Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress by Judith E. French Read Free Book Online

Walters had never acted the same toward Lacy again, and she’d gone out of her way to avoid eye contact. Lacy had lost one of the few friends she had in the village. It didn’t matter if Lacy’s magic was white or black, it was all to be feared.
    Witchling. Gypsy get. Devil’s jade. They called her that and more. Her half-brothers, Ben and Alfred and Beatty, had made the evil-eye sign against her and taunted her. Even Red Tom had been afraid. Men said of him that he was bold enough to spit in the devil’s eye, but Lacy had seen the doubt in his gaze and felt the hesitation in his touch. He was as superstitious as any other seafarer, and her gypsy sight scared the wits out of him.
    Her witch power had kept her from being beaten by her father, but it hadn’t kept her from doing as she was told. He’d brought her to learn the wrecker’s life, and learn she did. Her only school was the sea and the rocky beach. She’d been eight when she’d lured her first sailing vessel to destruction on a hidden shoal.
    Red Tom had used her curse when it suited him. Sometimes, she’d see ships or coming storms in her visions. In time, she learned to hide the spells and keep her seeing to herself, as long as they took possession of her when she was alone. When it happened, she lost track of time. She didn’t know if she lost consciousness for seconds or an hour. Alfred had told her that her eyes closed, and it looked as though she were asleep, but she didn’t know if that was true. Sometimes, though, if the spell was brief, no one noticed.
    The trance that had occurred inside her Newgate cell had been quick. She had snapped back into the real world with a hazy image of a strange, red-hued barbarian in her mind’s eye. His ebony-colored hair had been long, nearly to his waist, and his eyes black as night. His nose had been broad and his lips thin, his black eyes slanted and oval, not round like the eyes of a normal man. And his face had borne peculiar tattoos from the line of his chin to the craggy ridges of his high cheekbones.
    The vision had troubled her, but it had not returned. She had begun to believe that perhaps she had dreamed the bronzed man. Usually her sight showed familiar people and places. Like the trance that had brought her to the foot of the gallows ...
    In early summer, she had warned a village widow woman not to allow her only son to go fishing on a seemingly calm day. The boy was only twelve and his mother’s hope and joy. But the mother had ignored Lacy’s advice and let the child go. When a storm arose suddenly and the boat capsized, the grieving mother accused Lacy of murder by witchery.
    Even the threat of Red Tom’s revenge couldn’t save her that time. She’d been dragged before a local squire, then carried to London and thrown into Newgate. Her trial had been a mockery of justice. No one listened to her; no one cared that she had tried to save the child’s life, not take it. Nothing she could say prevented her from being sentenced, first to be branded with a W for witch, and then to be hanged by the neck until she was dead.
    Lacy touched the burn scar on her forehead. It still hadn’t healed; it was sore and raised. If she closed her eyes she could still see the red-hot iron descend toward her face. She hadn’t screamed when the heat seared her flesh. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she knew her cries of pain would give the sadistic warder pleasure. And she wouldn’t give them anything ... not willingly. She’d cheated them of her neck, so far.
    God alone knew where she would go or what she would do. She couldn’t go home. Even among wreckers, a convicted witch was too dangerous to hide. The king’s men would hunt her, and the devil’s mark on her forehead would be her undoing. She hadn’t thought past getting away from the executioner. Perhaps the New World ...
    Lacy flinched as the sinking feeling returned. She opened her mouth, but no sound came from her throat. Her mind felt