Bewitching Season (19 page)

was also disagreeable. “A true lady is known by her behavior under trying circumstances” was one of

her favorite maxims. She comforted herself by reflecting that not many ladies had to withstand

kidnapping and coercion to join sinister plots. Perhaps Mr. Carrighar understood her dilemma, and

that was why he was always so kind and patient with her.

But over these weeks, his courtesy had evolved. It had begun taking an edge of warmth and interest

that alternately pleased and alarmed her. Like it did now.

“Did you stand over her and glower while she cooked it?” she teased gently. To her surprise, he

blushed and coughed slightly.

“I … well, yes, I did. Is there anything wrong with that? I want you to feel … well looked after.

Like my honored guest.”

Miss Allardyce’s teasing mood evaporated. “But I’m not a guest, am I? I am your prisoner, until I

agree to give your employer the help he wants. As I will never do that, this guest/host charade must

eventually begin to grow wearisome.”

“I could never find your company wearisome.” Mr. Carrighar looked at her, his odd eyes intent.

They still gave her a shiver when she looked at them, though it was no longer an unpleasant one.

After the first few days of her captivity, Mr. Carrighar had slowly shifted their discussions from

his master’s plans to other topics—her childhood, her magical education, her work as a governess—

and sometimes let slip nuggets of information about himself. Miss Allardyce learned about his

distinguished but irascible father and his disappointing but well-loved older brother, both in Ireland,

and his own years of study and then work as a tutor at St. Kilda’s College in Cork. She also learned

about his swift, dry sense of humor, so like her own, and his enthusiastic study of weather magic,

which she called showy just to watch his eyes kindle in indignation, until he saw that he was being

teased … .

Mr. Carrighar sat back in his chair. “I met them today,” he said abruptly, dropping his gaze.

“Met whom?” Miss Allardyce took another sip of wine, trying to drag her attention away from

memories of Michael’s—er—Mr. Carrighar’s infectious laugh.

“Your pupils. Persephone and Penelope.”

“What!” Miss Allardyce nearly dropped her wineglass. “Where? Are they all right?”

“They’re quite well, and very charming girls. My master was quite taken with them.” Mr. Carrighar

was still staring at the table.

“What were you …” A horrible suspicion began to creep over her. “No. You can’t drag them into

this. I won’t let you use them—”

Mr. Carrighar held up one hand. “No one said anything about using them, Miss Allardyce. They

need not have anything at all to do with this—”

“—if I accede to your blackmail and give you what you want,” she finished. The delicate wine she

had been sipping with such pleasure—the wine Mr. Carrighar had brought for her—seemed to sour in

her stomach. She made a gesture and the glass disappeared.

“That is a crude way to put it.” Mr. Carrighar’s voice was steady, but his hands betrayed him by

curling into fists.

“Nonetheless, it’s true.” Miss Allardyce rose and took a few jerky, hesitating steps, then whirled

back to face Mr. Carrighar. “How
could
you?” she shot at him. “They’re innocent children.”

He rose too. “They’re trained witches, like you.”

Miss Allardyce stared at him. Though his expression was composed, there was a flicker deep in

his eyes. “They’re moral human beings like me. Like you,” she added softly. “How can you help him

with this—this heinous deed? You’re not an evil man.”

He laughed. It sounded more like a cry of pain than amusement. “Aren’t I?”

“No. I know you aren’t. Don’t let him use you this way. He can’t force you … Michael.” Her voice

dropped as she used his name aloud.

Mr. Carrighar took a step toward her, and another, his face pale under his dark auburn hair. “Ah,

but he can. He already has. I told you before that I too am his prisoner, and I did not lie. I have no

choice but to help him if I don’t want to see my family ruined and my father dead of a broken heart.

Do you think I’m happy doing his bidding? Do you think I want to hold you here against your will?”

He closed the last inches between them and reached up to trace the line of her cheek with a

trembling finger. “What does it concern us, the machinations and maneuverings of these people? Life

will go on the same, no matter what happens. Life could go on … for us.”

Miss Allardyce felt transfixed under his touch, but to her surprise her voice still retained its cool,

dispassionate evenness. “No, it won’t. We will have done ill, and ill would come back to us

magnified. I beg you, don’t help him. If we both stand against him—”

But he was shaking his head. “It’s too late for that. I am bound to help him, and so are you.”

“I? How?”

“The same way I am. Through the ones we love. He won’t hesitate to use them to force you, just as

he used mine to force me. If you would save your pupils, give me your word that you will help us,

when the time comes.”

10

T
heir next social event was a party at Lady Conyngham’s. Persy did not care for the two chief

occupations of the evening, cards and gossip, though she did enjoy a chat with Sally Louder and even

managed to introduce her to Freddy Gilley without stuttering more than twice. Lord Northgalis sought

her out between rubbers of whist to talk about his horses as they strolled around the room, laid out

with potted orange trees to form groves in which card tables were situated.

Lochinvar was not there. He had come down with influenza, though Lord Northgalis assured her

that it had been a light case and that he was already recovering. Persy could not help feeling relieved

that he wasn’t there so that she wouldn’t be tempted to follow him about all evening, looking for signs

that her spell had worked. She had been so wrapped up in their presentations and in the visit with

Princess Sophia that she hadn’t had time to think about it, but the thought of it had simmered in the

back of her mind. If she were lucky, he’d still be convalescing in two days, when they would be

attending their first ball.

“That’s the last time I’ll take any of Lady Harrow’s recommendations!” Lady Parthenope declared

again as they rumbled down Bond Street en route to Lady Whittendon’s ball. “That woman was

completely unreliable.”

“We’re sorry, Mama,” Persy said once more. She hadn’t meant to do magic in front of the new

maid, really she hadn’t. But what else could she have done with a pan of hot coals hurtling toward her

sister’s dress?

The maid had arrived that morning, a sturdy woman of forty with a bilious complexion and a stolid,

no-nonsense air about her. Pen muttered that she looked like a superannuated nursery governess and

that she would probably force-feed them barley water and gruel, but Mama seemed quite pleased

with her.

“Lady Harrow recommended her,” she whispered to the girls outside the morning room, just before

they went in to meet her. “She said she’d be just the right influence on a pair of high-strung young

girls.”

“We’re not high-strung,” Pen had protested. “But we will be after a week of her in the house.”

“Nonsense, girls. She’s supposed to be an excellent hairdresser, and I’m sure she looks quite

capable. Now mind your manners. I should think you’d be thrilled at the thought of having your own

abigail.” Mama fixed them with her steely Wellington eye that would brook no opposition.

On the whole, Persy rather looked forward to having a maid to help them. Though she and Pen

were both tidy by nature, it would be nice to have someone to help keep in order the ridiculous

amount of clothing and accessories required by young ladies in society.

So as they dressed for the ball in their presentation dresses, much poufed out with extra petticoats,

she tried to be helpful and gracious. Or at least as helpful and gracious as her fluttering stomach and

trembling hands would allow. To her relief the new maid was taciturn, speaking only when

necessary. But to Pen, who tended to chatter when nervous, her silence was an affront.

“’Old your head just there, miss,” the woman said to Pen as she wrapped a lock of her hair around

a hot curling iron.

“These side-ringlets are so silly. I feel like a chandelier, with prisms bobbing around my ears,”

Pen complained to the room in general. The maid ignored her and muttered under her breath, counting.

“But they look so delicate and pretty on you.” Persy had sat on the end of the bed, holding her own

ringleted head as still as possible while trying to chafe some feeling back into her cold hands.

“They look no such thing,” snapped Pen. She shifted impatiently on her chair, and her full skirt,

overflowing the bench on which she sat, swept across the corner of the dressing table where the little

brazier that heated the curling iron sat.

“Oh!” Persy squealed. The little metal bowl of hot coals seemed to fall in slow motion straight

toward Pen’s skirt as she stared at it.

“Arreste
!” she had cried, pointing at it. The brazier froze in midair, righted itself, and drifted back

up to the dressing table, where it landed with a quiet bump.

Then a louder bump made her jump. Their new maid had fallen to the floor in a faint. Persy still felt

embarrassed recalling her wild-eyed look when she’d finally come around.

“I don’t blame you, dear child,” Mama reassured her. “It is evident that the woman was quite mad,

falling over then running out of the house like that, without a word of explanation.”

“Perhaps she suffered from fits,” Pen suggested, concealing a grin behind her fan. Persy could not

help being amused by the wickedly demure look in Pen’s eye as she agreed with their mother. Pen had

pranced around so gaily after the maid’s precipitate departure that Persy had, only half-jokingly,

accused her of knocking the brazier off the table on purpose.

“Indeed. Then all the more blame to Lady Harrow. It’s a good thing Andrews had already finished

with me and could help you, or we might have been late for the ball.” Mama shook herself like a

ruffled hen settling her feathers. “Now I shall have to start looking for a maid for you all over again.”

At least the drama of the fleeing lady’s maid had taken Persy’s mind off the evening’s main event—

the ball. It wasn’t until their carriage drew to a halt outside Whittendon House that she remembered

that she would have to go into a hot, crowded room full of strangers and look like she was delighted

to be there.

Pen took her arm and gave it a squeeze that was meant to be reassuring as they walked up the grand

house’s gleaming marble steps. She shot a quick look at Pen and saw that even her eyes were a little

wider than usual and her cheeks a little paler. It was hardly a comforting sight. If
Pen
was nervous …

she felt the anxious lump in her throat swell. At least Lochinvar would not be there; surely he was

still recovering from his case of influenza. She could concentrate on getting though the evening safely

and not on him.

As they entered the brightly lit foyer of the Marquess of Whittendon’s palatial house, color and

light and sound swirled through Persy’s senses and left her feeling light-headed. A kaleidoscope of

gowns in every shade and tone, topped by headdresses sometimes charming, sometimes fearsome,

swept by her in all directions as ladies who had probably taken tea together just hours before greeted

one another with insincere shrieks of joy and cries of admiration. Upstairs in the ballroom the

orchestra was already playing.

Then she was curtsying to the marquess and his elegant marchioness. She heard herself make polite

replies to their kindly greetings. How was this all happening? It was like the real Persy was caught in

a bubble, floating around above a large animated doll with her face and form that smiled and nodded

and mouthed the right words.
I’m doing fine
, she thought a little incoherently.
I’d best keep out of my

way and let myself get on with everything
.

She watched herself follow Pen and Mama up the stairs to the ballroom, smiling and bowing to

Mama’s acquaintances as they did. Still from a distance she greeted Sally Louder, who threw herself

at them with delighted little squeaks and introduced them to her friends. It wasn’t at all bad, really,

this disembodied state. In fact, it was quite pleasant to be able to survey the beautiful ballroom and

examine the ladies’ dresses and coiffures in this distant, dreamy way—

“Good evening, Lady Parthenope,” said a voice nearby.

All at once her calm departed as she turned and met the eyes of the golden-haired figure bowing

before them.

“Good evening, Lochinvar,” said Mama with a bright smile. “How nice to see you. Is your father

here as well?”

“He is, ma’am. Lord Whittendon just sold him a mare, and they’ve become thick as thieves over