Whisper of Magic (3 page)

As a newly blind man, Ashford refused to leave his chambers.
He had ceded his responsibilities to his heir, a reluctant Theo—who was more
scientist than politician. Erran accepted that Duncan needed familiar
surroundings just to tackle each day, but leaving him to rot in his room wasn’t
healthy for anyone.

“Perhaps you should take me over to the town house,” Aster
suggested. “I could talk to the women in the area. Surely there are neighbors
who gossip? We need to find out where the tenants have gone.”

“Or you could set up as a Gypsy woman on the corner and
offer to read their fortunes,” Theo suggested wickedly.

Aster frowned thoughtfully, as if she were actually
considering his suggestion. “It’s an expensive neighborhood, but my aunts know
everyone. I could obtain an introduction to the neighbors and hold one of my
parties. I won’t really read their fortunes, of course, but with their birth
dates, I can tell them about their sun signs. People talk at parties. If the
tenants have gone to Scotland for the hunting season, perhaps someone will have
an address.”

Considering the mysterious cloaked visage he’d observed for
that one brief moment—and the flying mud balls in the mews and the insults he’d
heard in the tavern—Erran didn’t believe Aster would have much luck questioning
the neighbors.

He’d have to find another way in—if only for their tenants’
protection.

***

“Old-fashioned and dirty.” The Honorable Emilia McDowell
sniffed in distaste as she, Lady Aster, and Erran walked down the street beyond
St. James Square to study the Ives’ London home. Wealthy and attractive, as
Lady Aster’s relations often were, Miss McDowell was also independent enough to
decline the offer of Erran’s arm. With her thick black hair and pale
complexion, she looked the part of witch that the riotously-colored, cheerful
Lady Aster did not.

“Ives House is one of the wider lots, with a yard in the
rear,” Erran explained. “There should be sufficient space on the ground floor
for Duncan’s chambers, and there may even be room for expansion in back.”

“Only if you remove the tenants,” Lady Aster pointed out
pragmatically, studying a chart she’d removed from the capacious bag she always
carried with her. “This is even a more auspicious location than I’d realized.
It should enhance Ashford’s already copious powers.”

“To the point of healing him?” Miss McDowell asked with
interest.

Erran noted she didn’t ask
what powers
, like any sensible person. The women talked in a
language all their own. Dunc’s power was in his wealth and authority. The
house’s location had little to do with that except as a display of his
heritage.

“One never knows about healing. Perhaps if you have herbs
that will work for him and grew them here . . .” Aster sighed.
“The herbs would be more powerful, too, but asking plants to heal blindness
does not seem realistic.”

Miss McDowell studied the four-story stone exterior. “It is
a very plain structure, not a pilaster or column in sight. But I do feel energy
emanating from it. I wonder if it has an herb garden?”

Well aware that Lady Aster was attempting to match him with
her wealthy but unconventional cousin, Erran attempted not to scoff at their
idiocies. He wasn’t ready for a wife, but at the rate he was headed, he might
need her wealth. Without the career he’d been trained for, he was existing on
his allowance and his brother’s goodwill. Neither were sufficient to afford
rooms, much less an office and a clerk.

Gardens, however, he could answer to. “There is a large yard
in the rear with plenty of room for a garden. I believe one of the greats grew
herbs.”

“The Malcolm connection,” Lady Aster reminded him. “Your
great-grandmother was a brilliant Malcolm herbalist and healer. You said the
tenants are Jamaican. We have ancestors who lived in the Caribbean. Perhaps we
should research your tenants. They may have been drawn to this house for the
same reasons we are—the earth energies beneath it.”

“The chances of someone from Jamaica both knowing the house
and being from the same family as ours are about as good as curing Duncan.”
Unable to contain his skepticism any longer, Erran spoke more sharply than he’d
intended and regretted it instantly. His normally smiling sister-in-law cast
him a narrowed look that did not bode well for future peace.

Pretending oblivion, he studied the mansion’s tall windows.
Every one of them had the draperies drawn. “There’s a better chance that
they’re vampire monsters who never come out in day. That place has to be darker
than Hades with all the windows covered.”

The women laughed and returned to discussing nonsensities. Disgruntled, Erran studied the busy street.
Expensive bays pulling crested carriages trotted past gas light posts. Inside
the carriages sat ladies sporting their wealth with the feathers and finery of
the latest fashions. The vehicles stopped at columned mansions to be greeted by
liveried footmen or rattled on to the more fashionable shops in Mayfair.
Despite its age, the area was still respectable.

The pedestrians pushing and shoving along the cobblestones
were mostly men in top hats, foreign ambassadors and their staff at this time
of year. In another few weeks, the aristocratic residents might return for the
parliamentary session that had just been called to replace the prime minister,
and the streets would be even more crowded.

Urchins still swept street corners. In the evenings, prostitutes
would hug the walls of the taverns. Tailors had shops just around the corner,
convenient for the government staffs that passed to and fro who had need of
mending, new coats, or orders for uniforms.

Erran thought the neighborhood safe enough for a blind
marquess—but not if ruffians were attacking servants. The whole incident
bothered him, but he could not quite put his finger on why.

He escorted the ladies to the entrance of the old house,
where they insisted on sending their footman up the stone stairs to rap despite
the lack of knocker. When no one answered, as usual, Erran led them down the
street to the house of one of their acquaintances, where they would begin the
business of gossip.

Leaving them with a promise to return in an hour, Erran
excused himself from the company. Out of all the foolishness the women had
spouted, he’d found one gem—he should have researched their tenant more
thoroughly. A man who could pay the exorbitant lease on a house like this for
the next five years should be a man known in the business community.

Erran didn’t possess enough wealth to traverse the rarified
clubs where affluent industrialists discussed business, or even the clubs
designated for the sons of aristocrats. That put him at a disadvantage for
researching their tenant.

Rendered useless by his weird courtroom encounter—and the
embarrassing aftermath—he’d been avoiding his usual clubs lately. Wielding a
silver tongue, or vibrating inanimate objects, wasn’t how he wanted to win his
cases—or influence friends.

Unfortunately, if he meant to help Duncan, he would have to
return to his clubs for information. The temptation to test his Wyrd Theory was
great, but every moral fiber in his body resisted.

Reaching his club, Erran sighed as his path crossed that of
one of his inveterate gambler friends.

“I have a pony on you marrying into your sister-in-law’s
witchy family before year’s end,” the gambler cried in delight at seeing Erran.

Well, at least he didn’t need magical persuasion to counter
that idiocy. Pounding his companion on the back, Erran climbed the stairs. “And
I have a pony that says you’re a horse’s arse.”

Maybe if he was rude enough, he would restore his
reputation.

***

Stacking neatly folded shirts into a box, Celeste called,
“Is the coast clear?”

“No one at the front,” Trevor answered from the drawing
room.

“I haven’t seen anyone in the mews,” Sylvia announced from
her bedchamber at the back of the house. “Perhaps the gentleman scared off the
ruffians.”

“The
gentleman
has
been making inquiries about the neighborhood,” Jamar intoned in his deep bass
with only a hint of wryness as he shrugged on his frock coat. “I will escort
you.”

Celeste cast him a concerned gaze. Jamar was nearly seven
feet tall and very black, more African than Jamaican. He had not met with politeness
in these months in London. As Nana said, people feared what they did not know,
and unfortunately, they acted very badly when afraid.

“It won’t be dark for another hour. I should be safe enough
just walking down the street,” Celeste argued, hiding her fear of walking these
city streets alone—as she had hidden all her fears these last months. “I am
just another servant carrying her employer’s packages.”

She truly didn’t mind being reduced from privileged lady to
servanthood for her family’s sake. But she utterly despised being afraid every
minute of her life.

“I will go with you.” Jamar straightened his neckcloth and
buttoned his coat.

There had never been any arguing with her father’s majordomo.
If she tried her charm, Jamar narrowed his eyes and muttered in an
incomprehensible patois until she gave up. He was probably praying to devils
and saints and placing a curse on her. She hoped he was happy that his curses
had worked.

She wouldn’t encourage his bossiness by letting him see her
relief.

“Fine, then. Take a big stick.” Huffing in impatience, she
threw on her cloak, hid her un-English complexion beneath her hood, and picked
up her box. If Jamar intended to be her security, he needed his fists free. She
wasn’t risking all their hard work.

Knowing how far he could push her, Jamar didn’t fight over
the box, but merely followed her down the stairs and out the kitchen garden.
The September days were growing shorter, and a light fog was moving in, casting
the bushes into gray shadow. They would have to adjust their hours soon. She
wasn’t about to run to the tailor shop at dark. That could mean one less shirt
a day—or burning more candles. She’d have to think about raising prices.

Frowning, fretting over new ways of keeping their small
household running without access to the wealth to which they had always been
accustomed, Celeste hurried down the muddy alley. At her side, Jamar kept his
huge fist on the knife beneath his coat and vigilantly studied the shadows.

“Watch out!”

The commanding bellow so startled her that she nearly
dropped the precious box of shirts. While Jamar glanced around for the danger,
a well-dressed gentleman grabbed her cloak and shoved her against a brick wall.
He shielded her with his big body as noxious liquid splashed where she’d just
been walking.

Crushed between the wall and the bulk of a masculine
stranger, Celeste stupidly noticed his spicy scent more than the stench rising
from the street. Her next frantic thought was not to crush the box in her arms.
She struggled to push free from an obstacle as solid as a brick wall.

Before she could react more sensibly, the gentleman gagged
on a growl of surprise as Jamar wrapped a brutal arm around his spotless
neckcloth and lifted him off of her.

Shakily, she straightened and tried to puzzle out what had
just happened.

“Put…me…down,” the gentleman said precisely and
threateningly, even though Jamar had his head pulled back and could have broken
his neck in a single jerk.

Those handsome dark curls looked familiar, as was the
expensive tailoring. She thought the stranger’s intonation a little
constrained, but she applauded his courage under fire. “Jamar, I believe the
gentleman prevented a very unpleasant drenching. Put him down, please.”

Once Jamar obeyed, both men reached for the weapons beneath
their coats, but they refrained from drawing them while they studied each other
with male belligerence. Celeste thought the haughty stranger might be the one
who had called after her the other day, the one who had come knocking with the
ladies yesterday. He was taller than she by half a head—and she was of above
average height. Muscular, broad-shouldered, and thick-chested as a boxer, he
was still no match for Jamar, despite his defiant stance. She had to admire him
for not backing down from a fiercer opponent.

But apparently satisfied he would not be attacked again, the
stranger removed his hat and bowed stiffly, revealing a visage as handsome as
the rest of him. “I saw the wretch in the upper window with a pail. I did not
mean to frighten you. I apologize for the presumption.”

Dragging her gaze from his taut, angry jaw and compelling
dark eyes, Celeste glanced up at the tall brick building they stood below. All
the windows were shut and blank now. The only evidence of what could have been
a damaging attack to her hard work was the malodorous smell of the slop pail’s
contents running down the street.

She would have asked if London was still so primitive as to
use slop buckets, but she knew better—this had been another personal attack.
Remembering her role, Celeste tugged the cloak tighter, nodded without
speaking, and hurried on her way. The persistent gentleman followed.
Irritatingly, Jamar did not chase him off but began watching the windows of the
buildings they passed.

“I do not mean to impose,” the gentleman said, matching his
stride to hers, “But I need to speak with Bardolph, Lord Rochester. It’s a
matter of immense urgency. If I could importune you to let me know of his
return . . .”

The mention of her father’s name startled her almost as much
as his thrusting her against a wall. London had been a difficult learning
experience these past horrible months. She was rather tired of the constant
need to adapt to new circumstances. She didn’t need arrogant gentlemen pushing
their way into her life. What could he possibly know of her origins?

She cast him a sideways glance, but beneath his polished
exterior, he seemed most earnest. He really did want to speak with her father.