Magic by Daylight

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  The laughing look she received in reply told her that Mrs. Wisby didn’t believe a word of it. “One can always tell a man of good breeding by his ease of manner. Look how little Patty is warming to him and you know she is the shyest thing!”

  Clarice looked and had to stifle a laugh. At first she’d been afraid Dominic would give the two girls an example of how cold he could be. Considering, however, that both Dilly and Patty had let their tongues run like fiddlesticks, leaving him nothing to do but nod and begin sentences that were doomed to fade into nothing, Clarice could find it in her heart to feel sorry for him. It wasn’t so bad when just one of the girls spoke but when they both chimed in. Dominic looked a trifle desperate.

  At that moment, their eyes met. Mrs. Wisby’s busy voice faded in her ears. Clarice had seen him dressed and seen him half-naked yet until that instant she had not seen him at all. She felt that he alone, of all the people whom she’d known for so long, understood her. Sympathy shone in the back of his smoky brown eyes and a current of encouragement and strength seemed to flow between them. They smiled at one another in the same instant, as the feeling was recognized and accepted.

  Then he looked down into the face of the youngest Miss Wisby and their contact was broken.

  Mrs. Wisby’s voice became quite clear again. Plainly at the end of a long monologue added, “Of course no one could think ill of you. Lady Stavely.”

  Mr. Hales, after the ladies had gone, said much the same thing. He had been vicar for at least a dozen years, had read the services over her father’s body and at the memorial for her mother, as well as standing her friend and advisor any time she’d needed one. She’d seen his hair grow gray and his stomach larger. He was unmarried, the young lady he’d set his heart on dying before their wedding day. He and Doctor Danby were forever quarreling in a friendly fashion over where their duties to the parish overlapped.

  Now he took her hands and looked searchingly at her. She laughed a little under this scrutiny. “Don’t tell me you too have heard this silly rumor?”

  “Rumor, my lady?”

  “About my horse running away with me.”

  He released her hands and sat down beside her. “No, I had not heard that one.”

  “You appall me! I should have sworn you would have heard many a tale by now. Can the ladies of the village really be growing so lax in their duties?”

  “It’s not the ladies; it’s the doctor.”

  “Doctor Danby gossiping? I thought it against his principles.”

  “On this occasion, he made an exception. He wanted me to come out and take a look at the young man who is visiting you.” He held up his hand. “Not Morgain.”

  “I thought not.”

  “There are always persons willing to be censorious on very little evidence, dear Lady Stavely. Rest assured that we who are your true friends can see nothing in this but your wonted generosity of spirit.”

  Clarice gave him a light answer. “Do tell me, now that you have seen Mr. Knight, what is your opinion?”

  “A gentleman and a scholar,” said the vicar, a graduate of Oxford. “I doubt you’ll be troubled by any more inquisitive visitors.”

  “I’m sure I won’t, as soon as you tell Doctor Danby what you’ve told me.”

  By the time the last guest had left, they’d relinquished the idea of riding in favor of the tour of the gardens Clarice had promised Dominic last night. Morgain had taken himself off to visit the Lashams despite his complaints, Mrs. Lasham having let fall the fact that her cook was making cheesecakes—above all things Morgain’s favorite.

  Clarice had been pointing out the various statues with commentary on their histories and probable age when a disturbed chorus of magpies put Dominic forcibly in mind of the Wisby girls. “I have never met that kind of girl before. Are they very common?”

  “Yes. Very.” Instantly she said it she was reminded of all the kindnesses Mrs. Wisby had shown her after the disappearance of her mother. “I should not say that. They are generally held to be charming young ladies. Quite handsome too.”

  “Were they? There certainly seem to be a great many of them.”

  “Only four.”

  “Is it customary for so many people to call on you at once? Or do you hold Open House frequently? I cannot imagine that Mrs. Lasham’s thirst for knowledge can be satisfied with a less regular diet.”

  “I am sorry,” Clarice said. “It’s only that they want to meet you.”

  “Meet me?”

  Whatever flash of sympathy had passed between herself and Dominic had gone. He only looked at her blankly. She found herself floundering in the midst of an explanation. “It is so kind of them to worry about me. How I wish they would not.”

  “I would think that friends are your greatest treasure, Lady Stavely.”

  “They are. They are indeed. However, having known me virtually since the cradle—and in Doctor Danby’s case for some time before that!—there is not a one who doesn’t treat me as a foolish girl who must be protected and defended. They none of them remember that I am considerably more than seven ... !”

  “Does someone think you need to be protected and defended against me?” He stopped in front of a lion recumbent on a pedestal of pink marble. “Do you think so, Lady Stavely?”

  “Perhaps I was hasty in accepting you purely on the word of my brother-in-law. I asked myself what harm can there be in my offering you hospitality. Now I am afraid I have learned the answer to that question.”

  “What is the answer?”

  “Great harm,” she said, looking into his eyes. Some hope lived in her that she would again feel that sense of having found someone who could comprehend her without having every joke or passing comment explained. He said nothing and she realized that she must not hope. It had been the same way yesterday, when for a moment in the Red Chamber they’d seemed on the point of a good understanding, only to lose the feeling a moment later.

  She said, “Mrs. Wisby as good as told me she suspected that I had known you before. Mr. Hales thinks no ill of you or me but then he is next-door to a saint.”

  “A saint lives—” He broke off and smiled at her a touch more broadly than seemed usual for him. “Surely what the vicar thinks today, the village will think tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps. After all, I have something of a reputation as a woman who does not truckle under to the dictates of society. Oh, but how I hate all this whispering! If I had one wish in this world it would be to pass by unnoticed, unregarded, and unmentioned!”

  “It would be easier,” he said thoughtfully, “if a few less persons interested themselves in your affairs.”

  “Precisely. But I might as well wish for the moon. There’s so little to do in the country except pry into your neighbor’s doings.”

  She thought she heard someone shouting in the distance. The sound was so faint that she would have dismissed it, if Dominic hadn’t turned toward the house, saying, “Here’s your butler. He looks distressed.”

  Camber remained too far away for Clarice to understand what he was shouting and certainly too far away behind screening hedges to be recognized. She shot a confused glance toward Dominic and began walking toward the house. “You must have remarkably sharp hearing, sir.”

  “I do. It’s mostly a matter of training, however.”

  The usually calm butler was in a rare taking. “Come at once, my lady,” he panted. “ ‘Tis Master Morgain.”

  She didn’t wait to hear another word. Throwing the bulk of her skirt over her arm, she sprinted toward the house. Coming behind her, she heard poor Camber trying to gasp out some tale to Dominic but she caught only one word in three.

  Morgain lay on the black and white tiles in the entry, his feet halfway out the door. No one had thought to carry him in further. His freckles stood out like fallen leaves on snow, his complexion having lost all color. His eyes were closed; his jaw hung open a little. He looked tiny, for without his vibrant personality to distract one, his true size was revealed. F
or an instant, Clarice’s heart died within her breast.

  She threw herself down on her knees beside him. Pringle, weeping weekly chafed one of his hands. “Oh, my dearest... I’m afraid... I’m afraid he’s...”

  “Nonsense!” Clarice said firmly as though by her resolution she could drive off death. She paid no attention to her own tears, splashing on the lace that framed her bodice, and had little patience with Pringle’s. Smoothing the tumbled hair from the boy’s brow, she saw an ugly bruise on his temple, the flesh puffing around a perfectly straight cut, two or three inches long. Though the sight was gruesome, she yet rejoiced, for blood trickled slowly from the wound.

  “Have none of you any better sense than to let him lie here? Don’t be fool, Pringle! He’s alive. ...”

  Taking him by the shoulders, she struggled to raise him. Hardly had she begun to do so, however, than Dominic appeared and lifted the boy high against his chest. “I’ll take him to his room.”

  “Yes, at once. Camber—send Jem Drake for the doctor at once. Have him take my horse; she’s the fastest. Then bring up some brandy. Pringle—some water to bathe Morgain’s head and the hartshorn.” She threw her nurse a fulminating look. “If you cannot make yourself useful, have Rose do it, or the cook if necessary! But don’t stand there weeping in that singularly useless way.”

  “I’m certain he’s dead!” Pringle wailed.

  “He shan’t be if I have aught to say of it!” More gently she said. “I know you are overset. So am I. Go and lie down until you feel more the thing.”

  She hastened up the stairs, taking them two at a time as she had during her days as a hoydenish child. She hardly realized she was doing it.

  Dominic stood by the boy’s bedside, looking at his head wound with a dispassionate, appraising air that struck Clarice as a welcome example of coolness in a situation in which everyone else seemed to have gone utterly to pieces. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “The skin is broken, but I do not believe he has suffered any lasting damage to the skull itself.”

  “Are you a doctor too?”

  “No.”

  “You have seen such things before, though?”

  “Not that either. But I am not without experience of wounds and battles. Your nephew was struck down, my lady, with considerable violence.”

  “Struck down? By whom? No one would. . .”

  This information, however dispassionately delivered, shook her as the sight of her unconscious nephew could not. About this, she could do nothing. There were no orders to give, no strength she could exert. She tottered to a chair, laden with books, and pushed them off with a clatter so that she might sit down.

  Dominic stepped over to her and took her hand. “I should not have said it so plainly. Forgive me.”

  “No . .. don’t regard it. As soon as I saw ... it was too straight to have come there by accident. Who could have done such a terrible thing? He’s only a ch-child.”

  When the brandy came up, Dominic made her have the first taste of it. Though she coughed and choked as the aromatic liqueur burst in her throat, it did steady her. She could apply without an outward qualm a sponge, dipped in the hartshorn and water, cleansing the horribly neat wound.

  The doctor came, bustling and rough, only to turn grave and silent after a moment standing beside the bed, examining the boy in the yellowing sunlight that came through the open curtains. Danby’s lack of bluster frightened Clarice more than even the sight of Morgain’s bruise.

  Dominic put his hand on her shoulder. “He’s an excellent doctor. All will be well.”

  The weight of his hand seemed to anchor her in a world whose very foundations were shifting beneath her. The warmth of it thawed the chill of her blood. She reached up, wanting to cover it briefly with her own, only to start forward when the doctor’s familiar “Hmph” reached her ears.

  “I’ve seen worse,” he said, turning from the small figure of the boy. “When Ames hit out at Tully with a plowshare, for instance. I daresay Morgain’ll have a scar he’ll bear to the end of his days but he won’t mind that! Claim he was abducted by pirates or some such nonsense.”

  “What about this unconsciousness. Doctor?”

  “ ‘Course he’s unconscious. Just as well. I’ll have to take a stitch or two to close the cut. It’s best he be senseless for that.” He glanced around. “We’ll need more light. A lamp would be best, or several branches of candles. Someone will need to hold the boy’s hands and someone else needs to keep his head steady. Can’t have him thrashing about, you know,”

  Dominic said, “If you require help, I shall be happy to assist you.”

  The sharp blue eyes, undimmed by years, slanted at him. “Any experience?”

  “I have sewed up a wound or two.”

  “Did your patient live?”

  “I have been my own patient and I live, as you see.”

  Doctor Danby pursed his lips but let Dominic stand by him while he pulled together the wound’s lips with the black silk thread he’d had Clarice find in her sewing cabinet. “There,” he said, making a neat knot. “That’ll hold through anything. Easy with such young skin.”

  Clarice had also remained, holding Morgain’s hands down when he’d become restless as soon as the second stitch was set. Her fortitude, however, had escaped her when the doctor began stitching. She dared not look at what was happening, finding it necessary to keep her head down. She prayed.

  More quickly than she’d dared hope. Doctor Danby pronounced himself finished. “It’ll be sore for a bit, and he’ll probably wake with the devil’s own headache, yet I have every confidence he’ll recover. Boys bounce back, m’dear, never forget it!”

  “I’ll show you to the door, dearest Doctor Danby.”

  “I know my way by now. You sit down and wait for the boy to come around. Have a glass of wine. Some of that Burgundy your father was always boasting about. That’ll bring the stars into your pretty eyes again! I’ll tell Camber about it as I go.”

  Clarice poured the Burgundy when it came, saying, “Won’t you have a glass, Mr. Knight? I’m sure you must stand in need of one.”

  “I do not drink wine.”

  “Neither do I as a general rule, but when one’s physician insists.. . !” She sipped it while looking toward the boy. “I thank God he is not seriously injured. I thought for an instant that he—that I should have to tell his parents what had happened. I do not think I could have faced them. He is their only child.”

  She did not know what he would have said in answer for he had said nothing but, “Lady Stavely ...” when a moan from the bed brought her instantly to Morgain’s side.

  “Head ...” he sighed.

  “Yes, my love. You’ve hurt yourself.”

  “Hurts.”

  These one-word answers, so unlike his usual style, brought the tears springing into her eyes once more. With a great effort, she forced her voice to remain calm and even. Not for anything would she frighten her nephew by showing any trace of her own fears.

  “I know, my darling. Lie still.”

  Dominic approached and stood above her. “Can you tell us what happened?” he said gently.

  Clarice flashed him a raging look. “Don’t worry, Morgain. Don’t even think about it. Doctor Danby has already been to see you. You’ll be perfectly well before you know it.”

  Morgain seemed not to have heard her advice or her prophecy. He tried to raise a hand to the bandages swathing his brow. She caught it and pressed it gently back atop the cover of his light wool blanket. “Mustn’t do that, dear.”

  “Tired ... hurts ...” he said in a voice, burdened with the soft thin wail of one who knows the world is unfair but has never imagined such inequality being applied to himself.

  “Who did it?” Dominic asked again.

  Clarice pointed an imperious fingertip toward the bedroom door. A moment ago, Dominic had been an unexpected support, lending her something of his strength. Now he was a nuisance. How dare he presume to overrule her?


  Dominic shook his head at Clarice’s demand. It was only when she stood up with the avowed intention of pushing him out—despite the difference in their sizes— that he made as if to go. Clarice went with him as far as the door. In a ruthlessly suppressed voice, she said, “I will not have you ...”

  Most rudely, he stared past her. “What did you say, Morgain?”

  Very faint, Clarice heard the boy say, gaspingly, “Devil... the devil on horseback. Couldn’t breathe. He hit me.”

  Chapter Six

  Dominic caught Clarice as she swayed. He picked her up as easily as he had the boy. “I’ll take you to your room.”

  “You may put me on my feet again, sir. I am well.”

  “You were about to fall down.”

  “But not in a faint. It is simply that my knees do not seem to be working properly.”

  “Then let me assist you.”

  “Quite unnecessary.”

  Ignoring her, he carried her out of Morgain’s room. Finding Camber on the point of entering, Dominic said bluntly, “Stay with the boy ‘til the nurse comes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Clarice called out as they passed him, “I shall return directly, Camber!”

  “Very good, my lady.”

  It was beneath her dignity to kick and scream in protest as Dominic carried her irresistibly to her room. She sent him as vicious a glance, however, as she could muster. Being so near, with her eyes only two inches or so away from his impressive jaw, she could see the advent of his smile though he fought hard to repress it.

  “Do you find something amusing, sir?”

  “No. I hope I am respectful.”

  His arms were strong under her knees and around her rib cage. She could feel the spread of his warm fingers just under the weight of her breast. He bore an elusive fragrance, clean and windswept like the air at the top of the hills. Finding his shoulder so near, she dropped her head onto the smooth woolen cloth, though her appearance would have been more impressive if she’d kept rigidly upright. “I wish I knew ...” she said aloud.

  “Knew what?”

  “Whether I like you or not.”