Heart's Magic (34 page)

She knew she was thinking
about w.c. doors to keep from thinking about Harry. She tried very
hard to keep thinking about doors and plumbing while she unbuttoned
her bodice and got Amanusa to loosen her corset strings. She wanted
to remove it entirely, but her dress wouldn't fit properly if she
did. She wanted to go home.

"Quite a mess you've got,"
Amanusa said from behind her.

"Then just cut the strings.
There's scissors in the basket." Elinor was too drained to
care.

"Not your corset strings.
They're fine. Done." Amanusa patted Elinor's shoulder and lifted
her dress back over. "I mean you and Harry."

"There is no 'me and
Harry,'" Elinor snapped, fumbling her buttons.

"Don't be more idiotic than
you can help." The sorcerer's magister sat in one of the
upholstered chairs, motioning Elinor to the chaise. "At the very
least, you've begun the process of making him your
familiar."

"I can unmake it right
quick." Elinor plopped onto the end of the chaise, finishing her
buttons.

"Why would you want
to?"

Elinor gaped at her friend.
"Have you gone deaf? Didn't you hear what he said to
me?"

"I did. I also heard what
you said to him and what he overheard. You wounded him deeply. And
like any man--or woman--he lashed out to hurt you back. But you had
already tried to undo the familiar's bond, before any of those
words were exchanged. Why?"

Elinor popped to her feet,
unable to sit still. "I won't be any man's possession."

"Generally, the
relationship of familiar to sorceress is considered to be the other
way round. The familiar is subordinate to the sorceress." Amanusa
leaned her head against the high, cushioned back of her chair and
watched Elinor pace.

"You think Harry would put
up with a subordinate position?" Elinor snorted.

"What about an equal
partnership?"

"He wouldn't accept that
either. He's always pushing and pushing. Trying to take over,
trying to be in charge, and tell everyone what to do."

"And you challenge him on it
every time. Especially if you think he's wrong. It's
your
magic, Elinor. He
can't do anything with it if you don't allow it." Amanusa watched
her pace the length of the room and back, waiting for a
response.

Amanusa's reasonableness
annoyed Elinor. She wanted her friend to agree with her. She wanted
to cling to her anger. Instead, Amanusa made sense, much as Elinor
didn't want her to.

Elinor knew Harry was
sensitive to the word "bastard." He wasn't shy about admitting his
status, but she knew it stung him when people used the word. She
hadn't meant it that way, though. More in the general, cursing sort
of way. But she could understand him taking it as an
insult.

"Other people have called
him bastard to his face, and worse," Elinor protested. "And he just
laughed."

"He didn't care about them
or their opinion. He knew they didn't like him."

"I hate him."

"No, you don't. You'd never
have been his lover if you did."

"I didn't hate him then. I
do now."

Amanusa sighed. "And that's
why it was such a mortal blow to him, to hear you use that word.
Because you are his lover."

"
Was.
Not anymore."

"What did he do that was so
awful?" Amanusa caught Elinor's wrist as she passed by in her
pacing. "Make me understand. What is so terrible about Harry
wanting to marry you? Or wanting to be your familiar?"

"I told you." Elinor wanted
to scream and pull at her hair. "Marriage bars a woman from
accomplishing her goals. It locks her into the profession of
raising children--a noble profession, admittedly, but not one to
which I aspire. Miss Nightingale has refused to marry in order to
pursue her calling to reform nursing in hospitals. The American
doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, has never married. Marriage in itself
prohibits female accomplishment."

"Why? And we're not talking
about Miss Nightingale or Miss Blackwell. We're talking about
Elinor Tavis and Harry Tomlinson. Every marriage is different. What
is between Jax and me is not the same as the marriage of Grey and
Pearl, because we are different people. If you were to marry
someone like--like Edgar Dodd--"

"God forbid!"

"Yes, I agree. Such a
marriage would stifle you. But this is Harry. When has he
ever
tried to stifle? For
his convenience, I mean. Not for your protection."

"It's not his right to
decide when I need protecting," Elinor protested. "I can take care
of myself. Claiming that 'it's for my own good' is just another way
of depriving me of the right to make my own decisions. Who knows
what 'my own good' is better than myself?"

"Then why did you mingle
your magic when the renegade wizards attacked?" Amanusa was being
entirely too logical and reasonable.

"That was a one-time
event." Elinor went back to perch on the end of the chaise. "It
won't happen again."

"Do you truly think
so?"

"If it does, if they attack
again, I'll be ready."

Amanusa shook her head,
looking disappointed. Elinor stiffened her resolve. She knew what
she knew.

"Elinor, as powerful a
wizard as you are, even with your sorcery talents added on--which
are still untrained, I might add--you are still only one person. We
still don't know how many of them were part of it. Six, at least.
Maybe more." Amanusa paused. "And while marriage without love may
indeed resemble a form of slavery, marriage with love at its
heart--"

"It makes no difference. In
fact, in a love match, the wife willingly enslaves herself, giving
up her own dreams for those of her husband and children." Elinor
wiped the words away with a wave of her hand. "But that is not at
issue here. Harry does not love me, nor I him."

Amanusa gaped at her. It
made Elinor uncomfortable. "How can you say that?" Amanusa
exclaimed. "After the support he has given you without
condition?"

"I can say it because it's
true. He has never mentioned the word 'love,' and neither have I,
because there is nothing to mention. His support has nothing to do
with love. It's politics. He wants women in magic. More wizards,
more sorcerers, and more powerful ones. That's all it
is."

"You are wrong." Amanusa
stood. "And both of you blind. And filled with stubbornness to the
point of stupidity. I leave you to drown in it."

"Let me rest a bit and I'll
be back to help." Elinor had to ignore what she said. Amanusa had
her own blind spots.

"Do as you like." Amanusa
flipped her hand dismissively as she left.

Harry wasn't watching for
Amanusa to come back exactly, but he saw when she did. He didn't
know who he was angrier with, Elinor or himself. And as usual, when
he lost his temper, he blasted everything in the area to bits and
brought it all down around his ears. She was just so damned
stubborn.

Despite his best intentions
and telling himself a dozen times over that he didn't care, Harry
found himself drifting into the other office, toward the desk where
Amanusa was working. She had covered the top with note cards
regarding the whereabouts of the wizards and others known or
suspected of taking part in the attack on Elinor. She was shifting
them here and there, in between staring at them.

They'd brought all the
magisters and all the female magicians, students included, into the
council building for their safety. Most of them had spent the night
sleeping in a classroom set up with cots. The dormitories were all
occupied with the boys. Elinor and Amanusa had been up all night
working on identifying the outlaws.

Harry didn't know how
Amanusa kept going. Jax, maybe. He was taking the information from
the Briganti reporting in, writing it on Amanusa's cards, and
placing them on the corner of the desk for her to arrange. Who knew
what other support he might be providing?

"What news?" Harry paused
to look over the desktop.

"Crump and Satterwhite are
not at their lodgings," Amanusa said. "They're
alchemists."

"I know. Satterwhite's gone
to Cornwall for me, to see about some brangle the alchemists there
can't manage. Crump--dunno. Should be there."

"Ah." Amanusa shifted the
card with Bradford Satterwhite's name from a spot alone at the
center to a stack at the side. "However," she said, "I am informed
that Jenkins and Moreman, wizards, have been located at their new
lodgings. They are being brought in for discussions."

"Maybe they'll know
something." Harry could only hope.

"Also, Elinor is resting
and the pair of you are complete, blockheaded idiots," she said in
the same matter-of-fact voice. "If you want to marry her, why have
you never told her you love her?"

"I--Because I--" The last
automatic word--
don't
--refused to be said. "What does love 'ave to do with
anything?"

"Very nearly everything."
Amanusa scowled at him. "You don't know, do you?"

"Don't know wot?" He began
to worry.

"That you're in love with
her."

"I'm--" But he couldn't say
"not" either.
Was
he in love with Elinor?

"Idiot."

"What makes you say that?
Not 'idiot,' but the other. That I'm in love with her?"

"Because you are. Why do you
think you're insisting so fervently on marrying her? Why won't you
let her break the familiar bond?" Amanusa held up a hand to stop
his ready reply. "Not what you
say
the reasons are, but the truth.
Why
is she 'your
woman'?"

He didn't want to think
about why. She just was. He knew it. She knew it. So did everyone
else. Elinor was the thinker, not him. But she was thinking
wrong.

Which meant he had to do
the thinking so he could show her where her thoughts went the wrong
way. Except he'd better explain it different from the way he'd
already done it or she'd never listen. It wasn't that she was
thinking badly, but she was drawing incorrect conclusions. Probably
from faulty information to begin with.

What made her his? Making
love to him was part of it. He still worried about that first time,
that maybe she hadn't been altogether in her right mind. But since
then, she had consciously chosen to be his lover. His and nobody
else's. He'd kill anyone who tried to take his place.

That was new.

He'd had lovers before.
Never a mistress, but widows and old friends up for a bit of
slap-and-tickle now and again. He'd never cared much who else they
went with, as long as they didn't pick up any unwelcome visitors.
Elinor was different.

It wasn't just the sex.
Wasn't just magic either. It was Elinor, her own self--sometimes
sweet, sometimes so tart his mouth puckered. The thought of living
the rest of his life without her made his gut hurt. Or maybe it was
his heart. The pain was right there, in that area. Good God, maybe
he
was
--

Grey put his head through
the door from the main I-Branch office. "Thom says there's a
'delegation' at the front door, wanting to speak to the council
head and guild magisters."

"Delegation?" Harry frowned
at him. "What's that mean?"

"I suggest we go find
out."

Amanusa stood. "I'll
collect Elinor."

Harry found Thom Norwood in
the outer office. "What's this delegation, then?"

"I only know what I've been
told," the new alchemy magister said. "Which is that a group of
magicians calling themselves a delegation have presented themselves
at the main council hall door and requested we meet
them."

"Should we reinforce the
guards on the ladies' school room?" Grey asked. They were having
class, despite the threats.

Norwood made a face. "I am
sorry to say that I would not recommend using Enforcers in that
role. I've already had to dismiss a number of them for refusing to
follow orders. I need time to discover which of them I can trust to
guard the ladies."

"I'll send I-Branch men.
They've all been vetted since the Waterloo Station debacle." Grey
looked around the office. "All our alchemists are in the
lab.
Dearest?
" He
spoke to his familiar spirit, who'd been loitering near him since
Harry and Elinor had come pounding on Grey's door sometime after
midnight. "Run along and have O'Toole send up a couple of the lads,
will you? Tell him what we need. There's a good spirit."

Amanusa returned with
Elinor in tow, Jax shadowing her as usual. Harry, Grey, and Thom
Norwood joined them and together they trekked through the corridors
to the Great Hall. On the far side of the hall, they passed through
the grand entrance with its marble floors and gilt chandeliers to
exit the massive doors fronting on St. Clement's Square--which was
actually more of a circular shape.