Lessons in Enchantment

by Patricia Rice

  “Save the celebrating until the deeds are filed in the consortium’s name. The solicitor is working on them now. Is there a chance of finding a bite to eat in the kitchen? I’m fair starved.” Hugh studied the remains of the machine.

  “The grocer’s bill is enough to believe half the cattle in Scotland are down there, unless it’s all been fed to your hound. Let’s explore.” Drew wiped his oily hands on a cloth.

  It was late. The children were long abed, as were the servants. He assumed Lady Phoebe must be also, unless she was haunting the roof again. He was better off aiming for the kitchen and not temptation.

  Without coat or cravat, he stalked toward the kitchen stairs, Hugh right behind him. “I should latch that back door now that you’re inside. Let me show you the mechanism so you won’t be clobbered if you try to enter without properly unfastening it.”

  Before they reached the end of the dark hall, the door in question opened, and Lady Phoebe entered, her long hair disheveled and her skirt dirty, looking as if she’d been in a fight—or worse. Drew almost had an apoplexy.

  “What happened?” he demanded, rushing to her aid—except she proceeded to brush at her dirty skirt and didn’t seem to need his assistance.

  Which idiotically angered him.

  “Hound is still quite skittish, I fear,” she announced. “I have him leashed now, and Henry is showing him around the block.”

  “Hound?” Drew stood there blankly, torn between shaking her for being outside at night and simply drinking in the sight of the lady in dishabille. The top buttons of her bodice had come undone, and she was most certainly not wearing crinolines or corset.

  “I told you,” Hugh said ominously. “Bleidy great hound.”

  “You may name him, if you prefer. I try not to become too attached.” Lady Phoebe tugged at her hair, pulling it into invisible pins—lifting her breasts higher against thin wool. “I was about to fetch a tray up from the kitchen. The mice tell me you haven’t eaten, and I asked Cook to leave you a cold collation. I can’t keep the mice out of it much longer.”

  “I’ll fetch the tray,” Drew said crossly. “You shouldn’t be out at this hour.”

  “I had to wait for the children to go to bed. I had promised them a story. I’ll be out of your way now. You may fetch your own tray.” She stalked past him haughtily.

  Not a servant, he reminded himself. The lady was not a servant. He could not scold. He damned well couldn’t even throw her out. She’d found a bloody damned guard dog and arranged his supper at the same time. Cook never left food out after dinner.

  “Thank you, my lady,” he called after her, grudgingly. “And don’t go out there alone again.”

  Hugh chuckled. The lady made a gesture that Drew was fairly certain was rude except he assumed she didn’t know that.

  “Guard dog?” Hugh asked, still chuckling. “She trained that beast overnight?”

  “Not even overnight,” Drew muttered. “It wasn’t out there before we left for the park. She found a damned dog and leashed it this afternoon and evening.” He trotted down the stairs to see what food they could rummage.

  “Maybe the mice helped her,” Hugh said with laughter.

  “I can almost understand why men might have wanted Letitia dead, if she was even half so interfering as Lady Phoebe,” Drew complained. But the lavish feast laid out on a tray for him—guarded by a sleepy kitten—shut him up.

  “Impressive,” Hugh agreed, admiring the stacks of beef and ham.

  The kitten leaped down, regarded them with indignation, and stalked off, tail high—rather like the lady. Drew muttered under his breath but the lady wasn’t at fault for his wandering mind. Mostly.

  Cook had left a full loaf of bread and one of her pea salads as well. And candied pears. Drew shook his head in disbelief. The governess had turned his whole damned household upside-down, then organized the kitchen. “It takes a lady to be fed around here?”

  “Well, no, it probably takes sitting down to dinner at mealtime,” Hugh suggested. “But if you’re not prepared to do that. . .”

  Drew turned the spigot on the ale keg and filled mugs. “I wonder if she ate?”

  “I think the lady is capable of looking after herself. We seem to be the ones lacking. Are we taking this to the workshop or the parlor?” Hugh hefted the heavy tray while Drew carried the mugs.

  “Maybe we should clear a place in the dining room. Do lady governesses come down to dinner?” Drew’s mind wasn’t on the food so much as the sight of the lady wearing next to nothing, with her hair down in fetching curls he wanted to wrap around his hand. He was a tactile man. He liked touching.

  “Not with us,” Hugh said pragmatically, setting the tray down on a crate on the dining room table and hunting for a match to light a gas lamp. “So let’s not work up a sweat moving all these boxes aboot and messing with the order. Tell me what happened to your machine?”

  “The lady happened to it,” Drew said grumpily, pulling out a dusty chair, shoving a few crates aside, and filling his plate. “She says women would memorize a keyboard if I scramble the letters. I had not even thought of women using it. I wanted to be able to type reports faster than I can write them.”

  “You have an execrable hand, which is why you have me,” Hugh said pragmatically. “And I’m not memorizing a keyboard.”

  “You won’t always be around to type my reports,” Drew argued. “You’ll be rich and be gone by next year. I don’t have the time to look for someone new.”

  “I’ll hire my replacement before I go,” Hugh said, complacently accepting that future, before filling his mouth with a huge bite of bread and ham.

  “There’s even mustard.” Drew smeared his bread. “Cook wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  “Teach the lady to type, and there you are, the perfect assistant,” Hugh suggested.

  “Just what I need, one more person to worry over. I think I’ll tie her to the nursery. I wasn’t cut out to be a family man. Look at Simon. He’s shattered and chasing hobgoblins. Wouldn’t have happened if he’d stayed single.”

  Hugh gave him an incredulous look and ripped off another bite of sandwich rather than reply.

  Right. A governess was not a wife. He wouldn’t fall to pieces if anything happened to Lady Phoebe. He’d simply hire another. The notion gave him indigestion.

  The next morning, Mr. Blair roared, “Phoebe!” from below, showing his level of disturbance by not bothering with the title she used to maintain propriety.

  She donned a smile and set the children back to work on their numbers. Closing the nursery door, she roared down the stairs in a voice she’d learned from fishmongers, “Andrew, familiarity breeds contempt.”

  She needed to read her employment contract to see if insolence was reason for termination.

  “Then stop the familiarity of this contemptible hound!” he roared back.

  She giggled, sought Hound’s mind, and hurriedly descended. “Whatever happened to polite notes delivered by servants?” she called. She really was trying to avoid her employer when possible. He was just too irresistible when he glowered.

  “The creature is holding Abby hostage in the kitchen! What the devil is he doing in here?”

  “He smells bacon and someone left the door unlatched. He is a very smart animal.”

  “His tail is destroying the house. Remove him, at once!” Mr. Blair emerged from his workshop just as she reached the main floor. His black hair was disheveled, mud streaked his stiffly pressed trousers, and his newly shaved jaw was set as if he were about to go to war. All he needed was a plaid and a dirk. . . Oh, my.

  “Hound has shown you the flaw in your defense,” she asserted, brushing past to find the dog sniffing the worktable, his tail sending metal pieces flying.

  “He’s more wolf than hound. He growls every time I try to lead him out. He’s not suitable to be around children.” Furiously, Mr. Blair began slamming his tools into proper order.

  “On the contrary, he’s perfe
ct. He’s very protective of his pack. The problem is that he regards you as competition for leadership. He’s testing you, looking for your weaknesses.” She scratched behind Hound’s ears, and his wagging tail sent the newly ordered tools flying.

  Mr. Blair pinched the bridge of his handsome nose and covered his eyes. “Just remove him, please.”

  “Since you ask so nicely,” she teased. “Squat down, look him in the eyes, and give him the command to leave.” She wrapped her fingers in Hound’s collar.

  Drew kneeled down and scowled. “Wolf, leave. Guard.”

  The dog growled and bared his teeth.

  “Now I have to teach him a new name,” Phoebe grumbled, planting mental images of bones in the animal’s head. “Heel, Wolf, good boy.”

  The dog obediently trotted in her wake.

  “Hugh, house keys for everybody,” Mr. Blair yelled as Phoebe led the dog away. “No more leaving that door unlocked.”

  Phoebe could have told him that mechanical contraptions wouldn’t stop the lockpickers she knew, but she figured he knew that. Mr. Blair simply didn’t want Hound—Wolf—in his workshop.

  “Abby, Wolf is hungry,” she called down the kitchen stairs. “Could you fetch him some scraps so he’ll learn to eat outside?”

  “Tie him up, my lady, and I will,” Abby yelled back fearfully.

  “I’m fairly certain proper households do not shriek at each other like fishmongers,” Mr. Blair shouted from his shop.

  “Then invent talking tubes or hire footmen,” Phoebe yelled back. She’d been shouting to be heard since birth. It saved many unnecessary steps. And if she was loud enough, she made her point much faster. Besides, he’d started it.

  Moisture from the fog collected on her gown as she led Wolf back to the stable and an abashed Henry. “That was fun,” she told the embarrassed boy. “But we probably shouldn’t repeat the adventure any time soon. Mr. Blair dislikes interruption.”

  “I’m so sorry, miss. I was putting the leash on him and he smelled the bacon and—”

  “Out he went, understood. He’s not tame yet, so we have to be careful. How are you faring out here? Is the brazier warm enough?”

  “Oh yes, miss. And Wolfie is a good blanket. Is it all right to call him Wolfie? That’s what Mr. Blair said.”

  Phoebe hid a smile. “Did he? Did he come to visit you or the dog?”

  “Both, miss. He checked on our coal and taught me how a quirt works. He says I might learn to drive the carriage some day!”

  “That would be wonderful. Do you know your letters and numbers? They can be useful for writing down directions.”

  “I learnt that at school before me ma died. I can write real well.”

  “Excellent. Perhaps Mr. Blair can hire you for running errands as well and pay you more. I shall suggest it. But guarding the stable is your most important task. Training Wolf to help you is part of that task. You’ll need to use the scraps Abby brings up to tame him.”

  Despite the chilly damp, she lingered outside to teach Henry how to use food as a reward. Using her connection with the dog’s mind, she could hasten the process. Wolf was smart, and he caught on to her mental images quickly.

  Mr. Blair’s roar reverberated through the windows and the mews. It was too muffled to discern, but Phoebe heard her name being taken in vain again. Since Wolf was currently following Harry’s command to heel, Phoebe assumed the children were the cause this time.

  Living in the streets might be easier. Hoping it was nothing serious, she left Wolf to the stable and hurried for the back door, forgetting to flip the alarm latch. A spring tossed an empty bucket at the door as it opened. Phoebe ducked.

  “Use a blanket as the alarm,” she shouted in frustration, “before someone is decapitated.”

  The children raced from the workshop toward her. “There is a bad man by the park,” they shouted in various stages of coherency.

  Her heart froze in her chest, and she glanced over their heads for assurance.

  Mr. Blair was already at the front door, his expression one of controlled fury. “Watch them,” he ordered.

  “How do you know he is a bad man?” she asked, telling herself that bad men could mean almost anything.

  “Mama says so,” Cat declared.

  A ghost said so, of course. She had yet to find names in Letitia’s journal. The lady was as vague as her children.

  While Mr. Blair stalked out the front door, Phoebe gathered the children and ushered them into the storage/dining area while she assessed the situation. Despite her preference for high places, she decided downstairs offered various street exits and seemed safer than running to the roof. Leaving the children among the boxes, she returned to secure the backdoor latch and return the bucket to its place.

  Through Raven’s eyes, she watched her employer approaching a businessman in tailored tweed and bowler, younger than the man yesterday, if she could judge through a bird’s mind. She mentally woke Piney and sent him scampering along the roof, looking for intruders. These attached houses allowed access from neighboring roofs. She must remind Mr. Blair to latch the attic door.

  She needed to hear what was being said. But most animals did not recognize human words, so she couldn’t rely on them. She had to be out there to know which of her forces to call on. She hated being confined like this.

  She regarded the room she must turn into a fortress. “All right, children, let’s practice our hiding. Shall we see what’s inside these boxes?”

  She opened wooden crates, and the children climbed on chairs to help her to lift out tools and machinery and books. After storing the contents beneath the dining table, Phoebe lowered the boxes to the floor so the children could climb in without endangering life and limb.

  “Inside. Make certain you can lift the lid when I call,” Phoebe instructed.

  She was impatient to be outdoors, but the children’s security came first. She’d not had time to teach them all the ways they could use their gifts to defend themselves.

  Once they proved they could climb out at will, she told them to be very silent and asked them to each make up a story to tell her when she came back. Enoch objected, but she whispered that he needed to watch after his little sisters. That silenced him.

  Then, heart pounding in anxiety, she snatched up a coat by the back door and hurried to the stables. She ordered Henry and Wolf to secure the doors and patrol the house’s main corridor. Once she’d done all she could, she dragged out her bicycle and set out down the alley, a confiscated whip in her hand.

  Fourteen

  Drew studied the gentleman swinging a cane and pacing in front of the locked park fence, apparently unfazed by the heavy mist. The stranger didn’t appear to be a hired thug, but he didn’t belong here either. Drew knew all the inhabitants of the terrace entitled to use the park.

  The grating cackle of a raven passed overhead. Not bothering to glance up, Drew ground his molars and continued his study of the expensively-tailored but not fashionable stranger. As Drew passed his neighbor’s house, Dalrymple hurried down the steps.

  “Well met, Blair! I want you to meet someone. He’s offered to help me with my campaign for council, says he knows a little something about politicking.” His neighbor slapped Drew on the back and strode briskly toward the park.

  “Why are you meeting him out here instead of the house?” Drew asked in a low voice.

  “Wife don’t like politicking,” Dalrymple murmured back. “I’d hoped to impose on your hospitality if the weather became inclement. Look, Wilkes is joining him. He’s a baron and a good man to know.”

  Drew knew Wilkes from meetings of the consortium. A tall and muscular man in his forties, Wilkes used his wealth and intimidation to command men without needing to say much. He wasn’t one of Drew’s favorite people, but it wasn’t surprising he was involved in politics.

  Wilkes and the stranger approached. Drew noted a few pigeons flying down to perch on a nearby fence. His jaw twitched, but he noted nothing else untowa
rd—like a governess with a feather in her hat.

  “Wilkes,” Dalrymple greeted the baron with respect, then turned to the stranger. “Gareth Glengarry, meet Andrew Blair. He’s on the board with me. Good man to know. Blair, Glengarry comes highly recommended as someone who can solicit votes.”

  Drew shook the man’s hand but remained suspicious—because of a pair of four-year-olds. He ought to have his head examined. He’d met dozens of men like Glengarry over the years, bored and unambitious, using the vast connections of their aristocratic relations for their own purposes.

  “Why don’t we take this to your place, Blair? Have a spot to drink and talk in comfort.” Dalrymple was already heading back up the street—toward the twins.

  “Sorry, I was on my way. . .” Where? Town was the opposite direction. “. . .to meet a lady.”

  A questionable lady wearing his own damned coat chose that moment to bicycle sedately around the corner—whip in hand? What the devil was the damned woman about? She should be with the children!

  “Mr. Morgan can let us in, can’t he?” Dalrymple called out, continuing down the street, his back toward the bicyclist.

  Glengarry and Wilkes followed in Dalrymple’s wake, as if they expected Drew to fall in line. As he might have, just last week.

  A flock of pigeons flew up to circle in the odd way of mindless birds. In the mews, Wolf howled, and Drew’s hackles rose.

  “Dalrymple,” Drew shouted after them. “Hugh’s not in.”

  And neither was the damned governess, who continued pedaling fiercely past him as if he didn’t exist. From her expression, he thought she might be concentrating on the pigeons. Or the dog.

  In exasperation, he hurried after the parade. Dalrymple turned to glare at him. The other two merely waited stoically, although they sent the circling birds puzzled glances.

  “I don’t want to be seen meeting in town,” Dalrymple said in a low voice. “We need privacy. We’ll not bother the young ’uns. They’ve come all this way, and it’s the least we can do.”