Chapter 8 Bewitchingly Close
Agatha
The duke was angry, but Father won’t agree to anything stupid.
Will he?
I stop pacing the already-worn track in my bedroom and try to say, “Duke Mansfield will forgive me,” but it won’t come out.
Now, I’m not going to retract my heaps of curses on Melusine’s impish little head, but I will admit—reluctantly!—that this is a semi-useful application of her gift. I can’t lie to myself out loud any more than I could lie to any of my suitors. It’s not worth much, but it’s something.
I resume my worried walk, wringing my hands in a very typical “distressed maiden” fashion. I hate playing the part of distressed maiden. I wasn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t designed for this.
I was designed to be something of a goddess—to be adored, celebrated, loved by all who saw me. And I had been. I was comfortable in the role, perfectly suited to it. I was made for it, for heaven’s sake!
I should be downstairs, graciously accepting a proposal of marriage and enjoying Cook’s slightly-modified menu, but instead, here I am, banished to wallow!
Lady Agatha, the jewel of Candor, stuck pacing in my bedroom for hours and hours because my good-for-nothing godmother cursed me! On my birthday, no less!
I pause at my cluttered dressing table, pressing my cold hands on the top while I stare in the warped mirror. My eyes narrow. It’s all Melusine’s fault—that nasty, thoughtless, ill-informed, harebrained—
A hesitant tapping at the door startles me, and I spin away from the mirror. The door swings open silently, revealing Stepmother’s pale face. “You’re to come with me,” she says, her words strangely not-slow.
I bite my lip, still angry, but not wanting to take it out on Stepmother. “At midnight?”
Stepmother just steps back into the hallway to allow me to pass through the door. I tug my robe closer around me, hold my head high, and step out.
“Lead the way,” I say between clenched teeth.
She scurries—goodness, Stepmother scurrying? Something terrible must be happening!—down the stairway, leading me toward the front entrance. I frown, then yawn, then frown again. Perhaps one of my wounded lovers wishes to bid me goodbye.
Father stands like an ill-tempered bear in the entryway. It doesn’t take a godmother-enhanced Gift of Smell to detect the scent of alcohol rolling off him. His face twitches when he sights me.
“Here’s your alms,” he pronounces stiffly to the other man in the entry.
Father’s companion is some sort of scruffy minstrel with a small guitar slung over his back and a ridiculous feathered cap on his head.
He looks at me in alarm. “What? I’m—I’m—” He breaks off coughing.
Lovely. Conversing with a drunken father and a diseased vagrant is just how I wanted to spend the remainder of my night.
Father speaks over the sound of his wheezing. “You came to my house begging, and I’m giving you something for your troubles.”
My feet have stilled on the stairway with two steps to go, but Father grabs my hand and tugs me down. I stumble into him. He bustles me over to the beggar’s side.
“Father,” I begin, but he cuts me off with a hiccupy cough.
“My—my lord,” the beggar stammers. “I don’t want—”
“I understand perfectly what you want.” Father hiccups again. “There’s your alms for the poor. Now go.”
The beggar and I stare at each other, united by our mutual revulsion. “Father, no,” I say, as the beggar splutters, “I couldn’t take—”
“Such a jewel?”
The beggar looks as though he does not share this sentiment. “My lord, it would be quite, uh, improper—two unmarried persons traveling in close company—besides, I’m not here begging. I’m the—” He coughs harder.
I cringe away.
“Oh. Oh, yes. Pardon me.” Father wipes the back of his shirt sleeve across his forehead, eyes shifting toward me nervously—apologetically? He turns to Stepmother. “Fetch my record book from the study. And a pen. And a bottle of wine, to celebrate. Er, quick!”
She flees down the passageway.
“Please, Father.” I take a step toward him. “Forgive me. I can—I can—” I try to finish, fix this, but it won’t come out.
Father jerks his chin at the beggar. “Too late. He’ll humble you properly.”
This inspires the beggar to another coughing fit. I nearly ask Father if he’s trying to get me killed via pertussis, but I’m afraid he’ll say yes, so I keep my mouth shut.
Where was this self-control four hours ago? If I could have kept my mouth shut then, I wouldn’t be in this position!
Stepmother returns, her thin arms full of the items Father demanded, and he snatches the ledger.
He rests it on the banister and flips through the pages.
“Record of marriages,” he says, looking at me briefly.
Shame flits over his face. “Agatha, daughter of August Montberger, to … Er, what name shall I put?” He turns expectantly to the beggar, whose eyes widen.
“It’s”—another cough—“Lem?”
“Lem,” Father mutters, pen scratching in the book. “On this day …” He glances up at the ticking grandfather clock. “What day is it now, anyhow? Past midnight.” He fills in the date and gestures the beggar over. “Sign here.”
The beggar takes the pen, but doesn’t start writing. He looks at me, wide-eyed. “No, no—I can’t—”
“Very good.” Father’s voice is slurred. “Make her feel how undesirable she is now. Not even a beggar wants her.”
“It’s not that.” The beggar motions feebly to me. “Doesn’t she have to sign?”
“I’m allowed to sign for her,” Father says. “Her consent isn’t needed.”
I think the beggar gives me a pitying look, and I don’t want to be pitied by a beggar.
Naturally, I don’t want to be married to one either.
“Sign, or I’ll whip you both! And then marry her to the next vagrant that wanders to my door!” Father taps the page and raises his eyebrows higher on his perspiring forehead. “You don’t have all night.”
The beggar grimaces, but scrawls something in the ledger.
Father smiles—a shifty, wormy sort of look—and adds one final flourish to the bottom of the page. “A blotter, woman!”
Stepmother, who’d been waiting further down the shadowed hallway, startles like a spooked grouse and flees to fetch a blotter. We all wait in awkward silence until she returns.
“There,” Father says as he blots the page. “I now pronounce you married.” He snaps the book shut. “Kiss her if you want, and be off.”
I cross my arms over my chest and take an instinctive step away from the beggar. He tries to smile at me, I think, but perhaps he’s merely having some sort of … episode. I shudder.
“Perhaps this will teach you, Agatha, to mind your tongue.” Father uncorks the wine bottle Stepmother had brought and drinks straight from it. “You see what happens when you’re hasty.”
“When I’m hasty?” I blurt. “You can’t be serious! It wasn’t my fault! Melusine—”
“No more of this.” Father raises a hand. “You got what was coming to you. Er, you may leave now.” He gives the beggar a knowing look.
A knowing look? Is this some sort of deranged conspiracy?
Stepmother, chest heaving from her unusual levels of activity, takes a slow step toward the door. “Please, my lord, may I fetch some of Lady Agatha’s things?” My heart warms at this tenderness.
Father glances at the beggar. “Do you want her to have them?”
My jaw drops. I’ve never been so insulted—
The beggar wrinkles his forehead. Well, it can hardly be a conspiracy if he’s so confused. This must be one of Father’s more rash plans.
I close my mouth with a little growl. Even without Melusine’s awful Gift, Father’s inebriated enough that he wouldn’t listen to me right now.
“She—she can have her things?” the beggar finally says hesitantly. He scratches the back of his neck. Oh, I hope he doesn’t have lice. “I really came here to speak to my—” more coughing.
“I know why you came,” Father says loudly. He nods toward me. “You may take a change of clothes.” He raises the bottle in a sardonic salute.
I let out a relieved breath and run back up the stairs. My mind is spinning. How nice it would be if this were all just a nightmare. Suppose I wake up in the morning, and this whole day vanishes in a puff of bad memory, and I go back to Melusine, and she gives me a useful gift …
I grit my teeth and strip off my fancy gown. Better wear something a bit more practical until I can wriggle my way out of this mess.
I’m nearly done lacing my bodice when Stepmother wheezes her way up the final stair. “Stuff your pockets … with whatever you can,” she gasps. “You can … sell it … perhaps.”
With shaking fingers, I manage to unlock my jewelry box and scoop the contents into a pocket. My reflection in the dressing-table mirror is annoyingly serene. I almost wish I could break this Poise for a moment and scream. Perhaps it would wake me out of this nightmare.
Stepmother rummages through a drawer behind me and gathers a collection of lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, silk stockings, and a flimsy pair of dancing slippers and shoves them in the other pocket of my skirt.
“Ruins the silhouette,” I say with a feeble attempt at humor. “Completely upsets the drape. Oh, where are my boots?”
I find them underneath the wreath Phildan had given me. I swallow as I bend to replace my thin house slippers.
I don’t suppose I’ll get to say good-bye.
“What is this?”
I bark a laugh when I see the object Stepmother’s squinting at: Melusine’s enchanted teapot with its silken sash for carrying. “If it’s from my godmother, you can bet it’s worthless,” I say dryly, “but I’ll take what I can get.”
Father’s step in the passage outside my room warns me a moment before he bustles in without knocking.
I carefully don’t move my hands toward my pockets, but Father guesses my intent anyhow.
He crosses the room in three steps and reaches into my pockets by turn, first digging out the pieces Stepmother had selected before finding my jewels in the other pocket.