Fascinated Page 18

  “And I thought it was Verity who was the foolish one. Well.” Louise shrugged, and returned to her stitching. “I suppose you are married?”

  “Lord Carstairs is with my uncles now.”

  “Then the scandal will be short-lived enough.” If Louise noticed Alicia dodged the question, she gave no sign. Alicia could feel the weight of Verity’s sharp sideways glance, however, and struggled to keep her countenance. “Heaven knows why he should have bothered,” Louise went on. “It was all arranged, wasn’t it? Still, I suppose, Father and Uncle Morris will be glad enough to be spared the expense of the wedding.”

  “She’s here to see Aunt Mary, Louise,” said Verity pointedly.

  “Oh, yes. As she should.” Louise pulled her stitch tight. “Very sad. But then, she’s an old woman, isn’t she? Past her time already. Go in. The doctor’s just been.”

  Verity moved to the door, but Alicia hesitated. “Louise…” she began, and Louise glanced up. Alicia made herself look into her cousin’s eyes. She willed herself to be open, to try to see into Louise as she saw Edward.

  But there was nothing there. Louise was a blank. She sat outside her aunt’s sick chamber, and looked on her youngest sister, and her cousin who had just returned from an elopement, and all Alicia could sense from her was boredom.

  Alicia turned quickly away, her heart pounding at the base of her throat. Verity glanced at her, silently questioning, but Alicia shook her head. Something was more wrong here than she had realized, but she couldn’t very well speak of it now. She had to see Aunt Mary; then she needed to get back to Edward as soon as possible.

  If Alicia had ever been in Aunt Mary’s bedchamber before, she couldn’t remember it. The furnishings here were all heavy and dark. The curtains were drawn tight, making it as close and airless as the sitting room had been. A single candle burned at her bedside. Aunt Mary lay on her heavily carved bed with all the covers pulled up over her, her cap tied under her chin and her nightdress buttoned up to her throat. Perspiration beaded on her forehead, and in the flickering candle light, her skin appeared an unhealthy sallow color. Her heavily ringed hands trembled and plucked at the quilts.

  “Alicia,” she wheezed. “Alicia…”

  “I’m here, Aunt Mary.” Alicia hurried to her. “I’ve come.” She laid her hand over Aunt Mary’s and the heat of it almost burned her palm.

  Slowly, Aunt Mary’s eyelids fluttered open. Her gaze darted frantically this way and that. Alicia leaned closer and squeezed the old woman’s hand, but gently. Aunt Mary had always been plump, but now her skin hung loose on delicate bones, as if all her flesh had melted away overnight.

  At last, her aunt’s dim gaze touched Alicia, and Aunt Mary jerked her hand away.

  “No!” She shrank back on her pillow, her arm flailing out. “No! You mustn’t! Get away! Get away!”

  “Aunt Mary!” Alicia caught her hand, fighting to still her waving arm.

  “She’ll have you!” cried Aunt Mary. “Mustn’t let her have you! Save them! You’re the one to save them!”

  “You must be calm! You are ill, Aunt Mary!” As firmly as she dared, Alicia pressed the old woman’s arm back down onto the quilts. Mary whimpered and struggled, but gradually, her strength ebbed and her arm grew slack under Alicia’s hand.

  “No, no, not ill,” muttered Aunt Mary. “Not ill.” Her eyes widened, and she struggled to lift her head from the pillow. “Run, Alicia. Run away, please. Please, let me know you’re free. It’s the end for me, but you’ll be free and you’ll stop her. You will. I saw it. Please, run…”

  “Who, Aunt Mary?” But even as the question left her, Alicia had the sick feeling she already must know the answer.

  Aunt Mary’s eyes, though, drifted shut, and her voice sank to nothing. Alicia sighed and shifted her grip to gently take up her aunt’s hand. But as her gaze touched the multiplicity of rings on the old woman’s frail fingers, Alicia froze.

  Aunt Mary was overly fond of jewelry, especially rings. She’d always worn so many, Alicia had never noticed that the second one on her little finger was gold and carved cinnabar. She’d certainly never looked at it closely enough to see how much it resembled the larger carved brooch she’d always worn.

  But now Alicia did see that resemblance, and more than that, she felt it. Its cold stabbed hard at her mind. Her first thought was to back away, but she stopped herself. Cowardice would gain her nothing here.

  “Verity,” Alicia whispered. “Watch the door. Tell me if anyone comes.”

  “What…?”

  “Please, Verity. It’s important.”

  Verity closed her mouth around her questions and went to stand in front of the door. Alicia drew up a chair to Mary’s bedside.

  “Aunt,” she breathed, leaning close enough to smell Aunt Mary’s sour breath. “Your ring. The one with the cinnabar. Where did you get it?”

  “No.” Aunt Mary’s head flopped from side to side. Her voice did not rise above the lightest whisper, but the fear in it reached to Alicia’s heart. “No. Can’t. Get away, get away, before she comes.”

  “You’re upsetting her, Alicia,” said Verity. “She’s too weak for this.”

  “I know, I know.” Guilt weighed heavily against her need to understand. “I wouldn’t if it wasn’t important.” And yet Aunt Mary was burning so with fever and her hand had gone limp. She shouldn’t keep questioning her. She might do real harm. Alicia stared at the ring again, as if she could will it to reveal its history.

  Her thoughts halted in their tracks. She remembered how she’d felt the presence of the sculptor when she touched the statue in Edward’s garden. Could she do something similar now? Alicia bit her lip and tried to stretch out a single thought.

  Edward?

  Softly but clearly, his voice came back. I’m here.

  I may have found something. But I need your help. Can you send…power to me?

  There was a pause. Not easily. But a little. Wait.

  Alicia’s heart thumped so loudly she was certain Verity heard its drumming. Verity was certainly looking hard at her, as if to try to see right through her. Then Alicia felt the barest trickle of the golden light through her blood that she now recognized as magic.

  Verity gasped. “What are you doing, Alicia? What’s happening?”

  “I can’t explain yet, Verity. But I will, I promise. Just give me this minute.”

  Verity did not want to. Alicia felt her stretch out her mind for understanding, reaching for the magic Edward called up. But that magic faltered, and Alicia knew she did not have much time.

  Alicia forced herself to shut out thoughts of Verity and even Edward. She made herself hold her hand over Aunt Mary’s. She drew Edward’s thread of magic so deep into her that she feared it would snap in two. But it held, and she willed it down her fingertips to touch the cinnabar ring.

  A vision pulled her under so hard and so fast there was no way to resist. Alicia went blind to the world around her, and could only see what spread before her inner eye.

  It was a naked hilltop overlooking a wide moor. A single thorn tree spread its branches on the crest, its leaves turned autumn gold. A tall man and a stick-thin woman stood beneath the tree. The woman’s skirts were rich and full, in a style from the distant past. She clutched a ragged shawl about her head, clearly a hasty attempt to disguise herself. She was terrified. Alicia could feel that plainly. But she was also utterly determined as she held out her hand to the man.

  The impossibly beautiful man. His face and form had all the pale perfection of a Grecian statue brought to vibrant life. He was clothed like the paintings Alicia had seen of Prince Rupert’s cavaliers with a cocked hat and full-skirted coat, but all his garments gleamed white as snow. Alicia’s heart lurched inside her. She knew him. Not by face or clothing, but by the singing of her heart. This terrified woman faced Alicia’s White Knight.

  “It is done,” said the woman. “The stone is broken. The gate is open.”

  “Excellent, Mae Margaret.”
The White Knight gave her a smile of heartbreaking warmth. “The queen will be most pleased.”

  “Now, give me what you promised.”

  “I would gladly, but be you certain?” His voice was gentle, and filled with promise. “For this service, you could have so much more.”

  Alicia saw what the woman saw. She was young and beautiful, and surrounded by light. No cares, no work, no worries existed for her now. There was only music and splendor, and pleasure. Pleasure of body and delight of mind, all the human heart could hold, and no end to it, ever.

  Mae Margaret trembled against the temptation pouring through her. “Hopkins is coming. Without I return, he’ll send them all to the gallows. Betty is only four. I must…” She held out one thin, trembling hand. “What you promised.”

  “Very well, then.” The White Knight drew several glittering objects out from his coat and laid them one by one onto Mae Margaret’s palm. “Four concealments, as was promised. The ring will hide a seeing. The bracelet will hide a calling. The key will hide a shaping.” He paused and laid the cinnabar brooch beside the other artifacts. “This last will hide the soul.”

  Mae Margaret clutched the amulets to her chest. “Thank you.”

  The White Knight swept off his hat and bowed. “Oh, no, Mae Margaret. Thank you.”

  Anguish and comprehension shuddered through Alicia. In that same moment, the White Knight turned his head, and looked directly at her.

  Now, now, Alicia. His magnificent voice reached straight through her mind to her heart. One mustn’t eavesdrop, must one?

  The vision vanished as if blown by a storm wind, and Alicia realized Verity was hissing her name.

  “Someone’s coming!”

  Alicia fell back, her mind reeling from what she’d seen and from the final touch of the White Knight’s voice on her thoughts. Before she could begin to collect herself, the door opened, and Aunt Hester strode in, followed closely by Aunt Eugenia.

  “Well, miss.” Aunt Eugenia folded her arms. “Or perhaps I should say ‘madame,’ now? You’ve done very well for yourself.”

  Aunt Hester said nothing to her nieces. She came directly to the bedside and pulled Aunt Mary’s hand from Alicia’s.

  “Too late,” Mary croaked, and for the first time Alicia thought she heard glee underlying the old woman’s words. “I saw it. I saw it!”

  “None of that, Mary.” Aunt Hester dropped her sister’s hand to the quilts, her voice cold and hard as iron. “You be quiet.”

  “I won’t. Not anymore. Nothing else you can do to me.”

  “I said quiet, Mary.” Aunt Hester held out her hand and Aunt Eugenia came forward to touch her elder sister’s sleeve. Hester leaned close and whispered in Mary’s ear. Something slick and sharp twisted in the pit of Alicia’s stomach. Aunt Mary’s chest heaved once, and she fell back, unconscious. Aunt Hester stepped away from the bed, her face a blank mask.

  “Come,” she said, and swept out of the room.

  Eighteen

  “Well, Carstairs, you’ve led us a damned dance, I can tell you,” announced Morris Hartwell.

  “I apologize for that, sir.” Carstairs made his bow. Morris Hartwell stood at the sideboard, pouring whiskey into three glasses. His brother, Gavin, sprawled in a deep armchair by the arched window. Both men had Alicia’s amber eyes, but neither had anything of her fire. Morris, the elder, had a soft belly that strained against his breeches, and Gavin, although he’d only just begun to go gray, looked about him with the dissolute weariness of a much older man.

  “Can’t think what you were about,” Morris said with more bewilderment than anger as he handed Carstairs a glass. “You had the damned girl as soon as the ink dried. You could have done as you pleased without staging some sort of Drury Lane farce…”

  “Still, the thing’s done and that’s what matters.” Gavin knocked back the spirits. “I suppose the thing is done?”

  “It is.” Carstairs found he had no qualms about lying to Alicia’s guardians. In fact, it was all he could do not to crack their fool heads together. Did they care so little for the girl in their charge that they couldn’t even muster a little anger? He remembered what Alicia had said about the indifference of her relatives. He had thought at least some of that impression must be due to her enchantment. Now, however, he saw that, if anything, she’d understated the case.

  “Well, you’ve married her and that’s all that matters, then.” Morris dropped into the second armchair as if he’d lost the strength to stand anymore.

  “Right. Though it was taking the thing too far.” Gavin belched. “Still, I expect cheaper in the long run.”

  “There is that,” agreed Morris.

  Carstairs took a swallow of whiskey to cover his outrage. How could these two sit and talk like this over their ward? A member of their own blood family? Could it be an enchantment, like the one Alicia suffered? He couldn’t see an amulet on either of them, only the usual signet rings on their thick fingers and some seals and fobs on their watch chains. Cautiously, Carstairs eased open his inner senses.

  He nearly choked on his drink. He felt…nothing. To his mind’s eye, the men in front of him were barely shadows. Not only had they no magic about them; they had no passion of any kind. Its absence yawned like a chasm in front of him. The whiskey burned against the back of his throat as Carstairs forced himself to swallow. The two noticed nothing of his discomfiture. They were droning on, comparing the relative expenses of keeping hounds and girls. Years of training and practice allowed Carstairs to keep up the outward semblance of listening to the languid talk of the men in front of him. Inwardly, he stretched out further.

  That was when he felt the damage. If he’d been touching their skin, he would have felt a deep, precise scar on both men. Both exactly the same. They were not confined, as Alicia had been. Someone had used magic to reach into their spirits and cut out their passion and their capacity for strong feeling.

  Morris and Gavin Hartwell had been maimed.

  Disgust twisted Carstairs’s guts, and he pulled his senses back before it could show on his face. Captain Smith’s words returned to him, of the rumor of a spell that could cut the magic from a person’s spirit. At the time, he’d dismissed it as an ancient and terrible rumor, but that luxury was now denied him. He’d touched the proof with his own mind. Carstairs stared at the study door. How many others among the Hartwell family had been mutilated like this? How long had it been going on?

  And how had Alicia escaped this fate?

  He was struggling to regain an even keel in his mind when Alicia’s thoughts, faint and distant, touched his own.

  Edward?

  I’m here, he answered instantly.

  I may have found something. But I need your help. Can you send…power to me?

  Edward stretched his awareness out toward Alicia, but found he could barely brush against her presence. If they’d had more time to work together, she could have aided him as he reached, but as it was, it was taking all her effort to speak through their thoughts.

  Not easily, he told her. But a little. Wait.

  Carstairs relaxed his mind and reached deep, rooting himself into the earth to find the magic to channel toward Alicia. But where there should have been a darkly shining web of power for him to gather up, Carstairs found only emptiness. The earth beneath Hartwell House was as blank and bare as the spirits of the men near him. Edward stretched further, and further. At last he was able to grasp a single thin thread, and unspool it for Alicia to catch hold of. Once certain she had firm hold of it, Carstairs fixed his face in an expression of polite boredom, and allowed his mind to range further along the thread of magic. Cautiously, he followed it through the earth, seeking the other end. Something was very wrong at Hartwell House, and not only in the hearts of its inhabitants at that.

  Carstairs was so focused on his single thread, his awareness ran straight into the twisted expanse of pure, pulsating magic.

  It took all Carstairs’s training not to slam his mind s
hut. Distantly, he felt Alicia working. He knew her to be troubled, but he had to trust her to hold steady. He didn’t dare pull his senses away from the edifice.

  It was huge, almost past his ability to sense clearly. He had never felt such a complex construction. Most magic shaped by humans was simple for the Catalyst’s senses to supply meaning to. The power took on the feel of a knife, a rope, a cup, a candle, or some other plain, useful object for the Sorcerer to wield. This…this was a knot so fantastical it seemed to have neither beginning nor end. He was a sailor; he knew knots. No one tied a knot unless there was something to be secured. What in God’s name could wait in Hartwell house that needed to be so tightly secured?

  In the distance, Alicia’s draw on his power broke off. Reflexively, Edward reached for her, but the sound of his name broke his concentration.

  “…eh, Carstairs?” said Gavin Hartwell.

  Carstairs blinked and slapped his mind shut. “As you say.”

  “You’ll be staying to supper, I suppose?” Morris was filling his own glass again, and offered Carstairs the decanter. He waved it away. “I’m sure Eugenia will have a thing or two she wants to say about this affair. Shouldn’t deprive her of the chance.”

  “I’m afraid I have some business that cannot wait, sir,” said Carstairs. A normal man would have blustered at this, but Morris just shrugged, as if it was of no matter to him. Which it probably was not. Deep pity ran through Edward. This debility was none of his fault. A criminal act had been perpetrated against the Hartwell family. “Another time, perhaps?”

  “Yes, yes.” Gavin Hartwell lifted the drapes back to peer out at the garden. “All the time in the world now that the thing’s done.”

  Morris grunted his agreement and finished off his whiskey. “Alicia may stay if she wishes. She and Verity were always pretty thick, weren’t they, Gavin? Want a good gossip, I expect.”

  “Oh, yes, I suppose. Girls, you know,” said Gavin.

  “Quite so.”

  “Thank you,” said Carstairs, and he meant it, because it provided him with the perfect opportunity to escape the room. “With your permission, I’ll go speak to her about it.”