One Touch of Magic

by Amanda McCabe

  Sarah pressed one hand against her mouth to hold in a laugh at her own silliness. One glimpse of a handsome man, and she was like one of the ridiculous heroines in the Minerva Press novels Phoebe and Mary Ann loved so much! Sarah had never had time for such things. Even as a young girl she had been too wrapped up in dusty old books and history to care about gentlemen and flirting and, besides, her and John’s circle of friends would have found those frivolous. Why, then, did her mind keep turning back to Lord Ransome? Why did she wonder when she would see him again?

  Perhaps it was because he was not what she had feared—not thus far, anyway. He had not been one of those obnoxiously bluff and stiff military men, lecturing her about women’s proper spheres and ordering her off his land. It was true that he was quite ignorant of the true purpose of her work, but he seemed willing to listen to her. He wanted to look at the village.

  He was kind, as well as handsome. He had rescued her neatly from her dilemma, thus saving her nice shoes, and lent her this fine carriage. It was that kindness, and the good humor shining from his sky blue eyes, that so disarmed her.

  But she would just have to be sensible now. She had digging and studying to accomplish, and Mary Ann to look after. Despite her sister’s protestations, Sarah strongly suspected she was not over her infatuation with Mr. Hamilton. Mary Ann could not even look directly at her when she spoke his name.

  So there was really no time for any infatuations of her own, Sarah thought with a little sigh. Surely Lord Ransome would not be around very often, and she seldom had reason to go to Ransome Hall. If he was out of sight, she would not think about him. It was only the novelty of his presence that made him so interesting. In fact, he would be out of her thoughts by supper.

  Surely he would.

  Thus satisfied, Sarah straightened her gloves, and turned her attention to the scenery passing outside the window.

  There, just visible in the distance, she could see the graceful, pale gray stone of Ransome Hall. She wondered if Lord Ransome had returned there yet. . . .

  Mary Ann was not truly absorbed in her book; she just held it before her eyes, so Sarah would think she was. She dearly loved her sister, and was delighted to see her again, but she didn’t think she could indulge in polite conversation any longer without crying.

  She knew that her family considered her feelings for Mr. Hamilton to be mere infatuation, and they smiled about it behind her back.

  It was true that she had been just fifteen when they met last year, but her feelings had not been a schoolgirl crush. She often borrowed novels from Phoebe Seward, and her emotions were just like the ones of those heroines. Even now, thinking of Mr. Hamilton’s handsome auburn hair, her heart pattered in her breast, making her breathless.

  He had spoken to her so seriously and earnestly about Viking history, as if she was quite grown up and intellectual. Not like she was a child, as almost everyone else did!

  Why, now that she was of an age to marry, did he have to go off and wed someone else?

  The thought made her eyes itch with tears again, but really she was rather tired of crying. She tried to behave as the tragically romantic Minerva Press heroines did, delicate and brave, though sometimes it was dashed hard.

  She peered at Sarah over the top of her book, and saw that her sister appeared quite absorbed in her own thoughts, as well. In fact, if Mary Ann did not know her sensible sister so well, she would almost have said Sarah had a secret infatuation of her own.

  Yet who could it be? The only men Mary Ann ever saw Sarah with were dusty old scholars like Sir John. And surely Sarah was far too old to be infatuated with anyone! Why, she was a widow.

  What, then, accounted for the unaccustomed soft expression in Sarah’s eyes? Glad of the distraction from thoughts of the lost Mr. Hamilton, Mary Ann settled down to ponder this mystery.

  Chapter Five

  Sarah dug her trowel carefully into the soft earth, prying until she loosened the glistening object. It was a tiny, broken fragment of some metal, hooked and twisted. She wiped it on her already dusty apron, and took out her quizzing glass to study it closer.

  It was a warm day. The sun beat down on her head, even through the loose weave of her wide-brimmed straw hat, and tiny, itchy rivulets of sweat ran between her shoulder blades. The other people working on the village, digging and hauling artifacts away to the old stable that was their temporary home, moved slowly, stopping often to wipe at their damp brows. Sarah noticed none of this, though. She was too absorbed in the tiny piece of metal, and in the other objects scattered around her.

  This had assuredly been the village smithy, she thought, glancing at the objects laid out on old sheets. There were the blades of knives and swords, a half of an iron cauldron, and even a scamasax in such fine condition she could have used it right now, if she had such a violent inclination. The charcoal kiln she had just uncovered this morning confirmed that this was a smithy.

  But what was this new object? She would have to take it back to the hunting box that night and look for something like it in one of her books. It would be so much easier if she knew what it was now, though! If only John, or even Mr. Hamilton, were here. They knew what everything was on sight, where she was still a student.

  Mary Ann, who was sitting on a low stool behind her, sketching the charcoal kiln, suddenly stood up. She shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun, and announced, “Someone is coming!”

  Sarah reluctantly tore her attention from the fragment, and looked to where her sister was pointing. A horse and rider were slowly making their way into the small valley where the village was situated. She couldn’t tell from this distance exactly who it was, but, judging from the figure’s upright, military posture, and the golden hair gleaming in the sun, she had a good idea.

  “Blast!” she cursed under her breath. Why did he have to come today, of all days? When she was hot and dirty, wearing her oldest and plainest gray muslin dress and a stained apron! Her face was probably pink from the sun, and she no doubt smelled less than pristine.

  When they had met last week, she might have looked like a fool getting stuck in the stream, but at least she had been well dressed doing it. Every day since then, she had remembered his promise to come to see the village, so she had dressed in her best day gowns, and even used rice powder on the freckles across her nose. This morning, she had decided he would surely write before he came, and had gone back to her usual working attire. She could get so much more done in her old dresses and aprons.

  Why, oh, why, had she done that?

  She stuck the fragment into her apron pocket, and pulled the hat off her head to try in vain to smooth her hair back. Short curls of it clung to her damp temples and brow, resisting all attempts at tidying.

  “Is that the new Lord Ransome?” Mary Ann asked. Sarah noticed that, despite the sun, Mary Ann still looked cool and pretty, her pale green gown only a bit dusty around the hem. “He looks handsome, and not nearly as old as I would have thought.”

  Sarah watched as Lord Ransome reached the edge of the village and dismounted from his horse. He wrapped the reins around a thick branch of a nearby tree, looking about him curiously.

  “Come on, Sarah!” Mary Ann urged, hurrying off. “I want to meet him.”

  Sarah followed her slowly, reluctant to leave the work on the smithy—and even more reluctant to have Lord Ransome see her looking like a street urchin!

  But there was nothing for it. It would be rude for her to run away and hide, and not at all the way to persuade him to let her stay on his land. She would just have to pretend she was properly dressed and groomed. If she ignored her disarray, then he would have to as well.

  This was easier said than done, though, especially since Mary Ann was right, and he was looking particularly handsome. Even more so than she remembered from the day he rescued her. The waves of his hair, brushed back carelessly from his face and uncovered by a hat, shimmered gold and copper in the light, and his eyes were as blue and piercing as the sky.
He smiled when he saw her coming, and a dimple dented the sun-browned smoothness of his cheek.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Iverson,” he said. “I hope I have not come at an inconvenient time? If so, just say the word and I will go away again at once.”

  Sarah smiled at him in return, all thoughts of work and her dusty disarray fleeing away. She held her hand out to him, and he lifted it to his lips.

  She had to press down on the urge to laugh like a schoolgirl. Then she remembered that that hand was probably not strictly clean, and snatched it back again, shoving it into her apron pocket. Her fingers touched the metal fragment, and she clutched it in her fist as a lifeline.

  “Not at all, Lord Ransome,” she answered. “It is almost time for us to stop for luncheon.” She noticed Mary Ann still beside her, practically bouncing on her feet in excitement. “May I present my sister, Miss Mary Ann Bellweather? Thanks to your loaning us your carriage, she made it here safely.”

  “How do you do, Miss Bellweather?” Lord Ransome said, giving Mary Ann an elegant bow.

  Mary Ann ceased bouncing long enough to curtsy to him. “How do you do, Lord Ransome? I vow I never had a more comfortable journey than I did in your lovely carriage.”

  Lord Ransome laughed. “I am very glad to hear it, Miss Bellweather.”

  “It was most gallant of you to come to Sarah’s rescue. Have you come to see her village? It is vastly interesting.”

  “Mary Ann!” Sarah said, taking her sister’s hand to make her stand still, as she had begun bouncing again.

  It was obvious that Lord Ransome was trying very hard to keep from laughing at Mary Ann’s exuberance. His jaw was tight, but his eyes sparkled. “Indeed, I have come to see the village, if Lady Iverson has time to show me about.”

  “I will be happy to show you what there is,” Sarah said. “There is much we haven’t uncovered yet. Mary Ann, perhaps you would gather up some of your sketches to show Lord Ransome?”

  Mary Ann nodded eagerly, and hurried off to find her sketchbooks. Sarah was left quite alone with Lord Ransome, since the workers had disappeared somewhere for their luncheon. She smoothed her apron once more, self-consciously, and gestured to him to follow her.

  She soon forgot the fact that she was dusty and disheveled in the pleasure of displaying her work. Or, as Mary Ann called it, “her” village. It was not hers, of course—it belonged to the long-dead Vikings who had inhabited it. But sometimes it felt like hers, just for this small span of time. It was coming back to life under the labor of her hands. People would know again how those Vikings had lived because of what she was doing.

  “This was not an enormously large settlement, since Jorvik—or York—was so near,” she said. “It was meant to serve the needs of the nearby farmers, I am sure.”

  Lord Ransome looked about, a small frown of concentration on his brow. “Do the main streets mostly consist of shops and businesses, as it does in modern towns?”

  “Mostly, yes. We have uncovered the shops of wood-workers, leather-workers, and a jeweler. Over there are some small houses, but we have only fully excavated one so far—‘House A,’ it’s called. It is a very simple house, with only the main hall, where the hearth is, and a couple of other small rooms. It should be very interesting, though, with many clues as to how the Vikings lived when they settled in England.”

  “How do you know what every shop is?” Lord Ransome asked. He gazed around, obviously taking in the veritable sea of ropes and markers and rubbish heaps. “Judging from your markers, I would say that each one is the same size and shape.”

  “Indeed. We can only know—or rather, can guess—because of the objects we find in each one. I was working in the smithy this morning, where we uncovered a charcoal kiln and many metal objects.” Sarah suddenly remembered the odd little hook she had found, and pulled it out of her pocket. “Including this. I’m not sure what it is.”

  Lord Ransome took it carefully from her, turning it over in the sunlight. “I fear I know very little about Viking history, Lady Iverson, but if I were to make a guess, I would say it was a link of chain mail.”

  “Chain mail?” Intrigued, Sarah leaned over to examine the tiny fragment. It lay securely on the capable hand of Lord Ransome, the palm vulnerably pink in contrast to the sun-browned, scarred back. She had to clench her fist to keep from reaching out and tracing the calluses at the base of his fingers. “I do believe you are right. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before! What a clever antiquarian you would be.”

  He laughed ruefully. “I doubt I would be intellectual enough to do the work you do, Lady Iverson. I was the despair of my tutors. But my father owned quite an extensive collection of ancient weapons, including a shirt of chain mail. I was fascinated by them, and when my father’s back was turned, I often took them down from the wall in order to play with them. I am surprised I never chopped a foot off! But this looks exactly like the links of mail in that shirt.”

  Sarah had to smile at the image of a young Lord Ransome, towheaded and curious, clambering up to lift swords and maces down from the wall. “You must have been the despair of your poor mother.”

  “Oh, I was. I believe I still am, since she lives in Bath and London all year, and won’t come live here with me.”

  Sarah was fascinated by this tiny glimpse into his family life. “Do you have any siblings?”

  “One sister, but she is married to an officer in an Indian regiment, and she lives with him and their two children in Calcutta. She has plenty of time to worry about me, but fortunately she can only express that worry in long letters.” He smiled, and held the link out to her.

  Sarah wondered what his sister could possibly find to worry about him. “No, you keep it,” she said, pressing it back into his hand. “You were the one who identified it so quickly.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Of course.”

  He gave her a smile of such sweetness and humor that Sarah almost melted beneath it. He acted as if she had handed him a diamond. “Thank you, Lady Iverson. It will remind me of my father’s collection, until I can unpack it and display it all at Ransome Hall—and it will also remind me of this day.”

  Sarah smiled in return. “Would you care to see the rest of the objects we have found? We keep them in the old stable up on that hill, until I can find them a more suitable home.”

  “I would like that very much.”

  He held his arm out to her, and she slipped her hand into its warm crook. They might almost have been stepping into a ballroom rather than a dusty stable so formal and gallant was he. Sarah wished for one instant that she was wearing a silk gown and diamonds, and that her hair was properly dressed. How would Lord Ransome look at her then? With admiration?

  She shook her head, and tried to push those thoughts back. She was not here for such frivolous things as gowns and flirtations! She was here to work.

  And only work.

  Miles followed Lady Iverson into the dim cavern of the old stable, ducking his head to avoid a low-hanging spiderweb. The only light was from sunshine through the chinks of the wooden walls, pale bars where dust motes danced. The floor was covered by a layer of fresh straw, and the air smelled of its sweetness and the warmth of the day. Lady Iverson’s skirt stirred the straw when she walked across the building.

  He thought again how very different she was from any other lady he had ever met. She worked out under the sun, uncaring of her attire or her complexion, intent only on the nine-hundred-year-old objects she was unearthing. When she spoke of her work, her eyes glowed, and her mobile mouth turned up with eagerness. Her hand, when she reached out to give him the tiny metal link, was tanned and dusty. Her gown was far from fashionable, and covered with a stained apron.

  But, for all that—because of all that—she was lovely. Miles was drawn to her inexorably. He wanted to be near her brightness, her vitality, and absorb some of it into himself.

  He had been so tired since the end of the war, bone-deep tired, but so restless at the s
ame time. On the Peninsula, there had been times of maddening boredom, yet he had always known that he had a purpose there. And he was good at the military life, too. He took care of his men, and won accolades—some perhaps even deserved—for his actions in battle.

  He sometimes wondered if he could be half as good being a marquis, if he could find a purpose here, as Lady Iverson obviously had. He was beginning to imagine that helping former soldiers in these difficult times could be that new purpose. He just had to decide how to begin.

  There was a rustling sound from the far end of the stable, and he turned his attention back to Lady Iverson. She had gone to a row of tables, and was pulling canvas covers from them. He moved closer, and saw that the tables were laden with objects of every shape and size, many of them quite unrecognizable, all of them neatly labeled.

  “These are items we found in House A,” she said. “Mostly domestic items, of course, and things that would have belonged to a lady. Glass beds, soapstone spindles, and bowls—the soapstone would have been imported from Norway, so I assume these people were originally Norwegians. Some pottery storage jars. We found seeds in them, which a friend of my husband’s, who is a noted botanist, says are barley, wheat, and dill.”

  Her gaze softened when she mentioned her late husband. Miles wondered with an odd pang if she still loved him, still longed for him. “What are these?” he asked, trying to shake off those disquieting thoughts by leaning over an array of beautifully decorated silver items. “They’re quite lovely.”

  Lady Iverson smiled softly, as if she had a particular affection for these pieces. “Indeed, they are. These are a pair of silver brooches, which would have fastened a lady’s overdress. We found them in House A, along with these amber beads and enameled armbands. Even though the house is small, the inhabitants must have been well-to-do to own such things. There was also this. It is one of my favorites.”