“Ye-es,” he said.
“Then you will recall Eithne’s cousin Conall MacLachlan,” said Sophie, “the collector of Lepidoptera who asked me so many questions about Breizh?”
“Oh,” said Gray vaguely, attempting to dismiss from his mind the arresting image of Sophie’s fingers spread across the keys of a pianoforte. “Yes”—and then, making the connexion at last, “You thought he suspected you. Did he so, indeed?”
“So Eithne told me.” Sophie sighed, putting her face in her hands for a moment; on raising her head again she said, “After speaking to me at length, he concluded that he had erred—though by now I suppose he has discovered his mistake. Eithne had heard his verdict from her mother, and so she would not believe me until I showed her Mama’s magick. And now I wish I had not done it.”
Sophie sprang up from her chair and began pacing in tight circles about the sitting-room.
Gray watched her for the length of three circuits, pondering his approach. Sophie in furious motion was, as always, a sight both daunting and alluring. He could, he suspected, stop this crisis in its tracks by distracting her with kisses—but only for the moment, and (though the temptation was strong, for many reasons) that of course would not do.
“Should you,” he began, cautiously, “have any strong objection to my consulting Lord de Courcy? Though I am sure that if he believed us to be in danger, we should have heard from him before now; he certainly was not laggard in—how did he put it?—strengthening your security detail after the announcement was made.”
“I have no intention of fleeing back to London with my tail between my legs,” said Sophie, folding her arms. “If Lucia MacNeill can walk the streets of Din Edin in safety, surely we can do so also? She is not better guarded than we are, with Courcy’s men as well as our own, and she is far more directly concerned in the case.”
“But she is on her home ground,” said Gray, “and we are not.” He was also reasonably certain that Lucia MacNeill was indeed rather better guarded than Sophie; he and his colleagues had remarked, if Sophie had not, the half-dozen new students, strapping young men (and one young woman) with the alert and serious look of those trained in arms and sworn to service, at least three of whom were now seen to inhabit whatever corner of the University Lucia MacNeill happened to be in. Lord de Courcy could not possibly spare so many; his household had no more than a dozen guards all told—the better, as Powell had explained, to reinforce his status as peaceful emissary rather than reconnaissance force—though the look of the Courcys’ coachman and footmen suggested to Gray that they too might be good men in a fight.
He sighed. “If it were possible, I should wish you shielded from all possible harm,” he said, “though I am perfectly well aware how little you like my saying so; and I confess that I should think you safer in London, or in Oxford, or anywhere south of the Wall. You could pay a visit to Breizh, you know, if you do not like to go to London without me—”
Sophie huffed an exasperated sigh. “It is not London that I object to,” she said; and, softening her tone, added, “Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia. You remember, Gray.”
She crossed the sitting-room to stand before him, so close that the fall of her skirts hid the toes of his boots, and taking his hands in hers, she looked up at him with her heart in her dark eyes.
“Yes,” said Gray, who had never held out much hope of winning this argument, and now had none. “I remember.”
Sophie let go his hands and for a moment leant her head against the buttons of his waistcoat, sliding her arms about his waist as he curved his around her shoulders. When she looked up again, she was smiling, and he was lost.
* * *
In the absence of Eithne MacLachlan’s company, Sophie began to spend more of her time with Lucia MacNeill, who—though she was on good terms with everyone, and her circle of friends appeared to embrace half the population of the University—had, Sophie discovered, very few trusted and intimate acquaintance.
Lucia MacNeill inquired, with a surprising diffidence, whether Sophie might teach her a little Français, and some English. Less surprisingly, she also wished Sophie to tell her all about Roland—not of his appearance (for she had seen a portrait) or his pedigree or his magickal talent, all of which must already have been discussed at some length, but of the man himself. Was he clever? Had he a head for politics, or did he prefer his books? What were his favourite poets, his favourite songs, his preferred recreations? Had he (and here Lucia MacNeill’s voice faltered a little, and a flush spread across her delicate cheekbones) any particular favourites amongst the young women at his father’s Court?
It was easier for Sophie to keep her countenance now that she felt free to use her concealing magick at need. “He is not sixteen,” she temporised. “I love my brother very much, Lucia, but do remember that he is only a boy.”
“You were married at seventeen,” said Lucia MacNeill. “Or so I am told.”
Sophie could not deny it. “It is not a course of action which I should necessarily recommend,” she said.
Lucia MacNeill’s fine-drawn brows drew together in worry. “Sophie, surely if you were unhappy, your father—”
“No, no!” cried Sophie in some alarm. “That is not what I meant, at all. And I shall tell you, though I should not own it to anybody else, that my father did try to persuade me—to persuade both of us—to renounce our promises, knowing that they had been made in haste, and that I have never regretted refusing him. I only meant that had it been in my power to choose, I should have wished for a longer engagement. Though certainly we were well enough acquainted.”
“Longer than . . . ?”
Sophie blushed and ducked her head; it sounded so much more absurd when spoken aloud to one who had not been there. “Than three days.”
Lucia MacNeill clapped one hand over her mouth to stifle a burst of startled laughter. Above her long fingers, her blue eyes danced.
“In that case,” she said, after a moment, “I believe I may undertake not to follow your example. But”—and here her voice grew hesitant, and her expression unexpectedly shy—“I hope I may rely on you for advice, as I have no mother or elder sister to guide me?”
“Of course you may.” Sophie smiled at her in a rush of real affection. “I have not said it before, but I shall be very glad to call you sister.”
Then, pointing to herself: “In Latin, soror; in English, sister.”
“Sister,” Lucia MacNeill repeated.
* * *
As January progressed into February, Sophie came to consider that, generally speaking, their circumstances might have been enormously worse. Eithne MacLachlan’s retreat from their friendship still rankled, and there was a certain amount of staring and whispering to be endured as she went about her business at the University; still, the latter was no more onerous than it had been at Merlin, and to counterbalance the former, she felt more confident in the regard of those friends who had not turned their backs upon learning who her father was. It was not always pleasant to walk home through streets in which, two or three times in a se’nnight, she must pass by groups of Albans shouting abuse at her father, her brother, or her kingdom in general; but she told herself that it was only shouting and took comfort in the presence of the guardsmen dogging her steps, whom she had sometimes resented before. Perhaps best of all, she had Joanna’s visit to look forward to—though she could not help feeling that perhaps she ought not to be so eager to involve her sister in the present mess.
On the other hand, it seems rather as though Joanna has been involved in it longer than I have.
Sophie’s nights, however, had become something of a trial; it seemed her unconscious mind could not be entirely persuaded by her reason, and after a respite of many months, it began again—her prayers to Morpheus notwithstanding—to plague her with bad dreams.
In one such, one February night, she woke in chill, starlit darkness to find h
erself quite alone in the bedchamber of their Oxford digs. “Gray?” she whispered. Then louder: “Gray! Gray, where are you?”
There came no reply—no sound, no whisper of turning pages—no glow of magelight, no line of fire- or candlelight beneath the door. She threw back the bedclothes, padded barefoot across a floor as cold and slick as ice, on which her bare feet slipped treacherously; searched everywhere, panic rising, calling aloud with no thought for the comfort of others in the house. And at last she stood before the study window, through whose shattered panes the chill wind blew, each jagged point of glass tipped bright with blood.
Her howling sobs, as is the way of dreams, seemed like to choke her; she wailed and wailed, and made no sound, and could not catch her breath. Her bare feet slipped and slid on the floor; when she looked down, she found them cut about and bloodied, and the pain she had not hitherto felt rushed in swift and fire-bright, and she fell to her hands and knees amidst gleaming shards of window-glass.
She jolted into true wakefulness in the dark before dawn, her face wet with tears, and lay shivering and gasping as she tried to slow her rapid, panicked breathing. The details of the nightmare had already fled, but the panic and terror lingered, almost more distressing for the vagueness of their source.
On waking she had turned away from Gray, so as not to disturb him; behind her, still asleep, he reached for her, curling one arm about her. “Sophie?” he muttered sleepily. “’wake?”
Sophie drew a long, shaky breath. “No,” she said. “Go back to sleep, love.”
Gray’s arm tightened a little, drawing her in close. The beating of his heart soothed her, as it always had before; but dawn had begun to light the sky when at last Sophie drifted back into sleep.
When they both woke in the morning, it was to the sound of Donella MacHutcheon indignantly demanding to know what coward had piled horse droppings on the step before their door and written Go home, Sasunnach Princess, and take your brother with you—and other sentiments far less polite—all over the frontage of their house.
CHAPTER XVI
In Which Sophie Receives an Unwelcome Summons, and Gray Is Read a Lecture
On the heels of this distressing, if not actually dangerous, instance of vandalism, Gray and Sophie were summoned to the residence of His Majesty’s ambassador. The invitation—if such it could be called—arrived not in the post, nor by a messenger, but in the person of Lord de Courcy’s confidential secretary, Mr. Powell; and so early in the morning that Sophie (who had tumbled into bed long after midnight, red-eyed from hours of translation and transcription which Gray could not persuade her to abandon) was yet abed. Donella MacHutcheon admitted him to the house and conducted him into the dining-room, where Gray was eating his breakfast.
Gray—deep in contemplation of Sophie’s translation, which yesterday he had blearily promised her that he should read over for errors, as soon as he might—did not at once register the intrusion upon his solitude. Donella MacHutcheon cleared her throat and knocked on the door-jamb without success, and at last resorted to saying, very loudly, “Maighistir!”
Gray raised his head, blinking. “Yes, Donella MacHutcheon?” he said.
His gaze found her, and only then remarked the presence of Powell looming at her shoulder. On the heels of this observation came the remembrance of his having dispatched a rather heated note to Lord de Courcy, following the unpleasant discovery. Was this Courcy’s reply?
“Mr. Powell!” he exclaimed. “Er . . . have you breakfasted? May I offer you—”
“I am not come to pay a morning call, Mr. Marshall,” said Powell, stepping forward around Donella MacHutcheon, “only to convey a message.”
Gray raised his eyebrows in invitation; Powell looked pointedly at Donella MacHutcheon.
“Thank you, Donella MacHutcheon,” said Gray. She gave Powell a look of pointed disapproval as she left the room, having first briefly altered her trajectory in order to bestow a motherly pat upon Gray’s shoulder.
Powell looked after her, frowning in bafflement. Perhaps the Ambassador’s household had all come with him from Britain, and he had had no opportunity to become acclimated to the customs of Alban servants? Or perhaps Donella MacHutcheon was in fact particularly egregious in her familiarity, which Sophie (it must be conceded) never made the least effort to curb.
“The Lord Ambassador’s compliments,” Powell said after a moment, seeming to recover his sense of purpose, “and he invites you to call upon him today at the first hour after noon.”
Gray blinked.
“The word invite,” he said, “ordinarily implies the possibility of refusal.”
“Ordinarily, yes,” said Powell, steadily meeting Gray’s gaze.
“I see.” Gray took refuge in a large swallow of tea, unfortunately now rather tepid. “This . . . invitation . . . has I suppose some connexion with the . . . offering which we found on our doorstep three days ago?”
In addition to Gray’s note, Courcy must have had a report of the incident, either directly from one of his own men or through some back channel.
Powell inclined his head.
Gray was coming more fully awake now, under the influence of strong tea and the need to think rationally and carefully about present circumstances. “I have a bone to pick with your master,” he said. And not in front of Sophie. “As I am sure you know. How was such a thing permitted to occur? Must we now fear being attacked the moment we step foot outside our front door—or worse?”
Powell had the grace to look—if not so guilty as Gray felt he ought—at least discomfited. “The persons responsible have been detained,” he said, “and, I believe I may promise, shall be suitably punished—”
“I should not care if they were not punished at all,” said Gray, waving this away, “so long as nobody else follows their example. I am only concerned for my wife’s welfare—though of course I wish His Majesty’s guardsmen no ill, either. Her younger sister is to come to us for a visit in March, and I shall write at once to my brother-in-law to stop her departing London, if I cannot be assured that they shall both be safe.”
“Mr. Marshall—”
Footfalls on the staircase, the creak of the last step from the bottom, silenced Powell and heralded the arrival of Sophie, soberly attired and still blinking sleepily.
“Good morning, Mrs. Marshall,” said Powell, with a little bow.
Sophie gaped at him. “Mr. Powell,” she said. Gray could almost see her suppressing the words Whatever do you here?
“I must be going,” said Powell. He offered Sophie a brittle smile. “I shall see you both at the first hour after noon.”
“I expect you shall,” said Gray, grimly, and rose to see him out.
* * *
They presented themselves once again at the gate of the Ambassador’s house, a little before the appointed hour, and this time were admitted at once, with a deferential alacrity quite unlike their previous reception. Mr. Powell met them at the front door and ushered them within, where they found Lord de Courcy just rising from behind his desk to greet them.
Tea and petits fours appeared as though by magick; indeed, Sophie was not at all certain that Mr. Powell had not summoned them before setting his wards upon the room, for surely she had not been so deeply absorbed in Lord de Courcy’s greeting as to fail to remark the arrival of sufficient servants to convey refreshments for four people. Sophie accepted a cup of tea and a plate of cakes—despite a rather childish wish to owe nothing to her father’s emissary, even so much as a bite of cake or a swallow of tea—because she was in fact very hungry, Mr. Powell’s untimely visit having rendered her too anxious to eat much breakfast. The tea was, she grudgingly conceded, very good, in the English way, and the petits fours a not unwelcome change from the ubiquitous oatcakes and butter shortbread.
“You must be eager to know the reason for my invitation,” Lord de Courcy began, tracing a long f
orefinger along the edge of his saucer.
Gray snorted softly at the word invitation.
“I hope,” said Sophie, “that it is to beg our pardon for having failed to prevent the recent incident, and to assure us that such a thing will not occur again.”
Lord de Courcy raised his eyebrows at her. “I regret very much that you should have been subjected to such an indignity,” he said. “In fact, however—”
He set aside his teacup and reached for a letter that lay open upon his desk. As he picked it up, Sophie saw at the top edge of it, upside down, the lower half of her father’s seal, and her heart clenched.
“Is my father ill?” she demanded. “Has something befallen one of my brothers? Or my sister? Or—”
“Calm yourself, Madame Marshall, I beg,” said Lord de Courcy. Sophie drew in a deep, trembling breath, only now registering the warm pressure of Gray’s hands enfolding hers.
“I beg your pardon, my lord Ambassador,” she said, when she felt able to speak again without shouting.
“Your father and your brothers are all perfectly well,” he said, “and your sister also. I assure you that, had there been any news of the kind, I should not have required you to wait upon me to receive it.”
Sophie nodded, unspeakably relieved. But if not that, then—
“Your father, however,” Lord de Courcy continued, “in light of recent developments, supposes that you and your husband must wish to return to London, if not at once, then certainly at the end of the present University term; for which purpose, he has dispatched one Edwin Cooper, who apparently is known to you, to convey you thither. Regrettably this also requires that your sister’s visit be abandoned; but, however, I trust this will be no hardship to either party, as you shall after all meet in London so soon.”
* * *
To look at Sophie now, Gray thought, one could not possibly guess how lately she had been fretting over the very question of Joanna’s safety, and asking him whether he thought they ought not to advise her against coming to Din Edin.
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