A Lady and Her Magic

  “But you’d like to learn more about her.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

  Ashley sighed and pushed back from the table. “She doesn’t quake in fear at the sight of me, if that’s what you’re wondering. In fact, she has told me on more than one occasion that she’s not afraid of me at all.”

  “Well, there’s a fortunate turn of events. Mother was ready to find a comely, blind, deaf widow with whom you could while away your days.”

  “Mother should mind her own matters.”

  “But she has such a good time minding yours.” Finn cleared his throat loudly. “What are your intentions with Miss Thorne?”

  “I intend to launch a full investigation into her character,” Ashley said without even cracking a grin. “If I’m to marry the chit, I’ll have to find out how many skeletons are in her closet. If she has more than one murder in her past, then she outdoes me, and I simply cannot have that.”

  “You can be such an arse,” Finn said.

  “I do try,” Ashley drawled. He hit the table gently with his open palm. “Deal the cards.”

  Finn regarded him stoically. “Would you like for me to investigate her?”

  “It’s not necessary,” Ashley began. The lady would probably never speak to him again once she spent some time at the Hall and heard all the stories about him from his mother’s guests. It would be no great loss either way. At that very moment, dinner was going on below stairs. He’d refused to attend. But Miss Thorne was probably there. And she was certainly being informed about his past.

  “What kind of gift did you send her? Flowers?”

  “A wind chime,” Ashley replied without even thinking. “The one from my garden.” At Finn’s perplexed look, he kept going. “She admired it greatly.”

  “You allowed her into your garden, did you?” Finn said as he began to deal. “You don’t even let me into your garden.”

  “I don’t allow problems in my private space. And you carry a lot of baggage.” He laughed. “Like Mother.” He pretended to mull over his cards, but he wouldn’t know twenty-one if it bit him on the arse, not now that the subject of Sophia Thorne had arisen. “She’s charming,” he said quickly. Then he waited for Finn’s response.

  Nothing. Absolutely no response at all.

  “Don’t you have a comment? An unsolicited suggestion? An unwanted barb?”

  “An uncommon quiet. Take it for what it’s worth.”

  “And what might that be?” Ashley hated it when people were cryptic about their feelings.

  Finn laid his cards on the table. Literally. “I think you like the lady. And I, for one, am damned happy to see it. So, don’t go scaring her off with your scowls and dark looks.”

  “I do not scowl.”

  “You look as though you’ve sucked a lemon most days, Robin,” Finn said good-naturedly. “Or two.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like…” Ashley began.

  “No, I don’t. And I probably never will. But I know what it’s like to be lonely. And I think you’ve been lonely long enough.”

  Ashley snorted. “Lovely. Now you’ve become some great philosopher.”

  “You could think of a better name to call me.”

  “They’re all rolling around in my head, waiting for an opportunity to bruise your pride.”

  Finn said, “Pride… hide… As long as something is bruised, I know I’m alive.”

  “One must hurt to be alive, is that it?” Ashley watched Finn’s face.

  “Then you have been alive for a very long time, have you not?”

  Ouch. Perhaps his brother would do him the honor of pulling the knife from his chest after that one.

  “Apologies, Robin,” Finn said with a heavy sigh. “It’s nice to see you interested in someone. Something not involving your land, tenants, or business interests. Something recreational.”

  “Bedchamber activities are not for recreation. They’re for procreation.”

  “Ha!” Finn exploded. “I knew we’d get to the meat of the matter. You want the chit in your bed.”

  It was better to let Finn think his interest was entirely carnal. That couldn’t be further from the truth. “Bed, corridor, against the wall,” he said as drolly as he could, pretending to ponder his hand. “It matters not where.”

  Finn shook his head slowly. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “Am I?” Ashley asked innocently. Let Finn figure it out for himself. His imagination was much more entertaining than Ashley’s life. “Let’s finish up this hand,” he directed. “I have to go and deliver a gift to Anne.”

  “Isn’t she asleep?”

  “She should be. But that German governess we had a few months ago told her tales of a faerie that comes and takes a tooth from beneath a child’s pillow and leaves a gift in return.” Finn looked at him like he had two heads. “Some fluttery little being.”

  “The German governess? Wasn’t that the one who found frogs in her bed?”

  “I don’t recall.” Ashley scratched his head. Anne had done so many terrible things to the people charged with her care that they began to run together after a time.

  Finn threw his cards down when he saw that he’d been beaten. Then he rose, took one long swallow of whiskey, draining his glass, and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Mother has threatened my life, not to mention my stones, if I should dare to desert her during the party. I think it’s ballocks, since it’s your house and I am the one being made to suffer.”

  “Better you than me,” Ashley said as he watched Finn slip out the door. It was much better that his mother call upon Finn to entertain her guests. Anyone would be better than Ashley himself.

  ***

  Sophia sighed heavily as she closed the door to her bedchamber and discarded her wrap. Margaret gave her a scolding glance. “How many times do I have to ask you not to throw your things on the floor?” the house faerie said with a disgusted shake of her head.

  “I thought dinner would never end,” Sophia groaned as she sat down on the edge of the bed and began to unlace her shoes. “You’ll have to help me get out of this gown,” she warned, just in case Margaret had decided to leave. “I don’t know why they make their clothes with so many hooks and loops and layers.”

  “Perhaps they like all the layers to warm their icy hearts,” Margaret said as she spun Sophia around none too gently and began to work at the fastenings on the back of the gown. Sophia was well aware that Margaret held a severe dislike for the human world and those who occupied it. But she had no idea why.

  “Are you going to tell me what has you tied up in knots? Or will you force me to suffer along with you?” Sophia shoved the gown down over her hips and stepped out of it. Margaret made a move to pick it up. “What is it about this world that has you up in arms?”

  “It’s not that I dislike it here,” Margaret began with a sniff. “But Ronald says—”

  Sophia held up a hand to cut her off. “You’ve been talking to Ronald?”

  “He came to see you a little while ago, but you weren’t back from dinner yet.”

  Sophia shook her head. That gnome would be the bane of her existence.

  “He means well,” Margaret said. “And I think he may be right.”

  Well, even if he was, Sophia would never admit it.

  “He says the duke wants you in his bed.”

  He wanted no such thing. They’d barely spoken more than a few words to one another. Sophia scoffed. “He doesn’t even know me.”

  Margaret sent her a pointed glance. “A man does not have to know you to want you in his bed, miss,” she informed Sophia.

  “How did Ronald get up here?”

  “He climbed the trellis. He was in the foulest of moods.” Margaret covered a giggle. “I did hit him with a fireplace pok
er when he tried to lean his body out the window and take down those chimes.”

  “I’m very proud of you. What made you do it? I know you hate the chimes as much as he does.” Everyone worried about Sophia and chimes. Or music of any kind.

  “I assumed the duke would be none too happy to see his silver balls smashed to bits on the garden floor.”

  “Good point,” Sophia encouraged.

  “Ronald’s legs are too short to reach them, anyway. You should have seen the look on his face when the poker hit his backside.” This time, the house faerie chuckled loudly.

  “Shh,” Sophia reminded her gently. “Or Grandmother will feel the need to come and interject herself into the conversation.”

  “What if Ronald’s right, miss?” Margaret asked gently.

  “A rest in the duke’s bed is not on my agenda for this mission.”

  “I doubt he’d want you to do much resting.” Margaret held out Sophia’s nightrail, but she waved it away.

  “I need to go out. Can you get my blue dress?” The webbed dress was her favorite, made from the softest strands of a spider’s web, laced together to form cloth. Then it was conditioned by the same spiders to be formfitting, which allowed Sophia to slide through keyholes with ease, and the trailing bits of fabric that covered her legs were made in such a way that they would simply fall off the overskirt of the dress, should she snag it during one of her escapades.

  “If you damage this dress, I’ll not be the one to go back to the spiders and barter for a new one,” Margaret said. She hadn’t even gone the last time. Sophia had gone herself. And barely come out of it with a new dress.

  Sophia fluffed the tendrils of fabric that fell, making it tickle around her knees where it stopped. “Do I look all right?” she asked as she regarded herself in the looking glass.

  Margaret reached up and began to pull the pins from Sophia’s hair, letting it fall down around her shoulders. “Good idea,” Sophia said as she massaged her scalp. She certainly didn’t want to leave hairpins behind if she had to make a mad dash for safety.

  “Be careful,” Margaret warned as Sophia willed her wings into existence. Then she shrank to the size of a child’s toy.

  “Can you get the window?” Sophia asked, as she fluttered in the air. She could get the window herself, but it would take time that she didn’t want to waste.

  Margaret opened the window and Sophia glanced at the chimes. No breeze broke the stillness of the night, and the chimes were uncommonly silent. It was almost as if they were a great sleeping beast just waiting to wake and steal her concentration. She shook herself from her reverie. “I can let myself back in, if you want to go to bed. Just leave the window cracked.”

  “Your grandmother would never forgive me if I left while you’re on a mission. I’ll wait.”

  “Well, take a nap. Your disposition could certainly use it.” Margaret was often cross, but never cross and obnoxious, not unless she was tired.

  Margaret harrumphed. “I can plan my own night’s activities, thank you very much.”

  Sophia flittered out the window and into the damp night air. Sophia loved the night air and everything that came with it. She circled the house quickly, fairly certain she’d be able to find Lady Anne’s chambers from the exterior of the house. Then she’d just have to find a way inside, once she had her bearings, so she could go through a keyhole or slide beneath a door.

  But as she went from window to window looking inside, she finally came upon a window that was partially open. She landed gently on the windowsill and bent to slide beneath the crack. She very nearly got stuck. If her bottom wasn’t so big, she wouldn’t have any trouble at all. But such was her cross to bear.

  Sophia stood on the inner sill and dusted herself off. Someone really should tell Wilkins that the sills were dirty. He’d probably get the housekeeper right on it. A voice broke the stillness of the night.

  “I knew I smelled a mission faerie,” the voice said. “I’d know that stench anywhere.” Mission faeries and gift faeries had been enemies for centuries. Their very natures warred with one another.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “There’s a tooth to be had,” the faerie said. He tapped his foot impatiently where he stood on the bedside table. “Do not think to stand in my way.”

  “Shh, or you’ll wake her,” Sophia warned as she glanced at Lady Anne, who slept soundly, her little hand curled beneath her cheek. Her nurse probably slept in the adjoining room and would be as likely as Anne to hear them if they made any sort of disturbance.

  “When did you begin servicing England?”

  “We service anyone who believes,” he said with very little emotion.

  “I hope you brought a gift for her.” If a gift faerie could get away with stealing the tooth and leaving nothing in its place, he could sell the tooth, which had a modest amount of value, depending on its size, and not have anything invested in the exchange at all. Pure profit. Purely ridiculous. Wholly forbidden.

  “Why should I? Gift faeries are a myth, even in the minds of the believers. They speak of us, and then they do our work for us,” he groused, growing more and more impatient.

  He was right. The few people who did tell their children stories of gift faeries had grown disillusioned by the many faeries who were thieves. He glanced toward the window. “The night grows shorter. I have many, many gifts to give before the sun rises.”

  He yawned loudly and tapped his open mouth as he did so. He shook his magic bag at her, which clanked loudly in the stillness of the room. Anne’s hand stretched open beneath her cheek as if she was startled from the noise, and then she settled deeper into her pillow, her mouth open as she breathed softly.

  Sophia could just imagine the gift faerie’s next move. He’d take the tooth, leave nothing in its place, and be holed up with a fallen faerie as soon as his pocket jingled with coins from the sale of the teeth.

  Soft footsteps from outside the door reached her ears, just before the door handle began to turn slowly. Sophia dashed behind a lamp as quickly as she could, as the gift faerie dove beneath the skirts of one of Lady Anne’s dolls. Sophia rolled her eyes. Of course, he would choose there.

  Sophia peeked out from behind the lamp and watched as the duke himself slipped into the room. He wore his shirtsleeves, and his throat was bare. A very light sprinkling of dark hair dusted his chest. His hair was messy, like he’d run his hands through it over and over. Shadows darkened the skin beneath his eyes. He looked tired. And that tugged at Sophia’s heart a little.

  Ashley sat down very gently on the edge of the bed and sneaked his fingers beneath the pillow. He retrieved Anne’s tooth from beneath her feather pillow and dropped it into his pocket, as he pulled out a length of pink silk. He wound the ribbon around his finger and held it for a moment, sliding the pad of his thumb across the silky surface. Then he tucked it beneath Anne’s pillow and kissed her gently on the forehead. The little girl didn’t even move. He left as quietly as he’d arrived.

  “You owe me for that,” the gift faerie groused.

  “You should have been quicker,” Sophia tossed back. True, if Sophia hadn’t interrupted him, he’d probably have had that tooth and would have been long since gone.

  “And you wonder why we dislike you so,” the other faerie muttered.

  She’d never wondered any such thing. She knew exactly why they didn’t like one another. They had very different goals and lived by different covenants. Gift faeries weren’t bound by the same Unpardonable Errors; theirs were not nearly as stringent, nor were the consequences as harsh if one erred.

  “You hate us because we’re beautiful,” she said instead. “That’s the tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth. Admit it.”

  “You mission faeries should be swimming with the fish,” he grumbled as he moved toward the cracked
window. Only the really, really bad faeries were turned into fish to live out their days.

  Sophia cast one long look toward Lady Anne. She wanted to stay and see if she could learn anything about the little girl by looking through her personal belongings. But that might have to wait until the next day, because the girl’s nurse could already be heard moving about the adjoining chamber.

  Sophia flitted back to the window and slipped beneath it. She really needed to lay off the sweets so she could fit more easily in small spaces. The webbed clothing could only do so much.

  The gift faerie shot her a dirty look. “See you around,” he said as he put his wings in motion.

  “Not if I see you first,” Sophia called back.

  Sophia made her way back to her own window, surprised to find Margaret wide awake and waiting for her. Margaret helped her out of her webbed dress and into her nightrail. Then she turned down the bed and moved toward the door to go to the servants’ quarters.

  “Will you wake me bright and early? I’d like to get an early start and wander about a while tomorrow before anyone else wakes.”

  Margaret huffed. “Certainly, miss. You can keep me up until all hours of the night and then expect me to rise from my warm bed to wake you at the crack of dawn. Certainly. Not a problem.”

  “Margaret,” Sophia sighed.

  Margaret held up a hand to stop her. “I know, I know. Your mission rests upon it.” She moved toward the door. “I believe you’d tell me your mission rested upon it if you wanted a cup of chocolate, too, for what it’s worth.”

  “Good night, Margaret,” Sophia said to her retreating back. The house faerie was still muttering as she went out the door.

  Sophia slid beneath the counterpane and had just laid her head upon her pillow when she heard the sound. She bolted upright. What was that noise?

  Seven

  Ashley cleaned up the mess he’d made with the cards and then waited for Simmons, his valet, who would arrive to make certain the duke didn’t need anything before retiring. The man was as predictable as the clock striking the hour. Ashley rubbed at his eyes. Sleep was often elusive for him, and he felt remorseful for keeping his servants up so late to take care of his needs. But, try as he might, the ones who had been with him the longest seemed to take great pride in being available despite his odd schedule.