Susan Spencer Paul - [Enchanter 01] (12 page)

“I see,” Niclas said with a nod, taking the boy’s hand in greeting as he politely stood. “You’ve no family to help you, then? No brothers or sisters? Your parents are both gone?”

The boy nodded and looked as if he might start to weep—again, Niclas noted, for it was clear by his reddened eyes that he’d been doing a good deal of it already.

“My mother died last year. I’ve just buried my father two days past.” The last few words came out in a whisper.

So that was it, the source of his pain. But there was something more, too. Niclas could feel it.

“I’m terribly sorry for your loss,” he murmured, taking the boy’s arm and pulling him back down into his chair even as he, himself, sat, placing himself between Julia and the lad. “I perceive that your father’s death has meant some trouble with your farm?”

“It’s my trouble, sir,” the boy said miserably. “I shouldn’t be speaking of it, especially not to such a fine lady and gentleman. It’s not right that you should even take notice of me.”

He looked to be about seventeen. So incredibly young. Niclas had lost his own father when he’d been only a year older, and remembered very well how alone and bewildered he’d felt.

But the boy was calmer now; he was still filled with despair, aye, but not thinking of a way to end that despair.

Niclas tried to concentrate on this one person’s feelings and not the myriad others tiding toward him. None of them was so important as this, or so desperate. He saw Julia’s bare hands folded politely on the tabletop and longed to touch them and find peace.

Alexander Larter. Focus. He could help this boy. He could help to soothe the despair. If he could only focus.

And then he could. Julia had reached out to touch his hand in order to gain his attention, and before she could pull away he’d clapped his other hand over it, trapping her.

Her eyes widened a little, but she didn’t try to pull away. Clearing her throat, she said, in the same light tone she’d used before, “Mister Larter has discovered that his father left his estate in debt. And he has no close relatives to turn to for help and advice. He’s just this morning had to send away the couple who worked on the farm—an elderly couple who were very like family to him.”

Julia Linley was a miracle, he decided, deeply enjoying the quiet that her touch gifted him with. She possessed the best magic he’d ever come across in his life—and considering his life, that was saying a great deal.

“It’s a terrible shame, is it not, Mister Seymour?”

“Yes,” he said, gazing into her lovely face and thinking of how pleasant it was to look at a beautiful woman and be able to concentrate solely on her without the usual distractions. “It is.”

Her hand pressed slightly within his grasp, recalling him to his senses.

“Yes,” he said more firmly, turning again to Alexander Larter, who had once more covered his face with his hands. “It is. Now I want you to tell me everything, Mister Larter. I have a problem at the moment, too, and I believe I may have a solution that will benefit both of us.”

He truly was a kind man, Julia thought half an hour later as Niclas Seymour handed her into his carriage. He had managed the situation perfectly, making Alexander Larter believe that he would be doing him a great favor by accepting both his monetary assistance and the help of a few fine fellows who were in want of work in exchange for a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. She knew very well, of course, that Niclas Seymour would secretly be paying their wages. And he had insisted that the elderly couple return to Mister Larter’s farm at his expense, as well, for all those fine young fellows would require a great deal of food and care, and someone must be there to provide it for them.

It had all been managed so quickly and easily that she was certain he must have done it many times before.

Her only question, which she kept to herself as she folded her skirts about her legs, was whether he always did so holding someone’s hand as tightly as he’d held hers.

“We should be in Coventry before dark,” he said before shutting the door. “Are you quite comfortable now, Jane? The pain is gone, is it not?”

“Oh, yes, thank you, sir,” Jane replied, leaning forward to look him in the face. “I do apologize for the delay.”

He smiled at her warmly. “Except for your discomfort, I’m glad of it,” he said. “I would have spared you that, if I could, but I cannot be sorry now for stopping.” He looked at Julia and held her gaze. “It was,” he said, “quite an unexpected pleasure.”

I
s everything ready?”

“Quite ready, sir.”

“Then I suppose we should go down.”

“Yes, sir. I believe Miss Linley is waiting.”

Niclas surveyed his image in the mirror, thinking back to the last moment when he’d spent so much time and care on his appearance. It had only been three nights past, before the Dubrow ball. It seemed like much, much longer.

He wished he possessed more modern clothes. Except for the one fine outfit that Malachi had sent him—which definitely was not suitable outside a formal setting—his wardrobe was years out of date. But that was his just due for growing so careless of what anyone thought of him. Now, when he cared too much, he had nothing at hand to impress the lone person whose good opinion he craved.

God help him, he was nigh on infatuated with the woman. Which was terrible. Unwise. Completely wrong in every way. But unavoidable. He might have been born
into an odd family, but his heart was perfectly normal, and just as vulnerable and unruly as any other man’s.

But it was harder for him, because even above her beauty and intellect and wit, which were sufficiently dazzling, was her ability to give him peace—something that no one had ever been able to give him before. Certainly no woman: other women filled his mind with their emotions, and his female relatives made him insane with their antics.

Julia Linley did neither. She was as clean and sweet to him as fresh air might be to a coal miner coming out into the new morning after hours of being entombed in darkness and dust. Even now he felt the anticipation of being with her again, of being in the company of a beautiful woman without having all her emotions distracting his thoughts. Just as other men did. She made him feel so... normal.

The question he still couldn’t answer was, Why? How could she only be a Linley and yet possess powers akin to magical families? She would know—she must know—what her powers were. Yet she gave no sign of such understanding.

And there was something more. She had said this afternoon that she had a gift with words, and he had assumed that she’d meant in a natural, human sense. But now, thinking upon it, he wasn’t so sure. Among his kind were those who had been born with the gift of persuasion; it was rare, granted, and usually only fell once in a generation, yet it wasn’t impossible that she should possess such a power.

He’d seen her wielding it with Alexander Larter that very afternoon. She’d held the lad completely within her sway, drawing him out of despair and into hope. By the
time they’d left the inn, young Larter had actually been smiling and making plans for his future. Niclas knew full well that the boy’s transformation had very little to do with the small aid he was providing, and a great deal to do with Miss Linley’s enticing speeches.

They had left the young man full of hope, while Niclas had been plunged into even greater bewilderment. Was he on a fool’s errand? And what, precisely, was he getting himself into by becoming involved with someone who possessed unknown magic?

He was going to uncover the mystery of Miss Julia Linley now, before their journey continued, so that he would at least know what he was dealing with, and to that purpose, he had a plan. Not a very good plan, but a plan, nonetheless. He was simply going to ask her straight out whether she was of his kind. If she feigned shock, he’d know. If she
was
shocked . . . well, he had a plan for that, too. Thanks to Malachi and his forgetting powder.

“Do you have it, then?”

“Yes, sir. I have it here. Are you quite certain you wish to take it with you?”

Niclas looked at Abercraf’s reflection in the mirror. He felt just how anxious the older man was, and was in complete sympathy with him. It was always a tricky business using one of Malachi’s powders or potions in public places. Discovery by others at the inn would be disastrous; Niclas would probably have to toss powder at every single occupant in order to make certain no one could remember. Gad, what a thought.

“What I would like to do is throw it down a high cliff, or into a well, or out to the middle of a very large lake—but that would never serve.”

“No,” Abercraf agreed. “Someone would find it, I fear.”

“
They
would find it,” Niclas said. “Faeries. Or, worse, brownies. And then they’d tell Malachi, and I don’t even want to think of what would happen after that.”

“He is the
Dewin Mawr
, sir. The great sorcerer. They’ve no choice but to do his bidding. For my own part, I shall rest much easier once we’ve crossed into Wales, knowing they’re keeping their eyes on us.”

“They’re not all to be trusted, Abercraf,” Niclas warned. “Bear that in mind. Now, the powder.”

“Here it is, sir.”

Abercraf handed Niclas the velvet pouch, and they both gazed at it soberly.

“How much should I use?” Niclas asked. He had very little experience with Malachi’s mixtures, excepting the potions he’d drunk since the curse, and no experience at all with forgetting powders. “How much will she forget? I don’t want to erase her entire memory.” He looked up at Abercraf, who only shook his head. “Why didn’t I ask him for specifics? Oh, gad,” he said as realization dawned. “I can’t use it without knowing what the effects will be. The wrong dose and she might forget everything she knows—even her name.” He held the bag back toward the manservant. “I can’t take it. Put it away where it will be entirely safe.”

Abercraf obediently took the bag, but held it back out to his employer. “I do apologize, sir, but I can’t think there’s any other choice open to you. If Miss Linley is, indeed, of magic blood, then all will be well and good. But if she is not, it will be even more necessary that she be made to forget. And consider, too, sir, that if she shouldn’t
be what you believe, she might very well become alarmed by the revelations you must necessarily make. We wouldn’t want her fainting. Or worse.”

“Aye, she might scream,” Niclas said consideringly, then came to his senses. “No she wouldn’t. Miss Linley is a calm and sensible young woman. Did you see her at the inn this afternoon? She didn’t so much as turn a hair in dealing with young Mister Larter. No, our trouble with Miss Linley would be alarm and confusion, possibly trying to run away, but not fainting or screaming.” He absently rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think so, at least. Oh, very well, give the accursed powder back to me, then.” He stuffed the pouch into a convenient pocket. “I shall both look and feel a fool trying to get it out without her seeing, should I need it, and only a complete boor would throw something into a lady’s face. Especially a forgetting powder.”

“I’ll strive to remain in the room as much as possible,” Abercraf said, reaching to straighten the folds of Niclas’s cravat. “I would advise only a pinch to start. A small pinch.”

“Yes, that seems best,” Niclas agreed. “I suppose I can make additions if she appears to remember too much.”

“And sir,” Abercraf added more delicately, “there is one more subject that, though I am loath to mention it, I believe you must discuss with Miss Linley.”

Niclas already knew what his manservant was referring to; he’d been trying very hard not to think about it since they’d left the Hound and Hare.

“I should never mention such a thing without very good cause, sir,” Abercraf went on, “but you were holding her hand, in public view, for a great length of time and, although
your reasons might be perfectly sensible to those of us who understand extraordinary powers, the common world views such matters with certain . . . expectations.”

“God help me, I know.”

Abercraf had understated the matter. For a gentleman of birth to be so familiar, in public, with a lady of birth was, in the eyes of the ton, the closest thing to an outright declaration of betrothal. Except far worse, for a betrothed couple possessed of even the slightest amount of good breeding wouldn’t be so vulgar as to hold hands in a public place.

“I don’t know what came over me to lose every shred of common sense in such a dismal manner. Not even the weariness can account for such a foolish lapse. I suppose she’ll be expecting a proposal of marriage now.”

For a fleeting moment Niclas tried to imagine what marriage to Miss Linley would be like, and was surprised to find the idea rather appealing. Unfortunately, unless he was able to lift the curse, marriage to anyone was impossible. He’d managed to maintain his sanity during three years of sleeplessness, but he could not forever stave off a slide into madness. Only a cruel or unspeakably selfish man would bind a woman to himself, knowing what kind of suffering she had to look forward to.

“Not if you can explain, sir,” Abercraf said encouragingly. “Society may feel differently, but if Miss Linley is possessed of magic then she’ll understand, and forbear.”

“Yes,” Niclas said, tamping down a sense of unease. “And if she doesn’t possess magic, then what? Never mind.” He cut the other man off impatiently. “Let’s not delay the matter. Miss Linley must be wondering whether I’ve forgotten her entirely.”

“Hurry, Jane,” Julia pleaded. “Mister Seymour will think I’ve forgotten him. He must have been waiting for well over a quarter of an hour.”

“I don’t believe he’s left his room yet, miss,” Jane said calmly, deftly looping a few last strands of hair into a curl. “You have enough time to finish dressing.”

Julia gazed at her reflection and felt, not for the first time that night, a stab of panic.

“I’m overdressed,” she told Jane. “This is a very nice inn, but it is an inn, nonetheless. And Mister Seymour and I are not sitting down to a formal dinner. I’m terribly overdressed.”

Jane smiled. “You look beautiful. Mister Seymour will be pleased.”