Heart's Magic (3 page)

"I got that thing wot you
wanted, miss." The voice of Harry's coachman outside broke the
spell.

Elinor jerked her fingers
off Harry's side. Where she'd been caressing him more than healing.
She wanted to close her eyes in mortification, but focused them on
the inside of her bag instead, hunting the bandages.

"Yeah, thanks, Sharkey,"
Harry called through the window. She could feel him watching her as
he sat up. "Put it in the luggage boot, will ya?"

"Sure, boss."

Elinor wondered at the
informality between employer and servant. It was easier than
wondering at her own behavior. Had they perhaps known each other
before? Before Harry entered the academy?

"You know wot I
think?"

About what?
About Elinor's inexcusable overstepping of the
bounds of propriety? About--?

"I think this came from the
machine." He brandished the forceps at her when she finally came up
from her bag with the bandages that had been staring her in the
face. "I think the bloody thing
shot
me."

His exaggerated outrage
made her want to laugh. She kept it to a smile. "How
so?"

She laid a row of gauze
over the long wound, sticking it in place with the
ointment.

"For one thing, I feel
tremendously better since you took it out of me. I think it was
making me sick while it was stuck in me. 'Cause o' the no-magic."
He peered at it again. "You think maybe it's made of bone? Animal
bone, maybe? I think it's a weapon. Look, it's pointed at this end.
Sharpened. And there's hooks at the other."

Elinor looked, when he
waved the forceps under her nose. She caught his hand and held it
still, where she could see. "You're right. It does look like a
dart, or arrowhead. And rather like it might be bone."

"Bloody 'ell."

"What?" She looked up,
alarmed by his tone. "What's wrong?"

"If these things 'ave
projectile weapons
and
they can get out o' the dead zones..."

"Oh." Elinor realized she
still held his hand and let it go. "Dear."

She hadn't wrapped his
injury yet either and all this motion was threatening to dislodge
the gauze. She lifted the roll of bandage and only then realized
how it would be.

The bandage had to go
around his torso. Underneath his clothing. Elinor would have to
reach around him to wrap it. She was not a tall woman and her arms
were sized in proportion, which meant that, in order to get the
bandage around him, she would have to get very close to that torso.
That powerfully muscled, utterly male, virtually naked
torso.

Think about something else.
The machines.
She picked loose the end of
the bandage. "Do you think any more machines have got out of the
zones?"

"Dunno, do I?" He chewed on
a corner of his lower lip. "Reckon I better get Grey's Briganti on
it." He named the magicians' police force. The Investigations
Branch was headed by the magister of the conjurer's guild, Lord
Greyson Carteret.

"Not your committee?"
Elinor placed the bandage end over the shallow side of his injury.
"Hold that. No, with your other hand. Keep your arm up. Both
arms."

He contorted himself
obediently into the position she demanded, one elbow cocked high
while the hand held the bandage end in place, leaning forward so
she could work the roll under his shirt and around his
back.

She should have had him
take off his jacket, at the least. She hadn't wanted him to be any
closer to naked than he already was, for fear of her inappropriate
reactions. Instead, it was worse. The jacket's weight made it more
difficult to pass the bandage beneath his clothing, so that she had
her face pressed against Harry's warm, solid, naked chest with her
arms around him far, far longer than was good for her.

Harry cleared his throat.
"I--no, not the committee. I want my lads takin' that beastie
apart, learnin' 'ow it ticks." He paused a long moment, while
Elinor was busy trying to get a great clump of shirt linen out of
the way, pushing her cheek hard into his chest to reach
farther.

When she was able to move
on, bringing the bandage up the other side, where the deepest part
of his injury lay, Harry moved on, too. "Grey's boys are better at
trackin' things than mine are. They can do that bit. 'Sides,
protectin' the public from rogue magic, or no-magic's what the
Briganti do, isn't it?"

"It is, yes." Elinor
started round again. It would take more than one ring of bandage to
protect his injury.

The extended exposure to
temptation further weakened her already crumbling will. She
couldn't stop herself from burrowing her nose into his chest to
breathe him in. He wasn't long from his morning ablutions, so she
could still smell the soap, but over that was the smell of Harry
and magic. His scent was inextricably mixed with the deep, earthy
smell of alchemy.

Harry cleared his throat
again. His voice was still rough and gravelly when he spoke. "If
any of the creatures did get out," he said. "I don't reckon it was
many. And they'd be small, I think. Like that one, or
smaller."

"Mm." Elinor started on the
third round of bandage.

How shameless was she to
hurry through laying it over his injury so she could once more put
her arms round him with impunity? What kind of wanton would regret
that each pass of the bandage covered up more of his chest and gave
her less bare Harry skin to press her face against? Whatever kind
it was, that was her.

After years of believing
that she was above all base physicality, devoted purely to loftier
pursuits of the intellect, of magic and human welfare, her true
nature was rather literally rubbing itself in her face. Her nature
was just as--well,
natural
as the next woman's. She had the same inborn
mating instinct and that instinct seemed to have fixed itself upon
her magic-master.

Which left her with one more
question. What was she going to do about it?
Dolt
, Elinor scolded herself. The
answer was simple. She would simply have to rid herself of these
inappropriate feelings. She could not--
would
not--succumb. It was
unthinkable.

And she was running out of
bandage. She brought the end across and fastened it down with a
safety pin. She tidied up the bandage, smoothing out minor pleats
and picking off stray threads.

She was still touching him,
though over the bandage and that lightly, when she looked up at
him. He held his arms over his head, waiting for her to finish.
Now, he brought them down, settling his hands on her shoulders. His
eyes still possessed that dark, intent, focused look. Focused on
her.

Why?
Or was she an idiot for wondering? She'd never had a man fix
his attention on her like that, which was why she was still virgin
at the past-ripe-and-nearing-withered age of twenty-seven. Not that
she'd ever encouraged any man to do so. Had she encouraged Harry?
She hoped not. She'd never meant to.

His tongue slipped out,
dampened his lower lip, and retreated. He lowered his head. Elinor
lifted hers and that beautiful mouth of his touched hers, a soft,
sweet brushing of his lips.

He lifted his head to look
at her, as if to gauge her reaction to that slight kiss. Whatever
he sought, he must have found, for he kissed her again.

Elinor couldn't react. Or
rather,
that
was
her reaction, stunned senseless by the sweetness of that first
touch of his lips, and now-- This new kiss held caution, as if he
felt his way through, perhaps expecting a slap at any moment. But
it also contained the heat of rising desire held tightly in
control. She melted into that heat, all her reasons against it
burned away with her sense.

The softer she melted, the
harder Harry seemed to get. His kiss tilted, going deeper and
making her quiver. He cupped her cheek with his broad,
rough-textured hand, as if holding her in place for his kiss and
the quiver slid inside her, down to her very center.

His thumb slid to her mouth
and he tugged, asking her to open. Puzzled, she did. His tongue
slid between her parted lips and she tasted Harry, and
passion.

She leaned into the kiss,
spreading her hands wide on his naked chest to feel more of his
skin. It was all she could think.
More
. And more and more.

The carriage lurched, then
swayed as the coachman climbed up to his high perch. Harry set her
away. He retreated to the far side of the seat and began to button
his shirt. Elinor sat back and folded her hands in her lap, trying
to catch her breath while her face burned hot. What in heaven's
name had come over her?

It was as if--as if her mind
had switched off and her body kept functioning like some automaton.
That wasn't right. That wasn't
her
.

"Oi." It wasn't a gentle
word, but he made it so. "Don't be like that--"

"Like what? Embarrassed?
Ashamed? Utterly appalled at my behavior?" Her face burned even
hotter. She wanted to hide behind her hands, but she wasn't such a
coward.

"It was a kiss, Elinor.
Nothing to be ashamed of. Just a kiss."

If that was just a kiss,
she was just--just--she couldn't think of anything silly enough.
Just a debutante with nothing but hats and parties on her mind.
That kiss stirred up things she didn't know what to do with.
Feelings. Tingles in peculiar places. She didn't want any of it.
She wanted magic.

"I know it's the magic you
want," Harry said, proving once again that alchemists could on
occasion read minds. "But do you maybe fancy me, too, a bit? 'Cause
I got to tell you, Elinor, I got a powerful yearning for
you."

Her heart stopped, then
started again, speeding so fast she thought it might pound its way
out of her chest. Her stomach turned over and her head got so
light, she thought it might float away, like dandelion fluff caught
in the wind. The Harry wind.
He desired
her.
And she did not dare to desire
him.

The carriage swayed, the
coachman adjusting his position perhaps. One of the horses stamped
and blew. Harry knocked on the roof with his walking stick and
Sharkey slid open the little window, but didn't peer in. Elinor
didn't think he could bend his back enough.

"Take us 'ome,
Sharkey."

The window slid shut.
Elinor stared at her hands. Harry stared at her. She could feel
it.

"I wish you'd look at me."
He touched the back of her hand with a finger, then retreated. "So
I can know what you're thinkin'."

How could she share with
him what she thought when she didn't know it herself? How could she
have become a stranger to herself so quickly?

She couldn't have. She was
still the same woman she'd been an hour ago. Elinor Tavis,
apprentice wizard.

Magic was her life and
always would be. Kisses--or anything like that--could play no part
in it. If a woman wanted anything besides marriage and a family,
she had to make her way alone.

She looked up at Harry, as
he had asked. "I am thinking that there can be no more kisses. No,
one kiss was not the end of the world, but it cannot happen again.
It simply cannot, Harry. Not at this juncture. Never mind the
machine in the luggage boot--there are so many other critical
issues. Not to mention the challenge hanging over my head. I cannot
afford the distraction."

He nodded, accepting her
words, his face utterly serious. "Right. You're right. You gotta be
sharp for the challenge. We'll do it your way."

A solemn, earnest Harry was
almost more devastating to her composure than a teasing, winking
Harry. It reminded her there was substance to the man. He went as
deep as the stone his magic was based on. "Wot are you doin' to get
ready for the challenge?" he asked.

Elinor grimaced. She wished
now that she'd never issued her challenge, but at the time it had
seemed the only thing to do. Nigel Cranshaw did not deserve to be
magister of the wizards' guild.

That much was still true.
But she was not at all sure she was the proper person to remedy
that. She wasn't even officially a member of the wizard's guild.
He'd just--he made her so angry, and the words challenging him for
the right to be magister had just popped out.

"I don't even know what
kind of preparations I need to make," she said, relieved that Harry
had accepted her decision so easily. His "yearning" must not be so
powerful as all that. "Sir William and Lady Marian were supposed to
come at Christmas for a visit, but the weather turned off too bad
for them to get through."

Sir William Stanwyck was a
wizard and the head of the Magician's Council of England, made up
of the combined guilds. He was also her godfather and her first
teacher of magic. He'd been appalled when her interest in magic had
increased, rather than fading as she grew up, but he had resigned
himself to it finally. He had promised to help her with the
challenge by making sure she had knowledge of all guild
secrets.