She managed not to roll her eyes.
When he touched the button at the neck of her blouse, it slid free on its own. He smiled as his fingers moved to the next button. "I like to touch your fine skin."
She tried to remain cool, but felt her cheeks heating anyway. "And the seat of Hammersly's trousers?"
His hand dropped and he grinned slyly. "Believe me, there are many things I'd have liked to do to him. Not for the same reasons, of course, but I do think he gave me cause." He touched the leather plait. "So why do you want this undone?"
Imogen turned her eyes back on the braided leather. She wanted it to work, but couldn't come up with a reason why other than that she wanted it.
When she said so to Guaire, he shook his head. "You'll have to do better than that."
She sighed and pushed her hair back with one hand. "It's just scrap leather, Guaire."
"Well, you could try something else." He took the leather from her and set his hand in hers, the buttons on his cuff turned upwards.
Imogen laid her fingers atop the cuff, wishing the buttons to come undone as hers had.
"Why?" Guaire asked. "Why would you want them undone?"
Imogen stroked the button under her finger. She had reasons, but...
But trying to use her gift was playing with fire. Her mother had always told her so.
She licked her lips, suddenly anxious. "I don't know if I should be learning to do this."
After a moment of silence, he lifted his hand to her collar and buttoned the two buttons he'd undone. "Perhaps you'd like to try again tomorrow."
Imogen retrieved her hair ribbon from the floor and braided back her hair. She didn't know why she thought she could do it. She'd been trained her entire life not to. "Maybe."
Guaire held the office door open for her. "Sleep well, then, darling."
Imogen didn't think she would sleep at all.
PART 4
The next morning, as the sunshine slanted into the office, highlighting motes of dust in the warm air, Mother Hawkes inspected the two spent bullets the knackers had sent them. One she set back on the desk, but the other held her interest. It was flattened, as if it had lodged in bone. "This one is definitely charmed. To make it fly straight despite the wind."
Imogen rubbed her aching temples and regarded the other mangled piece of metal on her desk. The bullet she'd fired to put Blue Streak down, she assumed. "So it had to have been intentional, then."
"Did you doubt it, before?" Mother Hawkes picked a sheet of stationary from the desk and wrapped the spent bullet in it. "I'm going to take this to a friend at the racing association, if you don't mind."
Imogen shook her head. "I don't mind, but why?"
Mother Hawkes frowned and started opening desk drawers, evidently looking for an envelope. "The racing association has people whose job it is to make sure arcane methods of cheating aren't employed."
Imogen felt that odd sense that the world had turned unreal around her again, the one she'd started feeling every time her mother-in-law came out with some new and bizarre pronouncement. "They're in the top left drawer. I had no idea."
Mother Hawkes opened the drawer and drew out an envelope. "It isn't publicized. They will find this interesting, although not conclusive. We can't clearly tie this to Hammersly. Sadly, if he ever did touch it, it's been too long for any trace to remain."
"So why send it at all?"
"So they're advised that something is going on, girl. At least they'll know to keep an eye on him."
Which would be, Imogen decided, better than nothing.
***
That afternoon, Imogen sat on the practice track's fence in the warm sunshine, watching the horse fly by with Tommy clinging to the saddle. Faithful's times had improved dramatically. Jack rode a less-improved Hawk's Cry, whose times were decent, but not worthy of a winner's circle yet.
Standing next to her, Guaire held Paddy's silver pocket watch in his gloved hand. He patted her twill-covered knee and grinned. "That was two seconds less. He just beat Blue Streak's best time."
Imogen wrote that in the log. "What did you do to him?"
Guaire shrugged. "I told him if he couldn't beat me he wouldn't get a chance to cover one of the mares in spring."
She looked at him askance. "Did he understand that?"
"All colts understand that. So, if he couldn't beat me..." "You'd get the mare. I see." She rolled her eyes.
"Even when I wear horse form," he said without looking up at her, "I'm never a horse. What's important is that he believes I'm his competition."
She gazed down at his dark hair. "When you wear human form, are you human?"
"More human than most." He smiled up at her. "Close enough, Ginny."
He patted her knee and walked out to talk to Tommy, leaving her on the fence.
Imogen watched him for a time, and then slipped off the fence and back up toward the house. She stood in front of it and eyed the wooden gingerbread trim that hung from the eaves on the porch and tried to picture how the house would look without it, something she'd done a thousand times over the last eight years. After a moment she sighed and headed inside.
She wandered down to her office. She could almost hear her mother's voice reminding her to keep her emotions in control, always in control. She hadn't done well lately, and she had no one to blame but herself. Her bargain with Guaire had been the beginning of it, just as her mother's relationship with Finn had been the cause of her downfall.
She wasn't certain what Guaire meant--what he was close enough to human for. Her mother had once told her that children between humans and the Fair Folk were rare, but Imogen was living proof that such children did exist, as was Guaire. As a natural consequence of her actions, she could be carrying Guaire's child. She'd reckoned that when he'd first asked to bed her, but had put it from her mind until that comment of his. She wouldn't know for a while.
Her own mother had fled to another country to hide her circumstances, but she'd been from a wealthy family who'd paid her passage and supported her new life in America. Imogen wasn't prepared to go that far, nor could she. The earl hadn't included his daughter's illegitimate child in his largesse.
Imogen couldn't help thinking her mother would have been disappointed to learn that her daughter had gotten herself into the same situation.
After dinner, she pleaded tiredness as a reason to get out of her proposed 'lesson' with Guaire. He nodded and let her go, but he didn't smile.
***
The next morning, the mirror in her dressing room reflected a face shadowed by another sleepless night. Her eyes seemed like dark pits looking out at her, signs of her foolishness.
Rested or not, she had work to do; tomorrow was race day. She dressed, went down and checked on Paddy, and then headed out to the stables to review Guaire's plan for the day.
He was speaking with Billy when she found him. The young hand was escorting Dalmatian out to the east pasture. Guaire's eyes met hers, and a smile flitted across his face, but faded almost as quickly. He gave Billy a few further instructions and then came over to her. "I need to show you something."
He led her to Dalmatian's stall, picked up the feed bucket that sat outside the stall door and held it up for her perusal. It was full of oats, not an unusual thing.
"What am I looking at?" she asked.
"I should have said to smell it."
Imogen cast a doubtful look in his direction, but sniffed the contents of the bucket anyway. "It smells wrong."
"And it's getting worse every moment," Guaire said. "We're lucky Billy caught a whiff before any of the horses ate it."
"Where did it come from?"
"Bin in the tack room. Filled it myself a couple of days ago. It was fine, then." He set the bucket down. "I don't know what this is. Smells like oat smut, but not."
And it occurred to her that perhaps it might be like the bullet, something charmed. "Do you think someone did this? Intentionally?"
"It would have h
ad to be someone here," he said quietly.
***
Imogen found Mother Hawkes playing cards with Paddy in the downstairs bedroom. He'd gotten someone to bring up the blue blanket from his apartment next to the stables, and swapped it out for the frilly pink-and-white one they'd laid him on a few days before. He caught sight of Imogen and waved for her to enter.
"Um, Mother Hawkes," she said, "can you come out and look at something for me?"
Paddy laid down his cards. "What's wrong, girl?"
"Guaire says there's something wrong with the feed. He thinks it's been tampered with. I thought perhaps you could tell me what was done."
"If the boy claims it's been tampered with," Paddy said, "then it has. He should know. He eats enough of it."
Imogen turned back to her mother-in-law. "Could you come look at it anyway? Perhaps you might be able to figure out who trifled with it. Whether it was any of the stable boys, or someone else."
Mother Hawkes gazed at her with narrowed eyes. "You want to see if anyone's alarmed by my inspection. See who acts guilty?"
"That did occur to me," Imogen admitted. "Guaire said it was done with a charm or something like that--not poison."
Paddy cast an exasperated look at her. "I was winning."
"All the more reason for me to go, Patrick." Mother Hawkes dropped her cards on the blue blanket and rose, her regal nose in the air. She whisked out of the room.
Sparing a shrug for Paddy, Imogen followed.
"I didn't know you were on a first name basis with Mr. O'Donnell," she said, and then realized the inanity of the claim, since Paddy had been trainer for Mother Hawkes when Imogen was a little girl.
Her mother-in-law just laughed. She strode down the walk to the stables, wiping her eyes as she went. "Girl, I've known Patrick well almost as long as you've been alive."
"What do you mean by well?" Imogen asked, pausing on the walkway.
"Scandalized you again, haven't I? Use your imagination. I'm sure you'll figure it out."
Imogen jogged after her. "Did you bring up his blankets from the stable apartment?"
Her mother-in-law nodded. "He was afraid he'd dirty the one that was there."
Imogen sighed. "I wish he would. I'm not fond of that room, but I don't feel comfortable throwing out perfectly good bedding."
It was Mother Hawkes' turn to stop. She turned to Imogen and said, "If you don't like it, get rid of it. It's your house."
"I don't want to be wasteful," Imogen said.
"Then ask if one of the servants wants it, or donate it to the Young Women's Industrial Club; I'm certain Lucy could find a use for it somewhere." She sighed and added, "I really do think you should put Bella's ghost to rest. I hate seeing you living her life."
Imogen hadn't thought of it that way before, as if Bella's spirit lingered about the house. And Mother Hawkes was right--in many ways she had been living Bella's life. Mother Hawkes went on, but Imogen stayed there for a moment, wondering how one exorcized a ghost. Then she realized that Mother Hawkes had gotten away from her and ran after her again.
In the stables, Guaire was scowling down at the suspect bin. Imogen sniffed the bucket's contents again and sneezed. Mother Hawkes glanced up at her, shook her head and returned to conferring with Guaire. After a moment, he fetched a pitchfork and used it to dig through the oats. When he lifted it out, a small bag was speared on one of the tines, its blue fabric mottled with black spots.
Mother Hawkes carefully removed it. "Well, what have we here? This looks like something that one would find among a charlatan's wares."
"Smells a mite like smut to me," Guaire repeated.
Imogen saw black spots throughout the oats now, more than there had been when she went inside.
"Definitely a nasty fungus, but not ergot, I think" Mother Hawkes said. "I must say, this is poorly done. It would have been obvious long before it actually made any of the horses ill. Very amateurish work on the charm, as well."
Imogen frowned down at the ruined contents of the bin. "Do we have any sacks in the back?"
Guaire nodded. "We'll be fine. Just have to make certain no one uses this, and clean everything out thoroughly."
Which will take up valuable time, Imogen thought.
"I'll take this." Mother Hawkes lifted the small bag by its strings like a dead rat held by its tail. "I'll change clothes and head up to town. I'll leave the cleaning to you two."
She walked out of the tack room, leaving them alone.
Imogen had watched, but none of the stable hands seemed anything other than concerned. She wanted to believe that the bag originated with Hammersly somehow, but it had to have been planted inside the bin, which meant someone in her own household had to have done it. She sighed, wishing she had the answer instead of so many questions.
"Are you all right?" Guaire asked, a narrow line between his brows.
"Too many things to worry over. I didn't sleep well."
"Why not?" He held out an empty feed bag. "Can you hold this for me?"
Imogen held the bag open while he began scooping foul-smelling oats out of the bin with a large grain scoop. "It just seems like one problem after another," she finally said.
"No, Ginny, there's only one problem. All these little things are a part of the bigger problem. It will all be over after the race, I promise."
"And then you'll be free to go," she said. "All your bargains fulfilled."
He paused, the scoop suspended above the bin, and gave her a look she didn't know how to interpret.
"My mother always said your kind are born to roam," she told him.
"Because of your father?" he asked, setting the grain scoop on the ground. "She had no promise of him, so she should not have been surprised when he strayed."
Imogen caught her lower lip between her teeth, wishing he hadn't said that.
"But her telling you that we're all the same," Guaire said softly, "is like claiming that Paddy is the same as Hammersly because they're both human. Just because your father wandered does not guarantee that you would. Nor does it mean that I would, either, for that matter." He started to shovel oats again.
"My mother always..."
"Your mother is dead, Ginny." He emptied the scoop into the bag. "She shouldn't be thinking for you."
She stared at him, surprised by the anger in his voice.
He looked annoyed with himself then, as if he regretted saying that. He scooped more oats into the bag, paused, and set the scoop down to regard her gravely. "I know I shouldn't say this, but do you know why I think your mother left him? Not because he'd taken another woman. I think she was afraid she wouldn't be able to control you." He ran a dusty hand through his hair, leaving a few oats strewn among the dark strands. "Your father put iron shoes on me to bind me in horse-form. Your mother put her own iron shoes on you. She wanted you to be exactly like her and never take a step outside her rules. But she's gone, Ginny, and you've chosen to keep wearing those shoes she put on you."
Tears stung in her eyes. "I have to live in this world, Guaire."
"As do I. There's no going back for me." He shook his head, and then laid his dusty hands on her shoulders. "But you don't have to do the proper thing every moment of every day. You should do what you want. People are more forgiving than you think, Ginny, and you're stronger."
She stepped back, letting the mouth of the sack fall closed. "My mother..."
When her voice trailed off, he pushed back an errant strand of cream-colored hair, his warm hand carrying the scent of musty oats. "Was she happy, Ginny?"
Imogen closed her eyes, trying to recall her mother's face, stern and calm, always calm. She didn't know how to answer him. Her mother had worried. Her mother had lectured, warning her daughter of the danger of letting her emotions rule her. Of letting down her guard and ending up in a situation like the one she'd faced.
She opened her eyes, but couldn't meet his. Instead, she stared at the bin, now almost empty. "Can you finish this?"
"
Yes," he said.
She turned and walked out of the tack room.
***
Imogen meant to spend her morning paying feed bills, an ironic choice given the morning's troubles, but she found herself staring at the bookshelves instead.
Guaire was right. Her mother's expectations had guided her entire life, with Henry's rules added to them after her mother's death. She had always let them tell her what to do and how to act, assuming they knew what was best for her. So now she lived in a house where she only liked two of the rooms, wore clothes she hated, and never, ever said what she thought, all for fear that someone might learn what she really was. Or who she really was.
Mother Hawkes knew, though, and found her gift 'quite amusing.' Paddy thought of her as a daughter, she'd said. And Guaire? Imogen wasn't sure what he thought of her. He seemed to care for her, and despite what her mother had taught her about the Fair Folk, she didn't think he was merely trying to manipulate her.
A timid knock startled her out of her reflections. One of the kitchen maids stood at the door, wringing her apron in her hands. Fresh-faced Mary hadn't been at the farm more than a year, but Imogen's elderly cook had already suggested the girl might be trained up as an eventual replacement.
"Come on in, Mary," Imogen said. "Is something wrong?"
"They're saying that Mrs. Hawkes--the other one, I mean--found a charm bag in one of the feed bins."
"Yes," Imogen told her. "Well, it wasn't a charm bag. It made the oats in the bin go bad. Fortunately Billy caught the scent of it before it was given to any of the horses."
Mary twisted the apron so tight that Imogen doubted the wrinkles would ever come out. "Were it a cotton bag, Mrs. Hawkes? A blue one?"
"I think so, Mary."
The girl sobbed and held her sleeve to her face. Imogen went over and patted the girl's shoulder, feeling terribly awkward. She didn't have much experience comforting other women. "It's all right, Mary."
"No," the girl said with a sniff. She wiped her sleeve across her face. "It was me that put it there, missus, but I swear I didn't know it would do that."
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