The Master of Heathcrest Hall (102 page)

“Mr. Rafferdy!” she gasped at last, for she could think of nothing else to say. Her heart was fluttering at a rapid pace within her, as if she had just raced across the moors. Had he asked her for a cup of tea at that moment, she could never have complied, for the way her hands were trembling.

Yet it was not for tea that he had come here.

“Mrs. Quent, I am confounded!” he exclaimed at last. “I have always believed myself a man of words, but I cannot fathom how to speak to you what I must. The most ancient spell or obscure runes of magick would more easily depart my tongue.”

Now he began to pace the room in the most agitated way.

“I detained myself for months, to give myself time to puzzle this out, yet that was not time enough. Then I rode all the way from Invarel, rather than take a coach, so I would have more time. Yet still it was not enough! And so I walked slowly up the steps of your manor, to think it through further. Only now I am here before you, and still I find that I do not know how such things can ever be spoken. Yet I have to speak them. I have to.”

Ivy could scarcely breathe, let alone speak herself. She gripped the back of a chair, for fear her feet would cease to bear her. At last she managed to say, “Then I beg you, speak them!”

He ceased his pacing and gazed at her. For a moment, it seemed the ring upon his right hand flashed blue. Or perhaps it was only the sunlight. Then, abruptly, he took a step toward her.

“I know that previously I have agreed to call you Mrs. Quent,” he said, his voice going low—and not out of concern about waking
Merriel, she was sure. “But that is a promise I now wish to break. For you see, it is Mrs. Rafferdy that I would call you, if I could. But no—it is not even that. It is the name Ivoleyn that I wish to speak. So I will call you that now, even if I am never allowed to do so again. For I love you, Ivoleyn. I have always loved you, even when I was too great of a dolt to know it. That day in the Wyrdwood, I told you I would gladly give my heart to you. But that was only the half of it. For I would have your heart in return, if I could. I would spend the rest of my life with you, and with Merriel. I would belong to you both, and both of you to me, and nothing would ever alter that, unless it were to add another member to our little family. You did not give me your answer then, for I would not let you. But I ask you for it now, no matter what the answer might be. For I can no longer endure not knowing, one way or another.”

Moments ago, Ivy’s mind had been all in confusion. But while her heart still raced within her, it was no longer the case for her thoughts. Rather, with a perfect clarity, she knew precisely how to answer him.

“I did love you, Mr. Rafferdy,” she said, moving a step toward him. “Or rather, I thought that I did. How could I not think so, given how fine and witty you were in our plain little parlor? Only then, after that, I learned what it truly was to admire a man—not because of his appearance or charm or position, but because of who he was. Because of the strength of his character, the goodness of his spirit, and the trueness of his heart. Those, I learned, are the things that are really worth being loved.”

His face grew more solemn yet. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I see.”

He started to retreat. Only before he could do so, Ivy went to him, and reached out, and clasped his hands in her own.

“Those are the things that are worth being loved,” she said. “And that is why I love
you
, Mr. Rafferdy. Truly, this time. Not because I am dazzled by you, but rather because I know you—because I have seen every one of those things in you, and far more.
Indeed, I cannot think I really deserve the love of such a man—but I will not claim that I don’t want it! I do want it, more than anything—for myself, and for my daughter.”

“But it is already yours,” he said. “It ever has been.”

He was smiling again, his face alight, and Ivy knew her own expression was a mirror to his.

“Ivoleyn,” he said, softly now, as if testing the word.

And she replied, “Dashton.”

Then their hands parted, but only so they might come closer, like two trees twining together to stand as one in a forest of green.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
The House on Durrow Street

What if there was a fantastical cause underlying the social constraints and limited choices confronting a heroine in a novel by Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë? GALEN BECKETT began writing
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent
to answer that question. The author lives and writes in Colorado.