Sorcery & Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot (30 page)

“No,” James said. “I’m afraid not.” He turned his head away, as if looking at me hurt him. “I should never have got you involved in this,” he said softly.

“You keep saying that,” I said. “For the hundredth time, you did
not
involve me.”

“If I hadn’t asked you to send Thomas that message—”

“Nothing would be any different,” I said firmly. “I would still have taken that book from Sir Hilary’s library, and I would still have smashed that chocolate pot into a million pieces.” I took a deep breath. “And I’m not sorry for any of it, James.”

He raised his head to look at me, and the corners of his mouth quirked. “None of it?”

“Well, I do wish I had guessed that Sir Hilary was getting me out of the way tonight when he stepped on my hem,” I admitted. “But that isn’t the same thing at all.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. Then I sighed. “And I wish I’d told you I wouldn’t go to Sir Hilary’s party,” I said, and my eyes started to fill with tears again. “I could have told Aunt Elizabeth I had the headache; I’ve done it before. And then Sir Hilary wouldn’t have got either of us.”

“Maybe.” James’s voice was thoughtful, and I looked up in surprise. “And maybe he would have tried something else. Don’t blame yourself, Cecy.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said. “But, oh, James, I am so sorry!”

“So am I, Cecy,” he said, and we were silent again. The flickering torchlight threw shadows across his face that made his expression difficult to read. After a time, I could not bear to look at him anymore, and I slumped down against the invisible wall. The night was quite cool, but I controlled my shivering as best I could so as not to further distress James. To add to my discomfort, I was feeling quite hollow, for I had not eaten since before the party. I stared at the candles, hoping that they would perhaps burn down and flicker out before Sir Hilary returned, but they showed no sign of such desirable behavior.

There was an idea nagging at the back of my mind, but I could not quite catch hold of it. “If we only knew what Sir Hilary
wants
of us!” I burst out at last in utter frustration.

“But my dear Miss Rushton!” Sir Hilary’s voice said from the doorway behind me. “You’ve read the book from my library on epicyclical elaborations. Surely you’ve guessed?”

I stood up hastily and turned to face him. “What do you—” I stopped short, staring. Sir Hilary was carrying a limp form over one shoulder, and as he turned, the torchlight gleamed on the man’s wavy brown hair. “
Oliver
?” I gasped.

“Just so,” Sir Hilary said. He sounded terribly pleased with himself.

“What have you done to my brother?” I said.

Sir Hilary lowered Oliver to the ground. “Nothing, as yet, my dear. For the future—well, I intend to do very nearly the same thing to each of you. I’ve had my eye on young Oliver for a long time, but no safe opportunity had presented itself. Miranda almost had him once, but she didn’t know what she’d had hold of and she let Thomas steal him away. I’ve been searching all over England for him for weeks. And all the time he’s been practically next door!”

“I don’t understand,” I said, though I had a horrid suspicion I was about to. “Where did you find Oliver? And what are you going to do to him? To us?”

“ Waycross, my dear. Your brother has spent the last several weeks at Waycross. I’ve spent days trying to get a peek inside Schofield Castle, but I never thought to check on the Marquis’s estate not ten miles from my own door. It was really remarkably clever of Thomas.”

It did not seem to me that Sir Hilary had been gone long enough to have ridden ten miles, but then I remembered that Miranda had apparently been able to get into Sir Hilary’s garden through a door in London. I found myself hoping that such an unorthodox manner of traveling would be something of a strain on Sir Hilary’s resources. One of Mr. Wrexton’s first lessons had been that every magician’s strength is limited, and one must take the greatest care not to exceed those limits. Sir Hilary did not, however, appear to be much discomposed.

Sir Hilary was arranging Oliver in a spread-eagled position on the ground. I could see Oliver’s chest rising and falling as he breathed, which reassured me slightly. There was something unpleasantly familiar about his position, however, and suddenly I remembered one of the diagrams in that dreadful Tanistry book of Sir Hilary’s.

“But
Oliver
isn’t a wizard!” I blurted.

“So you figured it out at last,” Sir Hilary said. He straightened and turned to look at me with a supercilious smile. “But I’m afraid I must correct you. The Talent runs very strongly in your family, my dear, whether it’s put to use or not. Your half-witted brother admittedly has no training, but that only makes him more useful for my purposes. Why do you think I’ve been watching him for so long?”

“You can’t steal Oliver’s magic!” I said. “If he does, indeed, have any.”

“Oh, he does, my dear, he does, indeed. I doubt very much, however, that he has the capacity to make use of it.” Sir Hilary smiled. “So I shall merely be taking from him a gift he does not need. It is unfortunate that doing so will kill him, but I am afraid that is how these things work. You needn’t fear for yourself; I shall be careful not to take enough of your power to cause your death. I only want you to go mad, you see, and with Oliver here to draw on, I can afford not to drain you of everything.”

James made a strangled noise, and Sir Hilary turned his head. “I’d forgotten about you,” he said, and gestured. I knew that James was frozen completely motionless again, and I felt very alone.

“Oliver isn’t bound to you,” I said desperately. “And neither am I. That awful book said that the spell to transfer power wouldn’t work well if there wasn’t a bond.”

“Oh, but there is, Miss Rushton,” Sir Hilary said. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “It took me an extremely long time to discover it, but the connection is there.”

“What connection?”

“Your dear Mama was descended from my great-great-uncle,” Sir Hilary said. “On the wrong side of the blanket, I’m afraid; that’s why it took me so long to track it down. Still, even the faintest of blood connections is enough to allow the Tanistry spells to work, now that I am aware of it. I don’t even require Miranda’s assistance with the invocations any longer.”

“Miranda’s assistance?” I said. I saw that as long as he was explaining to me how clever he was, he couldn’t do anything to Oliver, so I was determined to keep him talking as long as I could.

“You don’t really think old Everard Tanistry was fool enough to put everything he knew in that book he wrote, do you?” Sir Hilary said contemptuously. “Some of the real secrets were handed down in the family. It’s a pity Miranda wasn’t more like him, in a way. She’d have managed better. Fortunately, I don’t need her anymore.”

I hardly had time to wonder what had been happening in London before he turned away and walked toward the bag he had left on the ground beside James. He pulled out the ivory-handled knife and a little packet of herbs. He sprinkled some of the herbs over Oliver’s face and raised his hands. “Wait!” I said in desperation. “What did you mean about Miranda?”

Sir Hilary glanced back at me over his shoulder. “You’ve had enough explanations, my dear, and it’s nearly dawn. I prefer to get the…unpleasant portions of this business over with quickly, now that all the preliminaries have been taken care of.”

“Then it’s a shame you didn’t take better precautions against interruption,” said a voice from behind me.

Sir Hilary and I both turned, and now I know exactly why people are said to faint with relief, Kate. For Mr. Wrexton was standing just inside the door to the garden, and I was so glad to see him that my head swam. Aunt Elizabeth was right behind him, her eyes positively blazing with fury. “Wrexton!” Sir Hilary spat. “Where did you come from?”

“Waycross,” Mr. Wrexton said. His voice was very calm, but his eyes were hard and a little wary. “I’ve been there for weeks, but I took care to keep out of your way. Thomas Schofield asked me to keep an eye on that young gentleman lying at your feet, you see, and I thought it would be simpler if you didn’t know I was nearby.”

“How did you find me?” Sir Hilary demanded.

“I took the precaution of placing a locating spell on Cecy’s locket along with the protections,” Mr. Wrexton said. “As soon as Elizabeth discovered she was missing, she came to me, and the rest was easy.”

“It should have taken days, even for you, to figure out how to cross that portal!”

Mr. Wrexton smiled nastily. “You forget, Sir Hilary. Thomas worked on the equations. This was one of the first things he warned me about when he asked me to come out here to watch over the boy.”

“So.” Sir Hilary put his shoulders back slightly. “What do you plan to do, now that—” In the middle of the sentence, he threw up his hands and began shouting in Greek.

Mr. Wrexton began making hasty gestures of his own, and Aunt Elizabeth slipped out to stand muttering beside him. I backed away as far as I could. I could tell that there was a great deal of very powerful magic being flung about, and I had no idea if Sir Hilary’s invisible walls would keep it out. I tried to follow the spells for a moment, but Mr. Wrexton and Sir Hilary were going much too fast for me. Mr. Wrexton was frowning intently, and I began to worry. I knew that Mr. Wrexton was very good (he was with the Duke of Wellington, after all!), but Sir Hilary had stolen the magic from heaven only knows how many people, and Sir Hilary was on his home ground (in a manner of speaking).

I looked back at the battle. Aunt Elizabeth looked quite white, and Mr. Wrexton stepped in front of her. I could see beads of sweat on his forehead, though his muttering was as rapid as ever. Sir Hilary looked cool and supercilious, and his eyes were hard with triumph. It was clear that he, at least, was sure that he would win.

The idea that had been nagging at me earlier returned, and I tried desperately to shut out the sights and sounds of the wizardly battle and
think.
Suddenly it came to me. I turned my back on Sir Hilary and Mr. Wrexton and, facing James, I made the same gesture I had seen Sir Hilary use twice to let James talk.

James’s face came alive. Before he could say anything, I hissed urgently, “James! What is the Greek word for ‘release’?”

“
Apheteon
,” he said, and I saw comprehension in his eyes. “And hurry, Cecy.”

I swallowed and closed my eyes. Concentrating with everything I had, I made Sir Hilary’s gesture again and said, “
Apheteon
.”

My eyes flew open as I spoke. James stood up, picked up the chair, took two steps forward, and brought it down on Sir Hilary’s head. It connected with a most satisfactory crash, and Sir Hilary collapsed. At precisely the same instant, all of the candles went out, and a moment later I heard Oliver groan.

I stood where I was, as I felt rather weak about the knees and was not at all sure I could walk without falling over. James stared down at Sir Hilary with a positively vicious expression on his face. Then he turned, and a moment later I was caught up in his arms. It was remarkably comfortable and reassuring, and after all we had been through I did not care a jot whether Aunt Elizabeth gave me a lecture on propriety later. Then James bent over and kissed me. I do not think it would be quite accurate to describe that as “comfortable and reassuring,” but I assure you I had no objection whatever. In fact, I cooperated as well as I was able (which was not very much, as James was holding me tightly enough to make it seem that he wished to squeeze all the breath from my body. This made it rather difficult for me to render him much assistance in kissing me.).

An unfortunately short time later (or so it seemed to me), James pulled his head away. “Why are you stopping?” I asked somewhat hazily.

James chuckled, and I felt it in my bones. “Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to ask you to marry me,” he said. “Will you, my love?”

“Oh, yes
, James,” I said, and kissed him. This time I was able to do rather better at aiding him, which was very satisfying for both of us.

“Marry you!” said Oliver’s disapproving voice from behind me. “I should dashed well think she’ll have to, if this is the way you’ve been carrying on. What do you mean by getting up to such tricks while I’m away, Cecy?”

James and I fell apart, though he kept a hand in mine to steady me. “Don’t be a prig, Oliver,” I said. “Of course I’m going to marry James, but not for such a stupid reason as that!”

Mr. Wrexton and Aunt Elizabeth were muttering over Sir Hilary’s unconscious form. Oliver looked at them with disapproval and started to say something. “Don’t interrupt them!” I said quickly.

Oliver scowled at me, and Mr. Wrexton looked up. “It’s quite all right, Cecelia; we’re finished here.” He smiled warmly at Aunt Elizabeth. “Thank you for your help, Elizabeth. I will have to take him up to London at once and let the Royal College know the sort of thing he’s been up to. I expect they’ll be very severe with him.”

“What do you think they’ll do to him?” I asked.

“I would say that they’re sure to strip him of his powers. Beyond that, I’m not certain.”

“Don’t leave before I’ve had a chance to talk to you, Wrexton,” James said in a grim voice. “You ought to know the whole of what that cur was planning.”

Mr. Wrexton nodded and looked at Aunt Elizabeth again. “I won’t be gone more than a week,” he said. “And you know how to reach me if you should happen to need me.”

“Of course, Michael,” she said softly. “Hurry back.”

“You may be sure of it,” Mr. Wrexton said. He took her hand and kissed it, and Aunt Elizabeth blushed.

There is very little more to tell. James drove me back to Rushton Manor; Aunt Elizabeth and Oliver followed in Mr. Wrexton’s carriage. Mr. Wrexton stayed behind to seal up Sir Hilary’s garden and to remove Sir Hilary to a safer place. I spent the rest of the day in bed (Aunt Elizabeth did not even suggest that I go to church!), and am now quite recovered. Oliver, too, seems none the worse for his experience. He read me a dreadful scold when he discovered that I had had the temerity to ride Thunder, but I was too happy to care, and Aunt Elizabeth shooed him away very quickly.