The Lord of Stariel

by A J Lancaster

  “This is impressive,” Marius admitted as he came to stand next to her. Marius’s concession to the festive season had been to wear a smart suit of green velvet and pin a sprig of holly to his coat. He looked more cheerful than she’d seen him in some time.

  “Thank you. Although I’m not sure I appreciate the faint note of surprise in your voice. Where is everybody?” She’d come into the village earlier in order to make her preparations.

  He laughed, the sound a welcome one that made her even more determined to shield him from the malice of his once-paramour. Marius hadn’t laughed enough lately.

  “Are you fishing for compliments?” he said cheerfully, joining arms with her. “Very well: I admit I had no idea you were capable of something like this. It’s rather marvellous.” He beamed up at the floating lamps. “Are those based on the ones over Riverset Bridge?”

  “Yes.” Hetta wrinkled her nose. “But I didn’t think anyone would recognise them.” She stared up at them thoughtfully. “To be honest, I’ll own I didn’t know I was capable of something of this magnitude either. I think you were right before, about Stariel giving a boost to Valstar magic.”

  Marius steered her along the stalls to the northern edge of the green. She could see her half-sisters and Lady Phoebe setting out their own offerings for the Faire next to Cook’s goods. They had made up a number of sweet-smelling decorations: wire-bound heart-shapes caging cinnamon quills, star anise, dried orange rind, and pine cones.

  They walked a circuit of the green, which had become a warren of narrow walkways between stalls. The locals greeted them cheerfully—Marius as one of their own, Hetta a little more cautiously. Marius bought an intricate wooden puzzle—“For Laurel,” he explained at Hetta’s questioning look—as well as a number of other little gifts, most of which Hetta was relatively certain he bought only to please the stall keepers.

  “You’re a soft touch,” she teased after he’d purchased an extremely ugly sculpture made of bent spoons from an enthusiastic old woman.

  He waggled a finger at her. “Now, now, I expect you to show proper appreciation when you open your gift. After all, you wouldn’t want to offend me or the maker.”

  It was good to see his spirits somewhat lifted. “I’m sure I can find a dark cabinet somewhere to display it as it deserves.”

  He smiled, but then abruptly stiffened as he caught sight of something further down the row. She followed his gaze to locate the cause and saw a blond man, perhaps Hetta’s age, well-dressed, and good-looking. Marius’s reaction made it easy enough to hazard a guess as to this person’s identity, so she squeezed his arm and said:

  “You’re a very poor escort, for you haven’t purchased me any mulled wine and I’m half-frozen.” The mulled wine stall was in the opposite direction to Marius’s troublesome ex-lover.

  Marius started. All the humour of the few seconds previous had been stripped from his expression. “What?”

  “Go and get me some mulled wine, dolt. In fact, you should make sure Phoebe and the others have some as well. I’ll find you at their stall.” She gave him a gentle push in that direction.

  “Oh—oh, yes. Of course.” It was indicative of his distraction that he didn’t quarrel with her summarily ordering him about.

  Hetta waited until he was safely disposed of and then turned her attention back to the blond man. He didn’t look much like a blackmailer. Nature had bestowed upon him a round, innocent face and fair complexion that made him look younger than he probably was. His expression, however, was at odds with his features. He was staring in the direction Marius had gone with narrow-eyed speculation. She saw the moment he realised she was watching him, for surprise and then swift calculation flickered in him before he composed himself.

  He began to make his way towards her along the row of stalls. What course of action would be best of those available to her here and now? She didn’t want him to think she took him seriously enough to pay attention to him. But on the other hand, she was curious about the efficacy of Wyn’s spell, and she wanted to take the measure of this man who’d caused her brother so much grief.

  She loitered in the space between two stalls, pretending to be very interested in the decorations on the evergreen there, and watched out of the corner of her eye as the man approached. She wished that Marius had shared his name with her—it seemed ridiculous to keep thinking of him only as ‘the blond man’.

  “Miss Valstar,” he said when he drew near. “Forgive me.” His accent was Southern and polished. Hetta didn’t know where he and Marius had met, but the accent made her wonder if it hadn’t been something to do with his Knoxbridge friends.

  She made sure to take a long moment to turn. When she did, she treated him to an icy stare and spoke down her nose at him. The Valstar nose was particularly good for this sort of aloof expression, owing to its generous length.

  He was even better looking up close, though also shorter than she’d expected, his perfect proportions misleading. His beauty was only dimmed by the fact that he was clearly extremely aware of it. Oh, Marius, she thought despairingly. You should know better than to fall for a pretty pair of blue eyes.

  “Yes?” she asked coldly. “You are?”

  He faltered in the face of this chilly reception but rallied quickly. “My name is John Tidwell. You do not know me, but I am acquainted with—” And here he frowned.

  “Acquainted with?” she pressed, fascinated to see the binding spell in action. She wondered if he would find a way to refer to Marius, but if there was a loophole, he couldn’t seem to locate it.

  His brows drew together, and he flushed angrily. “The matter I wrote to you about,” he burst out. She didn’t think he’d intended to refer to his blackmail attempt so directly, but frustration had clearly overcome discretion.

  “The matter you wrote to me about?” She made sure to sound puzzled.

  “The matter that I’m sure you would not wish to be publicly known!” he said, then softened his voice. “I am sorry—I am overwrought. It is a very distressing matter, concerning as it does—” He frowned again as his words vanished on him.

  “You wrote that rather spiteful note to me,” she said flatly.

  He affected an aggrieved expression, which she had to admit he did well. He had the right sort of face for it. “I do not at all wish to air the matter in the court of public opinion—as I’m sure you do not. The family’s reputation—”

  “I think you’d be extremely foolish to try,” she told him. “Since I hardly see how you can do so without dragging your own reputation into it.”

  He gave an elegant shrug. “But I am not a local, Miss Valstar. What do I care what people say of me in the North?” His expression became guileless, his beauty piercing as an arrow, giving him an air of fragile naïveté. “And besides, I am but a remorseful victim, seeking protection from the law. No blame will fall on me for trusting—” He frowned as he lost his voice again.

  But she’d heard enough. She could see exactly how he would play the situation, how he would use that boyish face, how Marius’s status as a lord’s son would be turned against him until he became a kind of monster preying on innocent youths. Or how he would if he wasn’t spelled to prevent him from doing so, she thought with satisfaction. She cut him off with a sharp movement of her hand.

  “As you seem intent on speaking incoherent nonsense to me, I will say good day to you. I don’t wish to receive any more notes. And if I see you again, I’ll report you myself for harassment.” She turned and walked briskly away from him with great satisfaction. If John Tidwell had ever felt any real emotion for her brother, she’d eat her hat.

  Her satisfaction dimmed as she replayed his words. “Miss Valstar” he’d called her. Was that merely a slip from someone unused to the way Northern titles worked, or did he know she wasn’t Stariel’s lord in truth? Marius had been convinced that his paramour had nothing to do with the theft of the Stone, but did they really know that for sure? She shouldn’t have been so hasty to d
ismiss the man. If he had the real Star Stone, then perhaps it would be worth paying him in order to reacquire it. She rebelled at the thought; she didn’t wish the man who’d hurt her brother to benefit by a single penny. But I have to think of more than just my own preferences, she reminded herself. Even if they told the rest of the family how things were, it would still take time to make a new Star Stone, assuming they could find enough star indigo; time in which Stariel would be vulnerable. It would be better if they could locate the old one.

  She blew out a long breath to steel herself and turned back to confront John Tidwell again.

  36

  Mulled Wine

  Mr John Tidwell had disappeared. Hetta’s dismissal, unfortunately, had been every bit as effective as she’d desired. Drat. She shouldn’t have let her temper get the better of her.

  “If looks could kill, we’d have a bloodbath on our hands,” Angus’s voice said from behind her, and she whirled around to face him. “Whatever has offended you so, Hetta?”

  “Oh, it was nothing of moment.” She waved the question away. He tilted his head, a faintly inquiring look in his eyes.

  “Clearly, then, you are vexed because no one has fetched you a glass of mulled wine.” He held out his arm invitingly, and after a small internal debate, she took it.

  She’d feared that her next meeting with Angus would be excruciatingly awkward, but he seemed to be taking pains to put her at ease. He told her an amusing anecdote about one of his sisters, followed up with an invitation from said sister—“For she’s not seen you in an age, and company is thin on the ground here in this season”—and all in all managed to avoid referring to the fact that she’d rejected his proposal only a week before. He found her a glass of mulled wine, which made her spare a half-irritated, half-amused thought for Marius, who’d failed in the same task.

  They walked the rows, and Hetta found herself in the unusual state of not knowing quite what she ought to do. She liked Angus, but she’d tried not to think too much about his proposal in the last few days. She’d told herself she wanted to see what happened between them after she revealed herself as a false lord, but was that true? Assuming the scandal didn’t change Angus’s mind, did she see any chance of a serious future between them? And it would be a very serious future indeed—there had been a few meaningful remarks from her family already reminding her that there were still certain expectations of young, unmarried women from ‘the right sort of family’. Angus’s proposal shouldn’t have blindsided Hetta, but she’d grown too used to the freedom to be had as a person of anonymous background amongst the radically liberal theatre crowd. There was no room here for any more flirtation, if she wasn’t serious. So—was she?

  No, she thought with sudden and surprising certainty. I think I just got carried away with getting so much attention from the object of my teenage infatuation. But it wasn’t Angus Penharrow that drew her as strongly as iron to a lodestone, and it wasn’t fair to toy with the man when her heart sang for someone else—irrationally, perhaps, but there wasn’t any point pretending it didn’t. She’d just made up her mind to say something more definitively negative to Angus when they rounded a row of stalls and came across an unpleasant tableau. Marius was standing frozen with Phoebe and their half-sisters, mug halfway to his lips, as Mr Tidwell appeared around the corner.

  Mr Tidwell’s face blazed with the sort of anger that spells violence, and it was in his movements as he came towards Marius. Hetta felt a peculiar irritation with the man and his persistence, though his anger was understandable; he might not know about fae magic, but he knew that he was being thwarted somehow. His boyish good looks were rendered grotesque by his vengeful expression.

  Hetta was annoyed but not seriously alarmed at the prospect of a scuffle breaking out, but that changed when Mr Tidwell stopped short of Marius and made a little throwing gesture that Hetta was intimately familiar with.

  “Marius!” she cried, reaching out with her hands in a fledgling attempt to do something. She hadn’t quite settled upon what when Alexandra shoved Marius out of the way of the impending fireball and the two of them went clattering to the ground.

  The fireball wasn’t an especially impressive effort, small and burning with a sluggish red flame. It hit a hanging scarf, sizzled, and then went out, leaving the sharp smell of singed wool in the air. It would probably have given her brother no worse than a minor scorch if it had hit him, though she was glad it hadn’t.

  “Really,” she said, exasperated out of all patience. She marched towards Mr Tidwell, who was looking as if he’d shocked even himself with his pitiful fireball—probably the first one he’d even tried to conjure for such a purpose, she thought acidly. She was about to unleash her tongue upon him when a cry went up from her relatives gathered around the fallen figures of Marius and Alexandra.

  Hetta shot Mr Tidwell a glare and then turned to push her way through the gathering throng of Valstars to find Alexandra lying prone, Marius crouched next to her. Alexandra was still crumpled where she’d fallen, her limbs sprawled in a worryingly boneless way. She must have caught her temple hard on the corner of the stall as she fell.

  “Alex! Alex!” Marius was saying over and over, shaking his sister’s shoulder.

  Lady Phoebe had crouched on the other side of her, heedless of her dress. She pressed her white handkerchief to her daughter’s brow. Already it was stained cherry red.

  Hetta dispatched Angus to fetch the local physician. “As soon as I can,” he said grimly.

  Alexandra roused after two horribly long minutes and was violently sick. Anxious relatives swirled around her and were more hindrance than help until Lady Phoebe took charge, sending some of them for ice and commanding the rest to take Alexandra back to the house. Alexandra seemed only vaguely aware of what was happening, complaining bitterly of her aching head.

  “I know, dear, I know,” her mother soothed.

  Amidst the worry and confusion, Hetta spared a thought for Mr Tidwell, but he’d disappeared. Later, she promised herself, a burning nugget of anger flaring at the thought. Later, she would find that man and he would pay for what he had done to Alexandra, and Marius, and in all likelihood the Star Stone as well.

  By the time Dr Greystark arrived, Alexandra’s head was bandaged and she lay on her bed with ice on her head. Phoebe fluttered anxiously nearby, unsure what else to do for her now the initial crisis was dealt with.

  Hetta remembered Dr Greystark from her girlhood. He hadn’t much changed in the intervening years, apart from the increasing grey of his hair. He was a large man with a great deal of common sense, and his arrival did much to calm Phoebe. He commended her for her actions so far and examined Alexandra with calm, steady motions, though she flinched under his hands and said that her head was splitting. Her words were slurred and slow when she answered the doctor’s questions, and she couldn’t focus her eyes properly, her pupils blown wide.

  Dr Greystark turned to the gathered party, his lips twitching in sober amusement to see so many of them. “It’s difficult to make predictions with head injuries, so early on. The first hours are the most critical. She needs to be watched closely.”

  Hetta escorted him back downstairs and asked him what he really thought. He gave a grim smile. “I meant what I said, Lord Valstar. However, it’s a good sign that she is conscious. I’ll return tomorrow.”

  Hetta saw him to his car and leaned against the doorframe, worry gnawing at her.

  37

  A Desire for Vengeance

  Alexandra grew worse during the night. Dr Greystark had told them to wake her every two hours, but each time she grew less responsive. She seemed increasingly unaware of where she was and who she was with. “I want to dance!” she complained, trying to rise.

  Lady Phoebe pushed her down gently. “Later, my love, when you are well. You must rest!”

  “I want to dance!” she whined, but she let Phoebe settle her again in the bed.

  Daybreak left Hetta with a strange reprieve from the s
cene she thought she’d be facing the day after the Frost Faire. Jack didn’t even discuss it. He simply scowled at Hetta on her way to breakfast, said, “Obviously there’s no point making a fuss till Alex is better,” and stalked out into the estate.

  Hetta hadn’t been looking forward to breaking the news, but she would have done so a thousand times rather than this…helpless waiting. With Phoebe, Grandmamma, Aunt Sybil, Lottie, and Dr Greystark all poised to do whatever Alexandra might need, Hetta’s presence was unnecessary. Even Marius was better in the sickroom than she was. He could coax Alexandra to drink her barley-water or tonic when no one else succeeded.

  Her younger brother Gregory felt similarly useless. She encountered him pacing the hallways or harassing Cook. Hetta tried to reassure him that he would have ample opportunity to demonstrate his affection for his sister once the worst had passed. “For then she’ll need someone to keep her occupied as she recuperates.” Gregory wasn’t much impressed with this statement and, to be honest, neither was Hetta.

  Her mind had too much time to turn, and she found it sifting through the encounter with John Tidwell. The name had rung a faint bell at the time, and now she realised that this was because she’d heard it once before: at the train station where the stationmaster had named people leaving Stariel the day after the Choosing. In her fear for her sister, Mr Tidwell had been pushed to the side, but now she wondered. Marius hadn’t spelled out the details of their relationship, but she remembered his cautious hope the day after the Choosing, followed swiftly by black despair. It seemed a key piece of evidence, that Mr Tidwell had been angry or disappointed enough in Marius’s failure to be chosen that he had broken things off between them. The expectation that Marius would inherit would be a natural one for a Southerner, where such things usually went to the eldest son, but Mr Tidwell might have had other reasons for expecting Marius to inherit. If he’d paid an illusionist to make the Star Stone appear to activate—if the activation had been linked to the number of times it was touched—then Marius would have appeared to be chosen if he hadn’t made his own decision not to compete for the lordship.