Chapter 8 #2
She returned to sit in complete silence with Peter, the words she wanted to say pressing at her like a thousand pinpricks from the inside. Thirteen days before they could have a safe conversation. Thirteen days before she could ask him how he really felt about her.
He took her hand. She looked at him, her imprudent heart giving a hopeful lurch.
“I’d better go,” he said.
“Yes,” she murmured, the unsaid words nearly choking her.
She woke the next morning with more evidence that Peter was right. Dreamside had not returned. She could think of nothing else until she bent down to pick up the newspaper on the stoop and saw their faces on the front page.
The story was out.
“THE LEAGUE’S WIZARD,” the Star’s headline declared—stripped above a photo that looked like something out of the cinema. Peter’s anguished face pressed to hers. Her hands clutching his coat, his ring visible on her finger.
She averted her eyes and hastily read the story.
It was good. Very good. Washington officials denied any connection to the image and anonymous note, but Hickok called eight League leaders who all told the same story of how they’d received them.
Two, in fact, reported hearing a pop outside the door, the significance of which Hickok had made sure to explain.
“All this,” Hickok wrote, “while Blackwell had yet to be released from the hospital in which he’d nearly died.”
There was a quote from Gray: “Americans owe Omnimancer Blackwell a debt of gratitude, and the Abbott administration should be ashamed of itself.”
There was a quote from Sue: “I’m quite sure I’m only still alive today because of their efforts.”
There was a quote from Nurse Weller that made her want to laugh and cry in equal measure: “Shocked that they kissed? Heavens, I’d have been more shocked if they hadn’t, poor dears!”
Naturally some naysayers got their say, too, but the League presidents from Vermont and Kansas sounded slightly laughable. Beatrix thought this hurdle the magiocracy had thrown at them had been well and truly leaped.
Unnerving, of course, to so publicly reveal Peter’s help after all they’d done to try to keep it secret. Uncomfortable, too, to have details of her life splashed across the Star.
She’d never before been mentioned in a story beyond fleeting references that usually did not include her name—which had been absolutely fine with her.
Miss Harper, who was raised by her older sister …
Miss Harper, who is joined in her tilting-at-windmills activism by her only sibling …
Miss Harper, whose sister is inexplicably paying to send to college …
She chuckled under her breath. She’d read that last one aloud at the time, and Ella had said—
She winced. Ella the funny, Ella the warmhearted, Ella the best friend were firmly entrenched in her memory. Ella the killer and would-be mass murderer kept catching her by surprise in her own head. She missed her—oh how she missed her.
She mechanically ate her oatmeal and re-read the story as a distraction, though she quickly realized she’d missed a few details in her breakneck pace the first time. Gray had disclosed that he’d hired her. What sudden advantage did he see in it?
She looked up at the clock. Time to go.
As she walked through the forest, she braced herself for the possibility of meeting someone in town—of having to justify herself, if only because it seemed to be the accepted notion in Ellicott Mills that no one ought to have secrets (besides oneself, of course).
But Main Street and the train platform were empty as always this early in the morning.
She enjoyed her temporary reprieve from repercussions.
Then she stepped onto the train and everyone sitting in the car—six men who always chatted with each other—stared back at her.
One of them had the Star clutched in his hands.
She murmured a “good morning” and sat at the front, feeling their eyes on her the rest of the trip, hearing snatches of their whispered conversation. Harper. Wizard. Washington.
Later, inside the Senate office building, heads turned as she went by.
“Welcome to the spotlight, Miss Harper,” Gray said, falling into step beside her.
“How long until it stops?”
He chuckled. “Give it a day or two. Everyone will move on to something else.”
“This is why you acknowledged my employment, isn’t it. You knew people would notice.”
“Always retain some control over your own story,” he said.
They discussed the press conference, and she left for appointments with groups she hoped to add to the attendee list. Here, too, her reputation preceded her.
The president of the Maryland chapter of the National Women Voters Association kept commiserating with her in a kindly but off-topic way. “I can just imagine how you must have felt when your sweetheart fell into a coma. When my Henry had his appendix out, I was beside myself!”
The president of the Maryland chapter of the American Civic Association, a gray-haired man in an equally gray suit, informed her she needed someone to bring order to her chaotic life. Someone older and steadier. Was she available for dinner that night?
The president of the Maryland chapter of the Young Professionals Federation kept squinting at her and not attending to what she was saying.
She finally asked what was wrong, and he said in what sounded like honest bewilderment, “You’re really not the type I’d imagine in this situation.
You know, forbidden love and all that bosh. You’re so … plain.”
“It’s always the ones you don’t expect,” she said dryly. “Now, are you coming or not?”
She rode the train home with her eyes pressed shut. Lydia had been in the spotlight’s glare for years, and Beatrix had never truly understood what that felt like. Going back to being the Harper no one paid attention to would be such a relief.
“Ellicott Mills!” the conductor cried.
The doors opened. She had a second to gaze in astonishment at the crowd on the platform before the press cameras went off in her face, blinding her.
Peter took her hand and helped her off the train, seeing the strain in her face. “I’m sorry, I tried to warn you but Gray’s secretary told me you were out,” he said in an undertone. “They wanted to interview both of us.”
Beatrix glanced up Main Street, and he had the momentary impression that she might run for it.
But she turned back to the reporters, lifted her chin (again he thought inexorably of Plan B) and helped him answer a stream of questions on the platform.
These reporters—all men—were decidedly more interested in the romance than Hickok.
Were you soft on each other growing up here?
Is there any family history to that ring?
What did your sister say when you told her about your relationship, Miss Harper?
Then the inevitable follow-up: How have your wizard friends taken it, Omnimancer?
He swallowed, trying not to think of Martinelli. “No one who knows her is surprised that I feel the way I do.”
The reporter who’d asked that question added, “When are you getting married?”
Peter had a single second to wish he’d figured out a way to have a conversation about that with Beatrix. A second was all it took for her to answer—firm and final.
“Not right away.” Her smile looked forced. “We need time for our lives to settle down.”
“Wouldn’t you rather start your lives together as soon as possible?” another reporter asked. “You were going to marry immediately before the omnimancer here fell into his coma.”
“Now that I’m no longer working for him,” she said, “I’d like to plan a proper wedding.”
The men all nodded with knowing smiles. No doubt they could easily imagine her all aflutter about her dress, flowers and cake, because they didn’t know the first thing about her.
He and Beatrix needed to talk, actually talk, without second-guessing every word. He had to explain to her that he understood how she felt.
They both tried for a while to steer the conversation away from their relationship and toward typic rights, with limited success. Finally he said, “We have to go. But I hope you’ll all come to Senator Gray’s press conference.”
They retreated up Main Street as fast as he could walk while still using a cane to steady himself.
“Where were they all from?” she asked him.
“The Baltimore News-Register, both Washington papers, the Annapolis paper, the local radio stations and … one of the wire services, I think?” He shook his head. “I suppose we should have expected it. A surprising romance and political intrigue, always a winner.”
“Peter,” she whispered, “everyone on the street is staring at us.”
It was not an exaggeration. Some of the townspeople were smiling, some were frowning, but not a soul was looking away.
“Ignore it, do you think?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” she said in nearly inaudible horror. “Mrs. Price!”
It was too late to run—not that he could have managed to anyway. The widow was closing in fast, her heels clacking angrily against the pavement, eyes flashing.
“Omnimancer Blackwell,” she cried in her piercing voice.
“How dare you bring such shame on our town! I told you in no uncertain terms that you must not hire Miss Harper, but would you listen to me? You would not! And you—” She turned to Beatrix.
“Your mother is surely rolling over in her grave! Your name in a newspaper! Consorting with an unmarried man! Consorting with this unmarried man, of all men!”
He opened his mouth to defend her when the poof-poof-poof of cameras stopped him. The journalists had followed.
Mrs. Price turned on them. “You will not use my image.”
“What’s your name, ma’am?” one of the radio reporters said.
“You will absolutely not use my name!” she snapped.
“They’re engaged—what’s your objection, lady?” another reporter said.
Mrs. Price hesitated.
“Come have tea,” Beatrix said hastily, “and tell us exactly how you feel. Right now, in fact.”
Tea with Mrs. Price would be worse than arguing with her while surrounded by the press, in his opinion. But he bit out a “yes, please” for Beatrix’s sake.
“Well,” the widow said, frowning. Softening.
“Mrs. Price!” It was Mayor Croft, huffing down the street from his store. “Mrs. Price, I am in desperate need of your advice. Would you please—”
“Amelia Price, widow of the mill magnate?” one of the reporters said.
“Oh!” Mrs. Price glared at him. And apparently that settled it. “The reason I am horrified,” she said, enunciating every syllable, “besides the many objections that should be clear from today’s Star—”
“Mrs. Price, really,” Croft said, trying to tug her away.
“—is that Omnimancer Blackwell was an illegitimate child!” she howled.
All the reporters’ heads swiveled toward him and Beatrix as one. There was something so ridiculous about the whole situation that for an instant, the crushing blow of Martinelli’s death and the stress of this marriage Beatrix did not want lifted. He laughed.
“Yes, I was—as everyone in town knows,” he said. “Also, just to save Mrs. Price the trouble, I was orphaned and impoverished. It was a shock to all concerned when I additionally turned out to be a wizard.”
“Is it any wonder he cares about fair play and equal rights?” Beatrix said. “Mrs. Price, that is the way to judge a man. Don’t you think, Mayor?”
He watched with admiration as Beatrix’s words had exactly the right effect.
All the reporters swarmed around Croft, who said that yes, indeed, that was a good measure of a man, and the town was very lucky to call Omnimancer Blackwell a native son, etc.
etc. Peter didn’t hear the rest because by then, he and Beatrix had slipped away up Main Street.
He went for his car, intending to drive them to her house.
“Wait,” she said, and walked them down the hill and into the woods.
“Do you think it’s safe to talk here?” she murmured.
He hesitated—they certainly needed to talk and had no better place to do it. But: “No,” he said in an equally quiet undertone. “Not yet.”
“Twelve days,” she said, more a lament than a statement, and gazed at the forest stretching out before them, her expression troubled.
The feeling that he had to say something caught at him and wouldn’t let go. Considering his words carefully so they would not be understood if overheard, he said, “I agree with what you said. About the wedding date.”
She turned her head sharply to look at him. “You do?”
“One hundred percent.”
She nodded, though she appeared no less troubled. She seemed to be considering her own words. She took his hand, lips parting.
Poof-poof! He swung about. A photographer stood ten feet away.
“Er—sorry, I was afraid I hadn’t gotten good images on the platform,” the man said. “Could you do that again before we lose the light—hold hands and look at each other?”
He considered what Miss Dane would say. Would this count as improper?
(What did she think of the Star photo?) But the decision was made for him.
Beatrix slipped her hand back into his—as if she wanted to marry him.
As if they’d come here to steal a moment of happy intimacy, as if they weren’t progressively losing the ability to live like halfway normal people.
“One way or another,” she said as the photographer hustled back to Main Street, “we’re constantly being watched.”
“At least this part is done,” he said, gesturing to the journalist.
“That’s what I thought this morning.” Her endearing crooked smile flickered to life and just as rapidly died. “Home, I suppose?”
Off they went to the house where eavesdropping was a guarantee, there to sit at a respectable distance from each other and say nothing of substance whatsoever.