The Gates of Sleep (6 page)

So Sebastian had been using her as a model all this past
year, both because she was a wonderful subject and to keep her busy and out of
the village as much as possible. And if because of that his pictures took on a
certain sameness, well, that particular trait hadn’t hurt Rossetti’s
popularity, nor any of the other Pre-Raphaelites who had favorite models.

In fact, the only negative aspect to using Marina as a
model had so far been as amusing as it was negative—that certain would-be
patrons had assumed that the model’s virtue was negotiable. After the
first shock—the Blackbird Cottage household was known in the artistic
community more as a model for semi-stodgy propriety than
otherwise—Sebastian had rather enjoyed disabusing those “gentlemen”
of that notion. If going cold and saying in a deathly voice, “Are you
referring to
my niece?”
was not a sufficient hint, then turning
on a feigned version of a Fire Master’s wrath certainly was. No one ever
faced a Fire Master in his full powers without quailing, whether or not they
had magic themselves, and even theatrical anger was nearly as intimidating as
the real thing.

And Sebastian being Sebastian, he usually got, not only an
apology, but an increase in his commission out of the encounter. He’d
only lost one patron out of all of the years that he’d been using Marina,
and it was one he’d had very little taste for in the first place. “I
told him to go elsewhere for his damned ‘Leda,’ if he wanted the
model as well as the painting,” was what he’d growled to Margherita
when he’d returned from his interview in London. “I wanted to knock
him down—”

“But you didn’t, of course,” she’d
said, knowing from his attitude that, of course, he hadn’t.

“No. Damn his eyes. He’s too influential; I’m
no fool, my love, I kept my insults behind my teeth and managed a cunning
imitation of sanctimonious prig without a sensual bone in my body. But I wanted
to send his damned teeth down his throat for what he hinted at.”
Sebastian’s aura had pulsed a sullen red.

“Serve the blackguard right,” Margherita
returned. Sebastian had smiled at last, and kissed her, and she had known that,
as always, his temper had burned itself out quickly.

But common perceptions were a boon to Marina’s
safety; Arachne would never dream that Marina Roeswood would be
posing for
paintings
like a common—well—
artist’s model.
The term was only a more polite version of something else.

For that matter, if Alanna had any notion that Sebastian’s
lovely model was her own daughter, she would probably faint. It was just as
well that the question had never come up. The prim miniatures that Sebastian
sent every Christmas showed a proper young lady with her hair up, a
high-collared blouse, and a cameo at her throat, not the languid odalisques or
daring dancers Sebastian had been painting in that style the French were
calling Art Nouveau.

“Once harvest’s over and winter’s begun,”
Sebastian said through a mouthful of deviled ham, “it will be easier to
keep the little baggage indoors.”

“Unless she decides it’s time you made good on
your promise to take her to London,” Thomas pointed out.

“So what if she does?” Sebastian countered. “London’s
as good or better a place to hide her than here!
How
many Elemental
magicians are there in London? Trying to find her would be like trying to find
one particular pigeon in Trafalgar Square! If she wants a trip to the galleries
and the British Museum, I’ll take her. I’m more concerned that she
doesn’t get the notion in her head to go to Scotland and meet up with the
Selkies.”

Thomas winced. “Don’t even think about that, or
she might pick the idea up,” he cautioned, and sucked on his lower lip. “We’ve
got a problem, though.
We
can’t teach her any more. She needs a
real Water Master now, and I think she’s beginning to realize that. She’s
restless; she’s bored with the exercises I’ve set her. She might
not give a hang about the Roeswood name, fortune, or estate, but she’s
going to become increasingly unhappy when she realizes she needs more teaching
in her Power and we can’t give it to her.”

Sebastian and Margherita exchanged a long look of
consternation; they hadn’t thought of
that.
Of all the
precautions they had taken, all the things they had thought they would have to
provide for, Marina’s tutoring in magic had not been factored into the
equation.

“Is she going to be
that
powerful?”
Sebastian asked, dumbfounded.

“What if I told you that every time she goes out to
the orchard she’s
reading poetry to Undines?”
Thomas
asked.

That took even Margherita by surprise. Sebastian blanched.
Small wonder. When Elementals simply appeared to socialize with an Elemental
mage, it meant that the magician in question either was very, very powerful,
powerful enough that the Elementals wanted to forge friendships with her, or
that she
would be
that powerful, making it all the more important to
the Elementals that they forge those friendships
before
she realized
her power. One didn’t coerce or compel one’s friends… it just
wasn’t done.

“Oh, there is more to it than that,” Thomas
went on. “I’ve caught Sylphs in her audiences as well. I can only thank
God that she hasn’t noticed very often, or she’d start to wonder
just what she could do with them if she asked.”

So the Air Elementals were aware of her potential power
too. The Alliance granted her by Roderick did go both ways…

Thomas was right; they couldn’t leave her at loose
ends. If she began trying things on her own, they might as well take her to
London and put her on top of Nelson’s column with a banner unrolling at
her feet, spelling out her name for all—for Arachne—to see.

“What about asking Elizabeth Hastings for a
visit—or more than one?” Margherita asked slowly.

Sebastian opened his mouth as if to object—then shut
it. Thomas blinked.

“Would she come?” her brother asked, probably
guessing, and accurately, that she had been feeling Elizabeth out on that very
subject in her latest letters. “She’s not an artist, after all. And
we are not precisely ‘polite’ society.”

“We’re not social pariahs either, brother mine,”
she pointed out. “Silly goose! She wouldn’t harm her reputation by
visiting us, even if anyone actually knew that was what she was doing here. A
mature lady just might take up the invitation of a perfectly respectable couple
and the wife’s brother, all well-known for their scholarly
pursuits—”

Thomas primmed up his face, and Sebastian drew himself up
stiffly, interrupting her train of thought with their posing.

“Stop that, you two!” she said, torn between
exasperation and laughter. She slapped Sebastian’s shoulder lightly, and
made a face at Thomas. “Like it or not, we
are
respectable, and
only old roues like some of your clients, Sebastian, think any different!”

“Dull as dishwater, we are,” Thomas agreed
dolefully, as Sebastian leered at her. “We don’t even amuse the
village anymore. We give them nothing to gossip about.”

“Oh, but if they only knew…” Sebastian
laughed. “Now,
acushla
, don’t be annoyed with us. There’s
little enough in this situation to laugh about, don’t grudge us a joke or
two.”

He reached out to embrace her, and she sighed and returned
it. She never could resist him when he set out to charm her.

“Now, what about Elizabeth? Obviously you two women
have been plotting something out behind our backs,” Sebastian continued.

“Well, to be honest, it never occurred to me that we’d
need
to have her here, I just thought it would be good for Mari to be
around another Water-mage, and even better to have someone around who
was—well—more like Hugh and Alanna. Someone who could get her used
to the kinds of manners and social skills she’ll have to have when she
goes to them.” Margherita sighed. “I don’t want her to feel
like an exile. And she likes Elizabeth. I thought if Elizabeth could come for a
few weeks at a time, it would help the transition.”

“So, that makes perfect sense; all the better, that
you’ve clearly got something in motion already,” Thomas said, with
his usual practicality. “So, what was your plan? How did she figure to
get away from all of
her
social obligations? I should think given the
season that it would be nearly impossible.”

“Not this year!” Margherita said in triumph. “You
know
she hates both the shooting season and the hunting season—”

“‘The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible,’“
her brother muttered, quoting Wilde.

“—and now that her daughter’s married and
both her sons are at school, she’s got no real reason to stay and play
hostess if she truly doesn’t want to,” Margherita continued. “Her
husband, she tells me, has always wanted to try a season in Scotland instead of
here. He’s had tentative invitations he never pursued because
she
didn’t care to go.”

She stopped there; both her brother and her husband were
canny enough to fill in the blank spaces without any help from her. The
Hastingses had been the host to more than enough pheasant-shoots and fox-hunts
over the years that they must have an amazing backlog of invitations that
Stephen Hastings—always a keen hunter—could pursue with a good
conscience without worrying that Elizabeth was going to make no secret of being
bored.

“So he’ll get to be that most desirable of
social prizes, the ‘safe single man,’“ Margherita observed
with irony. “He can escort the older widows to dinner without feeling
put-upon, and he won’t target or be a target for unsuitable romance. He
won’t cause a quarrel with anyone’s fiance, and he can be relied
upon, if there’s a country dance, to make sure all the wallflowers get a
waltz.”

“That alone will probably ensure he gets his choice
of shoots,” Sebastian said, his face twitching as he tried not to laugh.

Elizabeth had said as much herself, pointing out the rest
of her husband’s good points as a sporting guest. He was a good and
considerate gun too; not a neck-or-nothing rider, but that wasn’t
necessary in a middle-aged man to preserve his standing in the Hunt Club. All
things considered, in order to give him a free conscience in accepting one or
more of those long-standing invitations, all that Elizabeth would have to do
would be to find some excuse that could reasonably take her off to this part of
the country for some extended period of time.

“Let’s put our heads together on this one,”
Sebastian said immediately. “What on God’s green earth could Lady
Elizabeth Hastings want in
this
part of the world?”

Thomas blinked again—and said, “Folk tales and
songs.”

Margherita clapped her hands like a girl, and Sebastian’s
smile lit up the entire room. “Brilliant, Thomas!” he shouted. “By
gad, I
knew
I’d made a good choice of brother-in-law! Absolutely
brilliant!”

The collection of folk ballads and oral tales was always an
appropriate and genteel pursuit for a lady with a scholarly bent; this close to
Cornwall there were bound to be variations on the Arthurian mythos that no one
had written down yet. During the seasons of planting, tending, and harvesting,
no farmer or farm-worker would have time to recite the stories his granny had
told him—but during the winter, if Elizabeth wanted to lend
verisimilitude to her story, all she would have to do would be to have Thomas
run her down to the pub in the pony-cart now and again to collect a nice little
volume of tales and songs.

“We’ve already had her out here during the
summer and spring over the years, so she’s seen the May Day celebrations
and the fairs,” Margherita said, planning aloud, “She can look
through her sketches and notes and ‘discover’ what a wealth of
untapped ballads we have here and make visits the rest of the winter. One long
one up until the Christmas season, say, and another between the end of January
and spring.”

“That’s a rather long time. You’re sure
her husband won’t mind?” Sebastian asked, suddenly doubtful,
remembering the other half of the Hastings equation.

Margherita smiled. “I didn’t
think
you
two ever listened when I read her letters aloud. Let me just say that they are
on cordial terms, the best of terms, really, but Elizabeth has gotten
confirmation about some of her suspicions about her husband’s frequent
visits to London.”

Thomas shook his head; Sebastian snorted. “Actress?”
he asked bluntly.

“Dancer,” she replied serenely. “Well, if
Elizabeth chooses to look the other way, it is none of
my
business,
and if Stephen has another interest,
he
won’t be unhappy if
Elizabeth doesn’t go in to London with him this winter.”

“Stephen got his local Parliament seat last year,
didn’t he?” Sebastian asked, showing that he had paid a little more
attention to Elizabeth’s letters than Margherita had thought.

“He did, and Elizabeth loathes London.” The
plan unrolled itself in Margherita’s mind like a neatly gridded tapestry.
“Stephen can pretend to live at his club and visit his dancer while
Parliament is in session, and
she
can stay with us.” Her lips
twitched in a bit of a smile. “Perhaps if he gets a surfeit of the girl
he’ll tire of her.”

“He probably will,” Sebastian predicted
loftily. “It’s nothing more than an attempt to prove he isn’t
middle-aged, I suspect. If he doesn’t tire of her,
she’ll
tire of
him.
There’ll be a dance-instructor or a French
singing-master hanging about before the New Year, mark my words. And at some
point, Stephen will show up at her establishment unexpectedly, and discover
that there’s something other than lessons going on.”

Margherita hid a smile. Sebastian had met Stephen several
times, and on each occasion she was reminded of a pair of dogs circling one
another in mutual animosity, prevented from actually starting a fight by the
presence of their masters. Sebastian was the utter opposite of Stephen
Hastings, describing him as a “hearty gamesman” and intimating that
the only reason he’d actually gotten his Cambridge degree was that his
instructors wanted to see the last of him. There might have been some truth in
that. He
certainly
hadn’t taken a First, and seemed to be
absurdly proud of the fact.