The Magic Between Us

by Tammy Falkner

  “Stiffly and unyielding?” her grandmother said with a laugh. In their world, comfort reigned. Clothing was serviceable. There were no layers worn simply for show. In order to fit through keyholes and slide under doors, one must be appropriately attired.

  “Maybe I should have saved this mission for Claire after all.” Indecision rose within her. No. She could do this. She could help the Duke of Robinsworth’s daughter.

  “You must learn to use your senses, your mind, and your heart more than your magic. You can do it, Sophia. I wouldn’t have allowed you to come if I didn’t believe it.”

  “Oh, come now,” Sophia cajoled. “You wanted an opportunity to come through the portal, to see the fish.”

  “I’d love to know their crimes. Knowing they were once fae scares me a little.” Her grandmother shivered lightly.

  “They seemed amiable enough.”

  “Only because you had something they wanted to trade for passage. Otherwise, we’d still be at home waiting for the night of the full moon.”

  The fish that guarded the portal were granted a reprieve on the night of the moonful, the night the midnight wind swirled, carrying passengers from the fae world to this one. Any other night, wary travelers must trade something of value to get past the fish and away from the land of the fae.

  “This mission is very unlike my others,” Sophia said, more to herself than to her grandmother.

  “Most missions don’t include a handsome duke.” She grinned. “A duke who makes one’s heart go pitter-patter.” For some reason, her grandmother’s mild, cherubic smile sent fear skittering up Sophia’s spine, making her wonder what devious plot was hiding behind her grandmother’s innocent facade.

  ***

  Ashley stepped through the front door of his home to find his butler, Wilkins, standing at attention in the entryway. The regal, spry old servant rushed forward to take his hat and coat.

  “Any news for me, Wilkins?” Ashley asked absently as he shrugged out of his jacket, took the correspondence the butler placed in his hands, and sorted through the stack of notes quickly.

  “Your brother awaits you in your study,” the butler said.

  A smile broke across Ashley’s face. “I imagine he’s sampling my best whiskey?”

  Wilkins smiled, then added glibly, “Not since I removed all the decanters upon his arrival, Your Grace. You should be aware that he partook of more than his share of spirits before he arrived.”

  His brother had never been one for taking spirits in moderation. Ashley chuckled. “That bad, is he?”

  “Worse, Your Grace,” Wilkins said, nodding his head slightly.

  “Oh,” Ashley said as he turned and held up a finger. “Did you have any luck finding a suitable governess for Anne?”

  The man sighed. “Unfortunately, no. The agency refuses to send another of their applicants. Not after what happened the last time.”

  Ashley tried to remember. “Remind me of what happened last time.”

  “Lady Anne set the governess’s hair on fire. On purpose.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember. There was a stench for days.” Wilkins’s lip curled as he obviously remembered the same smell. “Are there other agencies you can try?”

  “I’ll keep looking.”

  “Thank you.” Ashley smiled as he walked down the corridor and turned the corner to enter his study. There, seated in a deep leather chair, was his younger brother, Lord Phineas, or Finn, as his friends called him. “I heard a rumor that you were in my study and that evasive maneuvers had to be taken to keep you out of my stock,” Ashley said, extending his hand.

  Finn rose to his feet unsteadily, grasping for the arm of his chair as he lost his balance. The man looked positively miserable, his eyes rimmed with red, his face blotchy and pale. “Ah, yes. But he forgot the bottle you keep in your private stash,” Finn said as he held up a glass, lisping a little on the last word.

  Of course, his brother would feel free to invade his private space at will. Never one to mince words, Ashley said, “You look like hell.”

  “I feel like hell,” Finn grumbled back.

  “Dare I ask what the matter is? It’s a bit early in the day to be so deep in your cups.” He urged his brother to sit before he toppled over. He was nearly as big as Ashley, so it would take at least two footmen to bring him back upright.

  “Oh, I had a bit more enjoyment than I’d planned,” Finn groaned as he adjusted himself in the chair.

  Ashley sat behind his desk and steepled his hands in front of him, waiting for the man to tell him what the matter was. It didn’t take as long as he thought for his brother to unburden himself.

  “Do you remember the chit I set up in Mayfair?”

  “Vaguely.” If Ashley remembered correctly, there was nothing truly remarkable about the girl.

  “She’s up and left me.”

  “And?” Certainly, worse things could happen to a man. Like being shunned for killing one’s wife.

  “And she started a bit of a rumor.”

  “About?”

  “My lack of physical attributes and attention to her needs,” Finn mumbled.

  Ashley tried to hide his chuckle behind a cough into his closed fist.

  “It’s not amusing,” Finn pointed out.

  “Certainly, it is,” Ashley said, laughing a bit louder.

  “How do you deal with it? The whispers behind your back? The constant judgment from your peers?”

  Ashley shrugged. “One becomes accustomed to it with time.” He’d had seven years to learn to accept his lot in life. The only time it rankled was when he met a lady like Miss Thorne. Then he wished he was anyone but himself.

  Finn reached for the whiskey bottle again. Ashley intercepted it and moved it out of his brother’s reach. “Drinking any more will be a waste, because you’ll not remember the taste of it when you wake up.”

  Ashley stood and called for Wilkins. The man appeared within moments. “Let’s find a room for Lord Phineas and help him to it, shall we?” he asked of the butler.

  Wilkins nodded his head and called for footmen to assist. “If I may be so bold, Your Grace, the rest of London should know what a good man you can be,” Wilkins said.

  “I prefer to let them think the worst.” Ashley sighed. “They’ve no expectations of me that way.”

  Ashley returned to his study and began to open his correspondence. Despite his sordid past, he was a bit too well connected to be ousted completely from society. For the first two or three years following his wife’s death, he’d been avoided as though he had a communicable disease, as though the propensity to murder was contagious.

  Then the few friends he had, namely his brother Finn, Matthew Lanford, and Jonathon Roberts, whom he’d met at Eton many years before, had rallied around him and forced him to resume his place in the House of Lords and step back into society. They all believed him innocent of any wrongdoing. It was unfortunate that they were all incorrect.

  The clip of quickly moving slippers in the corridor made him groan and hang his head. Within seconds, the Duchess of Robinsworth flung open his door and burst inside his sanctuary, without even the good graces to knock.

  “Mother,” was his only response as he looked down at the note before him. “What brings you to my home?”

  “You really should replace that butler,” she scolded.

  “And why should I do that?” he asked as he closed his ledger. She obviously had a purpose for visiting. And would most likely get to it as soon as she got over whatever slight Wilkins had given her. He would curse the man, but the butler seemed to be one of the only people who could keep his mother in line.

  “He’s impertinent. And rude.”

  Said the pot about the kettle.

  “He blocked my entrance to the old library. The one in the west wing. He stood right there in the doorwa
y and refused to let me pass. Of all the nerve.” She harrumphed and dropped into a chair.

  That wing of the old house had been closed for longer than Ashley could remember. Since before his father had died when he was a boy. “And what purpose did you have for visiting the west wing, Mother?” he asked as he poured himself a liberal dose of the whiskey Finn had left behind.

  “It’s awfully early to be drinking, dear,” she scolded.

  “It’s awfully early for you to be visiting, Mother,” he returned. His mother never rose from bed before the luncheon hour. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping off the excesses of the night’s activities?”

  “I wouldn’t call them excesses,” she mumbled.

  He fished a note from the pile of correspondence Wilkins had given him. “You do not find one thousand pounds to be an excess?” he questioned.

  “Give me that.” She held out her hand and leveled him with a stare that would have made him quake in his boots when he was younger. With her icy glare and pinched brows, she could freeze him in his tracks when he was a boy, but no longer.

  “I think not,” he returned. Then he took a deep breath and dove directly into the issue at hand. “I believe it’s time for you to move back to the Hall, Mother.” He would hate having her underfoot, but he couldn’t keep an eye on her if she wasn’t at hand.

  She pulled back and turned up her nose. “I’ll do no such thing. My town house is perfectly acceptable.”

  “You mean my town house,” he clarified.

  “It’s mine in theory,” she huffed as she sank primly onto a chair across from him.

  “The amount of money you’re losing at the gaming tables is tremendous,” he said as he withdrew more notes from his drawer. They arrived nearly every day. From people his mother had gambled with and lost. They all knew she wasn’t good for the debts. Yet they played with her anyway because the Duke of Robinsworth never left a debt unpaid. His presence in their drawing rooms might not be valued. But his purse certainly was.

  “I’ll take those,” she said again.

  “Why, Mother? You cannot begin to pay them.”

  Her face fell. “I do not know why you feel you have to be so cruel,” she said as her eyes welled up with tears.

  “I do not understand why you gamble with money you don’t have.” He tapped the cards on the table. Then he made a clucking sound with his tongue. “But I’m prepared to pay them in full.”

  “As you must, Robin,” she said quietly, using his childhood nickname.

  “On one condition,” he amended.

  Her face contorted slightly. “Which is?” she said from between gritted teeth.

  “I’m closing the town house effective immediately. You’ll be moving back to the Hall.”

  She jumped to her feet. “I will do no such thing,” she gasped.

  He continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “I will reconcile your debts. Every last one of them. Then you will cease gambling with money you do not have. You may use your pin money any way you see fit.”

  “But there’s not enough,” she protested.

  Still, he continued. “You will spend nothing more than your pin money. You will move back to the Hall. You will assist me with my daughter.”

  “Anne hates me.”

  Anne hated everyone. “You will assist me with your granddaughter. She could use a feminine presence. You will behave respectably and set a good example for her.”

  “You need a wife,” she snapped. “It’s unfortunate that no one of respectable breeding will have you.”

  Oh, his mother knew how to throw the barbs that would hurt the most. “Then I am free from the wife search, it seems, since no respectable woman would pay me her favors.” He leveled her with a glare. Though Miss Thorne had graced him with a smile and no fear in her eyes.

  “It took years for me to get over your past deeds. To find my way back into society. You have no idea how arduous the task was.” He couldn’t gather sympathy for her, despite the look of anguish in her eyes. “If I move back to the Hall, I will once again be cast beneath your dark cloud of suspicion.”

  “Do you think I killed my wife, Mother?” he clipped out.

  “Of course not,” she rushed on.

  “Then I would assume a mother who finds no fault with her son will be quite content to return to the family estate.”

  “My friends won’t know what to think.”

  “Quite frankly, Mother, I don’t give a damn what they think,” he drawled. “I’ll have Wilkins begin the preparations to move your household.”

  “And just when do you think this will take place?”

  “As soon as I bellow down the hallway,” Ashley replied. Wilkins would take great pride in ruffling the duchess’s feathers.

  “That man hates me,” she grunted. “When I’m in residence, I’ll expect him to treat me as befits my station.”

  “He’ll treat you as well as you treat him, Mother.”

  “I’d prefer being dropped into a vat of hot oil over being nice to that man.” She jumped to her feet and headed for the door.

  “I’m certain that can be arranged,” Ashley called to her retreating back.

  From The Magic of “I Do”

  Autumn 1817

  A faerie without magic was about as useless as a carriage without a horse. If Claire Thorne had known that this would be her reward for trying to save her sister from the dangerous Duke of Robinsworth, she never would have gotten involved in her sister’s mission. She would have stayed at home. The land of the fae was so much more comfortable than the land where others resided.

  Claire refused to look at her abductor. She refused to acknowledge his presence, although he did have her magic dust. It was in his pocket at that very moment. Despite the fact that she’d warned him it could explode in untrained hands, he’d taken it with no hint of hesitation. And now he refused to give it back. Claire lifted her chin and stared out the coach window. If anyone had told her a sennight ago that Lord Phineas would take her hostage, she would have laughed in his face. Yet here she was, at his mercy.

  “Oh, blissful silence,” he said. He must have said it to himself, because he certainly couldn’t be talking to her.

  “You really should return my dust to me before it does you harm.” She didn’t look at him as she talked. She continued to stare at the changing landscape. They’d left behind the bustle of Mayfair and were headed toward… nowhere, it appeared.

  “And just what kind of harm might a little bottle of shimmer do to me?” He looked much too composed.

  “It could explode and blow off an arm.” She finally turned to look toward him and found him grinning at her unrepentantly. That man had a smile that could stop a lady’s heart. Though it had no effect on hers. Well, almost no effect. His sparkling blue eyes made him look impertinent enough to annoy her to no end.

  He held out his hand and appraised his arm with a critical eye. “I can live without an arm.” Lord Phineas swiped a lock of hair from his forehead and lowered his arm back to his side. He arched a golden brow at her as though taunting her to continue her threats. He hadn’t seen threats yet. Just wait until she turned him into a toad. Or a pig so that his outside could reflect his inside.

  Claire let her gaze roam up and down his body slowly. “It might blow off something you use on occasion.” Her eyes stopped at his lap. He fidgeted in his seat. “It’s really quite volatile in the hands of the untrained.”

  That wasn’t true. Not in the least little bit. But he didn’t need to know that. In his hands, the dust was useless. Just shimmery flecks of shiny things he didn’t understand. In her hands, however, it was quite useful. If she wasn’t afraid to commit one of the Unpardonable Errors—never use your magic to do harm—she would take a chance and wrest it from his possession. But if she had the dust in her hands right at that moment, she would use it to harm
him. In a most satisfying way.

  She forced herself into a casual shrug. “Take a chance. Blow off an appendage. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and it’ll be the smallest one. One you probably don’t get to use much.”

  His smile vanished. “I can assure you there’s nothing small about my appendage.”

  She grinned. “That’s not what she said…” She left the taunt dangling in the air. His face flushed. She must have touched a sore spot. But since he was holding her hostage, he deserved to be just as uncomfortable as she was.

  ***

  How the devil could a faerie be aware of his problems with his mistress? Katherine had only left him a few weeks before. It wasn’t his fault that she’d spread a bit of a rumor about his prowess in the bedroom. One that was completely unfounded upon reality. He narrowed his eyes at Miss Thorne. “Are your people omniscient?”

  She didn’t answer. She simply turned to look out the window again. Blast and damn. The woman was already driving him toward Bedlam and he’d only had her in his possession for a few hours. His brother, Robin, would owe him dearly for this. Very dearly.

  The carriage hit a rut in the road and she bounced in her seat. She uttered a most unladylike oath as her head bumped the roof of the carriage. “Beg your pardon?” he asked. He cupped a hand around his ear. “I didn’t quite hear that.”

  “If I’d meant for you to hear it, you would have heard it.” She adjusted her skirts, settling back more heavily against the squabs. The bounce had left her looking a bit disheveled, with a strawberry blond curl hanging across her forehead. She blew the lock of hair with an upturned breath.

  She really was quite pretty if one could get over the shrewish behavior. Her body was tall and willowy, her limbs long and graceful. Her heart-shaped face would probably be beautiful if she ever graced it with a smile.

  “Just where are we going?” she asked. She still didn’t look at him. She gazed out the window with the countenance of someone who had the weight of the world upon her shoulders.

  “My house in Bedfordshire.”

  Her shoulders stiffened and then she exhaled deeply.

  “And just what recommends such a place?”