Chapter Twelve
Sometimes place is a feeling.
Blazing Trails , W.H. Jackson
If there ever was a kiss that stopped time, this was it. They stood in a cottage deep inside the storm-wrecked Welsh countryside, lips meeting with desperate passion…they stood inside a small Oxford chapel, sealing their marital vows with unrequired tenderness…and the year between those moments seemed like a shadow adding depth to their ardor.
Gabriel’s hand slid down to cup the back of Elodie’s neck as he intensified the kiss, and she twined her arms around his neck, drawing him closer. He tasted of water and dirt and perfection. He warmed her so thoroughly, the icy bitterness of magic shed from her skin. She felt transported by desire—and yet she also felt like she’d always been here with him, kissing him. Gabriel was as much part of her existence as were skies and trees and apology letters to her head of department. She knew him the way she knew the shapes of the continents. His kiss was home.
All her longing dissolved into a bright haze of love. She lifted herself on tiptoes, and he wrapped an arm around her waist, everything hardening and softening, aching and easing with relief. For less than half a second, Gabriel pulled away an inch to change his angle, and Elodie thought her heart might break. Then they met again with even greater fervor, lips heating, tongues…
“Oy!”
They jumped apart. Belatedly, and now rather urgently, Elodie took in the room. It was charming in a rustic kind of way, with a spinning wheel in one corner, a table laden with food at its center, and most noteworthy of all, a man walking through the doorway at the far side of the room with a bowl of peas in his hands and stunned amazement gripping his face. Behind him came a woman carrying a toddler propped on her hip, and behind her a little boy who was craning to see.
Elodie blushed as red as a poinsettia flower at Christmas, although with significantly less festive cheer. “Uh, hello there,” she said, waving awkwardly.
The family made no reply, but she could see trespass notices and rifle barrels in the man’s eyes. Clearly, immediate reassurance was needed.
“We’re from the British government,” she told them with a smile.
Crash . The bowl of peas shattered as it fell to the floor.
Gabriel winced. “Perhaps not the best thing to say after barging into a Welshman’s home,” he murmured.
Indeed, said Welshman clenched his hands as if more than a bowl was about to be shattered.
“What should we do now?” Elodie asked Gabriel out of the corner of her smile. But before he might respond, the man took an abrupt step forward, clay shards crunching beneath his boots.
“What are you doing here? Apart from canoodling, that is.”
Canoodling! Elodie’s sensibilities bristled at having her romantic moment with Gabriel described thus.
Gabriel, however, was untroubled. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said with such dignity that everyone in the room stood a little straighter. “I’m Dr. Tarrant, a geographer from Oxford University. And this is Dr. Tarrant. Er, also.”
“We’re married,” Elodie contributed, holding up her hand to display its wedding ring.
“Mama,” said the little boy in the kind of sweetly innocent voice that sends a shiver of fear up the spines of adults everywhere, “why were the funny people hugging with their faces?”
Elodie’s blush grew so hot she was in some danger of setting the house alight. “Well, you see,” she said, “when two consenting adults—”
“We apologize for intruding so precipitously,” Gabriel interrupted. “The squall forced us to seek urgent shelter.”
“Pfft.” The man sneered. “You’re scared of a little rain? Saeson! ”
Sensing that the time for dignity had not only come and gone but was now catching a ship for foreign parts with no intention of ever returning, Elodie stepped forward, broadening her smile and replicating the doe-eyed look that had got her out of trouble as a grown-up university professor just last week child.
“We are so terribly sorry for not knocking,” she said. “We will of course pay to have the bowl replaced. In fact, we’ll buy you a bigger bowl. A much prettier one. And please, allow me to clean up those peas for you before they stain your rug even worse…”
—
Plodding across the field some ten minutes later, Elodie tried to puzzle out how things had gone so wrong. At least the thaumaturgic emanations had subsided, which meant that eviction from the farmhouse at the tip of a red-hot poker didn’t result in being killed by ferocious magical tornadoes. And hiking through waterlogged fields back to D?lylleuad was going to provide healthful excellent exercise. Furthermore, the breeze now sweeping across the land wasn’t entirely freezing, offering some hope that she wouldn’t perish from hypothermia in her sodden clothes. Really, when one considered the whole picture, it could not be called such a bad morning at all. Elodie did like to think positively.
Beside her, Gabriel kept his gaze fixed ahead as he squelched through the muddy grass. Everything about him communicated bad, bad, bloody terrible morning. His expression was like a rock that had been encased in ice then set in a wintry tundra at midnight (and even that description veered a little warmer than was accurate). His silence roared in saturnine tones. Elodie felt fairly certain “positive thoughts” had dipped one toe into his brain and been instantly destroyed by frostbite.
Biting her lip, she glanced at him through a wet tangle of hair. Although his gaze did not shift, he clearly sensed her attention, for the temperature surrounding them dropped another degree. Elodie noted rather resentfully that, although he was as soaked through as she, it only served to make his hair smoother and his skin gleaming.
“I’m sorry,” she ventured.
Gabriel did not respond. The man was a sod. Fabulous kisser, but still an utter, arrogant sod.
“However,” she added heatedly (although alas, not literally) “it’s not my fault they were so inhospitable.”
After all, she could not be blamed for offending the farmers with her comment about the bowl. And the rug. And the quaintness of their decor, which had been meant as a compliment. Exhaustion had knocked her senses askew, therefore absolving her of responsibility.
And she couldn’t be blamed for slipping on the spilled peas. That was an accident, as was her consequent stumbling against the food-laden table.
Therefore, according to logic, she also wasn’t responsible for a jug of milk tipping over when the table jolted.
Although maybe, just maybe, it was her fault that, upon removing her cardigan with all the haste of mortification and using it to blot up the milk, she dripped muddy water on the food.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, rather more contritely this time. A blush tried to stir, but without success, for she’d been forced to leave her cardigan in the middle of the table due to their hasty departure, and her cotton shirtwaist felt like an icy shroud clinging to her skin.
Gabriel’s eyelashes flickered.
“I’m entirely to blame,” she added.
His jaw twitched.
“Really, I should beg forgiveness, on my knees no less, and offer a penance of—”
“It’s not your fault,” he interjected gruffly. “I also am partly responsible. But we needn’t dwell on the matter; it was, after all, merely a physical response to the danger we’d just been through. Nervous overexcitement, nothing more.”
Elodie blinked in confusion. Then her stomach flipped as she comprehended what he was talking about.
The kiss.
**The kiss.**
It absolutely deserved sparkling italics. Such a kiss! Not even the memory of those they had shared on their wedding night could compare. The sweet, tentative explorations that had sparked two days of delight, then burnished her dreams for a year afterward, now seemed tepid in comparison. Certainly her earlier experiences with other people were instantaneously nullified.
As for the future, all her ambitions had shifted. Being published in The Journal of Thaumaturgic Sciences now became “being published in The Journal of Thaumaturgic Sciences and kissing Gabriel again.” Exploring the Pennine Alps was now “exploring the Pennine Alps while kissing Gabriel” (although perhaps a warm beach somewhere would be a better goal, since it would necessitate fewer clothes on his body). She’d even go so far as wanting to marry him, had she not already done so.
“Nervous overexcitement,” she echoed musingly. Then, shrugging her mouth, she nodded. “Sounds rational.” And also entirely wrong . But Elodie understood that, in this matter, patience must be her compass. Granted, she may ultimately take that patience to her deathbed, considering the man hated her, but she was willing to do that. For there had been no one else in her heart even before Gabriel married her, and she now knew for certain that there never would be.
Not that she could tell him this, good God no. Throwing herself out of hot air balloons was one thing; confessing her love to her husband another entirely.
“In fact, I was apologizing for my behavior after the—uh, the physical response to danger,” she said. “The farmers were right to evict me. I made a mess of things, as usual.”
She laughed, because she’d meant the words to be light, and hugged herself, because of the cold of course, and stared at the wan sky until her eyes hurt because what she’d said had touched more on the secret hollows of her psyche than she’d intended. Pull yourself together, Elodie Hughes, she grumbled, or her mother did (sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between those two inner voices). She had never liked journeying into the depths of herself even on a good day—a day when, for example, her hair was tidy and she hadn’t almost been killed by enchanted twisters—and had no desire for it now. She felt Gabriel’s gaze upon her, silently contemplative, and she lifted her chin with a pride that shuddered somewhat as her teeth chattered together.
“Come here,” he said suddenly. Elodie did not even have time to comprehend the instruction before he stepped into her path, requiring her to make an abrupt halt. And then— and then! —he gently gathered her into his arms.
Even while Elodie was blinking with confused astonishment, he wrapped his coat around her—most pertinently, with him still inside it. True, he held her with patent awkwardness, and yet it must be stressed, he held her . Indeed, one might even classify it as an embrace.
That was the last rational thought Elodie managed before her mind was buried beneath an avalanche of emotions. She could do no more than stand there, embraced, her arms hanging, her eyes wide as they stared over Gabriel’s shoulder at the gossamer haze of light.
“I am employing emergency first aid,” he explained, his voice thrumming through her bones. “You’re freezing, and I do not wish to endure a lecture from Mr. Jennings about the cost of your funeral should you die of hypothermia.”
“Okay.” Hypothermia was no longer a risk; indeed, she had grown so hot in the span of mere seconds that she was surprised steam did not arise from her body.
“This is not a hug.”
“Understood.”
“It is first aid.”
“Yes, so you said. I really am sorry about what happened. If it helps, I am trying to change.”
“Change what?” Gabriel asked in a confused tone.
Elodie’s stomach tried to curl up into itself bashfully. “Myself, of course.”
Gabriel clutched her shoulders and pushed her back a little so he could frown at her. “Don’t you dare.”
Elodie blinked, astonished at such a fierce response. “No, no, I do appreciate that I’m absent-minded and lacking just a little in dignity—”
“So?”
“Um…” She hadn’t expected such a question from Gabriel, of all people, and found herself falling into honesty. “It’s stopping me from getting what I want.” After all, a man as distinguished as Gabriel could never love such an oddball—which of course was just as well, since she hated him (…didn’t she? It was getting harder to remember that). And she actually rather liked herself, when she wasn’t dripping dirty water on food and accidentally proposing to people, a fact that did tend to make self-improvement a long and slow process.
“If you have to change yourself to get something, then it’s not the right thing for you,” Gabriel said tetchily, and pulled her back into his embrace. “Never apologize for who you are.” His tone became businesslike, even as he snuggled her closer. “Diversity is as important in humankind as it is in nature. We each have something unique to offer our community. In your case—”
“Chaos,” she supplied, and smiled even though he could not see it.
“Vivacity,” he countered sternly.
Oh. Elodie’s heart gasped. Vivacity . That was a word a woman could enjoy for quite some time before overthinking it to the degree of deciding it was an insult.
“As for you offending those people with your apologies and generous attempt to help,” Gabriel continued, “that wasn’t why they denied us shelter. It was because you mentioned that we’re from the British government. I suspect they’re smugglers.”
“Really?”
“Yes. They had a bowl of strawberries on the table, despite it being autumn.”
“Strawberry smugglers,” Elodie said, managing not to laugh.
“Yes.”
It was the most ridiculous thing she’d heard, and the fact Professor Tyrant, advocate for absolute truth, was clearly just saying it to protect her from self-castigation, made everything inside her grow so warm she felt like she was melting. She could not prevent herself from tipping her head to rest its cheek against his shoulder.
“Do you think it’s going to be a disaster?” she asked quietly.
A few uncertain seconds passed before he replied. “Not necessarily. We just have to be mindful of the situation’s complexities.”
“Thoughtful.”
“Yes.”
She lifted her arms and set them hesitantly around him. He cupped one of his own hands against her head, employing the other to stroke her back. Thus the wrecked, boggy field was transformed into paradise.
They stood together for what felt to be hours (and yet not nearly long enough) while the sweet, timid quiet slowly deepened to something richer, more robust, like coffee that had been allowed to steep. Elodie was inclined never to let go. Now that the initial shock of his embrace had eased, Gabriel began to feel like solid ground, untroubled by weeds and impervious to enchantment. Standing within his embrace wasn’t quite a feeling of safety, for she was too shy and too aware of his potent masculinity; half her senses clamored for more kisses, whereas the other half wanted to do what she always did and run away. So not a comfort—but certainly a delicious unease.
“We should get moving,” she said finally, with a reluctance she could not quite hide. “We need to find the source of the disturbances before someone is hurt or worse.”
“Agreed,” Gabriel answered.
No moving occurred, however, other than him tilting his head to rest it against hers, and her pressing her lips to the strong plane of his shoulder (not kissing; merely a placement of the mouth), and much leaping and trembling of pulses.
“Oh my stars and garters!”
Elodie jolted, supposing that she’d shouted her feelings aloud. But in fact it was a woman emerging from behind a high hedgerow nearby, leading a group of some half a dozen people. They presented what Elodie could only describe as a catastrophe of colors. Orange, purple, green, and red jumbled together—and that was just on the first woman’s dress. The entire group was similarly attired.
“Look, Bobby!” the woman shouted. “It’s fixin’ to be a real firecracker show!”
Elodie and Gabriel hurtled apart. The woman, however, was pointing beyond them. Glancing around, they discovered that, while they’d been hugging and dreaming like a pair of undergraduate coeds, magic had been creeping up on them. Several small ignes fatui hovered over the boggy ground some fifteen feet away, looking remarkably malevolent for mere balls of light.
“Ain’t no need to yell like a cat making kittens, Roberta!” a man shouted back. “I’m standin’ right here!”
Elodie and Gabriel shared a grim look. “Americans,” they muttered.
“Stand back, please!” Elodie called out, gesturing for the group to retreat from the ignes fatui. They did not move, except to lift binoculars that they trained on the magic—at least the men did. Elodie noted most of the women seemed to have focused on Gabriel’s forearms. Frowning, she strode toward them with sudden, authoritarian vigor. This was a trick she’d seen other professors use to disperse students who wanted to ask questions at the end of a lecture, and it worked: the tourists hastened backward until Elodie had them shepherded out of the ignes fatui’s direct path and, as a bonus, no longer ogling her husband quite so overtly.
“Hello!” came a familiar voice. From the midst of the group emerged Tegan Parry, carrying a large picnic basket. “What a surprise, seeing you here!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were going to the old mine this morning. I guess geographers really know how to cover ground.”
She turned to the group of tourists. “Everyone, everyone, we have an extra-special treat for you today! These people are famous scientists who have traveled all the way from Oxford University to study the enchantments of our picturesque village. Exclusive to guests of the Queen Mab, and for only a penny each, they’ll be happy to answer your questions about magic.”
“We will?” Elodie said dazedly.
“We’re not famous,” Gabriel grumbled.
“Well…” Elodie shrugged. “I’m a little famous.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You are?”
“Yes. In Kent.”
His other eyebrow joined the first. “You’re famous. In Kent. For what professional achievement?”
“Oh well, not anything professional , exactly. I’m famous for…” She murmured something, and Gabriel leaned toward her.
“I beg your pardon?”
“For walking along the roof ridge of Canterbury Cathedral.”
Gabriel stared as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or shake her. She stared back defiantly. His face was gold and blue-spangled in the magical sunlight, and his lips looked like they had been kissed and needed to be again. Elodie felt her own lips parting…
“Ahem.”
They turned their heads to see Tegan and the tourists watching them in fascination.
“I have a question!” A young woman thrust her arm into the air, and from her expression it was clear the inquiry would involve not geographical but biological science.
“Just hold your potato, Sue-Ann,” a man shouted, despite there being no evidence of Sue-Ann possessing any root vegetable whatsoever. “I have a more important one. Should that blue light be spinning quite so fast?”
BOOM!
A hot wind blasted through the group. Elodie and Gabriel ducked immediately, throwing their arms around their heads. The atmosphere flashed silver, then faded to a quiet, shaken pallor. Straightening, Elodie and Gabriel turned to each other. She touched his face, he touched hers, ostensibly assessing for injury, although rather more stroking and yearnful gazing went on than was medically necessary—then they snatched their hands back as if burned by the realization of what they were doing.
“Are you hurt?” they asked, words tangling.
“I’m fine,” they answered.
“Mmuuhhhhh.”
The low, mournful sound had them looking around belatedly at the group. “Oh dear,” Elodie said.
Tegan was standing open-mouthed with stunned horror among a half dozen orange and yellow cows that had, a few seconds before, been American tourists.
“This is terrible!” the girl wailed.
“Don’t worry,” Elodie assured her. “Ignis fatuus energy tends to be short-lived. In about an hour or so they’ll transform back into people, with no lingering harm other than an inclination toward vegetarianism.”
“They’re Texans!”
“Oh dear,” Elodie repeated, wincing.
“Allow me to offer you a solution,” Gabriel interjected.
Tegan nodded eagerly.
He gestured to her picnic hamper. “If you give us some of the food, it won’t go to waste.”
Tegan gaped at him incredulously, but Gabriel, unrepentant, just displayed the unblinking calm of a man who has seen countless magical transformations during his career and no longer considers it a reason to go without lunch.
“Try to herd them back to the village,” Elodie advised while Tegan handed over sandwiches and tea cakes. “Or at least get them onto more solid ground. Magic is leaking up through the groundwater here to enchant the atmosphere.”
“It’s only been pretty lights so far,” Tegan said with a touch of accusation in her voice, as if the geographers themselves had caused an escalation of the danger.
“Pretty lights are hazardous in themselves,” Gabriel told her severely. “You people have been playing with fire. Literally.”
“Oh.” Tegan’s voice was small but her eyes grew huge as she looked around her, as if taking even one step might transform her into some variety of farm animal.
“Don’t worry,” Elodie told her, smiling with warm reassurance. “Just go carefully, stay alert, and you’ll be fine. Probably. Almost certainly.”
The girl did not seem too encouraged by this. “Can’t you help me herd the tourists back home?” she asked.
“No, we have important work to do,” Gabriel said. “This chaos is being triggered by something. We need to find the source before it sends the whole fey line into cascade.”
“?‘Cascade’ sounds pleasant?” Tegan ventured.
Gabriel frowned. “A line cascade means thousands of people being transformed into cows or worse. Not. Pleasant.”
“Come on, Professor Tarrant,” Elodie said, tugging on his arm before he terrified the girl even further. “Let’s go find our magic.”