Lord Merlyn's Magic

by Marcy Stewart

  “I suppose,” she said doubtfully.

  “These dreams began as soon as I believed you intended to accept my suit, before I knew I loved you. Perhaps I wouldn’t be having them now if I’d known that sooner.”

  “I wish you hadn’t been so slow about loving me, then,” she complained.

  “No. This warning is good. Now I know how to avoid losing you.” The brightness in his eyes began to fade. “But there is this, Abby … even though we love each other, we cannot stay together. I am not strong enough to resist you. Every time I see you, I want to carry you off to bed. And sooner or later …”

  She felt the blush rising but was pleased at the desire she saw in his eyes. She wanted to lie in his bed, too, though she wasn’t sure what that involved despite whispered confidences with her girlfriends in Kent. All she knew was that she wanted his arms around her forever. But he was telling her it wasn’t possible.

  “There must be a way,” she began. “I—I don’t want to leave you.”

  “And I don’t want you to leave me, either. But the important thing is that we love each other, isn’t it?” He sounded as unsure as she felt. “Many people never have that much.”

  Lifting a hand toward her hair, he smoothed a tangled strand behind her ears. Then, as if even that had been too long to touch her, he withdrew his fingers with sudden briskness and looked away, straightening his cravat and smoothing his waistcoat with extraordinary absorption.

  “We had better get back.”

  “But—”

  “There isn’t anything more to discuss except getting out of these woods.”

  Abby’s lips tightened. Evidently her opinion on the subject did not matter. As her feelings darkened, she noticed the woods had grown even darker. “The torch has gone out!”

  “I suppose we’re fortunate it didn’t start a forest fire. Come, Abby. Francis has probably returned by now.”

  He took her arm and began leading her forward very slowly.

  The trees were like great hulking shadows around them. It was easy to trip over unseen roots and logs, and they did so often.

  Her thoughts were so distressed that she accepted his leading and didn’t notice their direction at first. But after several moments there could be no denying the wrongness of it all.

  “Julian, where are we going? The coach is back the other way.”

  He stopped, looked around, then shook his head. “No, I’m certain it’s straight ahead.”

  “No.” She pulled her arm away from his. “I don’t recognize these trees.”

  “Recognize the trees? Abby, we are groping around like blind men. How can you recognize any of the trees?”

  “I just can. And I am going that way.”

  He watched her move off, then began to follow. “Are you certain? Now that I think about it, it seems to me we came from over there.” He pointed in an easterly direction, one which Abby was positive they had not yet set foot upon.

  “You are lost, Julian,” she said, disguising all but a trace of scorn in her voice. “How can anyone who finds wayward children become lost?”

  “I never claimed to have an ability as a direction-finder,” he said shortly. “Besides, I am not yet certain it is I who am lost.”

  “Well, follow me and you will soon see who knows where they are going and who doesn’t.”

  She could not restrain a burst of pride in being able to take command, even in this small way. But after they had picked their way through the undergrowth for some time and appeared to be getting no closer to the road, her cheeks began to grow warm.

  “I am waiting anxiously for the scent of our fire,” he said finally, a dangerous edge in his voice. There came a sound of smacking and rustling behind her, then a muffled grunt of pain. “And I’ll thank you not to slap branches in my face.”

  “Sorry. It slipped from my grasp.”

  “Very likely. Admit it, Abby, you can no more find our way out of this wood than you could find that cat. Francis will have to call a search party for us.”

  Abby was trying to think of a stinging retort when she heard a piercing scream. “That’s Charlotte Ann!” she cried, and began struggling toward the sound, which was coming from a direction they had not yet tried.

  A short while later they emerged from the wood breathing hard and looking tattered. Charlotte Ann had stopped screaming, for Lawrence now held Melissa, who had found the maid and taken a fancy to her. Francis and Bugbee were waiting with a cart, and two other men stood ready to help with the wheel.

  Julian’s eyes began to twinkle. “I believe we must thank the cat for our rescue.”

  Seeing his smile, she could not help responding despite his annoying behaviour in the wood. Besides, he had done much that had not been annoying. Had he not said he loved her?

  When he saw the warmth in her expression, he looked a little taken aback. “I—I’ll go see if they need any help.”

  She watched him hurry to join the men, her lips twitching. You’ll not be rid of me so easily, Julian Donberry, she vowed.

  *

  Throughout the next two days, her eyes returned with helpless frequency to Julian’s face. She could not stop. Since she had been so bold, so forward, so crass as to declare herself to him, she could think of nothing but her love for him.

  All she wanted now was to make their joining real in every sense of the word. She didn’t want to annul the marriage, to live by herself in some suitable city. Childbirth or no childbirth, he was not going to slip away from her. She wanted to be with this wonderful man forever.

  Unfortunately, Julian hardly looked at or spoke to her anymore. When their gazes met, he glanced away ashamedly as if he regretted everything he’d said to her. Well, he would have to recover.

  She realized she was being presumptuous. He had originally only meant to help her, not shackle himself to a stranger for life. But had he not said he loved her, too? If he didn’t mean it, he shouldn’t have spoken the words. And somehow, she would make him forget this nonsense about them not living together as man and wife.

  For whole hours at a time, she could forget the reason they married was to avoid the danger Philip represented. He seemed a distant threat now, especially since Julian had discovered Philip was not going to kill her, at least not in the way that was first thought. Besides, how could Philip find them? He didn’t even know Julian and Lord Merlyn were one and the same man. And should he discover that fact, he’d have no way of searching out their location.

  She was happier than she could ever remember being. Life was full of possibilities, and every one included Julian.

  On the final morning of their journey, she glanced at the perfect face across from her—though just now its owner was being difficult, pretending to sleep so he wouldn’t have to talk—she wondered at herself. Had she truly fallen in love with a man she’d met only weeks ago?

  Yes, yes, indeed she had.

  He was such a good man. The first man since her father whom she trusted entirely. Fortune had smiled upon her the night she attended Julian’s magical performance. She did not deserve his regard, could never repay him for what he had done for her.

  As they continued to travel, her anticipation at being out of a moving coach, her desire to see his house, all worked to lighten her mood further. She was tired of traveling. She felt as though she had always been in this carriage, had been born in it, raised in it, and with all probability would die in it. If their marriage journey had been an apprenticeship, she was ready to be a carriage now; she knew exactly how to rumble and bump and cast her passengers against the sidewalls until their heads rattled.

  She never wanted to sit down again.

  Julian made polite, impersonal conversation during the rest of the trip. He pointed out local landmarks and promised to take her to tour Warwick Castle. But as they drew closer to his home, he seemed to become more and more uncomfortable. Several times he started to say something, then stopped. She could not help feeling a growing disquiet. When they pulled
into a hostelry for an early supper, even Francis contributed to her unease. The valet was solicitous toward her, and the frequency of his glances made her nervous. She could not understand why now, now that their journey was almost done, everyone except Charlotte Ann and herself seemed reluctant to arrive after all.

  Men must not grow as weary of traveling as women did. It was the only answer that made sense.

  They arrived at Avilion at sunset. Abby viewed the iron gates with pleasure, her anxiety dissolving. While Francis unlocked the padlock—Julian explained the gates were not ordinarily locked, but he had ordered them to be secured because of the unlikely event of Philip finding the estate—she craned her head to see the house and grounds. There was nothing that did not please her. They drove through the gates and pulled to a stop before the yellow-stoned manse. Its proportions were symmetrical and solid-looking. Comforting. Safe.

  As Bugbee sounded the horn, the front doors flung wide, and two menservants came from the house to assist with the luggage. A stout, middle-aged woman dressed in black emerged to stand at the top of the steps, beaming; the housekeeper, beyond a doubt. She was followed by a little man, also dressed in black. And then, as Abby accepted a footman’s assistance from the carriage—Julian had rather curiously exited the coach first and disappeared around the side of it somewhere—she looked up in time to see a woman walk gracefully from the interior and join the others on the steps. The lady was dressed in a cream-colored dress, the lines of the gown accenting the voluptuous curves of her body. She had great quantities of red hair and was more beautiful than anyone Abby had ever seen.

  Hilda of Silverwaithe Farms, she remembered instantly, poking at the straggling hairs that had escaped her pins, brushing at the dust and tea stains on her old green dress. She had no idea why her spirits should suddenly plummet; it was only natural that Hilda would live here with her employer. Julian no doubt provided housing along with wages for his workers. He was like that; generous to a fault. There was no reason why the woman’s sensuous walk down the stairs and the purposeful way she approached her master, then leaned her head closely to his as though whispering secrets, should bother her. And surely, she had only imagined the amused glance Hilda cast in her direction.

  But Abby knew she did not fabricate the way Julian refused to look at herself, nor could she conjure up Francis’s sympathetic eyes. Days ago, she would have been glad of the servant’s support, but now she hated him for it.

  Yet those were the least of the surprises awaiting her at Avilion.

  “Is he there yet, Mamma?” cried a disembodied, childish voice from somewhere nearby.

  “He has arrived,” called Hilda, laughing.

  A small girl ran around the corner of the house, her arms full of wildflowers. She made a charming picture in her crisp white dress with her red hair streaming behind, her brilliant blue eyes shining. Abby struggled to smile at the child’s evident joy in seeing them. Perhaps she had few visitors and lived a lonely life.

  “Papa! Papa Julian!” the little girl cried, and threw herself into the magician’s arms.

  I am not so kind as you think, he had said. I have been known to be cruel.

  Abby felt the world spin. The yellow walls of Avilion darkened to black, and she fell to the ground like a downed bird.

  Chapter 11

  Philip fought to open his eyes. He was hot and thirsty. Every breath knifed pain through his chest. Had someone nailed his lungs together? He could not breathe!

  A tow-haired child of indeterminate age came to peer at him. Philip decided it was a boy, though one could not be certain with these farm people. He had a sudden, feverish recollection of seeing this smudged face before, and others like it. All the inhabitants living here were dirty and slovenly and probably stunk to heaven, if he had the nose to smell them. But he could not breathe; he was choking for God’s sake, and they would not help him. He was going to die in this primitive hovel on a bed of straw. What an ignominious end for someone who had always tried to live decently, to look well, to mind his estates dutifully, and it was all Abigail’s fault!

  Now the odious boy was touching his sleeve with hands that were sticky and filthy, and he could not prevent him, was weak as a newborn kitten. He could feel the child’s warm breaths on his skin, see the fascinated look in his eyes. The little monster began dancing a straw man up his arm and across the blanket under his chin. Bits of hay flaked from the homemade toy and fell across his face.

  He must be in hell.

  “There now, Tootie,” said someone nearby whom he could not see. Apparently, the room was so small, everything in it was near. “Leave the gennulman alone.”

  Philip’s throat worked mightily. “Help,” he croaked.

  “Oh, you be awake again,” said the voice. A scrawny-looking woman shuffled to his bed. Her stringy hair and vacant eyes seemed familiar.

  “Fetch … physician,” he panted. “Sick. Have money.”

  She laughed, reminding Philip of the honking of a goose. “You say that ever time you wake up, mister. You are some piece of cake.”

  “Please. Can get more. If not enough. Money.”

  She patted his shoulder. He hadn’t the strength to cringe away from her black-encrusted fingernails. “Don’t fret. We took a little to pay for the doctor and for food. You be right enough in a few days.”

  “Doctor’s been here?”

  “Why, yessir, he has. Twicet. You don’t remember?”

  Gasping, Philip moved his head slightly against the straw.

  “Never mind, then. You keep still. That’s what he said to do. I got soup on the fire. Lemme go get you some.”

  “Wait.” He took several shallow breaths. “What’s wrong … with me?”

  “You got the Devil’s Grip. Ain’t nothing to do but lie it out. Lots of folks got it hereabouts. Since you came, my Harold’s down with it, too.” Resentment flashed across her features, then disappeared. “But that ain’t your fault.”

  Philip thought he could hear someone coughing near the fireplace, but he hadn’t the strength to look. “How long?”

  “Guess you been here four or five nights. Don’t remember exactly. Oh, you mean how long afore you’re on your feet? Probubbly a week, if you don’t die first. But don’t worry. I’ll take good care o’you.”

  A week. If he didn’t die first! And what would Abby be doing in the meantime? Abigail and her noble husband. Or lover. He gritted his teeth. A wave of heat reddened his skin.

  “Easy,” said the woman. “I know it hurts. I’ll go get you something to eat, then you sleep. ‘Tis the best thing.”

  Another child, an older, feminine version of the first one, loomed over him. “Mamma,” she whined. “I don’t feel good.”

  “Oh, lord,” the woman said, sighing.

  Oh, God, thought Philip, his feet moving restlessly on the straw.

  *

  Sitting beside the marble fireplace in her bedchamber, Abby stared dully into the flames. A part of her mind was aware of Charlotte Ann moving about the room, straightening it; another part felt an objective, distant appreciation for the luxuriousness surrounding her.

  The room was modern with Egyptian accents. The walls were tinted yellow, and the furnishings were crafted of dark woods ranging from a mahogany sleigh-bed to a curule armchair made of black-japanned beechwood. Colorful, glazed urns graced the floor on either side of the large window, and a carved sphinx sat upon the dresser. The doors were bordered in gold leaf, even the despised one that connected to his bedroom. What she had seen the night before—the little she had seen—of the public rooms downstairs were decorated in a similarly exotic manner.

  She allowed her observations to soothe the ragged edges of her mind. When other, more dangerous ruminations threatened to surface, she quelled them. She preferred it that way, preferred to remain numb.

  Her fingers tightened around her shawl. In the fire’s glow, Julian’s ring sparked and drew her eyes. Why was she still wearing it?

  Across th
e room, Charlotte Ann was trying to make the bed while watching her worriedly. “Aren’t you going down to breakfast, Miss Ab—I mean, Lady Julian?”

  “No,” Abby replied dully. “And please don’t call me that.”

  Charlotte Ann grimaced. Seeing her mistress huddled in that odd chair, her shawl drawn around her like an old woman, folded the maid’s heart into knots. Without asking permission, she abandoned her work and sat on a footstool in front of the fire.

  “You don’t think—” Charlotte Ann swallowed. “You don’t believe that woman is his real wife and he faked your marriage, do you?”

  Hearing her worst fears voiced, Abby clenched her fists. “I don’t know. I have no idea what he does, or why. I have no understanding of anyone or anything.”

  “Oh, now, miss—my lady—I don’t know why I said that. They couldn’t be married. She must be his—you know. Lots of men have such, though I must say not many keep them under their own roof. But don’t worry; the good Lord will punish him for it. Don’t carry on so.”

  “I’m not carrying on. You don’t see any tears, do you?”

  The maid saw no tears, but her mistress’s pretty brown eyes looked empty, like someone had blown out the light behind them.

  “Men are animals,” she condoled.

  Abby nearly smiled. “I don’t believe you mean that. I’ve seen the way you look at Francis.”

  “You have?” Charlotte Ann’s eyes grew round.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m not saying you were obvious about it. I’m sure no one else noticed.”

  The maid’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I think they did. I think he did. See, he started out being friendly to me. But when I got friendly back, he began to act standoffish. Real polite, but like there was a maypole between us, except for when he offered to take me on his horse; but he couldn’t help having to do that. I’m too ugly for the likes of him, and that’s the truth of it.”

  “You’re not ugly!” Abby exclaimed, struggling to avoid looking at the servant’s ears.

  “Well, that’s as may be, but I can see he’s got better things in mind for himself. It shouldn’t be that way, though, should it? Men ought to look on the inside of a woman. But a pretty face wins over a kind heart every time.”