Chapter 11
Beatrix, holed up in an unused meeting room, finished her tally of likely votes on Gray’s bill, based on how the senators were currently leaning.
Twelve checks for yes, one for maybe, fifteen no’s and the rest—nineteen in all—unclear.
It was going to be a hard road to get the twenty-four they needed.
She glanced at the clock, saw it was just past five, and sighed. She didn’t want to go home. But what else could she do?
She gathered her things, trying not to look at Peter’s ring on her finger, taunting her with the difference between its promise and the reality. Then she opened the door and stood stock still at the sight of him, hand raised, clearly just about to knock.
He peered at her. “Are you all right?”
As gratifying as it would be to let loose a bitter laugh, she nodded instead. She would be all right. She would. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing—nothing bad. I finally feel steady enough to drive a longer distance, so I thought I’d pick you up. The people in Gray’s office said I could find you here.”
She nodded again. “Thank you.”
She supposed he’d seen the column and realized they had to keep up appearances at least until all the states in play voted on their typic-rights legislation. They couldn’t afford to drown the effort in sordid drama. More sordid drama.
He fell into step with her and slipped a hand into hers.
All the rationality in the world was not enough to tamp down her reaction—the zip in the stomach, the dreadful hope that she no longer believed.
There was only one way out of the building.
They had to go past a phalanx of reporters and photographers who’d staked out spots there. Of course he took her hand.
She forced a neutral expression onto her face as they stepped over the threshold, two cameras going off, five reporters shouting questions.
“Omnimancer! What’s your reaction to—”
“—just got word—”
“—do you think?”
“Fellows, I’ve barely seen my fiancée all week,” Peter said. “We’re going to dinner. Come by my house tomorrow morning if you’re still burning to ask those questions.”
“But West Virginia’s Senate just voted down their amendment bill,” one of the men said. “We were hoping to get a quote.”
Beatrix stared at him. “But … it wasn’t scheduled for a vote until next week.”
“Rescheduled at the last minute. It’s the first state to get to a full floor vote, so—we’d really like to know what you think.”
She swallowed a groan. The head of the League’s West Virginia state chapter had been sending them positive reports. The sponsor thought he had the votes.
“Why do you think it was rescheduled?” Peter asked.
One of the reporters offered a cynical snort.
Exactly. She asked, “Do you know the vote tally?”
“Twelve for, thirteen against, nine absent.”
Nine. On a close vote, that would make all the difference.
The youngest-looking reporter in the pack cleared his throat. “So how do you feel?”
Peter glanced at her, eyebrows up—giving her first crack at it.
What would Lydia say? She exhaled. “It’s terrible for West Virginians that their opportunity to weigh in was cut short.
It’s terrible for the senators who supported the bill but weren’t able to vote on it.
I challenge opponents—I challenge Washington—to make this a fair fight and see what Americans truly want. ”
The reporters were madly scribbling this into their notebooks. Then several of them said, “Omnimancer?”
“I can’t put it better than that,” he said.
And that was it. No questions about their relationship. He walked her to his car and off they went. Beatrix closed her eyes, grateful for the respite from the train—the reporters who looked for her there were all writing “Romeo and Juliet” stories.
“Beatrix?”
She opened her eyes to find the car stopped, but she hadn’t felt it happening. “What—”
“You fell asleep. Are you sure you’re all right?”
She considered telling him the truth, but this was not a conversation they could have without spells. His two weeks would be up on Sunday. She needed to wait another day and a half.
“Just tired,” she said.
He nodded, accepting that. If the Vows were still in force, he would know how she really felt.
Of course, if the Vows were still in force, he would also love her.
She opened the door to get out and realized with a start that they were not in Ellicott Mills. Nor did it seem to be Annapolis. She stood, turned and saw towering buildings down the street. Baltimore.
“We’ve got dinner reservations,” he said, taking her arm and leading her the other direction. “Miss Dane has deigned to approve.”
Rosemarie probably suggested it. You ought to do something, Omnimancer. That column about you and Lydia is a problem. People will talk. It was a perfectly good idea from a strategic point of view, but her heart was involved, and she wished she could go home.
They were on a street with some of Baltimore’s ritzier offerings, which made her feel even worse. But then he turned right, walked two blocks east and opened the door of a restaurant that looked perfectly ordinary and comfortable.
Her relief was short-lived. Every head turned. The room went all but silent for a second, followed by the buzz of excited whispers.
The waiter who rushed to them was followed by two guests, five, ten, most of them putting out their hands in hopes of a shake. A moment later, all the people in the restaurant were on their feet, applauding.
“Thank you both for standing up for our rights!” an elderly lady at the closest table called out.
Her husband waved his fist in the air. “Give ’em hell!”
“I think, sir and miss, that I’d better take you to the back room,” their waiter said, and managed to part the crowd.
“I’m sorry about the uproar,” Peter said as the waiter pulled the door closed behind them.
“We can go, if that would be easier,” Beatrix murmured.
“No, no!” The waiter was emphatic. “No one’s reserved this room tonight. Please stay. Stay as long as you’d like.”
He took their orders and left. Peter shook his head. “Well, this wasn’t what I had in mind …”
Wasn’t it?
“… but I’m not going to complain about getting a room entirely to ourselves.”
Her throat felt thick.
“I’m sorry about West Virginia,” he said. “We knew all the states around here were going to be especially tough. They’re just so intertwined with Washington.”
She nodded.
“It’s safe to talk,” he said. “Well—reasonably safe. Nobody knows we’re here specifically, no one followed us on the road, I felt around carefully in the car to ensure no wizards were hitching an invisible ride and I made this reservation under ‘Smith’ from a payphone.”
Clever as it was, it wasn’t safe enough for the conversation they needed to have.
He looked around the empty room, which was clearly meant for a bigger crowd. “This is such a relief.”
“Yes,” she said, wondering how she was going to get through the evening without breaking down.
“You’re really good at this, you know,” he said, and for a second she thought he meant “pretending everything is all right,” but then he added, “Politics. Figuring out how the system works, organizing people to push for reform, coming up with a clear answer to an unexpected question in a split second.”
“Thank you,” she said, surprised and touched.
“Have you changed your mind? Do you like this work now?”
Her expression must have been answer enough. He laughed. Then he sighed. “You’ve never been able to do what you really wanted.”
“You never really had a choice, either.”
“True. But if it were up to me—if I could get paid enough to get by—I think I’d keep omnimancing.”
She stared at him. “Really?”
“Honest to God.”
At that point the waiter bustled in with salads and bread. But when the man left, she hastened to continue the conversation. It was so good to talk to Peter, even as the sensible part of her warned that this would only make it harder when the end came.
“Do you plan to keep omnimancing, then?” she said.
“Well, I imagine I may have blown my chance to get hired into the federal omnimancer ranks.”
His delivery was so dry it almost made her laugh. The feeling bubbled up but couldn’t quite make it past the icy certainty in her chest that he didn’t love her, had never loved her, had merely had the emotions thrust upon him temporarily by a spell gone awry.
He was looking at her, no doubt expecting a response that was not a sob, so she said, “There’s probably a county around here that would see the value in budgeting for a wizard.”
He nodded. “The trouble is, it wouldn’t pay very much. It’s not that I want a lot of money, but the hospital bills …”
“Yes,” she said, the icy feeling spreading to her stomach. When would they come? How bad would they be? She had called twice now to ask, and in each case was told that it would be “soon” but that the amount had not been tallied yet.
“And we need to have enough to cover Hazelhurst,” he said, buttering a piece of bread.
She blinked, lost, and then picked up the thread. “Oh—I’ve finished paying Lydia’s tuition.”
“No, no, your tuition.”
The fork she’d picked up to eat a bite of salad slipped out of her hand and clattered on the table. “You—you plan to …”
He looked up from his own salad, brow furrowed. “Did you really think we weren’t going to prioritize that?”
She didn’t know what to say. He took her hand.
“Beatrix,” he murmured, “I know why you don’t want to set a wedding date.”
Her mouth went dry, her heart thudding in her ears.
“I’m sorry things have worked out the way they have.” He grimaced and looked down at his plate. “I understand how hard this is for you, I do. But I’m offering you a different sort of marriage. Surely we could make this work?”
“A—a different sort of marriage,” she said. She could feel her bottom lip trembling. She bit down on it to make it stop.
“Yes. Your life would be your own.”