Authors: Marissa Doyle
Pen’s face was pale, even by firelight. “Then I suppose it doesn’t matter that I’m not very good at
magic, since we can never use it,” she said in a small voice.
“I didn’t say that you couldn’t use it. Listen to me, girls. So long as you keep it secret, you
will
be
able to use it to accomplish good things, useful things.”
“Such as?”
Ally sighed. “I am not a seer, Persy. But your parents and I raised you to be moral, honest, upright
women. Someday you will be able to use your magic in moral and honest ways. Until then, watch and
wait. And keep your secret.”
“Have you ever done anything great and good with your magic, Ally?” Persy leaned back against
Ally’s side. She remembered why she found the scent of lavender so comforting: Ally always smelled
faintly of it.
There was a smile in Ally’s voice. “I’ve taught you. Does that count? My grandmother once said to
me what I just said to you. Becoming your governess was one way to do good. Maybe I will be able
to do more someday. In the meanwhile, it was a more interesting prospect than marrying any of the
young men who came calling at my father’s shop.”
Persy felt a faint flicker of envy. If only she had the option of going out to teach, rather than to
dance and flirt and look for a husband …
“Did young men
really
come to your family’s shop to see you?” Pen asked.
“Yes.” A faint pink suffused Ally’s face and the corners of her mouth turned up. “They still do,
though my sister has little patience for them, either. I simply never met a man who was more
interesting to me than my profession as a teacher.”
“Doubt I will, either,” muttered Persy.
“But if you did—” Pen began.
“Quite enough. I have left a list of spells for you to practice. When you arrive in town we can move
on to new work. Penelope, your sister will be happy to help you with any that cause you trouble. And
Persy—” she hesitated.
“Yes, Ally?”
“Do
practice your dancing with your sister. I regret having had to fib to your mother about your
dancing skills at luncheon today.” She smiled and kissed them both good night, then took up her
candle and glided from the room.
“C
ome on, Persy. I spent the morning practicing magic. Now you have to practice dancing. Ally said
so again just before she left yesterday. Help me move this out of the way.” Pen took hold of the
schoolroom table and dragged it a few feet to one side, grunting with effort.
“Must we?” said Persy, closing her book but not moving from her seat by the window.
“Yes. We promised Ally that you would practice dancing, remember? I did that distracting spell all
morning until I felt distracted. Now you’ll have to waltz with me till you’re dizzy. Come on, this is
heavy.”
“I’ll be dizzy in five minutes,” Persy grumbled as they finished moving the table and rolled up the
carpet.
“Nonsense,” said Pen in her best Ally voice. “If you would just pay more attention during the turns
—”
“I do. That’s why I get dizzy.”
Pen sighed as she dusted off her hands. “That article in Lady’s Magazine says that Princess
Victoria loves dancing and excels at it. If it’s good enough for her—”
“I know, I know. Then it’s good enough for us,” Persy finished. It wasn’t that she disliked dancing.
It was everything that went with it that bothered her. But Pen was impossible to distract once she got
an idea in her head. Distract—hmm …
“And don’t think about trying the distracting spell on me. I know it too well now,” Pen said with a
grin. “May I have this waltz, Miss Leland?”
“But there’s no music! I’ll feel silly.” Persy stepped back a pace, pink in the face at Pen’s reading
her half-formed thought.
Pen snatched the ends of her broad collar and tugged her back. “We’ll hum. And won’t you feel
even sillier when you’re at a ball and a fascinating young man asks you to dance and you have to
refuse because you’re afraid of breaking his toes? Better still,
I’ll
hum, so you can pay attention to
what you’re doing. Now!” She took Persy’s hand and put her other on her sister’s waist.
Persy concentrated on her feet as Pen led her about the room in smooth, sweeping arcs. “Must you
turn so often?”
Pen stopped humming. “Yes, unless you want to crash into the walls. Ally’s not taught us how to
dance through them yet. There, that’s not bad. Don’t hold yourself so stiffly.”
“My hair is coming unpinned.” Persy hunched her shoulders.
“So let it. We’ll fix it later. Now, there—and there—and there—”
“Oh, there it goes! How am I supposed to see where I’m going with my hair in my face? I said I
would be dizzy in five minutes.”
Pen sighed. “You’re not allowed to be dizzy. Don’t watch the room, watch my nose. You should be
listening to your partner’s conversation with a look of total absorption on your face when you dance
at a ball, anyway.”
“How can I see your nose through my hair? And I can’t dance and converse at the same time!”
“You don’t have to. Simply look enthralled by what your partner says, and he’ll think you’re the
wittiest and most enchanting creature in the room.”
“You’re a cynic, Pen.”
“Well, that’s what I heard Mama say once. Now hush. I can’t talk to you and hum at the same time.”
“Now my hair’s completely down.”
“You didn’t pin it well enough this morning. Stop fussing and pay attention.” Pen pulled her into a
series of spins so that she had to concentrate on dancing through the cascade of hair that tumbled and
bounced in her face.
“Dum-da-da, dum-da-da, dum,” Pen hummed, and reversed. “Very good, Persy! We will turn you
into a dancer yet!”
“Don’t do that again! It was beastly!” groaned Persy, trying to regain her rhythm.
“Well, true gentlemen don’t reverse. But you need to know how to deal with it if they do.”
“Break their toes, most likely. Pen, how do you remember these things? Did Ally give you extra
dancing lessons when I was busy with something else?”
“Of course not, goose. Stop looking at your feet.”
“But if I stare at your nose, I’ll laugh.”
“Then close your eyes for a while. That’ll force you to concentrate.”
Persy closed her eyes. “You won’t reverse again?”
“I promise.”
With her eyes closed, Persy could better feel the subtle pressure of Pen’s hand on her waist
communicate direction. “Why, that helps! Can’t I always dance with my eyes closed?”
“Excuse me,” said a voice. “May I have the next waltz?”
Persy staggered as Pen abruptly halted. She opened her eyes.
A tall, fair-haired young man stood before them, dressed for riding in a deep blue coat, tan
buckskin trousers, and shining boots. He seemed to be having a difficult time keeping the corners of
his mouth in order, and his hazel eyes under extravagant dark lashes twinkled at them. In the doorway,
Charles leaned against the jamb and held his splinted arm against his stomach as he giggled and
snorted.
“Please pardon our intrusion. Your brother was sent to bring you down to the drawing room, and I
came with him. You didn’t hear us knock,” the man explained gravely.
Persy pushed back her tumbled hair and stared. Dear heavens, it couldn’t be
him
… but who else
had those eyes, changeable as the sea, that had always seemed to see straight into everything …
including her?
“It can’t be,” Pen said, a slow smile spreading across her face.
“Well, it could,” said the young man, grinning openly at last. “At least, I think it could, if I am who
you think I am. If you know what I mean.”
“Lochinvar Seton, what are you doing here?” Pen stepped toward him, hand outstretched. “I thought
you were touring on the continent?”
Persy felt the thudding of her heart all the way to her knees. Of course it was Lochinvar. How long
had it been since she had seen him? She did some rapid mental counting. Four years, at least—time
enough for him to turn from a gangling youth into the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
She remembered the towheaded boy who had frequently ridden over from the neighboring estate
with his father, Papa’s best friend, Lord Northgalis, and who had barely been able to say two words
to them when they took him to play in the gardens. And when he had been able to speak, he’d been
utterly beastly and teased them mercilessly. At least he had until his last visits, just before he left for
Cambridge. Would he remember those afternoons now, when he’d shown Persy a different side of
himself? She swallowed and wished her bone-dry tongue didn’t all at once feel too large for her
mouth. How could Pen be so calm, greeting this beautiful young man?
“ I
was
on the continent, with friends from Cambridge. I got to Galiswood yesterday and father
insisted we visit as soon as possible. Let me see if I can tell you apart. How are you, Pen—er, Miss
Leland?” He bowed over her hand.
She smiled prettily. “So you can tell! I’m very well, thank you. Persy and I were just practicing our
dancing. We leave for town next week for the season.”
“Then I’ll see you there. We go down in a few days as well.” He turned, and Persy saw a flash of
eager expectation in his eyes as he looked at her. Her own heart leapt in response. Did he remember
those days after all?
But what must she look like right now, with her hair tumbled around her shoulders and her apron
stained with ink from absentmindedly wiping her pen on it? Certainly nothing like all the
sophisticated, interesting people he must have met on his tour. Though she could feel that her cheeks
were flaming, her vocal chords seemed to have frozen, along with her brain.
“How do you do, Lord Seton?” she finally said in a chilly voice, extending her hand. It was the
only thing she could think of to say.
He stared at her for a moment as the eagerness drained out of his expression and his eyes flickered
to his feet. Persy’s heart plummeted to the floor as well.
“I’m very well, Miss Leland,” he said to his gleaming boots. Then he looked up again. “But in
desperate need of polishing my own dancing before we go to London. May I have this dance, if you
please?” He bowed and took the clammy hand she still held out.
Oh, why wasn’t Ally here to tell her what to do? The situation was absurd. He wore riding boots
with spurs. Her hair tumbled about her like a shaggy pony’s. They were in the schoolroom with the
furniture pushed about higgledy-piggledy. But in that instant, she would have danced a fandango with
a rose in her teeth if Lochinvar had asked her to. The hazel eyes had cast a spell on her more
powerful than any she had ever studied with Ally. She stared at him, transfixed.
To her surprise, it was Charles who rescued her. “Mama says we are to come to the green salon
for tea, Perse,” he said anxiously. “She’ll send me to bed if I don’t get back down and lie on the sofa
again, and I’ll
die
of boredom if she does that.”
“Mama’s right, you goose. You
should
be in bed,” said Pen. She glanced at Persy and her
disreputable apron, then turned to Lochinvar. “Shall we go down? You must be thirsty after your
ride.”
Persy understood the silent message in Pen’s glance. She waited until Lochinvar had followed Pen
into the hall, then yanked off the apron and darted to retrieve her scattered hairpins.
“Are you coming, Miss Leland?” said Lochinvar, sticking his head back in the door as she tried to
recoil her hair without benefit of a mirror.
“Mmm-hmmm,” she said brightly, mouth full of pins.
He gave her a look she couldn’t decipher, and vanished.
“Well, you two looked a sight,” Charles said, still lounging in the doorway.
“I thought you had to go lie down?” snapped Persy from the corner of her mouth.
“What? Oh, right. Hey, isn’t Lochinvar something? I’d—”
“His name is Lord Seton, Chucklehead.” She drove the last pin straight into her scalp and winced.
“Lord Seton? But we never called him that before.”
“He’s a grown man now. You cannot call him by his Christian name the way you could when you
were small and didn’t know any better.”
“Yes, Miss Leland,” said Charles, pretending to cringe. The movement made him flinch and cradle
his injured arm, and Persy bit back the scolding she had been about to deliver.
“Let’s go, Chuckles. You
should
be in bed, you know,” she said gently. “I wish Ally were here.
Maybe she’d know a spell to keep your wrist from hurting so much.” She put an arm around him as
they walked down the hall to the stairs, and for once he did not squirm away from this overt display
of sisterly affection.
But she couldn’t help agreeing with him—Lochinvar was something. His mother had died when he
was only six, and his father had brought him over frequently during his vacations from Eton. He was
five years their senior, and had been as much tormentor as playmate for them. He would ride with
them and either spur them into jumping terrifying fences or take off across country and lose them for