by Gail Dayton
"If that's wot you think of me, why'd you become my lover?" Harry filled the doorway, appearing out of nowhere, ripping what was left of her reputation to shreds in just a few words. "The bastard's good enough to fuck, but not to marry, eh?"
Humiliated, infuriated, shaking with all the emotion storming through her, Elinor sprang to her feet and slapped him as hard as she could. "I hate you," she snarled, low and intense. "It's not your mother's marital status that makes you a bastard. If the archbishop of Canterbury himself had blessed your parents' marriage, you'd still be a bastard for what you've done to me."
"Wot I've done? What 'ave I done besides save your life and offer to make an honest woman of ya?"
Too angry for words, Elinor swung at him again.
He caught her wrist, stopping her. "I let you 'ave the one 'cause maybe I deserved it," he growled for her ears alone. "But not another. I won't take your abuse."
"But you can pour abuse over me all you like, is that it?" She'd found her words, but not the strength to shout. "Did it never occur to you that I don't need you to make me an honest woman? I was an honest woman before, I am an honest woman now, and I will be one long after you are out of my life. You can't 'make me' something I already am."
"An' just 'ow honest is it to lie to the world about what we are to each other?" He caught her arm and hauled her right up against him.
Elinor took an icy step back. She felt suddenly encased in cold, all her fury frozen in an instant by the truth. "You are nothing to me, Harry Tomlinson. Absolutely nothing."
She looked down at his hand digging into her arm. "Let go of me."
His hand sprang open. He raised both hands and took a step back. "Fine. But you're not leavin' the building till we get these outlaws identified and rounded up. I was comin' to suggest you use the ladies' retirin' room to get comfortable enough to rest."
Amanusa came around the desk and put her arm around Elinor's waist. "Come, my dear." She shook her head at Harry as she led Elinor past him.
Elinor was too shaken, too frozen to resist. She let Amanusa escort her to the retiring room next to the watercloset designated for ladies. The council hadn't got around to cutting a door between the two rooms, so one still had to enter the corridor to go from one room to the other. Now that there were two women magisters, perhaps they could get that done.
She knew she was thinking about w.c. doors to keep from thinking about Harry. She tried very hard to keep thinking about doors and plumbing while she unbuttoned her bodice and got Amanusa to loosen her corset strings. She wanted to remove it entirely, but her dress wouldn't fit properly if she did. She wanted to go home.
"Quite a mess you've got," Amanusa said from behind her.
"Then just cut the strings. There's scissors in the basket." Elinor was too drained to care.
"Not your corset strings. They're fine. Done." Amanusa patted Elinor's shoulder and lifted her dress back over. "I mean you and Harry."
"There is no 'me and Harry,'" Elinor snapped, fumbling her buttons.
"Don't be more idiotic than you can help." The sorcerer's magister sat in one of the upholstered chairs, motioning Elinor to the chaise. "At the very least, you've begun the process of making him your familiar."
"I can unmake it right quick." Elinor plopped onto the end of the chaise, finishing her buttons.
"Why would you want to?"
Elinor gaped at her friend. "Have you gone deaf? Didn't you hear what he said to me?"
"I did. I also heard what you said to him and what he overheard. You wounded him deeply. And like any man--or woman--he lashed out to hurt you back. But you had already tried to undo the familiar's bond, before any of those words were exchanged. Why?"
Elinor popped to her feet, unable to sit still. "I won't be any man's possession."
"Generally, the relationship of familiar to sorceress is considered to be the other way round. The familiar is subordinate to the sorceress." Amanusa leaned her head against the high, cushioned back of her chair and watched Elinor pace.
"You think Harry would put up with a subordinate position?" Elinor snorted.
"What about an equal partnership?"
"He wouldn't accept that either. He's always pushing and pushing. Trying to take over, trying to be in charge, and tell everyone what to do."
"And you challenge him on it every time. Especially if you think he's wrong. It's your magic, Elinor. He can't do anything with it if you don't allow it." Amanusa watched her pace the length of the room and back, waiting for a response.
Amanusa's reasonableness annoyed Elinor. She wanted her friend to agree with her. She wanted to cling to her anger. Instead, Amanusa made sense, much as Elinor didn't want her to.
Elinor knew Harry was sensitive to the word "bastard." He wasn't shy about admitting his status, but she knew it stung him when people used the word. She hadn't meant it that way, though. More in the general, cursing sort of way. But she could understand him taking it as an insult.
"Other people have called him bastard to his face, and worse," Elinor protested. "And he just laughed."
"He didn't care about them or their opinion. He knew they didn't like him."
"I hate him."
"No, you don't. You'd never have been his lover if you did."
"I didn't hate him then. I do now."
Amanusa sighed. "And that's why it was such a mortal blow to him, to hear you use that word. Because you are his lover."
"Was. Not anymore."
"What did he do that was so awful?" Amanusa caught Elinor's wrist as she passed by in her pacing. "Make me understand. What is so terrible about Harry wanting to marry you? Or wanting to be your familiar?"
"I told you." Elinor wanted to scream and pull at her hair. "Marriage bars a woman from accomplishing her goals. It locks her into the profession of raising children--a noble profession, admittedly, but not one to which I aspire. Miss Nightingale has refused to marry in order to pursue her calling to reform nursing in hospitals. The American doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, has never married. Marriage in itself prohibits female accomplishment."
"Why? And we're not talking about Miss Nightingale or Miss Blackwell. We're talking about Elinor Tavis and Harry Tomlinson. Every marriage is different. What is between Jax and me is not the same as the marriage of Grey and Pearl, because we are different people. If you were to marry someone like--like Edgar Dodd--"
"God forbid!"
"Yes, I agree. Such a marriage would stifle you. But this is Harry. When has he ever tried to stifle? For his convenience, I mean. Not for your protection."
"It's not his right to decide when I need protecting," Elinor protested. "I can take care of myself. Claiming that 'it's for my own good' is just another way of depriving me of the right to make my own decisions. Who knows what 'my own good' is better than myself?"
"Then why did you mingle your magic when the renegade wizards attacked?" Amanusa was being entirely too logical and reasonable.
"That was a one-time event." Elinor went back to perch on the end of the chaise. "It won't happen again."
"Do you truly think so?"
"If it does, if they attack again, I'll be ready."
Amanusa shook her head, looking disappointed. Elinor stiffened her resolve. She knew what she knew.
"Elinor, as powerful a wizard as you are, even with your sorcery talents added on--which are still untrained, I might add--you are still only one person. We still don't know how many of them were part of it. Six, at least. Maybe more." Amanusa paused. "And while marriage without love may indeed resemble a form of slavery, marriage with love at its heart--"
"It makes no difference. In fact, in a love match, the wife willingly enslaves herself, giving up her own dreams for those of her husband and children." Elinor wiped the words away with a wave of her hand. "But that is not at issue here. Harry does not love me, nor I him."
Amanusa gaped at her. It made Elinor uncomfortable. "How can you say that?" Amanusa exclaimed. "After the support he has g
iven you without condition?"
"I can say it because it's true. He has never mentioned the word 'love,' and neither have I, because there is nothing to mention. His support has nothing to do with love. It's politics. He wants women in magic. More wizards, more sorcerers, and more powerful ones. That's all it is."
"You are wrong." Amanusa stood. "And both of you blind. And filled with stubbornness to the point of stupidity. I leave you to drown in it."
"Let me rest a bit and I'll be back to help." Elinor had to ignore what she said. Amanusa had her own blind spots.
"Do as you like." Amanusa flipped her hand dismissively as she left.
Harry wasn't watching for Amanusa to come back exactly, but he saw when she did. He didn't know who he was angrier with, Elinor or himself. And as usual, when he lost his temper, he blasted everything in the area to bits and brought it all down around his ears. She was just so damned stubborn.
Despite his best intentions and telling himself a dozen times over that he didn't care, Harry found himself drifting into the other office, toward the desk where Amanusa was working. She had covered the top with note cards regarding the whereabouts of the wizards and others known or suspected of taking part in the attack on Elinor. She was shifting them here and there, in between staring at them.
They'd brought all the magisters and all the female magicians, students included, into the council building for their safety. Most of them had spent the night sleeping in a classroom set up with cots. The dormitories were all occupied with the boys. Elinor and Amanusa had been up all night working on identifying the outlaws.
Harry didn't know how Amanusa kept going. Jax, maybe. He was taking the information from the Briganti reporting in, writing it on Amanusa's cards, and placing them on the corner of the desk for her to arrange. Who knew what other support he might be providing?
"What news?" Harry paused to look over the desktop.
"Crump and Satterwhite are not at their lodgings," Amanusa said. "They're alchemists."
"I know. Satterwhite's gone to Cornwall for me, to see about some brangle the alchemists there can't manage. Crump--dunno. Should be there."
"Ah." Amanusa shifted the card with Bradford Satterwhite's name from a spot alone at the center to a stack at the side. "However," she said, "I am informed that Jenkins and Moreman, wizards, have been located at their new lodgings. They are being brought in for discussions."
"Maybe they'll know something." Harry could only hope.
"Also, Elinor is resting and the pair of you are complete, blockheaded idiots," she said in the same matter-of-fact voice. "If you want to marry her, why have you never told her you love her?"
"I--Because I--" The last automatic word--don't--refused to be said. "What does love 'ave to do with anything?"
"Very nearly everything." Amanusa scowled at him. "You don't know, do you?"
"Don't know wot?" He began to worry.
"That you're in love with her."
"I'm--" But he couldn't say "not" either. Was he in love with Elinor?
"Idiot."
"What makes you say that? Not 'idiot,' but the other. That I'm in love with her?"
"Because you are. Why do you think you're insisting so fervently on marrying her? Why won't you let her break the familiar bond?" Amanusa held up a hand to stop his ready reply. "Not what you say the reasons are, but the truth. Why is she 'your woman'?"
He didn't want to think about why. She just was. He knew it. She knew it. So did everyone else. Elinor was the thinker, not him. But she was thinking wrong.
Which meant he had to do the thinking so he could show her where her thoughts went the wrong way. Except he'd better explain it different from the way he'd already done it or she'd never listen. It wasn't that she was thinking badly, but she was drawing incorrect conclusions. Probably from faulty information to begin with.
What made her his? Making love to him was part of it. He still worried about that first time, that maybe she hadn't been altogether in her right mind. But since then, she had consciously chosen to be his lover. His and nobody else's. He'd kill anyone who tried to take his place.
That was new.
He'd had lovers before. Never a mistress, but widows and old friends up for a bit of slap-and-tickle now and again. He'd never cared much who else they went with, as long as they didn't pick up any unwelcome visitors. Elinor was different.
It wasn't just the sex. Wasn't just magic either. It was Elinor, her own self--sometimes sweet, sometimes so tart his mouth puckered. The thought of living the rest of his life without her made his gut hurt. Or maybe it was his heart. The pain was right there, in that area. Good God, maybe he was--
Grey put his head through the door from the main I-Branch office. "Thom says there's a 'delegation' at the front door, wanting to speak to the council head and guild magisters."
"Delegation?" Harry frowned at him. "What's that mean?"
"I suggest we go find out."
Amanusa stood. "I'll collect Elinor."
Harry found Thom Norwood in the outer office. "What's this delegation, then?"
"I only know what I've been told," the new alchemy magister said. "Which is that a group of magicians calling themselves a delegation have presented themselves at the main council hall door and requested we meet them."
"Should we reinforce the guards on the ladies' school room?" Grey asked. They were having class, despite the threats.
Norwood made a face. "I am sorry to say that I would not recommend using Enforcers in that role. I've already had to dismiss a number of them for refusing to follow orders. I need time to discover which of them I can trust to guard the ladies."
"I'll send I-Branch men. They've all been vetted since the Waterloo Station debacle." Grey looked around the office. "All our alchemists are in the lab. Dearest?" He spoke to his familiar spirit, who'd been loitering near him since Harry and Elinor had come pounding on Grey's door sometime after midnight. "Run along and have O'Toole send up a couple of the lads, will you? Tell him what we need. There's a good spirit."
Amanusa returned with Elinor in tow, Jax shadowing her as usual. Harry, Grey, and Thom Norwood joined them and together they trekked through the corridors to the Great Hall. On the far side of the hall, they passed through the grand entrance with its marble floors and gilt chandeliers to exit the massive doors fronting on St. Clement's Square--which was actually more of a circular shape.
At the bottom of the stairs stood a group of five or six men, backed by another half-dozen Briganti in their top hats and striped sashes. Norwood let out a hiss.
"Your dismissed Briganti, I presume?" Grey spoke from the corner of his mouth.
"You presume correctly, sir," Norwood growled. "Damn it."
"You lot wait 'ere." Harry pointed at the terraced landing just outside the huge carved doors. "I'll go see wot they want."
They didn't wait, of course, but they did let Harry take the lead, spacing themselves in a semicircle behind him, the lady magisters on the inside. Harry stopped at the edge of the top step and propped his hands on his hips, feeling belligerent. "Well?"
The doors opened behind him. Harry didn't turn to look, but he hoped reinforcements in the form of loyal Briganti had arrived.
In the street below, a flamboyantly dressed man in a Kelly green frock coat and checked pants stepped forward. He propped both hands atop his walking stick in his own pugnacious pose. "I am Jeremiah Twist," he said in a bright, carrying voice. "Wizard and president of the Loyal Order of Magicians in Britain."
"Where's Edgar Dodd?" Harry demanded, temper rising hot. He struggled to maintain control and keep himself from flying down the steps to beat the knowledge out of the man. "Where's Phineas Allsup and Millwood Crump? An' wot in bloody 'ell--beggin' your pardon, ladies--is the Loyal Order of Magicians?"
"In Britain," Twist added. "It is the council of all loyal magicians true to the crown and to the great traditions of–"
"Codswallop," Harry roared. Shouting worked admirably to blow
off excess temper. "You're a bunch o' cowardly, hypocritical mugs afraid of losin' your so-called natural rights. Rights that are neither natural nor right. Women were part of the foundin' of the Magician's Council and were never meant to be permanently excluded."
"Liar!" one of the alchemists shouted. Old Vernon, Harry thought.
"Traitor!" someone else shouted.
"We will not be part of any council or order that admits women!" Twist cried, voice going shrill. "You have destroyed the true council and betrayed its purposes."
They meant it. They actually meant to split the council. The thought staggered him. Harry didn't want to be remembered as the man who presided over the destruction of the centuries' old council. But he couldn't back down.
"Where are they?" he demanded. "Where are the criminals who launched an illegal attack against a recognized guild magister and the properly elected head of council?"
Twist's eyes went wide with shock and he looked frantically back at the others.
"You didn't know, did you?" Harry descended two steps, leaving three to give him dominance. Those behind him advanced with him.
Twist backed up a step, but the Briganti behind him held fast, so those in the street crowded up together.
"You didn't know they attacked me too," Harry said. "Not so funny now, is it?"
"We knew nothing about it," Twist protested. "We don't know where they are."
"But you could find out." Harry took another step down.
"No, I swear!" The other man was sweating.
"Didn't think about consequences, did ya? Did you really think you could get away with a sneak attack on not just the most powerful wizard in England--and she is that, even if you don't like to think it--but the most powerful alchemist as well?"
"We had nothing to do with it!" Twist wasn't the only magician looking desperate.
"What do you think your little rump council is going to do?" Harry liked seeing them sweat. Stupid sods. "Are these the magisters of your new guilds? There's none of you top tier magicians, 'cept maybe Wilfrid Vernon, and Wilf--sorry to say it, old chap, but you're nearly past it. Most o' the rest of you--what? Third tier? Maybe. Fourth?"