Lord Merlyn's Magic

by Marcy Stewart

  Philip knew he would have to keep his wits about him, but since he had eaten that bacon—greasy and rancid it had been, yet he’d been too hungry to stop—his stomach had rumbled and pained and was now flooded with nausea. After a gut-wrenching session behind a tree, he felt a little better and continued his exploration.

  Within moments he came to a vantage point that revealed the house and a cluster of smaller buildings out back, including a cottage on the far side of a little pond. Nothing much seemed to be happening; the estate had an air of emptiness about it.

  But someone was home; Philip saw smoke coming from several chimneys in the main house. A gardener appeared around the corner of the manse, his shears clipping the hedges that grew against the flat facade. The front door opened, and a woman emerged, spoke with the gardener a few seconds, then returned inside. Philip narrowed his eyes, his vision clouded by a blurring wave of nausea and cold sweat, his mind as hazy as his vision. At last he remembered. The magician’s helper—what was her name?—Hilda? So, she lived here, too. Interesting, but not particularly so.

  It appeared that Abigail and Donberry were not at home, though he could not be sure. He would have to watch awhile to know how to act intelligently. Philip sat behind the cover of a patch of seedlings, his back pressed against a beech tree. He drew his arms to his grumbling stomach and prepared to wait.

  But by nightfall, wracked by bouts of nausea and dizzied with fever, he feared something worse ailed him than mere food-sickness. There was nothing he could do here but get caught, curse his luck. With the greatest of efforts, he climbed the wall again, found Pegasus, and rode away. He needed to find an inn where he could recover, but not one inside Coventry in case Donberry heard of him. On and on he rode, the chilly evening air cutting through his clothes like knives. At last he settled for a farmhouse, barely keeping to his feet long enough to stumble past the door without knocking. A man and woman and several children looked up from the hearth in surprise.

  “Sick,” he said, and fell to his knees. “Help me. I’ll pay.”

  The farmer jumped to his feet. The woman threw down her knitting. The last thing Philip remembered was the warmth of the fire and the sound of a child laughing and laughing, though whether at him or not, he could not tell.

  Chapter 7

  Shortly after noon on the following day, Julian and Abby were married by the town blacksmith in the village of Gretna Green. It was not the wedding Abby had dreamt of since she was at her mother’s knee. There was no chapel, no robed minister, no elegant wedding gown; merely the most common of men to officiate, the plainest of rooms, and the jonquil gown she’d worn so many times before; and even that was wrinkled and spotted from their morning’s travel.

  The smithy used the Anglican wedding service, and Charlotte Ann served as one of the witnesses. Francis, disapproval shouting from every stiff bone, stood as the other. At the proper moment, Julian removed his gold filigree ring and placed it on Abby’s finger. The circlet was a trifle large but seemed in no danger of falling off if she crooked her finger a little. When it came time to kiss the bride, the groom gave her a playful look and the briefest of kisses.

  It could have been worse; could have been Philip she had married. But it was the fact that her wedding should have been so much more that caused her to grow quiet and pensive. She kept telling herself that at least Julian had not been lying about his intentions. He had not tried to sell her to a brothel. And since he had proven his trust in this matter, perhaps he was not lying or deluded about the other. Still, the doubts came.

  Julian could not help noticing her solemn brown eyes and trembling lips. If he felt any misgivings himself over their recent actions, he hid them well. As soon as the ink dried on their signatures, he said cheerfully, “Did you notice that public house we passed outside Carlisle? It looked worthy of hosting a fine wedding luncheon. What say you to that, Lady Julian?”

  Lady Julian. Abby had not once thought about the fact she would have a title now, too. She wasn’t sure she liked losing her name, even if it only happened when she was addressed formally. It would take some getting used to, she supposed. But of course, by the time she became accustomed to it, she and Julian would have dissolved their marriage.

  Feeling lower than ever, she agreed to his suggestion about luncheon, and they returned to the coach. This time, Julian tied his horse to the back of the carriage—he seemed to take an inordinate amount of time in doing so—climbed inside and sat opposite the women while straightening his gloves and smiling secretly. Francis also secured his horse and sat outside next to Bugbee. Within moments they had crossed the Sark River and reentered England.

  Abby and Charlotte Ann soon discovered the reason for Julian’s enigmatic manner. “It will take us the better part of an hour to reach the inn,” he said. “If you will excuse me, I shall remove my gloves and be more comfortable.” He peeled off his right glove—rather ostentatiously, Abby thought—and placed it within his left hand. “In point of fact,” he continued, pulling the left glove over the right, “I never liked these gloves overmuch. Too tight. I believe I shall rid myself of them.”

  Before Charlotte Ann could open her mouth to say she would like to have the pair for her brother, since they were of the finest cotton and in that York tan shade that was all the rage, Julian tossed them toward the closed window, and they disappeared.

  Abby laughed. Charlotte Ann screeched and clapped her hands over her mouth. “Satan’s work!” she cried between her fingers.

  Seeing the maid was truly frightened, Julian said, “Not at all.” He shook the end of his coat sleeve, and the gloves tumbled onto the floor. “See? Here they are.”

  Charlotte Ann’s terror was replaced by comprehension, then grudging appreciation. “How did you do it, milord? I thought I saw them flying to the window, and then poof! Gone just like that.”

  “Ah. You thought. But the eye can deceive.” He turned his attention to Abby and was rewarded to see a bright expression on her face. “I shall demonstrate my meaning. May I beg a coin, Abby?”

  With some embarrassment, the young lady confessed she had not a shilling on her.

  Wondering why things had come to such a pass that he should find it necessary to beg them for money, Charlotte Ann pulled her reticule onto her lap and said, “Here, milord. I have one.” She plundered in its depths for a moment, then presented a coin to Julian.

  He reached, but the shilling dropped through his fingers. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Moving his right hand to the floor, he scooped the coin into his fist and straightened, then appeared to transfer it from his right hand to his left. Glancing from Abby to Charlotte Ann and back again, he said, “Say a magical name.”

  “Don’t know any,” Charlotte Ann replied, watching his hands without blinking.

  “Any name will do. Speaking will make it magic.”

  “Gretna Green,” Abby supplied instantly.

  “Francis,” said Charlotte Ann at the same time, then flushed scarlet.

  Julian hesitated a heartbeat and said, “Abby.”

  He opened first one fist, then the other. The coin was gone.

  Both women grinned their delight, but when milord made no move to restore her shilling, Charlotte Ann’s smile faded. “Where did it go?”

  His eyes dancing, Julian looked at Abby. “Perhaps your mistress knows.”

  Abby thought fiercely, then pronounced, “It is in your boot.”

  A cloud of puzzlement passed over the magician’s face. “My boot?” Doubtfully, he ran a finger around the rim of first his right boot, then the left, and shook his head. “Nothing there.” His gaze fell on the lace at Abby’s throat and sharpened. “Ah. Here it is.” He appeared to pull the shilling from the froths of lace under her chin. “You had best watch your lady, Charlotte Ann. She has all the appearances of being light-fingered.”

  Both women giggled at this bit of nonsense, and the maid accepted her coin and restored it to her bag with some relief. Abby noticed that his eyebrows had mo
ved expressively throughout his performance, particularly when he told them some little fabrication to mislead them.

  All moodiness had now been forgotten. “It was in your boot, though,” she said insistently. “You held your palm as though the shilling were in it, but it never went higher than your knees. Until you retrieved it from your boot and pretended to find it in my clothing, that is.”

  “I could not make a living were my audiences as observant as my wife,” he said, then looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.

  The words my wife seemed to hang in the air between them. It was an intimate phrase to describe two strangers, and for a moment no one said anything.

  Abby could not bear the silence; it made her start thinking again. “I still cannot understand how you move so quickly.”

  “It’s a combination of practice and distraction,” he replied. “Just as a musician works at his instrument, a magician spends many hours learning his craft, adding new illusions, and keeping supple. But at the same time, he must be adept in diverting the audience’s attention from what he is truly doing. As an example, one hand can draw the eye while the other does the work. A lovely assistant is also useful in this.”

  Abby had no wish to hear about lovely assistants. “Did your gift lead to your interest in magic?” she inquired, then rushed to add “I hope you don’t mind my telling Charlotte Ann about your ability. I thought it necessary to persuade her to join me.”

  When Julian’s eyes met hers, Charlotte Ann glanced shyly at her shoes. “She would have heard soon enough in our household anyway. The servants speak of it, or so I’m told.”

  He crossed his arms and leaned back. “And to answer your question, I’m not sure my interest was fired by it. Rather, I became fascinated when reading about famous magicians in books and magazines. I was particularly taken with the American ventriloquist, Richard Potter, whose parents were a nobleman and his Negro servant. Potter was a consummate showman; he was a ventriloquist, a singer, a humorist, and a magician. And Pinetti of Tuscany; the Thumb-Tie trick which I do in my exhibition was one he used. He liked mechanical devices, too, including a talking head that answered questions inside a glass. There was also a swan that reversed its course as demanded. After reading about these men, I started attending every village fair I could find to watch the jugglers and illusionists and question them mercilessly. Before I was ten, I had a collection of magic books and practiced the illusions again and again.”

  Hesitantly, for she feared the subject might be a sensitive one, Abby asked, “Were your brothers amazed by the tricks you performed?” She hoped he would say it had proved a common ground, that he’d had some joyful times in his childhood “I would imagine all children enjoy magic.”

  He had no time to answer, for at that moment one of the carriage wheels lurched through a deep pothole, and the passengers bumped about and rattled back and forth until the springs settled. Julian opened the window and leaned out, calling to see if there had been damage. Bugbee assured him that all was well, and they moved on.

  The magician turned back to Abby. “You asked me something … oh, yes, about my brothers. Did they like my magic?” He narrowed his eyes, considering. “My oldest brother, Carl, professed to do so, but I’m not certain he wasn’t just humoring a much younger brother. I must have seemed like a child to him. All four of my brothers are a good deal older; well, they are my half-brothers, actually. Carl was twenty when I was born, and the others followed at three-to four-year intervals after him. Their mother was the daughter of a local baron, and she died five years before the marquess met my mother.”

  “What are your brothers like?” Abby inquired, then flushed. She sounded overly inquisitive but couldn’t seem to stop herself. Her interest in Julian’s life was growing by the moment.

  He didn’t appear to mind; rather, he showed every sign of enjoying the interrogation; his posture was casual, his countenance relaxed. Charlotte Ann naturally said nothing and faded into the corner as a good servant should. But Abby thought that, judging by the avid look in her eyes, she was not missing a word.

  “I shall have to tell you how they were ten years ago, remember,” he said. “They may have changed, though I doubt it. People rarely diverge from their basic nature, or so I think. Have you found it so?”

  Abby gave the question some thought, happy to be asked her opinion on something. Philip would have flatly presented his view as truth, and that would have been that.

  She thought now of her grandmother’s bullying and irritability; Philip’s dominance and criticism; her parents’ patience and quiet love; Grandfather’s tolerance and playful slyness. She recalled several close friends she’d had in Kent; one was extremely bashful, another forever giggling and talking. Although none of them always acted in a certain way, none had strayed long from their characteristic traits, not in all the time she knew them.

  Then she thought of herself. When younger, she’d been full of life, adventurous, trusting. After she had come to live with her grandmother, she learned reticence, compliance, meekness, and the ability to bury her own wishes in order to avoid war.

  But in the past few days, she had agreed to marry a stranger and had run off and done so. And though she had periods of doubts and regrets, there was something new forming inside her, some wild, exciting thing bubbling and growing like a waterfall bursting through winter ice into new life.

  Perhaps it wasn’t new after all. Perhaps the old Abby was being reborn. And the man sitting across from her was responsible for it.

  Julian watched her patiently while she ruminated, though his eyes were becoming more and more curious. “Yes,” she said at last. “I think people change little, unless something very wonderful or very terrible happens to them.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say so. Perhaps I can give you an accurate portrait of them, then.” He leaned his head back and fixed his gaze on the quilted ceiling of the carriage. “Carl as I said, is the oldest and my favorite, simply because he was more forgiving of a pesky little brother. He and his wife were almost like parents to me as I grew older. Edmond is a rather typical second son; he became a soldier early. Seth is the dreamer of the family; he might have had a career as vicar or curate if he hadn’t such an eye for the ladies, and I use the term generously.” He laughed. “A dutiful wife and family in a vine-covered parsonage would never have done for him, I’m afraid. The last I heard, he was painting nudes. None of my brothers had any time for me, other than Carl.”

  She waited a moment, then said, “You mentioned four brothers?”

  Although he didn’t move, Abby felt a darkness enter the carriage, an ache, an old hurt, that absorbed light and sound and brought a weight upon her chest. She looked at Julian, but his eyes were averted; she turned to Charlotte Ann, but she appeared to notice nothing.

  Finally, he spoke, saying merely, “Oh, yes, I had almost forgotten my youngest half-brother, Michael. He was very close to my father, and I imagine he lives at home still. He married shortly before I left.”

  No more was forthcoming, and Abby did not pursue it.

  Gradually the black spirit floated away. And then the coach turned and pulled into the yard of the inn. Julian opened the door and lowered the stairs for them to climb down. His hand touched hers for only the smallest instant of time, but she felt a rush of warmth, though it may only have been the kind light in his eyes, or her own gratitude for his attempt at cheering her. She met his smile with a genuine one of her own, and gladly accepted his escort into the inn for her wedding luncheon.

  Chapter 8

  If her wedding was not what she had dreamed of, Abby thought the luncheon could not have been more convivial. At its end, she felt reluctant to climb aboard the carriage once more; fortunately, the combination of rich food and pleasing conversation led her to sleep the afternoon away.

  Shortly before dusk, they drew into a large hostelry boasting a wide central section and two wings that flanked a paved courtyard. Even before Bugbee pulled the horses to a comple
te stop, the travelers became aware something was very wrong. The courtyard crackled with tension from clusters of people talking and gesticulating and looking grave. Servants ran back and forth distributing tankards and sandwiches and calling to one another. A gray-haired gentleman, his faded eyes awash in tears, shouted instructions to three men on horseback who fought to restrain their excited steeds. As Julian assisted Abby from the coach, another group of riders pounded across the pavement and drew on the reins of their sweating horses.

  “Any word? Anything?” cried the old man.

  “Nothing, sir,” answered one of the young men. “I’m sorry. Not a trace.”

  The old man’s face crumpled, but he recovered quickly and resumed giving orders. As Julian’s party entered the inn, the fresh set of riders galloped away.

  The atmosphere inside the Brittony Rose Arms was even more disturbing. Abby thought the oak-panelled walls covered with dark paintings and the flagstoned corridor must normally fill visitors with a sense of peace and restfulness. However, one could hardly feel so now, not with the sound of cries emanating from a room in the back.

  “What’s afoot?” Julian asked of the servant who came to greet them and take their coats.

  The servant, who wore a wig and the livery of an eighteenth-century page, shook his head. “Ah, ‘tis a sad turn of events. The grandson of Mr. Bartholomew Chawston has gone missing. The old man’s a fine gent—a textile manufacturer he is—whose only son was killed at Waterloo, and Master Gordon is all he has left of him. The child’s mother and grandmother are in a state, as you might imagine. ‘Tis them and their retinue you hear in the back.”

  “How terrible!” Abby exclaimed.

  Julian made no comment but followed the servant to the desk to sign their names. Francis sped after him, his arms full of luggage. Remaining in the corridor with Charlotte Ann, Abby saw Julian exchange a few words with his valet. She was surprised to see how irritated the magician looked. A moment later, he ordered Francis to follow the servant upstairs, then signaled them to join him.