by Gail Dayton
"Take the basket." She dragged it from beneath the back-facing seat and thrust it into the coachman's arms. "And go fetch my--Mr. Tomlinson's specimen. It's dead and the fire's quenched. It can't hurt you."
"Right, miss." The coachman bobbed his head, his flyaway white hair floating in the breeze of his motion as he hobbled down the alley.
Now, finally, Elinor could see what Harry had done to himself. She struck a match to light the carriage lamp.
"I ain't so feeble I can't light a lamp," Harry protested.
Elinor ignored him. She planted a hand high in the middle of his chest and pushed him over onto his back, her heart pounding with alarm at how easy it was. Just how hurt was he?
She yanked open his jacket, too worried for buttons, and stifled her gasp when she saw his waistcoat soaked in red. "Did you know you were bleeding?" She kept her voice even, informative. It wouldn't do to alarm the patient. The waistcoat buttons were loose in their buttonholes and came open easily.
"Is that wot it is?" Harry got an elbow under him as if he intended to sit up and have a look.
"Stay still." Elinor pushed him back down. It wasn't any more difficult this time.
She worked at his shirt buttons. They wouldn't rip--she'd tried--and she didn't have time to rummage in her bag for scissors. She got down to the last few and tried tearing it open again. This time it worked and she spread the shirt wide, exposing Harry's chest and abdomen.
Relief flooded through her, inappropriate and inevitable. Something had skidded along his ribs and dug itself a home in the muscle under his arm. She'd envisioned worse. Much worse.
Images of destruction, of wrecked bodies and missing--she thrust them from her mind. Harry was injured--not too badly--and needed healing. She could heal him. She would allow herself that much. She reached for her bag, sitting on the opposite seat where it belonged, and opened it. Numbing potion first.
She lifted his arm out of the way and poured the potion liberally along the wound. It was simple to make and the ingredients were cheap and easily come by. No need to be stingy with it.
"Keep your arm there," she ordered as she drew her forceps from its spell-lined spot and whispered a few cleansing words to reinforce the spell. "This shouldn't hurt."
"Wot shouldn't 'urt?" Harry's native accent floated in and out as it pleased, without seeming to follow much rhyme or reason. He craned his neck to peer at his injury.
"This." Elinor punctuated the word by grasping the foreign object and working it out of the wound.
"What is it?" Harry reached for it and she gave it to him, forceps and all.
"A splinter. A very large one." Elinor pressed hard on the wound to stop the bleeding, then flushed it out with the clean water she carried. She used another, smaller forceps to probe for any threads of his clothing or broken-off bits of dart that might remain.
When she was satisfied the wound was as free of foreign matter as she could make it, she delved into her bag, selecting the proper ointment. That jar, the watercress-based, was better on burns, but she should have plenty of the other, with the bindweed and dock she'd put in as an experiment. A successful one, she thought. Yes, the next jar along had the bindweed ointment.
Harry turned the forceps this way and that, examining the thing that had been in his side. "Biggest splinter I ever saw. It's not wood. I'm not sure it's metal either. I don't know wot it is. Where did it come from? Before you pulled it out o' me, I mean. How did it get in me?"
"I haven't a clue." Elinor opened her jar, scooped out a good-sized dollop and began to spread it over Harry's injury. "Did you scrape against something when you lost balance?"
"No, it 'appened before that. Right when I flipped the machine over. I thought I'd burned meself again." He put a finger out as if to touch the splinter, but didn't. He went very still instead, as Elinor stroked ointment over Harry's skin with her fingers.
His stillness changed things. The air became charged with awareness. With waiting, perhaps anticipation. Elinor's senses drank it all in, making her even more aware. Of the horses stamping on the cobbles outside, making the carriage shift ever so slightly. Of the smell of herbs and magic and underneath that, the scent of Harry. And that made her notice how his skin felt beneath her fingers, how his broad muscled chest looked beneath shirt and waistcoat and jacket. How absolutely motionless he was.
She looked up and found him looking back at her, his hazel eyes gone dark and hooded, his nostrils flared, though he--was he holding his breath? His tongue slipped out to touch his lower lip and retreat, drawing her attention to his mouth. The most perfect mouth in all England.
There. She'd thought it and the world hadn't come to an end. Harry Tomlinson had a perfect mouth--cupid's bow on top, full and sensuous below. The rest of him--well, he had a very nice chest, now she'd got a look at it, and a stomach to match, but really, he was an ordinary Englishman.
He had light brown hair that generally looked as if he'd cut it himself with hedge clippers. He didn't, but it stuck out in all directions unless he brilliantined it flat to his head and even that sometimes didn't help. He had an ordinary nose and a broad English face and light hazel eyes that changed colors depending on his mood. And that mouth. That perfect, beautiful, all-too-kissable mouth.
"I got that thing wot you wanted, miss." The voice of Harry's coachman outside broke the spell.
Elinor jerked her fingers off Harry's side. Where she'd been caressing him more than healing. She wanted to close her eyes in mortification, but focused them on the inside of her bag instead, hunting the bandages.
"Yeah, thanks, Sharkey," Harry called through the window. She could feel him watching her as he sat up. "Put it in the luggage boot, will ya?"
"Sure, boss."
Elinor wondered at the informality between employer and servant. It was easier than wondering at her own behavior. Had they perhaps known each other before? Before Harry entered the academy?
"You know wot I think?"
About what? About Elinor's inexcusable overstepping of the bounds of propriety? About--?
"I think this came from the machine." He brandished the forceps at her when she finally came up from her bag with the bandages that had been staring her in the face. "I think the bloody thing shot me."
His exaggerated outrage made her want to laugh. She kept it to a smile. "How so?"
She laid a row of gauze over the long wound, sticking it in place with the ointment.
"For one thing, I feel tremendously better since you took it out of me. I think it was making me sick while it was stuck in me. 'Cause o' the no-magic." He peered at it again. "You think maybe it's made of bone? Animal bone, maybe? I think it's a weapon. Look, it's pointed at this end. Sharpened. And there's hooks at the other."
Elinor looked, when he waved the forceps under her nose. She caught his hand and held it still, where she could see. "You're right. It does look like a dart, or arrowhead. And rather like it might be bone."
"Bloody 'ell."
"What?" She looked up, alarmed by his tone. "What's wrong?"
"If these things 'ave projectile weapons and they can get out o' the dead zones..."
"Oh." Elinor realized she still held his hand and let it go. "Dear."
She hadn't wrapped his injury yet either and all this motion was threatening to dislodge the gauze. She lifted the roll of bandage and only then realized how it would be.
The bandage had to go around his torso. Underneath his clothing. Elinor would have to reach around him to wrap it. She was not a tall woman and her arms were sized in proportion, which meant that, in order to get the bandage around him, she would have to get very close to that torso. That powerfully muscled, utterly male, virtually naked torso.
Think about something else. The machines. She picked loose the end of the bandage. "Do you think any more machines have got out of the zones?"
"Dunno, do I?" He chewed on a corner of his lower lip. "Reckon I better get Grey's Briganti on it." He named the magicians' police for
ce. The Investigations Branch was headed by the magister of the conjurer's guild, Lord Greyson Carteret.
"Not your committee?" Elinor placed the bandage end over the shallow side of his injury. "Hold that. No, with your other hand. Keep your arm up. Both arms."
He contorted himself obediently into the position she demanded, one elbow cocked high while the hand held the bandage end in place, leaning forward so she could work the roll under his shirt and around his back.
She should have had him take off his jacket, at the least. She hadn't wanted him to be any closer to naked than he already was, for fear of her inappropriate reactions. Instead, it was worse. The jacket's weight made it more difficult to pass the bandage beneath his clothing, so that she had her face pressed against Harry's warm, solid, naked chest with her arms around him far, far longer than was good for her.
Harry cleared his throat. "I--no, not the committee. I want my lads takin' that beastie apart, learnin' 'ow it ticks." He paused a long moment, while Elinor was busy trying to get a great clump of shirt linen out of the way, pushing her cheek hard into his chest to reach farther.
When she was able to move on, bringing the bandage up the other side, where the deepest part of his injury lay, Harry moved on, too. "Grey's boys are better at trackin' things than mine are. They can do that bit. 'Sides, protectin' the public from rogue magic, or no-magic's what the Briganti do, isn't it?"
"It is, yes." Elinor started round again. It would take more than one ring of bandage to protect his injury.
The extended exposure to temptation further weakened her already crumbling will. She couldn't stop herself from burrowing her nose into his chest to breathe him in. He wasn't long from his morning ablutions, so she could still smell the soap, but over that was the smell of Harry and magic. His scent was inextricably mixed with the deep, earthy smell of alchemy.
Harry cleared his throat again. His voice was still rough and gravelly when he spoke. "If any of the creatures did get out," he said. "I don't reckon it was many. And they'd be small, I think. Like that one, or smaller."
"Mm." Elinor started on the third round of bandage.
How shameless was she to hurry through laying it over his injury so she could once more put her arms round him with impunity? What kind of wanton would regret that each pass of the bandage covered up more of his chest and gave her less bare Harry skin to press her face against? Whatever kind it was, that was her.
After years of believing that she was above all base physicality, devoted purely to loftier pursuits of the intellect, of magic and human welfare, her true nature was rather literally rubbing itself in her face. Her nature was just as--well, natural as the next woman's. She had the same inborn mating instinct and that instinct seemed to have fixed itself upon her magic-master.
Which left her with one more question. What was she going to do about it? Dolt, Elinor scolded herself. The answer was simple. She would simply have to rid herself of these inappropriate feelings. She could not--would not--succumb. It was unthinkable.
And she was running out of bandage. She brought the end across and fastened it down with a safety pin. She tidied up the bandage, smoothing out minor pleats and picking off stray threads.
She was still touching him, though over the bandage and that lightly, when she looked up at him. He held his arms over his head, waiting for her to finish. Now, he brought them down, settling his hands on her shoulders. His eyes still possessed that dark, intent, focused look. Focused on her.
Why? Or was she an idiot for wondering? She'd never had a man fix his attention on her like that, which was why she was still virgin at the past-ripe-and-nearing-withered age of twenty-seven. Not that she'd ever encouraged any man to do so. Had she encouraged Harry? She hoped not. She'd never meant to.
His tongue slipped out, dampened his lower lip, and retreated. He lowered his head. Elinor lifted hers and that beautiful mouth of his touched hers, a soft, sweet brushing of his lips.
He lifted his head to look at her, as if to gauge her reaction to that slight kiss. Whatever he sought, he must have found, for he kissed her again.
CHAPTER TWO
Elinor couldn't react. Or rather, that was her reaction, stunned senseless by the sweetness of that first touch of his lips, and now-- This new kiss held caution, as if he felt his way through, perhaps expecting a slap at any moment. But it also contained the heat of rising desire held tightly in control. She melted into that heat, all her reasons against it burned away with her sense.
The softer she melted, the harder Harry seemed to get. His kiss tilted, going deeper and making her quiver. He cupped her cheek with his broad, rough-textured hand, as if holding her in place for his kiss and the quiver slid inside her, down to her very center.
His thumb slid to her mouth and he tugged, asking her to open. Puzzled, she did. His tongue slid between her parted lips and she tasted Harry, and passion.
She leaned into the kiss, spreading her hands wide on his naked chest to feel more of his skin. It was all she could think. More. And more and more.
The carriage lurched, then swayed as the coachman climbed up to his high perch. Harry set her away. He retreated to the far side of the seat and began to button his shirt. Elinor sat back and folded her hands in her lap, trying to catch her breath while her face burned hot. What in heaven's name had come over her?
It was as if--as if her mind had switched off and her body kept functioning like some automaton. That wasn't right. That wasn't her.
"Oi." It wasn't a gentle word, but he made it so. "Don't be like that--"
"Like what? Embarrassed? Ashamed? Utterly appalled at my behavior?" Her face burned even hotter. She wanted to hide behind her hands, but she wasn't such a coward.
"It was a kiss, Elinor. Nothing to be ashamed of. Just a kiss."
If that was just a kiss, she was just--just--she couldn't think of anything silly enough. Just a debutante with nothing but hats and parties on her mind. That kiss stirred up things she didn't know what to do with. Feelings. Tingles in peculiar places. She didn't want any of it. She wanted magic.
"I know it's the magic you want," Harry said, proving once again that alchemists could on occasion read minds. "But do you maybe fancy me, too, a bit? 'Cause I got to tell you, Elinor, I got a powerful yearning for you."
Her heart stopped, then started again, speeding so fast she thought it might pound its way out of her chest. Her stomach turned over and her head got so light, she thought it might float away, like dandelion fluff caught in the wind. The Harry wind. He desired her. And she did not dare to desire him.
The carriage swayed, the coachman adjusting his position perhaps. One of the horses stamped and blew. Harry knocked on the roof with his walking stick and Sharkey slid open the little window, but didn't peer in. Elinor didn't think he could bend his back enough.
"Take us 'ome, Sharkey."
The window slid shut. Elinor stared at her hands. Harry stared at her. She could feel it.
"I wish you'd look at me." He touched the back of her hand with a finger, then retreated. "So I can know what you're thinkin'."
How could she share with him what she thought when she didn't know it herself? How could she have become a stranger to herself so quickly?
She couldn't have. She was still the same woman she'd been an hour ago. Elinor Tavis, apprentice wizard.
Magic was her life and always would be. Kisses--or anything like that--could play no part in it. If a woman wanted anything besides marriage and a family, she had to make her way alone.
She looked up at Harry, as he had asked. "I am thinking that there can be no more kisses. No, one kiss was not the end of the world, but it cannot happen again. It simply cannot, Harry. Not at this juncture. Never mind the machine in the luggage boot--there are so many other critical issues. Not to mention the challenge hanging over my head. I cannot afford the distraction."
He nodded, accepting her words, his face utterly serious. "Right. You're right. You gotta be sharp for the challeng
e. We'll do it your way."
A solemn, earnest Harry was almost more devastating to her composure than a teasing, winking Harry. It reminded her there was substance to the man. He went as deep as the stone his magic was based on. "Wot are you doin' to get ready for the challenge?" he asked.
Elinor grimaced. She wished now that she'd never issued her challenge, but at the time it had seemed the only thing to do. Nigel Cranshaw did not deserve to be magister of the wizards' guild.
That much was still true. But she was not at all sure she was the proper person to remedy that. She wasn't even officially a member of the wizard's guild. He'd just--he made her so angry, and the words challenging him for the right to be magister had just popped out.
"I don't even know what kind of preparations I need to make," she said, relieved that Harry had accepted her decision so easily. His "yearning" must not be so powerful as all that. "Sir William and Lady Marian were supposed to come at Christmas for a visit, but the weather turned off too bad for them to get through."
Sir William Stanwyck was a wizard and the head of the Magician's Council of England, made up of the combined guilds. He was also her godfather and her first teacher of magic. He'd been appalled when her interest in magic had increased, rather than fading as she grew up, but he had resigned himself to it finally. He had promised to help her with the challenge by making sure she had knowledge of all guild secrets.
Except the challenge was now less than two weeks away, and she had yet to meet with him.
"The library," Harry said. "There's not anything you can't find in the council library. It's been so long since anyone issued a formal wizard's challenge, Sir William's likely 'ad to look up 'ow to conduct one."
"Do wizards' challenges differ from alchemists'?"
"Reckon they do. Wizards don't go in much for throwin' fireballs or callin' down lightning."
Elinor had to smile. "No, we don't. We're more in the potion-brewing trade."
"You use wands though."
