by Gail Dayton
"I shall write it." Tonio Rosato pushed into the room through the crowd at the door. "Since I am the one proclaiming you master of wizardry."
"Write it in English, mind," Harry said with a hint of warning in his voice.
"Si, of course." Rosato glowered back at him, as if insulted Harry would think so. The Italian made a great show of adjusting his arms, flapping his coat with the motion. He dipped the pen in the inkwell and spoke the words as he wrote them. "Master. Wizard." Then he signed his name with swirls and flourishes on the line for the adjudicator.
"And shall I write in the 'magister'?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at the others. "Or is that for another magister to write in?"
"I'll do it." Harry held his hand out for the pen.
"Oh, let me," Amanusa teased him. Elinor thought so, anyway. "I need the practice for filling out the sorcery ledger if it ever arrives from the bookbinders."
"Isn't the old one still about?" Harry asked.
"Yes, with pages so old I daren't write on them. We'll start fresh."
The exchange gave Elinor time to formulate her resolve. Needing time to think things through sometimes did lead to her being swept along by events, but she managed sooner or later to dig in her heels and slow things down.
"I'm not entirely sure I want to be magister," she said, laying her hand over the register entry so no one could write in it without her approval.
"Wot? Why not?" Harry protested, as expected. He didn't understand.
"You have to be magister," Amanusa said.
"Why?" Elinor frowned at her. "As long as Nigel Cranshaw isn't the magister, what difference does it make? I need to be in my stillroom, working on my potions and ointments and spells. It takes time to come up with things like the burn salve, or--or the wands."
The words and worries came pouring out before Elinor could try to stop them. She wasn't sure she wanted to. "If I'm the magister, I won't have time for the magic. I'll have to deal with interruptions. And paperwork. And--and politics." That last bit made her nearly nauseous.
"Then wot did you challenge Cranshaw for?" Harry propped hands on hips, coat folded back, in his customary stance.
"Because he didn't deserve to be magister," she retorted. "And yes, because I want to be a master wizard and a member of the guild, which I would never be with Cranshaw in charge. I do want to be able to get at all those books in the library."
"An' you honestly think one of the others would be any better than Nigel?" Harry gave her a doubtful look.
"What about your students?" Amanusa asked. "What about Mrs. May, or Mary Ellen and Berthe?"
She named the women Elinor had so far found, without actually looking, who had an aptitude for wizardry. Valentina May was a widow who had been caught up in the mess at Waterloo Station and had helped in the aftermath. She was thrilled to have a way to better support her rather large family. The other two had been brought to London as prospective sorcery students--Mary Ellen Young from Scotland and Berthe Stroud from Prussia--but had turned out to be better wizards.
"We've been talking," Pearl said, who of course had come along with Grey. "Amanusa and I. We don't think we should open a Female Magician's School. We think our students need to attend the Magician's Council Academy, with the apprentice conjurers and alchemists. Don't you agree that we all need to be part of the council from the very beginning?"
"Well, yes, but--"
Amanusa took the discussion back from Pearl. "How do you think that is going to happen if you let some other wizard become magister? You are the only female master wizard. If the magister is male, how much do you think things will change? We will go back to battering our heads against the door."
"The change has already begun." Elinor slipped her argument in while Amanusa took a breath. "I am a master wizard. They can't toss me out again. The sorcery guild has been confirmed as part of the council. They can't toss you out either. They can't stop us from taking apprentices."
"And how long do you think it will take for further changes to come about?" Amanusa demanded. "If some man is the wizard's magister?"
"Besides," Harry inserted himself into the female debate. "The magister is the best magician in the guild. The best alchemist, best conjurer, best sorcerer, best wizard. Always. Cranshaw was head an' shoulders better'n any of the other wizards, an' we just saw 'ow much better than him you are. Best wizard is magister of the wizard's guild. And that's you. No way past that."
Elinor clung to her mulish expression, but inside, she was resigning herself to her fate. Amanusa was right. Harry was too, but the sorcerer's argument held more weight with Elinor. It would be utterly selfish of her to grasp this opportunity to work master-level magic and deny it to other women. She did want others to have the chance she had, or better. She wanted them to have the same chance as any grubby boy from Seven Dials.
Being magister wouldn't be easy, or comfortable, but she had already determined to make any necessary sacrifice to achieve her goals. She could sacrifice a little more.
Besides, Harry had already promised she could delegate the paperwork. If only she could delegate the politics.
Elinor moved her hand from the registry. "You write it, Harry," she said. "You were my master of magic and you're the senior magister. It should be you."
He gave her a quick look that sent heat flashing through her as he took the pen from Amanusa. Elinor shook it off. She didn't understand it, didn't want to.
Harry carefully printed "Magister" at the top of the separate qualifications section and signed his name, without any swirls. He'd learned reading and writing after he entered the academy at 16, so his handwriting tended to the basic.
Elinor took the pen back from Harry. If young Simon Little was listed, her female students should be in the book as well. She turned the page and filled in three of the four sections on the next, carefully writing "apprentice" after each name.
She blotted the entries, wiped the pen clean, and smiled up at those gathered in the office and beyond in the hall.
"Time to celebrate." Harry grinned at her. "Cook's laid on a big spread. Everyone's invited."
He'd invited them all beforehand, of course. Win or lose, they would want to gather, but Harry had been supremely confident of victory.
"Shouldn't I visit the guild hall?" Elinor asked him quietly. "To claim it as well? Perhaps locate the cauldron?" Not that she really wanted to, but she wondered if she ought.
"The register is the important bit," he said as the hallway began to clear. "You might ask for Briganti to go an' make sure no one's carryin' things off as shouldn't be carried, though."
"Brilliant idea. Grey?"
"Already in train." The elegant conjurer tipped his head toward the omnipresent Norwood. "Simmons left shortly after the counting of votes, laid low by his gout, but his very efficient executive officer is managing everything magnificently."
Norwood flushed a dull red under the praise, but maintained his stone-like Guardsman's expression. He stepped out of the office into the just-cleared corridor and gestured for those still in the office to follow suit.
Elinor was almost the last one out, only Harry behind her. As she entered the hallway filled with laughter and happy chatter, Edgar Dodd stepped forward to block her way.
"Elinor Tavis," he said in a voice harsh and growling with anger, "you are not fit to be magister of the wizard's guild. I challenge you for the title of magister."
Dodd raised his hand and people gasped, obviously fearing he would strike her as she had slapped Cranshaw when she challenged him. He didn't. He threw his glove in her face. It fell to her bosom, then her wide skirt, then to the floor as he backed away. Elinor was too surprised to try to catch it. She shouldn't have been.
"Witnessed," Sir William said wearily.
"Witnessed." Thomas Norwood didn't sound any happier, but he was evidently a man who knew his duty and did it.
"Challenge to take place one week from today," Sir William pronounced.
D
odd nodded in acceptance, turned on his heel, and walked away.
Dr. Rosato cleared his throat. "I will, of course, be in delight to serve again as your secondo, signorina."
"Thank you, Dottore." Elinor managed to smile. Why had she thought the challenge with Cranshaw would be the end of it?
"Don't fret." Harry tucked her hand in his elbow. "Cranshaw was the best of 'em, and look 'ow easy you beat 'im. Course you'll be able to trounce Dodd. 'E ain't 'alf the wizard you are. Come on. We still got somethin' to celebrate."
The celebration was loud, long, and merry, with much laughter and many toasts, beginning with toasts to Elinor, running through the queen and her late consort, to the lovely wands Elinor had used in her victory. That was Pearl's rather tipsy contribution to the festivities. They ate lobster patties and tiny beef Wellingtons and hothouse strawberries and crème fraiche until Elinor thought she would burst. That did not include the lemon cakes, chocolate biscuits, and buttery scones brought out as teatime stretched toward supper.
Dr. Rosato opened the piano and played off-key music for impromptu dancing. Off-key due to the piano, not his playing. Elinor thought it was the first time the piano had been played since Harry bought it with the house ten or so years ago. It obviously had not been tuned in all that time, but the sour chords didn't dampen the merriment.
Elinor didn't want to dance, though with only three ladies present she knew it wasn't fair to keep refusing. But dancing implied flirting, flirting implied interest, and she wasn't interested. She wouldn't be. Her life's path was set.
Harry, of course, paid no attention whatsoever to her preferences or refusals, sweeping her into a rollicking polka without bothering to ask. He simply seized her and took off. He swung her around, making faces at her until she succumbed to laughter and the whirling, bouncing energy of the dance.
After that, there was no hope of backing into her corner again. She danced with Grey and Jax and Nikos Archaios. She danced with the American conjurer who had come as part of a diplomatic mission from one side or the other of their warring country and stayed to study the dead zones. She even danced with Dr. Rosato when he convinced Pearl to play the three songs she knew, only one of which was suitable for dancing. They danced to all of them anyway.
After Pearl's turn at the piano, the party broke up. Elinor had Freeman send for her pelisse and shawl when the other coats were brought, but when a footman returned with the items, Harry took them away from him.
"Stay a bit," he said quietly. "We've a thing or two to discuss, 'aven't we?"
Elinor was tired, but she knew if she went back to her flat in the mews behind Harry's garden, she wouldn't rest. And the magisters did have matters to discuss. When to wall up the second London dead zone on the south bank of the river in Bermondsey, for instance. Then there was Dodd's new challenge to consider, though she didn't want to discuss that.
"All right." She might as well use up her restless energy and calm her whirling mind at Harry's as at her own flat.
Now that she was no longer Harry's apprentice, she probably ought to find another place to live. Except she hadn't begun to earn anything from her magic. She didn't think she could afford anything as nice as the place she had now.
Nor would it be so convenient to the other magisters, since Grey and Pearl lived across the street and down a few houses, and Amanusa and Jax still resided in Brown's Hotel, up the other way from Harry's, while they looked for a house. Perhaps she could use her expectations as magister to secure a little house to rent.
"Bright an' early then?" Harry was saying.
"Not too early," Grey said at the door. "You know how Pearl is, laying about asleep all hours."
Pearl poked him in the arm. "You're the one all chatty with your spirits at three in the morning. We'll be here by ten," she said to Harry.
"Ten? Is the sun even up by that hour?" Grey protested. "It is January, you know."
"Good night." Harry chuckled, closing the door on them.
"They're leaving?" Elinor belatedly realized the house seemed very empty. Even the servants had vanished to wherever servants stayed. "Amanusa and Jax too?"
"They've already gone." Harry gave her a puzzled look as he walked toward her. "Why?"
"I thought we were going to talk. About the school. Strategy." She waved a hand. "Magister things."
"We can do that in the morning when they come back." He stood very close. Close enough she could feel his warmth. Close enough that his legs pressed into her skirts, causing them to billow around him.
She'd gone without hoops today, using layers of petticoats to fill out her skirts, fearing the bone cage might trip her up during the challenge. Now, she didn't know if the missing hoops made her feel safer or more vulnerable. Her skirts didn't tip up in the back as he stood so close, the way hoops would, but she could feel his legs through the layers of cloth and netting.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Why did she ask that? She didn't want to know. Elinor's hands trembled. Her head felt lighter than air.
Harry cupped her face as if it were a delicate blossom in his rough-textured hand, his expression intent. On her. "This."
And he kissed her.
CHAPTER FIVE
This wasn't like that other kiss, the first one Harry had given her. That one had been a question. Do you want this?
This kiss was the answer. You know you do.
His perfect mouth opened on Elinor's, demanding she respond in kind, and she did. She opened, accepted the sweep of his tongue inside, and when he retreated she felt so bereft, her tongue had to go questing forth. Timidly, she touched his lips before scuttling back inside her own mouth.
Harry groaned, an arm whipping around her waist to pull her close, crush her breasts against his powerful chest. And she liked it. She adored being held so tight, captive in a man's embrace. It wasn't frightening at all. Because it was Harry who was kissing her. And she was kissing him back.
That wasn't right. She shouldn't--
"Elinor," he whispered. "God, Elinor." His hands began roving, across her back, around her waist, up her ribs until the heels of his hands pushed into the sides of her breasts.
Sensation flooded her, overwhelmed coherent thought, turning her mind into a jumbled mess where she could only grab snatches of this and bits of that. Harry was kissing her.
His arm was behind her again, holding her up, his other hand at her waist, while he alternated between the deep open-mouthed kisses and tiny, damp, dragging kisses along her jawline, down her neck, up her cheeks and gently across her eyelids and the bridge of her nose. She could only clutch his shoulders and shiver.
His hand at her waist began to creep up her side, bit by incremental bit while he kissed her. He stroked over her tongue with his as if trying to lure her out once more and when she succumbed to the lure--helpless to do otherwise--he sucked on her tongue, making her shiver. His hand had risen high enough to frame her breast with thumb and forefinger, his thumb pressing lightly from beneath. That made her shiver too, made her knees shake, made her nipples pucker and tighten. But she wasn't cold. She was flushed with heat, light-headed with it.
Harry stroked his thumb up and over her breast, teasing her hard-puckered nipple, the sensation tingling through her. He groaned and the sound penetrated her lust-fogged mind.
She struggled to grasp sense, to escape from the tangle of her senses. Harry pressed a kiss to her neck, just under her jaw where the skin was so sensitive. His perfect lips sent shudders rippling through her. His hand beneath her breast caught the shuddering and sent it skittering deeper. Her arms were around him, her head tipping back to give him the access he wanted. His thumb slid up and over the peak of her breast again and her entire body flushed with the feel of it.
Somewhere in the distance, a door closed. Harry lifted his head, alert and wary, though his thumb still made its teasing journey over her sensitized nipple. Elinor shivered.
What was she doing? This wasn't who she was, wasn't what she wanted. Was it?
No. She was magister of the wizard's guild. She had to be brighter, better, smarter than this. She had duties and responsibilities. Ambitions. And yet, here she stood wrapped up in a man's embrace. What had come over her?
"Come on, Ellie. Let's be private." Harry held her close against him as he swept her from the entrance hall into his front parlor. Elinor made herself pull from his arms as he reached to tug the pocket door closed.
"No, don't." She looked around for her pelisse and hat, still far too fuzzy-brained for her comfort. Her mind, her refuge, had abandoned her. "I have to go."
"What for?" Harry caught her round the waist again, flush against him. His head dipped for another kiss and Elinor turned her face away.
"No, Harry. Stop it." She pushed at him, her traitorous fingers curling in to feel that broad, male chest.
He let her go. "What's goin' on, Elinor?" He cupped her cheek, stroked his thumb to the corner of her mouth and back. The gentle, almost cherishing touch was harder to turn away from than the passion. But she had to.
"I have to go." She reached for the door and Harry caught her hand, stopped her.
He pressed a kiss to her palm with those soft, perfect lips. "Why?"
She snatched her hand from him. Why did this have to be so hard? She'd never had this problem before, never been so tempted. But it wouldn't be sacrifice if it were easy. "I told you. We can't do this. I thought you understood."
"I did. I do. But the challenge is over. You won. No more need to fret over distractions." Somehow, he had her other hand and was kissing her fingers curled around his.
"Harry." She took back that hand and spun away from him, walking a few steps to put herself out of his reach. "Obviously, you did not understand. I didn't mean no more kissing until after the challenge. I meant no more kissing again, ever. Besides, I still have a challenge."
"Dodd." Harry flipped a hand, dismissing the wizard as he stalked toward her. "'E's no challenge for you. Not now I've seen wot you can do."