She rubbed her forehead and chuckled. “A pound now, is it? My goodness, Dr. MacInnes.” She sighed. “My thoughts are swirling, and I very much wish they would settle.” She looked out the window, but the world outside was too dark to see.
Sam reached up and turned a knob on the wall sconce nearest them, dimming the interior light, and in the moonlit night, she could see the trees as they traveled farther into the countryside. They occasionally slowed to pass trains traveling in the opposite direction, and just before the engines again resumed their former speed, when the loud sound of train and track was dimmed, the mournful cry of a wolf could be heard, echoing through the night. Several howls usually answered, and the sound was chilling until finally obscured again by the train.
“Dravor said we would stop for the night, eventually?”
He nodded. “Two hours more, I believe. We will need to take a carriage to the inn for the night, and then depart in the morning for Castle Petrescu,” he said, waving his hands theatrically.
She laughed. “Someday I shall have a cottage of my own and call it ‘Castle Hazel.’ I shall even create a placard with the name for my front garden. When strangers inquire about my life and where I live, I shall say, ‘Oh, I live at Castle Hazel, perhaps you’ve heard of it.’”
He grinned. “And the stranger will be amazed. She will say, ‘No! Castle Hazel? You jest!’”
Hazel released a dramatic sigh. “Everybody will be so envious. They will come far and wide just to stand outside the front gates and wish they had so grand a cottage.”
He wiggled her foot playfully, and she looked at him, barely restraining a laugh. If someone had told her she would one day enjoy such familiarity with him, she’d have fainted from shock. And then prayed daily for it to be true. He must have read her feelings in her face, because he smiled and winked at her.
“Even facing the unknown, there is nowhere else I would be,” he said. “I would have you know that.”
“Thank you. There is no other’s company I would enjoy more.” She cleared her throat. “Perhaps now that I am related to nobility, it would not be unseemly for you to ask me for a dance when we return home.”
His brow wrinkled. “It isn’t unseemly under any circumstance, not to me. I never asked because you always gave me such a wide berth. I assumed you wanted no part of me in any role other than as your employer. I understood.” He paused. “Mostly.”
She tried not to stare, but her mouth slackened. “But the other ladies said you do not like to consort with any but those of title or status.”
He stared. “Who said this? When?”
She shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. “A few months ago, at a soiree, and again the night of Lady Hadley’s ball. Some of the ladies there made certain I heard it.”
He shook his head, eyes wide in disbelief. “Those are the words of petty, jealous women. Have I ever given you the impression that I desire only high society for company? If anything, I believe I’ve shown otherwise. My best friends are far from being titled.” He shrugged. “Except Miles, and I like him precisely because he isn’t like others with his title.”
She felt deep embarrassment on so many levels. She’d eavesdropped on a conversation about him, and then believed the gossip. She knew him to be kind, and he had never shunned her in public or private. She had believed the talk because it confirmed her own insecurities.
“My apologies, Sam. To believe such a thing about you was unfair.” She swallowed. “I suppose I have admired you from afar at social events for so long that I was willing to believe the gossip. You began to loom larger than life, even though I worked with you daily in the clinic.”
He studied her and raised a brow, his hand settling on her foot and squeezing lightly. “I wish I had known. I didn’t realize you ‘admired me from afar.’”
“You’ve only recently stopped seeing me as anything other than a child.” She felt the heat rise in her face.
“I’ve never thought of you as a child.” He smiled. “Naïve, perhaps, and as a patient, at first. Then as my employee. I did not ever want to cross the line into impropriety. Which I have now done spectacularly.”
She laughed, relieved that his grin negated regret. “I suppose I ought to begin searching for a new doctor, if not a new employer. I would hate for you to feel conflicted between your professional and personal circumstances.”
“Unless something horrifying occurs that would hamper my abilities to treat you, I would be grossly insulted if you were to look elsewhere for either.”
She quirked one corner of her mouth. “Perhaps the next time I must impose upon you to treat a sprain or a broken bone, I’ll offer a kiss to show my appreciation.”
His smile deepened. “Perhaps I’ll offer a kiss to help speed the healing process.”
The banter was exactly the distraction she needed. She also realized the more time she spent with him, the less she looked at him with eyes full of hero worship and the more she felt his equal. He’d never patronized her, never treated her like a child, and the solicitude she’d always defined as fraternal concern was likely an unwelcome, burgeoning interest that threatened his professional standards.
He tapped her foot once more and then settled back into his seat. He nodded to the book in her lap. “Have you learned all there is to know about spells?”
She looked down at the book. “Probably not all there is to know, but I’m reviewing passages that seemed pertinent.”
“Can the spells be removed from the objects?”
She glanced around the car, wondering if they truly were being recorded, and crossed to sit next to him. She lowered her voice. “They can, but not easily. Binding a spell to something solid makes it stronger.” She yawned.
He nudged her back against the seat. “Put your head on my shoulder. When we arrive at the inn, I’ll awaken you.”
She was tired. “Just for a moment,” she murmured and leaned against his side.
He pulled the ottoman toward them and propped her feet on it, resting his foot next to hers. He took her book and began reading. “Close your eyes,” he said. “As your doctor, I order it.”
She chuckled. “Suppose someone enters? We really should bring Eugene back to act as chaperone.”
“Mercy, no. I need a reprieve, and staying in the ’ton car keeps him humble. Besides, I shall simply tell anyone nosy enough to insinuate themselves into our affairs that we are courting.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Are we?”
She felt him turn his head and look at her. “Are we not?”
She looked up at him through her lashes. “Having never been courted, I wouldn’t know.”
“Having never courted anyone, I don’t presume to know either. But your mother is not here, which means I should probably ask your uncle for permission, but I’ll sleep on a bed of nails before giving him the right to anything concerning you. So, I shall ask you directly—you are a grown woman, after all. Hazel Hughes, may I court you?”
She lifted her head and met those blue eyes she loved. “Yes, Dr. Samuel MacInnes, I would be delighted.” She smiled. “What a scandalous pair we are, flouting convention. What would traditionally be the next step in this courting business?”
He tipped his head, pretending to think. “I would call on you at home, bring you flowers, perhaps take you for a ride through the park in an open curricle, accompany you to balls and soirees, stare daggers at other men penciling their names on your dance card, that sort of thing.”
She laughed, and he continued.
“But as you so perceptively observed, we are nowhere near conventional circumstances.” He lowered his voice and leaned close. “We are on a train bound for an isolated castle high in the Transylvanian countryside where we will, presumably, set up a temporary home while we search for answers that may help your sister, whom we have never met. Your nobleman uncle may be hiding
terrible secrets and definitely possesses strange, magical artifacts, and his assistant is—was—an awful brute. Have I forgotten anything?”
“Only that my nobleman uncle seems to find joy in lulling all around him into a false sense of complacency. Did you take your dose of palistocin this morning?”
He tapped his temple. “As soon as I awakened. Eugene suggested I take another dose at lunch because he believes my brain needs more help than most to fight the effects of hypno-control.”
Her lips twitched. “To which you responded?”
“That he should take his advice to the underworld and remain there with it.”
She laughed again.
He gently tipped her head back down onto his shoulder and lifted the book from his lap. “You rest. I have some reading to do. With any luck, I shall absorb the basics, and you can explain the rest to me later.”
“I do not like falling asleep these days.”
“I will be here with you the entire time.”
She yawned again and nodded. The thrill of being near him, of being courted by him, no matter how unconventionally, would surely prevent her from getting any rest at all. She was caught by surprise, then, when her mind began to wander and then drifted pleasantly into oblivion. She blinked once, sighed, and allowed the sway of the train and the security of the shoulder beneath her head to lull her to sleep.
W hen the train pulled into the station, the world outside was completely dark. Further travel to Vania, their destination for the evening, was impossible by train due to repairs down the line. They were obliged to take a carriage to the inn, which added nearly two additional hours to their journey. Eugene begrudgingly rode outside with the ’ton driver at Sam’s request that he gather as much information about the locale as the driver could provide.
Sam and Hazel sat on one side of the vehicle, with Petrescu sitting across from them. The silence was a pronounced, tangible thing.
The dark countryside was thick with trees, punctuated periodically with small towns and villages, a few buildings cozily lit from inside. The carriage climbed steadily, and the terrain became more difficult to navigate. The wind picked up as the night wore on, and Sam noted the first fluttering of snow in the air. “Is it early in the season for snow?” he asked, his voice sounding loud in the silence.
Petrescu glanced out the window. “A bit. The station master’s predictions were correct.” He chuckled. “The old peasants always seem to have a sense for the elemental parts of life. Not so much the sophisticated parts, but that’s just as well.”
Hazel arched a brow. “Why ‘just as well’?”
“Can you imagine how society would flounder if the lesser among us were allowed access to anything of value?” His nostrils flared. “When I was a young man, my father hired a woman and her son, also my age, as domestic help. I had begun collecting antiquities, and upon my return from a holiday in Persia, this son, Hector, acted as my valet. I came upon him as he was sorting through my laundry and belongings, tidying things, you see.” He waved a hand. “He was about to toss aside a figurine I had purchased at great cost because he assumed it was a cheap trinket.”
Hazel’s eyes narrowed. “How could you expect him to recognize the item’s value when he’d never been taught it?”
Petrescu laughed. “I would have known that item’s value as a child in the schoolroom. Again, to my point,” he said and crossed his legs, “there are those among us who are simply ill-equipped to live beyond the most basic. And thank goodness for that, for who would tend to life’s menial tasks otherwise?”
“I believe anyone can be taught, can learn,” Hazel said.
“You find me elitist, perhaps?”
“That would be one word for it.”
He chuckled. “Ah, my dear. You remind me of my mother. A large brain, and an even larger heart.” He sobered. “I fear it leaves you vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable to what?” Sam said.
Petrescu turned his attention to Sam, his posture suggesting Sam was interrupting a conversation to which he had not been invited. “To those who would take advantage of a generous nature.”
“Tell me more about your mother,” Hazel said to Petrescu before Sam could say the testy words he wanted to. “You’ve told me she was a Light Magick practitioner. What were her strengths?”
Petrescu nodded. “You have every right to know about your bloodline. My mother was an accomplished Healer, but her skills lay more with herbal concoctions and spells—things she could make. You possess internally the strengths she manufactured externally.”
“Did she work among the people?”
A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “She did. Helped the weak and the ill, the wealthy and the poor. My father tolerated it.”
“He did not approve of her service?”
Petrescu shook his head. “He did not.”
“I would also assume you did not approve.”
“I loved my mother. I overlooked softness in her that I might have criticized in another.”
The carriage was quiet, and Hazel watched her uncle patiently. Sam sensed she was waiting to see if he would continue on his own. Finally, she asked, “Why did he kill her?”
Hazel had told Sam that Petrescu’s father had killed his mother, but she’d not learned any details beyond that bare fact. Sam now watched the count carefully, hoping the man would forget there was anybody else in the carriage beside Hazel. The fact he was reluctant to share details indicated his response was probably significant.
“He was not actually my true father. My mother’s first husband died when I was an infant. The only father I knew was her second husband, my stepfather. He was a military man, conducted campaigns to both defend the homeland and take new territory. My mother was protective of me, and one day when he was in a particularly foul mood and angry with me, she stepped in his way. He sent her flying, she hit her head on a stone wall, and she was gone.”
Hazel winced. “I am sorry for your loss. Were you raised by nannies, then? Other family?”
He shook his head. “My father took me into his life, taught me the things he knew, things he considered valuable. He felt I had been coddled too long.”
“My curiosity is piqued; please forgive my prying.”
He smiled. “My mother was curious as well, insatiably so.”
“And your sister, also?”
He blinked.
“My mother?”
“Mmm. Not nearly so much. From her, I suspect, you gained your compassionate heart. It is from my mother, however, you received that inquisitive brain.”
“What was my mother’s name?”
Petrescu paused, then finally answered. “Johanna.”
Sam eyed the count with new insight. The man had adored his mother above all others. Hazel was the mirror image of the woman, and Sam wondered if Petrescu saw in Hazel a reincarnation of the mother he’d lost—perhaps not literally, but certainly figuratively. It went a long way toward explaining the man’s fascination with Hazel.
“Did you also develop your mother’s love of Light Magick?” Hazel asked.
Petrescu looked out the window at the snow flurries that danced on the air. “She taught me small things. The rest, I learned from my father. He didn’t possess much natural magick skill, but he was resourceful, inventive.”
“What did he invent?”
“All manner of things. Spells, enhanced artifacts to aid in battle.”
She smiled. “And you inherited that proclivity for artifact collection.”
“One of several useful skills he taught me.”
Hazel looked out the window at the snow, and Sam studied her profile. Then he glanced at Petrescu, who also watched Hazel with speculation. Sam needed to understand what the man was about, understand his motives. He advised himself to be patient. The opportunity would present itself soon,
and he would take it.
In the meantime, he wanted nothing more than to nuzzle the spot on Hazel’s neck just below her ear, to hear her sigh, to anticipate the moment when she would turn her face and meet his lips with her own.
Despite the uncertainty swirling around their circumstances, his heart thudded. He smiled at his own sense of infatuation, the blush of affection that had deepened from something enjoyable and light to something much more profound. He was courting her, and the notion made him happy. He would propose, of course, but he didn’t know when. They were immersed in a journey that had no definite end in sight, but the timing didn’t matter. She was his perfect match as he was hers, and he would wait an eternity if necessary.
They finally reached their destination. The carriage slowed as they drove into a village complete with homes, pubs, and an inn. When the carriage halted, Sam followed Petrescu out and turned back to give Hazel his hand. As they gathered their belongings, Eugene, who had been sitting atop the uncovered driver’s perch with the ’ton driver, shook his hat and dusted snow from his shoulders and lapels. He leaned close to Hazel, and Sam heard him say, “I’ve learned some things. Perhaps you shall find me once you’re settled.”
She looked at him carefully and nodded, and Sam noted a book detailing the region’s history in his coat pocket. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped when Petrescu came around the side of the carriage.
He took Hazel’s hands with his. “I must see to some business, but I’ve reserved rooms for our group. I’ll join you presently, and in the morning, we shall continue on to the castle. Only one more hour in the carriage.” He smiled.
Her brows drew together in a pretty frown. “But it is so late. Can your business not wait until morning?”
Sam hid a smile. She should have been an actress with how effortlessly she dug for information.
“Regrettably, my business cannot wait. I’ll not be long, however.” He kissed her gloved hands.
She returned his smile and nodded. “Very well. I trust you will be safe. I confess, the nearer we draw to home, the more I worry about how Marit will accept me.”
The Lady in the Coppergate Tower Page 22
