Bewitching Season (15 page)

Papa sang the praises of modern advances for the rest of the ride home but Persy barely heard him.

She’d just spent the evening wishing Freddy Gilley at the bottom of the China Sea, and found that he’d

mistaken her silence for coquetry. And Mama had congratulated her for it, which was even worse.

And what about Pen and Lochinvar? Why wasn’t Pen willing to talk about her evening with him?

Once at home, she trudged after Pen up the stairs to their room, pulling off her ivy wreath and

resisting the urge to trample it underfoot as she went. Upstairs at last, she helped Pen unhook her

frock and release the laces of her corset, then turned for Pen to help her. Staring into the low-burning

fire, she asked in a casual tone, “Did you have fun this evening?”

“It was all right,” Pen replied in the same tone.

“So what did you and Lord Seton
really
talk about?”

Pen’s hands paused, then continued unlacing her corset. “Oh, I don’t remember now. A bit about

the season, I suppose. Lochinvar said he was looking forward to seeing me at balls after next week.

I’ll bet he’s a good dancer.”

“You?”

“Us. Whatever.”

This didn’t sound good. “What about his school? You said—”

“Yes, he went on about his school for a while. I didn’t find that part very interesting though, so …”

Persy felt her shrug.

So what part of his conversation
had
been interesting to her? “Did you talk about going to the

bookshop? Or Ally?”

“Yes, a little.”

“Just a little?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Persy. It’s late and I’m very tired.”

“But you two looked so wrapped up in—in talking. What—”

“There, you’re all unlaced. Goodness, look at the time.” Pen turned away from her and wiggled out

of her gown and corset and chemise and into a nightdress. “I’m going to bed before I drop. Blow out

the candles when you’re done, please.”

Persy undressed more slowly, watching from the corners of her eyes as Pen clambered into bed

and made a show of fluffing her pillows and settling into a comfortable position. She was doing her

best to avoid talking to her, her own sister. Surely that could only happen because someone else had

come between them. She yanked her own nightdress over her head, threw a dressing gown over her

shoulders, and, seizing the candle, fled the room. The last thing she wanted to do right now was lie

down next to silent, evasive Pen.

The corridor was chilly. Persy shivered as she hurried down its dark length, not quite sure what to

do with herself—but she had to do something. Anything. There had to be some way to relieve this

tight, burning ache in her heart. Oh, why wasn’t Ally here? She stopped, shielding the candle in her

hand, then ran back the way she had come, past her room and toward Ally’s small room at the end of

the hall. She slipped inside, set the candle on the nightstand, and sat down on the smooth, neatly made

bed. A ghost of Ally’s lavender wafted up from the quilt. Persy threw herself down and buried her

face in it.

Oh, Ally. It was horrible enough to have lost her. But now it looked like she would be losing

Lochinvar as well.

That made her shake her head at herself. Since when had Lochinvar been hers to lose?

But in a way he had been hers, ever since that hot summer’s day on the lawn at Mage’s Tutterow

when they had talked books together. So what if she’d been only thirteen? It was just as possible to

fall in love at thirteen as it was at seventeen-almost-eighteen. It had struck her unbidden, like lightning

from a clear sky, and she’d held him in her heart ever since.

She rolled over onto her back, trying to focus on the ceiling in the dancing light of her lone candle,

but her eyes kept getting all fuzzy. Mama had been right about drinking too much punch. But it had

made listening to Freddy a little more bearable. Drat it, why had it been him and not Lochinvar by her

side all evening? How she would have loved to hear about what was happening with his school. It

had all been wasted on Pen, who had as much as admitted that she had no interest in it.

But why now was she so interested in
him?

Pen was her sister, her twin, her other self … but there was no way that she and Lochinvar—why,

they had nothing in common. Pen had always loathed him when they were children, and she’d been

skeptical when Persy had told her about their book discussion. No, there was no way she could be in

love with Lochinvar now, even if Lochinvar was starting to like her.

But maybe Lochinvar didn’t know that Pen wasn’t the right Leland twin for him. Pen was so much

better at being social than she was, but she was the one who shared Lochinvar’s likes and his dreams.

If only there were some way to make him see that …

Her candle popped and flickered. Startled, she sat up, and her eyes fell on Ally’s trunk of spell

books, tucked into an alcove by her wardrobe. A half-formed idea flitted through her mind, and she

slid off the bed and knelt down by the trunk.

Ally had, just a few months back, taught her the word that unlocked this trunk’s closing spell, which

she’d put on to ensure that a snooping housemaid didn’t see more than she ought to. Persy bent and

whispered “Lord Nelson’s syllabub” into the keyhole of the lock. It clicked softly, and the trunk’s lid

rose. The piles of spell books and grimoires inside it seemed to rustle and shift as the air struck them,

as if they’d been holding their collective breath.

Was there possibly anything in here that could help her? Some spell she could do to help Lochinvar

see their situation more clearly? She reached down and pulled out a book at random, letting it fall

open in her hand.

“To Keepe Maggots and Worms from Garden Plants,”
she read aloud. No, not quite. She turned

the page. “
A Charm to Prevent Horses from Casting Shoes.
Useful, but …” She put that book away

and pulled out another.
“To Banish Troublesome Spirits
—perhaps I should try that one to counteract

the Gilleys’ punch.
To Bring Pain
—huh?” She squinted at the words. “Oh, I see.
To Bring Rain
. No,

thank you. To either.”

She went through several books that contained more of the same, and remembered Ally’s comment

that most witchcraft over the years had been used to help control the natural world. “Crops and

harvests and weather were their life and their livelihood,” she’d explained. “What else would the

witches among the common folk weave their spells around?”

Evidently spells on how to bring befuddled young men to their senses didn’t fall under any of those

categories. She closed a grimoire that had evidently belonged to a raiser of prize sheep and stared at

it glumly for a moment, then tucked it back into the trunk. A loose piece of parchment between the next

two books caught her eye. She picked it up gingerly—it was very dirty and evidently quite old—and

read the heading, which was written in queer, shaky letters:

To secure the Heart of your Beloved.

Persy stared at it until the words blurred and ran together. “A love spell,” she whispered.

A love spell! Why hadn’t that occurred to her before? Why fiddle about with anything else? Why

not cut straight to the heart of the matter and make sure Lochinvar fell in love with her and not Pen?

She sat back on her heels and ran one hand through her hair as she thought. After all she’d be doing

both of them a favor. Pen would be saved from having to tell Lochinvar she didn’t like him and could

go marry a duke or someone equally glamorous and become a famous society hostess, and Lochinvar

… he would have someone who understood him and shared his interests: her. Wasn’t that using her

magic to achieve good, as Ally had exhorted them before they came to London?

She looked at the ingredients, written in the same hand: a copper basin, a cup of rosewater, a

candle, ten silver spoons—why ten?—a pair of bootlaces …

Bootlaces?

She frowned and kept reading the spell. It sounded reasonable enough, apart from the slightly

peculiar ingredients—and even the bootlaces made some amount of sense, tied together symbolically

and so on.

But could she do this? Could she do a spell to make Lochinvar, who’d reputedly lost his mother to

a witch’s curse, fall in love with her?

Persy bit her lip. If this spell worked and Lochinvar eventually proposed to her, then she’d have to

choose. And if it came down to a choice between her magic and him, then … then … A queer, dizzy

feeling, not caused by punch, came over her. If she had to choose between being a witch and marrying

Lochinvar, she’d take Lochinvar.

There. She’d admitted it. She’d choose love over magic. Persy straightened her shoulders and

looked at the spell again. If she were very quiet, she could sneak downstairs and get a basin from the

kitchen and the spoons from the butler’s pantry, and there was a bottle of rosewater right on Ally’s

washstand. Thank heavens she’d had all that punch after all, despite the ferocious headache that was

just starting to claw at the edge of her temples. Being slightly drunk was the only way she’d have

courage enough to put a love spell on Lochinvar Seton.

8

O
n the morning of their presentation the following Tuesday, Mama came to wake them early. She

bustled in and threw open their curtains, followed by three maids carrying the hip bath and cans of hot

water.

“But it’s hours until we even have to leave for St. James’s.” Persy yawned in protest as she looked

at her gold watch on the bedside table. She and Pen had each received one as a Christmas present

from Mama’s mother, Grandmama Revesby. Wearing it these last months had somehow, more than

anything else, made her feel like an adult.

“You must bathe and dress before the court hairdresser arrives at half-ten, and we must leave by

one if we’re to arrive at the palace in time.” Mama peered into their faces. “No dark circles under

your eyes, thank goodness. I knew I was right not to accept any invitations for last night. Come on,

Persy. Hiding under the covers won’t work.” Then she bustled out of the room.

No dark circles. Now that was truly astounding. Ever since she’d cast the love spell on Lochinvar

in Ally’s room the night before last, Persy had been living on tenterhooks, wondering if the spell had

worked. She’d also been almost ridiculously nice to Pen, prickled by a guilty conscience. Fortunately

Pen had ignored her too-niceness, apart from a few strange looks.

Pen sounded painfully chipper this morning as she bounded out of bed. “This is it, Persy! We’ll

arrive at St. James’s as girls, and leave it as women. Isn’t it exciting?”

“All because we’ve got dressed up and curtsied to the queen, we’re adults? Does that make any

sense?” said Persy from under her heap of blankets.

“Hush. And yes it does, because that’s how the world works. Ally always says that some people

are born grown-up and some never get there. This is as good a way as any to decide who is and who

isn’t. Cheer up, Perse. We get to go out in the world and learn something other than from books.”

“Books are safer. You always know what they’re going to do.”

“Oh, Persy. One day at a time.” She felt Pen grope under the blankets until she found her hand. “All

we have to do is smile and not trip over our trains, and Mama’s made us practice that enough. Stop

worrying about the rest of it. Want the first bath?”

“Mmrph.” Persy snuggled under the blankets once more. If she were really lucky, she’d wake up

from this unpleasant dream in a few minutes. Speaking of unpleasant dreams … she sat up in bed.

“Pen, I had the oddest dream last night. We were back at Mage’s Tutterow playing hide-and-seek

with Ally in the garden, only I’m not sure who was hiding and who was seeking—I kept calling to

Ally and she to me, but we somehow could never meet.”

Just then the maids came in with more cans of hot water and finished filling the bath and hanging

clean towels on chair backs. Pen pulled off her nightgown and climbed into the tub after they left.

“I’ve had one like that too,” she confessed, lathering away with the fine rose-scented soap Mama

had bought at an outrageous price at that fancy apothecary shop last week. “Are you surprised? What

do we want most in the world right now? To find Ally.”

“Are you sure that’s all? Do you think that she’s trying to contact us through dreams?”

Pen frowned. “I suppose. But she said once that dream magic is very difficult to do unless the

circumstances are exactly right for it. No, I think it’s just wishful thinking … er, dreaming. Come on,

lazybones, I’m nearly done.”

Persy had barely finished her bath when the maids came in with breakfast trays. She choked down

half a boiled egg on toast, and Pen didn’t have appetite for much more. Mama came in and shook her

head at them but did not scold.

“You’ll make it up tonight, I suppose. Grandmama Leland is coming to dine along with her friend

Lady Harrow.” Her mouth made a funny little dip. Lady Harrow was their grandmother’s dearest