose of a tall hookah. An exquisitely dressed young laird lounged opposite, swirling whiskey in a glass of cut crystal. Diamonds glittered at his shoulder and in one ear. Candlelight flickered over the ornate fabrics of the curtains, pillows and silk-hung walls, deepening the shadowed cleavages of scantily dressed girls and the rouge-enhanced muscles of slim boys. From the smoky comers of embrasures came low laughs and murmurs, and in the center of the room danced an exceedingly well-fleshed woman, dressed only in jewels and gold chains.
    Under a velvet embossed canopy a woman sat strumming the gilded strings of a clarsach. Although her dress was buttoned high around her throat and wrists, it was cut away from collarbone to navel, revealing a shapely expanse of very pale skin. Her silky black hair curved onto her cheekbones, shadowing her features, though occasionally her eyes glinted blue in the candlelight. She sang of love in a husky voice as rose-clad servitors poured wine into the goblets of the customers and brought trays of sweetmeats and comfits to lay upon the delicate little tables.
    "She is new since I was last here," the young laird said languidly, reaching out one white hand to select a little spiced cake from the tray. "Where did