As I crossed the threshold, light flared all around, momentarily blinding me. I blinked and shook my head. Then my eyes cleared and I saw that I was not in the card room at all. Instead, I was standing in a pleasant little cloistered garden. The light came from seven tall torches thrust into the ground just inside the wall. The flames wavered in a cool evening breeze, and by their light I saw a chair on the opposite side of the garden occupied by a man in evening dress. I realized at once that it was James.
I whirled to run, but my arms were caught in a grip of steel and I heard Sir Hilary’s voice in my ear, “You really should not be so inquisitive, my dear.”
I kicked him and screamed as loudly as I could for help. Sir Hilary did not seem the least discomposed, and his grip on my arms did not loosen. “You may stop that dreadful noise, my dear,” he said when I paused to draw breath. “An entire artillery brigade could fire a salute inside this place and not be heard outside the walls.”
As he spoke, he dragged me halfway across the garden toward James. He stopped in the center and jerked my locket off without bothering with the catch, which stung rather painfully. He tossed the locket in a corner, turned to me, and muttered a word. Then he let go of my arms. I tried to run, and discovered that I could not move at all, except to blink. I was completely numb. I could not even speak (which was exceedingly frustrating, as there were any number of very uncomplimentary things I would like to have said to Sir Hilary just then).
Sir Hilary smiled mockingly, as if he was aware of my efforts, and glanced from me to James. Then he reached out and turned me a little, so that I was facing straight at the chair where James sat.
“There,” Sir Hilary said with satisfaction. “I believe that will do. I regret that I must leave you temporarily; I cannot have my guests wondering over the disappearance of their host. Don’t fear I shall forget you, however. I will be back as soon as the last of them leaves. In the meantime, do enjoy yourselves as best you can.”
He stepped out of my sight, and I heard his footsteps leave the pavilion. I was left in a blaze of candlelight, staring at James and quite unable to move. He appeared to be in exactly the same case as myself, for he sat like a wooden statue. I could see the anguish in his eyes, and I felt very little better myself. It was horrible to have to stand there, waiting, unable to do anything whatever to save either of us, and unable even to speak to James. For I was quite sure that he blamed himself for my predicament, when it was my own folly that drew me out into the garden, and I wished very much to explain it to him and apologize for being such a goose. I ought, at the very least, to have informed Aunt Elizabeth.
The thought of Aunt Elizabeth made me feel a little better, but only briefly. Sir Hilary was not foolish enough to kidnap me at his own party without having concocted some tale that would satisfy Aunt Elizabeth, at least temporarily. I did not think that she would be fooled for very long, whatever story he told her, but I was sure he had taken that into consideration, too.
I will not dwell on the next several hours. I had no way of telling how much time had passed, or when Sir Hilary would return. It was maddening to be so helpless, and the worst of it was having to watch James sitting like a corpse with living, tortured eyes. It was almost a relief when I heard the door behind me open and Sir Hilary’s voice say, “How kind of you both to wait for me.”
Neither James nor I, of course, could say anything in response. I heard noises behind me, and shortly Sir Hilary appeared, carrying three white candles in silver holders and a large bag. He dropped the bag beside James and set one of the candles carefully on the ground between James and me, then moved on. In a few minutes, he returned, this time carrying black candles in gold holders. He placed one just to the left of the white candle, lit both of them, and moved out of sight again. He returned a third time, empty-handed, and stood between me and James for a moment, studying whatever he had done. Then he set his quizzing glass firmly in one eye and muttered something long and involved.
The candles flared all around me, and suddenly I could move again. I leapt for the door, hoping to catch Sir Hilary by surprise, and bounced off an invisible wall. Just beyond, I could see a ring of black and white candles, six of each set in mismatched pairs surrounding me.
“I wouldn’t bother trying to escape, Miss Rushton,” Sir Hilary said. “The boundaries are quite solid, once they’ve been properly established. I’m afraid you’ll find your movements rather restricted, but it won’t be a problem for very long.”
“Why not?” I said before I could stop myself, and I am afraid my voice was a trifle shaky.
Sir Hilary smiled. “I’d rather not disturb you by explaining.”
I snorted, trying not to show how frightened I was. “You are being ridiculous, Sir Hilary,” I said. “Aunt Elizabeth and Papa will surely be looking for me before long.”
“On the contrary, my dear.” His smile grew wider and thinner, and I wanted to throw something at him. “Your aunt is under the impression that you went home with Patience Everslee, at the invitation of her mother. Mrs. Everslee is a most…suggestible woman. By the time Elizabeth discovers that you are not with the Everslees, she will also have information indicating that you and Mr. Tarleton have, er, eloped.”
“Aunt Elizabeth won’t believe it,” I said.
“Oh, but she will, Miss Rushton,” Sir Hilary said in smug tones. “When she hears the full tale of your clandestine meetings with Mr. Tarleton during your morning rides—a most unwise thing for a young lady of quality to do—she will have no trouble whatever in believing you have run off with him.”
“And when she finds out I haven’t?” I demanded.
“Ah, but she won’t discover that at all, my dear. Why do you think I bothered to decoy both of you? I’m afraid Mr. Tarleton is only of incidental value to me, you see, though I certainly won’t waste him. The two of you will be found tomorrow, on the road to Ipswich, I think. It’s clearly not in the direction of the Great North Road, and I believe Mr. Tarleton owns a quiet little place up in that area. It won’t take long for people to conclude that he had no intention of marrying you, Miss Rushton. No, Mr. Tarleton cleverly abducted you, right in the middle of my ball. Everyone will consider it fortunate that he broke his neck in the curricle accident—Did I mention that there will be an accident? How careless of me to forget. Yes, Mr. Tarleton will have broken his neck, and I am very much afraid that your wits will have been permanently turned by your harrowing experience. I shall, of course, be as horror-struck as everyone else, and most sympathetic to your poor relatives. I believe it will serve admirably. Don’t you agree, Mr. Tarleton?”
Sir Hilary made a complicated gesture with his right hand as he spoke, and James began cursing in a steady, vicious monotone. “Really, Mr. Tarleton, and in the presence of a lady, too. You forget yourself.” Sir Hilary gestured again, and James was completely frozen once more.
“It will never work, Sir Hilary,” I said. “You’ll be caught.”
“On the contrary, my dear. No one will connect it with me at all.”
“Kate will,” I said before I could stop myself. “And so will the Marquis of Schofield.”
Sir Hilary’s expression became, if possible, even more smug than before. “That is the cream of the jest, my dear. Neither your cousin nor the Marquis can do anything against me without proof, and I assure you, there will be none. They will each feel hellishly guilty for having involved the two of you, and with a very little prodding they can each be brought to blame the other for the sad fate of their dearest friends. So I shall have the pleasure of dividing Thomas from the woman he loves, as well as watching him writhe with guilt every time Mr. Tarleton’s name is mentioned.”
All I could think of was to say, in a most unconvincing tone, “But the Marquis doesn’t love Kate!”
Sir Hilary snorted. “Don’t play the innocent with me. I know Thomas far too well to think he’d behave as he’s been doing for any other reason.”
“And you’re going to kill James
and ruin me, just to make the Marquis suffer?” I said numbly. “You’re worse than Miranda!”
“Not at all.” Sir Hilary looked annoyed. “Miranda let revenge distract her from what should have been her main goal. I, on the other hand, would be quite willing to forget about Thomas if necessary—indeed, for a while I thought I would have to. It is simply my good fortune that you will serve both my purposes at once. Which reminds me; there is one last bit of Thomas’s interference that I should like to clear up. Excuse me, my dear.”
Sir Hilary walked over to the bag that lay beside James, taking care to stay outside the ring of black and white candles that surrounded me. He took a silver-rimmed mirror from the bag and muttered over it for a minute. Then he pulled out a small, ivory-handled knife and came toward me. I shrank away, pressing against the invisible barrier behind me, and Sir Hilary frowned.
“Don’t be a fool, girl,” he said. “Give me your hand.”
“I wouldn’t give you a greeting at church,” I said.
Sir Hilary snorted and muttered something that sounded like the classical Greek Papa speaks upon occasion. I found myself frozen in place once again. Sir Hilary circled the candles until he reached my side. I saw him take my hand and nick my finger with the dagger, though I could not feel a thing. He squeezed my hand in a way that I am sure would have been painful if I could have felt it, and let the blood drip onto the mirror. He dropped my hand and stepped away, muttering a single word. This time I was quite sure it was classical Greek, though I did not quite catch what it was he said. An instant later, I could move, and my hand was throbbing most unpleasantly.
Sir Hilary ignored me completely, staring into the mirror. Suddenly he gave a harsh laugh. “Waycross! Of course! And I’ve been looking for the brat everywhere else in England! My lord the Marquis of Schofield is nearly as clever as I am.”
He wiped the mirror clean and replaced both it and the knife in the bag, then turned to me. “I do hope you will excuse me for a little, my dear. I realize it must be very trying, but I have just stumbled across an opportunity that is far too good to miss. I shall return in a little while.” He made the same complex gesture as before in James’s direction. “Keep the lady company, dear boy. And do try to moderate your language.” He bowed mockingly and left.
I ran across my invisible prison until I hit the wall just opposite James. “James! Are you all right?” I demanded.
“How should I know?” he said, still glaring after Sir Hilary. “I can’t feel a thing from the neck down.” He transferred his gaze to me and said in a gentler tone, “Don’t cry, Cecy. Please don’t cry. There isn’t anything you can do, and it only makes both of us feel worse.”
“But there has to be something,” I sniffed. “There is always something one can do.”
“If you have any ideas, just tell me,” James said. There was an undercurrent of bitterness in his voice as he added, “Not that I can do anything to help in this condition.”
I sat down on the grass, considering. “I don’t suppose you’re close enough to blow out one of those candles?” I said without much hope. “I’m sure they’re part of the spell that’s holding me in.”
“No,” James said. “I’m afraid not.” He turned his head away, as if looking at me hurt him. “I should never have got you involved in this,” he said softly.
“You keep saying that,” I said. “For the hundredth time, you did not involve me.”
“If I hadn’t asked you to send Thomas that message—”
“Nothing would be any different,” I said firmly. “I would still have taken that book from Sir Hilary’s library, and I would still have smashed that chocolate pot into a million pieces.” I took a deep breath. “And I’m not sorry for any of it, James.”
He raised his head to look at me, and the corners of his mouth quirked. “None of it?”
“Well, I do wish I had guessed that Sir Hilary was getting me out of the way tonight when he stepped on my hem,” I admitted. “But that isn’t the same thing at all.”
“No, I suppose not.”
Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. Then I sighed. “And I wish I’d told you I wouldn’t go to Sir Hilary’s party,” I said, and my eyes started to fill with tears again. “I could have told Aunt Elizabeth I had the headache; I’ve done it before. And then Sir Hilary wouldn’t have got either of us.”
“Maybe.” James’s voice was thoughtful, and I looked up in surprise. “And maybe he would have tried something else. Don’t blame yourself, Cecy.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said. “But, oh, James, I am so sorry!”
“So am I, Cecy,” he said, and we were silent again. The flickering torchlight threw shadows across his face that made his expression difficult to read. After a time, I could not bear to look at him anymore, and I slumped down against the invisible wall. The night was quite cool, but I controlled my shivering as best I could so as not to further distress James. To add to my discomfort, I was feeling quite hollow, for I had not eaten since before the party. I stared at the candles, hoping that they would perhaps burn down and flicker out before Sir Hilary returned, but they showed no sign of such desirable behavior.
There was an idea nagging at the back of my mind, but I could not quite catch hold of it. “If we only knew what Sir Hilary wants of us!” I burst out at last in utter frustration.
“But my dear Miss Rushton!” Sir Hilary’s voice said from the doorway behind me. “You’ve read the book from my library on epicyclical elaborations. Surely you’ve guessed?”
I stood up hastily and turned to face him. “What do you—” I stopped short, staring. Sir Hilary was carrying a limp form over one shoulder, and as he turned, the torchlight gleamed on the man’s wavy brown hair. “Oliver?” I gasped.
“Just so,” Sir Hilary said. He sounded terribly pleased with himself.
“What have you done to my brother?” I said.
Sir Hilary lowered Oliver to the ground. “Nothing, as yet, my dear. For the future—well, I intend to do very nearly the same thing to each of you. I’ve had my eye on young Oliver for a long time, but no safe opportunity had presented itself. Miranda almost had him once, but she didn’t know what she’d had hold of and she let Thomas steal him away. I’ve been searching all over England for him for weeks. And all the time he’s been practically next door!”
“I don’t understand,” I said, though I had a horrid suspicion I was about to. “Where did you find Oliver? And what are you going to do to him? To us?”
“ Waycross, my dear. Your brother has spent the last several weeks at Waycross. I’ve spent days trying to get a peek inside Schofield Castle, but I never thought to check on the Marquis’s estate not ten miles from my own door. It was really remarkably clever of Thomas.”
It did not seem to me that Sir Hilary had been gone long enough to have ridden ten miles, but then I remembered that Miranda had apparently been able to get into Sir Hilary’s garden through a door in London. I found myself hoping that such an unorthodox manner of traveling would be something of a strain on Sir Hilary’s resources. One of Mr. Wrexton’s first lessons had been that every magician’s strength is limited, and one must take the greatest care not to exceed those limits. Sir Hilary did not, however, appear to be much discomposed.
Sir Hilary was arranging Oliver in a spread-eagled position on the ground. I could see Oliver’s chest rising and falling as he breathed, which reassured me slightly. There was something unpleasantly familiar about his position, however, and suddenly I remembered one of the diagrams in that dreadful Tanistry book of Sir Hilary’s.
“But Oliver isn’t a wizard!” I blurted.
“So you figured it out at last,” Sir Hilary said. He straightened and turned to look at me with a supercilious smile. “But I’m afraid I must correct you. The Talent runs very strongly in your family, my dear, whether it’s put to use or not. Your half-witted brother admittedly has no training, but that only makes him more useful for my purposes. Why do you think I’ve
been watching him for so long?”
“You can’t steal Oliver’s magic!” I said. “If he does, indeed, have any.”
“Oh, he does, my dear, he does, indeed. I doubt very much, however, that he has the capacity to make use of it.” Sir Hilary smiled. “So I shall merely be taking from him a gift he does not need. It is unfortunate that doing so will kill him, but I am afraid that is how these things work. You needn’t fear for yourself; I shall be careful not to take enough of your power to cause your death. I only want you to go mad, you see, and with Oliver here to draw on, I can afford not to drain you of everything.”
James made a strangled noise, and Sir Hilary turned his head. “I’d forgotten about you,” he said, and gestured. I knew that James was frozen completely motionless again, and I felt very alone.
“Oliver isn’t bound to you,” I said desperately. “And neither am I. That awful book said that the spell to transfer power wouldn’t work well if there wasn’t a bond.”
“Oh, but there is, Miss Rushton,” Sir Hilary said. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “It took me an extremely long time to discover it, but the connection is there.”
“What connection?”
“Your dear Mama was descended from my great-great-uncle,” Sir Hilary said. “On the wrong side of the blanket, I’m afraid; that’s why it took me so long to track it down. Still, even the faintest of blood connections is enough to allow the Tanistry spells to work, now that I am aware of it. I don’t even require Miranda’s assistance with the invocations any longer.”
“Miranda’s assistance?” I said. I saw that as long as he was explaining to me how clever he was, he couldn’t do anything to Oliver, so I was determined to keep him talking as long as I could.
Sorcery & Cecelia Page 23