No Perfect Magic

by Patricia Rice

  Behind her, she sensed Mr. Madden standing tall and strong, watching her back. His presence surrounded her with almost eerie humming vibrations. He might drive her mad were they elsewhere, but here she needed the reassurance he emanated.

  If she had been able to fight past her hysteria earlier, she would never have considered this mad expedition. She would have hidden behind her usual weakness. But Mr. Madden’s presence had oddly made the venture not only seem possible, but almost as normal as locating a lost kitten. Instead of arguing and forcing her to give up, he had accepted her need to find the crying child. And so, she had gone.

  If her father or brother heard about this. . . It didn’t matter. They already thought her worthless and had despaired of ever being rid of her. They’d vowed to return from London with a husband of their choosing, since she would not select one.

  She reached through the forest of ferns for a scrap of color that seemed out of place, where she encountered what felt like a small foot. Crawling further into the narrow space, she reached deeper and felt a small chest rising and falling. Sending prayers of thanksgiving to the heavens, she buried her fingers in folds of cloth and gently pulled.

  The child woke and cried again, a heartbreakingly odd cry with no words, only fear and grief. Will dropped to his knees beside her, helping her haul the weeping child from her hiding place. Aurelia held up the puppy, and the young girl cried out in joy, reaching for her pet.

  The child made noises that weren’t words as she crooned over the dog, which wiggled in ecstasy, despite its damaged leg.

  “Can you tell if she’s injured?” Will asked in a low voice, pushing the ferns aside to see better.

  The child finally noticed him and scrambled backward in terror.

  Oh, dear. Aurelia held up her arm, pretending to hold Will away. “He won’t hurt you. Are you hurt?”

  Wild-eyed, the girl just kept shaking her head and scooting backward, seeking her hiding place again.

  “Don’t.” Aurelia caught her ankle. She couldn’t guess the child’s age. It was too dark. But she was small, all bone and tattered cloth. She’d lost one shoe and wore no cloak, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. “Let us take you home with us. We have a warm fire. Do you like soup? We can have a warm bowl of soup. And your puppy would like a bone, wouldn’t he? Does he have a name?”

  She spoke soothingly, stroking the child’s leg and warming her cold toes in her glove. The girl quit inching away but continued glaring at Will with suspicion.

  He stepped backward, out of the child’s sight. “Can you lift her?”

  “Maybe, if you’ll take the pup.” She grasped the wriggling bundle of fur and attempted to pry it from the child’s hand, but she wouldn’t let go. “That won’t work.”

  “Wrap both of them in this, and maybe she won’t be able to fight if I lift her.” He dropped his very large coat over her shoulder.

  Aurelia glanced up and saw him outlined in shirtsleeves and waistcoat in the weak light of the moon. “You’ll freeze,” she protested.

  “Not any more than that child will. Wrap her up so she can’t easily escape. I can carry her on my horse better than you can if she won’t jump off.”

  Acknowledging the truth of that, Aurelia dropped the huge wool coat over the child’s frail shoulders. Clinging to the puppy, the girl snuggled into the warmth. Aurelia wrapped the heavy fabric around her nearly twice, bundling child and dog into a cocoon. “All snug and tight?” she crooned as if to an infant. “Let’s go for a ride and find some warm food.”

  When the girl still only made ummm ummm noises, Aurelia lifted the bundle from the fern bed and nearly staggered with the awkward weight until Will slid his big arms beneath her burden. The girl wriggled and cried out in protest, but she didn’t have a chance of fighting off his embrace. Aurelia continued speaking reassuringly as they walked back to the horses.

  While she found a boulder she could stand on to mount her sidesaddle, Will tucked his protesting bundle into the curve of one arm, and pulled himself up with ease.

  “Men have it too easy,” Aurelia complained as she wrapped her hindering skirt and leg around the pommel. “You’re bigger, stronger, and you don’t have to wear petticoats.”

  “Women are smaller and softer so they don’t frighten little children,” he countered, hanging on to his writhing bundle of yipping, protesting dog and child while setting his horse in motion.

  “Small children wouldn’t be afraid of big men if men didn’t hurt them.” She had to air that fear if only to take it off her chest.

  “There are equally wicked women,” he said, “but admittedly, men have the strength to do more damage. But this one seems to have all her bones in place. They’re pummeling me viciously.”

  Apparently they were far enough from human occupation that the only sounds her acute hearing picked up were the silent animals going about their nocturnal business. Amazed that she could have an actual conversation, Aurelia laughed at the notion of those tiny hands causing his muscular chest any harm. “I wonder why she does not talk? Surely she’s old enough to know how.”

  “Unless we wish to believe she’s lived out here alone, raised by rabbits, she may just be too frightened.”

  Aurelia didn’t think she’d ever heard Mr. Madden string so many words together at one time. His voice was a low rumble, calming in the same odd way his vibrations soothed instead of irritated. She thought even the child sensed it and settled down to simple sobs. Out here, with only the dog trainer for company, she experienced a tranquility she’d never known.

  It didn’t last long. The closer they came to home, the more the din of her company invaded her head. Although Mr. Madden’s noiseless hum soothed, she could still hear the castle occupants shrieking with repressed excitement, fear, and worry. Apparently the guests had decided on a late night—or her suitors were waiting for her to reappear.

  “We should take her in through the kitchen,” she murmured as they entered the stable yard.

  “Cook will not appreciate the dog,” Mr. Madden countered.

  “And the child won’t be parted from it, I know. But she needs a hot bath and hot food. If I am very fortunate, Cook will have retired, and I can call a maid.”

  “I’ll go with you. The horses can wait in the paddock.” He led the way back to the gate.

  He swung down with ease despite his burden, then held her horse as she used a stepping block. Aurelia wanted to take the child and do this herself, but she knew she needed assistance. She was comfortable accepting the aid of servants, but Mr. Madden wasn’t family or servant. He existed in a limbo with no societal definition, and his shirt-sleeved proximity unnerved her.

  Descending the back stairs, she wished herself back outside in the relative silence of the fields.

  Bang, clang, look what you’ve done! Where the devil is she? We must leave. Why stay here? The lady is quite mad. Splash, scrub, grumble. . .

  Two kitchen maids and a pot boy were washing up as they entered the kitchen cellar. The servants stared in mute amazement at her presence.

  With the clamor of the guests building above, Aurelia wasn’t in the best of humors. She snapped orders for hot water, hot broth, and sent for her maid. The servants scurried, unwittingly leaving her alone with Mr. Madden.

  “And people claim you’re addlepated,” he said in amusement, releasing his terrified captive from his coat and setting her on the floor.

  The child clung to her pet and studied the enormous kitchen with alarm.

  “I am addlepated,” Aurelia retorted. “I am holding on by a thin thread and not certain how I’m doing even that much. I suggest you leave to take care of the horses before I snap.”

  She wasn’t generally so blunt with gentlemen, but Mr. Madden wasn’t a stranger or a gentleman. He’d been rude, and now he was standing there with his massive arms clad only in shirtsleeves, exuding masculinity with every breath. She was too nervous to dissemble.

  Instead of donning his coat, he removed a
round laundry tub from the wall and set it before the fire. One of the maids returned to fill it with pails of hot and cold water at his silent direction.

  Only when Aurelia’s maid hurried into the room did he bother shrugging his battered coat back on.

  “Should I take the dog or will you handle it?” he asked, making no comment on her claim to addlepation.

  Aurelia looked at the terrified pair on the hearth and hadn’t the heart to separate them. “We’ll have to dunk both of them in the bath together.”

  He nodded agreement. “As best as I’ve been able to tell, his leg seems bruised but not broken. He’ll bite if you’re not careful.”

  How could he determine that when the child wouldn’t even let him near her pet? Aurelia was too exhausted to question. “I’ll be careful.”

  “Send for me if there is aught I can do.” He edged for the door.

  Despite his lack of finery, unshaven jaw, and overlong hair, he looked as out of place in the servants’ gloomy cellar as she did. Awkwardly, she gestured at the child on the hearth. “I thank you for understanding.”

  “I am always at your service,” he said, making a polite bow and doffing an invisible hat.

  Her maid watched him, open-mouthed, as he departed. “Lordy, is he man or mountain?”

  Remembering his concern for a lost urchin and his unquestioning aid, Aurelia sighed in confusion. “Not a mountain,” was the best she could do. There was nothing cold or rocky about Mr. Madden.

  A#, C, C#, D#, F, F#, G#, A# plink plank plunk

  She’s not in her room. . .

  She’s not worth your time. . .

  You promised. . . !

  And Rose?

  You needn’t worry. . .

  Creaaakkkkk. . .

  Fighting exhaustion and the odd confusion of guilt and fear exhibited by the voices in her head, Aurelia watched the maids tuck in the sleepy child before striking out for her chamber. She’d almost reached the end of her strength and really didn’t need another encounter with her insistent suitors, so she used the servants’ dark stairs.

  The masculine argument grew more heated. Even normal hearing might detect the shouting, but with her acute ability, the words graduated from background noise to clarity. She tried desperately not to sort out the various sounds she heard when she was this close to their source. If she concentrated hard enough, she could force the clamor into a monotonous rhythm rather like a waterfall or rain storm. But other times, especially when she was weary, the sounds would penetrate and she could separate the impassioned lovemaking from the drunken laughter or malicious gossip and hear every word.

  The silly cow won’t give me an answer! That shout leapt plainly from the other cacophony. She’s avoiding me. I haven’t seen her all evening.

  Aurelia winced, recognizing Lord Clayton.

  She’s your last damned chance another male voice roared. He sounded almost close enough to hear normally, which meant they were probably in the library, one of the rooms nearest to the servants stairs. I need my blunt or I’ll lose my mother’s house!

  Charming. Leaving the ground floor to the quarrelling men, Aurelia climbed to the next floor and peered down the corridor to make certain it was empty. A light under her door welcomed her.

  I’ll bring her around the Clayton voice argued inside her pounding skull, despite the distance she was trying to put between them. You don’t think I want to cool my heels in debtor’s prison do you? All you have to do is go along with anything I say, and the deed will be done before her father returns.

  Aurelia thought she really ought to find a big stick and part his hair to the crown, but what was the point of proving she wasn’t a stupid cow if she behaved like one?

  You touch a hair on her head and Rain will part yours from your neck. The voice of reason spoke. She wished she could appreciate it.

  Don’t be foolish. One doesn’t need force with a simpleton, just wit.

  Aurelia took exception to the direction of this conversation. She assumed both men were in their cups, but any reference to her brother warned they’d worn out their welcome. Rain had enough problems without adding obstreperous suitors to them.

  Fortunately, the men had vented the worst of their anger, or she had moved far enough away that even her sensitivities could no longer discern all their words. They blended into the background hum. She probably should seek them out and attempt to learn their nefarious plans, but it all seemed too foolish at this hour. She would simply put an end to their fun.

  Her sisters waited in her bedchamber, helping themselves to her jewelry and paint, amusing themselves while they waited to pounce.

  “Where have you been?” Lydia demanded. “We’ve had to lie for you all evening.”

  Lord Clayton and his friend might no longer be shouting, but someone in the next wing was delivering a sharp scold and another couple was turning amorous. Aurelia simply wanted to bury her head in her pillows and sleep.

  In the morning, she would worry about why a child wandered the dale alone.

  “This house party was a mistake,” she informed her sisters, flinging her cloak over a chair. She could concentrate when the topic was of this importance. “Everyone needs to leave in the morning.”

  “You‘re simply having one of your episodes,” Phoebe said. “You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep. Shall I send for tea?”

  “No, I do not want tea. Lord Clayton and one of his pockets-to-let friends are plotting. I will not marry him no matter what scandal he means to provoke. If you wish to avert disaster, you will send them packing.” Aurelia sat down to remove her muddy boots and glare at her bewildered sisters. “Without Rain or Father here, we have no defense. Aunt Tessie is not enough.”

  “They’re gentlemen,” Lydia protested. “They wouldn’t do anything to harm us.”

  “They are plotting as we speak. Lord Clayton thinks I am a stupid cow, and he’s probably convinced himself that I am better off behind closed doors, in his bed, bearing his children, than running loose. Cows, after all, need tending.” Scowling, she presented the back of her gown to Phoebe to unfasten. “He may be an earl’s son, but he hasn’t a feather of his own to fly with, and he’s seeking an heiress. If he can’t have me, he’ll take one of you.”

  “Not me,” Phoebe piped up in alarm. “He’s too old. And I want a glorious come-out where I may bedazzle all of London.”

  “And I’m already betrothed. You worry for naught. Take your headache powder, and you’ll feel better in the morning.” Lydia removed the diamond earrings and returned them to Aurelia’s jewelry box.

  “Desperate men do desperate things. You will stay in your rooms in the morning. I will send word that you are ill, possibly with something contagious, like the mumps, and everyone has to leave.” The cries in her head were lessening somewhat as their guests settled in for the night, but the pain did not recede. At least the frightened child had fallen asleep.

  “Lela, you cannot mean it!” Lydia cried. “Where will they all go? We promised entertainment. You will make us laughingstocks in all society.”

  Bodice unfastened, Aurelia circled to face her sister. “I am already a laughingstock, you’ll remember. There is nothing more pathetic than a compromised laughingstock. If I absolutely must marry, then it needs to be someone of rank, who can accomplish great things with my wealth, as father says. This party was a mistake, I am sorry. Either they go, or I call Rain and Father back from London.”

  She’d done it before. They knew she did not make idle threats. They might be too young to remember the earlier disaster, but Aurelia had the tragedy imprinted on her mind forever. So did Rain.

  “Papa says the future of the kingdom rides on the Reform Bill,” Phoebe whispered in concern. “He will hate to leave.”

  Because of the family peculiarities, their father and brother almost never went to London. That they had done so to aid the cause of reform spoke of the importance of the current parliamentary session. Aurelia felt guilty about maki
ng the threat, but the clearness of Clayton’s anger in her head spoke of his desperation. She might risk herself, but not her sisters.

  “Would Lord Clayton really hurt us?” Phoebe asked with the uncertainty of the child she still was.

  “Men who think of women as cattle can justify their behavior with impunity. They do not believe they are hurting us. We are just pawns to be traded in their quest for riches.” Removing her gown and corset, Aurelia slipped into a robe in relief. “I am sorry. This is the reason we should never entertain without Father or Rain in attendance.”

  She was painfully aware of the hypocrisy of her orders. She’d ridden out with a man she scarcely knew this evening. Perhaps she’d frightened herself more than she’d realized. But she would not change her mind about the party. It had been drummed into her head from an early age that the children of dukes were expected to accomplish great things, and for that reason, they must take as much care with their persons as royalty. She understood better than they why this had to be so, but she’d been as bored as her sisters and had relaxed her guard.

  Looking worried but not chastened, her sisters finally departed. Aurelia sank into a chair and rubbed her temples. Her gift was mostly a curse, but if she could occasionally save her family from harm, she would endure.

  Thinking of the quiet giant no doubt sleeping in the stable, and the mute child in the cellar, she wondered what it would be like surrounded by people who seldom spoke. They could live in a cottage on the moor, away from all civilization.

  But she was the wealthy daughter of a duke, destined to make the world a better place. A hermit’s wife she could never be.

  Which meant—she had to venture out into the world on her own. Again. Sometime.