Wilful Impropriety (5 page)

“You are my greatest creation,” Smith declared, smiling proudly.

Portia bristled. No one should think themselves God. Other than, perhaps, God. Even then she thought the divine Creator was more humble than He was made out to be. He. Or
She
. Portia knew, better than anyone, how the world’s idea of someone’s true self was entirely fabricated. Mortals confined God into a gender for their own purposes. God, she imagined, could change at will,
Deus
making its own
Ex Machina
to suit its purposes, ones mortals could hardly guess.

So could she, of course. Change at will. But she—unlike Smith—didn’t think herself God. Smith qualified his statement as he took in the look on Portia’s face. She saw herself in the mirror, furious and beautiful.

“I have given you all the tools you need in this limited, polarizing age. Think of it, Nightingale—you can go out into the world as whomever you choose, however you choose. The world only knows what you want them to see. I have helped you be utterly free.”

She allowed his words to sink in.

It was true, tonight had not changed that fact.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, Smith moved forward and kissed her.

It was a tender kiss, soft and sure yet confident. Passionate. Deep.

Oh. She’d wanted a kiss.

She’d so longed for Rothie to be her first kiss, yet this was better. She loved a surprise, and this was most certainly unexpected. It could just be a ploy to get her to stay. It could just be another experiment. She didn’t care, and returned the kiss eagerly.

Smith broke away, flushed, looking rather pleased with himself, as usual. And suddenly that confidence she’d coveted seemed somehow attainable. Because she had been part of making that confidence. They were an incredible, inseparable team. And then he solidified that sentiment.

“And no matter
who
you are, or
how
you choose to be known, I will love you either way. You are wholly beautiful, and I love the
all
that you inhabit, the all of you that has no limitations. Our grand experiment has opened two cages. Our flesh is one truth, but our minds and hearts might be another. We are ingenious, fluid beings. We can change at will. Be whomever you will, only promise you’ll remain with me. I’d rather not imagine my world without you.”

She stared at him, appreciating his words, letting them fill voids and hollow places, letting them assuage her loneliness.

“Yes. I will,” she agreed. Another kiss.

She thought about demanding his name, and telling him hers. A further intimacy. She thought of again baring her naked flesh once more this night, to test him.

And then she thought better of it. She kept on kissing him instead.

His name was whatever she wanted it to be. And she would reveal herself whenever she chose to. Maybe yet tonight. Maybe next year. She was an ingenious, free creation of unlimited potential, and all the borders of the world could not vanquish such endless possibility.

At the age of sixteen, Agatha Tremain let down her skirts, pinned up her hair, and set herself to running her father’s household. Her first step was to forge her father’s signature and dismiss her hated governess. Miss Blenheim left with her perfectly straight nose held high in the air, trailing bitter premonitions of disaster like wriggling serpents in her wake.

Agatha’s second step was to teach herself magic, using the books in her father’s library as her guides.

The first time Agatha entered the library to find an introductory text, her father looked up at her with vague approval from his customary seat by the fireplace. When Sir Jasper’s eyes focused on the book she took from the shelves, though, his normally mild face darkened into anger.

“Do take great care with that work, my dear. There are no fewer than five different points of contention in his arguments, and three outright fallacies. I should hate to see you taken in by such folly.”

“I’ll take care, Papa,” Agatha promised. She came down off the wooden stepladder, brushing dust from her fingers. “I shan’t believe anything without proper evidence.”

“I’m very glad of it. But, I say . . .” Sir Jasper blinked. “I don’t mean to be rude, but are you permitted to be in here at all? I thought that creature Blaggish—Blagmire—”

“Miss Blenheim?” Agatha waited for his nod. “I sent her packing this morning. I’m old enough to look after myself now.”

“What a relief. I never could abide that woman.” He began to subside back into his chair, but an expression of sudden surprise halted him mid-movement. “Good Lord, I am hungry. Have I missed luncheon, by any chance?”

“You’ve been in here for two days, Papa.” Agatha sighed. “I’ve ordered a hot supper for you. The servants should bring it shortly.”

“Oh, good. I was afraid I might have to leave.”

Her father settled happily back into his book. Agatha pulled up a second armchair beside him. Carelessly crushing her skirts beneath her, she set her booted feet upon the footstool in front of the fire and began to read with a feeling of vast contentment.

The Tremain land was set fifteen miles out of town and nearly three miles from their closest neighbors. As a young girl, left to the sole care of Miss Blenheim and her malevolent admirer, the butler Horwick, Agatha had frequently regretted the distance. Keen-eyed adults might have been salvation to her then.

As she grew into her own, however, free of Miss Blenheim and able at last to cow Horwick into a sullen form of near submission, she realized that isolation had its benefits. With no irritating supervision, or near neighbors to gossip, Agatha was free to forget all the oppressive rules of dress and proper maidenly demeanor. After all, what were such fripperies to her?

As Miss Blenheim had explained hundreds of times over the years, Agatha’s unfortunate nose, unnaturally red hair, and general lack of grace meant she would certainly never be capable of winning any man’s heart. Only her dowry could ever appeal to a potential husband . . . and Agatha refused to ever marry any man who took her on such terms.

She understood only too well what it was to live with one who scorned everything about her; she would never repeat the experience.

With no prying eyes upon the spacious lawns of Tremain House, Agatha was free to practice her spells in perfect ease, ignoring the irrational social law that deemed the practice of magic unladylike. The only people ever to be alarmed by her experiments were a few of the weaker-spirited maidservants, and by the time that they finally fled the house, Agatha was nearly seventeen. She had learned by then to summon and control her own helping spirits, who filled their places to a nicety.

Moreover, the sight of the dark spirits moving about the house, eerily silent and obedient, miraculously transformed Horwick’s complaints from snarls of contempt to mere unintelligible muttering underneath his breath, which suited Agatha far better.

By the time Agatha turned eighteen, she had become so accustomed to her freedom that she no longer feared to lose it. So when an imperious knock sounded on the front door of Tremain House one morning, it never even occurred to her that it might be the sound of approaching doom.

In fact, engrossed in one of her more challenging experiments in her own private study, Agatha barely noticed the sounds of bustling arrival in the rest of the house. It was only when Horwick appeared, looming in her doorway, that she even recalled hearing the knock.

“Well, Horwick?” As she spoke, Agatha kept her commanding gaze fixed upon the inch-high imp who slouched on the desk before her.

This was her first attempt at multiple transformations, and by far the most complex set of spells she had ever attempted to master. The imp, who was a startling bright blue and currently engaged in making horrible faces, had begun its life as a common field mouse. If Agatha spoke every word of the spell correctly, it would next become a housecat and remain one, too, a sensible and useful addition to the household. As Agatha hadn’t yet recited the second (and intimidatingly intricate) spell, though, the imp was still enjoying its first, highly dangerous transformation. She couldn’t afford to take her eyes off it for an instant.

“What is it?” she asked impatiently.

“A caller for you, Miss Agatha,” Horwick intoned. “A
lady
caller,” he added dolefully.

“Well, tell her I can’t attend on her, for Heaven’s sake.” Agatha narrowed her eyes at the imp. It had far too mischievous a look on its blue face, almost as if it knew something she did not. Of course she did not believe that for a moment, but it made her uneasy nonetheless.

Agatha realized, with a sudden flash of irritation, that Horwick had not moved from his pose of ominous warning. “Tell whoever it is to go away,” she said. “I don’t have time to wait on some gossipy neighbor who wants to nose about the house. Get rid of her!”

“Now, my darling girl, you cannot possibly mean that.” A rich, velvety female voice spoke from the doorway, rippling with amusement. As Agatha half turned, caught by surprise, a woman wrapped in floor-length furs swept past Horwick into the study.

“Dearest Agatha. Don’t you remember me? You were only a little tiny girl when I saw you last. I’m your aunt Clarisse, finally back from Vienna. Now, take off that silly gaping look from your face, my love, before it freezes there!”

Chuckling, she patted Agatha’s face, which was stiff with shock. “My goodness, I can see you have been in need of a proper woman’s influence, haven’t you, my poor child? Oh, I’ve worried so much about you! You wouldn’t believe how many sleepless nights I’ve spent agonizing over the injustice of your situation, a beautiful young girl like you trapped out here with my absurd brother for years on end with no London season or eligible suitors in sight.”

“I don’t—”

“No, of course you needn’t worry any longer, dear. I’m here now, and I shall take marvelous care of everything. I’ve come to live with you and your father and take all the burdens from your shoulders. Now, doesn’t that sound perfectly wonderful?”

Slim, scented arms closed around Agatha. Soft fur pressed into her face and covered her eyes. The imp leaped off the desk with a yip of glee and darted toward freedom and mischievous adventure. It would undoubtedly cause nightmarish catastrophes all throughout the household, and even more of the maidservants would resign their posts.

Agatha couldn’t bring herself to worry about any of that, though. She was too overwhelmed by the far greater and more terrifying disaster that had closed her in a loving auntly embrace.

•   •   •

“My dearest Jasper.” Clarisse swept into the library ten minutes later, still draped in furs despite the heat. Agatha trailed behind her, speechless with horror. “Aren’t you utterly delighted to see me?”

“Ah . . .” Sir Jasper blinked over his book. “I say, Clarisse. Is that you?”

“Of course it is, you absurd creature. Didn’t you read my letters? I told you I would arrive today.”

“Letters?” Agatha croaked.

As a matter of course, she read every letter that arrived for her father. It was a question of necessity rather than interference, as his post piled up on every available surface otherwise, ignored for years as their estate accounts languished. She had learned to pass on only those notes to which he was likely to pay attention—fat packets of argumentation from scholars in Germany and the Netherlands, written in spidery scrawls with every line crossed twice as they fiercely debated the most abstract theories of magic.

Estate management and personal gossip were both equally tedious to Sir Jasper, and Agatha had learned long ago that it was best to simply forge his signature on any checks, business letters, or notes of polite regret that had to be posted on his behalf.

“Oh, I sent piles of letters.” Aunt Clarisse smiled ruefully. “How could I help myself, missing home and family as I did all these long years?”

Agatha said, “They never arrived.”

“Those dreadful continental mail carriers!” Clarisse shook her head sadly. “But never mind that. I’m here now, at last. And of course, our first order of business must be your social debut.”

“My
what
?” said Agatha.

“But what else, my dear? Jasper, I am ashamed of you.” Her furs rippled as she made a moue of disapproval at him. “It’s one thing to bury yourself down here for years on end, but to bury your young and”—she glanced Agatha up and down, managing to look both skeptical and kindly at the same time—“not
entirely
unattractive young daughter along with you? There is that nose, of course—and that dreadful hair—but a multitude of sins can be concealed by her dowry. Still, how in Heaven’s name is she to find a husband and home of her own out here in the wilds?”

“This is my home,” said Agatha.

“Nonsense,” Clarisse said. “Every young girl dreams of an establishment of her own and a husband to give her status in Society. I shall launch you upon London immediately. We must thank our blessings that the season is not yet over. Jasper, all that I require from you is your checkbook—but if you don’t immediately surrender it to me, I promise I shall nag you unmercifully for weeks until you give in.”