A Lady and Her Magic

  “We’d never suit,” she said. She felt like a book that had been read over and over, always saying the same thing.

  “I think we suit quite nicely,” Ashley said smoothly. He winked at her when Marcus turned his head. Her belly did that odd little flip again.

  “I’ll think about it,” Marcus said.

  “You’ll think about it?” Sophia mimicked, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.

  “Yes,” Marcus repeated with a nod. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Thank you,” Ashley said, extending his hand. Marcus took it with a grunt of dissatisfaction. Or annoyance. Or perhaps he was just dyspeptic. Belatedly, both Sophia and Ashley noted that it was his injured hand. Poor Marcus.

  Marcus started for the door. “I’ll send your maid to you,” he warned as he started down the corridor.

  Of course, he would.

  ***

  Ashley played over the events of the last half hour in his mind. The lady of his interest, and he most certainly had an interest, glared at him from where she stood.

  “Why did you tell him that?” she asked, tapping the toe of her slipper on the floor.

  “Tell him what?” Ashley stalled.

  “You know what,” she prompted.

  Ashley sighed heavily and rubbed at his forehead. “He said he was taking you away. I spoke on the spur of the moment.” He let his voice trail off on the last. There was so much more he wanted to say. But he wasn’t certain she wanted to receive it. He took one step toward her and looked into her eyes. “How do you feel about me, Miss Thorne?” he asked.

  She stuttered only a moment when she replied. “I-I like you quite a lot,” she finally said. Ashley’s heart leapt.

  “Do you think that you could love me?” he asked, nearly betraying himself with the softness of his tone. Did he have to seem quite so enamored of her?

  Her hazel gaze searched his face. He wondered what she was looking for. He’d thought the important parts worth noticing had died years before. But they hadn’t. They’d been sleeping, just waiting for a little slip of a lady to wake him up. If she looked deeply enough, she would see into his heart. “Do you?” he prompted again when she didn’t answer. She just appraised him.

  “Answering that question won’t be beneficial to either of us,” she said. Then she reached out a hand to cup his cheek. He pressed his face into it like a cat. God, he loved the way she touched him. The smoothness of her skin as it rubbed over his. He pulled her to him with a gentle tug, and she fell into him with no resistance. He splayed his fingers like a fan on her back, and she let him hold her tight.

  “Could you?” he asked, his lips hovering over hers.

  “Maybe,” she squeaked. She turned her head to clear her throat and pressed firmly against his chest. He didn’t let her go. And she didn’t continue to push. She softened after a moment. Oh, she gloriously softened.

  “I could,” she finally breathed. Then her lips touched his, a tentative meeting of mouths. He tilted his head so he could drink her in, and she opened to him. Her tongue tentatively rose to meet his. He growled low in his throat.

  A cough arose from the corridor. Ashley lifted his head to find her maid glaring at him, displeasure evident on her face. “Miss?” she said.

  Ashley set Sophia away from him a little and smiled at the look of wonder in her eyes. He liked the way he felt when he was in her company. He didn’t feel like a jaded old outcast. He felt like he had many, many years ago, when the world was his to conquer.

  “Miss?” the maid said again, louder this time.

  “Yes, yes,” Sophia said, her voice full of irritation. “I heard you.”

  “Did you, miss?” the maid asked.

  She should be sacked for such impertinence.

  “Your brother said for me to join you here.”

  “Of course, he did,” Sophia quipped with an eye roll. She stepped back from Ashley and he immediately felt the loss of her.

  “I should like to have a word with you,” the maid said.

  “Of course, you would,” Sophia said, her voice glib. She dropped into a playful little curtsy that brought a smile to his lips. She started to brush past him. But he caught her hand.

  “Will I see you later?” he asked, allowing his thumb to brush slowly across the back of her hand.

  “Will you be playing?” she whispered.

  “I will,” he affirmed.

  “Then I will see you later, I’m certain. Unless my brother locks me in my chamber.”

  “Which very well may happen,” chimed the maid.

  Over his dead body. “That would be tragic,” he said, instead. She winked at him as she moved toward the door. But almost as soon as she passed, Wilkins appeared. “Did you need something?” Ashley asked.

  “The new governess,” Wilkins said. “There’s already a problem with her.”

  A problem? The woman had just arrived. “What sort of problem?”

  “I took the new governess to make Lady Anne’s acquaintance, and Anne refused to come out of the wardrobe.”

  Good God, would his life ever become normal? Not bloody likely. “So, pull her out of the damn wardrobe.”

  “The new governess attempted that. And Lady Anne bit her on the arm. Then she dashed from her chambers and now we cannot find her.”

  Blast and damn. “Did she do much damage to the governess?”

  Wilkins shrugged. “Negligible.”

  Negligible for Anne was not the same negligible as for other children. Anne could do a lot of damage in a short amount of time when she set her mind to it.

  Ashley swiped at his nose with his handkerchief as he walked toward the door. “How does it look?” he asked Wilkins, lifting his head a notch and scrunching up his nose.

  “Painful,” the servant said, wincing a little in sympathy.

  “Did I mop up all the blood?”

  “Except for what’s on your cravat,” Wilkins informed him. Simmons would be none too pleased. Wilkins looked across the room and said, “And on the rug.” He looked a little perturbed at the latter. “I suppose it couldn’t be avoided,” he finally acquiesced.

  “I suppose not,” Ashley said with a grunt, swiping at his nose one more time. Damn but that did hurt. It was no more than he deserved, however. “I should have let you set up an assignation for me, Wilkins.” It certainly would have been more convenient than falling for a pretty little lass with flashing eyes, the sweetest lips he’d ever tasted, and a will to match his own. Not to mention her pugilist of a brother. “Remind me where Anne hid last time?” he prompted the butler.

  “No one can find Lady Anne when she does not want to be found, Your Grace. We usually have to let her come out on her own.”

  This time, he wasn’t willing to allow Anne to hide and sulk. “Pull all the servants from their posts. Find my daughter.”

  Wilkins nodded and set about his task.

  “Leave no stone unturned. No corner unsearched.” He would find her. And then he would… well, he didn’t know what he would do. But he would make certain this was the very last time she hid from them in a wardrobe. Or bit a governess. Or ran away.

  Seventeen

  Sophia wiped a spider’s web from her path with gentle fingers. Spiders were cantankerous beasts. They spent hours working on their hunting nets and didn’t appreciate it a bit when careless humans destroyed their work. But she had to check the attic. If she was a little girl, it’s where she would hide. Sophia swiped at her brow with her forearm as she climbed the dark steps. She held a candle aloft to lighten the gloom, but it simply made the shadows larger and more ominous. Night was about to fall, and Lady Anne was nowhere to be found.

  She stepped into the large attic, its slanted roof forcing her to bend at the waist until she was fully in the room. She stre
tched and looked about. There were stacks of old furniture—chairs, tables, settees, old bed frames. All discarded and left alone. Some were covered with linen bedclothes. But most had withstood the ravages of time despite the dust and grime that coated their surfaces. There were too many places to hide in such a large room. If Anne had decided to hide in the shadows of the great furniture pile, no one would ever find her.

  Sophia shoved a linen covering from a pile of furniture, then tugged the covering off another with the flick of her wrist. She would leave no cloth unfurled. No corner unsearched. But then she tugged the covers off a small settee. Standing directly in the middle of the settee was a portrait. Sophia startled for a moment because the woman in the portrait looked so very much like Anne. She held the candle closer and let the shadows dance upon the canvas. It must be Anne’s mother.

  She didn’t even know the woman’s name. It wasn’t spoken in the household. Not by Ashley, not by Anne, not by the servants, and not by anyone else. It was as though the memory of her had died along with her. Like she’d never existed. But she had. The portrait was proof of it. At the bottom of the portrait was a small brass plate that read, “Lady Diana Trimble, Duchess of Robinsworth.”

  “Why were you discarded, Your Grace?” Sophia said, her voice trembling a little as she reached into her reticule and withdrew a small vial of shimmering dust. She held it out in front of the painting. Should she do it? It could be disastrous. What if the portrait refused to return to sleep? Everyone knew the duchess had been an obstinate sort. Should she wake the painting to find the truth behind the duchess’s death? Only the duchess could tell her story and tell it correctly. But what if the duchess refused to return to sleep?

  A haughty smirk graced the lips of the duchess in the painting, as though she knew secrets no one else knew. What Sophia wouldn’t give to unlock those secrets. But there simply wasn’t time. Anne must be found. She threw the coverlet back over the painting and began to search the recesses of the room for the little girl.

  It wasn’t until she’d searched every inch of the room that Sophia stopped, sighed heavily, and wiped her brow again. Anne wasn’t in this room. And Sophia had wasted valuable time searching it from top to bottom. Where on earth could the girl be?

  It was then that she remembered Anne’s exuberance at the idea of visiting the village. Would the child have gone on her own? Would she so desperately want to leave the confines of the Hall? She probably would.

  Sophia raced down the stairs, shaking the dust from her skirts as she went. She met Marcus at the bottom of the stairs. “Has she been found yet?”

  “Not yet. The duke is beside himself. Perhaps you should go to him, Soph,” he said reluctantly.

  “I think I know where she is,” Sophia said, trying to catch her breath. “Follow me.”

  ***

  Ashley barked orders from the foyer of the manor, pointing this way and that, and snapping at all those who stopped to inform Wilkins about the areas they’d searched. The maids and footmen had been dispatched along with the rest of the household, and even the dowager duchesses, both the younger and the older, were searching, along with the guests of the house party. Anne’s name reverberated off the walls of the Duke’s ancestral home and for the first time ever, Ashley wished he lived in a small cottage in the middle of town. Yet despite all the searching, the child had not been found.

  A shiver crept up Ashley’s spine. What if they couldn’t find her? What if she was injured? What if someone had taken her? Fear squeezed at his heart, and Ashley realized he wasn’t concerned at all with her behavior or her surliness or her poor attitude; he simply wanted her. He wanted to hold his daughter and assure himself that she was all right.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sophia Thorne update Wilkins on the areas she’d searched. The butler placed a large mark over the area she’d indicated on the quickly drawn map, and then she turned to continue searching. But instead of going back toward the mazes and corridors that were the Hall, she made for the front door. And she took her brother with her. Where on earth was she going?

  Ashley followed them at a discreet distance as they went out the front door, their heads pressed closely together. They continued down the steps, and at the bottom, Sophia’s maid waited with two horses. They pranced and danced in their places, tugging at their leads until Mr. Thorne boosted Sophia up into her saddle and climbed upon his own trusty mount. Then with a gentle kick and an easy touch, they sped through the gates toward the village. Ashley searched the dim light of twilight, but the maid had vanished as quickly as she’d arrived. He scratched his head. Then he turned toward the door and bellowed, “Someone get me a mount.”

  ***

  “Just where are we going, Soph?” Marcus asked.

  “To get Lady Anne,” Sophia said, not taking her eyes from the road. Her horse was sure-footed, but even her filly couldn’t predict how rutted the road would be. “I should have gotten a lantern.”

  But then Marcus reached into his inner pocket and retrieved some pixie dust. Pixie dust was a glorified name for it. It was actually firefly bait. They loved the sugary crystals that were coated in fae magic. He tossed a light sampling of them into their horses’s manes. Within moments, hundreds of fireflies surrounded them, lighting their way.

  He shrugged at Sophia, a look of chagrin on his face. “For the horses,” he said lightly.

  “You always were afraid of the dark,” she teased.

  He rolled his eyes at her. “Pray tell me what has you in such a hurry to go to the village?”

  “I think that’s where Lady Anne has gone.”

  “What indicated that to you?”

  “Intuition,” she explained with a breezy wave of her hand.

  “Just how deeply are you involved with this family, Soph?” he asked, a troubled look on his face.

  “Deeply enough,” she said quietly. Then she slowed her mount as they approached the village. The fireflies dispersed almost as quickly as they’d arrived. A boy ran out of the stables and took their leads, and one helped Sophia to dismount as Marcus did the same.

  “There’s not enough magic in the world to help you locate that child,” Marcus warned.

  But then Sophia heard it. She heard a series of taunts and leering jeers. And a shrill shriek as a small girl child screamed as though tormented by the devil himself. Sophia’s heart stopped beating for a moment. Then she ran toward the sound.

  When she turned the corner into a dark alleyway, she found Lady Anne standing with her back to a rubbish pile. Before her stood four taunting, teasing boys, each brandishing weapons of their own making. None of them would allow Anne to pass.

  Anne stomped her foot and screamed in her most unladylike voice as tears streamed down her reddened cheeks. “My father will make you pay. All of you.”

  One boy snorted loudly. “Your father the murderer? What will he do? Kill us?”

  Another boy chimed in with a crude jest. “He’ll throw us from the tower of the castle, the same way he did his duchess.”

  Anne’s eyes grew round. “He did no such thing!” Tears poured down her cheeks. “My father didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Your father killed your mother. But since he’s a duke, he didn’t have to pay for it. He should have been hanged.” The other boys agreed with even louder jests.

  “Take it back!” Anne yelled, barely able to get the words out over her tears.

  Sophia approached on slow feet, not daring to make a sound. But Anne saw her and made a move toward her. Sophia held up her hand to stop her. With her other hand, she reached into her reticule and drew forth a vial of shimmery dust.

  “Don’t, Soph,” Marcus warned, reaching for the vial, but Sophia had already poured the dust in her palm, and with one heavy breath, she blew it into the air. The boys didn’t even know she was there behind them, until she said the wo
rds:

  “The truth be too difficult to bear,

  yet with this spell you will wear,

  the truth as though it were a cloak,

  giving meaning to the words you spoke.”

  The dust shimmered in the air like a great glittery ball until it formed over the heads of each of the boys. Above each boy, the particles glimmered and formed a moving picture, a memory of each boy’s weakness.

  “Pay close attention, Anne,” Sophia instructed. The boys froze, each looking at the great bubbles of shimmering dust with fear and trepidation. Then the dust began to take shape. “Each of us has insecurities, and it’s the most insecure of us all who would tease and torment a girl you don’t even know.” The dust painted a portrait, yet the pieces of the portrait moved like living, breathing people in the shimmering lights above the boys’ heads.

  The biggest boy’s portrait was of himself, cowering in a cupboard as a man slapped a woman across her face. The woman’s eyes shone with tears, as did the boy’s. It was a scene the boy saw often at home perhaps. He ducked his head in shame. Then Sophia poked a finger into his bubble and it burst like shooting sparks. He kicked at a stone at his feet, confusion on his face. But she sensed something awakening in him as well.

  The other boys had similar thoughts in their heads, but of different proportions. One had a drunken father who spent more time with the bottle than he did his family. And another had a father who spent more time with his mistress and their children than he did his wife and theirs. And another was born on the wrong side of the blanket, yet no one knew.

  “I’ll not ask you to apologize, but I’ll ask you not to condemn a girl for something you know nothing of, for we all have secrets, do we not?” Sophia asked in her most stern voice.

  “Yes, miss,” the boys chimed as one.

  Sophia swirled her finger in the air, making all the images disappear and, with them, the dust. Along with that went the memory of what each boy had just seen, except for the boy’s own self-portrait. The glittering images would remind each of them that their own truths could easily be distorted.