He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) (2 page)

Jane looked an apology. She seemed about to say something else, but thought better of it. “I guess time will sort things out.”

By the time they felt able to circulate again, Drew was getting worried. Where was he? He’d let slip that he’d gotten an invitation to the opening of the exhibit, but he didn’t seem to know her family’s role at the museum, or guess that she’d had her mother put him on the guest list. He’d be so surprised when he saw Drew. Her mother always said that little surprises were the key to keeping a relationship fresh.

There was Roger now. Drew could hardly wait to tell him about the plan. That was one good-looking man: shaggy blond hair, dreamy brown eyes. He was smart. Drew needed someone as smart as she was or she’d run all over him. She loved the way he wore a corduroy jacket to class, even in early summer. The leather elbow patches and the pipe really made him look like a professor. Tonight he was wearing an endearingly rumpled tux.

Girls
did
fawn on him of course. Understandable. There was one now, earnestly discussing bronze belt fittings, gaze glued to his face. The girl was stuttering something.

And Roger’s expression went soft.

Drew sucked in a breath. The exhibit seemed to recede. She knew Jane was standing beside her. But it all seemed distant. Because she knew what was going to happen. And it didn’t take a magic power to see it.

Roger lifted a hand and pushed a strand of the girl’s blond hair behind her ear.

Drew stopped like she’d bumped up against an invisible wall.

“You’re a very talented student,” Roger was saying.

No, no, no. You can’t say that.
Her breath had gone ragged.

“Drew?” Jane asked. Drew couldn’t look away from the disaster unfolding before her.

“Thanks, Dr. Jessop,” the girl said shyly.

“Have you thought more about your dissertation subject?”

Drew clenched her teeth. She swallowed.
Can’t do this.
She turned around where she stood. “Let’s go, Jane, before he invites her to a coaching session over coffee.”

Jane took one look at her face and turned too. “I never really wanted to come tonight.”

As they strode away, Drew could hear him say, “I’d be glad to help you narrow down your choices. Why don’t we meet at the student union for coffee tomorrow?”

Drew broke into a run.

*****

The tears were in there somewhere, but she wasn’t going to let them out. Jane had insisted on driving. The sound of the Maserati’s grinding gears was like a saw on Drew’s nerves. Jane was only going fifty on the 405, with very little traffic. Drew wanted away from the museum as fast as she could go.

“How long have you known?” Her words were clipped.

“A while.” Jane didn’t look at her.

Just perfect.
Her staid little friend knew Roger was doing every girl in his classes and probably just couldn’t bear to disappoint Drew, who was so ridiculously sure of her destiny that she was apparently willing to see Prince Charming in every heel she encountered. Not her image of herself. Drew closed her eyes. “Does everybody know what he is?”

Jane chewed her lip. “Pretty much.”

Drew groaned. Worse. “Great. I’m a laughingstock as well as a dupe.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Drew. He’s a charming snake and he’s been doing this for years, but he’s got tenure and a reputation and nobody dares call him on it. He’s very careful not to seduce anyone under twenty-one.”

Seduce?
That’s what she’d been? Seduced?
Worse and worse and worse.
“So I’m the only one who’s stupid enough not to see through him.”

“Well, not the only one. There are the other girls he’s, uh, dated.”

And dumped.
Some talent for matchmaking she had. If Jane was trying to make this better she was failing miserably. Drew felt betrayed.
And by someone besides Roger.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Be ... because you were so sure. And there
is
the family destiny. I thought maybe he’d change his ways when he met you.”

“No one ever changes, Jane.” But wasn’t that just what she’d been hoping for? That she could change the things she didn’t like about him?

“I don’t think that’s true,” Jane said softly. “People can change.” Since Jane rarely disagreed with Drew, that was a slightly shocking statement. But Drew couldn’t answer her. Tonight called into question everything Drew had ever believed. She’d been so
sure
Roger had the DNA with Merlin’s magic in it just as she did, and that their love would unlock magic in both of them. There
was
a destiny, of course. The Parents were certain proof. And when Tris and Maggie had found each other, they both got a power. Maybe the gene was recessive in Drew or something. Being special would pass her by and she’d be just like Jane.

Jane took the Hawthorne Boulevard exit, out toward the coast and the Tremaine estate. The Maserati coughed as she downshifted.

Uh
-
oh.
The Breakers would be a living hell if anyone there found out about Drew’s humiliation. “You can’t tell anyone what happened.”

Jane glanced over to her, surprised. “You’re not going to tell your family?”

“Oh my God, no. Mother will fuss. Kemble will have anyone I ever look at twice checked out by ... by the CIA or something. I’ll have to talk Tris out of putting Roger in the hospital. Lanyon and Tammy will tease me until I’m eighty-five.” Drew sighed. “And Father will have expected nothing better from me, because all girls except Mother are just silly.” Jane was about to protest. “Don’t say that isn’t exactly what would happen.”

Jane closed her mouth.

“Promise,” Drew said in her most threatening tone. “Or I won’t invite you over to the house anymore.”

Jane
half-chuckled
. “Empty threat. No one ever invites me. And if I disappeared, your mother would worry and send out the troops to find me.”

Drew clenched her eyes shut. “Just promise, Jane,” she said, her voice flat.

Jane sighed. “Promise.”

*****

“Drew, Drew! Cally did a flying lead change for me today.” Tammy came bursting into the second-floor library, still in her riding boots and breeches.

“That must be the one where he looks like he’s dancing the tango.” Drew used her best, bored drawl. After a bad night, she’d retreated to the library today to avoid her family and had spent all day moping.

“Horses can’t tango,”
Tammy
protested, breathless. She must have run up from the stables. “You’re just being silly. It’s the one where he skips. Hi, Jane,” she added as an aside. Jane was reading in an armchair in the corner, her face in shadows and only the pages of her book illuminated by the afternoon sun coming in from the west.
Tammy’s new black kitten,
Bagheera
, nestled in the crook of one arm.
The sound of crashing surf drifted in through the open window.

Tammy continued as Jane smiled and waved. “You see, you sit down and pull your heel up against his side.” She balanced on one leg while she bent the other knee as though sitting on a horse. “You ask for the canter while he’s
already
cantering, but you use the opposite leg, so he skips and changes the lead hoof.” Tammy, who’d just turned fifteen, skipped around the library, ending at Jane’s armchair, where she scooped up her sleeping kitten. He was black with immense chartreuse eyes. When Tammy had heard that black cats had trouble getting adopted from the shelter,
Bagheera
had a home.

“I get the idea,” Drew sighed and closed the huge folio on the reading table before her.

The flute music that had been floating in from the music room cut off in mid-trill. Impatient strides could be heard down the hall. Drew’s youngest brother, Lanyon, appeared in the doorway, frowning, his black hair spiking out in all directions. “Tammy, leave Drew alone. She’s on a mission.” The whole family knew about Drew’s deal with her mother.

Tammy stopped in mid-skip. “Oh. Sorry, Drew. I forgot.” Tammy turned, a suddenly determined look on her freckled face. “But you’ve been in here for weeks with all these dusty old books. It isn’t fair. I’m going to tell Mom she should let you out of the deal.”

Drew lounged back in her chair. Pretty cute that Tammy wanted to protect her. “You know I like old books. I’m a history major. And anyway, I’m done.”

“Not like you to give up, Drew,” Lanyon said, disapproving.

“No. I mean I finished.” She pointed to the screen of her laptop, so incongruous next to the worn leather of the huge book.

“Yay!” Tammy crowed.

“Have you told Mother the bad news?” Kemble asked, appearing in the doorway. All her brothers looked more or less like her father. Same strong jaw, black hair, broad shoulders. Lanyon was lanky at seventeen, but he was growing into them. And all the girls looked like their mother: porcelain skin, light eyes of green or gray or turquoise, elegant cheekbones. Tammy’s hair was red, but she was unmistakably a Tremaine girl. Only Devin, taken in by the family after his parents had died, was an anomaly, with his brown eyes, blond hair and tanned skin. But Kemble was an actual clone of her father. When had Kemble gotten little lines around his eyes that made him look older than his thirty-one years?

“Did you ever think it might not be bad news?”

Kemble frowned. “You’re kidding, of course.”

“She seems to be right a lot,”
Tammy
reminded them.

“A woman’s intuition about her family.” Kemble always acted sure of himself. Didn’t mean he was, though.

Drew snorted. “So women’s intuition is believable, but the Tarot couldn't have come from Merlin.”

Kemble had the grace to turn red. But he went on the offensive. “So you telling me that
you
believe a deck of cards can tell the future?”

Drew shrugged. “Wait for the big reveal tonight after dinner.”

*****

“So why the long face?” Drew’s mother found her alone on the terrace, staring out at Catalina Island across the lawn that sloped down to the cliff above the beach. It was closing in on six-thirty, but it still felt like late afternoon. The sun glinted across the water.

Drew managed half a smile. “It’s not long.”

Her mother sat down beside her. “Oh, dear. Roger.”

Did she have
to be so percipient? And did
everyone
know about Roger?

Her mother sat down next to her on the teak bench weathered to a gray patina. “Don’t look so appalled. The cards said you were coming into a very difficult time. And you’ve been talking about ‘Roger this’ and ‘Roger that’ for weeks.”

“I was a fool.” Her voice caught but she managed not to let the tears flow.

“Honey, we’re all fools sometime in our lives.” Her mother hugged her close. The touch was so comforting Drew almost started sobbing.

Drew swallowed before she could say, “Everyone else knew what he was. Even Jane.”

“No one gives Jane enough credit.” Her mother rubbed Drew’s shoulder.

“I thought he was the One,” she said, finally straightening. “I was sure.”

“You’re always sure, honey. Remember that French boy?”

“Yes. But I was eighteen then. I’m twenty-four. Oh, I knew Roger wasn’t perfect.
But.…”

“But you thought you could fix him. There are some things you can’t fix, and one of them is other people. You certainly can’t start a relationship thinking you can fix what you think is wrong with someone.”

Jane thought people could change. Her mother apparently didn’t. Drew was just confused at this point. She shook her head, helplessly.

“Don’t worry, honey. You can’t force it. Sometimes you just have to let things happen.”

Right. “I’m going to need that week at the Ritz-Carlton,” she sighed.

“And I can hardly wait to hear the results of all your hard work tonight,” her mother said.

At least she didn’t ask Drew to cheer up.

*****

The entire family gathered for dinner, as usual, including Jane. Drew’s mother was uncharacteristically quiet as the various conversations of her boisterous family swirled around her. Drew was glad for once that dinners were so chaotic. It kept the focus off her. No one would miss her if she didn’t join in. At end of the table Kemble and her father were talking about the logistics of
deploying relief supplies to
Argentina after the earthquake last week. Jane seemed content to listen in. The Kee/Devin consortium had their heads together as usual. It was their last summer before they went off to UCLA. Ah, the excitement of feeling grown up. Kee was going to major in art and Devin in oceanography, which would put them at different ends of the campus. They probably hadn’t been apart that much since Devin had shown up on the Tremaine doorstep when they were both seven.