“So I see,” he said and repressed a sigh.
“We can, however, wait for you to”—Mrs. Brightmore waved a hand—“to be more comfortable. Michael, go upstairs and have one of the servants bring some towels. And a pot of tea. Then go to your room and wait for me there.”
“But—”
“I really don’t think—” Gareth began even as Fairley opened his mouth to protest.
“Now, please,” said Mrs. Brightmore.
The tone sent Fairley up the stairs without further ado and even made Gareth flinch. Inwardly, of course. He cleared his throat. “I’m much obliged, ma’am, but I’ll see Fitzpatrick now. I have,” he added in response to the dubious look on her face, “worked under far worse conditions.”
The nose was indeed broken, Gareth saw once they’d gotten into his office, and bleeding copiously, as such things often did. Fitzpatrick was bearing the pain decently well for a boy his age, but he stifled a yelp when Gareth touched his face. There was some bruising as well, or would be. “Will I be seeing the other fellow after this?”
Fitzpatrick shook his head. “Not a fight,” he mumbled. “Practicing.” He glanced over at Mrs. Brightmore, straightened his shoulders, and added, “Broke a lamp too. One of the round ones with pendant things.”
“Having trouble telling the difference between the library and a cricket ground, are we?” Gareth asked, recognizing the description. From where Mrs. Brightmore was sitting, hands folded very properly in her lap, he heard a sound that might have been suppressed laughter. He fought back a smile of his own, reminding himself he didn’t actually like the woman and therefore didn’t want to join her in anything so comradely as humor.
“We’ll pay. Pocket money and that.”
“Mm.” Not really his concern. Gareth placed one hand under the boy’s chin. “Hold still. This is going to hurt.”
Straightening a broken nose was, by now, one of the tasks he could perform in his sleep. To Fitzpatrick’s credit, he didn’t cry out, just sucked in air and grimaced. Gareth had seen worse from men twice his age.
“That’s the worst of it,” he said and shifted his hands, putting one on each side of Fitzpatrick’s face, fingertips pointing to the nose. He tried to be careful of the bruises. “This is just going to be a bit odd.”
Had there been another sound from the side? A sound a woman might make perhaps if she were shifting her weight to get a better view? No matter. Mrs. Brightmore wasn’t his concern either.
Gareth closed his eyes. Shifting his focus was easy—he’d done it since he was younger than Fitzpatrick or even Fairley—and correcting the injury would be almost as simple. Child’s play, one might say, certainly compared to what he’d been doing a few years ago.
When he opened his eyes and looked at Fitzpatrick, he saw a man-shaped web of gray-and-silver threads in all different sizes, thickest near the boy’s heart and brain, thinner out near his hands and feet and on the surface of his face. Now a few of the latter were broken, the thickest running down the bridge of his nose. It hadn’t snapped entirely, Gareth saw as he looked closer, but it was worn away in parts, and the rest was unraveling.
It didn’t take much effort at this point, or even much thought, to reach out and weave part of his energy into the threads, shoring up the unraveling parts and bridging between the broken ends. He worked, carefully aware of how long he’d been out of practice, making sure all of the fastenings joined snugly to one another. He pulled his senses back a little and saw the threads were whole again. Not as good as new—he could still see the edges—but they’d heal the rest of the way soon enough. He closed his eyes again and refocused on the world as he usually saw it.
Fitzpatrick’s face was still covered in blood, but his nose had stopped bleeding. The straightening had held too, and there was no incipient swelling or even bruising. The boy raised a hand to touch it. “It…doesn’t hurt!”
“No,” Gareth said, turning away to run a clean handkerchief under cold water. “It won’t. Though I don’t recommend hitting it with anything for a little while. Certainly not a cricket ball.”
“I’ll take it right out of my plans, sir, I promise,” Fitzpatrick replied, clearly regaining his old self by the minute.
“Right,” said Gareth and handed him the handkerchief. “Wash, and let’s make sure there’s no bruising.”
Now that he had a moment, he reached for the buttons of his jacket. He’d already gotten rid of his hat. There was only so much he could do about the rest of his clothing until Mrs. Brightmore took herself and Fitzpatrick out of his office. Furthermore, she was a widow. She was, or had been, a fraud, and Gareth didn’t feel particularly obligated to retain his soaked jacket for the sake of her theoretical modesty.
Healing always made Gareth hungry and a little cold. Under the circumstances, neither was doing much for his temper.
He glanced over at Mrs. Brightmore, not sure whether it was to warn her or gauge her likely reaction, and found himself meeting her eyes. She’d been looking at him, it seemed, and Gareth thought he saw surprise in her pretty face. Perhaps even astonishment.
A greater man wouldn’t have found the realization gratifying. Gareth had no pretense to greatness.
***
Of course he was smug. Wretched man. His smile, polite enough to the casual observer, was only barely on the correct side of a smirk.
Olivia looked straight back at him, refusing to drop her gaze. She couldn’t do anything about her blush, curse it, but she told herself she had nothing to be embarrassed about. “I had no idea you were so talented, Dr. St. John,” she said, trying to sound casual and knowing she didn’t quite manage it.
“As you said, it’s an extraordinary school. I don’t think the average doctor would have sufficed.” A lock of his wet hair was hanging in his face. It should have made him seem less equal to the conversation. Instead, Olivia had the purely idiotic urge to brush it back.
She didn’t look down at her hands, but she flexed her fingers, making sure they stayed laced together and her hands stayed in her lap. “A sound judgment. And certainly one that’s been helpful today.”
No, she still sounded breathless. Damn her stays, Olivia thought. She should have followed Charlotte’s example and left them off long ago.
“Much obliged,” St. John said again. He looked away, and Olivia felt a moment of satisfaction, but it was only to continue unbuttoning his jacket. “Towel, please,” he added, and she wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or Fitzpatrick. She passed him a towel anyway.
The jacket came off slowly, not that Olivia was watching, and the white shirt underneath had been considerably dampened by the rain. She caught a glimpse of tan skin and dark hair, and observed that St. John’s arms and chest weren’t badly developed, for all that he was thin. Not badly developed at all.
Not that she was looking.
She swallowed, lifted her gaze to the shelf of books above St. John’s head, and found an opening. “I hope my classes have been helpful, then,” she said. “I didn’t know you were seeking information for yourself.”
St. John paused, towel midway to his head. “I hadn’t been,” he said mildly, as if it were a matter of no import, and resumed drying his hair.
A hit, Olivia thought, but a quick recovery. She pressed what advantage she had. “I beg your pardon,” she replied, trying to echo his offhand tone. “I should’ve known you’d be well schooled in theory.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Practice does well enough for me.” The towel came down, and St. John met her eyes again. “I’ve had a few years of it, after all.”
“I’ve washed my face,” Fitzpatrick announced. “May I go now, sir?”
St. John snapped his gaze back to the boy with a speed that made Olivia smile. To his credit, he did provide a quick but thorough inspection before he replied, “You can,” but the words were too quick. There was a retreat there.
“Thank you, Dr. St. John,” said Olivia, rising from her seat. “I’ll try to avoi
d any further interruptions.”
“Please do,” he said. “Or wait until I’ve dried off.”
Olivia took herself out, wondering who’d won that round. It was a waste of time to consider it, she told herself. Scoring points was childish. She didn’t want to fight with the man, and she certainly didn’t wish Fitzpatrick hadn’t interrupted.
Not at all.
Chapter 9
Olivia finished the final line of a pentagram and then lifted her pen from her journal and tried to shake the cramps out of her aching wrist. Teaching was no joke, not even with as few pupils as she had, and teaching magic was proving to be harder work than she’d thought. Her practice in London and her time under Gillespie had given her a head start, but not a particularly large one, and there were some areas that greatly needed filling in.
Protection, for example. Olivia had learned how to guard a room or a person against accidents and even the occasional predator that lurked in the realms beyond, but she’d skimmed lightly over protections against anything someone had purposefully sent. Nobody who could command demons, she’d thought, would have bothered setting them on a medium of no great fame or fortune.
The young men and women who would come from Englefield would be a different story altogether. Mr. Grenville did know protective spells—she was doing research in his library, after all—and would certainly cover anything more advanced, but there would be times when he was away or otherwise unavailable.
Those last two words covered a great deal. Olivia tried not to think about certain possibilities.
Instead, she leaned back in her chair and looked out at the rainy landscape. Rainy without Michael Fairley’s influence this time: either her lecture or an hour washing dishes in the scullery had driven home certain points. Olivia hoped so.
Where powers were concerned, Michael’s control was better than Elizabeth’s, who still tended to react to any alarm by rising half a foot off the floor. However, Michael tended to cut corners in practice, and the incident with Dr. St. John hadn’t been the first time he’d used his talent unfairly. According to his parents, by way of Mr. Grenville, it had been common for the clouds to open whenever Michael’s governess tried to take him on an unwanted walk. So far, there hadn’t been much self-indulgence of that kind at Englefield, but there also hadn’t been much opportunity for it.
Olivia closed her eyes, pentagrams and circles still dancing in front of her lids, and let herself slip into further assessment. Elizabeth’s problem was mostly being afraid of her own shadow. She was getting better, but as soon as she felt herself losing control, she’d grab and clutch and try to shut off all her talent, which usually only made the situation worse. She had nightmares too, with all the loss of control that implied, and Olivia was usually in her room to ground the energy no less than once a week. Elizabeth had never gotten as far off the ground as she’d done that first day, though, and Olivia counted that as a victory.
The older students were coming along well, she thought. William tended to rush things. Michael and Charlotte were also hasty about ceremonial magic, the spells anyone could do, which didn’t surprise Olivia. Growing up able to do one form of magic simply by thinking about it might naturally render one impatient with the sort that took time and intricate planning. Elizabeth was the exception to that rule. She was as careful in spell casting as she couldn’t be at levitation. She had the makings of an excellent magician, as did Arthur, who had an eye for patterns.
Much she knew, Olivia told herself with a small smile. She had all she could do keeping up.
That was no complaint. There’d been a vigor and a challenge about the last month Olivia hadn’t known she’d craved. Teaching and research had been like taking a brisk walk uphill after weeks indoors.
Speaking of that…With a sigh, she turned toward the windows.
The week since her visit to the dressmaker hadn’t often provided her with weather suitable for walking much of anywhere, much less the forest. Olivia had also remembered Mrs. Grenville had told her not to go in without her or Mr. Grenville, and she wasn’t inclined to flout that advice. She’d been a country girl once, but that had been ten years ago, and even then she’d been much more used to farms than forests. So she’d waited.
Neither of the Grenvilles had been available long enough. They generally weren’t. Even now, Mr. Grenville was talking with his steward, and Mrs. Grenville was teaching the older students hand-to-hand combat in the ballroom. One could hear the shouts and thumps from fully three rooms away. The younger students, who would have their turn in an hour, were upstairs studying their normal lessons.
Absently, Olivia put aside the book from which she’d been taking notes and turned back to the shelves to retrieve another. Spirits and Omens of Our Grandfathers’ Time. She’d seen the title a few times before and had mostly looked over it on her way to something more substantial.
The book was no more than thirty years old and came complete with colored illustrations. It did not, Olivia quickly discovered, have an index, though the authors had been considerate enough to lump related incidents together. She idly flipped the pages past descriptions of black dogs and phantom music and paused at a section on ravens.
According to the authors, in a Greek myth, Apollo had turned the then-white raven’s feathers black because it had informed him of his inamorata’s faithlessness. Not much useful information there, except perhaps not to bring bad news to the ancient gods. She wondered what Apollo had thought the poor beast should have done, and flipped back a page.
Oh. Peck out the young man’s eyes.
Lovely.
She looked up as the door opened. Dr. St. John stepped inside, then frowned as he saw her. Probably surprise, judging by his expression, though one never could tell with the man.
Oh well. She’d made good progress today, it was vile outside, and she wasn’t going to let St. John put her in a bad mood.
“Your patron god,” she said, thinking of the myth, “does not strike me as much of a gentleman.”
***
It wasn’t fair, Gareth thought. He’d spent a useful morning filling out records and arranging new equipment in his office, he’d come into the library to reward himself with a novel, and he’d found Mrs. Brightmore with the lamplight gold on her fair skin, looking like some Pre-Raphaelite’s idea of the Spirit of Knowledge, and talking like a madwoman.
A man of his age should have been able to expect some order in his life.
“Pardon?” he asked. “Patron god?”
“Apollo,” Mrs. Brightmore said and then paused. Gareth noticed she pursed her lips just a little when she thought. It drew a man’s attention, made him consider the shape of her mouth and the slight fullness of her underlip. She was probably doing it on purpose. “I believe he’s in the Hippocratic Oath,” she continued.
“Oh. Probably. Greek gods aren’t really the memorable part. Nor are they generally gentlemen, if memory serves.” Gareth took a few steps closer to the desk. Now that he was here, it wouldn’t do to retreat.
“No. That’s why—” Mrs. Brightmore abruptly stopped herself. Gareth watched a blush spread itself up her neck and over her face. She cleared her throat. “I do hope I’m not in your way.”
“Not at all. I came to borrow some reading material. Something a little more lighthearted than yours,” he said, casting a quick glance over the books at Mrs. Brightmore’s elbow. A small, leather-bound journal lay on top of a much larger, much-older-looking book. Gareth couldn’t make out the title, and he didn’t know that he wanted to. The book in front of her was about omens and spirits. “Not seeing any black dogs at crossroads, I hope?”
“No, I haven’t seen anything. I’d heard a story or two in the village, but it’s probably nothing.” She talked quickly. Other than that, there was no sign of relief that he’d moved on.
“Mm,” Gareth said. He put a hand on the desk, letting it support his weight without leaning too obviously. “‘That’s why’ what?”
Mrs. Brig
htmore bit her lip and was silent for a moment. She didn’t pretend ignorance, though. He had to grant her that. “It’s only a theory,” she said, “and it’s not…some people could find it a bit insulting. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“And yet you did,” he said, “and now I’m curious.”
It wasn’t entirely embarrassment coloring her face now. Her eyes flashed. “I won’t have you stalking off in offense if I tell you, sir,” she said. “Not when I have to work with you. Or if you do, I won’t have you blame me for it.”
“I promise,” he said, holding up a hand in a reassuring gesture, “I won’t take it badly.”
Mrs. Brightmore relaxed a little, though there was still a certain wariness about her when she spoke. “In that first class, Charlotte asked why certain people could do magic at will. I said there were a few theories on the subject.”
“So I recall.”
“One of them, and I have reason to think it’s true, is those people are somehow connected to…other beings.” She spread her hands in vague illustration and absently began to rub one of her wrists as she spoke. “Beings from places that follow different rules, or none.”
“Fairies?” Gareth lifted an eyebrow.
“Or angels. Or gods. Beings who call themselves gods, at any rate. All of them have supposedly had the appropriate sorts of…association with humanity. The, um, blessings in fairy tales, for instance.”
“Or the, ah, seductions in myth?” Gareth mimicked her hesitation and let a smile drift across his mouth. “I’m a grown man, you know. I’m not going to faint.”
“Just challenge me to pistols at dawn, perhaps.” Her fingers moved from her wrist to her hand, and she winced.
“Are you all right?”
“Hmm? Oh. Fine.” Mrs. Brightmore blinked up at him. “Thank you,” she added, sounding less grudging than surprised. Clearly she hadn’t expected his concern, which Gareth found unexpectedly annoying.
“Let me see,” he said.
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