Stronger Than Magic, page 16
It wasn’t until Bart scampered to his side and slipped his mitten-clad hand in his to administer his childish brand of comfort that he understood their change of demeanor. By the expression of tender pride reflected on every face, it was clear that their feelings had nothing to do with money, and everything to do with his charity toward Bart.
Completely baffled, Lucian dropped his gaze from his smiling servants to the small boy looking up at him with big, adoring eyes. That something as seemingly insignificant as an act of kindness could reap such enormous rewards was almost too incredible to believe. Especially when that act was one that brought him such extraordinary pleasure.
“Careful there, milord,” cautioned the footman on his left, fortifying his support as he eased him over a particularly slippery patch of ice in front of the coach door.
Lucian glanced up to meet his gaze, smiling. “Thank you, Dinsmore.” Just the look of pleasure wreathing the man’s face made the trouble he’d gone to to learn the servants’ names worthwhile.
As he waited for one of the other footmen, Cutler, if he remembered correctly, to open the door, Bart gave his hand one final squeeze and then, with visible reluctance, started to pull away. Smiling gently down at the boy’s wistful face, he tightened his own grasp to stay him.
“Would you do me the honor of riding in my traveling chariot with me, young man?” he inquired. “I find that my ankle hardly hurts at all when you hold my hand like this.” And it was true. As distracted as he was by the joyous feelings warming his heart, he barely noticed his injury.
Like Dinsmore, Bart’s face lit up as if illuminated by a hundred candles. “I’ll ’old it all the way to Sussex, milord, and with pleasure,” he exclaimed with a fervency that left no doubt that he would do as exactly as he promised.
Lucian was about to respond when he noticed that Alys had wandered over to the edge of the road where Clayton and the groom were attempting to calm his furiously kicking and bucking stallion. From where he stood, he could see that she was frowning. It only took a second for him to realize that she wasn’t frowning at his seemingly possessed horse, but at the road. He groaned inwardly when in the next instant her lips began to move
Bloody hell! Alys was babbling to her imaginary friend again. Clenching his teeth against his pain as the footmen helped him step into the coach, he vowed to somehow banish—what was his name again? Hmm. Ah yes. Hedley. He’d banish Hedley back into the realm of Alys’s imagination from whence he’d sprung.
At that moment, Alys herself would have heartily agreed to banish Hedley, preferably to somewhere far far away. “You could have gotten his lordship killed with your stupid tricks,” she hissed, gesturing to the maddened horse whose mane and tail were being mercilessly tweaked by a pair of giggling pixies.
The hob sullenly stabbed at the snow with one of his two stumpy toes. “Don’t ye be giving me the evil eye. Ain’t my fault that the pixies attacked Lord Tight Arse’s horse.”
“Oh, really?” she intoned, raising her eyebrows in a show of sardonic disbelief.
“Oh, really,” he echoed, “and ye ain’t got no evidence proving that I had anything to do with it.”
“Don’t I? If I’m not mistaken that’s Beacon tangled in the horse’s mane,”—she nodded at the tiny, green-clad man kicking at the animal’s neck—“and Scur swinging from his tail.” Her head shifted to indicate the mischief-maker’s identically attired companion. “Both who are, if I recall correctly, friends of yours.”
Hedley’s beady-eyed gaze shifted guiltily from her face to the hole he was digging with his toe. “So? That don’t prove a thing.”
“It most certainly does. Those two are Kent wood pixies, and I happen to know that we’re in Surrey.”
“So?”
Bracing her hands on her hips to glare down at him in a manner reminiscent of Charlotte scolding Lucian, she rebuked, “You must think me a complete fool if you believe that after five hundred years I don’t know that wood pixies never leave their own forests without specific instructions to do so. They most certainly don’t go about bedeviling horses in foreign woods unless, of course, that is the mission that drew them there in the first place.”
Hedley sniffed. “So?”
“So, since you’re the only other world folk I know who bears ill will toward Lucian, who else could be responsible? I can assure you that there isn’t a single fairy in England who would dare play such a hazardous prank on Aengus’s reborn son for the sake of their own amusement.” When he didn’t reply, she demanded, “Well?”
By now the hole in the snow was large enough to encompass his entire foot. “Just wanted to teach him a lesson for calling me a bloody damn cock-and-bull tale,” he grumbled without looking up.
“Teaching Lord Thistlewood is my job, not yours,” she pointed out severely. “Your duty is to assist me, and right now I demand that you do so by sending your friends back to Kent.”
He slanted her a mutinous glower.
She tossed down her trump card. “Either you do as I say, or I shall be forced to summon Allura and have her report to Aengus that you almost got his son killed again. I also expect you to promise to refrain from playing such dangerous tricks in the future.”
The hob actually looked alarmed by her threat. “Dinna mean to hurt the pompous clodpate, just embarrass him,” he mumbled, kicking snow into the hole.
“Unfortunately you succeeded on both counts. Now—”
“Alys!”
Alys sighed and looked over to where Lucian was leaning out the coach door, impatiently gesturing for her to return to the vehicle. “Coming!” she shouted back. Returning her gaze to Hedley, she ordered, “Now send those pixies back to Kent, and do it now.”
While Hedley ran in circles around the frenzied stallion, shouting something in a fairy language she didn’t understand, Alys stripped off her kid gloves and knelt down. By the time she’d finished stuffing the gloves with clean white snow, the pixies had disappeared and the horse, though shaking and lathered, was calm. After ordering the hob to ride with her so she could keep an eye on him, she returned to the waiting coach.
Compared to the biting cold outside, the interior of the conveyance was warm, deliciously so. Lucian, minus his boot and stocking, was settled in the seat opposite Charlotte with his injured ankle propped up on her lap. Next to him, Bart sat patting and stroking his hand like a doting mother soothing her fitful child. And curled up beneath their seat mumbling something, probably insults about her, was the sulking Hedley.
As Alys slipped into the seat next to Charlotte, the woman looked up from examining her brother’s ankle to inquire, “Whatever were you doing out there? I was beginning to worry that you’d frozen to death.”
Alys held up her snow-filled gloves. “I was making ice packs for Lucian’s’ ankle. I thought they might help numb the pain.”
“As if my leg isn’t cold enough,” Lucian muttered, casting a jaundiced eye at her offering.
“Oh, stop being such an ingrate, Luc. I think it was very sweet of Alys to sacrifice her gloves to make you the packs,” Charlotte admonished unsympathetically. “And if anyone has call to whine about the cold, it’s she. Why, just look at her poor hands.” She lifted the appendages in question from Alys’s lap to chafe between her warm palms. “They’re like blocks of ice from digging in the snow.”
To Alys’s astonishment, Lucian didn’t make one of his derogatory noises, nor did he shower her with dark scowls. No. After viewing her thoughtfully for a moment or two, he smiled faintly. “You’re absolutely right, Lottie. It was considerate of her.” His smile widening into one of heart-stopping beauty, he shifted his smoky gaze to Alys, murmuring, “Thank you.”
Alys stared back, too overwhelmed by his magnificence to reply. Scowling, he’d been a handsome man; smiling, he was a devastating one. Bowing her head to hide the heated flush she felt creeping across her face, she somehow managed to croak, “You’re welcome. W-would you like me to apply the—um—packs for you?”
“If you would be so kind. Yes.”
It was then that she glanced at his injury. “Oh, Lucian!” she wailed, gently touching his angrily swollen ankle. “How awful! Are you sure it’s not broken?”
“Positive.” He wiggled his toes to demonstrate, though the display made him wince. “It looks much worse than it is. I can assure you that it shall be completely healed in a few days.”
Alys eyed him dubiously. “How can you be so certain?”
“I had two similar injuries during the war, though neither,” he justified wryly, “was caused by a spill from a horse.”
“So why were you thrown this time?” Charlotte cut in. “You haven’t lost control of a horse since you were, Oh—” She indicated a very small child with her hands.
“I don’t know. One minute Clayton and I were”—he sucked in a hissing breath as Alys laid the packs over his damaged ankle—“trotting along discussing Lord Conaway’s prime new cattle. In the next instant, Charlemagne reared up and dashed off in a mad frenzy. If I were prone to superstition, I’d say that the animal was possessed.”
“Superstitious or not, it wouldn’t hurt to use a rowan switch instead of a crop the next time you ride that overgrown brute,” Charlotte declared, tucking a woolen lap robe over Alys’s handiwork to keep the uninjured parts of his bare foot and lower leg warm.
Lucian looked at her as if she were as deranged as his horse. “Why should I do a thing like that?”
“Don’t you remember Lady Tremaine?” she countered.
His brow furrowed. “Lady Tremaine?”
“Oh! Of course you don’t remember her. How foolish of me. You were just a baby when father gave her to me,” Charlotte replied, giving his leg an apologetic pat. “Lady Tremaine was my very first pony. I received her as a gift for my fourth birthday. To make a long story short, she turned out to be an exceedingly wicked beast, biting anyone who came within arm’s length of her and bucking me off every chance she got. Father was seriously considering putting her down when Nurse Spratling suggested that I use a rowan switch to discipline her instead of a crop. She said that rowan switches drive out evil spirits and control bewitched horses.”
“Did it work?” Bart piped in, his small face screwed up in an expression of complete mystification.
Charlotte grinned and winked at him. “Like a charm. Two whops on her rump, and she became the most obedient horse in the stable.”
Predictably enough, Lucian was incredulous. “Rowan branches? Evil spirits and bewitched horses? Bah! Superstitious stuff and nonsense. Next you’ll be telling me to tuck a four-leaf clover in my hat and dance around a fairy ring.”
“You do that only if you wish to see fairies,” Alys impulsively corrected him.
He transferred his disdainful gaze from his sister to her. “Oh? And what would you have me do? Sprinkle my horse with holy water and have the pope spit in its eyes?”
Alys bristled at his sneering tone. “Of course not. Now you’re being completely ridiculous.”
“Ah. Let us heed the voice of sanity,” he mumbled, just barely loud enough to be heard.
“Really, Luc. Just because you’re in a foul mood from falling from your horse gives you no call to be rude,” Charlotte chided. Fixing her brother with a condemning look, she said, “Please do tell us what you would do about the horse, Alys. I find the subject of spells and charms exceedingly fascinating.”
Lucian snorted and closed his eyes as if the whole topic induced him to nap.
Alys shrugged. “Simple. I’d hang an iron bell around its neck.”
Charlotte looked intrigued. “Why a bell?”
“The problem with Lucian’s horse isn’t evil spirits, but mischievous pixies. Wood pixies to be exact. And fairy folk hate both iron and bells.”
That drew another snort, a softer one, from Lucian.
Which Charlotte ignored. “I remember Nurse Spratling mentioning their dislike of iron … but bells?” She shook her head. “Why do they hate bells?”
“Because they associate the ringing of bells with churches. Fairies are terrified of God and anything that has to do with him.”
Bewilderment creased Charlotte’s brow as she absorbed that bit of information. “They fear God? How very odd!”
“Why’d anyone be ’fraid of God?” Bart quizzed, his expression mirroring Charlotte’s.
“According to legend, the very first fairies were angels who were cast out of heaven,” Alys explained, glancing from woman to child. “As a result of being shunned by God, they have no immortal souls and anything related to religion reminds them of that dreadful fact.”
“I can’t say that I blame them,” Charlotte commented with a delicate shudder. “How singularly terrible not to have the hope of heaven.”
Bart seemed to consider Alys’s explanation for a moment, then blurted out, “Why’d God toss ’em out? Whar they so awful wicked?”
Alys smiled at his youthful curiosity. “They weren’t exactly wicked, Bart. Their crime was that they let themselves be beguiled by Satan. Now while beguilement didn’t make them bad enough for hell, they certainly weren’t good enough to remain in heaven. So God cast them all to the earth. Wherever they were when heaven’s gates closed was where they were forced to remain forever. That explains why some fairies live in the air, while others in trees, water, or even in the bowels of the earth.”
“If fairies ain’t good ’nough to go to ’eaven, or wicked ’nough for ’ell, wot ’appens to ’em when they die?” Bart inquired solemnly.
“Instead of souls, they have what they call fairy essence. When it runs out, usually after about a thousand years, they simply fade away and cease to be.”
That last explanation drew a derogatory noise from Lucian. “I wish those ridiculous legends would follow suit and disappear as well.” Opening his eyes to shoot Alys a look of pure irritation, he grumbled, “Now if it isn’t asking too much, could we please change the subject? It’s bad enough knowing that I shall probably have to endure the Thistlewood tenants’ fairy tomfoolery without having more of the same inflicted on me all the way there.”
“You see,” Charlotte began, her lips twitching with suppressed amusement as she turned to Alys. “The tenants believe that Lucian is one of our ancestors, a knight named Lucan from the thirteenth or fourteenth century who—”
“She’s already read the tale,” Lucian rudely cut her off. “So why don’t we close the tedious subject by simply saying that my tenants believe me to be Lucan come back to save his soul.”
“A belief which will probably strengthen to certainty when you show up with a lovely young lady named Alys,” Charlotte pointed out with a chuckle. “I don’t doubt that their minds will have you two married and your soul saved before the end of our visit.”
Lucian looked as shocked as Alys felt at the notion of a marriage between them. Not that being wed to him would be so awful, she mused, lowering her eyelashes to add stealth to her gaze as she appreciatively scrutinized his elegant face and form. No, not awful at all. Just impossible.
Clearly Lucian thought the idea not only impossible, but distasteful to the extreme, for he was quick to retort, “Even my tenants, as fanciful as they are at times, aren’t jingle-brained enough to think that Alys would ever suit me.”
For some reason, his brusque intimation that he could never in any way be attracted to her stung Alys more than she would ever have believed. Not, of course, that she wanted him to view her as a possible bride. It was just that she found it disheartening to the extreme to be perceived as unworthy by a man to whom she was admittedly attracted. It shook her faith in herself, making her seriously wonder if, despite Charlotte’s frequent reassurances to the contrary, she was lacking not only in appearance, but in character and demeanor.
Her mood suddenly as deflated as if someone had punched a hole in her spirit and drained out her happiness, Alys sighed. Ah well. What did it really matter what the haughty Lord Thistlewood thought of her anyway? He would soon be happily wed to Miss Castell, and she would be free to find a man with less exacting standards.
Or maybe not. Somehow the thought of wedding and bedding a man who wasn’t Lucian left her feeling nothing short of miserable. If possible her spirits depressed a fraction more. That she desired Lucian was a dismal truth that was growing more and more impossible to deny as the days sped by.
But I shall deny it! she vowed, straightening her spine with resolution. Not that she had any choice in the matter. Even if she dared to act upon her feelings, which she didn’t, Lucian had made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in her save getting her married and off his hands. It was remembering his matchmaking plans for her that reminded her of her own for him.
With a determination born of hopelessness, she savagely shoved aside her futile desires and abruptly asked Charlotte, “Would you finish telling me who will be attending the house party?” The sooner she matched Lucian, the sooner she could get away from him and the unsettling emotions he roused within her.
“I assume that you have no objections to us discussing the party?” Charlotte in turn asked Lucian, her voice edged in sarcasm.
In an imperious display of boredom, he tipped his head against the petit-point squab and closed his eyes, muttering, “Be my guest.”
At his less than gracious consent, Charlotte retrieved her list from the coach floor and began to read. When she laid the paper down a half hour later, Alys couldn’t help frowning.
“Why, you looked distressed, dear,” Charlotte observed. “Is there someone on the list you find displeasing?”
Lucian’s eyes slitted open to join his sister in her interrogative scrutiny.
Alys shook her head, her mind searching frantically for a diplomatic way in which to question the exclusion of Miss Castell.
“Then what is the matter?” Charlotte prodded gently. “Did you perhaps think of a friend you might like us to invite?”
