Lessons in Enchantment

by Patricia Rice

  If only she could read the minds of people! But she couldn’t. So she looked for the countryman in the crowd, tugging at his horse’s reins. She didn’t recognize him. She didn’t want him to recognize her. She shrugged out of her old redingote, removed her hat, and concealed it under the coat draped over her arm. It was a pity she couldn’t carry her pretty new veiled hat with her so she could don it now. Instead, she settled for wearing her most sympathetic expression.

  “What a good horse,” she cooed, mentally telling the horse to back up while patting its nose. The roan tossed and shook its head. Spooked, it backed away from the hay.

  The men arguing in the street turned to stare. She gave them a vapid smile. “Are you a stranger to the city, sir?” she asked, still calming the horse and taking advantage of the sudden cessation of argument.

  “Mayhap,” the middle-aged rider said cautiously, gathering up his horse’s reins. The broad country accent gave him away.

  “It’s best not to take a hungry horse through the streets. The apple cart might have been next,” she said merrily. “Are you taking him back to his stable?” She patted the old thing affectionately and scratched behind an itchy ear. The roan twitched it in approval.

  The carter growled something irascible and returned to his seat to move his load out of reach.

  “Not so it’s your business,” the rider said in suspicion.

  “Oh, but you see, it is,” Phoebe said sweetly. “My aunt owns a stable behind the old walls. I thought if you were looking for a place, you might be interested. This old boy is looking mighty tired. Where are you from? Do I detect a Glaswegian accent? That’s a very long trip by horseback.”

  “I come by train,” the rider said, indignantly. “Rented this hack. Now if you’ll let ’im go, I’ll be on my way.”

  “My aunt’s place is in Canongate. Ask for Auntie Mable. Everyone knows her. If you’ll give me your name, I’ll tell her to give you a discount.” Everyone knew Mable’s Stable. Phoebe simply didn’t intend to let Mable know she’d sent a scalawag her way. Mable wouldn’t care.

  “Ebenezer. Just tell her it’s Ebenezer. Now I gotta be on my way.” He swung up awkwardly on the restive horse and yanked it away from Phoebe’s caress.

  He was from Glasgow and wasn’t an experienced rider, which meant he wasn’t a countryman. Interesting.

  Phoebe took the straighter path to the garden, down lanes a carriage couldn’t go.

  Surely a simple man like that had no reason to hurt small children? What if it was Mr. Blair he wanted?

  Eleven

  Drew thought he might have an apoplexy while he parked the carriage, found an urchin to look after the horse, and tried to keep the children reined in while he waited for the thrice-cursed governess to return. What in all that was holy could she do on her own?

  He didn’t dare let Daisy take off with the children. They’d soon be out of sight. He couldn’t know that the rider meant harm, but he was taking no chances with the weans. He had them play a jack-in-the-box game in the carriage while they waited.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the lady’s long strides down the street. She was pulling on her redingote as she walked, struggling with her hat, and dodging passersby in her haste. People turned to stare. Lady Phoebe was not exactly ladylike in her demeanor, and he smiled. The lady was nearly as direct as a man.

  And then he quit smiling, wondering what kind of upbringing she must have had that she’d been allowed to behave in such a manner.

  She pinned her rumpled hat on as she greeted them. “Sorry for the little delay, my sweets. Shall we inspect the monument first? The view is said to be spectacular.” She helped the twins down.

  Drew considered wringing the lady’s neck as he followed with Enoch in tow. The boy was eager to toss—or levitate—his ball, not look at a horrendously ugly monument. “Daisy, will you watch the children while I speak with Lady Phoebe?” His irritation made the question more of a command, but he lacked patience for niceties.

  The twins happily skipped past Daisy, and Enoch sat down to launch his ball. Lady Phoebe almost stopped to correct him, but she apparently caught the look in Drew’s eyes. He could see her hesitation. That was his fault after last night. But he planted his boots between her and the children and refused to budge until she acknowledged his presence.

  “His name is Ebenezer,” she whispered, almost angrily. “He’s from Glasgow. He does not know horses well. That was a rented hack. He arrived by train. I cannot offer more than that. Did you do anything that would cause him to follow us?”

  Glasgow! That was Simon’s base of operation. “Stay here. I’ll look for the bastard.”

  “His horse is trying to drag him onto the park grass,” she called after him. “Raven is circling him.”

  He glanced up to spot the bird and wanted to kick himself all over again for listening to such babble. But there was the damned old crow circling, just past the monument. He picked up speed. Behind him, he could hear Lady Phoebe calling cheerfully to the children, rounding them up for a race—in case there was danger?

  The scoundrel in the shabby green waistcoat was just dismounting from his horse. Phoebe was right—he wasn’t a horseman by any means. He slid off like a dafty arse, then looked around as if uncertain what to do with the hack.

  Prince’s Street did not generally cater to riff-raff. Gentlemen frowned at the shabby interloper. Ladies crossed to the other side of the street. Drew would not normally be caught speaking with him, but he bore down on the bastard with determined step. Ebenezer didn’t look his way in time to be alarmed.

  Drew grabbed the ruffian’s tattered collar and dragged him into the shadow of a hackney coach. “Who sent you?” he demanded.

  Ebenezer wriggled, but Drew caught his arm and yanked it behind his back. An elderly gentleman passing by frowned through his thick white mustache and hurried past.

  “Noo jist haud on, I ain’t nobody,” Ebenezer whined. “I widnae do nuthin’ but mind me own bizz.”

  “A Weegie like you widnae come a’this way for nae reason,” Drew taunted, falling into familiar dialect. “And widnae follow me from my house unless he means harm. I’ll have ye behind bars if you don’t tell me who sent ye!” He shook the older man for emphasis.

  “It’d be my life to tell ye,” Ebenezer whined. “I’ll go away.”

  The brass buttons and rounded cap of a city policeman crossed the street, coming toward them.

  Drew tightened his grip and spoke properly. “You’ll tell me who sent you, or I’ll tell the policeman you tried to rob me. Who do you think he’ll believe?”

  “The Association sent me,” Ebenezer whispered. “I dinnae know more.”

  The Association? The world consisted of associations. He belonged to a few. And the only one he knew of from Glasgow—had been deadly dangerous and long defunct. “What Association? What did they want to know?”

  “If the bairns be with ye, that’s all.”

  Black temper boiled up inside him, and Drew bodily lifted the man from his feet and whispered harshly. “Ye clatty mongrel, tell the bastarts that I’ll rip off their baws before I rip off their heads if they come within a mile of my wards, do ye ken?”

  The policeman halted in front of them. Drew had no choice but to release the bastard while lying in proper accents—“He insulted my wife, officer. I apologize for causing a scene, but I could not let the insult go uncorrected.”

  Ebenezer scurried back to his horse. The constable frowned, nodded, and continued on his route.

  As Ebenezer attempted to cluck his tired hack away, Drew wished he had a way of ordering the raven to follow. Then he rolled his eyes at the thought. Still furious, he stalked back to the monument. From there, he could see Lady Phoebe on the lawn watching his wards try to hide from. . . a pigeon?

  She noticed him instantly. Out of frustration, Drew circled his hand in the air, indicating the crow. She nodded and miraculously, the creature glided off in the same direction as Ebenez
er. He’d start believing the stars directed the moon shortly.

  By the time Drew reached her, Lady Phoebe had the children throwing the ball to one another, encouraging Enoch to use his abilities to guide the rubber into the small hands of the twins. They were so thrilled with the game that they barely acknowledged Drew’s return.

  “Is that bird really following him?” Drew asked in disbelief that she’d not only interpreted his message but been able to pass it on to a bird.

  “Raven amuses himself. If he tires of following, he’ll return. At the moment though, if I’m interpreting what he’s seeing, Ebenezer is headed for the train station in a frightful hurry. What did you say to him?” Holding on to the flat top of her hat, she cocked her head to study him.

  “I threatened him with the police.” Drew didn’t want to tell her more until he’d had time to investigate what the spy had said. He didn’t wish to explain the danger of a powerful group of men who should no longer even be alive. “I’m reassured that he listened and is heading back where he belongs.”

  She waited, but when he didn’t say more, she shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Fine. If you can spare the time, it would be good if you rewarded Enoch with a little attention. He has mastered all his letters and is ready to read. I’d like to work a little more with the twins to understand how they communicate.”

  “Do I just throw a ball?” he asked, watching the children play.

  She looked at him with incredulity, then nodded as if he were a simpleton. “I take it you invented things rather than play in the street at his age. He’ll let you know what he enjoys.”

  Drew didn’t intend to explain that the streets he grew up in weren’t safe for playing ball. The past was behind him. If he had his way, it would stay there.

  Unfortunately, Simon’s prodigies might be dragging him back in. How? Why?

  Phoebe told herself that Mr. Blair’s business was none of her concern. She marched down the lawn to draw the girls aside to play flower dolls. She showed them how to make heads and arms and ballgowns out of weeds and blossoms. “Should the dolls have a tea party and invite their friends?” she asked as stubby fingers carefully manipulated recalcitrant stems.

  “Mary wants to know if she can play too,” Clare said, setting her flower doll down beside a toadstool table.

  Since the twins had been distracted these last minutes, Phoebe had conjectured there was more on their mind than Enoch’s ball. “Of course, although you may have to make a doll for her,” she suggested, to see if she’d guessed correctly about their preoccupation.

  Clare nodded and began twining another set of stems. Cat was the one who spoke. “Mary is all wet. She needs a towel to dry off before she catches cold.”

  Anyone else in the universe would believe the children were creating imaginary friends and testing her. Phoebe had cousins who saw ghosts, so her experience was a little different.

  She glanced at the worn lawn covered in yellowing leaves, down to where the old canal had been—well before her time. Trains had taken the place of canals. There was no place—now—for a child to fall into water. It wasn’t raining today. The twins had no reason to imagine a wet child. “If Mary is a spirit, she cannot catch cold, but it’s thoughtful of you to think of her. What does she have to say?”

  The twins silently communicated. Did one twin see spirits and the other hear them? Or was their silent communication simply a defensive collaboration against adults who didn’t believe them?

  “Mary says she’s not cold, and she’s never seen flower dolls. Can we take her home with us?” Cat reached for another weed and held it up to the air, as if for approval.

  “I think she would miss her home,” Phoebe said, trying to remember what little she knew about spirits from her occasional conversations with distant family. “Don’t you miss your familiar beds?”

  Both girls nodded vigorously. The poor wee lasses were holding up bravely, but they’d been torn from all that was known to be cast into a cold house containing no loving arms or familiar objects beyond their old nurse. That was enough to cause them to invent invisible playmates, but the detail about the wet hair gave Phoebe shivers.

  “We can leave Mary the dolls to play with,” she suggested, wondering if there was a way to exorcise a lonely spirit and send her on to whatever awaited in the next world. “Maybe her mama will come and find her here.”

  “I wish our mama could find us,” Clare said in a pragmatic manner as she set a new doll around her toadstool table.

  “She can’t,” Cat wailed, abruptly crumpling her doll in a pudgy hand. She got up and ran to join Enoch and Mr. Blair.

  “Why can’t she?” Phoebe asked, hoping for a clue, any clue, to what went on in the twins’ heads.

  Clare sighed and continued working on her dolls.

  “Clare, could you try to explain why your mama can’t find you?”

  “Cat sent her to the light.” Clare shrugged and a tear trickled down her cheek.

  That explained so much and so very little. Talking to a four-year-old about spiritual beings was a little beyond Phoebe’s curriculum. “Can Cat send Mary to the light?”

  “Mary doesn’t want to go.” Clare looked around for more flowers.

  “Did your mama want to go?” Phoebe wished she had her own mama here to help her out.

  “No, but she was crying. And she wanted to go back to Daddy. So Cat showed her the light, and she went away.”

  Impressed that the taciturn Clare had offered that many words, Phoebe didn’t dare ask more. She had the uneasy notion that their mother might have wanted to warn their father and couldn’t, because only the girls could see her—and they didn’t understand.

  “Shall we leave Mary with her tea party and join the others? I think Daisy has set out lunch.” Phoebe offered her hand to the girl.

  Clare solemnly took it and stood up, shaking the grass off her little coat. “Mama showed us the bad men and said to stay away from them. What does clarty clipe mean?”

  Phoebe’s head was still trying to grasp the first statement. The question caught her unprepared. She sorted through the street cant she’d learned from childhood, translated it through Clare’s proper accents, and winced. “Dirty snitch. I’d not use that phrase, if I were you. Where did you hear it?”

  “The bad men called me that.”

  Phoebe decided she was taking the children to China. That’s all there was to it. Maybe India would be far enough. She was pretty sure France wasn’t.

  “Can you describe the bad men?”

  “Big. Scary.” Clare ran off to join the others.

  Mr. Blair sent her a worried look when Phoebe wouldn’t sit down but checked the sky for Raven. Then she checked the tiny minds all around them, but to wild creatures, all men were big and scary unless they were handing out food.

  She needed to do something. But her gift was singularly useless.

  “Lady Phoebe, might I interest you in the bird in that bush over there?” Mr. Blair asked politely, standing up from the picnic blanket and gesturing at a shrub Phoebe couldn’t identify.

  She was a city girl. She’d never been in this garden before, even though it was easy walking distance from her home. The only bush she could identify was a pine tree.

  She obediently followed him at an angle, so she didn’t have to let the children out of her sight.

  “You are looking as pale as one of Clare’s ghosts. What did she say?” he demanded the instant they were separated from the children.

  “That our surmises about the children knowing something are correct but not very useful unless you can translate bad men into names and faces.”

  He cursed and looked despairing before shuttering his expression. “Her exact words, please.”

  “She’s four. There are no exact words. She said Cat sent their mother to the light because her mother was crying and wanted to go to Daddy.” Phoebe wrung her fingers and waited to see how much of this he would accept.

  He rubbed the hair falli
ng into eyes that seemed to see the depths of hell. “Can we hope that means their mother is in a better place or that she’s watching over Simon?”

  “Your choice. I’m not sure they even know.” Since he accepted that, she took a deep breath and continued, “Clare asked me what clarty clipe means and said the bad men called her that.”

  Dirty snitch. Bad men thought Clare knew something to snitch about.

  Mr. Blair’s reply was not fit for a lady’s ears. Phoebe picked up her skirt and returned to the children, leaving him to deal with his demons while she dealt with hers.

  Twelve

  Stripped of his coat and cravat, Drew sorted among the metal pieces he’d ordered, found the ones he wanted, and slid through the straw beneath the carriage. He screwed the tin alloy into place along the axles and checked the undercarriage for any other areas of vulnerability. Then sliding back out, covered in straw dust, he examined the leather reins and tackle.

  He’d waited until the aging carriage driver he shared with Dalrymple took his afternoon off before completing this task. The new stableboy presented a different problem. He’d have to trust the adolescent.

  Nibbling his bottom lip, Henry watched him. “They’re spankin’ new, sir. Naught wrong with ’em leathers. I shined the brass meself just this morning.”

  “And I wish to keep them that way, Henry. When they’re not in use, I want them locked up.” He nodded at a cabinet he’d just completed.

  Henry nodded, puzzled but agreeable.

  “Are you comfortable with any weapons?” Drew asked, studying the stable for any other weaknesses.

  Henry looked alarmed. “I have me sgian-dubh, sir. I ain’t learned to use a whip.”

  Drew studied the boy. No more than fifteen, he was still a stripling, and not a very tall one at that. He took down a riding crop and threw it to him. “Just think of this as a stick to whack anyone who tries to make you do something you don’t want to do. You’re less likely to hurt your knuckles that way. How good are you with the knife?”