Weather Witch

by Shannon Delany

  “This is unseemly!” his mother declared, grasping Lady Astraea’s arm instead.

  Lady Astraea yelped, but hid in the shelter of Rowen’s arms with more determination.

  Rowen’s mother snapped her fan shut and began smacking the whimpering Lady Astraea about the head and shoulders.

  Rowen bellowed, whisking Lady Astraea to safety behind him as his mother rained slaps of her fan all across his shoulders and chest.

  Lady Burchette was relentless. “You. Will. Obey. Your. Mother!” she howled. “Now!”

  Rowen leaned down to look his mother in the eye, rebellion still seething deep inside him.

  She flicked his nose with the fan and stood balanced on tiptoe to be nose-to-chin with her greatly taller son. “You will obey me.”

  “I will—”

  “Or you will lose more than this supposed family. You will be disowned by your own.”

  “Now Millie…” Rowen’s father began but she turned his direction so fast he swallowed the rest of his words and grew so pale it seemed he might in a moment vomit them back up.

  She swung back to Rowen, focusing the full force of her glittering gaze on him. “Now, young man. We are leaving.”

  Rowen looked to his father, but cowed, he was already walking toward the door. He looked round the foyer, but everywhere eyes turned away from him. Catrina waved him in her direction, looking as kind as she ever had.

  She mouthed the words, “Come now.”

  “Rowen!” his mother bellowed.

  He blinked, swallowed, and straightened, releasing Lady Astraea. “Yes, Mother.”

  Chloe snatched Lady Astraea into her arms. “So that’s why you carry such a large handbag,” she said to Lady Burchette, “you have to fit two pairs of balls in there along with your rouge.”

  Lady Burchette gasped and whisked her fan open to better behave as a proper lady should at such talk. Then she snapped it shut again and jabbed Rowen in the gut. “Move.”

  He did, raising his chin as proudly as a young man could when being ordered about by his mother.

  “Rowen Albertus,” Chloe chided. “Love, you need to grow a pair. No one would bother having you without them—no matter your rank.”

  Lady Burchette gasped again, poking both her husband and son as she hurried them toward the doors. “I would watch my tongue, were I you,” she warned Chloe. “I only need to say a few words and you’ll never find work again.”

  Chloe balled her hands into fists and set them on her hips. “Your threats mean nothing, Burchette. We all know what happens next. Threats and words—kind or unkind—truth or lies—will not shift the path of the juggernaut now rolling.”

  Lionel, the Astraea butler, yanked the door open and cleared his throat. “The door,” he said pointedly to the Burchettes. “As it seems you are having difficulty finding it quickly enough for my lady’s piece of mind.”

  “Why thank you, Lionel,” Lady Burchette said with an arrogant sniff.

  “Oh, dear,” Lionel said. “You misunderstood. Not surprising, I would guess … My lady is Lady Astraea. She always has been and always shall be. And you have offended her. You must go. Now.”

  “Why I—”

  “Do not say ‘Why I never’ as if no one has expressed a similar sentiment in which to hie you from their residence,” he responded with a snort. “Given your attitude I expect you have been encouraged away from the homes of good people many times.”

  Lady Burchette took one long spin around to look at the few people who remained—mostly servants. “Catrina!” she snapped. “Come with us, darling, your uncle can join us when he—reappears. But this is no place for a proper lady.”

  Catrina clicked her way across the floor to join Rowen’s family. Rowen let out a loud sigh.

  “A proper lady?” Chloe snorted. “I daresay it would require a lady of higher standing than you to determine such a thing.”

  Before they were fully out the door Lionel began to close it on them, much to Lady Burchette’s consternation.

  The door shut and nothing but the remnants of the Astraea family and their servants remained within walls far too quiet to contain what began as a birthday party for one of the city’s most eligible young women.

  “Now it is time to clean up this mess,” Lionel announced, securing the doors.

  Chloe nodded, looking at the youngest of their number. “Laura, escort her ladyship to her chambers. Test the adjoining room’s locks and bolt the doors on her side. Cynda will replace you shortly.”

  Laura’s eyes were wide. “Lock his lordship out of her chambers?”

  Chloe signaled Laura nearer to her and placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “Men have been known to do horrible things when they suspect a woman of infidelity,” she confided. “Lady Astraea may never again be safe with him. We need to wait. To see. And, most importantly, to allow for no unhappy accidents.”

  Laura nodded, a shade paler than her natural complexion, gathered up her skirts, and hooked her arm around Lady Astraea’s to gently pull her in the direction of her private rooms.

  Chloe puffed out a breath. “We’ll need to release Laura soon. Better all the young ones get out unmarred if possible.”

  Lionel nodded. “Too late for us,” he said with a sad smile.

  “True, true,” Chloe agreed. “A few last details—too dangerous to overlook—and then we’ll do the standard cleanup.”

  Lionel nodded and Chloe clapped her hands together.

  “Sanders.” Chloe turned to address a young man with a narrow face and ginger hair. “Gather all the powder.”

  “Powder?” he asked, eyebrows high on his broad and freckled forehead.

  “Gunpowder,” she specified. “Remove all bayonets, collect the family swords and sabers, and bring them to the kitchen to be stored. And his lordship’s letter opener and penknife. It has a nasty point on it. Scissors as well. Make haste.”

  He nodded and dashed away to gather all the potentially dangerous implements.

  “I will secure all the knives and cutlery … and the medicinals.”

  Lionel caught her by the arm as she turned to go. “How do you know to do all this?”

  “I had a household before this one,” Chloe said, her voice going low and tragic. She blinked at him, dark eyes damp, and then cleared her throat and dodged away to do whatever she somehow knew needed to be done.

  He watched her go without a word, wishing he had said the right thing at the right moment.

  Holgate

  The knock roused Bran from his reading, and taking the lantern he stumbled to the door of his modest apartments on the tower’s thirteenth story. Listening for any sign of trouble (because a summoning at such an hour was highly unusual) the Maker slid open the peephole and peered out at one of the town’s watchmen. He was a great beast of a man, tall, broad, and with a wicked scar that turned his every expression to a sneer.

  “Mister Maker, sir. Seems we’s got a late night delivery of some import for you,” the man said, his rank breath seeping in to sting Bran’s eyes.

  Bran slammed the peephole shut, squinting. “There is no delivery of such great import that should pull a man from his privacy at this hour. Find me first thing in the morning,” he ordered.

  As he turned away more knocking sounded. A distinct and rapid rapping. “Sir, good Maker,” came the high-pitched voice of Maude, the head servant. What brought her to his door at such an hour raised many questions in his mind. He and she had parted ways weeks ago and he had already seen her enjoying the attentions of another man. “Good Maker,” Maude tried again, “I really must insist…”

  He rubbed his eyes and fiddled with the locks on his door, grumbling his way through each. “Dear God, Maude, what could possibly have been delivered at such an indecent hour and of such great import as to cause you and a watchman to be at my door demanding my attention?”

  The door groaned open and he glared at them both with equal vitriol.

  One hand tucked behind her back,
Maude looked over her shoulder and made a soft cooing noise. The watchman shifted his substantial weight from one foot to another, peering behind Maude’s back.

  “What?” Bran demanded.

  “Have a care, you’ll frighten the poor dear…”

  “The poor—?” He dodged around her, shoving Maude aside.

  There was a squeal and a blur of movement as a child dashed behind Maude’s skirts to hide again.

  “Now, now,” Maude soothed. “Come out, lovey. He’s not nearly so frightening as he first seems. And he’s the Maker—a very important man. Your papá is quite the figure in Holgate.”

  “Papá—” Bran looked from Maude to the little girl the guardsman nudged forward and back to Maude again. “Impossible.”

  Maude laughed. “I cannot imagine how you’d dare say that, good Maker.” She startled him with a bold wink. “Such things have been known to happen to young men sowing their wild oats.”

  Bran’s gaze glued itself once more to the child.

  She was small and slender with sallow skin and deep hollows around large green eyes. Shadows nested in her delicate features, winter resting on her heart-shaped face far more than the blush of spring or rosy summer. Curls so pale they rivaled moonlight tumbled down from the top of her head, giving her a halo in the light afforded by the gathering of the three adults’ stormlight lanterns.

  “How old are you, child?” he asked, his eyes thinning as he thought back over the few lovers he had taken in his loneliest moments.

  Her brow creased as her little lips worked to form the words. “Five, sir,” she carefully annunciated. “My good mother, God rest her soul, bore the Christian name of Margaret.”

  Bran blinked. He remembered a Margaret—a Peggy, truly. He had spent eight days that varied in description from being greatly leisurely to filled with intense exercise in her company while his apartments were refurnished after a particularly successful Making of a Hub Witch. “Margaret,” he whispered, seeing bits of her reflected in the child. He crouched before the child, bringing the lantern right beside her face. Yes, he saw Peggy in her, no doubt—the shape of the lips, the slight upturn of the tip of her nose, the irrationally lengthy eyelashes that made her eyes a shade darker from their shadows. He snorted.

  “And how might you prove she is my get?”

  “Your get?” Maude asked, watching intently as he again rose to his full height. “She is no man’s get. She is your child. Do you not see yourself in her?”

  He looked away.

  Maude bent at her waist and now she held the lantern aloft so he might better examine the child. That light bounced off the top of Maude’s breasts as well.

  Bran swallowed and focused, looking again at the girl.

  “Look. Look at the shape of her eyes, Bran,” Maude whispered so intimately the watchman raised a heavy eyebrow. “Those are your eyes. Yes, a different color and yes, lined with far longer lashes but … they are your eyes.”

  Bran’s jaw jutted out, but he looked at her. Hard.

  “And here,” Maude said, jabbing the girl’s ribs so that, startled, she jumped and giggled, little arms wrapping around to protect herself from Maude’s fingers as they scurried across her side. “There!” Maude exclaimed. “See your dimples on her cheeks?”

  “I have no dimples.”

  “Oh, you do,” Maude teased. “When you smile. It’s a rare moment, true enough, when the Maker smiles, but I’ve seen it once or twice.”

  Bran looked at the watchman. “Take her. For a moment.”

  The man’s face scrunched up, making him even less visually appealing, but he grunted and said, “Come now, li’l dove. We’ll walk just a bit down this hall. Not far at all,” he promised. “With me.”

  The child glanced at Maude for consent before following as he bade.

  “How can I care for a child, Maude? Yes, I can make one, and granted, she appears to be mine, but—” He shook his head and yawned. “What of her mother?”

  “Dead, sir. The fever took her. A working girl found her with this little lovey curled at her side, a note bound to her.” She dug into one of the pockets inside her skirt and withdrew a scrap of paper. “Here.”

  His hands shaking, he read it aloud. “Brandon Marshall of House Dregard, father of my dear sweet kitten, Meghan, do raise her well and true. In time she will come to love you greatly and you her.”

  “The girls could not afford to keep her and they did not trust the poorhouses or the workhouses as many of them had barely survived such themselves.”

  He nodded, his lips pursed. “As they themselves instead turned to the whorehouses?” he asked with a smirk.

  “At least they have some small bit of independence left. But she needs you. A lass needs her papá.”

  “I have no way to keep her.”

  “You have fine apartments. A wee scrap of a child needs little room.”

  “But time. She’ll require time.”

  “She is old enough to assist in your library.”

  “And when I am in my laboratory? Is she old enough to help in my laboratory or the tower top? To see the things that make me a Maker? Is that what she should see at such a tender age—this kitten”—he snapped out the words—“this little dove?”

  Maude looked away. “You cannot let her go with you there, Bran. Not yet. Not so young. Such things would terrify her. Wound her. But you cannot send her away. I will not allow it.”

  His eyebrows rose, arching. “You will not allow it?”

  “Please, Bran. Do the right thing. When you are in the laboratory or the tower top send her to me. Wherever I am. The kitchen, the laundry … wherever. A child needs a place where she’s looked after. Even if it is a place like this.”

  “And tonight?”

  “Tonight she may sleep in the servants’ quarters with me. But tomorrow morning I will need to make a proper place for her here, in her father’s apartments. She will require clothing and shoes. Not much, but something. A small allowance for necessities.”

  Bran nodded, a slow move at first, but a nod nonetheless. “Fine, fine.” He glanced around her, down to where the watchman pointed to spots along the hall and talked about the things making Holgate what it was. “Come here, child—Meghan, is it?”

  The tiny head turned, curls bobbling. She bounced her way back to them, but slowed her skip to a modest walk as she approached, lowering her gaze, her plump lower lip jutting out as she prepared for rejection. “Yes, sir?”

  “Yes, papá will serve. You are to stay with Maude tonight and move into my quarters on the morrow. What think you of that?”

  “If it please you, sir,” she said with a little curtsy.

  “It would, Meg. It would please me greatly,” he said, though the words fell flat. “But it will be difficult at first. An adjustment for us both.”

  “Yes, sir—papá,” she said, raising her eyes to meet his at the correction, a smile pressing dimples into the corners of her mouth once more.

  He froze, still as a rabbit catching scent of a wolf, seeing himself there in the twist of her lips and dimples so deep they seemed to cut straight to the bone. “Now go,” he whispered, watching how she slipped her tiny hand into Maude’s and they trotted away, taking much of the light away with them.

  He retreated into his chambers and, closing the door, slid the bolts back into place. A child. He had a child—someone who would go on beyond him and bear some part of him into the future. Someone to carry his name and deeds beyond his eventual demise.

  He had his immortality and quite by accident. But she was there. And so very small, so slight and frail and so seemingly ephemeral.

  Chapter Five

  Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind …

  —THE BIBLE

  Philadelphia

  Down the hallway and up one flight of stairs Laura and Lady Astraea went, the only noises the echo of their shoes on the wooden floor, the sound of breathing, and the occasional strangled sob uttered by Lady Astraea.
>
  Arriving at Lady Astraea’s door, Laura moved to open it, withdrawing when her ladyship reached out as well. “I did not do it, you know,” Lady Astraea said in a strained whisper. “I have never lain with another man. I have never even imagined it.” She wiped clumsily at tears leaking from her eyes. The small bit of makeup she used to color her cheeks in the European fashion smeared on the heel of her hand and she stood a long minute staring at the lace ringing her delicate sleeve and just barely showing the tender white flesh of her wrist.

  “I believe you, milady,” Laura assured, pressing down on the door’s handle to pop it open. “Here. In we go.”

  Inside, Laura secured the door, moved the fireplace poker, and checked the connecting door. She turned the key in that one’s lock and slid the bolt home.

  She set the candles first, eyeing the stormlights with curiosity. She had heard all linked stormlights would extinguish once it was known the family had lost rank. They would be cast into the literal dark as much as their name had been cast into the figurative. While the room now blushed with a cool cast of light, Laura realized she had only ever seen the Astraea rooms illuminated by steady stormlight. The flicker and flare of flame would make everything strange in comparison.

  Lady Astraea moved ghostlike across the broad floor to sit on the edge of her bed, fingers smoothing out the small wrinkles in the quilt her mother had helped her make years ago—a quilt that had laid silently in her hope chest until Morgan Astraea came along. She smiled a moment, remembering.

  But reality caught her again and she coughed, drawing her arms tight about her shivering body.

  “Oh, milady,” Laura cooed. “Have no worries. There is a bit of a chill in the night’s air. I shall build you a fine fire to warm your body and brighten your spirit. Nothing cheers me so much on a grim day,” the girl said, shuffling about the fireplace to set the kindling and find the firestarter, “as a merry fire.”

  She arranged the tinder and coaxed a fire to life, humming softly as she did. The humming became enunciated, the words growing clear.