Courtship and Curses

by Marissa Doyle

  Sophie turned away and stared into the bleak stone room, the retort she’d been about to launch at him withering away unspoken. She’d hated Aunt Isabel treating her like damaged goods, unlikely to find a husband … hated the people like Lady Lumley, who’d seen only her lameness, not her. But could she have been accepting their view of her after all, without thinking? Had she let them define her as broken, and believed them?

  “I—I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

  “Good God, Lady Sophie, do you think I do?” he asked. “Now, if you will excuse me, you may be content to stay in this godforsaken place and feel sorry for yourself, but I have a city to protect.”

  Turning in time to see him stalk from the passage and back into the large, echoing room, she stood transfixed. How dare he say such a dreadful thing? What did he possibly think she could do?

  Try? asked a small voice in her mind.

  * * *

  The duke was crawling on hands and knees back and forth across the width of the room, staring intently at the stone floor, when she finally made herself follow after him. She watched him for a few moments and scraped up enough courage to ask, “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for where we came in. I think it was here somewhere—at least, on this side of the room. If you say there was an entrance—or exit—back in the ballroom in Brussels, then I expect there has to be one here.”

  Sophie didn’t tell him that magic didn’t necessarily work that way. “How will you find it?” she asked instead.

  He didn’t bother looking up. “I don’t know, but I know that I have to at least try. I’m not about to roll over and play dead for Napoléon, by God.”

  A lump formed in her throat. She ignored it and walked over to him. “Will you help me down?” she asked shyly.

  He glanced up at her, nodded, and held out his hand. She used it to lower herself to kneel next to him and looked around the room, trying to picture precisely where she’d landed after the comte pushed her magically through the portal. A little to the left, maybe? She paused to pull off her long evening gloves so that nothing interfered with her ability to feel any possible whisper of magic, then began to imitate the duke’s crawl, running her hands over the roughly dressed stone of the floor. She tried not to think about what she would do if she found the portal, but that led to wondering what would happen if she didn’t find it, which was infinitely worse.

  In fact, she nearly didn’t find it. It was much more subtle than the spell in the ballroom, not so much a portal as a memory of one, like a physical doorway that had been bricked and plastered over but was still visible. She didn’t say anything to the duke, but found when she looked up that he was sitting back on his knees, watching her.

  “You’ve got it,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I … think so,” she replied cautiously, brushing the flats of her palms in a widening circle around it. “There’s not much of it, but … I’m fairly certain there’s something here.”

  He came over to crouch next to her. “Yes, this looks like about the right part of the room. What are you going to do?”

  Sophie stared down at the place. Nothing about it looked different from the floor all around it. Had she imagined what she felt? Even if she hadn’t, what could she do with it?

  “I’m not sure,” she finally said.

  “You’re not sure,” he repeated slowly. “Very well. Do you intend to find out? Caution is no bad thing in a commander. But it can’t keep him—or her—from taking action, Lady Sophie.”

  Sophie looked up at him. This wasn’t the duke who loved to go to parties and laugh too loudly at jokes and flirt with pretty women that she’d come to know in Brussels. It was the iron-backed general who’d harried Napoléon’s army out of Spain and Portugal and chased his marshals all the way into France, and wouldn’t brook hesitation from anyone. Including a frightened, uncertain young witch.

  Because she was a witch. She would not be here if she weren’t. The comte had feared her enough to imprison her here, hadn’t he? Then maybe it was time for her to justify his fear. The duke, for all his bravery and skill on a battlefield, was powerless here, and he knew it. But he also knew that she wasn’t.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and took a deep breath, trying to push the doubt, if not out of her mind, at least to its margins. Just examine it, she told herself. See if there’s anything to learn about it. You don’t have to do anything immediately.

  She spread her hands again and moved them slowly over the floor. Yes, there was the place where they’d come through: She could still feel their passages, the duke’s and her own, like the wake of wind left behind a swift rider. If only she could follow that wake back along its path! She pushed against hers, exploring its course backward, probing further—

  And then suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. Light and warmth and sound seemed to explode around her. She squinted, trying to understand … and realized that she was kneeling in the middle of the ballroom in their house in Brussels.

  Chapter

  20

  The room was in an uproar. Sophie realized that she was toward the back of the large crowd that had originally formed around Amélie, but the open space that had been at its center had disappeared, and everyone had pressed forward into one seething, chattering mass.

  “Sophie!”

  All at once Parthenope was there, eyes enormous. Before Sophie could say anything, she’d pulled her to her feet and thrown her arms around her, hugging her fiercely. “You came back!” she squealed directly in Sophie’s ear.

  For a moment, Sophie gave herself over to a huge wave of relief. She’d done it! Somehow she’d managed to follow the trail of the spell back here.

  Fast on the heels of that thought came another one. “Where’s the comte?” she asked, pushing Parthenope away slightly and looking anxiously around.

  “Ha!” Parthenope’s eyes lit up with triumph and mischief. “Being carried downstairs with his hands tied up in someone’s sash and a napkin stuffed in his mouth, thanks to your aunt Molly!”

  “Sophie!” Papa seized her from Parthenope’s grasp and enveloped her in a tight embrace. “Dearest child—what happened? You—you vanished!”

  Sophie gulped. Relief at having escaped was giving way to the realization that she still had a great deal to face here … not to mention the duke to rescue.

  “Sophie! My word, you gave me a turn, popping off like that!” Now Aunt Molly was there, followed closely by Amélie, who looked enormously relieved. Sophie wished she could spare a moment to apologize to Amélie, but it would have to wait.

  Aunt Molly was still talking. “You figured out how to escape Auguste’s witchery, then! I must say, I think it was extremely rude of him to try to enchant my own niece, but there, he wasn’t a very good man, was he?” Her blue eyes suddenly clouded. Amélie put an arm about her shoulders.

  “Well, you certainly gave him what for!” Parthenope said to her bracingly. “I don’t think he was expecting—”

  “Please, will someone tell me what happened to the comte?” Sophie interrupted.

  “Well, after you disappeared, everyone stood there looking terrified and then started backing away,” Aunt Molly said. “He was ever so proud of himself—I could tell by the way he stood there—”

  “He wasn’t going to stand there for long. In fact, he was definitely about to bolt,” Parthenope inserted. “He bowed and said, ‘And now, if you will excuse me—’ but never got a chance to finish because your aunt stopped him with an enormous vase of lilies—”

  “I walloped him over the head with it, pet!” Aunt Molly said, beaming at Sophie. “He never even saw me behind him, and he went down like a—like a—”

  “It was just before you got back,” Parthenope told her. “Once he fell, no one lost any time in getting him tied up. I think they’re taking him to the duke’s headquarters—”

  “They’ve already got him more securely tied and into a carriage,” an unfamiliar voice said.
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  Sophie looked up at a man in uniform—one of the duke’s aides, who’d come to stand behind Aunt Molly. Captain Hill, maybe? But it was the man who stood next to him who captured her attention.

  “You’re safe,” Peregrine Woodbridge said, his eyes shining. “Oh, God, Sophie—when you disappeared like that—”

  “I came back” was all she could say, as a queer fluttering sensation seemed to have seized her throat. It seemed to be enough, though.

  “Yes, but the duke didn’t,” Parthenope said sharply. “What happened, Sophie? Did you see him? Do you know where he is?”

  “Well, of course she must have,” Aunt Molly said. “I do believe she’s wearing his coat.”

  “Please, ma’am,” the captain said urgently. “The duke—is he all right?”

  Sophie looked down in surprise and saw that she was indeed still enveloped in the duke’s coat. Why hadn’t she given it back to him before she tried to find the way back? The poor man must be freezing in that horrible place. “He’s in perfect health,” she said to Captain Hill. “Only … only I don’t know where.”

  “But surely—” Parthenope began. Amélie and Peregrine shushed her.

  “What I mean is, I know we were both in the same place. I just don’t know where it actually is. I didn’t expect to be able to find my way out of it—it was almost an accident that I got out,” Sophie said.

  “I do not think it an accident.” Amélie spoke for the first time.

  Sophie turned to her in surprise. What did she mean? Unless— “Amélie, I saw you this afternoon. Did you know the trap was here? Had you found it?”

  “I had not,” Amélie said. “But my Nalini did. She insisted I come to look at it, but I could not feel it. Me, I have no magic.”

  “But she does,” Sophie said.

  Amélie nodded. “Yes—how did you know? Your canes—she put a protective spell on them. Did you feel it? But we had no idea that you, ma petite—”

  “May I ask why you don’t think Sophie’s escape was an accident?” Papa asked.

  Amélie shrugged. “As I said, I do not know magic. But I do know Sophie.” She smiled warmly. “Sophie brought herself out of Monsieur le Comte’s sorcellerie because she is strong and will not let such a thing stop her. And I do not doubt that she can do the same for his grace the duke.”

  “Can you?” Captain Hill demanded. Another of the duke’s aides—Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon, she thought—had joined them and was staring at her hopefully, along with a growing number of guests. She could hear sibilant whispers of “Lady Sophie! She’s back!”

  “You found him once,” Captain Hill continued. “Can’t you go back and bring him with you this time?”

  Sophie wished they would all stop looking at her so hard. Because despite what Amélie seemed to think, she wasn’t strong or brave or any of those things. “I don’t know. The spell that transported him was created especially for him. He himself set it off, so to speak. I just went there because the comte pushed me into it—” A sudden thought stopped her. The prison had been designed specifically for the duke, but the comte had been able to put her there with a conscious effort. Had his being knocked out allowed her to escape it?

  But if so, what bearing did that have on rescuing the duke?

  “Well, isn’t the spell likely still in place?” Parthenope asked. “Can’t you use it to go back to him?”

  “Yes, it’s probably there,” Sophie agreed. “But the duke’s the one who makes it work. It’s like having the correct key for a lock.”

  “Oh,” Parthenope said, glumly. “Too bad he doesn’t have a twin brother handy. We could use him to open the door.”

  “That wouldn’t work. It has to be him,” Sophie said slowly. An edge of an idea had raised itself in her mind … if she could muster enough magic to do it. “But … maybe something belonging to him—that might be enough to give me a fingerhold to pry it open—”

  “Like his coat?” Aunt Molly said brightly.

  Parthenope laughed aloud. “We should be quite lost without you tonight, ma’am! Sophie, do you think you can do it?”

  Sophie thought of the duke’s stern face. “I have to,” she said.

  “Sophie, I won’t allow you to go back to—to wherever it is,” Papa said angrily. Peregrine nodded agreement.

  “But the duke—” Captain Hill began, just as angrily.

  “I have to, Papa,” she said again. “No one else can do it.”

  “But what if you can’t come back?” he said, and she was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

  Parthenope clutched at Sophie’s arm. “Do you have to go all the way through again? Can’t you just sort of open the door so that he can come in, rather than you going out?”

  “I’m not sure it works that way. I’d never seen anything like this before tonight.” She glanced at her father. Well, he’d have to know sometime, now. “My mother used to make windows so we could see other places, but never doors that we could go through.”

  Papa looked at her, opened his mouth, and closed it. Poor Papa; she would have a lot of explaining to do to him once this was over. If it ever would be over.

  “Well, that’s simple,” Parthenope said. “Don’t go all the way through. Can’t you just poke your head in and call him to come out while you hold it open?”

  Sophie started to protest again that she wasn’t sure it would work, but changed her mind at the stubborn expression on Papa’s face and the equally determined one on Captain Hill’s. She looked at Parthenope and understood that she was thinking the same thing: Trying to open this doorway might or might not work—she might or might not be able to find the magic to do it … but there was nothing else she could do except try.

  “I’ll do it,” she said softly.

  Parthenope nodded. “You did it once. You’ll do it again. Would it help if we held on to you, to make sure you don’t go all the way through?” She turned to Peregrine. “Will you help? After all those boxing lessons with Gentleman Jackson, you’re surely quite strong.”

  Sophie waited for him to protest like Papa had; wasn’t she the young woman he’d thought he needed to protect? But he met her eyes and straightened his shoulders. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Take my hand. I’ll need one to find the spell with.” She wasn’t convinced that this would work—would it even be possible to be in two different places at the same time?—but it might. She held her left hand out to him and he took it, then grasped her wrist with his other hand so that he held on to her with both.

  “Sophie—” Papa began.

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” Sophie said, because trying to argue him out of protesting would take too much time. “I think it would be helpful if everyone could move back a little,” she said. “I need to find the exact edges of the spell again.”

  Captain Hill and Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon set about moving people back with alacrity. Papa looked mutinous, but to Sophie’s surprise let the captain usher him aside. The crowd around them had grown, and whispered conversations filled the ballroom like wind rustling the leaves of a forest. What’s she doing? Where’s the duke? Why didn’t she bring—? Fancy that crippled little thing— She wished they would stop; the buzz of half-heard words made it hard for her to concentrate as she felt the air around her with her free hand, pulling Peregrine with her—

  There it was. When she’d found the comte’s spell that afternoon, there had just been a line of magic on the floor. Now she found that it had unfolded and hung suspended above the line on the floor. She ran her fingers over it, trying to find the boundaries, and eventually described a large, wide oval. Evidently the comte had wanted to make sure that it was big enough to catch the duke if the dance lines did not form precisely where expected.

  “It’s here,” she said to Peregrine, and stood a moment longer, ostensibly still defining its edges but actually trying to steel herself to begin trying to open it. What if she failed, here with a roomful of people—not to mention Papa, Amélie, Peregrine
, and several of the duke’s aides—watching her? It would be difficult enough to deal with society whispering that she was a witch … but to have it whispered that she was an incompetent one, or worse, that she had lied about her power?

  And this wasn’t just anyone she had to rescue. It was the Duke of Wellington, whom all of Europe was counting on to save them from Napoléon. She thought about the way he’d looked at her so sternly just a short while ago. Well, if he was going to save Europe, she was going to have to save him. She slid her hand into the sleeve of the duke’s coat so that it, and not her fingertips, would be first to touch the edge of the spell.

  As soon as she touched the spell again with her cloth-covered hand, she felt it stir, as if it were a curtain moved by a breeze. She grasped at that image and held it in her mind; all she had to do was draw aside the curtain and the door would be opened. Slowly, her eyes half closed, she pushed her hand to the side, and the air seemed to waver before her as a cold breeze struck her face.

  “Good God,” Peregrine whispered behind her, squeezing her wrist, but she didn’t have time to acknowledge him. A stronger blast of cold wind washed over her, and there it was: the gray stone room with its shadowy doorways, bathed in that cold gray light and, huddled on the floor in front of her, head bowed on his knees—

  “Duke,” she called. Would he be able to hear her? If only he’d look up—surely he would be able to see that the door had been opened…?

  “The duke!” Dimly she heard her cry taken up by others in the room, but she couldn’t attend to it now … only trust that Captain Hill could keep the crowd under control so they didn’t surge into her.

  “Duke!” she shouted, more loudly. But the figure on the floor never lifted his dark head. He was probably wondering what had happened to her and if he’d ever see her—or the rest of the world—again.

  “He can’t hear me. I have to get his attention,” she muttered to Peregrine.