Chapter 10
Ten
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Nicholas had the morning to himself, and though he’d much prefer to be in his workroom engraving a few charms, he had to deal with the business of the estate. The charms could be made later, but he couldn’t ignore the reports from his steward for a month.
He studied the pile of papers spread across his desk. This early in the morning, he had to rely on glow-glyphs to read the reports, as he had chosen a room that faced the west and the forest for his study.
Marstede’s income mostly came from the Gloaming Forest. A steady source of money thrived under the shadowy trees.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t only traders from the north who were prone to superstitions about the area.
Even people who had spent their entire lives hunting, foraging, or logging in the woods got spooked on occasion, leading to accidents.
According to his steward’s report, the rate of accidents had increased sharply since mid-spring.
Most likely some new tale had made the rounds of the taverns, a few people had jumped at shadows, and their misfortunes in turn fed the tales of malevolent spirits.
Nicholas needed to find a way to break the spiral of fear and mistakes before it grew any worse.
It looked like he would have to carve out some time from following his mother’s whims to engrave a few charms after all.
Giving the people who worked in the woods magical protections would reassure them that no evil spirits would attack while they worked.
It was the most expedient solution, even if the charms weren’t truly necessary.
Leaving the reports behind, Nicholas moved from his study to the engraving room. He didn’t have much time before he was expected to escort Beatrice and then Lenora around the grounds for their walks with him.
As he settled in with his tools and stone, he couldn’t help but think about Sadie’s amulet.
Protection charms were hardly something most people needed to walk around wearing, but it seemed odd to him that she would have one with such a weak glyph inscribed on it.
She had said it was a present from her grandmother.
Perhaps that had been the strongest glyph her grandmother knew?
Without letting himself think about it too much, he put back the common chunk of granite he’d originally picked up and instead pulled a more expensive piece of amethyst from a drawer. Amethyst absorbed protective glyphs better than granite.
He began to carve a series of interconnected warding runes that made up a powerful glyph. He etched the lines lightly at first, then deeper and deeper into the gem as he called up his own power, making the glyph as potent as possible.
Much later, Nicholas sat back, studied his work, and decided the stone could fit one more rune.
It wasn’t a matter of having enough space—he could engrave the designs smaller—but even the amethyst could only support so much magic.
He’d chosen a gem that did particularly well with protective runes, but there were still limits.
The question was, what did he want to engrave to finish off the glyph?
A truth-rune would make Sadie more inclined to honesty while she carried the charm.
The chance to get a straight answer tempted him less than he expected, though.
Not because he’d feel guilty tricking her that way—though he would—but because he didn’t want the answers if they came via trickery.
He was still debating what to do when a servant came to inform him that he was due to meet Beatrice in less than five minutes. Nicholas slipped the amethyst into his pocket and left the engraving room. He’d have to make his final decision later.
Beatrice waited for him in the lavender sitting room, standing just inside the door.
She accepted his arm without a murmur, and they headed out to the gardens.
The day before, Nicholas had been the one to break the silence with both Jane and Helen.
Given her lack of greeting in the sitting room, he fully expected the same to happen with Beatrice, but once they had moved away from the manor a bit, she surprised him by stopping and freeing her arm from his.
“We need not pretend we are courting. We can keep up appearances enough to satisfy your mother, but when it is just us, I think honesty is a better policy. Neither of us is looking for romance.”
Nicholas nodded, trying not to let his surprise show. Why should Beatrice feel any differently than he did? “I appreciate your bluntness. I take it the decision to accept the invitation to visit was not your own?”
“Not quite. I accepted for myself, but my motivations had more to do with silencing my father than anything else. He is not pleased that I am yet unwed and make no efforts to change my status when we visit court.”
“I understand.” Nicholas swept his arm out toward the garden.
“Please choose your path. We should stay out for at least an hour, lest the servants report we came in early, but otherwise we can do as we wish. Is there a non-courtship topic you’d care to discuss, or shall we stick with our own thoughts for the remainder of our time? ”
“I suppose that depends. Do you read historical texts?”
“Not since my tutors stopped assigning them.”
“Then I suppose we will each be happier with our own thoughts.”
Nicholas smiled. “Indeed.”
For the next hour, while Beatrice contemplated her history texts, Nicholas ran his thumb over the charm in his pocket and contemplated how to give it to Sadie. He wouldn’t add the truth-rune, though if she would tell him something of what she was afraid of, he could add a more targeted protection.
Of course, first, she’d have to admit she was afraid of something, and he didn’t expect that to happen. Convincing her even to accept the charm would be difficult. But he’d have an entire hour alone with her tomorrow during their walk to make the attempt.
At the appointed hour, Nicholas and Beatrice made their way back to the manor. “Thank you for walking with me, Beatrice. I enjoyed your company.”
She laughed. “Yours wasn’t so bad, either.”
They walked together through the halls for a bit, but when Nicholas stopped at the sitting-room door, Beatrice continued on without a backward glance.
After that surprisingly painless walk, he knew better than to expect the next to go so well.
The most powerful luck charm he could craft wouldn’t be enough for that.
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Nicholas quickly discovered that Lenora didn’t expect him to actually participate in the conversation as they walked the grounds.
She never paused long enough for him to answer any of the questions she threw at him, sharing her own opinions and moving onto new topics with impressive rapidity.
He occasionally made sounds that could be interpreted as agreement or interest, and that satisfied her.
It satisfied Nicholas as well. Not quite as restful as walking with Beatrice, but not as annoying as maintaining his end of the polite conversation about nothing he’d had with Helen. He at least enjoyed walking outside, even if he’d prefer to be under the shade of the trees given the summer heat.
He never intended to lead Lenora into the forest, but he did angle their path a little closer to the tree line as their time went on and the heat from the sun grew stronger. And maybe Nicholas tried a little too hard to get to the relative coolness and drifted a little too close.
The bat took him by surprise.
It terrified Lenora.
The tiny creature swooped out of the trees into the harsh sunlight soundlessly. Nicholas noticed it at first because the amethyst in his pocket grew warm, the protections he’d engraved flaring to life. By the time he identified the dark blur, Lenora had seen it and started screaming.
She covered her hair with her hands and ran, preventing him from casting a ward to protect her from the bat that was behaving abnormally enough that it had triggered his enchantments. The bat followed Lenora, rising higher, then diving at her over and over. Nicholas cursed and ran after them both.
Fear gave Lenora surprising speed and grace. She reached the closest manor door before Nicholas could catch up, not tripping over any of the uneven paths or having any issues with her skirts while running. She threw open the door and darted inside, the bat making to follow her.
Nicholas threw up a ward over the doorway just in time to prevent the creature from getting inside. It flitted around the door as he crossed the final distance to the manor, then arrowed away, back to the forest in a straight line.
Nicholas let the poor bat go and dropped his ward. He entered the manor and, after closing the door firmly behind himself, followed the continuing screams deeper inside his home.
Lenora’s flight had ended in the parlor, where her screams gave way to slightly more muffled hysterics as everyone converged on her to see what had happened.
Nicholas told the servants hovering outside the parlor that they weren’t needed with a shake of his head and entered.
Helen sat on the divan with an arm around Lenora as she tried to get a coherent answer about what had happened. Beatrice had lowered her book. Sadie and Nicholas’s mother stood near the divan, both of them stepping toward him the moment he entered the parlor.
“What—” Madeleine’s question was cut off as Abigail ran into the room.
Abigail took in the tableaux and demanded, “What happened?”
“A bat attacked Lenora,” Nicholas said, more to his mother and Sadie than Abigail.
“You took her into the forest?” his mother asked in exasperation.
“No. We were in the gardens, and a bat flew out of the woods and directly at Lenora.”
Abigail shuddered, then moved over and took Lenora’s other side on the divan. She began to speak in a low voice to the distraught woman.