Chapter Nine #2
Amelia blinked dispassionately in response to this, even as her nervous system got together to throw a raucous surprise party for the memory of The Staveley Pub Kiss. There is no call for capital letters, she told herself austerely, to which came an instant, adamant reply: THE KISS.
As a teacher, however, she was used to people being adamant about things that were actually nonsense, and therefore ignored herself. “Or we could use a silver candlestick to knock it down,” she proposed instead.
“Well if you want to be boring,” Caleb said.
Amelia sighed with exasperation but nevertheless couldn’t hold back a faint smile of her own. “You’re such a pest,” she told him fondly.
“I do my best.”
Her smile deepened. His gaze grew heavy.
The saltcellar began to spin, but neither of them noticed.
An intense, silent conversation passed between them…
We really need to focus—You’re right, as always—So will you focus?
—What do you think, darling?—I think you’ll go on being silly—See, always right.
It was the same conversation they’d been having most of their lives, and for which they no longer required actual words.
Had Ottersock witnessed that deep, intimate look, he’d have suffered an apoplexy.
They should have stopped; should have focused on work as Amelia suggested.
But they kept on just gazing at each other, their faces sparkling with constellations of magic.
And perhaps that magic affected them, or perhaps some strange kind of gravity.
For Caleb blinked, swaying just a fraction closer to Amelia, and at the same time she drifted toward him, lifting her face.
He bent his head, angling it, moving as slowly as she.
Their lips parted; their breath faded away. They kis—
Click.
The tiny sound pinched at the edge of their awareness. Without moving, Caleb looked up through his eyelashes, over Amelia’s shoulder…
And then, abruptly, he was moving very fast, straightening away from her, his expression darkening into a scowl.
“You are infuriating!” he snapped.
Amelia gasped with outrage. “And you are unbearable!”
Caleb’s eyes flashed with an anger that looked hot, so hot, Amelia felt a similar flash beneath her heart, alighting her pulse into a firestorm. “I hate you!” she averred, clamping her hands against her hips.
“I hate you too,” he said, and Amelia was amazed the air between them didn’t go up in smoke.
“Fighting again?” Throckmorton boomed with disbelieving indignation from the door, which he’d stealthily opened while they were intent upon each other. He stormed into the room, thrusting his pipe at them as if he stood in a classroom, chastising two naughty students. “Delinquent! Unprofessional!”
Amelia barely heard him. “Everything is your fault!” she told Caleb, and held her breath excitedly, awaiting his reply…
“Only in your imagination!” he retorted, causing her breath to release in a trembling rush. Indeed, her whole interior seemed to be trembling. Still glaring at Caleb, she thrust out one arm, pointing to farther down the table. “Professor Throckmorton, bring me a candlestick!”
“Going to smack Sterling with it?” Throckmorton asked hopefully.
“Ooh, yes please,” Caleb said, bouncing his eyebrows at Amelia.
She frowned in response, and her excitement transformed into something for which she had no name, never having experienced it before.
It felt simultaneously like the electrifying tension of a tightly clenched fist and the exhilaration of letting go.
“What nonsense,” she said, and snapped her fingers to hurry Throckmorton. “Candlestick!”
“Unsure if a good idea,” the professor said as he handed one up to her. “Considering the Ashmolean fire.”
“That’s true,” Caleb said as he continued to stare at Amelia. “Miss Tarrant is good at setting things aflame.”
She hefted the candlestick, and his smile quirked.
Then he took it from her, and unbuttoning his suit jacket with one hand, he reached up high, his white linen shirt straining against a chest that suggested he was not as indolent as he gave the impression of being.
He whacked the saltcellar with the candlestick.
Clank went silver against silver.
Twang went Amelia’s heart.
Immediately, the little bowl plummeted to the table.
And that was when things went really wrong.
—
“And so, in conclusion,” Caleb told Sir Nigel and Lady Ruperta as they stared open-mouthed at him from their separate brown leather sofas in the drawing room, “dining on the floor is the norm in many countries, and indeed is considered good for your physical well-being.”
Brandy splashed in Lady Ruperta’s glass as she half rose. But immediately she dropped back again, as if realizing one could not claim righteous superiority if one threw brandy in a man’s face—not even if that man had just destroyed her dining table. Sir Nigel puffed fretfully on a cigar.
“We are very sorry about the broken table…and the ruined meal…and, er, the two shattered chairs,” Amelia told them. “You can at least be reassured that we have the antique responsible contained securely, so it can do no further damage.”
She held up the linen napkin fashioned as a sack, into which she and Caleb had wrangled the saltcellar after recovering it from the food-spattered wreckage of the dining table.
Blue-tinted steam was exuding from the cloth as the antique’s thaumaturgic energy cooled.
Lady Ruperta frowned at the sight, but Vanity, perched uncomfortably on one of the dozen antique chairs crammed into the room, was staring at Amelia with amusement.
Amelia did not much like this but could understand it nevertheless.
She looked ridiculous. Getting caught in the middle of an exploding five-course meal does not benefit one’s coiffure, unless swan feathers and cold mushroom soup should ever become fashionable headwear.
And the less said about what stained her cardigan, the better.
Definitely becoming vegetarian, she promised herself.
The only positive aspect of the whole shambles was that Throckmorton had retreated to his bedroom, declaring that, once he’d got all the oak splinters and fish bones out of his beard, he’d be packing to leave the “Disaster! Zone!” and catching the morning train back to Oxford, where no doubt the university’s entire teaching body would be awaiting his report.
He’d given Amelia and Caleb the gist of it as they dragged themselves up from the floor where the saltcellar’s thaumaturgic blast had thrown them: “Incorrigible! Reckless!” and other Adjectives!
that Amelia had tuned out as she’d hunted for some water, or even better, wine, to wash away the taste of salt.
Her back ached, her spirit was mortified—and yet, had she known that an explosion of magic was all it took to get rid of the reprehensible medieval studies professor, she’d have organized one far earlier.
“Do you wish to include the saltcellar in your donation to the British Museum?” she asked Sir Nigel.
For although she remained quite certain that the item contained only a slight thaumaturgic signature, and that the Hereford teaspoon’s influence had compounded it, she was not going to admit it had been all her fault deprive the museum of such a charming antique.
Sir Nigel nodded rather mournfully in agreement, and Amelia and Caleb were then given permission to withdraw for the evening.
“I shall have servants bring you hot water and towels,” Lady Ruperta said, less with genteel consideration and more with an eye to her carpets.
“And whatever supper can be contrived, since we are bereft of our proper dinner.”
Amelia drew breath to offer another apology—
“Thank you,” Caleb said, and turned to Amelia with a stern look. “After you, Professor Tarrant,” he said, gesturing toward the door. As a result, she was obliged to leave without demeaning herself in the name of politeness.
“Well, that was fun,” Caleb said sardonically as they trudged upstairs in the company of a footman carrying two lanterns to illuminate the way.
“Do you mean the explosion part?” Amelia asked. “Or the part where Lady Ruperta looked at us as if she wished we’d gone the way of the roasted swans?”
“The part where my favorite suit got splattered with God, what even is this?” He delicately lifted one of his jacket’s lapels and sniffed. Disgust writhed across his face.
“Best not to ask,” Amelia advised.
“That teaspoon is a menace.”
“It did find the thaumaturgic objects in the room, however,” Amelia reminded him. “Think of how easy it could make our job here.”
“By causing explosions of magic left, right, and center,” Caleb said. “I’m all for making things easy, but I’d rather not sacrifice another bespoke Henry Poole and Co. suit.” He brushed futilely at his jacket, then gave a tragic sigh.
Amelia took pity on him. “Pass the jacket to me. I’ll soak it in the vinegar solution I use for my hair. That should get the stains out.”
Caleb eyed her hair musingly, then must have decided it was in good condition despite the feathers and the soup, for he began removing his jacket.
“You have a fix for everything, don’t you?
” he said, smiling at her in a friendly manner that made their hot, sensual moment in the dining room seem like nothing more than a magic-ignited fever dream.
Which of course it had been. Not real at all.
“Yes, I do,” she said briskly. Taking the jacket, she draped it over her arm. “I’ll get onto this right away, and then I’ll write up a record of the evening and a detailed description of the saltcellar for the museum curation team. And then I’ll—”
“You’ll rest,” Caleb interrupted.
“But—”
“We’ve had an abhorrently long day, Meely. You’re allowed to rest now.”
“Hm,” Amelia said, unconvinced. A Tarrant never rested if they could help it.
Deep inside her heart she harbored a small, ridiculous fear that, if she ever truly relaxed, she’d be carted back to boarding school.
But there was no point in arguing with Caleb…
mainly because she intended to discard his advice the moment she was alone in her room.
“Don’t forget to put the teaspoon in a safe bag,” she admonished him.
“I won’t,” he said.
“And don’t forget to scrub your fingernails thoroughly. If enchanted salt got under—”
“I know, Meely. Do you want to bathe me yourself, to ensure I get washed behind my ears?”
“Ahem,” coughed the footman a few steps ahead, belatedly reminding them of his presence. Amelia gave Caleb a vehement but silent lecture about the Conventions of Decent Conversation in Public, and in response to the rapid movement of her lips, he just grinned.
Reaching the top of the stairs, they proceeded wearily along the corridor, Caleb trailing his hand absentmindedly over the cluttered sideboards at its edges, and Amelia, coming behind him, straightening the vases, framed miniatures, and statuettes he knocked askew.
Upon arriving at their bedrooms, the footman opened Amelia’s door and hung one of the lanterns on a wall hook just inside the room.
He then paused expectantly, and Caleb rummaged in the jacket hanging over Amelia’s arm until he found a coin to tip the man.
“I don’t suppose this is an all-expenses-paid trip?
” he murmured to Amelia, who huffed a laugh.
“Yes, that’s rather what I thought.” He looked into her room.
“No ghosts or monsters. But— Eurgh!” His nose scrunched as he surveyed the red-and-pink floral wallpaper and matching bedclothes.
“Are those supposed to be roses or cow’s hearts?
Actually, never mind, I don’t want to know.
Rest,” he commanded, waggling a finger at Amelia. “Eat. Sleep. Dream of me.”
“That wouldn’t be very restful,” Amelia quipped in reply—then flushed the same colors as the walls, realizing how her joke might be construed.
But Caleb was already leaving, inspecting his tie for stains as he went.
The footman, professionally blank-faced, closed the door, and at last Amelia was left in peace.
For approximately ten seconds.
“Merde!”
A man’s furious shout whipped the quiet, shadowy air behind her. Amelia whirled, raising the saltcellar in its napkin like a weapon—
Then stopped abruptly, her fright falling away into annoyance. “What are you doing here?” she asked wearily.
“Comment oses-tu me parler ainsi!” yelled Bad King John of England, his eyes blazing with ire beneath the faded, glimmering memory of his medieval crown.