Bespelling Jane Austen

by Mary Balogh

“Oh, shit, Knightley. I’m sorry.” I knelt and put my arms around him. Here I was, hurting him again.

  He hugged me back and wrapped the throw around me. “Besides, I think you might have to sort out your career priorities, too. You have a lot of untapped, undisciplined power you’re not even aware of.”

  “I don’t think so.” I felt even more uncomfortable.

  “Others agree. Isabella, for one. Missy.”

  Missy! What the hell did she know? She probably used magic to open the cat food if she lost the can opener.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it right now,” I said.

  “Okay. Come here,” he said, and pulled me onto his lap. The throw slid to the floor.

  We kissed, quite sweetly and gently, for a time.

  “Maybe I should go,” I said.

  “You don’t have to. I have more crackers.”

  “I really can’t resist that, Knightley.”

  “About your magic powers… Do something for me. Make something move. Go on, show off some.” He grinned at me.

  “Sure.” I stroked his thighs and licked his ear, letting my bare breasts press into his arm. “How about this?”

  “Inside my shorts doesn’t count.” He pushed me away, giving me the chance to see that things were indeed on the move in his boxers. “Try across the room.”

  “Okay.” I focused on a vase on top of the armoire and concentrated, letting the words of the spell form in my mind.

  The vase wobbled, shifted.

  We both ducked as it launched on an impromptu circuit of the room, scraped a couple of pictures off the wall and smashed into pieces on the parquet floor.

  “Christ! I didn’t say wreck the joint, Woodhouse. Moving it a couple of inches would have done quite well.”

  “Sorry. Was it very expensive? It was real ugly.”

  “Family heirloom. I never liked it much, either.”

  Waving away my offers to help clean up, he fetched a broom and dustpan and swept the floor. “If we have sex again, Woodhouse, should we wear hard hats?”

  “Come here and find out.” I grabbed him as he approached and yanked down the boxers.

  He gave a happy groan as I took him in my mouth and stroked him with my tongue. I’d been too shy and inexperienced that first time—ew, who’d want to do that?—but now I knew what to do. I wanted to give him what I could, without reservation, without expectations.

  He groaned some more and placed his hands on the back of my head, guiding me.

  “Get a condom,” he said, his voice breathless. “I have a bed. It’s bigger than the couch.”

  “There’s plenty of room here once I’m on top of you.” I let out a moan as I lowered myself onto him.

  He moaned back.

  We both laughed.

  “That’s so good.” He nuzzled my ear, my neck, then stopped. He was absolutely still.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, although I knew. Those small purple marks on my neck had not faded.

  “Did Churchill do that?” His voice was dull and angry at the same time.

  “Yes.”

  “You let him?”

  I wasn’t about to admit that I’d been fooled, or, worse, that I probably would have let Frank do it anyway. “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”

  He pushed me off him. I wouldn’t have thought a man wearing only a condom could look intimidating or superior, but Knightley managed to achieve both. “How could you have been so dumb? You’re dealing with vamps on an everyday basis and they’ll know. It explains why you had so many vamps checking you out tonight—”

  “Nothing to do with my natural attraction, of course.” I grabbed the throw and covered myself, feeling stupid and exposed and vulnerable.

  “Realistically, no. You’re pretty enough but you’re nothing compared to most vamps, or even most elves.”

  “And naturally you’d know.”

  “And that’s none of your business.”

  I grabbed my dress, dropped it over my head and zipped it up enough to stay on me. I found my bra and balled it up into my hand. My panties were somewhere on the floor, but I wasn’t about to start crawling around to find them.

  Knightley pulled on his boxers. “You need to set a spell—normal protection won’t help. I’ll e-mail one to you.”

  “Thanks, but you really don’t have to bother.” I found my purse and shoes and headed for the door.

  He got to the door first and opened it for me. “And there’s another thing you’re not being honest about, Emma. I had a chat with Harriet the other day and from what she told me, I think your business is in trouble. Stop flouncing around and ask for help, for God’s sake. I can—”

  “Things at Hartfield are fine, just fine. You know Harriet isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer—”

  “Maybe not, but she has a great deal of smarts in her way. More than her employer, in my opinion.”

  “Thanks a lot, Knightley. Like you said, I don’t need a relationship, particularly with you. Thanks for the drink.”

  I turned and ran, but the last thing I saw was Knightley standing in his doorway, looking like a GQ model in his boxers, but with a look of desolation on his face that shocked me. The last thing, that is, until my eyes blurred with tears, and I jammed my thumb against the elevator button, praying that he’d come after me and praying equally hard that the elevator would arrive first.

  I heard his door close.

  I cried in the elevator, and when I got to the apartment collapsed onto the kitchen floor and cried there.

  Outside the gargoyles whispered and giggled.

  I was too wrapped up in my own misery to tell them to shut up.

  CHAPTER 7

  “IT’S GORGEOUS, EMMA. YOU’RE SO CLEVER.”

  As Harriet and I gazed at the rooftop, I allowed myself a brief pat on the back. She was right. It was gorgeous. “Give yourself some credit, too, Harriet. You put in a lot of legwork on this and it was your idea. And you found us another caterer when the first one backed out.”

  She grinned. “And that dryad asked for a second lunch date with Missy Bates.”

  I shuddered. “He must be insane. Maybe he photosynthesizes while she talks.”

  Harriet turned away and fussed unnecessarily with a lantern on the table. “You’ve seemed sort of…down this week. You’ve been going to the gym a lot.”

  “I’m fine.” After I’d been to the gym and been hit on by five vampires, two of them female in the locker room, I’d cast the spell in Knightley’s e-mail. I’d thanked him and waited for a reply. Nothing. I hadn’t seen him around the building and I didn’t know whether I wanted to.

  What I did know was that in some strange sort of way I missed him.

  SO WE WERE ALL SET for our first mixer on the rooftop of Box Hill Apartments, made gorgeous with plants and candles, a cheerful awning and, I hoped, lots of attendees.

  My walkie-talkie crackled. Ramon, an employee of Knightley’s who was stationed in the lobby, informed me that five guests were coming up in the elevator. Harriet positioned herself at the table to sign them in, and I went over to the boom box and selected a CD. Vintage Sinatra, I decided, right in keeping with the retro decor of the building. I slipped the CD into the slot and hit Play.

  Seconds later I winced as very loud, very explicit rap blared out.

  Missy—naturally she would be one of the first to arrive—mouthed something at me.

  I hit Eject and shrieked, “Sorry!”

  The rap kept booming and grinding, obscenely detailing what the rapper wanted to do to his bitch as the CD slid out.

  I checked the CD. Yes, it was Ol’ Blue Eyes, or should have been. It was fine last time I listened to this particular CD, spooning in Cherry Garcia and undoing a trip to the gym.

  “Oh, shut up!” I screeched and pulled the power cord out.

  Mercifully, it stopped.

  I gave the boom box a dirty look. I’d never heard of an enchanted boom box, and besides, it had worked pe
rfectly well just yesterday.

  No need for music at the moment. I called the caterers, who were using the kitchen attached to the club room on the floor below, and instructed them to bring trays of hors d’oeuvres in. Drinks were set out on a table. I mingled with the guests, flirting slightly with vamps and elves, and discussed bark viruses with Missy’s dryad. His human form was a slightly scruffy-looking professor type, whose fingers had a twiglike appearance.

  To my annoyance, Augusta and Elton arrived, each with an arm linked through Jane Fairfax’s. She looked as beautiful and remote as ever. Missy rushed over to them and started gabbing on about Jane’s new car. Augusta and Elton exchanged a smirk over Missy’s bobbing head.

  “Emma?”

  I almost jumped out of my skin. “Frank! What are you doing here?”

  “Maybe I couldn’t keep away.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek.

  I stepped back. It was such a fake theatrical gesture and I wondered who he was trying to impress. “I thought you were on the West Coast.”

  “Not yet.” He looked over at Jane and Missy, who’d moved over to the drinks table.

  “So who do you think gave Jane the car?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I think she has a secret admirer.”

  “Is it you?

  He laughed. “I think it’s Knightley.”

  “Excuse me, I think I’d better put some music on.” I was suddenly so furious with him I wanted to scream.

  I fumbled through my collection of CDs. Something upbeat and fun, that’s what I wanted. Something brainless.

  To my horror, as the CD began to play, I realized that instead of hearing rumors through the grapevine we were witnessing the fall of Valhalla, all brass and bombast.

  “Oh, Wagner—such an unpleasant man—did you see the—”

  “Sorry, Missy.” I hit Eject, thumped the boom box on the top and broke a nail, and finally ripped out the power cord. “There’s something wrong with—”

  “Emma, I hope you don’t mind me saying—I have always—that is—”

  “I’ll catch you later, Missy,” I said firmly. “There are some new people here and I must say hello to them.”

  At that moment there was a piercing shriek from a guest. I rushed over to the naiad who stood staring horrified at the plate in her hand. “It moved!” she said.

  “What moved?” I asked.

  She screamed again, nearly deafening me. “It’s doing it again!”

  And then I saw it. The miniature crab cake on her plate shivered, broke and released a black, glistening slug that oozed out onto the white porcelain.

  I screamed, too, and looked around wildly for a waiter as she dropped the plate. “I’m so sorry. That’s horrible. I can’t apologize enough. I—” A waiter, alerted by the screams and crash of breaking china, came to our side. “Clean this up, please.”

  Harriet put her arm around the sobbing naiad, whose watery state was returning with the excess of emotion. I called the caterers on my walkie-talkie and asked them to come and clear away the food immediately. As I did so, other people gave expressions of disgust and put their plates down fast. Something rapid and furry darted out of the fruit centerpiece on the drinks table with a whisk of long, naked, pink tail.

  “Was that a rat?” someone asked in disbelief—the exact words you want to hear at a party.

  “At least the drinks are okay,” someone else said, and at that very moment the glasses of white wine on the table started frothing and steaming. Boiling liquid spread onto the white tablecloth, turned a lurid green and then burned through to the wood.

  There were more screams now and a surge of movement toward the elevators.

  “I’m sorry,” I shouted. “Let’s please all try and keep calm.”

  I was feeling anything but calm.

  Next to me, a slender young witch grabbed my arm and shrieked.

  “What’s wrong?” And then I saw the tips of her toes trail along the floor and lift, as she was raised into the air. Still clutching my arm, her entire body lifted and for a moment her terrified face was level with mine.

  Someone else grabbed me from the other side and pulled me away, breaking her hold. She floated away like a screaming helium balloon.

  “Others are going up, too,” Frank Churchill said, still gripping my arm.

  I muttered a simple falling spell with no result.

  “Emma, I think—if I may—you should—”

  “Missy, I’ll talk to you in a moment.” I tried to stop panicking. A good half-dozen of my guests were airborne, others hanging on to the parapet of the building for dear life. A potted hibiscus rose into the air to join the floating men and women. From below, gargoyles compared views up skirts.

  “Emma—” Missy hoisted a bra strap into position, adjusted her eyeglasses and cleared her throat. “When we have little unpleasantnesses at work—I think you know what I—don’t you think you should—or maybe Knightley can—”

  “Missy, I’m busy dealing with a crisis here, if you haven’t noticed. Will you please just butt out. This really isn’t the time for one of your dumb conversations about nothing. Would you mind going home and talking to your cats.”

  She flushed a deep red. “Okay.”

  It was the shortest statement I’d ever heard from her. She turned on her heel, tossing her fringed shawl over her shoulder with what might have passed for defiance from anyone else. She paused by Jane, who was hanging on to the parapet like grim death, and said something briefly to her. They both glared at me, and then left, arm in arm.

  Missy wasn’t affected by the magic. Why not? But I didn’t have time to think about that right now.

  I tried another spell, this time casting a net that caught my unfortunate floating guests and returned them to the rooftop. It was by far the most complicated and exhausting spell I’d ever cast. Dizzy with effort, I turned and collided with a waiter who held a large tray of plates and food. We both landed sprawling in a mess of lettuce, slugs, broken china and taramasalta, and his tray floated serenely into the sky. Beside us a vampire thudded to earth and thrust his business card into my hand. I wasn’t sure whether he was offering to sue or represent me.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. I took stock of my ruined party. Harriet, muttering werewolf curses, clutched the parapet with one hand.

  “What a disaster!” Augusta, who looked as though she had stepped from the pages of Vogue, not a hint of squashed slug on her, and, thoroughly earthbound, laid a hand on Elton’s sleeve. “Shall we go home, darling?”

  Harriet and I helped the last of our guests into the safety of the elevator, apologizing as much as we could.

  “I suppose you’ll fire me now,” Harriet sniffled. “I hired the caterers. I did check out their references, Emma. I swear it.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” I wiped a smear of slug from her face with a relatively clean corner of a tablecloth. I thought it more than likely we’d both be job hunting pretty soon. “Why don’t you go home.”

  What a mess. The caterer was also in tears. “There’s no way I could have cooked live slugs into crabcakes,” she said. “All of our ingredients are organic. I can’t explain the rats. They must live in the building. I can’t afford a lawsuit, Ms. Woodhouse. I’ve worked so hard—”

  “I’m sorry. I really am.” Nobody was sorry for me, I reflected sourly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ll probably lose my business, too, after this.”

  “And—and some sleazy vamp gave me his card and said he’d represent me pro bono in exchange for a little nibble!”

  I shook my head and left her to clean up.

  I knew who was responsible for this and I was going to make him pay. I grabbed my cell phone and called the number of Knightley’s apartment, and then his cell when all I got was his voice mail.

  I ran down the one flight of stairs to Knightley’s apartment and banged on the door. “Open up!”

  After a while the door opened. Knightley stood there, barefoot, wearing a pair
of baggy khaki shorts and a ripped old T-shirt, with a pair of rimless eyeglasses on his nose. Even as mad as I was, the thought, Aw, he’s so cute flew through my mind and then flew straight out.

  “You bastard!” I spat out. “You fucking Neanderthal overgrown frat boy! You’ve just ruined my business. You bastard!”

  “Emma?” He took off the glasses and slipped them into the pocket of his T-shirt. “Emma, what are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. You—”

  “Come inside. You’re bleeding.”

  I was what? I glanced down and saw a trickle of bright red blood pooling on the floor at my feet and then I felt the sting on my knee.

  “Come on, Emma.” He took my hand and made a face, probably because my hand was covered with black slime. “What the hell have you been doing?”

  He drew me inside and pushed me onto the couch.

  “I’ll bleed on your leather,” I said stupidly. My knee hurt now, and so did my palms and one elbow.

  “Stay there.”

  He went away for a couple of minutes, returning with a washcloth and a first aid kit, and attended to my cut knee and grazed hands. “That might need stitches,” he said, applying a bandage. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not, Emma. You come in here making wild accusations, and I’ve had the window open. I could hear all sorts of weird stuff and the gargoyles were going wild. I’m going to have a heck of a time getting them back in line.” He glared at me.

  Well, he had patched me up after I’d screamed at him. I guess I owed him. I told him about the magic tricks someone had played on the food and drink, and the enchanted boom box. And the floating guests.

  “Are they still up there?” He interrupted me.

  “No, I got them down using a spell from Hairy Elizabeth of Thycklewaite.”

  “Harry who?”

  “A fifteenth-century werewolf mystic who specialized in net-casting spells. I think I could have improved the landings, though I don’t think anyone got more than a few bruises. I—”

  “Shit.” He crossed the room to his bookcase and pulled out a tattered encyclopedia of magic. The last time I’d noticed the venerable leather tome was as he fumbled with my bra strap in his dorm room and then it had a gigantic orchid growing from the cover.