She laughed at him as they got into the hired carriage. She hated hired carriages, but he was right about Horace taking forever to get their own gig out to them.
“Okay, what about it?” She poked him in the arm as she daintily sat on the very edge of the seat.
“You know I can’t see the glow, or whatever it is,” he groused. “But I thought she seemed sensible enough. If you say she’s got it and want to include her, I’m agreeable.”
He spoke so overly casually, she poked him again, unable to hold back a guffaw. “Agreeable, are you? She seemed sensible?” She snorted into her sleeve until his glare stopped her from her unladylike display.
“All right, I thought she was more than agreeable. Happy now?”
Ariana gave up on keeping the grime of the cab off her gown and leaned back, resting her head on his shoulder.
“Very happy,” she said.
Chapter 13
Tilly poured Serena another cup of tea and pushed the plate of tiny meat tarts Cook was so masterful at toward her. She was thrilled to have her old friend back with her, yet at the same time couldn’t help being apprehensive every time the children were together.
Tilly adored Owen, but knew what a powerful magical lineage he came from. It was the same fear she had about Ariana. Though Ashford was hopeless when it came to hexes, he had it in him, and his sister had been gifted enough to bring a man back from the dead. Well, sort of.
Tilly didn’t like thinking of it, but the point was, the kids had the very thing coursing through their blood that she and Serena had spent all these years trying to protect them from. One little slip and everything could be lost.
“I think we might be out of the woods,” Serena said, taking a bite of tart and closing her eyes in ecstasy.
“Hmmm?” Tilly said, getting up to stoke the fire. She was full of nervous energy.
“With Ariana.”
Tilly dropped the fire poker with a loud clatter and whirled around to look at her friend. She sat there benignly enough, but it seemed as if she was reading her mind. Serena laughed daintily behind a napkin.
“It’s only because it’s always on our minds,” she explained. “I fear for her almost as much as you do, you know. We’d all of us be bereft if … that happened to her.”
Tilly shook her head forcefully, not even liking to hear it alluded to in such an oblique way.
“I won’t feel safe until she’s married with children. No, probably not until she’s middle-aged or a grandmother.” She sighed and let herself relax back into her seat. “It’s consumed us, hasn’t it? It’s changed so many things I would never have done. I never, ever would have advocated my daughter getting married at such a young age if I weren’t so—”
She wrung her hands, feeling the same as she had so many times over the years. Guilty, ashamed, unsure. Nothing could be normal when a certain death sentence hung over her child’s head. Every day she cursed the knowledge she had, while at the same time grateful for it. It had made her slightly unhinged, to say the least.
“You’re frightened, and rightly so,” Serena finished for her. “I’ve told Owen the best I can without making anything obvious, to keep an eye out for her while they’re doing the rounds. Hopefully he won’t make it too hard for suitors to get close to her, though.”
“Yes, that’s a point,” Tilly said, smiling at how overzealous Owen could be about his cousin. “I’m glad he’ll be around though. It’s best they shouldn’t have too easy a task of it, if they’re serious about winning Ariana.” She chuckled and took a sip of tea. “It would be so much easier if those two could have been compatible. Did you ever think of them together?”
Serena screwed up her pretty face. “That would have been an ideal situation, wouldn’t it? But I don’t think it would ever cross their minds. And Ashford would probably balk.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He’d love it. Having her safe and sound up in Scotland. He doesn’t worry as much about… the other thing as I do anymore, but he’s still terrified of the portal reopening, especially ever since Liam died, God rest him. He thinks his hexes might have lost their power when he passed, but so far everything’s been quiet.”
“Thank goodness for that.” Serena laughed again. “This morning in the carriage Owen mentioned he thought Ariana was pretty now, and I thought, maybe… but he said it just the way he’d say it about a new calf.”
Tilly laughed. “Yes, you’re probably right that it would never cross their minds. But it would have been ideal. Owen’s a good boy, I mean, sorry, young man. Any girl who manages to snap him up will be a lucky one indeed.”
Serena looked gratified at the compliment, then frowned. “I was so worried after he was born,” she said, her eyes taking on a distant look as she remembered. “Kostya’s family is so powerful— I can see how he struggles against it sometimes. It practically burbles up from within him. And because of my foolishness with that horrid book while I was pregnant, I feared so for Owen. But he’s as simple and normal as can be, the dear lad.”
“He is. And that horrid book is long destroyed. You might be almost right,” Tilly said, feeling comfortable for the first time in years. “We may not be completely out of the woods, but I think the trees are definitely thinning.”
Chapter 14
To Ariana’s great happiness, Maria was so relieved when they carefully explained to her about the powers they thought she might possess, she burst into tears. She told them she was so afraid she was mad, she was thinking about begging her parents to let her join a convent.
“Once when I was ten, writing just appeared on my paper,” she said. “I thought the words and there they were. But when I showed mother, she laughed at me and said it was only a blank page.”
She wiped the tears from her lovely blue eyes, Owen hovering anxiously with a handkerchief. More stories of odd happenings poured out of her, and it had been endearing. Ariana had felt wise and motherly toward her, assuring her she wasn’t mad. She looked forward to teaching her to harness all that power.
When they showed her the book, it was definitely clear she had sufficient talent to be able to handle most of the spells, but she was clumsy. Ariana suspected she did it on purpose so Owen would have to help her.
At first their little crushes on each other were amusing, but Ariana wanted them to be serious. Of course Owen didn’t care. He had the book to himself all the time, but she’d only have it until he left. All she wanted was to immerse herself in it, not rehash what had gone on at the last ball, reminiscing about each dance the way Owen and Maria did.
She was surprised that no one had started gossiping about them yet, but she suspected Owen might have put one of his specialty hexes on the whole of London society, causing the lovebirds to be safe from wagging tongues.
It wasn’t enough that Owen had been sending her copied out spells all these years. The book itself was so rich with magic, just sitting and resting her hands on it made her feel stronger. She crawled out of bed every night and went to the attic room they hid it in and just breathed in its musty, leathery odor. When they were all together during the day like this, she wanted to practice the difficult spells that required greater amounts of magic. She thought Owen understood that, wanted that as well. But he just kept making cow eyes at Maria.
“Emma Astor-Hartley wanted to dance with you on the third— no, it was the waltz, wasn’t it?” Maria asked Owen.
Ariana looked up from where she was writing out a variation to one of the spells that might open the portal— they were still keeping that a secret from Maria— and found that Owen wasn’t doing what he should have been doing, but instead was gazing raptly at Maria. Again.
“I made it so everyone thought I did,” he said, puffed up like a peacock with his useless ability to trick people. Ariana wanted to travel the ages to find more people like them, and he was wasting their precious time with flirting.
“Is it so wrong to want to dance every dance with you?” Maria sighed.
Aria
na slammed her pencil down so hard that it broke. Had they completely forgotten she was in the room?
“Aren’t we supposed to be studying?” she asked, as calmly as she could. She was embarrassed now that they both stared at her as if she was the one in the wrong. “Owen, did you finish working out that scrying spell?”
“Ooh, what’s a scrying spell do?” Maria chirped.
“You’re supposed to be able to see other people with them,” Owen answered. “I don’t see the use in them, really.”
The traitor! They agreed it was important to modify one until— “If we can find a way to use them to locate other people with powers, then we can figure out a way to meet them,” she sputtered. Owen still wouldn’t meet her eye, so he either suddenly disagreed with her or he didn’t care anymore.
“That might be nice,” Maria said slowly, not sure who she should agree with.
Ariana sighed, knowing she was acting unpleasant, but over the course of the last few days, everything seemed to be disintegrating. She and Owen had practically been the same person, sharing the same passion. Now his passion was clearly elsewhere.
“Yes, it might be, if Owen could figure out the spell.”
Owen looked hard at her, his brows nearly touching. Maria jumped a little in her seat and turned to the door.
“Certainly, Lady Ashford,” she said and scurried out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
Ariana blinked, then whirled on Owen. “You’ve got time for that sort of trickery, though. What are you going to make her think my mum’s telling her right now?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, as she won’t remember any of it when I call her back in.”
Ariana was shocked that he would toy with his new favorite that way and narrowed her gaze on him.
“You better not be trying things like that on me.”
“Doesn’t work on you,” he said.
“So you admit you’ve tried?”
“Of course I’ve tried. What’s got into you, Ariana? You don’t recall making all the hairs on my arms stand on end for an entire fortnight? What about the time you—”
“Fine,” she said, calling a truce by slicing her hand through the air. “Why did you send her away? And why are you stalling on the scrying spells?”
“I think they’re too much for her,” he explained. “They scare me a bit as well. All that rot about beseeching the eyes of the followers. It doesn’t give you chills?”
She didn’t want to admit she tried them and failed, but they hadn’t frightened her. Nothing about their gifts frightened her anymore, and it disappointed her to find they did Owen.
“I want to find more like us,” she said. “I really think this could work.” She pushed away her papers and harrumphed. “Call her back in. If someone sees her standing around in the hall, they’ll think something’s wrong. Let’s just have tea and call it a day, I suppose.”
“No, Ariana, I want to keep studying, just not the scrying spells. At least not around Maria.”
“Ariana, Maria,” she mimicked, missing the rolling sounds. “Your Scottish accent is practically gone. You sound like my father.”
“Your father is Scottish,” he said, cheeks flaming. She was right then, he was covering his accent.
“Barely,” she scoffed. “Stop doing it. You’re perfect the way you are. If she can’t see it, if they all can’t see it, then— then bugger them.”
For some reason she found she had tears in her eyes and quickly blinked them away. She’d wanted him to visit so badly and now nothing was right.
His eyes grew round and his jaw slowly descended, making him look so comical she started to laugh. She apologized for her appalling language.
“I dinna know whether to thank ye or spank ye,” he said, laying it on so thick she could barely understand him. She felt an odd shiver and covered her face, embarrassed beyond anything she’d felt in a long time.
“Just call your beloved back in before someone hauls her to bedlam for talking to the wall.”
Owen snickered and shook his head, but much to her dismay, didn’t dispute that Maria was his beloved. They fell into an uncomfortable silence, poor Maria clearly not sure why things had grown so tense, and continued studying until it was time for her to return home.
***
Owen had never felt anything quite like what Maria Winters made him feel. Except for the girls in his village, who paid him little mind, and Ariana, who didn’t count as a girl, Maria was the first young lady he’d spent a serious amount of time with.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, but that wasn’t all of it. After all, Ariana was, by all accounts, a great beauty herself. In fact, he was having a difficult time keeping track of all her suitors.
Maria was more than beautiful to him. She was witty and whip smart, gobbling up the spells as soon as he taught them to her. She helped him sort who was who in the confusing English aristocracy without making him feel stupid, and even made a bit of fun of the rich, important people who surrounded them.
For the first time since his mother had teased him in the carriage, he thought it might not be such a bad idea to marry an English girl. Well, one English girl in particular. Even though Ariana had been brittle and irritated with him lately for shirking their study sessions, he felt she would agree Maria was a good match for him. She wanted so badly to find other people who could do what they did, he thought she’d be delighted if Maria was a permanent fixture in their lives.
If only he felt he was good enough for her. Though her father wasn’t titled, her family oozed money. Maria herself didn’t seem to care about it, but he knew if he seriously bucked up his courage to ask for her hand, her father most definitely would.
It had only caused him a moment of regret and a very small pinch of conscience to cast the tiniest of hexes over himself when he first entered English society’s fray almost three weeks earlier. He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t planned it.
He had never once been ashamed of where he came from, and it wasn’t exactly as if he was now. His father was a hardworking man, a brilliant and fair man, and his mother had money and land of her own, though nothing like some of these English. His grandfather was a decorated soldier.
He had a feeling if he knew anything about his father’s side of the family, it really would have impressed Maria, since she had such a clear desire to know more about magic. But he didn’t know anything about them. It was beginning to make him bitter.
Bitter enough to cast the spell around himself when he was suddenly surrounded by people dressed in finery the likes he had never seen, speaking about their country estates and their Paris homes, their balls and jewels and horses.
Ariana would have killed him with her bare hands if she knew about it, but she could never understand how he felt. She was one of them, though she would have died before admitting it. She was one of the richest of them, sought after like a rare pearl, but because she was so down to earth she didn’t notice, or perhaps she was just used to it.
He admired her for acting the exact same way in a posh drawing room as she did when she visited him in Scotland, and was ashamed of himself for feeling he had to put on a show. Ashamed of himself for feeling the sourness in his stomach when he thought how easy it was for her to act the same. The land he lived on was hers, after all. He and his family were merely tenants. He always knew it, but it was only now that it bothered him.
He was glad she was obsessed enough with the book that she’d taken to ignoring him so he could spend more time with Maria. As much as Maria liked to learn magic, she also wanted to ride around the parks and show him off to her friends. He was more than happy to oblige her.
He made sure to catch up with Ariana each evening, and didn’t think he was shirking his duties in keeping an eye on her when they were all out together. She had so little interest in whatever ball they were at it was almost laughable.
The young men fell all over themselves to get her to dance or say a single word to them, and she mostly
stood around with a far off look in her eyes. Owen knew she was counting the minutes until she could get back to the book. While she said it was only because he’d soon be taking it back home with him, he was starting to get a bit worried about the amount of time she spent poring over it.
He’d be glad to get it away from her, thinking all the things she wanted to do were either frivolous or downright dangerous. He laughed to himself, realizing he never thought that way before he met Maria. He was just as eager to find a way to open up the Belmary House portal and scamper about through time, meet others like themselves, change the world as Ariana so foolishly believed they could. But lately all he wanted was to sit in an open carriage with Maria while the sun shone down on them and watch the breeze blow the ribbons on her bonnet.
“What’s funny?” Ariana asked, looking up from her sewing.
She had the harassed look she always did these days when she was forced to be doing something other than reading the book or practicing spells.
He shrugged and stared into his teacup, the tea long gone cold. “Did I laugh? I think I must have dozed off for a minute there.”
She huffed and put her sewing into its basket. “I know. I’m about to go mad waiting.”
“We’re not having any fun, either,” one of her brothers piped up.
Owen had almost forgot their presence in the far corner of the room where Ariana had threateningly consigned them. The boys were the reason they were stuck inside.
Farrah was ill and couldn’t watch them, and while Ariana’s mother was out, they were in charge. No amount of moaning or begging to make Cook watch them had let them off the hook.
As soon as Aunt Tilly and his mother left, Ariana told the boys they better sit still and not make a peep or they’d be sorry. He was surprised they listened to her, and wondered what kind of sisterly cruelty she subjected them to on a regular basis to make them so pliable.
“One of you may go find Aunt Serena’s dogs to bring in here to play with,” she told them begrudgingly. “You, Nathan. You’re most trustworthy. If you value your brothers’ lives you’ll not tarry.”
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