Courtship and Curses (16 page)

When she’d heard Parthenope say Lord Woodbridge’s name last night, she wasn’t sure she’d ever missed having full use of her magic so much: a translocation spell would have been very useful. She’d already had quite enough drama for the evening, thank you very much, between Mr. Patten’s near accident and evidence that magic had played a part in it and then vanquishing Mr. Underwood … and Lord Woodbridge had definitely seemed ready to enact a dramatic scene with his cousin.

To hear that her best friend had been directing Lord Woodbridge’s wooing had left Sophie torn between laughter and indignation. But then to hear him matter-of-factly agreeing that he thought her the prettiest girl in London, that he’d loved her on first sight, and that he needed to secure her affections before someone else did … well, was it to be wondered that her eyes would not close?

Amélie looked at her sharply when she came into the breakfast room that morning. “Did you not sleep well,
petite
?”

“Hmm? Oh, I … no, I slept perfectly well, thank you.” Sophie helped herself to a cup of chocolate.

“Is that all you’re having? I hope you’re not coming down with green-sickness,” Aunt Molly said, leaning forward and peering into her face. “Perhaps I had better mix you up a spring tonic. I wonder if I can find some centaury flowers at the apothecary? The
Domestic Encyclopedia
says that worsted stockings should be worn by those suffering from green-sickness, rather than cotton or silk. What sort are you wearing?”

“Thank you, Aunt, but I don’t think I’m ill.” Sophie helped herself from the platters of eggs and fried mushrooms and beef on the table, and rapidly began eating. “But I shall go up and change my stockings directly I’m finished, if you wish.”

Aunt Molly beamed. “You’re a good girl, Sophronia.”

As it happened, however, her cotton stockings were never changed, for only moments after Sophie had finished eating, Belton came to the door of the breakfast room. “Lady Parthenope Hardcastle presents her compliments, my lady, and says she is here to convey you back to her house for the day,” he said, looking as amused as he ever permitted himself to.

“My goodness!” Sophie rose from the table and hurried into the hall. Parthenope stood there in her gray and red short cloak, whistling and tapping her foot.

“I’ll give you ten minutes,” she said cheerfully, by way of greeting. “After that Belton has promised me he’ll drag you downstairs and lift you bodily into my carriage.”

“He did no such thing,” Sophie said, a little crossly. “Might I be permitted to clean my teeth and comb my hair?”

“He did too. Very well, you may do the teeth, but your hair looks fine to me. Oh, stop looking so disapproving and tell me that you’re not dying to talk.”

Sophie relented. “All right, I am. Won’t you go sit with Aunt Molly and Amélie while I get ready?”

Once they were ensconced in the Revesbys’ carriage, Parthenope sighed. “Thank heavens you didn’t take any longer. Your aunt thinks I am coming down with something called green-sickness and says you are as well. She asked me what kind of stockings I wore and threatened to dose me with some hideous-sounding tonic. Lord, if I’d known you were contagious, I would have just sent the carriage for you and waited at home.”

“Green-sickness isn’t contagious. It’s just some old wives’ tale way of saying we both look haggard.” Sophie paused. “I’m not surprised—I don’t believe I slept very much. What happened last night after you left the box with Lord Woodbridge? You left earlier than we did.”

“Absolutely nothing happened. Mama took pity on my father and we left, and that was that. It was dreadfully anticlimactic.”

“Did you really want more excitement last night?”

“N-no, I suppose not.” Parthenope eyed her. “You did hear all of my conversation with Perry last night, didn’t you? I thought you were behind the curtain, but I didn’t see you. Did you do some sp … um … do something and sneak away?”

Sophie knew she was thinking of the groom perched up on the seat behind them, staring straight ahead as was proper but surely able to hear their every word. She gripped her reticule more tightly. “I was there.”

For the rest of the short drive to Curzon Street, they were silent. Sophie felt a tension in the silence and hoped it was due to the fact that they weren’t alone, rather than that Parthenope had begun to realize just how Sophie’s magic set her apart.

Once they arrived at Revesby House, Parthenope led her up to her bedchamber, handsomely done in shades of rose and pink. “I gave Andrews the morning off,” she announced, closing and locking her door behind her. “We’ll have a bit of luncheon at two, but until then we won’t be disturbed.”

“Another tot of gin, Mab!” said a cheerful voice.

“Oh, you good boy!” Parthenope exclaimed, crossing the room. “You said it quite plainly that time.”

Hester the parakeet sat placidly on a perch by a window, preening his feathers. Sophie regarded him warily as she put off her pelisse and removed her hat. “Is he going to start going on about turnips again?”

“I hope not. I’ve taught him a few much more interesting things to say. Don’t tell Mama, though.” Parthenope took a walnut meat out of a bowl on the sill and gave it to him. “There you go, my precious.”

“Doesn’t he, er, remind you of Mr. Underwood?”

“As a matter of fact, he does. The poor man did turn a rather peculiar shade of purple after I popped him in the nose last evening.” She turned back to Sophie and took a breath. “I thought about what you did half the night—I didn’t think I’d dreamed it.”

Sophie hesitated, then said, slowly, “Before we talk about this anymore, you have to swear to me that you will tell no one else. No one! If anyone should find out—”

“Good God, of course I would never tell anyone!” Parthenope pulled a pair of chairs closer to the window and dropped unceremoniously into one, the violence of her motion lending emphasis to her words. “Why do you think I sent Andrews away and locked us in here? Your magic saved me from a dreadful scrape last night—the very least I can do is to keep your secret for you!”

“Yes, but…” Sophie stopped. Parthenope obviously understood the necessity for secrecy. She also understood, far more deeply than Sophie herself seemed to, what was due to a friend.

“Then yes, I’m a witch,” she said, exhaling. “Or at least, I sort of am. Was. My mother—”

“
Was?
” Parthenope interjected. “That certainly looked like magic to me, last night!”

“Yes, I know. But I was lucky it worked. Ever since I was ill, my magic has been as crippled as my leg. It’s better than it was. For a year, I couldn’t do anything. But I can’t rely on it—I’d just tried to immobilize Mr. Underwood last night, not both of you—”

“Wait!” Parthenope held up her hands. “I think you had better go back to the beginning, or else I might burst into flame.”

Sophie smiled and told her about Mama and her lessons, about little Harry, about her illness. Parthenope’s eyes grew wider and wider as she spoke, until she got to the day that Papa had come to her and told her in a broken whisper that her mother was dead.

“I’m so sorry,” she said softly when Sophie ran out of words. “Losing them was doubly bad, wasn’t it? They weren’t just family—they were the only ones like you.” She frowned, opened her mouth, closed it, then appeared to make up her mind. “I beg your pardon if this is a rude question, but … well, if your mother had this power, then why couldn’t she stop your illness, or keep your leg from becoming lame? Why couldn’t she help your sister?”

Sophie sighed. “Don’t you think she tried? But it doesn’t work that way. There are limits. I could very probably heal a broken bone if I tried—I know I can heal a cut or take away a wart … or at least I
could
, once. But that’s because I know what a cut or a wart or a broken bone is. What is sickness? How can we stop it if we don’t know what it comes from? I remember her trying to bring down my fever, and afterward trying to help keep my leg from twisting and shrinking. I don’t know if what she did helped or not. Maybe I would be even worse if she hadn’t. But I’ve thought about it for a long time, and I always come back to this: Why else would she have fallen into despair and illness herself, if she could stop it?”

Parthenope nodded slowly. “That makes sense, in a way, but it still seems quite godlike to me … or goddesslike, I suppose. And then losing it … why do you think that happened?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know if it’s because it too was somehow harmed by my illness, or something else, because sometimes it does work, like last night—”

“Thank heavens for that! When you did whatever you did last night, and we couldn’t move…” She shook her head. “I had tried to get a chance to hit that scoundrel, but he grabbed me so suddenly that I could not—”

“Yes, and I can hardly believe that you know how to box!” Sophie said. It was a relief to change the subject for a few minutes, though she was sure they would come back to her magic. “I was sure you were hoaxing when you put up your fists like that!”

“I would never hoax about such a thing! I thought it only fair to warn him. Perry taught me, of course—or I made him teach me when I found out he was taking lessons. I
knew
it would be useful someday,” she added, sounding smug.

“Speaking of whom…” Now that Lord Woodbridge had been mentioned, it was Parthenope’s turn to do some explaining.

“Who? Perry?” Her eyes twinkled. “Why, what about him?”

“
Parthenope!
”

She laughed and held up her hands in surrender. “Don’t bite my head off! Wasn’t it just perfect, last night? I’m astonished that I didn’t laugh and ruin it all. You heard him, didn’t you? Well?”

Now that they’d finally begun to speak of it, Sophie didn’t know what to say. “Well…”

“Don’t you dare go all missish on me! I knew from that first day we called on you and he was there that he was smitten. He’s quite gone about you, you know. I must admit I’m finding it monstrously amusing, the way it’s made him so cow-handed. And I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking that you’re not indifferent yourself, am I?”

Was she? She thought of the way he had looked at her at the Hallidays’ when he asked if they could start again and the tingle it had sent down her back and into her middle. “I don’t know. Don’t you remember what he said to me, that first day when you called? I don’t want anyone offering for me because he feels like he needs to protect me or because he feels sorry for me.”

“Of course you don’t,” Parthenope replied promptly. “That would be abominable, not to mention shockingly tedious. But think—when he said he loved you as soon as he saw you, he didn’t know who you were. That wasn’t until after, and he said it gave him such a turn because he couldn’t see anything to feel sorry for you about—”

“Until we tripped over each other and he understood what it was. Oh, God, Parthenope, I don’t know! He’s … yes, when we were presented I was … not indifferent—”

Parthenope snorted. “I should think not. He’s excessively handsome, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Yes, and so why would he settle for a cripple?”

Parthenope stood up and took a few paces, then turned and stared down at her, hands on hips. “Sophie Rosier, that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say. He’s in love with you. With
you
. I think he would be if you had
three
crippled legs. Why can’t you accept that?”

“I don’t know.” Sophie shrank down in her seat and stared at the toes of her slippers miserably. “But it must matter, at some point. It always does. That’s just the way the world is. Didn’t you hear the rumors about me, at the start of the season? Half of society had decided that if I was lame, then I must be half-witted as well, or hunchbacked, or possessed of a squint. My aunt Isabel told me I should be lucky to find an impoverished younger son or a half-pay officer to offer for me and that it was fortunate my dowry would be so large. Do you wonder that I’m suspicious, then, if the best-looking man in London suddenly seems to be taking an interest in me? I know it’s not for my dowry—he’ll be a marquis someday and doesn’t need my money … so what can it be, except a mild attraction inflamed by sympathy? You yourself were the one who said he’s got a chivalric streak as wide as the Channel.”

Parthenope sat down again, her face softer. “Might I give your aunt a taste of my boxing skills, next time I see her? Is that what you think is going on here?”

“Isn’t it?” Sophie felt in the sleeve of her dress for the handkerchief she’d tucked there.

“No, it isn’t,” Parthenope said, very firmly. “But I’m not sure how to convince you of that. Perry’s
dying
to go to your father and ask his permission to pay his addresses to you, but he won’t until he thinks there’s a chance you’ll say yes or at least not refuse him outright. What would you do if he came to you tomorrow, asking for your hand? What would you say to him?”

A flutter of excitement burned in Sophie’s throat at the thought, cooled by a wisp of doubt. He was handsome and very eligible, fashionable without being a fop or dissipated, serious and clever without being schoolmasterish. He and Papa already got along … why, he was even attentive to Aunt Molly. And yet, would that niggling little doubt that he regarded her as a strong, whole person in her own right ever go away? “I—I don’t know.”

“Well, that and the fact that you good as confessed you hardly slept last night tells me his cause isn’t completely lost. I should tell you, by the way, that I am quite determined to have you for a cousin.” One corner of her mouth quirked humorously. “If you’re still concerned about him feeling the need to protect you, we could always tell him about what you did to Mr. Underwood last night. That would—”

“Don’t you
dare
tell him!”

Parthenope made a face. “You know I won’t! But what if you do marry him? Will you tell him then?”

“I—I don’t know. Considering that I can barely do a spot-lifting spell—”

“Ooh, what’s that? Will you show me!”

Sophie couldn’t help smiling. Parthenope sounded like a child begging for a treat. “Do you have something with a stain on it? A dress or a—”