Belmary House 4 Page 12

  Tilly wished that more fervently than she’d ever wished for anything. She wanted to get Thomas out of the clutches of the men who’d nabbed him, wanted to get the family spellbook back, and most of all wanted to melt into Ashford’s arms and beg his forgiveness for running off like a brat at the first serious argument they’d had. She felt tears rising and swallowed the last of her tea, motioning for a refill.

  They’d sat there for an hour since the carriage Ermine’s housekeeper had ordered brought them home, and didn’t have a single clue what to do. The helplessness threatened to overwhelm her and she couldn’t bear going over it all again, which it seemed they were gearing up to do, having found no answers the first go-round. She’d much rather be drunk, though she didn’t think there was enough rum in even the current drunken sot lord’s house to get her inebriated enough to forget all her woes.

  “We’ll need to get word out that there’s a reward for the return of the book,” Mrs. Hedley said. “If we make it large enough, perhaps one of the villains will get greedy and come forth with information that we can use to find Thomas.”

  “And get in some good blows to the head,” Farrah added fiercely. “I can’t believe we’re going to offer money to thieves and kidnappers and possibly worse!” Her eyes were beginning to look glazed and Tilly wondered if she should cut her off from the rum, but felt it was hypocritical so let Mrs. Hedley add another dash to both their cups.

  “We had some bridles and other tack stolen last year and it was all returned when we offered a reward. It’s the only way I can think of.”

  “It’s a good idea, Mrs. Hedley,” Tilly said. “Let’s do that right away. These people must know how powerful it is or they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to get it. They’re probably witches or people who hate witches, but maybe someone in their gang doesn’t share their ideals and like you said, will get greedy. If you have anything I can draw with, I’ll make some sketches of Thomas.”

  Mrs. Hedley gathered her some post paper and pencils before going to enlist more servants into sending out word of the reward. As soon as she was gone, Tilly quickly scratched out a few quick portraits of Thomas, holding them up to Farrah for approval.

  “He’s a bit handsomer than that,” she said. “But I can tell it’s him.”

  “That’s all we need, now listen. We’re getting out of here.”

  Farrah gasped theatrically and almost fell off the couch. Tilly felt it might have been better to let her sober up a bit, before she launched her plan, but it was going to have be now while her own liquid courage was high. “What do you mean? Why would we? It’s safe here,” she whined.

  “We’re not leaving the house, we’re leaving this time. We’re going to try and force the portal open again,” Tilly explained, trying to make Thomas’ sketches look suitably handsome enough to please Farrah.

  “Abandon Thomas?”

  This was the part that scraped at Tilly’s conscience. She didn’t feel good about it either. “Not abandon,” she explained carefully. “Get help. We’re out of our depth here, especially if the people who took Thomas are witches. Who knows what trouble they’re brewing.”

  Farrah snorted out a little giggle, but Tilly forgave her, knowing the girl must be rattled with nerves. She was right, it was cushy and safe inside Belmary House in this time, as long as they stayed out of view of the current lord, but now Thomas was gone, Ashford’s book was in the hands of possible evildoers, and she didn’t know what else to do.

  “I don’t think we should. Look what happened last time you tampered with it.” Farrah crossed her arms and settled back into the couch, closing her eyes.

  Tilly reached over and shook her. “Yes, that’s true, but I think when I landed on my head in that cellar it rattled some ideas loose. I was thinking it over when I was at Ermine’s house and I have some new theories. About Wodge getting changed into Ermine for one, but we don’t have time for that now. Mostly I think I figured out what I did wrong the first time. Plus, I think the more you’re exposed to magic, the stronger you get. I’ve been through the portal four times since I left, so each time I think I got stronger. I’m certain I can get us back this time.”

  “Certain?” she asked, eyes still closed.

  Tilly wasn’t certain at all, but she wanted to test her theory. She knew exactly what she wanted and needed now, and knew she could focus all those intentions properly. She had to try, because she didn’t believe for a second the thieves would return the book, no matter how large the reward, and she shuddered to think what might be happening to Thomas with every hour that passed.

  She poured Farrah a big cup of tea without any alcohol in it and practically forced it down her gullet. If nothing else, she’d have to get up to go to the loo and Tilly would drag her to the portal room then.

  “What do you mean, you’re stronger? That’s bollocks.” She seemed a little less glassy-eyed, but her face was set pugnaciously.

  With a sigh, Tilly tried to explain what she didn’t completely understand herself, and wasn’t sure if it was true. But sitting around doing nothing had become anathema to her. She had to do something.

  “I think some people are born being able to do magic, that’s witches, right? But I also think they got that way from being exposed to it at some point, like a virus. So, it got passed down through the generations and kept getting stronger because each generation did more. Maybe you and I already had a little something and that’s why we went through the portal the first time, but I’ve been around a lot of magic since then and even done some of my own. I think the more I do, the better I’ll get.”

  “Like gymnastics,” Farrah said.

  Tilly shook her shoulder again to get her to listen. “Yes, exactly. Did you used to be a gymnast?”

  “From age six to fourteen, but I wasn’t that good. I won a regional once, though.”

  Tilly mentally smacked herself for getting off track. She took Farrah’s hand and stood up, hoping she’d follow like a docile lamb. To her complete lack of surprise, she shook her hand free and wedged herself deeper into the cushions.

  “Go yourself, then. I won’t leave Thomas.”

  Stamping her foot in frustration, Tilly leaned over and grabbed her hand again. “Listen to what I’m trying to explain. I need you to help me because I need us to pool our little bits of magical powers. Do you really think we can help Thomas by offering a reward? Those people could be torturing him right now! Lord Ashford, my Ashford, I mean, will know how to find Thomas, and his brother-in-law Kostya is extremely powerful. It’s our only way of saving him.”

  Farrah’s lip curled in horror at the mention of torture and she pushed herself to the edge of the couch. “Do you really think they’d hurt him?” she whimpered.

  “Yes, I really, really do. Are you going to help me? We have to do this before Mrs. Hedley comes back to check on us.”

  “This isn’t because you’re drunk?”

  “I’m a little drunk,” Tilly admitted. “But I thought of the plan when I was sober, I promise.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s go.”

  ***

  Tilly pulled out the crumpled instructions she’d copied from Ashford’s book and tried to get in a comfortable position on the floor. She loved the look of her new Victorian finery but it was extremely structured and constricting. She ended up hoisting her skirts and shoving her bustle out of the way as best she could and folded herself into an awkward squat. Farrah sat with her skirts similarly bunched, her legs straight out in front of her, the bottoms of her button-up boots worn from all the exploring she’d done while in this time.

  “So, we’re agreed if it opens and lets us in, we’re going for it?” Tilly asked, not wanting to admit to herself that she didn’t want to end up in a strange time alone.

  No. She forced herself to stop that negative thinking. It was imperative she concentrate on 1814, and Ashford. It would be lovely if she ended up the moment she left and no one was the wiser. Thomas would have never been sent to l
ook for her and he’d be safe. She wondered if Farrah would have ever gone through, or if she’d be stuck in her miserable life in the 1980s. Perhaps her screw-up hadn’t been a total waste, if it had saved her from that.

  “Yes,” Farrah said morosely. “What if it takes us to another time, though?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge — I mean, it won’t. You concentrate on the portal opening and taking us where we need to go, and I’ll deal with the specifics. Don’t let your mind waver, got it?”

  “I’ll try, but that’s like telling someone not to scratch their nose, isn’t it?”

  Tilly rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, ready as she’d ever be to get started. She let all her random thoughts and doubts have a moment to wreak havoc, then she pictured sweeping them away before honing in on Ashford’s stern, beautiful face, his silver grey eyes, how much she longed to be with him. She focused on every small detail of the house at that time, as best she could recall, and pictured Cook and Duncan welcoming her back, along with her maid Nora, who she considered a friend. When she got back she was going to make her the world’s prettiest bonnet, as nice as any lady of the ton’s. Every piece of her life the way she was sure she was meant to live it settled together like puzzle pieces, forming a perfect whole.

  She was ready. With a quick peek at Farrah, who had her eyes scrunched tight, no doubt concentrating as hard as she could, she looked down at her carefully copied words and began to read them aloud.

  At the second line a singed smell filled the room, which wasn’t supposed to happen at all, and by the fourth line, smoke seemed to seep from the walls, making it hard to breathe. Tilly started to pull Farrah out of the room, about to give up.

  “Keep going,” she hacked out, covering her mouth and nose with her skirt.

  Tilly sputtered but kept reading. At the last word of the spell, the corner of the room erupted into flames. They ran out screaming, certain all the demons of hell were being unleashed into the house, but once in the hall Tilly saw it was only a regular fire. She held her breath and ran back in, dragging the heavy coverlet off the bed and smothering the blaze. When she turned around, coughing and choking, she found Mrs. Hedley and three maids staring at her, aghast.

  “Girls, get some help and clean this all up in case the master comes home tonight. Open the windows to let out the smoke.” She turned her gaze to Farrah and then Tilly, looking supremely disappointed in her. “Let’s take a look at your hands,” she said, making her feel worse than she already did about the absolute failure of her one and only plan.

  They ended up back in the sitting room, once again wrapped in blankets, though this time their tea cups were noticeably absent of alcohol. It was clear Mrs. Hedley was fighting not to reprimand them, and Tilly thought she might have felt better if she did.

  They were well and truly trapped now. And if she’d managed to destroy the portal, even if only in this time, it greatly reduced the chances of Ashford finding her. Mrs. Hedley finally sighed and left the room, and Tilly hoped they’d still be welcome here. How she could be after setting fire to one of the bedrooms was beyond her.

  “That portal really does hate you,” Farrah said, so sadly that Tilly couldn’t find it in herself to be offended.

  At the moment she hated herself just as much, if not more.

  Chapter 19

  Ashford didn’t think the faces Liam was making, or the continuous hissing noises coming from between his teeth, were any indication that he approved of the homemade spell. He had a feeling if the situation wasn’t so dire, he might be getting laughed at.

  “It’s quite good, isn’t it?” he asked anyway, refusing to give up on his handiwork.

  Liam groaned for a solid twenty seconds before turning around to make sure Helen really had gone off to introduce herself to Serena and see if she could be of any assistance.

  “It’s quite bad,” he said. “You’ve created a monster, Dr. Frankenstein. Oh, sorry, I think that reference is still a few years out for you. Are you trying to kill everyone in the house, or rather, on the street? This hex could—”

  “Yes, thank you, I understand it can use some work,” Ashford said grimly.

  “It needs to be burned and forgotten. If Helen was in the room and heard how dangerous it was, she’d try to hit you again.”

  Ashford was glad she wasn’t. The first time he’d met Matilda’s grandmother was when they’d gone to Matilda’s time, right after they’d dealt with Liam’s nefarious son. She’d tried to beat him with an oversized satchel for accidentally abducting Matilda to 1814, unable to get her back for almost three months. She didn’t like the idea of Matilda wanting to return with him, but she’d grown used to it, and promised to visit along with Liam, during their own travels through the centuries.

  When she heard he’d lost her granddaughter this time, she managed to get in a solid thwack with her parasol before Liam calmed her down and suggested she try and offer her modern medical knowledge to Serena. Ashford rubbed his aching shoulder and paced the room, unhappy with the assessment of his spell.

  “How Tilly managed to reopen the portal is beyond me,” Liam mused. “Helen’s going to skin me for that, but I could swear I closed it up as well as I could. It took me a day and a half to do it.”

  Ashford looked balefully at the book. “I didn’t think she could either, not after you broke the curse. I never thought she’d try, or I never would have let her look at the spellbook.”

  Liam grimaced. “Did you think I broke the curse? No, the curse on this house can’t be broken, at least it couldn’t by me. It’s the strongest damn hex I’ve ever come across, about scared the bejesus out of me when I first starting poking around to understand it. I merely put a lid on it, and I guess not a very good one.”

  Ashford simmered quietly on that new information for a moment, trying to keep a hold of his temper. He didn’t recall Liam ever saying the curse was lifted, he had only said the portal was closed, so he didn’t suppose he had any right to be as furious as he was. It was his own misunderstanding, but he would have thought twice about coming back to live in the house if he’d known there was any chance at all the blasted portal could start working again. It wasn’t important now, what was important was staying focused on rescuing Matilda.

  “I don’t know what else to do. I have to get to her. She’s in …” he paused, deciding to go ahead with the full truth. “She’s somewhere unsafe, possibly badly injured, possibly …” he sucked in his breath. That wasn’t possible. She was alive, or he’d somehow know it. Something in him would know if she no longer existed in any time or place that he could find her.

  “Granted, we just came from the time shortly after your visit to California and she wasn’t there. Helen and I would have seen her, or Dexter would have said something if she’d popped up so recently after going back with you. Perhaps she went forward a few weeks and we missed her. Try not to work yourself up, there’s no way you can know she’s in trouble.” He narrowed his eyes. “Unless there is a way you know it.”

  Ashford strode to the desk and flipped to the pages he’d marked. “I did theses scrying spells in turn until I could finally get an image of her. She was frightened in one instance, unconscious and bleeding in the next. I haven’t been able to conjure her since.” He watched the color drain out of Liam’s face as the man leaned over to study the spells.

  “I can’t believe you got these to work, especially without Tilly around. I’m impressed. You must have exhausted yourself. This last one is quite advanced.”

  Ashford didn’t want to admit the hexes did make him feel like he’d spent hours running for his life. He knew his desperation and need to see Matilda again had got him through, and were what kept him going after days of little to no sleep.

  “I kept trying after the last vision, must have refilled that damnable pan twenty times, but I couldn’t get it to work again.”

  Liam mumbled to himself, then looked up at Ashford. “Ah, that’s how it goes with this sort. They don
’t like to be bothered much, and seem to have an eccentric sense of humor. I don’t do these kinds of spells if I can help it, don’t want to offend the eyes.”

  Ashford clapped his hand to his forehead, recalling something to that effect as a footnote to one of the spells.

  “What does that bloody mean?” he asked, so fed up with it all, he planned to hack the book to tiny pieces, burn them, and bury the ashes in the deepest hole he could dig the moment he had Matilda back safely.

  A chill ran through him at that angry thought, as if the book knew, and didn’t like it. He sheepishly wanted to apologize to the foul thing, but would be damned if he would do it in front of Liam.

  “As far as I can tell, they’re spirits, or something like that. Not the souls of people who’ve passed on. I think they’ve always been spirits, from the very beginning.”

  “That’s madness.”

  Liam laughed. “It’s all madness, isn’t it, the very fact we can do any of these things? But what do you think it is that makes it possible? Essentially, we’re asking for help from these … sources, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. If you’re practiced enough you can control it, them, I don’t know, for a while, but it’s better to be humble about it. I go as long as I possibly can between hexes, and rarely, if ever do the ones that piss them off.”

  “Could I have offended them and they showed me an untrue image of Matilda?” Ashford asked hopefully, more disturbed than he’d ever been at his heritage. He couldn’t help but think of his sister. At the end, she’d been incredibly powerful and the things she did were dark and cruel. What kind of … sources had been assisting her?

  “No, they don’t usually lie, they’ve no reason. But I’ll bet that’s why you can’t scry her anymore.” Liam sounded hopeful as well, and Ashford decided he wanted to go with that notion instead of the other. Because he was positive she wasn’t dead. He would not allow it.