The apparition in his foyer almost brought him to a halt. He had expected aristocracy at its worst—billowing skirts and soaring tresses and condemnation permanently engraved in her expression.
Instead, the visitor had no resemblance to any female he’d ever encountered. He couldn’t precisely gauge her height since she appeared to be wearing high-top shoes with heels beneath her too-short skirt, and her porkpie hat—adorned with roses—teetered above a stack of chestnut curls. A black duster hid most of her gown, but he was positively certain it didn’t conceal layers of petticoats. In fact, he was quite convinced the skirt was somehow. . . divided.
She was holding a high-wheeled bicycle. And her pocket was. . . squirming.
Now he was mesmerized.
She glanced over the maid’s shoulder and spotted him. “Sir, are you aware that the children are playing on the roof?”
How the devil did she know that? Did she fly in on a broom? No, on a bicycle.
When he didn’t instantly respond to her warning, she brushed past the maid and headed directly for the stairs—and him. She might look as if she’d just emerged from the gutter, but there was no disguising the aristocratic arrogance with which she looked down her—rather enchanting—nose at him.
Good Gad, like the veriest bampot, he was falling into a pair of huge cornflower-blue eyes enhanced by lush dark lashes. What the devil was the matter with him?
Drew hastily stepped aside to let her pass. She smelled of roses, and he glanced at her hat to be certain those were silk. No, they weren’t. She had real roses on her hat. And she was marching past him as if he were wallpaper.
He wasn’t a vain man, but he knew he wasn’t exactly invisible. Intrigued more than panicked, he followed her swinging duster up the stairs. How the devil did she know where to go? She lifted her ankle-length skirt to reveal trim ankles in striped stockings. Striped. Red and white. To match the red roses?
This was Lady Phoebe?
He didn’t mix with the aristocracy. He had a working man’s distrust of inherited power and wealth. But he was fairly certain, no matter how she styled herself, that nobility did not ride penny farthings and wear striped stockings.
Not that he’d ever divested any aristocratic ladies of their stockings. He spent his few spare hours with working girls.
Tilting her head as if listening for the children, his uninvited guest unerringly located the doors to the servants’ floor, the attics, and the roof. Even he hadn’t known there was a door to the roof. Of course, he didn’t spend much time in the attic—but the children did.
Lady Phoebe scampered up the rickety stairs to the roof as if she were one of the brats. More reluctantly, Drew followed.
He’d spent a bad few hours clinging to the crow’s nest of a towering mast in a storm as a stupid young man. He’d learned the sea wasn’t for him and had turned his ambition to his studies. But hours of watching the wind and waves roil in a world out of his control had left him unable to shake his fear of heights. He was a man who kept his feet solidly on the ground these days.
He could hear a crow squalling on the roof. Lady Phoebe’s skirts temporarily blocked the scene outside, but he heard her gasp. She nearly threw herself into the channel between the slate peaks of the roof in her rush to reach whatever the scamps were perpetrating now. Accustomed to his young wards’ depredations, Drew forced himself upward at a more pragmatic pace.
Apparently Simon’s son and heir had taken to levitating one of his little sisters. Drew supposed the next step would be flying, which might be interesting, except the lady was behaving as if Enoch were committing murder.
“You dropped her!” she scolded the shame-faced boy. The tranquil pond of the lady’s blue eyes now blazed with unholy fire. “What if you had lost concentration while she was over the parapet, and she dropped down four stories? Did you think of that?”
She was hugging one of the twins. Drew thought it might be Catherine. Cat was the more bold of the two and looked a little perplexed at the commotion. Clare, the quieter one, sat feeding pigeons and watching the scene with interest.
“No, ma’am,” Enoch muttered. “I didn’t mean for her to drift.”
Drift? Blood and thunderation. . . Floating wrenches was one thing, floating his sister off the roof. . .
Drew narrowed his eyes at his young cousin. “Would you like to know what it’s like to levitate?”
Enoch glanced up, surprised. “Yes, sir, I would.”
Drew grabbed him by the seat of his pants and hauled him into the air so fast the child didn’t have time to gasp. While the females gaped, he swung the boy back and forth until he looked as if he might puke. “Now imagine floating off the roof like that.” He dropped the boy’s feet to the ground.
Enoch sat abruptly. The lady glared at him, instead of the boy. “Mr. Blair, that is completely inappropriate.”
“Not if he thinks twice before doing it again. Will you think before you act next time?” Drew demanded of the boy. “You could have killed your sister.”
Still looking green around the gills, Enoch nodded.
“Mama said the angels won’t take Cat until she’s very old,” Clare offered.
“Mama didn’t tell us the angels were taking her,” Cat argued after the lady returned her to her feet. “I want to see Mama.”
That plaintive statement nearly brought Drew to his knees. The four-year-old twins seldom spoke. He had not once considered how these orphaned children felt. He’d simply inserted them into a nursery, hired servants, and went about his business. They were infants. Infants were of no interest until they reached an age of comprehension.
Simon’s children were there already.
“Your mama watches over you, even if you can’t see her,” Lady Phoebe admonished. “Do you want to make her sick with worry? You are not to practice any of your talents unless an adult is there to guide you.”
The girls looked blank. Enoch spoke for them, as usual. “Nannies scold us if we try. Clare talks to mama sometimes, and they spank her for saying so.”
“Spanking is not acceptable,” Lady Phoebe said, taking the hands of the twins and glaring at Drew. “You did the right thing by writing my aunts. You did the absolute wrong thing by disregarding what ignorant servants were teaching them. Now, let us go down and have a spot of tea.”
As the lady swept his wards downstairs and dragged him along in their wake, Drew had the distinct notion that his household had been hit by a tempest worse than any he’d met at sea.
Still quivering with indignation and a touch of horror at almost watching a child fly off a roof, in the presence of a gentleman who could upend a reasonably stout little boy with one hand, Phoebe chose the time-honored defense of steadying her nerves by hiding behind a teacup. What would have happened had Raven not seen the children? And if her host’s walls had not been filled with mice to tell her in which direction to go? Nannies weren’t an answer.
She took another steadying sip of excellent tea.
The children were much too young for the parlor, of course. She’d settled them into the nursery with their nursemaid and ordered tea and biscuits.
Now she was attempting to figure out, by all that was holy, how she would deal with the children’s guardian and her own situation. Mr. Blair had taken time to don a stodgy tweed jacket and proper cravat and looked every inch the stiff, staid gentleman she despised, but she’d seen him in dishabille—and in action. Mr. Blair was no gentleman.
Mr. Blair was the most gorgeous male animal she’d ever set eyes on. The taut, sinewy muscles of a true thoroughbred, the black eyes and coat of a temperamental stud, the square whiskered jaw of. . . a pure Scottish warrior. All he needed was a plaid. She gulped and sipped the scalding tea.
She needed to flee like the wind.
She couldn’t desert those children to ignorance and superstition, not any more than she could have abandoned Piney in his dead tree or left Raven crying on the ground after being thrown from his nest. The young ne
eded nurturing.
Her wretched, manipulative aunts had known that.
“I believe we have not been properly introduced,” Mr. Blair said, in his stiff Glaswegian accent. He’d pulled his chair out from the tea table to give his long legs room and sat with his back straight, giving an impression of an authoritarian prat.
Phoebe didn’t deal well with authority. She nodded, and a rose petal dropped from her hat. “As I said earlier, and I believe you heard me, I am Lady Phoebe Malcolm Duncan. You wrote to my aunts at the School of Malcolms requesting aid with your wards. They sent me. They do not have the facilities to work with young children. They have asked me to speak with you in their stead.”
Mr. Blair tilted his head in acknowledgment of her introduction. “I am Andrew Blair, guardian for my cousin’s children. As you have ascertained, they are gifted in ways most nannies cannot comprehend, but your family seems attuned to. I am a man of business and do not claim to understand their talents, but I acknowledge that the children have been raised. . . to be unusual. Talking to ghosts and levitating objects are the activities of foolish spiritualists in my book.”
She supposed she must give him credit for not calling them weird. When he let down his defenses, he spoke with a delightful lilt and rolled his r’s.
Idly, she plucked a raisin from her biscuit and fed it to Piney in her pocket while she sought the right words. “I have never tutored young children and certainly not gifted ones.”
There, she could hope he would send her on her way. Surely her aunts could find someone more adept at schooling. She’d only taught street urchins their letters and numbers and occasionally attempted to instruct their elders. Teaching was not easy. Teaching gifted children with talents beyond hers. . . would be an enormous task.
Her host considered her words, irritatingly unoffended by her eccentric attire or her refusal to cater to his whims. Of course, the man was no doubt desperate.
“You have already taught them a lesson and settled them in where they belong, a task no one has successfully accomplished to my knowledge,” he countered. “They have inquiring minds. Curiosity is a family trait, I fear. I’m prepared to offer room and board and a salary commensurate with the task, that is, if ladies accept salaries.”
She heard a hint of spite in that last part. She needed to ask her aunts more about Mr. Blair’s antecedents. They had only told her of his accomplishments, which were considerable. He’d come from no family worth mentioning, managed a university education, and had invented contraptions for the railroad that had launched him into the highest circles.
“I am in need of funds to pay tuition,” she said, not revealing her desperation but her goal. “I am prepared to take a position until I’ve earned what I need. I owe my aunts a great deal, and if this is where they send me, then I’m obliged to consider the offer.”
“Taking a paying position with a single gentleman cannot be considered respectable. Will you require a maid or companion?”
Despite looking like a hot-blooded warrior, the citified engineer still sounded like an officious mug. Phoebe bit back a laugh at his concern. He might as well know what to expect. “If my attire doesn’t give you a hint of my opinion of proper protocol, perhaps Piney will.” She produced the marten from her pocket and smoothed his ruffled fur.
Mr. Blair didn’t quite drop his teacake—he made a quick catch.
“I talk to animals,” she merrily continued. “Although talk is a human word and doesn’t actually define what I do. Communicate is probably a better description. I can tell you that Piney is interested in testing everything on the table. I have taught him to eat berries and nuts, but he will happily rid your house of rodents and insects.”
“Anyone with knowledge of animals could say that,” he objected.
“Yes, of course. If you will put some raisins in your pocket, I’ll show him where to find them. He won’t jump in your pocket without incentive, I fear.” Phoebe was perfectly aware that no one understood her gift. She’d always been happy to leave them in ignorance. She didn’t know why she was attempting to impress—or frighten—this man.
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said dryly, eyeing the animal on his tea table. “I assume pockets are not where he normally lives.”
Not certain how to take his acceptance, Phoebe explained, “He belongs in a pine forest, but there are few trees left in the area.”
“There is a small pine in the park,” he said, looking more interested than he had since they’d sat down. “He would have to dodge dogs and horses and stay out of the road though.”
“Small pines are unlikely to have hollows for nests, and he will be very lonely, but if I can keep him with me, I can introduce him to the concept,” she agreed. In some ways, the newer part of town had advantages her medieval stone village did not, unless she wished to trespass on Queen Victoria’s grounds. So far, she’d resisted the temptation.
“I will have my business partner draw up a contract. How soon can you start, my lady?”
A contract. She gulped. That didn’t sound like something she could escape from easily. Hastily, she looked for wiggle room. “As I said, I wish to take classes. A restrictive contract might interfere. Can we not simply agree to go along as we must?”
“I don’t do anything without a contract. Discuss your requirements with Mr. Morgan. My housekeeper will show you available rooms if the nursery doesn’t suit. You will need to park your bicycle in the mews. I have appearances to keep up if I’m to retain my investors. It would be preferable if the children are taught not to display their. . . talents. . . in public.”
Phoebe didn’t often get angry, but her temper flared. “You want them to hide who they are? Are you ashamed of them?”
He looked taken aback. “No, of course not. They’re children. But the world is full of dangerous characters, and I don’t want some sick mind to think a child who speaks to spirits or levitates objects might be marketable.”
She deflated again. She had never considered the world a particularly wicked place, but she could see the potential in the elevated atmosphere of New Town. In her part of the city, the wealthy mixed with the poor and everyone knew everyone, so there was no clear class distinction.
On this side of the gardens, the poor saw expensive clothes, enormous townhouses, and purses of gold, and coveted a bit for themselves. She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s very sad. I had not thought in those terms. Our family is well known in the old part of the city, but here. . . It’s a different world. I shall try to adapt.”
“My cousin’s wife was gifted. The village where she grew up appreciated her abilities. But talking to the dead and the Sight are acceptable traditions. I’m not certain even Simon realizes what his son does. I don’t suppose you know of any male tutors who might have better insight into what a boy like Enoch needs?” He almost sounded human with that question.
“I’m sorry, no, I don’t. Our world tends to be peculiarly female. It may be up to you to show him how a man’s world works. But he’s young yet. Let’s bring him up to snuff on the basics and then you may decide what is best.” She regretted using flash vocabulary when her new employer winced, but she grew up in the gutters. She didn’t see the need to change. He’d have to adapt as well.
“Very well. How soon can you start? And will you need a clothing allowance?” He glanced at her unfashionable attire.
A clothing allowance! Money solved everything? So much for frightening the wretch. Maybe she’d have the twins summon ghosts and scare him into sending her away.
From what she could see, ghosts would merely annoy the dratted man.
Four
Jacket shoved back, hands in his trouser pockets, Drew studied the pile of rubble that had once been the façade of the tenement he apparently owned. “Convenient,” was all he said.
“The stone can probably be reused?” the property manager suggested.
A portly old fellow with the reddened nose of a heavy drinker, the manager had done lit
tle about maintenance, until the buildings had become little more than worthless—dangerous—piles of rock.
“Brick is more modern and easier to use,” Drew said off-handedly, still studying the situation. Aging furnishings remained in the naked flats above. “Are the other buildings in similar shape?”
The neighboring tenements appeared to be tilting toward the damaged one already. Medieval construction had involved labor and materials and very little engineering. Like the city walls surrounding the old town, the ancient edifices were crumbling. It was only a matter of time until someone was killed. More likely, dozens, if the building fell at the wrong time.
Hugh was right. The buildings had to come down.
“I’ll have the tenants moved out within the month,” Bennett said eagerly. “Dangerous to live in. They’ll all be suing us if I don’t.”
Drew doubted the downtrodden inhabitants of this slum even knew the term sue, or had the wherewithal to hire lawyers. His father hadn’t. His father had spent the last decade of his life in bed with a broken back. The mine hadn’t even sent his last week’s wages after the accident. If Drew hadn’t already graduated and found work. . . His parents would have ended up in the street.
His mother still could, if the consortium didn’t make a profit soon. Every day they delayed tearing down this slum cost them interest.
Drew watched a duster-cloaked figure enter one of the endangered buildings. Perhaps top hats and striped stockings were the fashion for women in this part of town.
Lady Phoebe had refused to take the position until she’d seen his contract.
“That’s her,” Bennett growled. “That’s the one threatening to sue. I’ll have to drag her out of there afore they all get riled.” He stomped off after the eccentric female.
Drew studied the squalid alley and hummed tunelessly as he calculated the equipment required to demolish an entire block and the woman in the duster who threatened to sue. A woman who might have a family solicitor?
Surely not.
Lessons in Enchantment Page 3