The Twelfth Enchantment

26

BYRON HAD BEEN MOTIONLESS FOR A MOMENT, BUT THEN GROANED and with Lucy’s help managed to bring himself to the sofa, where he sat looking gloomy while his fingers repeatedly tested the tender skin of his face.

“Your beauty is bruised, not broken,” said Lady Harriett. “Reckon yourself lucky I did not snap your neck.”

Byron said nothing, only leaned against Lucy as if for support, though she could not imagine what sort of support a sitting man required. What was Lady Harriett that she had such strength? And what could Lucy do about it? She began to think of all the spells she knew, all the talismans she had memorized, all the tools she had hidden upon herself. There was one to induce weakness and vulnerability, but she had not brought it. She would certainly have one ready if she were ever to face Lady Harriett again. There was the failed summoning circle, which would kill the most arrogant person in the room, but Lucy could not be sure that person was Lady Harriett and not Byron himself. And then there was the matter of Lady Harriett’s wards. Lucy had read of wards, but knew little of them, and had never had the time or inclination to make inquiries into that branch of knowledge. Would anything she knew work here?

Lady Harriett paced the room, and the odd man remained still, standing near the fireplace, watching them, twitching and scraping dry skin off his lips with his teeth. Lucy told herself that she could find a way out of this disaster. Lady Harriett clearly possessed powers terrible and dangerous, but Lucy had three pages of the Mutus Liber hidden away, and she would escape with them. Emily depended upon it.

“I have yet to decide what to do with you,” said Lady Harriett. She turned to the man. “They come into my home, the home of my late husband, and violate it with their presence. Do you see, Mr. Bellingham? Do you not see what sort of enemies there are here? They have come to do you harm. They have come to keep you from receiving your money.”

“I want what’s mine!” This Mr. Bellingham shouted at them. It was like an eruption. He was quiet and twitching, then his mouth opened, his eyes expanded, and he shouted with incredible vehemence. Then back he shrank to his previous meekness.

“Of course you do,” said Lady Harriett. “And you shall have it if you do as I say. Now, get some sleep, Mr. Bellingham. I shall manage your enemies.”

“You are very good, Lady Harriett. Yes, quite good.” He shambled out of the room, bouncing upon the doorframe as he departed.

Lucy watched him depart, not knowing what to make of him, but understanding intuitively that Lady Harriett played upon his madness in order to get something from him. Lucy had always thought her vile and self-serving, but she had not imagined her capable of this sort of manipulation. She dared not wonder why Lady Harriett toyed with this Mr. Bellingham. There were bigger matters that concerned her—primarily, escaping with the pages in her possession.

No sooner was he gone than others began to drift into the room. They were undeniably corporeal beings, but they moved with the distracted, otherworldly indifference of ghosts. There were three men and two women, all of different ages, all well dressed, though every one of them had some sign of indifference in attire—a ribbon not tied properly, a loose cravat, buttons hanging by threads. They entered the room and stood looking at books or out the window. One picked up a marble bookend and held it up to the wall sconce to better examine the veins.

Lucy looked at Byron, who shrugged and put an exploratory finger to test the severity of the bruise upon his cheek.

“Lady Harriett,” Lucy began, but managed nothing further. The moment she spoke all five of Lady Harriett’s guests turned to her with a suddenness that verged on terrifying. The marble bookend fell to the rug below as the man who had been holding it took three sudden steps toward Lucy, stopping only a foot away. He bent forward, putting his face near hers, staring with great intensity.

Lucy could not help but notice that he had a rather nice face—beautiful even, if pale and slightly gaunt—but his eyes were wide, unusually colorless, and unfocused. His hair was thick and the gray of an overcast sky.

“She ought not to be here,” he said in a dreamy voice. He stood up straight again, and began to examine his thumbnail.

“I know that, Mr. Whitestone,” snapped Lady Harriett. “I shall deal with her.”

An old woman of perhaps forty, who had previously been staring out the window, leaned forward. “We are counting on you to do precisely that.”

“Yes,” answered Lady Harriett. “And now you must let me proceed as I see fit.”

“She intends to gather the leaves,” said the first man.

“I know that,” snapped Lady Harriett. “This girl will accomplish nothing.”

The other woman, a bit older than the first, remained at the window. “If we kill her, we need not think of her anymore. Is that not so?”

Lucy’s pulse thrummed in her neck. If Lady Harriett wished to kill her, Lucy did not believe she knew of anything that would prevent her.

“If that were true, then I would have killed her before now,” said Lady Harriett, her voice so cold that Lucy had no doubt that this assertion was true. “She has protected herself, so if we kill her, we shall be worse off than we are with her alive.”

“Perhaps we can keep her locked away,” said Mr. Whitestone. He put a finger to his cheek. “What?” he asked no one in particular.

“I know what needs doing,” said Lady Harriett, “and I shall do it. Now, off with all of you. I shall meet with you presently.”

The group appeared slightly surprised, but not offended. They exchanged looks. One of the men shrugged, and without further conversation, they drifted out of the room as curiously as they had drifted in.

Lady Harriett, Lucy, and Byron remained silent for some moments afterwards. Lucy wished Byron would speak, but when he did not, she took the burden upon herself, affecting the sort of bravado she wished she possessed. “I am sorry to have intruded upon your menagerie of madmen, but it is time we left.”

“I don’t know that you shall ever leave,” said Lady Harriett. “My late Sir Reginald would not have hesitated to execute justice by his own hand. Perhaps there can be no better way to honor his memory.”

“Come, Lady Harriett,” said Byron who had begun to recover himself. “Let us not make more of this than we ought.”

“You must think me a fool, Byron,” said Lady Harriett. “After all I have done for you, that you abuse me in this manner is unthinkable. I cannot say what I shall do with you or your little slut. For now, you shall have the run of the house, for you can do no harm, but do not think that you can walk out of the building.” She smiled at Lucy. “Perhaps you would care to try.”

Lucy attempted to rise from the sofa, but she could not. There was something clammy on her wrists, on her knees. It felt as though there were hands upon her, countless tiny hands touching her, feeling her flesh in places no one had ever touched her. She could almost see them from the corners of her eyes, the shadowy creatures from the mill, things of darkness and ambiguity. She could not look at them directly, but as she turned away, she saw dozens of wispy fingers tugging upon her skirts. These things, she realized, were Lady Harriett’s creatures, or at the least, hers to command. Fear and nausea shot through Lucy, and she understood at once that she was out of her depth.

“You are nothing, girl,” said Lady Harriett. And now she cried out, but not to Lucy. “Oh, stop it! Hands off the girl until I tell you otherwise or she attempts to escape.”

The shadowy creatures were suddenly gone. Relief washed over Lucy as she realized she could move once more. “Who are you,” said Lucy, “that you can command such things?”

Lady Harriett laughed. “I thought you worth my attention, but it seems you know nothing.”

“I know only of my sister and my niece,” said Lucy, “and what I must do for them.”

“There are millions of sisters and millions of nieces, and their fate is in the balance,” said Lady Harriett. “I care nothing for your family.”

“Though my sister be Mr. Buckles’s wife?” said Lucy.

“Buckles is useful because he is so eager to please. Now, I shall have one of my girls show you to your rooms—or you may share a room if you like. I care not if you play the whore with this man. In the meantime, I shall have to consider what to do with you.”

“If I am not back by tomorrow evening, I shall be missed,” said Lucy.

“Not my concern,” said Lady Harriett. “But you have no need to fear ruin, for I shall summon Mr. Olson. I’ll have Buckles officiate at your wedding, Miss Derrick. You and Mr. Olson shall, at last, be joined.”

Nothing that had happened that night filled Lucy with as much terror as this announcement. With a clergyman to officiate, and one loyal to Lady Harriett and who could be depended upon to swear whatever she demanded, the wedding would be valid.

“Mr. Olson no longer wishes to marry me,” protested Lucy.

“You know as well as I that his opinions may be managed,” said Lady Harriett. “Rejoice, for soon you will be a married woman. May you be as happy as my Sir Reginald made me.”

The servant showed Lucy to a massive room, painted gold, with a gold carpet and gold velvet curtains. The dangers of the evening, combined with the intensity of the color, began to make her head ache. Byron’s room was next to hers, as though Lady Harriett were daring them to behave shockingly, but Lucy had no capacity for mischief of that sort. She had hardly sat on her bed, preparing herself to think of her situation, shielding her eyes from the room’s unrelenting color, when there was a knock upon the door. Lucy rose, feeling like a somnambulist, and opened the door to find Byron standing there, appearing grave, one half of his face bright red.

“May I come in?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, her voice heavy with fatigue, “but you must leave the door open.”

He stepped in but closed the door behind him. “I do not know that I wish for anyone to hear what we have to say.”

“I see not what difference it makes.” And yet, Lucy did not rise to open the door again.

“I am sorry things have gone so badly,” he said.

Lucy shook her head, unable to find the words to express her despair.

Byron took a half step forward, but remained some five feet from her. “I swear I shan’t let that marriage take place. You are a resourceful young woman of remarkable ability, and I shall not have you abandon hope. We shall get you out of here, and if it is too late to return undiscovered, what of it? What they say of you means nothing. You decide what it means to be Lucy Derrick.”

“I cannot have this conversation once more,” said Lucy. “It means nothing to you because you have the luxury of it meaning nothing. I must live in the world as a woman, and if I am not returned before that spell expires the situation will be grave indeed.”

Byron’s hands on her shoulders felt hot. Lucy felt herself flush. The blood was now full in her face, and she felt a strange, delicious energy building inside her. She did not know what would happen next, and for the moment she did not care. Perhaps her life was all but ruined with nothing before her but shame and exile. Should she not find pleasure and comfort where she could?

“Should the worst happen,” he said, “and you fail to return on time, then you must burn in the scorn of the world and emerge from it anew, a phoenix reborn, to live by your own law.” He retreated a few steps. When Lucy raised her eyes to look at him, he met her gaze with a smile. “And yet, I do not believe it will come to that.”

She hated that he was so beautiful, that she could not look at him and talk to him without thinking, even for a second, that there was no man to match him. “What is she?” Lucy managed, attempting to master herself. “How can she do what she does? Who were all those strange people who listened to her as though she was their master?”

He shook his head. “It is you who must tell me.”

“I think you know her better than you allow,” she said in an intentionally stern tone. “She takes liberties with you that she would not with a stranger.”

He shrugged. “Lady Harriett acts as she wishes.” He encircled her fingers in his hand, his grip loose and warm.

Lucy pulled her hand away. “What if I cannot stand against her?”

Byron had no answer for this, so instead he kissed her. Their lips met, and she offered no resistance. His fingers gently clenched her shoulder. He pulled her closer until his broad chest pressed against her breasts and she felt the power of his thundering heart. His breath was hot and sweet, and she had never known anything so intoxicating. She wanted him, to possess him, to have him upon her and over her and for him to smother her entirely.

“Yes,” he said. “We shall comfort each other.”

Though it took all her will, Lucy pushed him away. With only a few inches between them, she looked into his beautiful, wild face and staggered back a few steps. “The world may yet choose to despise me, but I will not despise myself.”

“Lucy,” Byron began.

“I am tired,” she said. “I must be gone from here by noon tomorrow or I shall be married or ruined. I have few resources. You may have made a career out of sacrificing everything to your pleasures, Lord Byron, but I cannot.”

He reached out, stroking her face with the backs of his fingers. “Lucy, you are confused.”

“No!” she shouted, not caring who heard, not caring if Lady Harriett and all her servants were awakened. She walked away from him, toward the fire, as though its heat might burn away her shame and desire. “I am tired and I am frightened and I am desperate, but I am not confused.” She took a deep breath and ran a hand over her face. “Do not attempt to seduce me again, or I shall hate you. I must sleep and clear my mind, and in the morning, I shall escape this house. My niece, my flesh and blood, is held prisoner somewhere, and the monster that has taken her place sucks the very life out of my sister. I will not sacrifice them on the altar of gratification. I cannot fail my family again. Are you my ally or not?”

He bowed in response. “You must never doubt that I am. I shall obey your wishes and meet any challenge you may present to me.”

“Will you obey me?” asked Lucy, thrilled by her anger and her sense of power and authority. She had neither lied nor deceived nor used vile magic, and he was still hers. Women were magic. “Will you do as I ask without question or hesitation?”

He bowed again.

She thought of the things she had yet upon her, the knowledge she yet possessed. She had three pages of the Mutus Liber, stolen from Lady Harriett’s library, and neither that witch nor Byron nor anyone else in the world knew she had them. Even now, those pages called to her, sought her attention, like an itch inside her mind. There was a puzzle, a riddle to solve, and she would solve it. She was more dangerous than anyone knew. Lady Harriett’s words meant nothing. She was mighty, she told herself, and she would not be stopped.

“These walls shan’t hold us,” Lucy pronounced, feeling her courage form into something material and adamantine. “Lady Harriett and her allies and her imps can do nothing against us.”

He turned to open the door. “Then I shall see you well rested in the morning, Lucy.”

“I wish you good night, Lord Byron.”

He began to walk out and then turned to her. “As a point of clarification, do you say that I must never try to seduce you ever, or not while we remain here?”

The thinnest smile, constrained but quivering, danced upon his lips, and Lucy could not help but laugh. “Here to be sure,” she said. “We shall see what comes later.”

The smile blossomed fully. He bowed one last time and closed the door behind him.

Sitting on her bed, Lucy listened to the ticking of the tall case clock outside her door, and she heard nothing else. Perhaps ten minutes passed. Perhaps twenty. When it seemed like enough time, she removed from the folds of her skirt the pages she had cut from Lady Harriett’s book. By the strong light of several tapers, she began to unravel their meaning, which came into sharp relief. Persuasion. She could not escape the word, just as with the first set of pages she could not escape the notion of sacrifice. But Mary was not there to tell her what it meant or how to apply it to her needs, so Lucy had no choice but to discover that for herself.

Before allowing herself to sleep, Lucy had opened her curtains so she would awaken at first light. Nevertheless, she remained in deep slumber perhaps later than she wished, not rising until an hour or so after dawn. She refreshed herself as best she could with water from the basin, dressed, and began to go through her materials that she had collected the night before, organizing her notes and charms. She had fallen asleep before finishing, too exhausted to go on, so she finished her work now, writing for as long as she dared. When the clock struck eight o’clock, she knew she could wait no longer. She had perhaps four hours to escape Lady Harriett’s estate.

Though she had slept only a few hours, her mind was much clearer, sharper, focused by anger and desperation. Lucy opened up the bag she kept hidden in her gown and examined once more the herbs, the tools, and the ingredients. What she hoped to do was possible. From memory, she made a talisman of vulnerability. She would not be surprised again by Lady Harriett’s strength.

Placing her bag within the secret compartment in her gown, she left her room and knocked upon Byron’s door, and found him dressed and ready to attend to her.

“Let us then see if Lady Harriett will offer us breakfast,” she said.

Here they had a bit of good fortune, perhaps the only good fortune upon which they ought to depend, so Lucy embraced it most gratefully. Breakfast was, indeed, set out—a series of chafing dishes with eggs, toast, bacon, porridge, and meats. There was salt, which Lucy required, and she saw a parsley garnish, which she quickly pocketed. Upon the table was a vase containing a variety of wildflowers, including, Lucy noted, bluebells. Lady Harriett was careless to leave such things lying about.

They were not to dine alone, for sitting at the table, enjoying a plate piled high with sausage and bacon, was none other than Mr. Buckles. His tall frame was stooped over his plate while he worked his knife and fork with determined fury, slicing and smothering. His face was slick with perspiration, as though the act of cutting and eating taxed him to his limits.

He looked upon Lucy, took a bite of sausage, and then spoke while he chewed. “I hear I am to wish you, as they say, joy, Miss Derrick. To become Mrs. Olson after all. It is very grand, and more than you deserve, if I may be so bold. But it is Lady Harriett’s will.”

“Where is Lady Harriett?” asked Byron, touching his cheek. It had begun to bruise, disrupting his beauty like paint spilled upon a portrait.

“Lady Harriett and her associates have departed,” said Mr. Buckles. “Something happened with that John Bellingham fellow—some disaster that she blamed upon you, Miss Derrick. I am hardly surprised you would have something to do with that madman. A twitching sort of person, and always off upon what he is owed.”

“When shall Lady Harriett return?” asked Byron.

“Her ladyship did not, ah, shall we say, trouble herself to tell me what is surely none of my concern. She has instructed me to marry you to Mr. Olson upon his arrival, whether she is here or no.”

Byron looked at the food and then at Lucy, and she nodded. She did not much feel like eating, but she required strength and did not wish to find herself in a dire situation too depleted to do what she must.

Lucy served herself a healthy portion of eggs and toast—the meat did not appeal to her today—and sat at the table as far from Mr. Buckles as she could while still able to conduct a conversation. Byron, for his part, put but little food on his plate—some sausage and porridge. Lucy sensed that, for a man of great appetites, he was an abstemious eater.

“How does my sister?” Lucy asked Mr. Buckles.

Mr. Buckles put a large piece of bacon into his mouth. “She is well.”

“And your daughter?”

He paused for but a second. “She is also well.”

“You know that for certain?” asked Lucy.

He smiled in his simpering way. “How should I not, ah, know?”

“How indeed?” asked Lucy. She drank a glass of water. She wanted neither hunger nor thirst to inhibit her in the time ahead.

“I must tell you,” Mr. Buckles said, “how, let us say—I believe the word is mortified—yes, how mortified I am that you would treat Lady Harriett Dyer in this fashion. In light of the attention she had condescended to show you, both in offering advice in your affairs and in permitting her servant to marry into your family. Now, you break open her house. I hardly know how I shall look at my wife again given what her own flesh and blood has done.”

He went on in this manner for some time, permitting neither his chewing nor the repetitive nature of his subject to interfere with his discourses. As this conversation required not a word from anyone else, Lucy allowed him to proceed as he pleased until she was done eating. She then set down her utensils, pushed back her chair, and walked over to Mr. Buckles. Taking a deep breath, she raised up her hand and struck him across the cheek as hard as she could. She had not the power of Lady Harriett, and Mr. Buckles did not fly from his chair as he might have done in her imagination, but even so, the sound rang out with a reverberating crack, and Lucy could not be dissatisfied. Her own hand stung from the force of it, but she cared nothing for that.

Mr. Buckles remained motionless, tears in his eyes. He looked utterly bewildered, like a little boy who has discovered his father kissing the kitchen maid, and suddenly sees that the world is not what he has always believed it.

Lucy turned to Byron. “Be so good as to restrain this man.”

He rose and did as she asked. He stood behind Mr. Buckles, holding his arms so that they were pinned behind the chair. “If Lady Harriett’s creatures should choose to interfere,” Byron said, “I may not be able to do as you ask.”

“Lady Harriett said we have freedom of the house,” said Lucy. “Let us use it.”

Mr. Buckles was beginning to find his voice. “How dare you!” he thundered. “How dare you lay hands upon me and restrain me. Do not think that Lady Harriett Dyer will not punish you most severely.”

Lucy struck him again. It hurt her far more this time, for her hand was now quite tender. What ought she to feel in striking her sister’s husband, the man who had cheated her out of her inheritance, out of the life that should have been hers? Shame? Rage? Revenge? She felt none of these things, only a hard resolve.

“Mr. Buckles,” she said, “be so good as to remain quiet until I ask you to speak. You are in the service of a monster, but you are far worse, for you would sacrifice your own child for your mistress. You disgust me, sir, and I have not the time to visit upon you the punishment you deserve for defrauding me of my inheritance. For now, I wish to know where I can find my niece.”

“I am instructed to tell you nothing, and I will tell you nothing,” he answered.

Lucy reached forward and began to unknot Mr. Buckles’s cravat. He look at her in shock, and Byron cocked an eyebrow in curiosity, but she would not pause to explain. Once the cravat was gone, she unbuttoned his vest, took the top of his shirt in each hand and ripped it open, exposing his pale, flabby chest, hairless and slick with perspiration.

“Stop this!” cried Mr. Buckles.

Lucy felt as though she stood outside herself. Never before had she done anything so audacious. Never before had she violated the bounds of decency with such determination and disregard. In this place, at this time, propriety did not matter. Lucy would do what she must, would do what she liked, to save her niece, and she would take the consequences as they came.

She reached over to the center of the table and pulled from the vase a single bluebell, just as she had seen in the pages of the Mutus Liber. Those pages were meant for her. The flower was meant for her. All came together with ease and precision, like pieces of a broken dish. “Lean the chair back, if you would, Lord Byron.”

Byron leaned back the chair and Lucy showed Mr. Buckles the object in her hand.

“What do you do with that flower?” he asked with a horror perhaps inconsistent with Lucy’s instrument.

“It is a bluebell,” she said. “They grow near graves, you know. My father taught me that. And there is no greater truth than death. The bluebell, when used properly, will render you incapable of lying or withholding what I ask of you. The only difficulty is that it must be held over your heart, and I am not altogether certain you have one.”

“How did you learn such things?” Mr. Buckles demanded.

“I learned them from the Mutus Liber,” she said.

Mr. Buckles let out a shriek, like a frightened child. Then he swallowed hard and attempted to blink the moisture from his eyes. “I’ll tell you nothing,” he croaked.

“Let us find out.” She slapped the flower upon his chest and, losing herself in the process, moved the bluebell in a circle until the petals began to crumple and ball. She absented herself, muttering she hardly knew what, but words the pages of the Mutus Liber seemed to hint at. She pressed the flower into his breast until his skin ringed red from pressure.

At last, she came back to herself. “Now will you tell me what I wish to know?”

He opened his mouth and moved it back and forth. His jaw vibrated, his lips quivered. Then he spoke, his voice low and forced. “Yes.”

She smiled. “Much better, Mr. Buckles. Let us discover all your secrets.”