Liberating Fight

by Melissa McShane

  She Shaped the delicate inner structures of her ears to be less receptive and came to herself to find both men looking at her expectantly. Dizzy from the heat and noise, she nodded agreement to something she had not heard. She needed air. “Excuse me,” she said in English, then repeated herself when neither moved. The two men and the crowd surrounding her seemed ignorant of her distress. “Please to pass,” she said.

  Someone gripped her elbow. Without hesitating, she spun around and slammed her fist into her assailant’s stomach, making him bend double and expel air in a great ooph of breath. With her other hand, she grabbed the man’s hair and bent his head back to expose his throat. She pressed her claws against the jugular vein and shoved him backward, his feet scrabbling to keep him upright, until she had him up against the wall. A painting shifted and fell to the floor with a crash.

  “Amaya!”

  Her lips curled in a snarl. The man’s eyes were white all around, and he held himself still, pressing hard into the wall as if hoping to escape her claws. She examined him closely. He wore formal English dress, those short pants that came only to the knee and the odd coat that was longer in back than in front, and was round of face and belly. He did not look dangerous, but she still was not entirely familiar with how English warriors looked.

  “Miss Salazar,” Edmund said from close behind her, “has this man assaulted you?”

  The man swallowed, and Amaya’s claws dimpled his flesh. “I didn’t,” he whispered, still motionless except for the convulsive leap of his throat as he swallowed again. “I beg your pardon, Miss Salazar, I meant only to attract your attention. I should not have touched you.”

  “Miss Salazar, if he has offered you offense, we will take him into custody,” Edmund said. His words were heavily emphasized, the word custody a heavy stone pressing against her. She felt the man’s pulse beating fast and hard beneath her hand, heard his heavy breathing, and realized her own body was poised to kill.

  She slowly released the man’s hair and lowered her claws. “You startle me,” she said in English. “That not—it is bad manners to touch.” The phrase bad manners was a familiar one; so many of her instincts that were appropriate among her people were bad manners in English society.

  “It certainly is,” Edmund said. He stepped forward to stand beside Amaya. “Lord Carstairs, apologize to the lady.”

  Lord Carstairs ran a quick hand through his disordered locks and bowed deeply. “Miss Salazar, I crave your forgiveness. I should never have done that. Please overlook my behavior, and know I hold you in the highest respect.”

  “Thank you,” Amaya said. “I forgive.” She could say nothing else if she desired to keep these people from fearing her.

  “Miss Salazar, I came to inform you that your carriage is here, as you requested,” Edmund continued. “If you would care to make your goodbyes to our hostess?”

  She had not ordered the carriage, and she had never been so grateful for Edmund’s perspicacity. “Thank you, I must go.” She nodded to Lord Braithwaite and Mr. and Mrs. Ellery. They looked afraid, and the worried feeling centered on Edmund’s words about taking her assailant into custody intensified.

  Edmund handed her into the carriage without comment. Amaya settled her awkward skirts around herself and plucked at her gloves to remove them. The fingertips of both were shredded. She wadded them into a ball and closed her hand around it tightly. “He startled me,” she said in Spanish. “Everything was so loud, and that is exactly the circumstance under which an attack is most likely.”

  “Will it do any good for me to point out you are not in Peru, and you are unlikely to be attacked in a London drawing room?” Edmund asked. He sounded, not angry, but resigned, and it made the worry deepen further.

  “For ten years I have been a jaguar warrior,” she said, “and those instincts kept me alive. They are not something to be easily overcome. And you yourself said he should not have touched me.”

  “His foolish mistake could have cost him his life.” Edmund leaned forward to gaze at her directly, all frivolity vanished. When she protested, he added, “I don’t mean that you might have killed him. You have better self-control than that. I mean that assaulting an Extraordinary is a serious crime, punishable in some cases by death. You owe it to society to be circumspect in your doings.”

  That explained the expressions of the others. Amaya clasped her hands in her lap and bowed her head to stare at them. Her skin was darker than most Europeans, darkened by choice when she was among the Incas, but no one ever commented on the difference. Her nails, however… She did not need claws here in England, and she might cut and Shape them to look like ordinary human fingernails. But the thought of doing so made her uncomfortable, as if in giving that small thing up, she lost another piece of herself.

  “I would not be so vindictive,” she said.

  “Others might be vindictive on your behalf. If he had truly assaulted you, you would find many of those in attendance willing to testify to that fact.” Edmund laid a hand atop her clasped ones. “I wish I knew how to help you.”

  She raised her head to look into his eyes. “Help me in what way?”

  “You are not one to enjoy sitting idle. You are learning to read, and to ride, and you enjoy visiting museums and going for walks. And yet as busy as you are, you still seem restless, as if there is something you wish to do.”

  “I am grateful to your family, Edmund,” Amaya protested.

  “That is not what I mean. You have the air of someone whose destiny has yet to be revealed, if you will permit me a dramatic moment. I don’t suppose you have given any more thought to Dr. Macrae’s offer?”

  Amaya frowned. “It is hardly an offer. It is more a thinly veiled threat. She seems to believe that, as a fellow Extraordinary Shaper, she has a right to dictate how I use my talent.” So had Lord Braithwaite, she recalled. She could not help but wonder how prevalent this opinion was in English society.

  “Medical training for all Extraordinary Shapers makes sense to me.”

  “It implies that my talent exists purely for the benefit of others. And yet—oh, I am saying this badly. I understand Dr. Macrae’s perspective. Shaping others to be free of injury is a noble effort, and having all Extraordinary Shapers capable of doing so does make sense. But she would have me embark upon a years’ long course of study, at the end of which my life would no longer be my own. I have no interest in becoming a physician.”

  “And yet you attended my sister-in-law’s confinement and delivered her child.” Edmund released her and sat back. “You clearly have the ability.”

  “That is different. I attended upon the Sapa Inca’s wives when they gave birth, and Mary asked the favor of me. It is the expectation, Edmund, the assumption that because I am an Extraordinary Shaper, I owe it to humanity to Heal the injured. No one behaves as if Extraordinary Bounders should keep themselves ready to transport anyone who asks, or as if Extraordinary Scorchers must hie to the site of great conflagrations to extinguish fires regardless of the time of day or night.”

  “England has only one Extraordinary Scorcher, so that is unlikely.”

  Amaya waved that objection aside. “You understand my meaning.”

  “I do.” The carriage came to a stop, but Edmund did not rise. “And I believe you will discover your calling, if you permit yourself time. You know you are welcome to stay with us as long as you like.”

  “I do, and I am grateful for your family’s hospitality.” She was grateful; she simply knew she could not go on like this forever, a hanger-on at the Hanley household, a poor relation with no home of her own. Well, she was not poor, obviously, but in every other respect she was a dependent.

  “I am glad of your company,” Edmund said. “With Bess gone, I have no one else behind whom to conceal my interest in antiquities. If you were to leave, I would be forced to go to the British Museum alone, and be mocked mercilessly as a bluestocking by my peers.”

  “I was under the impression only women were blues
tockings,” Amaya said with a smile.

  Edmund stepped down from the carriage and extended his hand. “Then the male equivalent—an eccentric, perhaps, like my brother Vincent, so absorbed in his studies.”

  Amaya gave a moment’s consideration to Edmund’s younger brother, up at Oxford. He had enthusiastically welcomed her to that university, introduced many scholars to her, and was relentlessly engaged in academic pursuits. “I see nothing wrong with being interested in a life of the mind.”

  “I have a reputation to maintain, Amaya. It is that of a carefree man about town.” Edmund held the townhouse door for her. “Suppose someone were to begin to take me seriously? So much for that carefully constructed reputation.”

  “Well, I like you whatever your reputation,” Amaya said.

  Chapter 2

  In which Amaya receives a startling revelation

  Amaya woke late the next morning, emotionally weary from the previous evening’s gathering. She lay in bed as she always did upon waking, marveling at the softness of the mattress. It had taken most of a week for her to feel comfortable sleeping on a thick mattress, and two weeks to learn to enjoy it. She had missed the firm support of a pallet at first, and struggled to climb out of bed for several days. Now she feared she would find a pallet uncomfortable, but as she was unlikely to return to the Incas, it hardly mattered.

  She eyed the window; by the intensity of the light and the shadows it cast, it was an hour past dawn. Gone were the days when she would have risen with the sun. Sleeping late was one more alien habit to acquire, though Mary, wife of Edmund’s older brother Charles, slept even later than she. Of course, Mary was still recovering from the birth of her child three weeks earlier, but Amaya was certain Mary enjoyed sleeping late regardless.

  She rose and dressed in a white muslin gown patterned with rosebuds. Mrs. Hanley had taken her to the warehouses to acquire clothing, back when Amaya and Bess were newly returned from Peru, but it was Bess who had directed the beautiful fabrics to be delivered to a woman who would make them up in the War Office style. “Women in the War Office may not be in a position to be waited upon,” Bess had explained, “and our clothing is made to be donned unassisted.” She had also introduced Amaya to something called convenables that went beneath one’s clothing and shaped one’s figure, but Amaya had declined the offer. She could Shape her own body to whatever mode English society demanded.

  Now, fastening her gown, she once again was grateful to the absent Bess for knowing what would make Amaya comfortable. Amaya missed her friend terribly, but Bess was so happy with her husband, Lord Ravenscourt, she could not wish Bess here again. Soon enough, their wedding trip would be over, and then Amaya would go to live with Bess at her invitation.

  The idea sent an unexpected twinge of annoyance through her. Dependent on the Hanleys, dependent on Bess… Should she instead look for a situation of her own? And yet, where would she go? The idea of being alone in a city full of people whose language she barely spoke unnerved her as no physical threat could.

  She ate breakfast alone, then retired to the drawing room to read. It had been Edmund’s suggestion that she practice her English by reading as well as by speaking, and that had been an excellent suggestion. She could take her time with her reading as she could not in conversation, and if a word stymied her, she could look for its meaning in the little book Edmund had procured for her, with its lists of English words and their Spanish equivalents.

  The book she was currently reading had been recommended by Mary, and Amaya was not certain she liked it. On the one hand, it provided an excellent portrayal of English society and culture, and the characters were lively and clever—clever enough that Amaya was certain she missed much of what was actually said. But she was not sure she believed a woman such as Elizabeth Bennet could exist, much as she wished otherwise. The character spoke with such easy confidence, even to men to whom she was not related, and seemed not to care that her existence was terribly precarious—Amaya needed to ask Edmund what an entailment was—and was nothing like most of the Englishwomen Amaya met. She wished Miss Bennet were real, because she felt certain they would be great friends.

  She heard footsteps, and looked up to see Albert the footman enter the room. “Miss Salazar,” he said in his ponderous voice, “you have a caller. May I tell her you are at home?”

  Albert intimidated Amaya as no one else did, with his straight, unsmiling mouth and his fierce eyebrows. He always looked at her as if expecting her to do something uncouth. “Who is it?”

  Albert extended a silver tray to her, upon which lay a rectangle of pasteboard. Amaya picked it up and squinted at the curly writing. “Mrs. Casper Neville,” she pronounced slowly. “I do not know her.”

  “Very good, miss,” Albert said. “Shall I show her up, or would you prefer not to be at home?”

  Amaya examined the name again. “No, please to bring her here,” she said. Curiosity had taken hold of her. She had had many callers, but they had always been men and women who had been introduced to her. A stranger. She might be anyone.

  Albert left, and Amaya set her book aside and stood, straightening her skirts. She cast a quick glance around the room, ensuring it was tidy, though the servants were extremely thorough. It occurred to her that Mrs. Neville might be one of the many importunate fortune-seekers with a sad story to evoke Amaya’s pity and open her purse-strings. Most of those interested in her fortune were male, and quick to offer marriage, but there were a few women who had laudable causes to which they wanted Amaya to donate. Well, if this were the case, Amaya would send Mrs. Neville on her way politely but firmly.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Albert reappeared, trailing a small, grey-haired woman with a careworn face. “Miss Salazar, Mrs. Neville,” he said.

  “Thank you, Albert, that is all,” Amaya said.

  Albert bowed and withdrew.

  Amaya and Mrs. Neville gazed at each other. Mrs. Neville’s clothes looked very fine, as far as Amaya’s limited understanding of English fashion went; she wore a gown of striped muslin, pale green and white, and her bonnet was trimmed with a profusion of ribbons to match. She held a large silk reticule embroidered all over with an abstract pattern. By her clothing, she was wealthy, but her expression was not one of someone as free of care as Amaya felt a rich woman should be. Her lips were thin and pale, and wrinkles creased the corners of her eyes and dragged down her mouth. The blue of her eyes looked faded, as if they had seen much and been discouraged by most of it.

  “Mrs. Neville,” Amaya said. “I do not know of you. You are here why?” It was too direct for politeness, but Amaya’s English was not up to the challenge of being polite.

  “Miss Salazar.” Mrs. Neville’s voice cracked, and she visibly swallowed. “Miss Salazar, I am your grandmother.”

  The word at first made no sense. “You are…” Amaya began, thinking to ask the woman to explain herself. Then memory caught up with her. She took a step back and bumped into the round table whereon lay her books. “Grandmother,” she whispered.

  Mrs. Neville looked, if anything, more worried and nervous than before. One hand twisted in her muslin skirt, wrinkling the fabric terribly. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words emerged.

  Amaya’s hand closed hard on the table’s edge. “I do not believe,” she said. Her throat was unexpectedly dry, and the words came out as harshly as a rasp across stone. “I have no grandmother.”

  “I know it must be difficult to believe,” Mrs. Neville said, “but I assure you I am certain you are my daughter Catherine’s child.”

  This had to be the most unusual way anyone had yet tried to lay claim to her fortune. Amaya examined Mrs. Neville more carefully. She did not actually seem certain of anything, with the way her hand restlessly twisted her skirt around her fingers and the pinched look of her forehead. If she intended to make a claim on Amaya’s ancestry, she had chosen a poor way to go about it. Despite herself, Amaya asked, “How can you prove it? My parents were Spanish, no
t English. This is a terrible lie—”

  “Your father was Spanish, yes,” Mrs. Neville broke in. “Don Ernesto de Salazar y Ortiz. He was of high-class Castilian nobility whose family fell upon hard times. He left Spain for London, where he was introduced to my daughter Catherine. They married, and he chose to pursue a life in the South American colonies. That is where you were born, Imelda Salazar.”

  Amaya’s hand closed into a fist. “It is a good story,” she said, “but someone tell you those names for you to say to me.”

  “Your name has been much in the news, yes, but not that of your father or your mother,” Mrs. Neville said. Her brow was even more pinched than before. “And I do not believe anyone knows you were christened Imelda Magdalena Caterina Salazar.”

  It was like a blow to the stomach. “How?” Amaya whispered. “How do you know this?”

  Mrs. Neville dipped her hand into her reticule. “Catherine wrote to me. Her—my husband would not permit me to receive her correspondence. These two letters were all I was able to hide from him, and one of them—” She withdrew a yellowing, much-folded paper covered with tiny writing— “gives the news of your birth and christening.”

  She extended the paper to Amaya, who took it reflexively. The date and salutation at the top were clear; the cramped handwriting beneath was impossible for her to interpret. She stared blindly at it, willing it to become comprehensible. The possibility that this was all a lie seemed less likely by the moment.