“We must assume this was another magical attack,” his brother cut in. “So even though our father wouldn’t want to hear of this, we think if Amy knew something was wrong and if she was desperate enough to keep your family safe… well…”
The brothers exchanged another look, while Devlin’s last sentence echoed ominously in Fox’s head.
Desperate enough to keep your family safe…
His blood ran cold. How horribly he had misjudged her. He felt as if he were about to be sick. He had horribly, horribly misjudged her.
Devlin swallowed hard, then turned to Fox and blurted out: “We think she might have used blood magic.”
“Blood magic.” Fox blinked.
“Yes,” they said in unison, and with equal expressions of distaste.
Fox stared at them. Had they been talking Chinese, he could not have been more astounded. Or perplexed. “So…” He frowned. “Why don’t you tell your father?
“Good Lord, no!” Colin Bourne exclaimed. “He would never accept that Amy knew anything of such matters. It’s not something that a gently bred young lady would do—or even know about!”
Devlin nodded. “It’s like her walking down St. James’s Street—in her
underwear
.”
Fox managed a weak “Oh.” In his experience, gently bred young ladies normally didn’t know about either magic or blood magic, whatever that was supposed to be.
Colin rubbed his neck. “But Amy always loved rummaging around in the library and reading these old tomes. Goodness knows what she found there! Blood magic is mostly used for”—he hesitated a moment—“
darker
purposes. It drains a person, so a knowledgeable magician would be careful not to use his own blood.”
“Oh,” Fox said again. His knees felt decidedly weak. It all sounded so fantastical. Absurd. Surely not something that might happen here in England.
Devlin cleared his throat. “We think Amy might have used her own blood for a protection spell.”
“Her own…” Fox had to sit down. Heavens, what had she done? Suddenly a memory sprang up in his mind, brilliantly clear. The day after Pip had almost drowned in the lake—by magic, according to the two young Bournes.
“I was wondering, ”
Amy had said. They had been in the drawing room, and she had been standing at one of the windows that looked out over the lake.
He had gone to her, slipped his arm around her waist.
“Yes?”
“Are there any old monuments to be found in the vicinity?”
She had looked up at him, her eyes very blue. “You know, stone circles and such?”
Fox gasped. He had thought it an idle question at the time, but now… Wasn’t it said that the Celtic druids had performed their pagan rituals in these circles and henges?
He licked his lips, cleared his throat. “She asked me…” Cleared his throat again. “Asked me whether I knew of a stone circle in the vicinity.”
“Stone circle?” both of them echoed—and turned an identical shade of sickly gray.
“Dear heavens!” Colin Bourne sank down on a chair and, elbows leaning on his knees, rubbed his hands across his face.
Devlin stared down at his brother’s bent head. “Do you think she really did…” His voice trailed away. If possible, he lost even more color.
“Of course she did!” Colin snapped, lifting his head. “It all makes a horrible kind of sense now, doesn’t it?”
His brother’s breath escaped in a sharp hiss.
Uncomprehendingly, Fox looked from one to the other. Apprehension made the fine hair at his neck tingle. “What does?”
Yet they didn’t pay him any attention.
“She joined with the land.” Devlin swayed on his feet.
“Joined with the land?” Fox echoed. What the devil were they talking about? This all sounded as if taken straight out of a shilling romance where brave knights fought against dragons, ogres and whatever other kinds of monsters they could find.
“Of course she did,” the other young Bourne said urgently. “If she then used her blood for a protection spell—”
“It would make for the most powerful protections of all,” Devlin finished. A moment later, though, he shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense, Coll. Why then could that other fellow invade Rawdon Park? Capture them all? Why hasn’t she
recovered
by now?”
Brooding, they gazed into space.
Fox’s patience snapped. “What? What is it? And what do you mean, ‘she joined with the land’? How do you join with the land?
What did she do
?”
And then, finally, they told him the most fantastic tale. How a person could bind himself to the land; how the kings in ancient times had done it in order to cement their power, and how they could just as well have dropped dead during the ceremony itself. Amy obviously hadn’t dropped dead, but apparently it had backfired on her. And on top of it, the whole magic thing hadn’t even worked properly.
Fox groaned. “Do you think she was delusional?”
“Delusional?” Colin Bourne raised a brow.
Fox swallowed. It was a terrible thought, really. Terrible enough to make his voice hoarse. “That she went and did such a thing, even though she must have known of the danger.” He shook his head. “It must have been that wretched love potion,” he muttered and shuddered.
The two young men stared at him as if he were the one who was delusional. “What has the love potion to do with it?” Devlin asked.
“What? What?
Everything
!” Prowling up and down the room, Fox ran his hands through his hair. “If she hadn’t been under the influence of that dastardly potion, surely she would never have risked her life in such a manner!”
“Oh,” Colin said in the strangest tone. “That’s it, then.”
“Yes, yes!” Fox’s hands tightened into fists. He gritted his teeth. “I’m going to kill-”
Unexpectedly, Colin shook his head. “She must have already known about the potion then.”
“So?”
“When found out, these things lose most of their power.” He gave Fox a sad little smile. “So, when my cousin risked her life for your family, she didn’t act under the influence of a love potion.”
Dumbfounded, Fox ogled them. But that would mean…
“Perhaps that other chap was simply too powerful for her,” Devlin suggested. “After all, he had already done that thing with the lake, given you the potion—”
Fox frowned. “Actually—no.” He forced his mind back to the issue at hand.
“No?”
“I’d never seen him before.”
“Never?”
Fox shook his head. “I’m sure I would have remembered had he given me something to drink.”
“But then, how—”
“That day… when Lady Margaret and those men came to Rawdon Park…” Fox gnawed on his lip, tried to remember
. Think, Foxy, think
. “Amy said…”
He closed his eyes and pictured the scene: his own shock after he felt the wound in his shoulder close, the edges of flesh merging… Amy walking away from him, her hair loose… Why was her hair loose? It moved as if in the wind—oh yes, and then he had felt it, too, the gust of air that swept through the drawing room. His skin tingled with it. Or perhaps with the sight of the pieces of glass lying scattered outside the empty window frames, trembling and then flying up—white clouds of smashed glass—eventually forming perfect panes once more—and Amy said—
“‘What a nice little plan you hatched out there. A nice little potion that you had us given, then some nice little attacks on the children, first on the heir, then on the spare—’”
“Both children broke through the ice?” Colin Bourne cut in, leaning forward.
Fox opened his eyes. “No, only Philip, the younger one.”
“Have there been any other incidents?” the other pressed.
“No, no, not at all. Well, Richard fell down the stairs a few weeks before, but—”
Colin Bourne jumped up. “He fell down the stairs?”
With a wave of his hand, Fox brushed it aside. “Don’t all little boys at one time or another? Now look here, about this potion, she said he had it given to us. It wasn’t him, though.”
Devlin glanced from Fox to his brother and back again. “So who was it?”
Colin opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Hmm…” He cocked his head to the side. “When did you, you know, fall in love with Amy?”
“Well, I suppose… it must have been…” Fox pursed his lips. “The Worthington musicale. Yes, I believe that must have been it. I remember now: Drew asked me to go and to keep Amy company. I wasn’t keen on the thought, but after the musicale…” He shrugged. “I was in love.”
“Then you must have drunk something there.” Both brothers looked at him expectantly.
“Well… just punch. It tasted a little bit funny, if I remember correctly, but what would you expect at a Worthington musicale?” Again he shrugged. “They couldn’t have put it into the punch, could they? Else all of the guests would have been affected. Besides, Amy’s guardian himself gave us the glasses.”
“Mr. Bentham?”
“Indeed. His daughter accompanied Amy to Rawdon Park. Now, come to think of it, they weren’t fast friends, which made it a bit odd. And Amy herself asked my brother to send Miss Bentham home after a week or two. Actually—”
“It was right after your nephew had fallen down the stairs.” Colin Bourne finished the sentence for him.
“Bentham, father’s
friend
?” Devlin swore.
His brother nodded. “And there was more than one attack. These things never happen in twos, but in threes, so there must be one trap left. Which might just be the thing that is slowly killing Amy right now.”
The three men stared atone another. Anger flashed in their eyes, darkened their faces. Their hands clenched into fists.
“Bentham!” Fox spat. “I’ll ride to London and wring his traitorous neck!”
An unpleasant smile played around Devlin’s lips. “Oh yes, we will all ride to London tomorrow and pay this smart chap a little visit.”
~*~
In the end it was Amy’s uncle who rode to London with Fox, for his sons had told him about their worries after all. Grimly he had listened to them; then he had questioned Fox about what exactly Amy had said and done. Finally, he strode into Amy’s room to examine her once more. “Hell and damnation,” he swore when he returned.
His wife followed on his heels, her expression murderous. “Your friend Bentham, you said? The same Bentham to whom
you
sent our niece? The same Bentham who was supposed to introduce her into society?”
“Mary.” He raised his arms. “I—”
“Don’t you ‘Mary’ me! You sent her into a family who were unscrupulous enough to embroil her in some dastardly intrigue!”
“I have known Bentham since our days at university. He always seemed an honorable man.”
“An honorable man!” She snorted. “That’s what they said about Brutus, too.”
Bourne sighed and ran a weary hand through his hair. “I know. Believe me, I know. And I deeply regret—” He took a deep breath. “We will see to Bentham. And we will get the truth out of his daughter. As to Amy…” He looked over his wife’s shoulder at the door to her room, and his expression turned bleak.
Fox’s heart thudded once, twice. “Will you be able to save her?” he pressed, his voice hoarse. “Now that you know?” God, if only he had come earlier. If only he hadn’t let his damnable pride dictate his actions.
If only…
If only I had loved her more.
Fox squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He felt like crying again. Howling. A shudder ran through his body. He should have known she would never be capable of the devilry and betrayal of which he had accused her. He should have listened to what his heart had been telling him.
“We will need to bring her to Rawdon Park, won’t we?” Colin Bourne said.
Fox’s eyes shot open. “Rawdon Park?” he gasped. “Surely you jest! The journey could kill her!”
Arms akimbo, Mrs. Bourne answered briskly, “Then we have to make sure that it doesn’t.” The next moment, though, her cool facade cracked and her expression registered terrible worry and fear. “If we don’t take her, she will die anyway. But if she joined with the land, the land itself might heal her. We have to hope.” She swallowed. Tears welled in her eyes. “And pray,” she added on a whisper.
Thus, a little time later, Bourne and Fox were on the road to London. They kept to the turnpike, which had been cleared of snow, and changed the horses every hour.
“I would have thought that sorcerers used other means of travel,” Fox commented. Looking over to Bourne, he wondered what exactly the man was capable of. After all, he had witnessed what the niece could do and had seen one of the sons handle a ball of blue fire.
But the other only snorted. “Flying carpets and such?” He shook his head and his expression was grim. “Nay. Though God knows how much I would wish for one!”
They fell quiet once more, and indeed most of the trip they spent in silence, giving Fox enough time for regrets and bitter self-recriminations. Why, oh why hadn’t he come earlier? Why hadn’t he listened to his brother? To Drew? Even his man, Hobbes, had been able to perceive where Fox had gone wrong. Only Fox himself hadn’t seen it. Instead he had stubbornly clung to his pride and nursed the feeling of having been wronged. Not only because she had kept things from him; no, mostly because she was other.
Arrogant, arrogant fool!
With a pang he remembered their first afternoon at Rawdon Park, when he had told her the truth about his birth. She hadn’t held it against him. Instead, she had been loving and understanding. And he? He had promised to love her forever—whatever might happen.
How quick he had been to discard his vow! Yes, they had both been under the influence of that blasted potion, but that hadn’t stopped her from risking her life to keep his family safe. What an utter heel he had been!
Fox groaned.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
~*~
Dusk had already fallen when they reached the outskirts of London. They left the horses at the stables in the City and took a hackney into Town. Their progress was slow, for High Holborn was crammed with carts and carriages—indeed, half of London appeared to be out on the streets that evening. Fox clenched his hands into fists. “Damn those fools! Hey, driver!” He opened the window and leaned outside. “Can’t you drive faster?” Frustrated he sank back onto the seat. “Can’t you do something?” he asked Bourne.