Spellmaker (Spellbreaker Duology #2) - Charlie N. Holmberg Page 0,21
paper. It’s so official, isn’t it? Not at all like I’d thought.”
He was ruminating on that, Elsie could tell. She’d learned Bacchus got a certain stoic look to his eyes when he was thinking. “And how did you expect it would be?”
Elsie bit the inside of her cheek. Grabbed the bench on either side of her legs. “I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d ever marry . . . Well, except I almost did, once.”
“Almost?”
She shrunk, embarrassed. “That is . . . I thought I was going to be married before. To another fellow.”
He perked. “Oh? Who?”
“No one.” Alfred’s face popped into her head, grinning, but the grin melted into a sneer. She laughed again, but this time, it hurt. “Funny. The day I thought he was going to propose, he left me. Found a nice, wealthy widow to occupy his time. They’re married now. I saw them in town the other day.”
“Elsie . . .”
“I’m just a carousel of pity, aren’t I?” She straightened, smoothed her dress, adjusted her hat. “You’ll have to forgive me, Bacchus. Three days in a stone cell leaves a woman with too much time to think, and I haven’t quite recovered yet.” She cleared her throat. “I know your parents are deceased, but your mother’s family . . . will they be attending?” Bacchus had told her his parents weren’t married, that he was a bastard, but she wasn’t sure of his relationship with his mother.
“No. I hardly knew my mother. In truth, I’m not sure what Algarve relatives I even have.”
“Oh.” She rolled her lips together. “I really am making a mess of things, aren’t I?”
“No, Elsie.” He reached over and ran a thumb over her knee. “You’re not.”
She didn’t believe him, but she managed a tight smile, glad the carriage was dim enough not to reveal the heat that raced across her skin from his touch. He only meant to comfort, she knew, but he pulled away, and the vehicle felt colder for it. Then the rain started in earnest, and she was content with listening to its uneven patterns until they reached Duchess Matilda Morris’s estate.
CHAPTER 6
“It’s rather unexpected,” Duchess Morris said as her maid handed her a cup of tea, “but I am formally trained, of course. I know the atheneums do a poor job at upholding the bounds of propriety.”
Duchess Morris’s parlor was large and bright, full windows letting in gray, rain-choked light. On one wall hung an enormous portrait of the duchess herself, and on the opposite wall hung a markedly smaller portrait of an older man Elsie assumed to be her husband. The floor and fireplace were marble, the drapes and carpets navy, the ceiling painted with fleur-de-lis. Duchess Morris sat in an elaborate armchair, while Elsie and Bacchus occupied a stiff velvet sofa. Elsie had worn her best dress today, but it didn’t feel fancy enough in this posh house.
At the mention of propriety, Duchess Morris’s eyes raked between Elsie and Bacchus, even dropping down to Elsie’s hand. All the temporal and physical runes lending to her beauty, some of which Elsie had jarred loose some days prior, were firmly back in place. “Are you overseeing her training, Master Kelsey? Does this mean you’re secretly a spellbreaker?”
Secretly a spellbreaker hit a little too close to home and stoked Elsie’s nerves.
Bacchus, thankfully, smoothly accepted his tea—Elsie refused hers, worried she’d fumble it—and answered, “Not exactly. Miss Camden is my fiancée.”
My fiancée. The words washed over her like an autumn breeze.
“Is that so?” Duchess Morris perked up, examining Elsie again. “Why, what an interesting pair.”
Elsie wanted to demand what she meant by that, but thought it best to hold her tongue. So far, Duchess Morris had not recognized her as the clumsy woman in the millinery, and she needed to stay on her good side if she was to uncover any information about Master Merton.
“I was fortunate,” Elsie said, tasting the falsehoods in her mouth, “to have an aspector so close by during my time of discovery.” Granted, she worked for an aspector, but Duchess Morris didn’t know that.
“I imagine so. To think, waking up one day and . . . magic!” She chortled. “To not have to work with it day in and day out from youth up. How lucky you are, Miss Camden.”
Elsie forced herself not to grit her teeth. “Very lucky, indeed.”
“But, Master Kelsey”—she turned her attention to Bacchus—“I don’t know how you tolerate Kent. I hear the place is falling apart with rot.”