Demon Knight

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Hamish Campbell was not looking for trouble that fine spring evening and did not expect any. Toby Longdirk attracted trouble like stables drew flies, but Toby had stayed behind in Florence to organize this year's fighting season. Hamish had come to Siena on a quiet little spying mission. If he were caught, he would be tortured and possibly hanged, so he was certainly not looking for trouble.

Lady Lisa, on the other hand… Trouble was not what she had in mind. Adventure would be a better term. But trouble was what she got.

Extraordinary consequences were to result from their meeting. Although it appeared to be due to the merest chance, it was not fortuitous at all. There were demons involved.

Lisa had opened hostilities before noon. "Mother! It is Carnival! How can you possibly resist the opportunity for a little innocent merrymaking?"

Looking up from her embroidery, the Countess of Ely uttered one of her longer-suffering groans. "Very easily. We have not spent two nights under the same roof in the last month. We have just crossed the ocean in the dead of winter, and the last thing I want to do is go out and participate in a public riot. Have you practiced the virginals today?" Maud seemed tired, but then she always seemed tired now. However skilled, her maids could no longer disguise the grooves in her face, and her once-golden hair was quite obviously dyed, not merely touched-up as it had been until last summer. That was no excuse, because people wore masks at Carnival, and the handsome young men would be looking at Lisa, not her mother.

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