by J. M. Snyder
A sensibly dressed young woman Kit did not have listed in mental files was presently looking over the Earl’s shoulder, reading his correspondence; she looked up and said, “Oh, hello, Harry. How did the Fairfax roof look? Was it very bad?”
“No.” Harry grinned at her, took two long strides over and stole a biscuit, and touched fingertips lightly to his brother’s tired shoulder. “Easy fix. Nothing I couldn’t help with. Ned, your Bow Street constable’s here. Constable Thompson, was it? This’s my brother Ned—Edward, Earl of Fairleigh, sorry—and his, er…drat, Lizzie, what do we call you? Intended? Betrothed?”
“Oh, honestly, Harry, just give him my name.” The young woman, evidently Lizzie, rolled both eyes along with this ladylike mild grumble, and held out a hand to Kit. She possessed English-rose fairness, dark blonde hair and china-blue eyes, and sturdy walking shoes under her plain but flattering pink dress. “Miss Elizabeth Featherdale. Edward and I have an understanding, though we’ve not made the official announcement. We wanted to wait until this situation could be resolved. Not that I’d not marry him in any case, but the estate and the tenants take priority.”
Kit flipped back through those mental files, given the name. Came up with the neighboring family: Mr. Walter Featherdale and his wife Agatha, six children, five girls and one young boy; untitled but unquestionably a country gentleman’s family; living comfortably if not lavishly, nothing that had ever brought the family much attention. Which might mean nothing to hide, or might mean ambition well hidden.
Though if the latter were the case, Miss Featherdale would likely have been pushing the wedding forward, planning to become a rich widow. The willingness to wait spoke well of her, as did the protectiveness in her posture, and the easy way she and Edward fit into each other’s space.
Kit decided he rather approved of Miss Featherdale. Assuming he could trust her.
Edward Arden, who had been calmly watching this haphazard introduction unfold, now said, “Call me Edward, if you’d like; as you can see we’re not terrifically concerned with the formalities,” and offered a hand.
Kit took it. Evaluated. Edward Arden’s grip was sure but not as strong as it might’ve been; those rumors of ill health hadn’t been exaggerated. The Earl, framed by the window’s arch, was a more slender and frail pencil-sketch copy of his younger brother, a tapestry faded under strain: fair white-gold hair and light grey eyes and general thin build versus Harry’s young-hero stature.
They had the same chin, though. And the same gaze, afraid of nothing and not backing down, whether the hurdle in question might be an investigator of magical crimes or a newly inherited estate or the weather itself.
Kit shook that hand. Introduced himself. Properly this time.
“Ah.” Edward picked up the nearest teacup, fingers wrapping around it for warmth. Those thoughtful grey eyes evaluated Kit right back, along with this information. “The Preternatural Division’s best. The most currently celebrated, in any case.”
Kit did not wince. Kit had spent the last few months practicing that set of responses. That set of smile, nod at the lords and ladies, let yourself be paraded around a bloody ballroom responses.
Miss Featherdale raised eyebrows. Smiled. Handed him tea, apparently reserving comment on Kit’s reputation for some later time and place.
Harry Arden, having a complete lack of polished ballroom manners, nearly walked into the side of his brother’s desk. “You’re Christopher Thompson! The Constable Thompson! You ought to have said—I’d been going on about biscuits and boots—”
“Not kittens this time?” his brother inquired, dry and fond.
“Does it matter?” Kit snapped. Partly the curtness came from the circumstance, because even out in gods-damned Yorkshire he couldn’t escape the Hero of Bow Street label. Partly he felt guilty, and hated that he felt guilty, about the astonishment in Harry’s summer-sky gaze.
As if he had betrayed those eyes somehow. By not revealing his full name. Ridiculous.
“No.” Harry sounded abashed. Chastened, even. Dropping that gaze to the study rug and his own feet. Kit’s guilt got hotter. “No, of course it doesn’t. I ought to’ve been polite about it in any case. My apologies.”
“We do get the news even out in the wilds of Yorkshire,” Edward said, a fraction too close to Kit’s own sentiments for comfort. “And we know your name. Isn’t our weather a bit dull, after magically forged royal seals and rooftop pursuits?”
“It was one seal,” Kit said. “And one rooftop. And he didn’t even put up a fight.”
“Yes,” Harry contributed, forgetting to be forlorn and silent, “because you stopped him, you stood up there and read his thoughts, his heart, and you convinced him to give up his life of crime and permanently repent—”
“Is that what they’re saying happened? Bloody gods of bloody holly and oak—” A lady present. Damn. “Apologies, Miss Featherdale.”
“Don’t you dare apologize on my account.” Miss Featherdale sipped tea and regarded him with sparkling eyes across delicate china, every tidy bit of her utterly unperturbed. “I expect the dashing Hero of Bow Street and the Preternatural Division can say whatever he likes.”
Harry, long legs now scrunched up so he could perch on the edge of a poor overwhelmed study chair, watched Kit’s face. Rather surprisingly, did not pursue the topic. Quiet, instead.
Disconcerted by this, Kit retreated into solid stalwart policing. “I go where I’m sent. In service to the department. And to England. And the Chief Magistrate himself asked me to look into your weather situation, Lord Fairleigh.”
“In service,” Edward agreed, mildness over sharp attention, “as we all are, aren’t we? We do appreciate you coming. I know it’s hardly a convenient trip, most especially under the circumstances.”
“Yes.” Kit set down his own teacup. It’d already gone cold. Like the ice nibbling patterns across windowpanes. Like the skeletal scrape of air along the nape of his neck, the brittleness eating into bones. “The roads are almost impassable. I imagine it’s affecting trade, travel…the estate revenues…”
He watched. Nobody flinched. No shifting signs of culpability. Only massive concern, written so largely a child could read it, across all three faces.
“We’re aware.” Edward threw a glance at the window. At the whiteness beyond. His face was grim too. “That’s why we requested assistance. Elizabeth’s a bit of a greenwitch, but she can only do so much for the crops—they’re mostly gone, other than what she and a few others from the village have managed to save. I’m not a good enough kinetic talent to move any of this. And I won’t let Harry try to—”
“I told you it wasn’t your fault for letting me try,” Harry said to his brother.
“Sorry,” Kit said, “but it might be relevant; what wasn’t, exactly?”
“It isn’t. Relevant.” Edward’s voice stayed level. The voice of an earl. A commander, with an estate to lead. “We’ll tell you if it becomes so. I give you my word. But until then, I’ll ask you to trust me.”
“Oh, Ned,” Harry said, with affection. “You can’t protect me forever.”
“Right now I can.” Wind yelped along old thick walls and dry tree branches for emphasis, outside.
Kit’s instincts didn’t even have to stand up and shout. A secret? Not so much a secret as a looming hand-painted sign. Look this way. Step right over. Play find-the-lady, constable, and no magical powers, now, that’s cheating; but mutual abilities acknowledged with a wink.
Of course he had cheat. He’d damned well listen in and do his job. His particular skill set.
A crime or disruption or difficulty of some magical nature was happening on the Fairleigh estate. He’d see it resolved.
He’d always liked solving puzzles.
He opened up an insubstantial hand, imperceptibly. Let a wisp of empathy come out to play.
As ever, the universe wanted to leap in. If he’d been a more projective talent, he could’ve pushed outward, thrown his own emotio
ns and senses wide, changed the minds of criminals on rooftops, heralded himself forth to everyone else—
He wasn’t that kind of talent. Receptive, instead.
The hum of worry and anxiety and love and loyalty flowed through his soul, his thoughts. Like golden threads woven into one of his sister’s dress designs, dancing in and out and laughing at violet and green and scarlet ribbons; like all the colors, true-blue commitment and deep coal-fierce family and a dizzying calico whirl of fretfulness that was both Harry’s and his brother’s, the two of them not quite the same but matching, apprehensive about both old weariness and more recent pain…the unwavering fidelity of the staff of this house, and more widespread, far flung, the radiant anchors of the estate’s farmers and craftsmen and lace makers and brewers…
The usual minor discontentments, village frustrations, a kitchen maid’s haste to peel potatoes more swiftly, all scratched faintly round the edges, but that was normal; the low-lying distress over the weather had spread, but that was understandable. Over everything the soft golden purr of conviction settled like honey: the people of the estate considered Edward a good caretaker, and he loved them right back. Whatever was wrong, it wasn’t there.
The wrongness existed, though. A quicksilver dazzling chill fought against the warmth, like the shock of metal in winter, cruel as frozen skin and blood.
Kit tried to poke at this iceberg, wondering vaguely if it had to do with the family secret, and promptly ran into a big stalwart wall of blue and gold and russet protectiveness.
The Arden brothers felt like shields and stones and strong earthworks buttressing each other, roots entwined in complex twisting ways; beside them, Elizabeth Featherdale shimmered leaf-green and lemon-yellow and lush and quick as forests in sun, branches sharing shelter with Edward’s less substantial presence.
And Harry Arden—
That sweetness burst across his senses like a river in flood: unrestrained and joyous, but dangerous too. A man could drown in that river. Swallowed up by sunshine on water, rippling light, devotion and passion, for family and for the land; Kit could dive into that water and be swept away, and he might not even mind the dashing-apart on rocks and shoals, because to feel all that, oh, that was—
Dangerous. Yes.
He’d meant this to be a minor eavesdropping. He pulled back. Leaned hard on decades of practice: he could pretend to not be feeling rainbows for a moment or two while sensations dwindled. “I’ll trust your word on that. As a gentleman.”
“Thank you.”
“For now. We’ll revisit the question if I decide it’s necessary.”
“But, Ned,” Harry said, “what if—”
“Be quiet, Harry,” Ned said. “Yes, Constable. Of course.”
“There’s clearly something wrong on the estate,” Kit said, and paid attention to their expressions. “Not in this house, but not too far distant, either.” He did not mention his own moments-ago eavesdropping; he’d let them assume he was good enough to’ve picked it up without even trying.
“You can tell where it is?” Harry’s eyes got wider. “I knew there was something but I couldn’t pick it out. I kept getting lost in everyone’s emotions.”
Every single one of Kit’s senses snapped to attention at that lie. “You’re an empath?”
Harry threw a desperate look at his brother. “No…I mean yes…in a sense. I’m not very good.”
“I’ll want to have a talk with you later,” Kit told him, and tried not to enjoy Harry’s gulp and shifting position. Harry Arden might be as genuine as new gold, in which case Kit couldn’t help picturing all that eagerness and those big eyes shifting position again, perhaps kneeling, gazing upward, lips parted. Or Harry might be a brilliant liar, in which case he’d be a challenge.
That thought sent rockets down his spine. Harry Arden, beautiful and tall and strong, and a match for him. Someone who could keep up with Kit’s own desires. Someone who had know exactly what Kit wanted, perhaps already aware of passion and pleasure, no longer innocent under the façade of sun.
The pairing of two men or two women—or indeed any consenting of-age partnership—hadn’t been officially illegal for over twenty years, and among the upper classes Kit knew it had been accepted practice long before that. Marriages might be made for reasons of wealth, or birth, or power: if the younger son of a great house wanted to marry a skilled weather-worker, for instance. Most people weren’t that strong in terms of magic; while nearly everyone had a bit, it was the sort of talent that could heat a cup of tea or rescue a falling saucer. Empaths, like Kit himself, were more unusual, and consequently more useful.
Even he had limits. And he absolutely hadn’t stood on a rooftop and reached into a criminal’s heart and magically changed it, no matter what rumor suggested.
For one thing, that wasn’t possible. For another, the logic of a hard street below versus Sam Rookwood’s new Preternatural Division rules about humane treatment of magical prisoners had done a lot of the convincing.
If Harry Arden was in fact secretly sabotaging the estate, if Harry was a criminal—
That didn’t make sense. And not only because Kit’s entire body felt frustratingly aware of Harry’s presence, as if every piece of himself had automatically reoriented that direction, a compass-needle spinning home.
Would Harry Arden harm the entire estate simply to pressure his frail older brother into an early grave? If his brother might be contemplating marriage and an heir?
Their affection argued otherwise; the fact that Harry already comfortably lived here and seemed well-liked by the servants supported that affection. But men had done worse for the promise of a title, and the Fairleigh estate—when not drowning in snow—was a temptingly wealthy one.
Harry did have a secret. But Kit had well-honed instincts. He would’ve bet quite a lot of money on Harry not intending harm.
Of course he’d been wrong before. And not intending harm wasn’t the same as not causing it.
Aloud, he only said, “For now I’ll attempt to discover the actual cause behind the weather. I should be able to do that from here, if you don’t mind.”
“Please do,” Edward said. “We’d appreciate it.” Elizabeth glanced at him, wordless and supportive, and nodded.
Harry asked earnestly, “Is there anything you need? Any way we can assist you?” He was sitting forward more; the offer was truthful, stamped in eyes and shoulders and hands. “Anything at all.”
“No.” Kit shut both eyes. Was surprised at how much something in him wanted to answer yes. To find out whether Harry meant that offer, and how much would be given, if Kit pushed at that anything at all. “Be silent for a moment, if you would.”
This time he made a show of it. He knew how he looked, and he knew the rumors, and he deployed them to advantage. Head tipped back. Eyes shut. Elegant stillness. Lost to the sweep and soar of emotions, drinking in the world, gathering it up and swimming through everything. He knew they’d be imagining power, the Hero of Bow Street, someone who could stroll through desires and pick them up and turn them over. He knew that, like most people, his audience would not be able to help imagining all the desires Kit could possibly be open to.
He was not above using this knowledge. To impress, to intimidate. To get what he wanted.
To get Harry Arden to gaze at him like—
Like what? A social equal? When Christopher Thompson—story-of-the-day celebrity or not—came from London streets, possessed a hazy ungentlemanly background, and supported a working-class sister and her illegitimate child to boot? Harry Arden was the son of an Earl and the brother of the current Earl, and promised assistance as if it had be easy as breathing, and maybe it was, for someone like that. No comparison. Nothing Kit should want.
Annoyed with himself, he shoved that want away. Flung invisible hands wide, and fell into the universe.
The universe, or in this case the Fairleigh estate, sang back in welcome. Ribbons of melody, individual and coiled through one another. Streams
like cow’s milk and a beekeeper’s bounty and drenching rain. The low contented murmur of stories in the library, and the sapphire-in-sun presence of Harry Arden nearby, beckoning and protective and worrying just a bit about Kit himself.
Kit ignored that too. What right did Harry have to fret over him?
He found the ice-white chime of sharpness, discordant among the melodies. He chased it. He felt the chill of it burn and sear and scour; he did not let go.
He found the heart of it, nestled like a spike-ringed tangle of winter amid a dead field.
He bent intangibly closer. Winter stretched and yawned at him and curled back up, and went on pouring out cold, heedless of the disruption.
He felt the shape of it, the size, the pulsing hunger.
Icicles sprouted from the earth. Literal and figurative, spiking through empathic senses, they burned. They promised defenses; they leeched life from underground, from veins, from the heartbeat of any reckless intruder.
Kit, shivering, opened both eyes. Breathed in, and found the house’s old book-lined study, solid walls and family portraits and Edward Arden’s desk. The windows had gone so heavily frosted he couldn’t see out; he half expected to exhale ice when he breathed.
Harry Arden, who’d apparently come over to kneel at Kit’s feet and peek upward at him, offered, “I can send for another pot of tea? Hotter?”
Kit, startled, did not have a prepared response. He could not remember the last time someone had asked anything of the sort; Sam ordered him to take care of himself because he was a useful asset, and Anne scolded him for overwork, but that was the privilege of a younger sibling. Harry was neither his Chief Magistrate nor his sister.
“Or anything you’d like,” Harry added, and Kit wondered again if those honest blue eyes knew just how that suggestion sounded to someone who’d grown up two streets over from one of the brothels that catered to the more interesting passions of London denizens. Harry even leaned closer, which meant his shoulder brushed Kit’s leg and would’ve put that mouth right at the level for all sorts of interesting activities.
What Harry in fact said was, “Possibly brandy?” and got up.