A Hanging at Lotus Hall

by Corrina Lawson

  “Shall I speak to him?” Gregor asked.

  “No, but if he sends our rabbi to ‘enlighten’ me, perhaps you can discuss the merits of Eastern versus Western religions.”

  “Better yet, perhaps both would like to speak to the dowager duchess.”

  Joan laughed.

  Gregor had accomplished his intent: he’d lightened the mood and reminded her if she could survive her parents, she could survive his family. He might have chased away his own nerves as well.

  Iron gates, decorated with Gregor’s family crest of a crossed dagger and hammer, opened for them at the top of the hill.

  “Are they automated?” she asked.

  “Yes. The controls are in a dedicated room near the butler’s quarters. We’re expected.”

  The carriage puttered up the circular driveway to the main entrance of Lotus Hall.

  Drawings and photographs of the place stood as pale shades compared to the real mansion that loomed over them. Joan drew in a long breath, stunned all over again.

  The sandy stone exterior reflected the afternoon light, forcing her to put her hand over her eyes to see clearly. She counted five floors, divided into the three sections, with three windows each, to make fifteen front-facing windows on each section, save for the middle. Four pillars framed that impressive entranceway, topped by a triangular stone that was decorated with the family crest.

  The ride stopped smoothly, giving Joan a second to collect her awed wits. Henry helped her out of the carriage but all her attention focused on the structure before them. It seemed equal parts architecture and fantasy. Lotus Hall drove home just how rich and influential the Dukes of Bennington were and had always been. This place could swallow up so many. Including her.

  It’s only a house, like any other.

  Yes, like Gregor was only a person like any other.

  At her side, Gregor grimaced, perhaps reminded that his family considered him a disappointment. Anger rose that no one in his family, save his mother, seemed to appreciate his worth. Perhaps Gregor had picked her, someone unsuitable, to further aggravate his difficult family.

  She dismissed that as uncharitable and unworthy of Gregor.

  She hoped.

  Joan reminded herself that Lotus Hall had been built by a merchant favored by Queen Elizabeth. Joan’s family came from similar merchant stock. That Elizabethan merchant’s descendants had risen to these current heights. And what did she crave for her descendants, assuming she had any? Freedom, she thought. Gregor’s family home could well be a kind of prison, as her father’s home would be to her.

  Joan mentally reviewed what she’d learned of the famous Lotus Hall. It had fallen into disrepair about one hundred years ago as the family money began to vanish due to loss of agriculture revenues. Gregor’s grandfather, however, had been one of the first mages to be recognized by the crown, and that had sent the family fortunes soaring again.

  Of course, that meant producing mages in each generation had become of paramount importance. Gregor’s older half-brothers, Jared, the current duke, and Lord Nicholas, were said to be talented mages, though Gregor had not given her details.

  Gregor’s parents had no doubt expected him to be one of those mages, especially given his mother’s considerable gifts. Had Gregor been gifted as they hoped, the scandal of his parents’ marriage would have faded. And now?

  Now deadly packages from Lotus Hall arrived at Joan’s doorstep.

  Henry bowed and gestured to the gilded front doors of the hall. “I’m sorry Mr. Niles isn’t here to greet you, milord. Most irregular, but he’s been at the duke’s right hand the last few days.”

  “As is proper,” Gregor said. He turned to Joan. “Mr. Niles is the butler who is truly lord of this castle.”

  “Lord Gregor!” Henry admonished.

  Gregor winked at him. “Now, we know what we know, Henry.”

  Henry almost smiled. He definitely had a twinkle in his eyes.

  “Would you like me to tend your bag, Miss Krieger?” Henry asked.

  “I’d rather have it with me, thank you, but if you could find someone to take my trunk to whatever room I’m assigned, that would be lovely.”

  “Very good!”

  Henry threw open the front doors himself. This time, Joan gaped.

  Warmth enveloped her, a heat that signaled a modern system fueled by mage coal. Thick rugs decorated the gleaming hardwood floor, the center one displaying the family seal, as the gates had.

  But it was the walls that had her most awestruck. Their sea-green color conveyed majesty and movement, while the white chair rails appeared as foam against the water. Against that backdrop, an enormous painting dominated the entrance hall. It was as tall as a person and twice as wide, and depicted the snow-capped Himalayas familiar from news reports. But those reports portrayed them in black and white. These paintings contained shapes and colors so vivid it seemed as if she could walk into them and to another world.

  “That’s beautiful and stunning,” she said. “Your mother’s influence?”

  Gregor snorted. “My father commissioned that painting before he even met my mother, so goes the family legend. She always said she wasn’t certain whether he fell in love with her for herself or because she was part of the continent he adored, perhaps too much.”

  “Is that Everest?” She pointed to the largest mountain.

  “Yes. And Mr. Dale’s work, in fact. He was, er, is, a talented artist. He shared my father’s obsession with that particular mountain.”

  “What is so amazing about climbing a mountain?” she wondered out loud.

  “Jasper Sherringford, Sixth Duke of Bennington, may have viewed it as a personal challenge. And he always completed the tasks that he started. Or died trying.”

  Her turn to snort. “In that, you are like him.”

  Gregor raised an eyebrow. Had he never made that connection before, his obsession with truth and puzzles with his father’s obsession over a mountain?

  “I see our welcome party has arrived.” He waved a hand to the grand staircase dominating the foyer.

  A woman descended those carpeted stairs. “Walked” was an inadequate word for how this woman entered their presence. She skimmed over the steps as a light breeze skimmed over skin.

  “Always with the entrances, Ma,” Gregor chided as his mother reached them.

  Chapter 5

  “It is the occasion for it, is it not, with your return home,” Gregor’s mother said. “And with the redoubtable Miss Joan Krieger too.”

  Redoubtable?

  Gregor bowed. “Your Grace, may I present Miss Joan Krieger of London. Miss Krieger, may I introduce the Dowager Duchess of Bennington, Vaishali Sherringford.”

  Joan would have curtsied but Gregor kept a hand around her waist. His unspoken message: don’t show weakness.

  His mother’s gaze caught Joan nonetheless, her eyes dark and fathomless, like her son’s. Her face was too irregular to be classically beautiful but that mattered not. May the scholars who warned of false idols forgive her, Joan thought, for all she could think was that she stood in the presence of a demigoddess. The duchess’s clothes were of the finest satin material and exuded a sheen that signaled magic had been woven into the seams. Perhaps this was even the duchess’s own handiwork.

  Her cream-colored skirt swirled around her ankles, drawing attention to a green embroidered design at the hem. Her matching blouse contained the same pattern in the same green thread about the shoulders. She’d pulled her long, dark hair back from her face with a single braid, but otherwise it was unadorned.

  Her Grace. The one family member that Joan knew she must impress. Gregor clearly adored his mother.

  “You look exceedingly well, Mother,” Gregor added. “I trust the trip wasn’t too taxing. You arrived rather quickly.”

  “Not taxing for me, thank you, though Edward had a hard time of it.” She kissed his cheek—they were nearly the same height, Joan noticed, though perhaps the duchess wore heels not vis
ible under the dress.

  “Your letter was quite terse,” Gregor said, but there was an edge behind the words. Chiding his mother for keeping this a secret.

  As Gregor kept many secrets.

  “Some things cannot be said in mere correspondence.”

  Joan smiled because, well, she sounded like a mother chastising a disobedient boy, and Gregor being chastised was an unusual event.

  “How did you know the moment of our arrival so exactly?” Joan asked. To her, it seemed the duchess had been watching for them. Damnation, she thought, was she going to mistrust every word said by everyone in Lotus Hall?

  Yes, she decided. It was safer that way.

  “I’m sensitive to magical currents, and Gregor’s shadowy pattern is never a secret from me. Yours, though, Miss Krieger, is also lovely, a hint of sunshine in his midnight.”

  Joan wondered if the duchess left everyone speechless and decided that, yes, she did. Whatever the circumstances of her birth, she’d learned to exude nobility. Joan inwardly squared her shoulders. She’d stood up to Gregor on their first meeting, and she would not be intimidated by his mother.

  “You can sense magic in people?” Joan asked. Was she a mage-sniffer?

  “No, what I sense is much like the aftermath of a shifting tide. You were using your gift to power the flying carriage and so I caught the echo of it. As for Gregor—” she glanced at him, “—he’s my son.”

  “Ah.”

  The silence grew. When Gregor grew quiet, it meant he hoped the people with him would speak and reveal themselves. He must have learned that trick from his mother. But Joan could not stand here in quiet, not in this place, in front of this woman.

  “The embroidery adorning your dress is beautiful, Your Grace. Is that silk thread?” she asked.

  “Yes, thank you, it is. But you don’t have to use ‘Your Grace.’ Considering you’re a fellow mage and already on familiar terms with my son, Vai will do.” She frowned. “We will have to talk later about clothing and much else, but first, you must come with me, Miss Krieger.”

  “What?” Gregor asked. “Why? We wish to speak to you and Mr. Dale, as soon as possible. Your letter left quite a bit unsaid.”

  “Then off with you, as Mr. Dale’s in his own rooms.” She waved that statement away. “But Miss Krieger’s mage strength must be renewed if she is to function today. It usually takes me half a day after powering the carriage to want to move around.”

  “Who are these guests?” Gregor asked.

  “Jared summoned some of the main supporters of the Mage Reform Act to discuss the final revisions before it comes up for a vote. He’s still dithering about his support. Sir August Milverton, one of the bill’s main backers, and Mr. James Moriarty and Mr. Samuel Cooper of the Metaphysical Society are here to settle his mind.”

  Moriarty and Cooper were here only a day after presenting their offer to her. That was no coincidence, Joan thought. But she let none of her surprise show.

  “Ah,” Gregor said. “Interesting.”

  “Go be detective, then. Let me help your Miss Krieger.” His mother waved at him in dismissal.

  Gregor ignored her. “I’d rather have Joan with me.”

  “Do you not trust me with Miss Krieger?” the duchess asked, with an edge to her voice.

  “Trust is such a loaded word,” he replied.

  “I want to go with your mother,” Joan cut in. If Vaishali Sherringford was behind this morning’s attack, better to find out now.

  “As you wish.” Gregor bowed and exited, not by the main staircase, but one at the side.

  Leaving Joan alone with the formidable dowager duchess. Be careful what you wish for, Joan thought.

  “How will you renew my strength?” Joan had never heard of a method that restored mage strength quickly. The usual cure was to spend days in bright sunlight.

  “It’s quicker to show you. We have our secrets here at Lotus Hall but we share them, on occasion, especially with those important to the family, as you are.” The older woman smiled.

  “I would be honored.” Especially to learn a family secret.

  “Good.” She hooked her arm around Joan’s.

  The duchess…no, Vai, she’d said. But that seemed too informal. Joan vowed to stay with “Your Grace.”

  Her Grace led them farther into the foyer. At the base of the imposing main steps, the dowager duchess turned left around the back to what seemed to be a dead end. Once upon a time, Joan used to question Gregor when he did something unfathomable like this, but she’d learned it was better to stay silent rather than reveal her ignorance.

  The Sherringfords did like being dramatic, didn’t they? She was suddenly eager to meet the two brothers. Gregor had been frustratingly brief in describing them, though he claimed Jared was steady and solid, “unusual for one of our family.”

  And Nicholas would parade elephants through the front door, given the chance.

  The duchess waved a hand at the polished wood. The wall wavered, revealing the dead end as an illusion, like the one that hid the entrance to Gregor’s offices in London.

  Now Joan knew from whom he’d learned the trick.

  In a few seconds, the illusion vanished completely, revealing double doors that ran from floor to ceiling. The duchess opened those doors to a darkened hallway. Joan followed her inside as the doors shut behind them, temporarily cutting off all light. Joan heard the whoosh of fabric as Her Grace waved a hand. Lantern lights set on the hallway walls, about ten feet above them, roared to life.

  No flickers. Not gas lights; instead, they must be mage lights powered by a spell that the duchess had activated. This woman had the power to create the deadly spell in the teapot.

  The floor vibrated strongly enough for Joan to feel it inside her boots. She stared down with her mage gift. Beneath the floorboards pulsed a current of power.

  “Are these the currents that power the mage lights?”

  “Yes, and this stored power also is used elsewhere in Lotus Hall,” the duchess said. “It’s more efficient than having to provide energy for each little spell.”

  A baffle that soaked up power, like at the Isca School. But that absorbed magic from all the students. This relied only on Sherringfords.

  “My God, that must require so much power…”

  “God, I believe, had little to do with it. Most of it was my doing,” the duchess said with a smile. “Everyone in this family, perhaps everyone in England, is so busy finding offensive ways to use magic. Such a limited viewpoint. Power can be stored and used for purposes other than killing each other. It can make life better.”

  That explained the duchess’s use of mage-sewn fabric. Another innovative way to use the gift, one that Joan had accidentally discovered only last year. Though Joan’s own handiwork only contained echoes of magic. The duchess’s clothing glowed with it.

  Joan followed the demigoddess down the hallway along the trail of power, the mage light glowing green around them. The air cooled. Joan pulled her outer jacket tight around her. The duchess’s heels clicked on the wooden floors, merging with the faint tap of Joan’s boot heels.

  Gilded doors shining in the mage light gleamed at the end of the corridor. The duchess opened these with a flourish and motioned Joan to enter first.

  Joan stepped into another world, a vast circular room filled with glorious illumination.

  Above her, clear glass showcased the noonday sun, the rays arcing around the top of the domed ceiling and producing an effect that would be blinding if she stared at it too long.

  Halfway down the ceiling, bluish-green water lapped against the outside of the dome.

  An underwater ballroom.

  It belonged to another world. It was another world.

  The duchess set herself in the middle of a multicolored sun painted on the floor and held up her arms to the rays of light. She chanted something low in Hindi. Joan recognized the duchess’s words as a poem about the hope of a new day, one that her son knew by memory. Greg
or had insisted Joan learn it, but she still stumbled over the pronunciations. Language was not her gift.

  The chant/recital ended, though the sunny halo around the dowager duchess remained. Perhaps it was a trick of the light. Perhaps not. Oh, poor Jasper Sherringford, Joan thought. He had had no chance at all. No wonder the scion of one of the realm’s oldest bloodlines had thrown away all tradition and braved scandal to marry this woman.

  She existed in a category all her own.

  The duchess, the magical currents glowing around her like the sun, finally turned to Joan. She held the powerful gaze with difficulty.

  Her Grace finally smiled. “Let me formally welcome you to Lotus Hall, Miss Joan Krieger. This is my favorite part of my husband’s home.”

  Joan remembered to breathe. “Thank you, Your Grace. I’m glad to be so welcomed.”

  “As I said, I’m simply Vai.”

  “You are not simply anything.” Joan prayed she would be an ally because this was not a person to have as an enemy. “This is a room out of a fairy tale,” she added. And you, a fairy queen.

  And yet there was Gregor, whose power was the opposite of this room, cut off from his mother and father’s magic. No wonder he brooded and avoided Lotus Hall.

  “You like it?” The duchess grinned, mischievous now. “This monstrosity of a home has some compensations, does it not? Jasper held some of his finest parties in this room, the light provided by the stars above. Do you know why we had it built?”

  This question was a test too. “It focuses the sunlight on the person standing in the center, and sunlight is the source of the energy that feeds all mage abilities.”

  “Yes! And I’ve been greedy, soaking it up for myself The rest of the day promises to be a long and frustrating one. I wanted the extra boost.” She took Joan’s arm. “But you need it. The flying carriage drained you. Stand here, where I was. Raise your arms and close your eyes, as I did.”

  Joan raised her arms. This was no trap. This was a slice of heaven. She could already feel the heat and light filling her, promising to replace all she’d lost from the journey and the attack. “I haven’t memorized the poem you used.”