by C. L. Polk
“What do you fear?”
“I’m not here to seek a wife,” Ianthe said. “Our mother brought us to Chasland because she wants a connection to the family of a friend of mine here.”
“Ah,” Beatrice said. “What sort of friend?”
“His father came to Llanandras years ago to expand upon our trade agreements and he brought his son. Bard and I went to the chapterhouse together,” Ianthe confirmed. “Mother senses an opportunity to invest in Chasland’s new industrial efforts. But I wish Ysbeta would be allowed to choose someone else.”
“Someone she loves already?”
“As far as I know, my sister holds no such affection for anyone. I mean that she should be allowed to choose someone not from here.” He shrugged and gave an apology of a smile. “I am sorry, but there are customs among Chaslanders that I find unpleasant.”
He didn’t laugh at her as Chaslanders would for believing that women should be permitted to pursue profit—his own mother was a force in his family’s business, in fact. He agreed with her radical notions. What other beliefs did Ianthe hold?
“I don’t care for them all either,” Beatrice said. “What will you do about your sister?”
Ianthe shrugged. “What can I do? It’s a daughter’s duty to obey her mother’s wishes. I can’t really interfere, even if I hate seeing her handed over like a bauble in exchange for a trade agreement.”
Beatrice weighed Ianthe’s statement for half a moment before she answered. “Are you truly without recourse, Mr. Lavan?”
“What do you mean?”
“Consider this,” Beatrice said. “If your sister had to betray your family’s expectations, or else face the diminishing of her spirit the way Odele had to, would you support her in betrayal?”
His eyebrows rose, then settled as Ianthe mulled the question over. “You ask a precise question. One I can’t answer until after some thought.”
“Other people’s problems are easier to see than your own,” Beatrice laughed softly. “I have never enjoyed that particular irony.”
Ianthe’s gaze went sharp and grave. “Is there something that troubles you?”
There was, but Beatrice shook her head. “It is my trouble to bear.”
“I wish to be of use. If it’s within my power—”
“It is not something I could ask of you.”
:Ask him. Ask him!:
:No!:
“Then wish on a star,” Ianthe said. “Wish on Jiret, the heart-home. Don’t tell me what it is, but wish.”
He took her hand and held it, and a sensation like the prick of nettles without the sting slid up her arm and over her skin: hot, then cold, then soft as fur—
Magic. He cast magic to lift her wish to the sky.
He squeezed her hand. “Wish.”
Her mind went blank. “I don’t know what to wish for.”
“You have more than one desire?”
“And choosing one closes the door on the other.”
“Then wish for a clear path,” Ianthe said.
Beatrice looked to the sky, finding the brightest star among them. She gathered her power and wove it around Ianthe’s, sending her wish to Heaven: Skyborn Gods, tell me how can I be happy when you have sent me this terrible choice? Who do I save: my family, or myself?
An hour ago, the only thing she wanted was magic. An hour ago, she didn’t know what it felt like to look at a man and have her heart leap. She’d never dreamed that she would capture the attention of such a highly placed gentleman, or that she would thrill to his attention, his politeness, his respect.
“What did you wish for?” Ianthe asked.
“That’s secret.”
He smiled. “So it is. Then what can I give you that will help you get it?”
:He’ll do it.:
:I know.:
“I can’t ask for it,” Beatrice said. “It’s indelicate.”
He moved closer. “Then give me the honor of keeping your secret. I must help you. It is my only wish. Be indelicate, Miss Clayborn. I’ll not breathe a word.”
:Kiss him.:
Young ladies didn’t kiss gentlemen. Not ever. Young ladies did not ask gentlemen to kiss them. They did not invite such intimacies. But everything depended on it.
“It’s a kiss,” she said.
“A kiss?” Ianthe asked. “That is the answer to your woes?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Then we should make it a good one. May I?”
He meant to kiss her. Beatrice’s breath stopped in her throat. Nadi pushed, and she nodded her head, stepping within the circle of his arms.
Ianthe looped an arm around her waist and pulled her in, kissing her so her senses blurred. He had anise on his tongue, and it blended with the sugar-butter-vanilla on hers, and the kiss flowed through her body like slow, glowing lightning.
Nadi reveled in it, singing in glee. The world spun around them, falling away until there was nothing but Ianthe holding her, kissing her, melding into her senses as she melted into his—and Ianthe’s kiss stole everything from her.
She couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t him. She couldn’t breathe without drinking him in. She pushed herself closer, forgetting starlight and dancing and the taste of cake on her lips. She gasped when he pulled his mouth away, half-dazed, her body suffused with feeling.
:Fortune is yours,: Nadi said. :Here she comes.:
Who? Beatrice pulled away just as footsteps sounded on the paving stones and Ysbeta Lavan rounded the corner, head high and gazing down her nose.
“I see you’ve found my brother.”
“Er. Yes.” Beatrice freed herself from Ianthe’s hold and fought the urge to pat her hair.
Ysbeta smiled for an instant. “I’m glad he found you. We were in such a rush to leave that neither of us remembered about our cards.”
That was a lie, but Beatrice smiled her forgiveness. “It’s lucky we found each other.”
“Indeed. I should like to speak to you tomorrow, if I may pay you a call?”
Ysbeta wanted to speak to her? “Yes. Please do.”
Beatrice reached inside her pocket and removed a card holder, producing one of the printed cards bearing her name and an invitation to call at her address.
“I should also like a card,” Ianthe said. “If you would welcome a visit.”
Beatrice turned her startled gaze to his face. “I—”
“Not tomorrow,” Ysbeta said. “I have reserved the first visit.”
“I could come with you.”
Ysbeta scowled. “I don’t want you to.”
Ianthe shrugged, the smile still on his lips. “Then I will attend the chapterhouse and make pleasant conversation until you are ready to return home. If I may ride into town with you?”
“I’ll allow it,” Ysbeta said. “Now let’s get out of here before another gentleman asks me to dance.”
Ianthe accepted Beatrice’s card with a bow, and then they walked away, Ysbeta’s words floating in the air behind them. “You shouldn’t kiss Chaslander girls, Ianthe. They take it too seriously.”
Ianthe’s reply drifted out of earshot. Beatrice waited for another count of one hundred and went in search of her mother. If Ysbeta was bringing the book back to her, then she wanted to be at her best.
“Why are we leaving so early?” Harriet thumped sulky heels against the carriage bench. “You couldn’t have danced more than once. We hadn’t finished visiting with Mother’s old friends. We should still be there!”
Nadi whimpered and shrank into a dense little ball in Beatrice’s stomach. Beatrice laid a hand on her stomacher and tried to soothe Nadi, but it couldn’t be comforted.
“No more Llanandari, please. I’m not feeling well,” Beatrice said. “And it’s not that early. It took me some time to find you.”
“But it’s not even midnight!”
“It will be in a few minutes,” Mother said. “Beatrice getting sick at the dance would have made an unpleasant impression.”
>
“Exactly,” Beatrice said. “Would you want me to cast up my last meal on the shoes of a gentleman?”
Harriet gave her a scornful look. “This is the most important night of the bargaining season. The most important! Did you talk to the matrons?”
:You could have stayed to dance,: Nadi said.
“There wasn’t time. I started feeling so strange, I needed fresh air.” Beatrice rubbed her upper arms, banishing the shivering tingles racing along her limbs. “I couldn’t stay another minute.”
She could still taste anise on her tongue. She could still smell marvelous rich cocoa and roses. She touched her lips, still plump from Ianthe’s kiss, and dropped her hand back in her lap before Mother noticed. Or worse—before Harriet noticed.
“Harriet, dear.” Mother tapped Harriet’s knee with her fan. “Beatrice isn’t feeling well. She said that. There will be another Assembly Dance in two weeks.”
“That’s too late!” Harriet wailed. “Your prospects depend on who you meet at the first Spring Assembly Dance. It’s the premiere of the season, your chance to meet everyone in town, and you’re going home early, without having met anyone.”
:We could have danced,: sighed Nadi. :One dance. One more kiss from beautiful Ianthe.:
“It was too much,” Beatrice said. “It’s so hot in the ballroom. It smelled like a perfume store and sweaty silk, and the elderflower punch made me dizzy.”
“That’s why you’re sick! There’s gin in it,” Harriet said, as if she were the one aged eighteen and Beatrice the fifteen-year-old child. “You’re only supposed to have one, to enhance your humor. Did you have more than one?”
“Yes.”
Harriet sighed dramatically. “I didn’t know you knew nothing about bargaining season. This is important. I won’t let you blunder. We can’t afford a second season if you fail.”
“Harriet,” Mother said, “talk of money is unseemly.”
Harriet said nothing, but she turned a meaningful look at Beatrice. Beatrice looked at the carriage curtains and stayed silent. Harriet was right to worry. But she’d fulfilled Nadi’s wishes. She would get the grimoire back in time.
The carriage leaned in its springs as the driver took the sedan around a corner. In the distance, the chapterhouse clock tolled midnight.
Nadi faded from her awareness, slipped out from under her skin to return to the ethereal realm. Beatrice felt strangely empty, feeling for Nadi’s presence as if it were a lost tooth.
Beside her, Harriet shivered.
“Regardless. It was time to go home,” Beatrice said.
“How many cards did you give out?” Harriet twisted in her seat and squirreled her hand into the pocket-slit on Beatrice’s gown. “You stole cake napkins?”
“I couldn’t find anywhere to put them.”
Harriet yanked her hand from Beatrice’s pocket and pulled out a card case, inspecting the small stack of address cards nestled inside. “Beatrice! Did you give out a single card?”
“I did,” Beatrice said. “I gave out two.”
“Only two?”
“Harriet, please don’t shout so,” Mother said. “To whom did you give your cards, Beatrice?”
“To Ianthe Lavan and his sister.”
Mother and sister went dead silent. The carriage wheels crunched and rattled, their vibrations jostling the carriage out of tempo with the horses’ clipped two-beat gait. Harriet made a strangled squeak and clapped her hands to her cheeks.
“Ianthe Lavan?” Mother asked. “His prospects are excellent.”
“Ianthe Lavan? He’s perfect. Beatrice! How could you?” Harriet flicked her wrist and smacked Beatrice’s knee with the closed vanes of her fan. “You can’t leave the Spring Assembly Dance having given out only one card to a man like Ianthe Lavan! It makes your intentions far too plain! You need him to compete against several suitors for your attention. You can’t just lay your heart at his feet and hope he chooses you.”
Beatrice snatched the fan out of Harriet’s hand. “That’s enough. I am tired of you parroting out the plots of all your lace-ruffle novels as if they paint a real picture of bargaining season. I am not a prize for a raft of gentlemen contesting among themselves to win me, and I will not manipulate anyone into competing for my hand.”
“That’s exactly what you need to do, though,” Harriet huffed. “If you think yours is the only card he claimed, you are in for a long fall.”
Beatrice flinched at the sting. “I never made that assumption. In fact, I know it was not.”
“Ianthe Lavan is heir to a shipping fortune so vast we can’t conceive of it. He wears the rose sword of the first mystery of the chapterhouse. He’s an expert horseman, a superb dancer, an able sword-fighter, the figure of fashion—he is miles above a banker’s family.” Harriet’s eyebrows pushed worried lines across her forehead. She held Beatrice’s arm, shaking it as if it would make her words carry more weight. “His family has more connections than a spiderweb. Their wishes become laws. He claims dukes and princes for friends, speaks four languages—Mother. She’ll never land him if she doesn’t do this properly, don’t you see?”
“Leave Beatrice be,” Mother said. “I’m sure she will do very well, even without the wisdom of your bargaining season knowledge. She is so strong in the power, gentlemen will want her even without playing hunt and chase with multiple suitors.”
“But it’s the best way,” Harriet insisted. “Multiple suitors increase Beatrice’s appeal. But now she’ll look like she set her sights too high, and everyone loves a comeuppance.”
“Harriet,” Mother said, and her even tone had lost its patience. “I did not raise you to be the kind of girl who indulges in theatrical despair at the slightest disturbance. Did I?”
“No, Mother. But I never had a chance to meet any of the younger set. It’s not just Beatrice’s chances that were diminished by leaving early. I need to make friends too—and so we should go back.”
“We can’t go back,” Beatrice said. “I told you, I feel ill.”
But she wanted to be back on that terrace. She wanted to kiss him again—wanted it so profoundly it frightened her. No, no. Let him call on Danton’s awful sister, the one with the overly busy gown. She needed to keep her distance.
“We are already home,” Mother said, and just at that moment, the carriage rolled to a stop before their door.
Harriet gazed at Beatrice, worry etched so deeply on her brow that Beatrice wanted to soothe her. A girl Harriet’s age shouldn’t have such worries. And she had to make sure that her actions didn’t bar Harriet from the debut she wanted when she was of age. When Father saw the benefit of commanding a greater spirit’s abilities and knowledge to enhance his business ventures, he would agree to let her go quietly into spinsterhood while they worked together. Thornback sorceresses were rare and considered a bit tragic, but if she were too valuable to Father, he’d never make her marry.
But for now, she had to continue with the plan—social success, romantic failure.
Beatrice twisted to touch Harriet’s arm. “The next major event is the cherry blossom ride. Perhaps someone will buy my lunch basket. I’ll even let you pick my riding habit, and I will follow all your advice. It’s not too late, I swear.”
“The violet,” Harriet said. “It’s your best. But if we don’t get out there and meet people, no one will bid on your basket at the charity picnic.”
“Done,” Beatrice said. “We’ll go out and meet people, I promise.”
Beatrice climbed out of the carriage. She took a deep breath of salt air and paused to make out the dark spots on the wide stone stairs. Scattered across the steps were the tiny blue-violet heads of springtime’s kiss, dark and fragrant in the lamplight from their carriage. Beatrice’s heart went still—and then she gasped as Harriet landed on the sidewalk next to her and shrieked, grabbing Beatrice around the waist and jumping for joy.
“He came! He came! He must have flown to get here in time, but you have a suitor!”
“Stop jostling me,” Beatrice said, but Harriet was already picking up each blossom, gathering them in one hand. “Maybe it wasn’t Ianthe.”
“You only gave out one card to a gentleman. Who else could you have met who would leave springtime’s kiss on your step?”
Beatrice’s face tingled. “No one, I suppose.”
“I don’t know how you did it, but you’re a success. You need to press these in a book. Oh, this is so exciting! You have to wear your best day gown tomorrow, and practice your chamber music, and—”
Ianthe. It had to be him—he had raced from the assembly hall to scatter hastily picked flowers across her step, a gesture that signaled his particular interest. What would Ysbeta have said to that detour? She touched her lips and the memory of that kiss shivered through her, the sensation as powerful as the magic she cast in secret.
Beatrice turned to her mother, who watched her with a proud smile, the warding collar glistening in the lamplight. Beatrice tried to smile back, but she couldn’t look away.
CHAPTER III
Beatrice awoke with the echoing pressure of a headache and Clara laying out a dress choice for a day cooped up indoors waiting for callers—a printed cotton stripe trimmed in thirty-point lace, the skirt a soft conical increase to be worn without a fulling cage.
Clara halted with the gown in her arms and smiled. “Good morning, Beatrice. Are you ready for your caller?”
It was time to wake up. It was time to smile, and be unfailingly polite, and find out why Ysbeta Lavan now wanted her acquaintance when she clearly had not wanted it at the bookstore. “Good morning, Clara. The stripe will do.”
“Not the peach with the lady-slipper embroidery?”
“My caller is to be Ysbeta Lavan, not Ianthe. She insisted on seeing me first.”
“Hm. There could be a dozen reasons for that.” Clara laid the gown on the foot of the bed and moved to Beatrice’s bedside, dabbling a cloth in a basin of water. She wiped Beatrice’s face. “You’re frowning.”
“Headache.”
“You drank too much elderflower punch.” Clara swiped down her neck. “I’ll have Cook mix you a potion. I’ll bring it to you in your bath. Up you come, out of bed.”