Chapter 4
Four
“Aurelia!” Alanna’s voice sounded from the corridor beyond the sitting room. “Look who I just found at the door!”
Her younger sister burst into the room, another girl following more hesitantly behind her, a large, leather-bound book in her hand.
“Phoebe!” Aurelia jumped up from her seat and hurried over to embrace her friend. “I was hoping you would come today!”
“Aurelia.” Her mother’s gently chiding voice held a warning. Aurelia was supposed to receive morning visitors with decorum.
“Don’t worry, Mother. It’s only Phoebe. She doesn’t mind, do you, Phoebe?”
Phoebe laughed. “Not in the least. I’ve been eager to see Aurelia as well. She’s the only true friend I’ve made here.”
“Yet,” Aurelia added. “You’ve only been in the capital for a few weeks. We can’t be the only two young ladies who feel more comfortable reading than talking with strangers.” She nodded toward her friend’s book with a grin.
“I suppose the others are just better at hiding it.” Phoebe sat on the sofa Aurelia had indicated, angling herself toward her friend. “But never mind that. I came because—”
“But where’s Fable?” Aurelia looked Phoebe up and down, distracted from her words by the sudden realization that the oncaryx was nowhere in sight. “I’ve never seen you without him. He even comes to balls with you!” She seized her friend’s arm, the pegasi on her mind. “Don’t tell me he’s sick!?”
Phoebe ran a soft hand down the elaborate embossed leather of her book’s cover.
“Oh no, I never go anywhere without him.”
Aurelia blinked, and the small creature appeared instantly in Phoebe’s lap. One minute he had been absent, and the next he was there.
“Fable!” she cried. “There you are!” She looked up at Phoebe. “But where did he come from?”
“I didn’t know oncaryx could make themselves invisible!” Alanna crowded in close behind Aurelia, her eyes wide.
“Don’t be silly,” Aurelia said absently. “Of course they can’t. We would definitely have heard about that, or it would have been in one of the books I’ve read.” She blinked again, staring at Phoebe. “Wait a minute! Where’s your book gone?”
Phoebe grinned impishly and stroked Fable’s back. In another eye blink he was gone, and Phoebe was once again holding the book.
“Your oncaryx becomes a book!” Aurelia cried, almost shouting the words.
“Aurelia!” Her mother said disapprovingly, and she lowered her voice.
“Seriously? Fable is an oncaryx who turns into a book instead of an awful sword or axe or…” She grasped Phoebe’s arm. “But where did you find him?” Her voice turned pitiful. “And why can’t I have one?”
Phoebe laughed. “He found me, of course. And don’t ask me why he turns into a book. He just always has. Apparently it’s rare for an oncaryx to take an inanimate form that isn’t a weapon, but it’s always been possible.” She shrugged.
In yet another blink, the furry polecat was back. Phoebe stroked his back, her eyes shining with affection.
“He is the best oncaryx ever,” Aurelia declared with feeling. “But what does his book form say?”
Phoebe grinned. “That’s the best bit. It changes. When I’m interested in something or need information, Fable becomes whatever book I want.”
Aurelia drew in a long breath, her eyes lighting up with the possibilities. “That’s even better than I imagined! But how is that possible?”
Her mother laughed. “He’s an oncaryx. How is any of it possible?”
“Perhaps he has a connection with a vast library somewhere?” Alanna suggested. “And he can mimic any of the books within it.”
“That’s actually a good suggestion.” Phoebe looked impressed.
Alanna narrowed her eyes. “There’s no need to sound so astonished.”
“But I can’t believe you didn’t tell me before now!” Aurelia directed a hurt look at Phoebe.
“Sorry. It honestly didn’t occur to me. I’m used to being on my family’s estate where everyone knows Fable.”
“And where is your home, Phoebe?” From her tone of voice, Aurelia’s mother was trying to guide the conversation back to calmer and more socially acceptable topics.
Phoebe gave a small grimace. “It’s quite remote, I’m afraid. So this is my first visit to the capital. But actually, I came today to ask if you would permit Aurelia to come on a visit to my home.”
Aurelia brightened at the suggestion, but the look she threw at her mother was uncertain. Her mother would probably see it as running away from the capital.
“You would want to accompany her, of course,” Phoebe added quickly. “It will just be a small house party, but I’m sure we could all do with a break from the endless festivities of this season.”
She gave Aurelia’s mother a hopeful look, and to Aurelia’s delighted astonishment, her mother beamed back at Phoebe.
“A small house party would be quite unexceptional. It will be hosted by…?”
“My aunt,” Phoebe said quickly, and Aurelia realized she had only ever heard Phoebe refer to an aunt, never her mother.
She sat on the sofa beside her, wishing she could think of something supportive to say or do. Now she knew why Phoebe had been so quick to assume Aurelia didn’t have a mother when she had first spoken of her grandmother.
“How lovely,” Aurelia’s mother said with satisfaction. “When are we expected?”
Phoebe’s hands gripped Fable a little too tightly, and he popped back into his book form. She blinked and looked down at the book in her hand with a murmured apology.
“Actually, it’s starting tomorrow.” She sounded awkward, and Aurelia’s mother blinked.
“We don’t mind in the least,” Aurelia said quickly, giving her mother a significant look. Her friend had obviously asked to have Aurelia included in the house party as a last-minute addition, and she didn’t want Phoebe embarrassed.
“We have no important engagements scheduled for more than a week, so that should be no problem.” Her mother looked at Alanna, who was already looking rebellious. “Alanna can stay here with her father.”
“I want to go to the house party!” Alanna said quickly. “It will be hideously boring here without either of you.”
“You’re too young,” her mother said firmly. “But I’m sure your father can extract his nose from his books long enough to take you to see some of the city. There are many places of interest here in the capital.”
“You should go to see the palace gardens on the next public day,” Aurelia said, her mind already busy considering what she would pack for the unexpected trip. Was she supposed to take all her nicest outfits to a house party? Or should she pack something harder wearing?
She threw Phoebe an uncertain look, but the sight of her friend’s face reassured her. Phoebe hovered on the fringes of society just like Aurelia, so she wouldn’t have any of the more fashionable and intimidating members of high society at her home.
“You’ve been to the palace?” Alanna asked, breaking through Aurelia’s abstraction.
She jumped guiltily. “Just the gardens. Last public day.”
Alanna’s eyes almost started out of her head. “Is that why you turned down the invitation to go riding? So you could visit the palace gardens on your own?” She shook her head. “A whole season in the capital is wasted on you. Mother should have waited another year and let me go to the parties too.”
“Alanna,” her mother said warningly, but her younger daughter ignored her, gripped by a new thought.
Squeezing herself onto the sofa on Aurelia’s other side—although there wasn’t really room for three—she fixed her sister with wide eyes.
“Unless you didn’t go on your own,” she breathed. “Were you meeting someone there?!”
“Of course not!” Aurelia’s words came out too quickly, her cheeks warming as her body remembered the feel of walking with her hand tucked into the Earl’s arm.
“You met someone there!” Alanna squealed. “Tell me who it was immediately! Is he hopelessly ineligible?” She sounded equal parts shocked and thrilled.
“Alanna!” her mother said in louder, sterner tones. “That is enough.”
Alanna subsided with a sulky look, and Aurelia carefully avoided meeting her mother’s eyes. From the thoughtful look being directed toward her, she had better be ready to answer the same questions again—although her mother would wait for a private moment and employ a more decorous delivery.
But when all the arrangements had been finalized and Phoebe had left, her mother only sent Aurelia off to pack. And later in the evening, when her mother appeared in her room to check over her luggage, she said nothing about Alanna’s accusations.
“I went to see the pegasus stables!” Aurelia blurted out, her guilty conscience too heavy to be ignored. “I heard they were sick, and I wanted to see for myself.” Her voice dropped. “But I know you’re not really supposed to go there on public days.”
Her mother laughed, cupping her cheek in her hand. “There’s a confession worthy of my honest girl.”
Aurelia’s cheeks flamed again, her thoughts leaping to the part she hadn’t told her mother. It was quite true that she’d gone there to see the pegasi and not the Earl, but the omission of their chance encounter weighed as heavily as a falsehood.
She couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother the full story of what had happened, though.
Not because she had done anything wrong in talking to the Earl, but because she didn’t want her mother to get the wrong idea.
Their meeting had been entirely by chance and wouldn’t be repeated.
There was no need for Aurelia’s mother—or worse, her sister—to ever get wind of it.
While her grandmother was the most determined to see Aurelia and Alanna make advantageous marriages, Aurelia’s mother also wanted to see her daughters happily established.
And what mother could resist the thought of her daughter drawing the attention of the Earl of Windward? Even if the notion was pure fantasy.
“Let me see what outfits you’ve packed,” her mother said, letting the matter drop, much to Aurelia’s relief.
But she caught her mother watching her with speculation as they talked of the upcoming journey, and when they settled across from each other in the carriage the next morning, she still had the same unsettling look in her eyes.
Aurelia did her best to put the whole matter out of her mind and focus on the visit to come. She couldn’t wait to spend a whole week with Phoebe and Fable.