Lessons in Enchantment

by Patricia Rice

  There was no we about it. Drew might owe his neighbor some loyalty, but not enough to allow strangers inside his house. “Sorry, sir, but the women won’t like it.”

  “If you mean that interfering governess of yours, I’d watch out for that one, if I were you,” Dalrymple warned. “She gave our Dahlia notions, I vow. She’ll be teaching the children to be ill-mannered heathens.”

  Besides irking his temper, this idiotic warning was the least of Drew’s worries. He needed to know why the twins identified Glengarry as a bad man. And he needed to make him go far, far away—without causing his neighbor to think him mad.

  Glengarry looked bored. “We can return to the park, as planned. It’s only a little drippy. We won’t melt.”

  Neither man was Drew’s guest. He didn’t feel the least guilty in denying them shelter. Before he could speak, the hound howled with blood-curdling warning. The pigeons descended en masse, blanketing the fence guarding his front door.

  And a male shout of fear, pain, and fury echoed from the mews.

  Drew looked in the direction of the bicyclist—she was gone.

  At Wolf’s howl, Phoebe pedaled faster. She’d hoped to hide in the park and listen to the men, but planning wasn’t her strong suit. She hadn’t anticipated the men heading for the house or someone attacking from the rear.

  Releasing the pigeons from her mind, she concentrated on Wolf.

  He had an intruder cornered inside the kitchen garden! Oh gadzooks and blasphemy, the intruder might smash through the door just to escape the hound. But she didn’t dare tell Wolf to let him go—

  Turning into the mews, the high front tire hit a loose brick, and she nearly flew headfirst over the bars. Twisting quickly, she managed to land on her leg and hip instead. Shaken, she tried to connect with Wolf, but he was in full guard mode, oblivious to anything but the stranger endangering his pack. Or his food, whichever.

  Unsteadily, she pulled herself up. Going after a bad man with a whip while on a penny-farthing had seemed like a good idea earlier. But the high wheel was now twisted and useless.

  Pounding steps approached from behind her. Had the bad man hurt Mr. Blair and followed her? She didn’t have time to look. Children first. Gathering her courage, she limped down the alley as fast as she could.

  A well-made man in familiar tailored wool raced past, then halted and swung around. “Phoebe?”

  “Mr. Blair,” she acknowledged, not stopping. “Wolf has a stranger trapped in the kitchen garden. Don’t wait for me. Go!”

  He studied her limp but to her relief, he heeded her admonition and took off running again.

  By the time she reached sight of the house, the two men in the kitchen garden were hugging and slapping each other on the back instead of beating each other to pulp. Wolf lay in the alley, looking puzzled.

  “Did ye think I’d leave the bairns unguarded, ye dunderheid?” Mr. Blair shouted, pounding the stranger harder.

  “It’s better they’re eaten by a devil hound?” the stranger cried, punching Andrews’ shoulder. His trouser leg had a serious tear in it.

  So, not hugging. Rolling her eyes, Phoebe snapped her fingers and brought Wolf to her side. Henry was tucking his sgian-dubh into his belt and caught her eye with a question.

  Limping down the lane, Phoebe shrugged and tossed him the whip. “Would you run down and bring my bicycle back, please? It met with a slight mishap.”

  That reminded the manly dolts of her existence. Mr. Blair instantly halted his back pounding and brushed aside his companion’s punch to address her. “I don’t know whether to dismiss you for abandoning the children or ask if you’re hurt.” With a frown of concern marring his square jaw, he shoved open the gate.

  Phoebe stubbornly refused to acknowledge a thrill at his notice. “Toss me out, by all means. My life would be much simpler. Go inside and see if you can find the children, but you’d best unlatch your trap so you’re not decapitated.”

  Her knee ached abominably, but she maintained a composed demeanor as she’d been taught. A lady did not whine or scream or complain. Phoebe did, but her current position required ladylike behavior. Her aunts would expect no less, and failure was not an option she could afford.

  “Is unlatching your trap a euphemism I’ve missed?” the stranger asked, weighing her disheveled appearance and probably finding her lacking. Granted, he had reason if Wolf had taken a chunk of his leg.

  Shrugging off his visitor, Mr. Blair wrapped his arm around Phoebe’s waist. “Put your weight on me. Let’s bring you inside. You took a nasty spill.”

  “Nice of you to notice,” she muttered, but that was only to distract herself from how appallingly wonderful it felt having a strong arm supporting her. And how very nice he smelled. And a host of other sensations she was quite certain a lady shouldn’t notice.

  Mr. Blair turned to the tall man watching them. Both men had similar long-lashed brown eyes, but the stranger was shorter, broader, and less elegant.

  “Don’t be a bampot, Simon, slip the latch. Here’s the key.”

  He tossed a key to Simon, his. . . cousin?

  “Ah, the infamous latch! What’s on this one? Will a bucket of water immerse me?” The stranger nodded at Phoebe. “My apologies, miss, but I’m eager to see my bairns.” He easily found the lever, undid it, then unlocked the door, vanishing inside.

  “Did you hide them well?” Mr. Blair asked, helping her limp over the threshold.

  She almost smiled at his perceptivity, but her leg—and pride, admittedly—hurt too much to be chipper. “Not from their father. He need only call their names, and they’ll be all over him. Wolf may have bit him, and I apologize, but I really need some warning. Did you find the bad man?”

  “Just one of Dalrymple’s questionable acquaintances,” he said, helping her down the hall. “I left them in the park.”

  Questionable acquaintances didn’t seem to be an immediate danger, but she watched in astonishment as the tall visitor crept from doorway to doorway, peering in without speaking.

  “You’re not the only one to play games,” Mr. Blair explained, assisting her into a dining chair. “Letitia did the same. I’ll fetch Abby to help you upstairs.”

  Phoebe could hear the children rustling restlessly. While her employer retreated toward the doorway, she leaned over to open the nearest crate and held a warning finger to her lips. “A surprise for behaving so very well,” she whispered to Enoch. “Let your sisters out, then catch the intruder.”

  Mr. Blair glanced over his shoulder to see what she was doing. Apparently just noticing the misplacement of his boxes, he lifted a questioning eyebrow. Phoebe would like to believe that he hadn’t noticed earlier because of her, but her employer had peculiar priorities. He didn’t react as Enoch helped the twins from their hiding places. His jaw muscle twitched a little as the children crept into the corridor like a trio of pirates.

  Leaning against the door frame, Mr. Blair kept an eye on the game his insane family played. Phoebe seized the opportunity to prop her leg on a crate and pull up her skirt to examine her injured limb. She muttered a curse at her badly torn stocking, but blood wasn’t dripping, so she calculated she’d survive.

  When she set her leg down again, Mr. Blair was watching her instead of the children. Alarmed by her visceral reaction to his attention, she flung one of the unpacked books at him. He caught it and averted his eyes while wearing a grin that spun her off balance.

  The front of the house erupted in a chorus of delighted screams and a man’s rumbling laughter.

  “Your cousin, I presume?” she asked dryly, dropping her muddied skirt.

  “I telegraphed him a warning yesterday. I should have known better. Simon hasn’t a devious bone in his body. He didn’t have to pretend very hard to be a drunken madman after the accident, but he’s not normally a weeping-in-his-ale sort. Keeping him away from the children has been a struggle.”

  “Well, if his enemies know the children are here, there isn’t much point in cont
inuing the pretense,” Phoebe said pragmatically, wondering if this meant the end of her position.

  Maybe she’d be lucky and her aunts would find her a new situation in Outer Mongolia, far away from handsome dark Scots businessmen and inventors who made her heart flutter madly.

  “I’ll admit I’d rather he be here than risking himself alone.” Mr. Blair studied the disruption of his storage room. “The crates were pretty ingenious. I’m the only one who would know they were disarranged.”

  “Fooling the eye is easy. Keeping children quiet is not. Your cousin and his wife trained them well. Explain Mr. Dalrymple’s acquaintance. Why might the children call him a bad man?”

  Mr. Blair frowned. “I could name a dozen men like him—the sort who likes to manipulate events while never standing up and taking responsibility for his actions. He was joined by one of my investors, a man of some substance, so he’s well known in higher circles.”

  Phoebe paused in her departure, considering all the things he didn’t say. “You didn’t like the stranger, and you think he’s the sort the Association might use.”

  “Not the sort who cuts axles, but the sort who knows who will. But I could be very wrong and have just taken a dislike because Glengarry supports Dalrymple’s narrow view of the world and I don’t,” he concluded honestly.

  “I lost track of Raven for a while, so I don’t know how long they stayed out there. They’re not there now. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go upstairs.”

  Mr. Blair was tall and wide and filled the doorway with restless energy that resonated with hers. Rather than attempt to push past, Phoebe waited for him to move.

  He shifted to the hall with a look of concern. “Shall I send Abby up? Do you need a physician?”

  “I’ve been banging my knees since childhood,” she said dismissively, too tired and sore to play lady and pretend she didn’t have limbs. “I simply need to rest for a while. Daisy is in the nursery if the children grow tired, which they will shortly.”

  Feeling out of sorts didn’t describe how she felt as she dragged up the stairs. She’d been a complete and massive failure today.

  And she might not have a second chance tomorrow.

  “I can put you up here,” Drew told his cousin that evening, after dinner. “While you’re in town, I can introduce you to a few other mine owners, and to some manufactory managers who might give you advice on your new enterprise. But at some point, you have to go home, you know that.”

  Simon rubbed his tired eyes. “I know that. And I’ll want to go shortly, once I’m not so shoogly, and I’m assured the bairns are safe. It was good seein’ them, to know there’s something worth fighting for. I appreciate you taking them in. Do they like their teacher?”

  Drew sipped his whisky and screwed up his forehead in thought. “I think so. I don’t know much about children, but they seem to take to her.” He glanced at his cousin with concern. “She’s like Letitia. You don’t need to fret about her.”

  “If you mean that scarecrow who set the dog on me, she’s naught like Letitia!” Simon protested.

  Letitia had been small, plump, and pleasant-faced, but Drew wasn’t talking about the lady’s looks. Personally, he preferred Phoebe’s more athletic physique and striking features, but he could see where her brusque attitude might put off most men.

  “Lady Phoebe comes from the School of Malcolms that Letitia’s family recommended,” he explained. “She talks to animals. You probably wouldn’t have a leg if she hadn’t mentally muzzled the mutt she trained to guard the house.”

  Simon threw back the rest of his whisky. “As long as she isn’t mentally muzzling the children. So she takes to their differences awright?”

  “More than all right,” Drew admitted. “She’s teaching them to use their talents, although the twins are still a bit young. They’re the ones who had us guarding the house this morning.”

  “Is that what you were doing?” Simon asked, pouring another glass. “Could have fooled me. She looked pretty comfortable with yer arm aboot her.”

  “Don’t be daft. She fell off a bicycle trying to reach the little ones before you did. The point is that there was a stranger in the street that the twins identified as bad, and she was out there trying to find out why. She believed them.”

  “But neither of you know why they called him bad. Maybe I should start there and not with this trumpery about Letty’s books. I can’t claim to know everyone who might be in the Association, but I wager I can recognize most from Glasgow. Did you get his name?” Simon sat up, looking more alert.

  “Gareth Glengarry is what he calls himself. Smooth talker, well-tailored but rural, a wee bit shorter than myself, about a decade older than you, I’d say. Been living comfortable, so he’s soft.” Drew watched for recognition in his cousin’s eyes, but Simon shook his head.

  “Sounds like half the people I know. We’ve come a way from the slums where a man had to work hard to get ahead. I should go down in the mine more often, work up a sweat, remember where I came from.” Simon stood.

  Before the accident that had taken Letitia’s life, Simon had been down in his mine regularly. That he hadn’t been back said his cousin still wasn’t anywhere near normal. Drew knew better than to comment.

  “I’ll take ye up on the offer of a bed,” Simon said, looking weary. “Maybe in the morning we’ll drum up some better answers.”

  “And you don’t think Letitia’s journals might tell us anything?”

  Simon shook his head. “I looked in ’em. They’re recipes for anything from soap to chicken. There’s a lot of foreign words, probably Latin. I don’t have your fancy education and can’t read it. There’s naught recent or about people.”

  So much for that theory. Drew showed his cousin up to the nursery so Simon could check that the children were safely sleeping in their beds. He noted the attic door open—which meant their governess was wandering in the night again. That gave him notions he shouldn’t have.

  He showed his guest to a spare room and left him there with the rest of the bottle of whisky. Sometimes a man needed more than cold sheets to welcome him.

  It wasn’t that thought that drove Drew to the attic though. He was fairly sure it was concern for the intrepid Lady Phoebe. She’d stayed out of sight since the earlier incident, and he’d feared she’d truly harmed herself in her attempt to protect the household. He wanted to be furious with her, but she’d looked so forlorn traipsing up those stairs. . .

  The rain had let up, but the night wind blew chilly as he climbed out to the roof. The slate was slippery, but the lady wasn’t foolish. She’d found a sheltered spot near the chimney to pet her weasel. The raven squawked a warning from the top of the chimney. Drew felt like an interloper in his own house.

  “This is how you rest?” he asked dryly, leaning against the slope near her.

  “Have you come to tell me you don’t need my services any longer?” she asked, not bothering with pleasantries.

  “Good heavens, no!” he said in genuine alarm. “Simon is half off his head. He can’t look after them. He needs to be able to hunt a killer. He can’t do that with three weans clinging to his boots. Whatever gave you that notion?”

  “I failed,” she said with a shrug. “I’m in unfamiliar territory, and I’m badly prepared. Your cousin could have been the killer and broken down the door while I was out looking for a bogeyman, apparently.”

  “You did a brilliant job with what little you’ve been given. I’ll grant, I would have preferred you stayed with the children instead of putting yourself at risk, but I do not fault your need to chase bogeymen. I did the same,” he admitted. “Why would you think I’d dismiss you?”

  She turned and looked at him with a puzzled frown. “I thought, perhaps, your cousin had come with good news and meant to take the children home.”

  “Even if he had performed miracles, I’d have sent you home with him. Children need attention, and it’s difficult for a man to give it while providing the roof over th
eir heads. Simon’s children need more tending than most.” Drew was uncomfortable with the path of this conversation. He didn’t know what he’d intended when he came up here, but it wasn’t soul-searching.

  “Letitia must have family who could look after them. They’re probably better off in the country, where they can be surrounded with people who accept them, without strangers who stare if they behave oddly.” She released the weasel, then crossed her arms and studied the night sky.

  He didn’t know a single woman who could stand on a cold wet roof and look as if she had come to conquer the skies. Drew was starting to wonder if she was part of the elements and might someday blow away with the wind.

  “Letitia’s family is as much a target as Simon, as far as we know,” he argued. “That is not an acceptable alternative. The children are safer here, where neighbors notice strangers and watch out for each other.”

  “Neighbors who don’t understand children and who resent them for making a little noise? But I grew up in a different sort of place, so maybe I have it wrong.”

  “You think they’d be better off in the slums of the auld town?” he asked with a snort. Why on earth were they on this topic? He’d simply wanted to see if she was all right.

  “The streets there are alive, day and night. People don’t have time to notice children. There are disadvantages to that, I suppose. I just never cared, growing up.”

  Was she homesick? That might explain her melancholy. He shoved his hands in his pockets and watched as she stood and limped restlessly toward the parapet to look out. He should go back to his rooms, where he belonged.

  “I need more than pigeons to work with,” she said in frustration.

  “I thought that was you behind the pigeons,” he said, finally realizing why he was here—because she fascinated him. “You kept Dalrymple off my doorstep. Perhaps you need a forest. I can’t give you one. Why don’t you come back downstairs where it’s warm. I’ll give you a draft of whisky to help you sleep.”