“Horrors.” I shook my head at him as I reached over to dab away the ink with one finger and Miss Banks watched, eyes wide and curious. “Have you really left poor Amy to escort herself down to supper?”
“Oh, she doesn’t mind,” Jonathan said blithely. “All the more time to talk politics with her friends, you know, without having to explain the fine details to me as she goes along—and it’s not as if I’ve much of interest to contribute to their husbands’ conversations. All that high drama over the proper wording of spells...” He smiled ruefully at me. “Come and help me bear it?”
“Of course.” I slipped one arm through his, grateful for his familiar, solid strength and the unspoken support behind it—because for all that he’d phrased it as his own cry for help, he knew perfectly well how much I’d been dreading this first supper in magical company again.
Partners against the world. It was the way we’d always been, ever since we’d grown old enough to realize that the world—including our own parents—believed that the passions that drove us both had to be stamped out for our own good.
But Amy...
“Amy really is very patient with us, isn’t she?” I said thoughtfully.
“She won’t be for long, if we miss the start of supper.” Jonathan gave my arm an affectionate squeeze. “We’d better hurry.”
So we did.
7
We did not miss the start of supper, although it was a near thing. The doors at the far end of the green salon were just swinging open, and the gathered guests were milling around in preparation to pass through them, when the three of us stepped through the salon entrance. Miss Banks slipped away from my side immediately, seeking—I presumed—Miss Fennell; Jonathan smiled and nodded to the various groups around us, laughing in good-humored acceptance of the jests tossed his way (“Couldn’t pull your nose out of your old scrolls in time, eh, Harwood?”) and volleying back jests of his own that sent the other men into shouts of laughter; and I rose up onto my tiptoes, as discreetly as possible, to scan the crowd for magical suspects.
I only recognized around half of the gentlemen in the crowd. The older husbands of the Boudiccate, of course, had all been regular guests at my mother’s house parties. A few of my own classmates were scattered through the room, too, although none I’d been particularly close to...and from the way their glances skittered off me, I doubted they would be seeking me out to trade reminiscences during this visit.
I would have to steel myself to approach some of them, though, despite our mutual discomfort. At the very least, they were all sure to have spent more time socializing with other magicians in the field than I had in the last few years, which meant that they’d have far more of an insight into who might be practicing weather wizardry at this party.
That particular specialization might be offered as an option at the Great Library, but not a single student in my year had chosen to pursue it, and for good reason. Weather wizardry was a profitable profession for any magician with limited talent or ambition—after all, every newspaper or almanac-publisher wanted a weather wizard on-staff at all times, and the government, too, was willing to pay ridiculously well for their predictions, no matter how unreliable those predictions might be—but as the disdainful elf-lord had pointed out earlier, our ancient treaties with magical creatures across the nation prohibited any attempts at meddling with the magic of the land itself.
And without even that option at hand...well, what magician with any significant power would choose to spend all his focus on reading the hidden secrets of the weather when he could be casting actual magic?
I didn’t know a single one. But when it came to the question of whom I should approach tonight...
I felt Wrexham’s gaze before I saw him—a prickle against the side of my neck that made me instinctively turn before I could think better of it.
He stood by the wall on my right, beyond the mingling crowd, alone and apparently content to be so. In our student days, he would have propped himself bonelessly against the wall. Now he stood erect, with a glass in his hands, and watched me steadily.
But he didn’t look furious, as I’d half-anticipated, or like a man only waiting to seize any opportunity to pull me aside and lecture me on my mistakes. The look on his face as our eyes met across the room...could that really be rueful affection that I saw?
The sight pierced all of my carefully-shored-up defenses.
He’d shaved since this afternoon.
...What an idiotic thing to notice. Of course he’d shaved. He wasn’t a scruffy scholarship student from the docks anymore.
Yet here we were again, just like that first night all those years ago, watching each other across a crowded room.
This time, unlike that memorable first evening—and thousands of other evenings since then—he wasn’t striding toward me through the crowd to spend the rest of the evening at my side in lively discussion and debate. In fact, he didn’t show any signs of moving toward me at all. He must have come to the conclusion that there was no use in arguing with me anymore.
Naturally, I was delighted. Utterly delighted, not to mention relieved. Deeply relieved.
Although...I had to admit, it was rather a waste to have spent so long preparing my list of brilliant justifications for this afternoon’s actions and decisions, only to have no chance at all to deliver it.
As he lifted his glass to salute me across the room, the corners of his lips quirked upward into a wry grin. It was by far his most appealing expression.
My lips began to curve in return...
Horrified, I slapped one hand to my mouth. Was I actually smiling back at him? And coming up with justifications to seek him out myself later on, just when he’d finally given up on approaching me?
So much for all of my great resolutions.
Even after everything that had happened four months ago, it seemed I couldn’t stop being a fool when it came to judging my own strength.
I yanked my gaze away from my ex-fiancé, breathing quickly. The room before me was a blur of color and movement, but somehow, my eyes couldn’t focus on any of it.
“Oh come now,” Jonathan said cheerfully. “Don’t stop now! It’s better than theater, watching you two moon over each other.”
“I am not—!” I cut myself off with a snarl as my wits caught up with me. Taking a deep breath, I blinked the room into clarity and said with great dignity, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“We should sell tickets,” my brother told me. “It’s like watching an opera, but far better because there’s so much less tuneless shrieking involved. No, it’s all wordless emoting and high drama with you two, and—ow!”
“You deserved it,” I told him, as I pulled my arm free and he patted his elbowed side consolingly. “Amy would tell you so, too, if she were here.”
“Ha! Amy would volunteer to be stage-manager, and you know it.”
“God forbid,” I said devoutly.
He laughed. “And speaking of my wife...” His mischievous grin shifted into tenderness as Amy sailed toward us through the crowd, resplendent in glittering gold velvet with bright silver trimmings in the overdress that parted and fell around her magnificently rounded stomach. “Darling,” he said as she joined us. “You’ve missed the most entertaining—”
“Jonathan!”
“Don’t tease your sister, darling,” Amy said calmly as she slipped into place between us. “Unless it involves any really interesting gossip, of course, in which case I want to hear all about it immediately.”
“Amy!”
“Good evening, darling,” said my betrayer, smiling at me. “Have you spoken to Wrexham yet?”
“Not in words, so far,” Jonathan told her cheerfully. “Only impressively longing glances. The air was positively sizzling between them when we first arrived.”
“Oh!” Amy let out a tsk of disappointment. “And I missed it!”
“Don’t worry,” said my brother. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty more acti
on by the end of the evening. Personally, I predict a storm of broken dishes over supper and an illicit embrace in a broom closet by bedtime.”
I set my teeth together. “Your husband,” I informed Amy, “has the most appallingly immature sense of humor. Can’t you do something about that before he gets much older?”
“It depends,” said Amy, her eyes sparkling. “Can I be the one to discover you two in the broom closet? Please? I promise to scream very loudly so that he’s utterly compromised and can’t possibly escape.”
“Ohhh!” I gave up on my incurable family. “If anyone ends up in a broom closet,” I told them, “it’ll be the two of you, when I lose my temper and lock you in there.”
“Mm.” Jonathan grinned down at his wife. “Sounds fun.”
“Shush,” she told him firmly. But there was an unmistakable smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth as she turned away from him. “Cassandra, I want to introduce you to somebody. A gentleman. I’m quite certain you’d enjoy sitting next to him at supper.”
“I—what?” I blinked, caught off guard. “Are you matchmaking me with someone else now, too?”
My brother let out a low whistle that was too quiet for anyone outside our family group to hear the vulgarity. “Does he know that he’ll have one of the Boudiccate’s own officers of magic glaring daggers at him across the table?”
“He’s a magician himself,” Amy told both of us. “A weather wizard, to be exact.”
Aha. My shoulders relaxed as I smiled back at her. “In that case, I’d be delighted.”
“You would?” Jonathan’s eyebrows shot upward.
“I’ll explain it all later, my love.” Amy patted her husband’s arm comfortingly. “Now, look that way—just there—yes, here he comes.” She smiled brightly as a solidly built man in his mid-thirties, with a bright crimson waistcoat and thick sandy hair, shouldered his way toward us through the shifting crowd. “Why, Mr. Sansom! You’re just in time. May I introduce you to my sister-in-law, Miss Harwood, and my husband, Mr. Harwood?”
“Delighted, delighted.” He gave a rough bow in each of our directions before his gaze fastened back on me. “I hear you’re curious about weather wizardry, Miss Harwood. Want to learn the real truth beyond the pap and nonsense we’re all fed at the Great Library, eh what?”
My spine stiffened, but I forced a polite smile. “Exactly.”
“Harrumph!” He gave a nod of evident satisfaction. “Well, then. I’m the man to tell you all about it!”
“I can hardly wait,” I murmured as I took his arm.
And I didn’t have to. Mr. Sansom, as it transpired, was more than willing to pour the fruits of all his years of labor into a receptive and knowledgeable ear at long last—and as any respectably trained, practicing magician would have used all of his magical abilities to extricate himself after no more than five minutes of such rampant quackery, I supposed a famously failed and broken magician like myself must have seemed his next-best option.
Four months ago, I would have cast a spell of deafness on myself for both of our sakes. But as it was, seated next to him at one of the three long tables that filled Lady Cosgrave’s dining room, there was no possibility of escape...and supper that night seemed that it would never end.
“...But then the Druids, you see, understood the worth of proper diets! No milk or bread for them, no, none of that nonsense. They intended to be one with nature, Miss Harwood. There’s no spellcraft required whatsoever when you’re already part of the earth yourself!”
“I see,” I said faintly. A footman was making his way between the guests, offering refills of bubbling, popping elven wine from a tall crystal decanter; I scooped up my now-empty glass and thrust it upward in desperation. One sparkling sip later, and I could finally bring myself to ask, for courtesy’s sake: “Have you had much luck, Mr. Sansom, in becoming one with nature yourself?”
“Have I?” Snorting, he ripped into his sliced ham with vigor. “Miss Harwood, I cannot count the number of nights in the past decade when I’ve felt nature’s blessing of moonlight on my bare buttocks!”
I had to clap one hand to my mouth to stop wine spraying out of it. Choking, I lowered my glass to the tablecloth.
I didn’t let my eyes drift for even a moment to the next table, where Wrexham sat facing me.
I didn’t dare.
Oh, I had no fear that he would be glaring at my seating partner, no matter what Jonathan had mischievously predicted. If Wrexham had been that sort of brutishly jealous man, I would never have affianced myself to him in the first place.
No, what I dreaded was far worse.
I had a terrible feeling that if I met his gaze, I would discover an unholy amusement at my predicament. And then there might have to be broken dishes after all.
“Apologies for my frankness, Miss Harwood,” Mr. Sansom said briskly, “but weather wizardry isn’t for the weak of spirit.”
“So I see.” I breathed deeply as I lowered my hand. The servants’ door in the far wall opened and three new footmen walked into the room, carrying large silver trays: our next course. Lady Cosgrave had apparently ordered a feast to awe the ages.
Ah, well. As long as I couldn’t escape anyway... “So what do you think of our current weather, sir? As one who has such a very close communion with nature.”
“Ah. Hmm. Well.” He accepted a large, goggle-eyed fish and waved away the vegetables that were proffered on the side. “It is a tad on the chilly side, I grant you. But not too cold for me! No, I’ll be out at the next full moon as always, and I can tell you I won’t require any coverings.”
“I understand.” I looked with sympathy upon the fish, whose open eyes stared upward in horror.
The clock ticked with ominous slowness against the wall.
“Yes,” I said to the footman who hovered behind me. “I believe I will have another refill, after all.”
I could have wept with relief when Lady Cosgrave finally rose to signal the end of supper. The gentlemen, of course, were expected to remain at the table until a maid was sent to notify them that it was safe for them to join us in the parlor, meaning that the political conversations were officially finished for the night.
In the past, my feet had dragged as I’d followed the other ladies away from the table, abandoning the possibility of any glorious magical debates only to sit through a strategy session over the national economy in the parlor.
Now, I couldn’t hurry toward it quickly enough.
“Don’t worry, Miss Harwood,” Mr. Sansom said as I lunged from my seat. “There is far more to explain, of course, but I’m more than happy to continue your education. Perhaps tomorrow?”
The room was ever-so-slightly shimmering around me. I blinked hard as a wave of warmth swept through my chest and head.
Tea was what I would drink in the parlor, that was it. No more wine. Possibly not ever.
I decided it was safest, all in all, not to risk a curtsy. “Thank you,” I said to the weather wizard, and started for the door as gracefully as possible.
The room tilted around me with every step. By the time I emerged into the corridor, my head was spinning wildly. I only made it five feet beyond the dining room doorway before I had to come to a sudden stop.
“Cassandra?” Waiting just ahead for me, Amy frowned. “Are you—?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just...need a moment. Alone.” Forcing a reassuring smile, I waved her ahead. “I’ll be there soon, I promise.”
“Very well.” She rustled forward to join the other ladies as their voices dropped from the higher-pitched social gaiety of proper supper conversation to the low intensity of real political work.
They were all gone a moment later, along with the servants who’d led their way. Even their hushed voices disappeared behind the closed door of the parlor in the distance, shutting out any possible eavesdroppers. Letting out my held breath, I sagged against the wall and closed my eyes.
I needed a moment to recover before I walked on and
joined them. Just one moment...one more moment...
“Hmm,” said an all-too-familiar voice close to my ear, with wicked amusement. “Rather too much joy with the elven wine, eh, Harwood?”
“Oh, shush.” I slitted my eyes open just wide enough to glare at my ex-fiancé, who was leaning indolently beside me with one shoulder propped against the wall. “You would have drunk too much wine, too, if you’d been trapped in that conversation all through supper.”
“What, you weren’t fascinated to learn all of Sansom’s great secrets?” Wrexham shook his head at me, his mischievous grin shifting into something more wry...or even affectionate? No, that must have been the elven wine distorting my perceptions again. “I would have warned you, you know, if you’d only bothered to ask me first. I ran into Sansom at an incident up north last year, when he was chanting at the moon and ran afoul of a local group of fairies. He may be the most earnest and well-meaning would-be Druid of our age, but he certainly hasn’t the power to bring about our current snowstorm.”
“No one does,” I said on a yawn. “That’s the whole problem.” The corridor shimmered in my vision, and Wrexham’s strong shoulder was beginning to look dangerously tempting. If I could just rest my head there for a moment, while I regained my balance... “Even I never imagined that I had that much power. We’re not elves, damn it, we’re only human.”
“That’s why we work together, not alone,” he said softly. “But...ah.” He let out a sigh as I shifted infinitesimally closer. “Never mind. You’re tipsy on elven wine. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, would it?”
“What?” I frowned muzzily at him.
Were we fighting again? No, wait, of course we were—we must be, because I’d been forcing quarrels with him for over two months now, but still...
“Shh,” he murmured, as he reached out to run one long finger along the side of my cheek. “Just for once, let me help you. Just this once.” His voice dropped to a whisper.
Snowspelled: Volume I of The Harwood Spellbook Page 6
