Kate sighed. “Now we talk about what we’re going to do next, I suppose.”
“What are you going to do?” Alicia asked.
“What do you want to do?” Jack watched her carefully.
She raised her eyebrows, surprised. “I get a choice?”
“Of course you do,” Kate said. “Did you think we came here to order you around?”
Alicia seemed to shrink in her chair, clearly unhappy. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. I just feel . . . trapped. Abandoned here to live out my scandalous life.”
“You haven’t been abandoned,” Kate said.
“Then why all the way out here?”
It was Jack’s turn to sigh. Heaven preserve him from young wizards. There was a reason he’d never joined the League, as Thomas and the Duke had. “Alicia, your so-called scandal has absolutely nothing to do with why you’re here, specifically. Try to understand, that if all you were doing was having a baby, no matter the manner of its conception, you could have gone anywhere. Or even stayed in London, scandalizing anybody you like.”
Alicia’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean?”
“You’re related to the Duke of Edgebourne now. Not to mention Lady Morehouse, and your own grandfather was a widely respected man, in case you were unaware. You have the privilege of a lot of choices, and quite frankly, the luxury to live your life as you please, baby or no baby.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because you’re dangerous, Alicia,” Jack said, exasperated. “Your gift is completely out of your control, and it’s not a harmless little bit of magic. The more remote we could get you, the better, and it happens that Kilgoran houses some of the strongest wizards and witches in all of England and Scotland combined. You’re here to learn.”
Kate leaned forward. “Alicia, even if you haven’t any interest in using the magic, you’ve got to learn to control it, at the very least. The consequences are getting worse. If you hurt somebody—”
Jack felt his lips thin into a grimace. “If your magic causes serious harm to somebody, Alicia, that is the scandal that will truly take you away from your sister.”
Alicia swallowed and smoothed her hands along her skirts. “I think I understand that now, after yesterday.”
“You’re an intelligent girl,” Jack said. “If you actually commit to learning the basics, you’ll be safe for company in a matter of weeks. If not less.” He leaned toward her. “It’s not actually that hard,” he said conspiratorially. “No matter how Duncan postures.” He winked at her, and she smiled tentatively.
“And once I’m . . . safe?”
Jack turned to Kate. She was the expert on society. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he smiled at her. She smiled back, and he basked in its warmth until she turned her attention back to her sister.
“You’re welcome to stay anywhere you’d like,” she said. “You could come to Rothwell, you could go to London, you could stay here . . .”
“Edgebourne Hall, too,” Jack put in.
“If you thought he’d put up with it, you could even visit Cousin Anthony,” Kate said with a smirk. Alicia snorted. “The point is that you can spend your confinement anywhere you’d like.”
“We’re not remotely afraid of a little scandal,” Jack said.
Kate’s expression changed suddenly, her wide grin changing into a small, twisting smile that made Jack’s heart thump for some reason. “Quite frankly, after so many years of mourning in our own family, a little scandal might be a nice change.”
“And as for the other side of the family—mine—well.” Jack chuckled. “Much as I dislike the trappings of nobility, it can be useful. The connection to Edgebourne is enough to wash away virtually any tarnish. Did you know that the Duke’s heir married a former street thief?”
Both sisters stared at him.
“What?” Kate frowned. “I thought I read in Debrett’s that Lady Westfield was a cousin of Lord Bradley’s.”
“Oh, she is. But they hadn’t any idea of that until a few years ago. Quite a to-do, but nobody knows of it.”
“Good heavens.”
“Point is, do what you like. And—between us—if you do want to learn to truly use that gift? You’ll have more leverage over those who might want to dictate your position than you’ll ever need.” Jack watched as Alicia considered that, noting that she looked more like Kate than he’d ever seen her. Those mental wheels turning, the same thoughtful expression.
“Interesting.” The word was drawn out as though Alicia needed to taste every syllable.
“Is there somewhere you’d prefer to go?” Kate asked.
Alicia frowned then cleared her expression into a rueful smile. “It’s going to make me sound like a spoiled child, but honestly, now that I know I’m not truly trapped or abandoned, staying here would be my preference.”
Jack rolled his eyes and then winced as Kate kicked him in the ankle. “Ow.”
“At least until the baby comes,” Alicia said. “The magic is terrifying enough, but the idea of childbirth is overwhelming.” She shuddered. “I’ve met the Witch of Kilgoran, you know.”
“Have you? Intimidating, isn’t she?”
Alicia straightened. “Yes, but I trust her more than any of the doctors who ever took care of Mama.”
Kate raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you remembered.”
“I was young, but not that young, Kate.” Alicia’s jaw firmed. “None of them knew a damned thing.”
Kate winced, and Jack took her hand, running his finger over her knuckles until her fingers relaxed in his. “You’re probably right about the Witch,” he said. “Between her and her granddaughter, they’ve overseen pretty much every birth in the region.”
Alicia nodded. “I can learn the magic I need here, and keep the baby safe, too.”
“Sensible,” Jack said. “I knew you had it in you.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“And after the baby comes?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know yet.” Alicia looked away. “I suppose I’ll need to weigh my options.”
Kate’s lips parted to say something else, but they were interrupted by the door opening yet again, revealing the Earl of Kilgoran with a sardonic smile on his long face.
“You’re back already?” Jack asked.
“You may wish to delay any final decisions,” Duncan said.
“What do you mean?”
“Somebody has been scrying.” The earl rolled his eyes as he held up a familiar-looking note, paper aglow with magical urgency. “Their Graces are on their way.”
Chapter 21
“They have an entourage,” Jack said.
“Did they tell us everyone was coming?” Fiona asked. “Do we have enough guest rooms prepared?”
“It’s not everyone,” Duncan said, squinting at the line of carriages in the courtyard. “I don’t see the girls.”
“Well, that’s some small relief,” Jack said, rolling his eyes.
Kate smiled. “You think so? Doesn’t this mean they’re in London without supervision?” She exchanged a smirk with Fiona as Jack and Duncan turned nearly identical horrified expressions on her.
“Relax,” Fiona said. “They’ll be fine. I’m sure there’s somebody in charge.”
“Maybe it’s Lady Morehouse,” Alicia said from behind them.
Kate stifled a snort of laughter.
They’d gathered at the door in a group to greet the visitors. “Safety in numbers,” Jack had called it. Remembering her encounters with the Duke and Duchess in London, Kate had suspected it was a futile effort. She reached behind her to find Alicia’s hand, squeezing her sister’s fingers in as comforting a fashion a
s she could manage. Duncan might be the ruler here, but if the Edgebournes wanted something different for Alicia, it would happen as they dictated.
Just as Alicia had finally come to a place of acceptance. Kate sighed, inwardly cursing the timing. No choice but to put a good face on it. She smiled as the Duke held out his hand to assist his wife from the carriage. She was followed by another woman, much younger, who was tall and slender, with a head full of coppery hair.
Fiona slipped out from under Duncan’s arm to greet this woman with a delighted smile and a hug. The Countess of Kilgoran whispered something into the other woman’s ear that made her smile and shake a finger firmly in Fiona’s face. Kate realized abruptly that the two must be related. The resemblance was unmistakable.
“Lady Westfield,” Jack murmured in her ear. “Her cousin.”
So this was the woman with the mysterious past. She seemed utterly unremarkable to Kate, a pretty picture of a society lady. Then she stuck out her tongue at Jack over Fiona’s shoulder.
“Did you pick that up from Genevieve or did she get it from you?” he asked.
“We’ve entered into a mutually beneficial agreement,” Lady Westfield said. “We pool all of our most annoying knowledge for the greater good.”
“They’ve drawn up a contract,” said another voice.
Kate turned to see a tall, lanky man coming up to them from the second carriage, accompanied by a shorter, blonder version of himself. Both men were dressed elegantly but simply, much as Jack was.
The tall man had an unruly shock of fluffy brown hair and a doting smile as he gazed at Lady Westfield. “It’s surprisingly ironclad. We’re considering training Genevieve in diplomatic work.”
“Why, so she can start wars?” Jack demanded.
“She’s not so bad,” Kate said mildly. She quite liked the youngest Dalton.
“She stole my cigars last year.”
“She once left a toad in my bed,” Duncan volunteered.
“Where would she have gotten a toad?”
“I gave it to her,” the Duchess said, causing all conversation to cease and every head to swivel in her direction. “What? You wouldn’t give your own child a toad if they asked for one?”
“You didn’t ask her what she wanted it for?” Jack raised his eyebrows.
“She said it was for a social experiment. I just made her promise the toad wouldn’t be harmed. It wasn’t harmed, was it?” The Duchess leveled Duncan with a stern gaze that had him fidgeting like the schoolboy he’d been.
“I, ah, don’t remember,” he said. “Probably not?”
The Duchess sniffed. “Fine. If you’re finished with your toad recollections, will you invite us inside? Em is cold.”
The tall man who’d talked about contracts peered worriedly at his wife, for he was clearly Lord Westfield. “Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?”
Lady Westfield sighed. “I’m fine, honestly.”
Fiona broke into a wide grin. “It’s happened, has it?”
“Can we talk about this inside?” The Duchess clearly did not approve of outdoor gossip, for gossip was certainly impending. Kate’s society instincts recognized the situation.
“Yes, of course.” Fiona dropped back into what Kate thought of as her Countess mode, issuing commands like a kind, curvy general. Servants scurried in all directions, and the carriages began to roll toward the temporary housing of a nearby farm as the Kilgorans ushered their guests inside the keep.
~ ~ ~
When they were all settled in the dining room, the only room with enough seats for all of them, as Kilgoran was not a keep intended for leisurely house parties, the Duchess made official introductions. Kate and Alicia were introduced to Lady Westfield, who eyed them with undisguised curiosity, and Lord Westfield, who had a somewhat absentminded air, though he was very kind and clearly devoted to his wife.
The younger man with Lord Westfield proved to be his brother, Lord Robert Dalton. Kate thought he was vaguely familiar and was proven correct when he murmured that they’d met briefly at a ball in London during the Season.
“When you were supposed to be at school, you mean,” Jack said sharply.
The Duke raised an eyebrow at him, and Jack subsided. This was apparently not the family matter under discussion.
The true topic of conversation, as it turned out, was that, after more than two years of marriage, the Westfields were at last in expectation of an interesting event: an heir for Edgebourne. They’d come to Kilgoran to deliver the news in person, and to visit with Em and Fiona’s grandmother, the Witch of Kilgoran. Alicia nodded at this news, having met the woman already on a similar errand.
As the family chatted, Alicia and Em with heads together comparing notes on vomiting, Jack poured Kate a second cup of tea. “There had been some concern,” he said softly, watching his cousin and Em.
“Concern?”
“That children might not be in their future.”
“Why?”
Jack sighed. “Fiona had the boys within a year after her marriage to Duncan. Em is her cousin, but they’ve lived very different lives. I know that Em was worried that her youthful exploits, so to speak, might have had an impact.”
Lady Westfield had once been a street thief, Kate remembered. “It seems not.”
“Yes, thank goodness. Not that Robert wouldn’t make a fine Duke, I suppose, but those two wanted nothing more than a family together.”
“He still could be a Duke,” Kate teased. “They might have only daughters.”
“Saints preserve us from any more Edgebourne girls,” Jack said with a groan.
Kate laughed.
On her other side, Fiona leaned forward to face Jack. “I suppose that means you’d rather not see what the tea leaves have in store for you,” she said with a wicked smile.
Jack held up a hand. “Please. I’ll take my surprises as they come.”
Kate and Fiona both laughed. Then Kate found herself blurting, “I’d like to know.” She could feel her face heating, and laughed again to cover the telltale blush.
Fiona smiled at her. “I think we could take a look.”
“Do it somewhere else,” Jack said. “Leave me to face my doom alone.”
“Come down to the Witch’s cottage with us, Kate,” Em said. “Alicia’s coming.”
“You are?” Kate turned to her sister, who was polishing off another scone.
“Mm. Might as well,” Alicia said. “Decisions to make and all that.” She slid her eyes sideways toward the Duchess, who sat peacefully at the head of the table sipping tea and beaming maternally at all of them.
“All right.” Why not? Perhaps the Witch would tell her whether her future held her husband in it. Or . . . not.
~ ~ ~
The ladies had departed en masse, accompanied by Robert, for some reason. Jack scowled after the young man he thought of as a brother. Nearly as pesky as his sister Genevieve, albeit in different ways. Subtlety was Robert Dalton’s strength. He was a reserved young man with hidden depths that Jack could only guess at. Genevieve Dalton, on the other hand, had never even heard of subtlety. How the Duke and Duchess had produced both of them was a mystery. And yet Jack suspected that both of them would excel at the sort of diplomatic work that Thomas had joked about earlier. He wondered if that was why Robert had left school. Perhaps a visit to Lord Bradley was in order when he got back to London.
Except he wasn’t going back to London. He was boarding the Delphine, and getting back to the sea. Wasn’t he? He scrubbed at his eyes and let out an explosive sigh, tired of sending his brain in circles.
“Something wrong?” Thomas asked.
“No.” The habit of keeping his own counsel was difficult to break, Jack was discovering. Years of being a man of mystery took their to
ll when one wanted advice about such mundane things as a wife. “Maybe. Yes.”
The Duke leaned back in his chair, appearing amused. “So? What is it?”
“I’m . . . not sure what to do,” Jack said slowly.
“About what?”
“Kate.”
“What about her?” Thomas asked.
Duncan said nothing, but the deafening silence emanating from the big Earl spoke volumes.
The Duke frowned. “Yes, what about her? I had understood that you intended to go about your business as before while she managed your estates.”
“I did. I do.”
“Not a plan I find entirely tasteful, I must admit, and Her Grace has had a few rather stronger words to say about it, but you’re a grown man, Jack. If that’s what you want—”
“I don’t know what I want,” Jack blurted. “I thought-I thought marrying Kate was a simple solution, an easy way to get both of us what we needed. But we argue, and she makes these brilliant lists, and she’s complicated and kind and beautiful and I’m supposed to go back aboard ship and leave her here.” He put his head in his hands. Was he in love with his own wife?
“You can’t have it both ways, Jack,” the Duke said.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t have a wife who’s intelligent and confident enough to manage a complex estate and the expectations of society and also have a biddable doxy who’ll never argue with you and makes it easy to leave.”
“I’d pick the intelligent one,” Thomas said.
“A doxy could be nice,” Duncan drawled.
“Tell that to your wife.”
Duncan smiled beatifically. “I wouldn’t dare. I chose wisely.”
Thomas snorted. “She puts up with you, you mean.”
“She’s an intelligent lady.”
Lady Kilgoran was both intelligent and formidable, in fact. The future Witch of Kilgoran wouldn’t hesitate to argue with the powerful Earl if she thought it was important. Or if she wanted to. Or if he wanted to.
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