Heart's Magic (16 page)

"Why didn't you faint?"
Harry grumbled. "You're an alchemist with plenty of
power."

"I am, nevertheless, not a
magister," Archaios said with a little bow. "And I was farther from
the machine. You advanced to assist Madame Carteret, if you will
recall."

"That's right, I did.
Stupid, that." Harry sighed. "Suppose it's time we all get back to
work."

"Yes," Elinor said. "Except
for you. You are going home to finish your recovery, not into any
laboratory that contains any machine or parts of a machine, unless
they are man-made." He did have bits of everything from watch gears
to chunks of locomotive cluttering up his workspace, none of them
with dead zone origins.

"Yes, magister," he said
meekly. Half-mocking, yes, but the obedience was also
there.

The remaining magicians
began to file back out the door. Amanusa caught up to Elinor. "We
need to discuss--"

"You wanted me to remind
you," Norwood caught her attention from his place holding the
door.

Elinor looked at him,
racking her brain to think what she'd wanted him to remind her of.
She was sure she had, but what?

"To ask about Mr.
Cranshaw."

"Oh, that's right!" She
looked back at Dr. Rosato, three people behind her. "How is he?"
She stepped out of the doorway queue.

"Elinor--" Amanusa reached
toward her. "We really do need to--"

"I know. And we will. I'll
catch up with you. We can talk on the way home if you and Jax will
take me up in your carriage."

Harry scowled at that, but
he had no say in anything to do with her.

"
Dottore,
" Elinor turned to the master
wizard, blocking out her curiosity over what Amanusa thought was so
urgent. School matters, likely. "Dr. Rosato, how
is
Mr. Cranshaw? I am
ashamed of not visiting him, since he is my patient, according to
you."

"No, no, you should not go
into such a place." Rosato took her hand and held it warmly between
his. "I am happy to serve such a wizard as you. And
Signore
Cranshaw
heals."

Norwood had left the door
and come to join them. He stood quietly to one side,
listening.

"His body, it will be badly
scarred, here." Rosato let go of her hand to wave over his right
side, around his waist and hip. "The scarring is even worse on his
arm, and his hand..." He sighed, pursed his lips. "He can move his
hand, so."

Rosato curled his hand into
a claw and flexed the fingers in and out slightly. "I think with
exercises and more of your most excellent ointment, he will move it
more. Perhaps gain some actual use."

"That's his body," Norwood
said. "What about his mind? That's what worries me."

Rosato's animation vanished.
He shook his head. "I am a physician of the body. Body and mind
work together--what is in the body affects the mind and what is in
the mind can affect the body--but I do not know how it does so.
And
Signore
Cranshaw's mind--it is very ill. He raves, shouting nonsense.
He speaks to devils only he can see."

"Hallucinations?" Norwood
asked.

The Italian shrugged. "Who
can say? You yourself tell me you have seen
un demonio
in the flesh. Perhaps the
devils are truly there."

"I'm talking to Amanusa
later," Elinor said. "I'll ask her. When a sorceress rides the
blood, she can see a person's thoughts. Maybe they can use that
magic to heal minds."

"
Bene.
" Rosato captured her hand and
bent to kiss it. "You are as kind as you are beautiful."

Elinor felt the blush and
hoped it didn't show. "I hope that I am far, far kinder than that,
Dr. Rosato." She reclaimed her hand. "And now, I must hurry if I am
to catch up to the Greysons."

Norwood almost leapt across
the room to reach the door first and open it for her. But she
didn't have to hurry much. Amanusa, Jax, and Harry were dawdling
along and had scarcely traveled two offices down the
hall.

"
Signorina
," Rosato said as he followed
her out. "Do not forget you have promised to make your burn
ointment with me."

"I haven't forgotten."
Elinor looked back at the handsome doctor and smiled. "Perhaps
sometime tomorrow. I'm busy with my challenge potion today. I'll
send a note round to your hotel. You're at Brown's also, are you
not?" What was that noise? It sounded rather like a ...
growl?

"
Si.
Yes, I am." Rosato caught up with
the group. "Or I could come and assist you with your poison this
afternoon."

Elinor chuckled. "I'll send
a note tomorrow. My poisons are my own. A lady must have some
secrets."

It
was
a growl. Coming from Harry. Elinor
scowled at him.

"And now you are too cruel."
Rosato gave a teasing smile as he bowed, this time without the
hand-kissing, thank goodness. "So, alas, I shall have to go observe
the machines' dissection instead. Until tomorrow,
Magistra
."

Rosato departed. Norwood
went with him, with a quiet word about having a look in.

Harry held out his arm,
offering his escort. He had his greatcoat on now against the cold
outside, so Elinor accepted it. They'd reached the exit by this
time, with their dawdling. Both carriages, Harry's and the
Greysons', were drawn up outside the door.

"Sure you won't ride back
with me?" Harry bent close to her ear, asking quietly. "I won't
bite. Never 'ave, have I?"

"It's not your teeth that
worry me," Elinor retorted, just as softly. "And I have magic to
discuss with Amanusa."

"Right." With a sigh, Harry
turned to his carriage and caught hold of the opening. As he
climbed in, his foot missed a step or perhaps slipped off it and he
fell. Not to the ground--his grip on the carriage prevented that,
but it took him a moment to get his feet untangled from the steps
and under him.

"Well, I feel right
stupid," he muttered, shaking off all those who rushed to help,
including Elinor.

As Jax and a Council House
footman shoved Harry into his carriage, Elinor looked helplessly at
Amanusa. "I have to go with him."

Her friend nodded. "Yes. But
you and I
must
talk."

Elinor made a face. "When?
I've got a potion steeping. For the challenge with Dodd. I have to
finish this afternoon or it will go bad. At tea?"

"Will you be done?" Amanusa
sighed. "Come to tea if you have finished. If not, I'll call on you
in the morning."

Elinor nodded and scrambled
up into Harry's carriage. He sat leaning against a corner, eyes
closed. Elinor took the opposite back-facing seat as the door was
closed and the horses started off.

She watched him in silence
for a few minutes, but decided he wasn't actually asleep. "Did you
do that on purpose? The farce with the carriage steps?"

"No." He opened his eyes to
stare at her. "Might've, if I'd thought of it and thought it would
get you here, given the way you've been avoiding me. But I didn't.
Think of it, or do it."

She studied him a moment
longer, trying to read his face. "I believe you."

"That's a relief." He
dropped the sarcasm and gazed at her. "I don't lie, Elinor. Not to
anybody, an' especially not to you. I might not tell everything I
know, but what I do say's the pure truth. You should know that by
now."

A faint burn slid up her
neck to her face. "I do." What kinds of things did he not talk
about? What secrets did he keep to himself? "What about your
actions? Can you lie by what you do? Your fall at the carriage was
real. What about your stumble in the hallway, when we were walking
to Grey's office?"

He shrugged, a little
sheepishly. "I
was
feelin' a bit wobbly. I just--wobbled a bit more." He watched
her, his face absolutely neutral. "You've been avoidin' me. I
missed you. And then you were there in the corridor--but you
weren't. You used to take my arm."

"That was before you--we--"
This time the burn threatened to crisp her head to ash. The blush
had to be showing.

"Kissed?" Harry
suggested.

"That was no kiss, Harry,
that was--"

The carriage hit a hole in
the paving, jarring them from one side to the other. Elinor found
herself in Harry's lap, wrapped in his anchoring arms. He had one
foot propped against the seat opposite, providing a sort of back
for her Harry-chair.

"Sorry, guv," Sharkey the
coachman called through his tiny window. "Traffic blocked me in.
Couldn't miss it. Bloody potholes."

"Watch your tongue," Harry
scolded. "We've Miss Tavis aboard."

"Sorry, miss. Won't 'appen
again." The window slid shut.

"You can let me go now,
Harry." She couldn't get leverage to push herself out of his lap,
out of his arms.

She didn't exactly try. Her
body rebelled, refusing to move, or moving feebly. She curled into
his hold, which had become embrace, and her hand rose to rest on
his shirt in the opening above his greatcoat buttons.

"You sure?" Harry's perfect
mouth moved against her temple as he spoke. Then he kissed her
there, just where she felt most vulnerable.

It was a gentle, sweet,
almost brotherly kiss, and it was nothing of the sort, sending
flames licking through Elinor to concentrate in her most personal
areas.

"Do you want me to let you
go, for true?" Harry stroked his lips across her cheekbone and
pressed a new kiss in front of her ear. "I will, if you
really--"

He kissed her cheek.
"Really--"

He kissed the corner of her
mouth. "Really want me to."

He kissed her. On the
mouth. His perfect lips settled over hers, urging them to part, and
she was lost.

The fires in her body
consumed every thought in her brain. The sensations rocketing
through her--though he did nothing but kiss her and hold her close
with his arms in his lap--left her helpless to do anything but
experience them. Every reaction of her body during its shocking
awakening last week returned now to shock her again with a demand
to know them again. She wanted. She
yearned.
And she couldn't make it
stop.

The kiss went on and on.
She lost track of time. Sometimes Harry would leave her mouth to
kiss along her jawline, or press light kisses to her eyelids, or
trail the tip of his tongue down her neck, but he always came back
to her mouth. She was drowning in sensation.

Only the slight lurch of
the carriage as it came to a halt brought an end to the kiss. And
it was Harry who came to his senses, not Elinor. She sat dazed and
bedraggled in the carriage long after Harry descended, while he
stood with his hand up, waiting.

"Elinor, you
coming?"

She blinked and saw his
extended hand. "Oh. Yes. Thank you." She let him help her from the
carriage, tuck her hand in his arm, and lead her up the stairs to
his front door while she tried to sort out what had just
happened.

She had lost her mind. That
was the only possible explanation. She had lost it--lost control of
it, when the reactions of her body overwhelmed it.

Freeman bore away their
outer garments and Harry headed for the stairs, doubtless to go up
and repair his coatless state. Elinor still stood in the foyer,
slowly recovering herself.

"You, Harry Tomlinson, are
a dangerous man."

"Me?" He turned back to
face her, obviously trying to look innocent and looking delighted
instead. "I'm 'armless, I am."

"Hardly. You are..." She
couldn't think of any other word that fit. "Dangerous."

He came back down the few
steps he'd climbed, stalking her. There was no other word for that,
either. Eyes dark and intent on her face, he stalked right up
within a breath of her. "Not to you." He touched her face with
gentle fingers, the intensity of his eyes never backing off. "Never
to you."

"Yes." She didn't know how
she got the word out. "
Especially
to me."

"No." He shook his head.
How could his touch be so gentle with all that--that fire in his
eyes? "I'm no danger to you. Not the real you, the you in here." He
laid his hand over her heart.

"I'm only dangerous to who
you think you want to be. Who you think you
ought
to be. The Elinor up here." He
touched her temple, lightly.

"But that's not really you.
Not all of you. Is it?" His fingers spread, holding her in place
with the softest of touches as he leaned in and kissed her cheek.
"Trust me, Elinor. Trust yourself."

This time, when he turned
away, he vanished all the way up the stairs. Elinor took the
opportunity to flee. And as she ran, she gathered up the magic
sparks and made them go away.