The words landed like a physical blow; I had to clench every muscle to hold back a flinch. “This is not about me,” I said through a tight throat. “It’s about every magical young woman in Angland who deserves—”
“What of your own sister-in-law?” he inquired. “What does she deserve? Oh, she’s a clever politician, everyone agrees on that. She could have become a member of the Boudiccate years ago. But your brother’s insistence on following his personal passion for history rather than studying magic, as his duty required, kept her from achieving her own dreams. Now, she’s lost her career entirely—because you couldn’t bring yourself to admit that you had failed to prove a woman could be a magician after all.”
His words struck hard at my rawest wounds. Still, I held his gaze with a physical effort. “Amy chose to marry Jonathan, knowing full well that he would never be a magician. He didn’t take away any of her dreams.” That much, I knew for certain. I’d never met any couple more shiningly content in each other’s company.
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Westgate skeptically. “But you? You must have known how precarious her political position would become when you announced the creation of this scandalous establishment. Did you even think of what would happen to her?”
No. Curse it, I hadn’t. I’d been far too focused on my own bright goal to see any details beyond it. But... “I told Amy she could denounce my school to save herself.”
“But your own husband had no such option, did he?”
“What?” I took a quick step forward, my breath accelerating. “What are you talking about? What’s happened to Wrexham?”
It had only been five weeks since I’d seen him; surely, surely, he would have told me in one of his letters if anything dreadful had occurred! He’d mentioned nixies and marsh-spirits and obstreperous farmers, but he’d certainly never mentioned any injuries. If he’d been hurt, and I didn’t even know—!
“Even you,” said Mr. Westgate with withering disdain, “must have noticed what the Boudiccate has been doing to him of late. Do you think he’s always been flung about the countryside with never a moment to stop and rest? Or that any other officer in Angland is given no days off, for weeks in a row?”
“Obviously,” I said through gritted teeth, “they’re keeping us apart. But—”
“Oh, it’s far more than that.” The light in Mr. Westgate’s eyes was pure fury. “As the man who has supervised every officer of magic for the past twenty years, I can tell you that they are intentionally driving him to resign. Rajaram Wrexham! One of the most brilliant, most astonishing magicians I’ve ever worked with—you must know he was meant to be my second-in-command within the next few years. He should be my replacement not long after that, and one of the most admired magicians in our country! But because of your selfish and reckless decisions—your continued recklessness beyond belief, even after all this time and all the lessons that any sensible woman would have learned by now!—the Boudiccate is treating him as so much rubbish to be discarded by the wayside.
“That is why I asked for this private word with you: to give you one final chance, here and now—if you have any real affection or respect for your own husband—to give up this mad endeavor for good. Only think of who will pay the price for your folly this time! If you go, tonight, to the visiting members of the Boudiccate—if you swear to them that you truly regret founding this school, and you agree to abandon it now, quietly, before any more damage is done...”
He gave a heavy sigh, and his strong shoulders slumped. “Well. I won’t say that it would necessarily save his chances at the heights to which he should have risen. But it might at least save his career.”
“...And shatter mine forever.” My voice shook uncontrollably; my hands knotted into fists as emotions swirled within my chest.
Of course they were trying to push Wrexham into giving up his post in defeat. How could I not have seen it until now? But then—the truth was bitterly inescapable—Mr. Westgate had been right: I’d been so intent on my school and my own ambitions, I hadn’t spared any time to consider Wrexham’s prospects. They’d always seemed far too sparkling to require any concern on my part.
All those years that he’d risen inexorably through the magical ranks of our nation whilst I’d languished, forgotten by the world at large, as every magical employer refused to hire me...
It had never even occurred to me that when I did finally carve out a place for myself, it would steal the space that Wrexham had earned.
My stomach twisted so hard, I nearly doubled over. But I was standing on Harwood ground—and whatever Lionel Westgate might think of us, that was a legacy I would not shame with weakness.
“My marriage is for myself and my husband to discuss,” I said as icily as I could manage. “I’ll bid you goodnight now, Mr. Westgate, and wish you a pleasant night’s sleep.”
His eyes narrowed into an outright glower. “And I suppose you’ll sleep perfectly well yourself, even after everything I’ve said!”
“Undoubtedly.” I couldn’t stay a moment longer. I spun around to stalk back toward the house before my illusion of control could shatter entirely.
So much for consulting with Miss Banks and Miss Fennell before either of them went to bed! If I could only make it safely to my own room before releasing my tears of helpless fury, I would call it the highest of victories.
I had never been so thankful for Thornfell’s unassuming back entrance, half-hidden by the ivy that grew over the small wooden door. It led to a narrow flight of stairs that allowed me to bypass every public room and stay safely hidden until I reached the level of my bedroom, a full storey above any of my students’ quarters. I took the steps at a near-run, desperate to release my frantic emotions in any way that I could.
By the time I reached my doorway, I was panting, strands of hair slipping and sliding free from my chignon. I turned the handle and collapsed inside...
...To find warm fey-lights burning in the room and my husband sprawled loosely in the chair before my desk, his long legs crossed and his smile wry as he looked me up and down with one dark eyebrow raised.
“A good first day of work, then, Harwood?”
5
“Ohhh!”
He wasn’t a dream or a fey-illusion. Wrexham was here, in the flesh, sitting finally in our bedroom where he belonged!
I lunged across the room before he could disappear again.
Those long legs of his had always moved quickly. By the time I collided with him, he was on his feet and ready. One arm slid possessively around my waist; his other hand curved around my head, fingers tangling in my hair. His warm lips met mine with the same fierce hunger that had driven me wild with longing for the past five weeks.
The last time we’d kissed had been just after our wedding, a kiss of frustration and farewell—but only, we’d hoped, for two or three days at the most. Now, five weeks later, his light brown cheeks were rough with prickly stubble. His shoulder-length black hair slid softly against my fingers.
I needed to touch every inch of him to prove that he was real.
His long fingers were already pulling out the pins that held up my hair in its proper headmistress’s knot. I pulled back just far enough to shake out the last of them with a breathless laugh, letting them scatter to the floor as my hair fell down in a thick brown veil around my shoulders.
Finally.
“You’re late.” I measured his shoulders with my hands. “Our wedding night should have been five weeks ago. Remember?”
“It was worth the wait.” Wrexham’s voice was fervent. His gorgeous brown eyes dilated as his gaze swept across me. “If you had any idea how impatient I’ve been for this moment...”
“How impatient you’ve been?” Rolling my eyes, I pointed imperiously at the empty bed. “There. Now. Immediately, husband!”
He broke into a grin that left me helplessly dazzled. “As my wife commands.” With a sudden lunge, Wrexham scooped me up into his arms and swept me across the room with him. We l
anded in a giddily breathless and laughing pile on the bed a moment later...and I rolled over to bury my face in his neck, wrapping my arms tightly around his chest, finally and exactly where I belonged.
“I’ve missed you,” I whispered into his skin. It tasted of salt and of sweat and of Wrexham, unique and irreplaceable. My husband. My best friend in the world, all these years. The man I’d tried to give up for his own good when I had lost my magic—but who had never, ever given up on me in return.
The second half of my soul, from the moment we’d met.
...And, according to Lionel Westgate, the man whose life I had ruined through my own unforgivable self-absorption.
“What’s amiss?” One hand gently stroked my hair; the other slid across my back, pulling me even closer into Wrexham’s embrace. “Harwood. What are you worrying over now? If you’ve remembered some vital work that needs to be done before you come to bed, I’ll wait. You know I’ll understand. Just—”
“No.” I bit out the word as frustration and guilt cascaded through me, burning deep underneath my skin.
There was no chance of me abandoning him when I’d finally got him back—but it was exactly the wrong moment to be reminded of my work.
“If you have any real affection or respect for your own husband...”
Wrexham had never argued against my school. From the first moment I’d envisioned it, he’d listened enthusiastically to every one of my plans and offered intelligent suggestions and unstinting support. He was proud of what I had achieved here—or at least, so I would have sworn, an hour earlier.
“Now, Harwood.” He shifted beneath me, brushing aside the veil of hair between us and nudging gently at my downturned face. “You might as well come out with it. You know we don’t keep secrets from one another anymore.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” The words blurted themselves out almost without my volition. Like a tortoise hiding from the truth, I kept my face buried in the safe hollow between his neck and his shoulder, his silky black hair pillowing my forehead as I awaited his reply.
“I...beg your pardon?” He let out a half-laugh of confusion, still stroking his fingers soothingly through my hair. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be clearer than that, my love, because I haven’t slept much for several weeks now. I’ve been longing for my wife, you see.” He dropped a kiss on my head. “What exactly do you think I’ve been hiding from you? And when would I have even had the time?”
I sighed into his neck. “Mr. Westgate is here with the Boudiccate’s inspectors. He told me exactly what’s been happening to you because of me.”
“...Ah.” Wrexham’s fingers stilled on my head in mid-stroke.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows, and he let me go, his hand slipping free from my hair. As I braced myself above him, frowning, I searched in vain for any clues in his aggravatingly neutral expression.
He had always been too good at hiding his thoughts. It had served him well over the years as one of those rare scholarship students who’d successfully won his way into the Great Library, but it made my whole body clench with frustration now. I could feel his agile brain working furiously behind that blank façade, holding his true reaction secret from me.
“Why would you not tell me I was ruining your career?”
He took a deep breath...and then released it, carefully. “You haven’t ruined my career.”
“But I’ve ruined all your prospects, haven’t I?”
“Harwood...”
“Your supervisor told me so, Wrexham. In no uncertain terms.” I tried to give a humorless laugh, but it caught painfully in my throat. “Trust me, I couldn’t have mistaken his meaning.”
At that, Wrexham winced and reached out as if to touch my face. “Don’t let Westgate make you miserable over this. You know he has old-fashioned ideas. He—”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded, jerking back. My voice was rising; I couldn’t help it. “Didn’t you think I would even care?”
Did everyone think me so self-absorbed? Even him?
“Of course I knew you would care,” Wrexham snapped, dropping his hand. “For God’s sake, Harwood, why do you think I didn’t tell you? You already gave me up against my will once before, because you were so determined to protect me. Do you think I’d hand you any excuse to do that to me again? Ever?”
I stared down at him, stunned. “You’re that certain I would have chosen my school over you?”
“I know you—wait. No.” Wrexham closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling in a ragged breath beneath me. “This isn’t the right way for us to discuss it. Damn it!”
Damn it, indeed.
Silently, I shifted aside until I was propped on one elbow on the mattress beside him. It was more than large enough for two people; it had been built as a marriage-bed, after all. We didn’t even have to touch to share it.
Wrexham expelled a long, deep breath, keeping his eyes firmly closed. Dark shadows spread beneath his eyelashes, unmistakable marks of exhaustion. “Harwood,” he said, “my Harwood. Do we truly have to discuss this right now? I can only stay for one night. I have to be gone again in the morning—”
“So we won’t have another chance before you leave.” I swallowed down a hard, swollen knot in my throat as my gaze traced the black stubble growing on his lean cheeks. No wonder he was exhausted; he’d been fighting off magical disasters for weeks, and he’d used even more energy to transport himself here tonight, only to do it again in just a few more hours.
No wonder Mr. Westgate was so angry on his behalf.
A better wife—a less selfish wife—would set aside hard truths for the sake of letting him rest. But the thought of sending him away for even more weeks of aching separation with this poisonous question simmering, toxic and unresolved between us...
“If I had told you,” Wrexham said wearily, his eyes still closed, “you would have responded in one of only two possible ways. You could have given me up—again—and it would have broken me. I mean it, Harwood. I can’t go through that again.”
I let out a growl of vexation. “Wrexham—”
“Or,” he continued implacably, “you could have given up your school for my sake...and that would have broken you.” His eyes finally opened, unshielded and vulnerable, exposing himself to me utterly. “I know you, Harwood. I know what this chance means to you. It’s your future.”
“But what about what you mean to me, you fool?” I pushed one hand hard against his lean shoulder, biting back angry tears. “Don’t you think I care about your dreams? Your future?”
The career he’d built for himself was nigh-on miraculous for a boy born into a poor sailor’s family on the grimy seaside docks of Brigg Stow. His mother and his much older sisters had spent most of their lives working for a pittance in other people’s ships, while his soft-spoken, poetical father had kept house with his son and earned eye-wateringly tiny wages through tutoring their neighbors in his native Marathan.
Wrexham had never attended any of the famous preparatory schools created for gentlemen’s sons like my brother; instead, he’d fought his way into the Great Library through scholarships, determination, and inarguable skill. The fact that he’d then gone on to join the most elite and highly-paid force of magic-workers in the nation wasn’t testimony to his talent alone; it was the result of decades of hard work and driving ambition.
He deserved every honor Mr. Westgate had ever predicted for him.
...And suddenly, I understood exactly why his mother and sisters hadn’t replied to any of the dutiful letters I’d sent them since our wedding day. By now, they must resent me just as much as Westgate did.
“Don’t,” Wrexham told me now, with soft intensity. His dark eyes had narrowed, fixing on my face. “I know that look, Harwood. You’re about to make some grand gesture, and I won’t have it.”
“I will never give you up again. Don’t you dare even imagine it!” I glowered down at him, trying to beam the obvious truth into his maddeningly hard
head. “Doing that once nearly shattered me. I don’t have enough willpower to push you away a second time.”
“For which we are all exceedingly thankful.” His voice was dry, but his dark eyes gleamed, and his hands rose to cup my face with aching tenderness. “But, darling Harwood, I’m telling you now and I sincerely mean it: do not give up your school. Not for me. Not ever. That would poison our marriage irrevocably, and you know it.”
“How is losing your career to my dreams any different?” A sob built up in my throat as I shifted closer, helplessly drawn into his gaze. We had always fit so perfectly together. We’d been made for each other; I knew it with all my heart.
So how could my dreams be fatal to his?
A sudden hammering at the door made me startle like a cat.
“Miss Harwood!” Miss Banks’s voice was filled with panic. “You have to come and see this. Now!”
Miss Banks didn’t blink an eyelid at my unbound hair, or at the sight of Wrexham behind me in the doorway. But then, my oldest and most seemingly sensible student had the unmistakable look of a woman torn from a romantic assignation of her own. Her fair blonde hair had been awkwardly re-pinned into a far simpler style than she’d worn earlier, and the three pearl buttons on her bodice—I couldn’t help but notice—had been mis-buttoned since I had seen her last, revealing a shocking hint of white cotton underneath.
Apparently, the political Miss Fennell had been far more enthusiastic about their personal reunion than I could have guessed from her chilly public demeanor that day.
I automatically glanced down at myself to check for any such tell-tale mistakes in my own attire—but Miss Banks was already whirling around and starting toward the public staircase. “This way!”
Wrexham cocked one eyebrow at me in enquiry; I hesitated, then nodded firmly.
With the Boudiccate’s inspectors lurking ominously nearby, and no notion of what was waiting for me, it would be madness to refuse his magical assistance. More importantly—marital issues notwithstanding—if I had only a few hours to spend with my husband, I wouldn’t give up a single minute of his company.
Thornbound Page 4
