Lord Merlyn's Magic

by Marcy Stewart

  The sounds of feminine distress grew louder as Abby neared the staircase. As her foot touched the first tread, she paused. “Perhaps I can do something,” she appealed to Julian, who stood behind her.

  “No, I think not,” he replied; then, seeing her surprise, added, “There is little one can do to soften such sorrow. It’s commendable of you to want to try, but interference at such a time may be regarded as an intrusion.”

  It could have been Philip speaking. Abby felt a crushing sense of disappointment but obediently continued to climb the stairs. Charlotte Ann had reached the top; Francis stood beside her, his eyes never wavering from his master’s face. The inn servant, anxious to show the rooms, looked annoyed at their slowness.

  Midway up the stairs, an idea struck Abby and she turned excitedly. “I may not be able to help them, but you might!”

  Julian did not pretend to misunderstand. “No, Abby.”

  “But why not? What is such a gift for, if not to help someone in trouble?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  She felt as if the stairs beneath her feet were falling away. “Oh, do I not? On the contrary, I understand very well.”

  He stared. “I’m not certain I know what you mean.”

  “I mean that you have been lying about your so-called talent all along. There is nothing to it, is there, Julian? Why not admit it and have done with your trickery once and for all?”

  “Abby,” he remonstrated, then looked away from her accusing eyes. “It’s not dependable. I cannot summon it as one calls a dog.”

  “But if it is there at all, you could try.”

  His jaw set angrily. “And how would I do that? Shall I ask for an item of the boy’s clothing? Beg to borrow one of his breakfast dishes? Do you realize how strange such a request sounds?”

  “It does not matter to me how it sounds. If there is the slightest chance you can help those poor people …” She studied his face and found it unyielding. Her new-found trust in him dissolved all at once. “Oh, never mind. I’m going to offer what little help I can, even if it’s only a shoulder to cry upon.”

  Without looking at him again, blinking away tears, she fled down the steps.

  Julian watched her disappear around the corner. His fingers gripped the handrail tightly. Slowly he brought his gaze upward to meet Francis’s. An oddly defiant look came into the magician’s eyes, and he turned and began his descent.

  “No, milord!” Francis called urgently.

  Julian, apparently having gone deaf, did not pause. Francis dropped the luggage to the carpet and hurried after him. Charlotte Ann gave the page a mystified look and followed, abandoning their bags to the irritated servant’s care.

  The cries of distress led Abby to a private parlour in the back where she was admitted by a harried-looking man who introduced himself as the innkeeper. A group of weeping, whispering ladies sat at a table behind him. She had barely explained her mission to the man when Julian nudged open the door and joined her. Although Abby’s spirits rose tentatively, the innkeeper was clearly not pleased.

  “Hullo, sir,” he said, reaching out a hand and edging Julian backwards with gentle but persistent pressure. “I’m Ralph Swans, owner of the inn, and we’re having a spot of trouble here. Nothing for you to worry about, sir, but privacy is needed for the ladies, you understand.”

  Abby, her face glowing, stepped closer to the innkeeper. “Please, Mr. Swans, this is my—my husband, Lord Julian Donberry. He only wishes to offer his help to the Mrs. Chawstons.”

  As she hoped, Julian’s title softened Mr. Swans’s resolve. “Oh, well, don’t suppose it would do any harm.” He stood aside and allowed the magician room to pass, but when Francis and then Charlotte Ann crowded into the doorway, he shook his head and led them back into the corridor, closing the door behind him.

  Abby took the magician’s arm and brought him to an older lady sitting at the head of the table. After ascertaining that she was Mrs. Chawston, Abby introduced herself and Julian. “We have come to offer what help we can to ease your sorrow,” she concluded.

  “I am grateful for your generosity, though I don’t believe there is anything anyone can do,” said the lady, whose elderly profile was beautiful despite the sagging flesh at her neck. In sharp contrast to the other women, her eyes were red-rimmed but dry. After drawing a shaky breath, she gestured to the young woman on her right. “May I present my daughter-in-law, Mary; her maid, Alice; and my abigail, Delores; on the other side of the table are my daughter, Fredrica Stone; her friend, Viola Barnes; and their maids.”

  The women were so lost in sorrow that they barely acknowledged the presence of Abby and Julian. The magician nodded to them, then looked curiously at a servant seated alone at the window seat.

  Following his gaze, Mrs. Chawston said, “Oh, yes. And that is my grandson’s nurse, Phoebe.”

  Phoebe responded to their attention by burying her face in a large cotton handkerchief and sobbing. “ ‘Tweren’t my fault, I tell you!” she cried.

  “Phoebe, you have been saying so all day,” the elder Mrs. Chawston said sharply. “No one is blaming you.”

  Mary Chawston lifted her ravaged face from the table and looked resentfully at the nursemaid. “If only she hadn’t fallen asleep …”

  “Everyone needs to sleep,” Mrs. Chawston chided. “You cannot expect a servant to stay awake twenty-four hours a day.”

  “But she knows how mischievous Gordie is. He often runs away and hides to tease us. She should have been alert. He must have made noises stealing away from his bed this morning. If she hadn’t been drinking the night before …”

  “I only had a glass of ale with me meal like all the servants did!” Phoebe wailed.

  Several of the women gave her condemning looks. Abby noticed the maids were the most censorious.

  “We do no good arguing among ourselves,” Mrs. Chawston declared. “Casting blame does not bring Gordie back to us.”

  Fresh wails greeted this remark.

  “We should not have taken him,” Frederica said. She had inherited her mother’s regal nose, but a weak chin and scornful eyes robbed her of beauty. “He is too young to travel. Children belong at home.”

  “You say that because you don’t have any children yourself,” Mary snapped, rubbing her eyes with a scrap of lace. “You don’t know what it is to be without your little one for a long period of time.”

  “A two-week excursion to the Lakes is not a long period of time,” Frederica retorted. “And if Gordie means so much to you, why does he not sleep on a cot in your room instead of the nursemaid’s?”

  As Mary dissolved into a fresh wave of tears, Mrs. Chawston said imperiously, “Stop such talk this instant, Frederica. You are serving no good by it.”

  Viola saw her friend’s face turn an ugly color and rushed to say, “I sincerely hope you will not be presented with a ransom note before the night is over. I fear kidnapping.”

  “So you have said, many times.” Mrs. Chawston fixed the young woman with a quelling stare. “You are not serving us well by voicing that thought, either.”

  Viola lowered her eyes and murmured an apology.

  “I cannot imagine what you must think of us, Lord and Lady Julian,” the elderly lady said. “We are not usually at one another like this.”

  “Hmph,” said Frederica, who dissolved into a fit of coughing when her mother’s sharp gaze fell upon her.

  “It’s a difficult time for you,” Julian said. “We don’t mean to make it worse. My wife and I only wish to offer our assistance.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Mrs. Chawston dipped her handkerchief into a bowl of perfumed water sitting on the table, wrung it dry, and pressed it over her eyes. “I don’t know what anyone can do now. Gordie’s never run away for this length of time. I cannot help thinking he lies hurt somewhere.”

  “Have they sent dogs after him?”

  “Yes, early in the day, but it rained last night. The beasts weren’t able to follow his tra
il.”

  “Is it possible he’s hiding inside?” Julian asked.

  “The servants have searched the entire inn, top to bottom.”

  The magician could ignore Abby’s shining eyes no longer. He gave her a brief look of conspiracy and said cautiously, “We happen to have a fine tracker with us. If you could lend us something of the child’s—anything that he touched or wore recently—perhaps we will have better luck.”

  Mrs. Chawston blinked doubtfully, then waved her hand in the nursemaid’s direction. “Fetch something of Gordie’s, won’t you, Phoebe? It’s unlikely Lord Julian’s animal will do better, but we would be foolish to turn down any offer of help.”

  Abby tore her hopeful gaze from the magician’s long enough to press the older lady’s hands. “Thank you. We shall do our best.”

  “I am certain you will, dear. We appreciate your thoughtfulness.” Mrs. Chawston smiled briefly and rubbed the moist handkerchief along her face and neck.

  When they reached the corridor, a grim-looking Francis broke away from Charlotte Ann and the innkeeper, who were seated on a bench outside the parlour. “I beg you, milord, don’t become involved in this.”

  “But he must.” Abby returned the valet’s stare boldly. All in a moment she decided to be done with shrinking from him. He had not responded to her kindness, and she would be bound if she’d defer to his contempt any longer. Not when she was right, anyway. “If he can do anything at all, he must. They need him.”

  Julian’s expression was rueful. “She is correct, you know. In the meantime, Francis, make yourself useful by finding a dog.”

  “A dog?”

  “Yes. A stray if you can, and bring it to the front entrance.”

  Francis opened his mouth to question him further, but milord was already ascending the stairs, following Abby and the nursemaid. Charlotte Ann scurried after them.

  “Why did you change your mind?” Abby whispered to Julian when he drew close to her on the steps.

  He gave her a look that stirred her heart painfully. “You are forever underestimating your influence, Abby,” he said.

  She raced up the remaining stairs, ashamed to let him see the blush flaming across her cheeks. She was growing surprised at herself. The least compliment from him seemed to affect her in the most astonishing manner.

  Master Gordie had been given a large room on the third floor overlooking the courtyard. Someone had straightened the boy’s bed despite the day’s confusion, but the nurse’s cot was rumpled and forlorn-looking. Nurse Phoebe walked past it and knelt in front of a cedar trunk pushed against the wall. She pulled a chain and key from inside her bodice, opened the padlock and flung the lid backward.

  “Don’t know what you want,” she said, her voice trembling. “Here’s his little stuffed rabbit, and that there is his precious little shirt and pants what he wore yesterday. I hadn’t had a chance to wash ‘em.”

  Julian took the proffered items and sat on the edge of the child’s bed. He held the clothing tightly between his hands for a full minute, then set it aside. Taking the toy, he touched it carefully, stroking it as one would a pet. After a long period of time, he sighed, looked at Abby, and shook his head slightly.

  Abby felt a sharp pang of disappointment that had nothing to do with his inability to help the boy. Was he only pretending? Did he hope to fool her with this performance, then claim that this one time he was unable to sense anything? She might learn nothing more about him than she already knew.

  Charlotte Ann, growing increasingly uncomfortable at the looks of these heathenish proceedings, backed from the room mumbling she would wait for them in the hall.

  The nursemaid could contain her curiosity no longer. “What are you doing, milord?”

  Julian ignored the question and Abby’s downcast look. He patted the edge of the bed. “Sit down beside me, won’t you, Nurse Phoebe?”

  She frowned, glanced at Abby, then reluctantly obeyed. When he touched her hands, she balked and tried to snatch her fingers away.

  “Easy now, nurse,” he said. “I’m only trying to comfort you. I know your mistress has caused you distress in her accusations. I think if I were in your position, I’d find it hard to remember my own name. But now that we’re away from them and in the quiet of your room, I want you to think very hard. Is there anything you know that might be useful in finding Master Gordie?”

  The tension seemed to melt from her body. “It ain’t right, them saying all those things. But you’re nice, you and your lady. I wish I could think of something to tell you, but I already told them …”

  As her voice trailed away, Abby looked at her curiously. The nursemaid’s eyes had lost focus, as though she were daydreaming. At the same time, Julian’s eyes darkened. Abby’s heart began to pound.

  “Yesterday you and the boy rode in the second carriage with the servants,” he stated in a quiet, smooth voice.

  “Yes, milord,” Phoebe answered, speaking as dreamily as a little girl recounting a fairy tale. “The ladies was in the first carriage; the men rode horseback. We’re a large party when we travel.”

  “You are indeed.” He was quiet for a moment. “There was an argument in the servant’s carriage, was there not?”

  Her lips turned down childishly. “Not an argument, really; just that awful Alice saying mean things to me like she always does, because she’s a lady’s maid. Thinks she’s better than she is.”

  “What awful thing did she say to you?”

  “Made sport of me best shoes, she did. Not that I was wearing ‘em then—I had on my slippers what goes with the uniform—but she remembered what they looked like. See, we was all talking about clothes, and that’s how it got started. Said a pig wouldn’t wear my shoes in a rainstorm. I can’t help it if all my money goes to my little sisters, now can I? I have to wear them old things on my day off, worn though they be.”

  “And what did Master Gordie say to all this?”

  A smile broke across the nursemaid’s face. “He took up for me like he always does, the little pet. Said he was going to buy me ten pair of new shoes and ask his mamma to throw Alice in the river if she didn’t stop.”

  Julian smiled faintly and released Phoebe’s hands. “Where is Gordon’s nightshirt?”

  The nurse rubbed her brow as though it ached. “He must of been wearing it when he left. Or got took. I haven’t seen it since he went to bed.”

  The magician narrowed his eyes and glanced searchingly around the room. With sudden intensity he asked, “Has the bedding been changed since last night?”

  “No, milord.” The nursemaid looked bewildered. “I straightened it this morning but didn’t put on fresh linens.”

  Julian snatched back the bedcoverings, placed one hand on the pillow, the other on the bedsheet, and closed his eyes. He remained thus for several long seconds, then began to speak quietly, almost to himself. “He is restless during the night. Can’t sleep. Sits up, sees his nurse. Remembers. I will find pretty shoes for her.”

  Straightening, he ignored the slack-jawed Phoebe and walked toward Abby, who watched him with hopeful eyes. “Where does a little boy find shoes? There is no shop; he can’t steal a pair of his mamma’s, because she might wake up and find him out.”

  Acknowledging Abby with a burning glance, he passed her, leaned his hands on the windowsill and observed the scurrying figures in the darkening courtyard below. He turned suddenly, startling the nursemaid.

  “The attics!” he declared.

  Phoebe pressed her hand to her chest. “We already looked there.”

  “Nevertheless, let us try again.”

  A knock pulled their attention to the open doorway, where stood a handsome, correct-looking gentleman of young middle-age. “How do you do,” he said. “I’m Nathaniel Stone, Frederica’s husband. My mother-in-law told me you’ve offered to help search for my nephew.”

  Julian introduced himself and Abby, explaining they meant to begin with the attics.

  “A waste of time,” t
he other replied. “You would do better to join us outside. If your horse is fresh, we could use the added manpower. I noticed a fellow out there who must be your servant. Seemed to be dallying around trying to catch one of the yard dogs. Unless the man’s a total idiot, we could use him, too.”

  Julian bit his lip and expressed his willingness to do so, but only after he indulged his admittedly strange whim to investigate the attics.

  Moments later, the five of them—Charlotte Ann had rejoined their party, though she hung back uncertainly—stood inside the largest of the storage rooms. The center of the floor was free of clutter and swept clean, but boxes and trunks and shelves were stacked around the periphery. There was no window; only the feeble hallway light illuminated the room, which appeared sadly empty of little boys.

  “See, I told you; a waste of time,” stated Mr. Stone.

  Julian walked slowly to the middle of the chamber. “The room is kept unlocked?”

  “At all times, evidently,” the gentleman said. “Swans says it’s too much trouble to secure it with guests coming and going constantly. Seems to me he’s inviting thievery.” He eyed the magician impatiently. “Well, come on, what are we waiting for?”

  “Please,” Abby said, her gaze following Julian with a desperate hope. “Allow him a moment.”

  Mr. Stone gave her an odd look, but nodded and fell silent. Julian stood motionlessly, his head bowed, then began ambling past the line of boxes and luggage. He paused in front of a large black trunk, his shoulders tensing. With agonizing slowness, he knelt in front of it, fingering the metal hasp which had fallen over the staple. Suddenly he exclaimed angrily, flipped back the hinged strap, jerked open the lid, and bent over the trunk. When he rose and turned back to them, he held the child in his arms.

  Amid the subsequent cries of surprise and delight, Phoebe was the first to reach them, but it was Mr. Stone who took the unconscious boy from Julian.

  “Is he—he’s not—” Phoebe gasped.

  “No, he breathes, thank God,” Mr. Stone said.