by Josh Lanyon
“Father—that is, Torquil Tremaine, may I present my fiancé, John Galbraith?”
Father recalled himself—sort of—and shook hands with John. “Galbraith. Scottish descent, correct?”
“Correct,” John said. This was a good start because John was very much into his Scottish heritage, having completed one of those DNA Ancestry kits a few months before we met.
“Yes. An ancient bloodline. Picts, I think.” Father said to me, “A good choice.”
“Right, well,” I said heartily, fearing he was about to launch into a dissertation on primitive magic. “We’re all Americans now.”
Father snorted. “Have you met your mother?” He considered. “Who cast your horoscopes?”
“No one. We didn’t have them done.”
He began to splutter. “D-d-didn’t have them done?”
“John is not—doesn’t believe in astrology.”
John sounded startled as he said to me, “Do you?”
“Well, I mean…yes.”
John looked completely taken aback. And if he was taken aback at the idea that I believed in astrology, the Goddess alone knew what he’d make of the rest of it.
Father said, “You’re going to marry this child of mine without any idea of what you’re getting yourself into?”
“Uh, Father, I’m twenty-nine. I’m not exactly a—”
John smiled at me, put his arm around my waist. “I think I have a pretty good idea.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. He’s charming and well educated, but if you marry him, you marry the Duchess of Abracadantès.”
I relaxed. Okay, that was better. My father was once again on his favorite topic. My mother.
Or maybe that wasn’t better as John said a little grimly, “So I discovered this evening.”
Yes, that had been a little uncomfortable. Until tonight I’d managed to skirt around the whole issue of titles and birthrights. It wasn’t like Maman swanned around town referring to herself as The Duchess. That was the rest of us. But there was no way to officially introduce her and her sister the, er, countess without getting into, well, details.
Nola had been impressed. That was the one silver lining. John had been dismayed, but then I suspect he’d been dismayed by Maman from their first meeting seven days earlier.
I cleared my throat. “The title is mostly ceremonial these days.”
My father laughed.
John looked from me to him and made a valiant effort. “I understand you teach at Salem State University, sir?”
“Call me Torquil. Not that we’ll be seeing much of each other. Cosmo is entirely his mother’s son. Arabella was mine. Even before this one was delivered, Estelle had all but cast me out. The sole point on which she ever gave in to me was allowing him to be born in Salem.”
I groaned inwardly.
“Arabella?” John repeated.
“My sister,” I said. “She…crossed when I was seven.”
“I had no idea. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. One more of the many, many things we did not know about each other. Two weeks is a long time to be tortured, but not so long to get to know someone you plan on spending your life with. And rushing the latter almost guarantees the former.
Or so I had thought before I met John.
“I teach astronomy and philosophy.” Abruptly and unexpectedly—as was his wont—my father answered John’s earlier question.
“Both fields of study?” John asked, surprised.
“Officially, astronomy. But how can you teach the stars without exploring those fundamental questions of existence?”
John shook his head. Navy SEALs study the stars for different reasons.
“Mr. Saville?”
A waitress hovered on the edge of our conversation. I turned to her in inquiry. She said in an under voice, “An elderly gentlemen is insisting on speaking with you. He’s not a guest. I’m not sure how he got into the club. He gave me a card.”
She handed me a slightly bent black calling card printed in gold script with the name Oliver Sandhurst. Books and Bygones.
“I’ll speak to him,” I said. “Where is he?”
She looked pained. “He won’t come in. He’s waiting for you in the stairwell. In front of the Diego Rivera fresco.”
“That’s all right. I’ll go see him now.”
“What’s up?” John asked.
“Oliver Sandhurst—the man I bought Blue Moon from—wants to speak to me.”
“Speak to you about what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
I was surprised at how instantly on guard he was. Not naturally trusting, John. But then naturally trusting people don’t go into law enforcement.
“No, no. I’ve known Oliver for years. He’s a friend. If you could just…” I glanced past him to my father, who was glaring at the table where my mother—pretending to be oblivious to him—sat.
“Rest assured,” John said.
“Thank you.”
He added, “Don’t take too long.”
* * * * *
Oliver looked small, frail, and a little frightened standing on the landing before the vibrantly hued thirty-foot-high Diego Rivera fresco Allegory of California.
“Oliver, hi,” I said. “Why don’t you come and join us? There’s plenty of food and drink. You’d be very welcome.”
He took both my hands in his unsteady, ice-cold ones. “Cosmo, dear, dear boy. I’m so sorry to interrupt your happy occasion, but I felt I must tell you at once. Police detectives came to see me a short while ago. They seem to believe…” Oliver gulped. “That you killed Seamus Reitherman.”
For the last couple of hours, I had managed to forget the looming threat of the investigation into Seamus’s death. Now all that anxiety and apprehension came crashing down with the weight of that Broadwood piano earlier.
“It’s not true.”
“Certainly it’s not true.” Oliver looked relieved. “I didn’t believe it for a moment.”
“He asked me to meet him at his shop last night. When I got there, he was dead.”
Unfortunately, I had told this story so many times, it was beginning to sound like a script.
“Did he tell you…” Oliver hesitated, biting his lip. “I’m sorry to ask this, but why did he invite you of all people?”
“He told me he believed he had found the Grimorium Primus.”
Oliver’s eyes kindled. He whispered excitedly, “He did! He had!”
“But… Are you sure?”
Oliver nodded. “He showed it to me. Well, not the whole thing. He showed me a page. He wanted me to authenticate it.” His pale-green eyes were wide and frightened. “It was. Authentic. It was the real thing. The Grimorium Primus.”
My knees went a little weak. I had been trying to reassure myself that Seamus could not have really, truly found the first and greatest of the grimoires. That I had not seen those telltale chalk marks. That his death had to have been due to other circumstances. Maybe Ciara had killed him. Maybe someone had tried to rob him. Maybe a crazy customer had returned after-hours, demanding a refund on a witchcraft starter kit.
Oliver was watching me with blazing-eyed and slightly unnerving intensity. “Do you know what he did with the book?”
“No. I never saw it. It’s as I said. He was dead when I arrived.”
Oliver began to wring his hands. “This is bad. This is very bad.”
“I know.”
“In particular, very bad for you, dear boy. Very bad for your family.”
I said more huskily, “I know.”
“Whoever killed Seamus must have stolen the grimoire.”
I thought again of the chalk markings. What had I seen? I couldn’t be sure. The spell had only been started.
“Maybe not. It’s possible Seamus hid the book.”
A finding spell? Was that what I had seen? I half closed my eyes, trying to remember…
“Do you thin
k so?” Oliver whispered.
“I don’t know.”
I opened my eyes, studied his wizened, worried face. Either he truly was terrified, or he had aged a lot in four years.
“Oliver, one of your gifts is finding things.”
His eyes widened. He drew back. “Yes, that’s true, but—”
All witches are born with certain talents. No, call them aptitudes. Witches who train and develop their abilities usually gain other, well, powers. The ability to find things without the aid of a finding spell typically manifested late in life. Since his fifties, Oliver had been legendary for his ability to locate that which was lost.
“If Seamus had time to hide the book, it might still be in his shop.”
“The Creaky Attic?”
“Yes. The store is huge. If his slayer didn’t take it, it could be hidden anywhere. Hopefully somewhere only another witch could find it.”
For a moment we both considered the terrifying consequences of a grimoire so powerful falling into the wrong hands. Oliver shuddered.
“Who else did Seamus tell about the grimoire?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Ciara, for sure. His consort. And whoever he got the book from knows. Assuming it came to him through regular channels.”
“Do you know where he got the grimoire?”
“No.”
“Nor do I.” He added, “Then we can assume nothing.”
I conceded it. An idea came to me. “I was going to try and search his shop tonight. What if you came with me?”
“Tonight? But you’re…” Oliver waved vaguely at the door above us. Muffled voices and music drifted down the stairwell.
“After the party,” I said. “I could meet you at the Creaky Attic at one.” Midnight would be better for Oliver’s finding, but that might be cutting it too close. I had a feeling John would want to talk when we got home.
Oliver’s eyes lit. He was about to speak, when a door swung open overhead. We both froze. The sound of music and voices swelled, peaked.
John called down, “Cosmo? Everything okay?”
I sagged with relief, threw my head back, and called, “Fine! I’ll be right up.”
I could feel him listening. For what? A second voice? My coconspirator?
“Roger that,” John said.
He didn’t move.
We waited—and he waited.
Why? What was he expecting to happen? My unease grew. Did he really not trust me?
But then the door swung shut again, cutting off the noise above.
“I don’t know,” Oliver said uneasily. “What if it’s a trap?”
“How can it be? It’s our own plan.”
He said, “Well, dear boy, actually it’s your plan.”
“Okay, it’s my plan. I think it may be our only chance of finding the grimoire before it’s lost forever.”
“Maybe,” Oliver murmured. “You could be right. I don’t know…”
It would be so much easier with his help. But he was frail and elderly and it was not really his problem. I said, “Oliver, that wasn’t fair to ask. It’s all right if you don’t want any part of this. You already stuck your neck out by coming here tonight.”
He hesitated.
“Don’t be silly,” he said quickly. “I won’t desert you in your hour of need. It’s only…”
“It’s only what?”
He gave me a sickly smile. “I think we would be wise to remember that if whoever killed Seamus did not take the grimoire, they may also be searching for it.”
Chapter Eleven
“Mother thinks she’s found the perfect housekeeper for us,” John said on the drive back to Greenwich Street.
We had put Jinx and Nola into a taxi a few minutes earlier and were finally, for the first time since Jinx had rung the doorbell that afternoon, alone together.
I made a vague sound of inquiry.
“Some woman she befriended at church. Bridget Something.”
Great. Another church lady.
“Do you think we need a housekeeper?”
“Yes.” John glanced at me. “I’ve seen your place.”
Having also seen my place, I did not take offense. “Still, I think I’d rather find my own housekeeper.”
“It won’t hurt to interview her, will it? You’ll be at the house tomorrow anyway with the movers.”
“Sure. If that’s what you’d like.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw John’s head turn my way. “Everything okay?”
I was watching the tall buildings, outlines etched in moonlight, gliding past. They reminded me of the shadow-lantern silhouette of a witch I’d seen in Seamus’s storeroom. What had that been about? A kind of witchy bat signal? So weird. This was all so weird…
“Cos?”
I snapped back to present-day concerns. “Iff and Kolchak think I murdered Seamus.”
John was silent for so long that I knew this was not coming as any news to him. I stared at his profile.
He said, “Try not to take it personally.”
“Try not to…”
“There’s a fair bit of circumstantial evidence pointing in your direction. That’s all. Iff and Kolchak are two of the best detectives on the force. Even though they’re starting the investigation with a certain amount of bias, they’ll keep digging until they get to the truth.”
“You’re taking this very calmly.”
“No, I’m not.” His tone was grim. “But getting mad about it won’t change anything.”
The bleak note in his voice caused me to revise my initial opinion. He was not remotely okay with this.
“Do you think I killed Seamus?”
After what felt like a very long moment, he said, “I don’t think so, no.”
He had been giving it plenty of thought, though. Did that make it better or worse that he had eventually concluded I was innocent? I couldn’t help wishing for instinctive and heartfelt belief in my innocence.
“For the record, I did not kill him.”
“For the record, again, I don’t think you did. But you are hiding something.”
I said bitterly, “Isn’t everyone hiding something?”
“I’m not hiding anything from you. If you’ve got something to ask, ask.”
“Do you want to call off the wedding?”
“No.”
My mouth curved, but I did not feel like smiling. “Why did you ask me to marry you?”
He shrugged. “I love you.”
Yeah, well.
“Sure, but you don’t strike me as the whirlwind-courtship type. We haven’t even known each other a month. Your friends and family think I’ve somehow bewitched you.”
Now, I can’t explain why I was pushing this—even going so far as to throw the W word in. Maybe it was simply the prolonged tension of wondering when he would begin asking these questions himself.
John too smiled without humor at the “bewitched” comment. “Maybe what’s happening here is you’re having second thoughts?”
I said huskily, more huskily than I wished, “No.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, well, the truth is, I never planned on marrying. I’ve always thought marriage was solely for the purpose of having children—and I don’t like kids.”
“Good to know.”
He threw me a quick glance. “Do you want children?”
“I…don’t know. I guess if I thought about it at all, I assumed it was a far distant likelihood.”
The Duchess would not be pleased. That was for starters. Barring my aunt Iolanthe and cousin Waite, no one within the Abracadantès would view this as anything but a disaster. Orientation notwithstanding, my own disinclinations notwithstanding, it was viewed as a matter of course that I would one day sire an heir or heiress to the trône de sorcière.
John was silent, and I couldn’t think of anything to say either. How funny if the thing that ended it between us was something so basic, so prosaic, so obv
iously should-have-asked-this-sooner as the question of having children.
Eventually he said, “I would probably feel differently about my own kids.”
“I… Probably.”
And that was the last thing either of us said until we reached the house.
“Did you want a drink?” John locked the front door behind us.
“Sure. Hello.” I bumped noses with Pyewacket, who had leaped into my arms as we let ourselves into the house. “Did you have a nice evening?”
Pye had not had a nice evening, and he proceeded to tell me all about it. He did not like change. And the more he thought about it, the less he liked it. That’s more a Russian Blue trait than a Familiar trait, but the nature of his unhappiness was not the point. The unhappiness was.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “If you’ll give it some time, I’m sure it will get better.”
“Are you talking to the cat or me?” John threw over his shoulder, heading toward the den and its wet bar.
The bar was my wedding gift to him.
John was a little bit of a wine snob. Or at least he seemed like a wine snob to me, given that I knew little about wine and cared less. My poison of choice was the flavored martini. Cocktails. In fact, in my crowd, I was held to be quite the master mixologist. I’d even come up with a few recipes for Andi so that she could create what had turned out to be a very popular line of cocktail cupcakes.
Anyway, after a lifetime of lime-laced Corona and whiskey out of flasks, John had discovered the wide world of wine.
Our bar area was a beautiful little room of rustic redwood and blue stone. The cabinetry and wine racks were all custom. Dual wine refrigerators flanked a sink basin made from an antique whiskey barrel. It was the one room of the house that was completely finished and fully equipped, which I guess tells you something about us.
I followed John, Pye draped like a morose fur stole over my shoulders.
“Red or white?” John asked.
“Either.”
Pye meowed into my ear.
“Ssst,” I replied.
John, busily uncorking a 1994 bottle of Churchill Port, said, “Is he settling in okay?”
“Not really.”
John’s brows rose, but he said nothing.
“I don’t know. He may not be with me much longer, so maybe it doesn’t matter.”
