The Lord of Stariel

by A J Lancaster

  She went and found Wyn, who was in the housekeeper’s office. He looked up when Hetta came in.

  “Alexandra?” he asked without preamble. He looked more tired than she’d ever seen him. The whole household was heavy-eyed today.

  “The same,” she said. “Dr Greystark brought a tonic for her but says otherwise there is little we can do but see that she is not agitated and wait.”

  “Oh, Hetta.” He rose, concern creasing his face, but she waved him away. She didn’t want sympathy just now; it made it harder to bear the waiting.

  “In any case, that’s not why I came to find you—what are you doing?” She was suddenly curious.

  “Drafting an advertisement for a housekeeper.”

  “I was rather under the impression that you were filling that role.” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You’re not arranging your exit from this house, are you?”

  “I cannot do everything. Lord Henry was unwilling to hire new staff when the old housekeeper retired and encouraged me to expand my butlering duties to encompass both roles. But now we are also missing a land steward.”

  She felt abruptly selfish. It was easy to take Wyn for granted. He was always there, in the background, ensuring things ran smoothly, radiating calm competence. She remembered wondering about the news that he’d taken over the household management several months before her father’s death, but Stariel had seemed so far away then and Wyn had never sounded less than completely assured. But it ought to have occurred to her in the time since.

  “Oh, I am sorry, Wyn. I swear I’ve no idea how you keep up with half the things you already do. Of course we must hire more staff. Though, presumably, you were going to draw my attention to this?”

  “That is why I called it a draft notice.” His voice was very dry.

  “I should have noticed.”

  “It’s my job to tell you these things,” Wyn said. “And I have told you at the appropriate time, ergo: now. Nothing is in any immediate danger of falling to pieces. I beg you not to look at me as if I am about to expire; it pricks my vanity. Tell me instead what you came seeking me for.”

  He came around the small desk as he spoke, and the size of the room shrank. The housekeeper’s office wasn’t generously sized and Wyn was a tall man. For a second, Hetta thought of feathers and filled the space around them with outstretched wings.

  “My Star?”

  Hetta gave herself a stern mental shake. “Do you know where someone by the name of Tidwell would be lodging?”

  “Marius told you his secret, then.”

  “Yes, although even if he hadn’t, I could hardly fail to have noticed his attack on Marius yesterday.”

  “I have put it about that it was a prank gone awry. An old school friendship from Knoxbridge, that sort of thing.”

  “I seem to be inordinately stupid today; it didn’t occur to me that people would gossip. Thank you for coming up with a story.”

  Wyn’s eyes gentled. “It’s not stupid to be preoccupied.”

  They both mentally went upstairs, to the room where Alexandra lay.

  Though she’d noted how tired Wyn looked, closer up she could see it wasn’t just a lack of sleep. There was a heaviness to him in place of his usual effervescence.

  “I feel responsible for John Tidwell’s actions,” he said abruptly. “I did not anticipate that my binding would incite him to violence.”

  “Don’t be foolish.”

  He sighed, and she could see the uncertainty in him. “Is it foolishness, Hetta?”

  “Yes,” she told him tartly. “So stop dwelling on it.” His eyes were worn and full of secrets, and part of her wanted to shake him until they came loose. “I swear sometimes you’re cryptic simply for the pleasure of seeming mysterious.”

  “It’s a habit that’s hard to lose,” he said ruefully. “Shall we proceed to Mr Tidwell’s lodgings, then?”

  Wyn didn’t ask for clarification of their purpose as they stole out of the house. For that, Hetta was grateful, because she couldn’t have explained precisely what she hoped to achieve. Or rather, she could rationalise it under the guise of following a lead that might end in discovering the Star Stone, but that was only part of the whole reason. The truth was much simpler and much less noble. Someone had hurt her family; she wanted to hurt them in return. She was fairly certain that Wyn knew this, but he said nothing as they drove into Stariel-on-Starwater. She really must learn to drive, but it had fallen to the bottom of her list of priorities in the wake of various other urgencies.

  The remnants of yesterday’s Faire were still scattered about, though the illusion had dispersed, and the stalls were in the process of being dismantled. Hetta caught Wyn assessing the work as if he were making notes, which, she supposed, he probably was. She found it hard to read his expression. There was a caution to him, the sense that he was watching her as intently as she was him.

  Mr Tidwell had lodgings with a widow in Whitnow Street on the outskirts of the village.

  “He might not even be here,” Hetta said, looking up at the narrow two-storied stone house. It had a small garden at its front, bare in this season.

  “He will be packing. His train leaves tonight.”

  “How very convenient you are.” It occurred to her suddenly that the most terrifying person on Stariel Estate might not be whoever was behind the theft of the Star Stone, for in knowledge there was power, and no one knew more small details about the locale than her friend.

  Wyn hesitated and then reached out, very briefly, to grip her shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. She stopped him from taking his hand back, resting her gloved fingers atop his. There was a charged moment, but beneath the sudden sensual interest that flickered in his eyes she could see worry. Everything seemed so very complicated between them, and she felt a strong urge to un-complicate. Seated as they were, he was, Hetta thought with sudden intent, within kissing distance. She wriggled closer, until their warm breaths mingled. He stilled, and she took the opportunity to walk her hand up his arm to rest gently on his starched collar.

  “Hetta…” His voice was deeper than usual, vibrating with some strong emotion. “I don’t think—” He broke off as she raised her hand further and traced his jawline. The heat of his skin seeped through her thin gloves. She considered herself a reasonably accomplished flirt, but this felt different, as if she hovered on the edge of a precipice, about to fall into an unknown land. Wyn leaned very slightly into the touch.

  Dash propriety, caution, and fae. She would’ve kissed him then, but he was abruptly not there to be kissed. He moved away and exited the car in a swift motion, quick as a cat, while she still sat there, one half of an unfinished promise. She sighed, knowing he was probably right—now wasn’t an appropriate time for such carryings-on—but irked all the same.

  She glared at him as she got out of the car before he could open the door for her. It was, she knew, entirely reasonable of him not to be sure of his own mind, but it was hard to hold on to this thought when he stood there, unrepentant and beautiful, smiling at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “How long are we going to dance around this thing between us?” she asked him crossly.

  He ignored her question. “Mrs Eldervelt—the widow who lives here, and Mr Tidwell’s aunt—is normally out at this time of day.” He looked at the unprepossessing house. “She is elderly and possessed of an independence. I believe Mr Tidwell hoped that he might persuade her to make him her heir—from what Marius has told me, he has been quite desperate for funds since his father cut him off after he quit law school. Which is, presumably, why he was particularly anxious that Marius should inherit.”

  “Apparently we will be avoiding the subject until the cows come home, if left up to you,” Hetta said, ignoring his words as he had hers. “You make me feel grossly lacking in subtlety, but tell me plainly whether you want me to stop. I don’t wish to be foisting myself at you if you are in fact disgusted by me.”

  “Hetta—” He reached o
ut towards her, stricken, but she backed away and fixed him with a stern look.

  “No, Wyn. Tell me.”

  “I…you’re leaving, Hetta,” he said. “When we find the Stone. Even if there were no other considerations—and you cannot pretend there are not others—you will go back to your old life, away from Stariel, and I can’t—I can’t go with you.” He drummed agitated fingers on the roof of the car, little metal sounds in the quiet street. “Storms above, I don’t even know if you would want me to go with you. But I can’t bear to be with you and then…not…” He trailed off, and the fierce emotion in his eyes knocked the breath from her lungs.

  “Oh,” she said uselessly.

  His fae nature was close to the surface. She could see it in the prominence of his cheekbones, in the darker cast of his skin, in the brilliance of his irises. The soft scent of rain and spice coloured the air for a heartbeat, the thickening pressure before a storm—a combination she was starting to recognise as his magic, though why fae magic should have a scent, she didn’t know.

  Wyn exhaled, and the foreign magic dispersed as abruptly as it had come, leaving just her old, familiar friend in its place, all hints of non-humanness tucked neatly away.

  “Shall we go up?” he said, as if nothing of importance had occurred.

  “Oh, how I would like to shake you sometimes! But very well.” She stopped him just before they went up to the gate with a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked down at her, his expression as unhappy as she’d ever seen it. “So am I.”

  38

  Mr John Tidwell

  Hetta had expected to feel a tide of anger at the sight of John Tidwell, but all she could summon when she and Wyn unceremoniously let themselves into his room was pity. Wyn’s estimate had been correct—they’d caught Mr Tidwell in the middle of packing. A large trunk lay open in the centre of the room, and belongings lay strewn in the disarray necessary when one is attempting to confine one’s possessions. Hetta had a sudden sharp thought for her own room back in the boarding house in Meridon.

  John Tidwell looked up when they entered, a curious mix of alarm and guilt coming over him when he saw who it was. He’d been kneeling on the floor, wrestling with a case, and he rose in an undignified scramble.

  “What do you want?”

  “Aren’t you going to enquire after my sister?” Hetta asked. He flinched.

  “Surely it was just a fall.” He looked from Hetta’s face to Wyn’s, and his voice rose, seeking reassurance. “Surely she must be fine?”

  “No,” Hetta told him coldly. “She’s not fine.”

  He paled. “It was an accident. I never intended—”

  “No, you intended to hurt my brother instead. Though I doubt you would have done more than singe him, with such a pathetic display of magic.” She was abruptly tired. She’d come here out of a desire for vengeance, but there was no satisfaction to be had from this sorry creature. She waved away his attempts to explain himself. “I don’t care,” she told him. “Leave this house and this village and let me never see or hear from you again. I’m tired of you and your weak attempts at blackmail. But first, tell me what you’ve done with the Stone.”

  The man had been swelling with anger at her words, but this gave him pause. “Stone?” he repeated, genuinely puzzled. “What stone?”

  She remembered suddenly what Marius had said about being able to sense the Stone when it was nearby. Mr Tidwell’s confusion was very convincing, but still she reached for Stariel, sure that her land-sense would point her in the correct direction if the Stone was here to find. But Stariel had no light to shine on the situation, and she caught only a vague sense of ill-ease from the land, and that was nothing new. Stariel had been growing increasingly restless the longer it spent lordless. Wyn gave her an enquiring look, and she shook her head very slightly. The Stone wasn’t here.

  “There is a binding on you,” Wyn told the man, to Hetta’s surprise, “that prevents you from identifying Marius, that you may not set spiteful rumours about him.”

  “I knew it!” the man cried. “I knew it was magic devilry.”

  Hetta raised an eyebrow at him. “Magic devilry that you yourself used just yesterday.”

  “I will remove the bindings,” Wyn continued, “on the condition that you never return to Stariel or seek to do further harm to any of the Valstars.”

  Hetta wasn’t sure how she felt about this development. On the one hand, she couldn’t quite be easy with the nature of Wyn’s fae magic that made him able to constrain a man’s mind so. But on the other, since the magic had already been done, the practical part of her thought it might be better to leave things as they were.

  John Tidwell looked ready to bluster his indignity at length, but Wyn fixed him with an arctic stare. “Will you agree to those terms?” When the man would’ve tried to negotiate, Wyn grew distant and alien, implacable as a storm. “Those are my terms: agree to them and I will remove the bindings. Do not agree and I will not remove the bindings and I will still make you unwelcome at Stariel. And be warned, if you break your word, I will make you regret it deeply.”

  “And I will ruin you,” Hetta added. She wasn’t actually sure how one went about ruining people, but she was sure that she could if she put her mind to it.

  “Very well,” he said grudgingly.

  There was a taste of magic in the air, lightning charged with spice, and then Wyn said, “It is done. You have until the train departs tonight to leave Stariel.”

  Before they came back to the house, she made Wyn pause with a hand on his arm. “Do you—do you know of any magic that could help Alexandra?” she asked in a rush.

  The warmth in his eyes dimmed. “Not that I possess. My gifts do not lie in healing. I am sorry for it.”

  Hetta patted his arm. “It was only a stray thought. I remembered the fairy tales I heard as a girl and…” She shrugged.

  Wyn nodded and opened the door for her. Aunt Sybil was making her way up the main staircase as they entered.

  “How is she?” Wyn asked.

  Aunt Sybil didn’t even reprimand him. Her expression was grave and entirely without its normal hint of disapproval. “Worse, I am afraid. Dr Greystark is with her again. I am going to try to coax Phoebe to take a few hours’ rest while he is here.”

  Wyn and Hetta exchanged glances.

  “I’ll come to you once I’ve changed out of my coat, Aunt,” Hetta said. Aunt Sybil simply nodded and continued on her way.

  Hetta went up to the sickroom after tidying herself and tried not to show how shocked she was at Alexandra’s appearance. Her breathing had become laboured. The continual wheeze of her chest rising and falling was the only sound in the room. Dr Greystark was fiddling with various concoctions from his case, and Aunt Sybil sat in a chair by Alexandra’s bedside, one hand resting on the coverlet. She was studying Alexandra’s features with soft sorrow, and Hetta abruptly recalled that Aunt Sybil had lost a child to bronchitis long ago. Hubert, Jack’s younger brother by two years, had died before he was three years old. Hetta didn’t remember him.

  Aunt Sybil hadn’t been successful in persuading Phoebe to leave her daughter even for a few hours, but she’d evidently come up with a compromise. Phoebe was stretched out on a little trundle bed at the far end of the room, exhaustion ageing her.

  Dr Greystark looked up as Hetta came further into the room, and his expression made Hetta feel as though a great clamp had wrapped around her chest, tightening. He gave soft instructions for administering the medicines he had mixed. Aunt Sybil nodded, her eyes not leaving Alexandra’s face.

  “Is there nothing else you can do?” Hetta asked quietly. She hesitated. “Perhaps a specialist we could send for?”

  Dr Greystark didn’t look offended at the suggestion, but he sighed heavily, brushing a hand through his grey locks. “You’re welcome to try. Although I doubt they could do more than I have already.” He looked at Alexandra, lines creasing his forehead as he frowned. “I will give you s
ome names.”

  39

  Gregory Has an Idea

  Meals had become very quiet affairs since Alexandra’s illness. Hetta made some desultory attempt at conversation, but it fell flat, and they ate for the most part in silence. Aunt Sybil hadn’t come down to dinner, presumably taking it in the sickroom, and Phoebe made no appearance either. Gregory was also absent, Hetta knew not where, so it was only Jack, Marius, and Grandmamma at table.

  Wyn had come to take their plates away—the maid had been co-opted by Phoebe for sickroom duty—when Gregory appeared. He came into the room with an air of defiance, which Hetta at first thought was merely due to his lateness. The wild burning of his eyes said otherwise.

  “I know how to help Alex,” he said as soon as he’d crossed the threshold. His words were addressed particularly to Hetta. “All she wants is your word.”

  Hetta frowned. “Gregory, what—”

  “Gwendelfear. She says she can heal Alexandra.”

  There was a long silence, followed by Hetta, Jack, and Marius all firing approximately the same question at Gregory at once: just when and how had he been talking to Gwendelfear?

  “I went outside the bounds and called her name three times,” he said. Into the mildly astonished silence that followed this proclamation, he added, a little sheepishly, “I read about it in one of the books in the library. How to summon fairies.”