No Perfect Magic Read online

  “As far as I’m concerned, that’s a benefit, not a detriment. We made sure they were all handsome. All you need do is look at them,” Phoebe said with a hint of desperation. “How will I ever compete with you next Season if you’re not taken?”

  “You won’t,” Lydia said. “None of us can. We’ll have to put a sack over her head.”

  “Or beans in my ears,” Aurelia said with a sigh. “Cook is threatening to knife someone again. Will one of you please calm troubled waters this time? I really don’t want to push Lord Rush down the stairs. He’s hovering on the landing.”

  Again, they didn’t question her irrelevant response as everyone outside the family did. She hoped someday when she was a maiden aunt that they would come to accept her inability to deal with the world at large. Had she been a medieval lady, they could have bought her a place in a nunnery and gone on with their lives. As it was, her excruciatingly acute hearing rendered her perfectly useless and an obstacle to everyone’s happiness.

  “I’ll go, if I can borrow your earrings for this evening.” Lydia turned her head back and forth to admire the flash and sparkle.

  “By all means.” Remembering Lord Clayton’s unusual behavior, Aurelia added, “Phoebe, go with her. Some of the guests have been a little unruly in Rain’s absence. We’d best go everywhere in pairs.”

  That, of course, excited her sisters’ lust for excitement. They left, chattering, completely confident that they were safe in their father’s sheltered household surrounded by servants.

  Aurelia wished she could be as blissfully ignorant. But she’d heard and suffered the result of neglect and violence and no longer pretended the world was a safe place.

  As if her gloomy thoughts had taken on a life of their own, an anguished cry, almost a childish wail, pierced the normal cacophony in her head. Emotional cries always penetrated better than normal speech, but there were no children in the house. Even her younger brother Teddy was away at school. It wouldn’t surprise her if the painful throbbing in her head started producing imaginary shrieks. Maybe it was her skull protesting.

  Aurelia hummed, hoping to drown out the various noises so she might dress for dinner.

  But by the time the musicale was ready to start, all she could hear was the child’s terrified weeping. She could not think, could barely breathe with the anguish overwhelming all the more pleasant noises buzzing through the halls.

  Aiieeeeeee, sob! Ahhhhhhh, sniff, sob, aiiieeeee!

  They say. . . But really. . .

  Tonight, we’ll leave tonight.

  Whimper, sob, waaaaaaaa!

  She had done her best to learn to disregard adult arguments, but she could not ignore a terrified child. Neither could she go out into the world on her own. The daughters of a duke had the need for accompaniment drummed into their very souls from birth—especially in this tragic household.

  Helplessly, she listened to the wordless wail. Everyone was anticipating a pleasant evening of music. Dragging footmen and her maid into the cold damp night on a fool’s errand with no surety that she could find the child—or that she did not imagine it entirely—would only ruin her reputation even more than it was. Her father and Rain would be furious.

  And then she remembered Mr. Madden coming to her rescue this afternoon.

  Humming one of the tunes emanating from the duke’s palace, Will scratched the heads of a few hounds, checked the kennel’s water supply, and secured the gate. Moonlight peered from behind the clouds, enough to find his way back to the stable. He enjoyed the late hours when no one was about. He’d have to take Ajax on a nighttime patrol soon.

  He favored Castle Yates over the grandiose home where his half-brothers resided. He’d been born and partially raised in Yatesdale. He was comfortable here, where people didn’t expect him to be more than Maeve’s bastard son. He had no inclination for science or politics as his brothers did. He didn’t need the city. The land he meant to buy was in a peaceful valley of the Cotswolds, where he’d never have to wear a tailored coat or attempt to read a book again. He was built like a farmer, and a farmer’s life suited him. No one accustomed to animals questioned his talking to them.

  He could appreciate the beauty of the sprawling ducal castle from a distance, but he never wanted to live in one.

  Lights flickered in the windows on the hill above him. Music poured from an upstairs gallery. He listened to the notes blending with the sleepy calls of birds and crickets. Perhaps, when he had his own place, he’d learn to make music. Or find a wife who could play.

  Thoughts of a wife made him restless. Now that his brothers were almost all married, it was time he made an honest woman of Miranda. She was conveniently located not far from the farm he wished to buy. She wasn’t a lady like his brothers’ wives, but she was a good woman who didn’t complain when his work took him far afield for long periods of time.

  He was about to reconsider working off his excess energy by taking Ajax on a patrol of the grounds when he noticed a cloaked form racing toward him.

  What the devil? There was no mistaking the lady’s slight figure. Even should there be a maid of the same size, she wouldn’t have been wearing a fur-trimmed cloak. For good reason, his grace’s daughters never went out without escort, and this was twice in one day that the addlebrained female had risked her person.

  Will hastened to put himself between her and any danger. He’d lived here half his life and never spoken a word to the duke’s reclusive daughter. Twice in one day signified a change in the universe as he knew it, and he tried to maintain his usual composure. Difficult, he admitted, knowing the most-sought-after heiress in the kingdom roamed loose in his territory.

  “Mr. Madden,” Lady Aurelia cried when he stepped into her path. “Thank goodness. There is a child lost in the woods. I hear her cries, but I cannot understand what she is saying.” She continued toward the stable, expecting him to follow.

  Had she been anyone else, he would no doubt have balked without further enlightenment. But Lady Aurelia’s daunting beauty concealed the fact that she wasn’t entirely right in the head. She required all the security the duke could surround her with—and maybe some extra brains.

  Following her, he listened to the night sounds, but if there was a child crying, he couldn’t hear it. “Children cry,” he said, searching for a thin thread of reason.

  “Not like this.” Impatiently, she tugged at the stable door that had been closed up for the night.

  Ever aware of his size, Will knew he could fling the witless lady over his shoulder and haul her back to the house and to the people who ought to be guarding her. He feared she might break if he tried. Alternatively, he could let her tug at the bolted door for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, his mother had taught him better than that.

  “Go back to the house. I’ll fetch the dogs,” he said, hoping she might have a rare episode of reason and agree.

  “Excellent idea. I’ll fetch Ajax, if you’ll saddle the horses.”

  So, she heard only what she wanted to hear. Women were like that, especially women of this particular family.

  Will saw no sense in arguing. In her eyes, he was a mere servant, and his duty was to obey her commands. He’d been thinking of walking out anyway. Might as well go for a ride with a madwoman. He grabbed the heavy bar, hauled it back, and heaved open one of the long doors.

  Unwilling to disturb the grooms who had settled in for the evening, he threw saddles on a couple of the calmer mounts in the duke’s extensive stable and led them out. The lady was waiting with Ajax already leashed.

  “Shouldn’t you have one of your sisters with you?” he asked, attempting a degree of sanity.

  “They only make noise,” she said, not exactly addressing the question. “It’s quieter this way, and I can hear better.”

  Malcolm madness. He’d seen his brothers deal with their insane women. This one wasn’t his and never would be, so he didn’t have to listen. But if he wanted that kennel, he needed the duke’s approval, and he’
d lose it if his grace learned Will had let the witless Lady Aurelia go out alone.

  “You’ll explain this to your father if he objects?” he demanded, cupping his hands and lifting her into the sidesaddle. She was so light, he feared flipping her over the horse’s back.

  He liked his women heavy and substantial, he reminded himself. He was a big man and needed a big woman, like Miranda. Just because this fairy-like female fascinated him didn’t mean he should see her as more than his employer’s daughter—an employer who was likely to murder him should he discover he was out here alone with her.

  She seemed momentarily startled at his assistance. Freezing, as if suddenly realizing the foolishness of this escapade, she glanced back at the lighted house spilling music.

  And then she glanced down at him with what appeared to be a frown. “I can’t hear the child if I’m surrounded by noise. You’re so quiet, I can almost hear your heart beating.”

  Will snorted. Still not the answer he wanted, or even one that made sense. “Annoyingly silent is the usual epithet I hear.” Deciding arguing with a madwoman was a waste of energy, he checked the girth and unleashed the dog. “Ajax has learned to heel. Let’s see how she does.”

  “The child sounds so terrified,” the lady murmured in despair, again not responding to his words. “How will we ever find her? I have no idea how close she might be.”

  Was the lady deaf to him while she listened to otherworldly voices? He was mad as she for not hauling her back to the house and letting them lock her up, where she belonged. Unfortunately, he had a little more experience than most at being outside the ordinary, and he couldn’t deny her plea. Or that was his excuse anyway.

  “Ajax has better hearing than I do. Let’s see if he can pick up the sound.” Linking his mind to the dog’s, Will tried to hear what Ajax did.

  Rustle, rabbits, badger! Hurry, tug, run. . . what’s that scent? Human. Follow! Treats.

  Will couldn’t discern a child’s cry in the dog’s mind, but Ajax had been trained to track human scents. With no better guide, Will sent the bitch off to follow her instinct.

  Tongue lolling, the mastiff took off in the direction of the untamed wilderness beyond the duke’s manicured landscaping. The lady trotted in their wake as if riding out at night, alone, was the most natural event in the world. Having seen her ride these hills since childhood—in company with family and grooms—Will had no doubt she could handle the steed. His concern was returning her safely to her home before anyone came looking for them.

  The lady rode silently, allowing him to stay connected loosely with the dog. He didn’t need to know about every badger trail or dead vermin in the gorse, but he tried to hear with the dog’s sharp hearing.

  The sure-footed horses found paths around rocks and scree, carrying them downhill and into the gloom of the cliffs below. Will cursed himself for being so distracted by the lady’s presence that he had not thought to carry a lantern. Even the moonlight vanished in the shadows beneath towering boulders. Ajax whimpered and dashed off down an animal trail. Will lost visual sight of her but kept the mental connection. Keeping his ears open, he tried to hear a child’s cry but didn’t.

  The craggy moor appeared untouched since the beginnings of time. Tumbling rock, rough grasslands, and bogs were unsuited for human habitation. Miles from the village, cut off from other farms by the duke’s vast estate, the steep hillsides were no easy hike from anywhere. He would dismiss Aurelia’s fears as hallucination—except Ajax was definitely following a scent she identified as human.

  “I hear her,” Aurelia whispered anxiously, as if sensing his doubt. “How would a child ever find their way down here?”

  “The same way you hear her perhaps,” he said dryly.

  “Inexplicably,” she retorted, proving she could listen when she wished.

  A rabbit darted from behind a rock. His horse shied, and Will heard Ajax’s yip of excitement. If the damned dog was following a rabbit. . . He couldn’t complain. He was rather enjoying this break in his dull routine.

  He winced at that wayward thought. He’d chosen his simple path for good reasons—one of them being that he wanted freedom from society’s unreasonable restrictions and lack of understanding.

  He focused on the dog’s mind—

  Wet grass slapping her nose with the rich scent of earth. Push her nose into wet dog stench, tall plants tickling, yip, warning. . .

  Will shook himself out of the bitch’s unfocused senses. Ajax had evidently found a patch of thick ferns and the stench of wet fur.

  Will still heard no child, but he gathered that Ajax had found an animal, possibly a dog, one that was alive but not moving. He held up his hand to halt the lady and swung down.

  “She’s not here,” Lady Aurelia argued. “We’re closer though.”

  “Let me see what Ajax has found.” He couldn’t abide to leave hurt animals suffering, and that was the sense he was receiving. He crept up to where the mastiff lay down, tail wagging, nose sniffing.

  Among the frost-bitten ferns lay a bedraggled spot of dirty brown and white, wriggling pathetically. Will crouched down, removed his glove, and held out his hand for the creature to sniff. It did so eagerly, proving it was accustomed to human handling.

  “What have you found?” Lady Aurelia asked, keeping her voice low.

  Will scooped up the shivering terrier pup, stroking its bristly coat and searching for injury. He thought he found blood, and the rear leg appeared hurt. That was a discovery he would not relate to the worried lady, but it raised his hackles. This was a pampered puppy, not an animal accustomed to roaming wild. Damage like this usually happened from human brutality.

  “A puppy. He may be injured.” He held up the creature in the palm of his ungloved hand to show her.

  “The child may be crying for her dog!” she exclaimed.

  Will thought he might almost follow the path of that thought.

  She reached for the bedraggled creature. “He’s small enough to fit in my pocket. Will that keep him warm enough for now?”

  He would rather take the dog back to the house to tend it than chase after unseen, unheard children at the insane demand of a woman who heard what others did not. But the presence of a pampered puppy asked questions he couldn’t answer.

  He fed the puppy from the treats in his pocket and let the terrier sniff the lady’s much sweeter smelling hands. It scrambled eagerly to reach her. She cuddled him in her lap, stroking him into calmness. “A child’s pet?”

  “Possibly,” he said gruffly, climbing back into the saddle. Quelling his resistance to tamper with a strange dog’s mind, he probed until he saw the puppy’s scrambled, page-flipping thoughts.

  He might not read textbooks with fluency, but he could grab scenes from a dog’s mind with enough accuracy to react in horror. Blood, unbelievable amounts of blood. And screams. And pain.

  Unable, and unwilling, to explain those impressions, Will merely urged the horse into a trot, ordering Ajax to follow the puppy’s scent. He appreciated that the lady didn’t question his path.

  His Malcolm sisters-in-law were nonstop chatterers, so he’d never thought of Lady Aurelia in the same manner as her cousins. Except he knew that her father was descended from one of the more mad of the Malcolm witches—one who heard spirit voices and saw ghosts. He didn’t think the puppy was a ghost or that the scene of carnage in its mind was from beyond the veil, but it was possible that the lady might be hearing more than was evident in the real world.

  Double damn and twice the trouble.

  With an inexorable sense of foreboding, he led the way in silence, through darkness, until they reached the bottom of the steep hill. Ajax yipped and raced toward the south. The cold night air nipped at Will’s nose, but this flat path was safer than the downhill one.

  “I hear her!” the lady cried in a low voice. “We’re close.”

  Will heard nothing human. He connected his mind to Ajax, sifting through the sounds and scents—until he heard a child�
��s quiet weeping through the dog’s ears. His stomach lurched, and he sent the lady a narrowed look. “Do you hear her in your head or with your ears?” he asked, cursing himself as he did. Ives curiosity often won over common sense.

  “Both,” she said curtly, straining to hear the impossible.

  She seemed agitated but didn’t do anything reckless like sending her horse galloping through the rocks to reach the invisible. He’d always known the lady as a cautious creature who seemed better suited to a fairy garden than the real world. Her reply proved him right.

  “There, by those boulders,” she whispered, distracting his wandering thoughts.

  The terrain she indicated was too rough for their mounts. Keeping an eye on Ajax, Will found a grassy patch by the creek not far from the boulders. He dismounted and would have followed the dog alone, but the lady’s impatient reaction forced him to reconsider.

  “You’ll terrify her. Help me down.”

  The night couldn’t be any weirder. Hold the duke’s fragile daughter? A few hours ago, he would have thought it more likely he’d encompass the moon.

  Clamping down on his rioting senses, Will clasped the lady’s tiny waist. He’d been right, his hands circled her. She smelled of cakes and biscuits, weighed almost nothing, and he had a need to cradle her against him. At the notion, he practically dropped her and backed away.

  She didn’t seem to notice. Removing the puppy from her pocket, she cuddled it in her arms, letting it sniff the air and whimper expectantly. Without hesitation, she lifted her skirt and cloak and picked her way across the stones toward Ajax, who had begun to yip quietly.

  Feeling like an unnecessary appurtenance, Will tagged along. If the child had been crying, it wasn’t now. That did not bode well.

  Chapter 2

  Snuffle, rustle, hoot. . .

  Startled by the loud cry and flapping of wings, Aurelia stumbled. Realizing the owl and the fox were actually some distance away, she swallowed and proceeded cautiously.

  Heart pounding in fear that once more she may have arrived too late, she pushed aside tall ferns. Behind them, two boulders met, creating a crevasse at their base. The voice in her head had gone silent, but the dog watched her expectantly. She was useless without sound, but she had to be in the right place. She couldn’t bear it if another precious life was lost because she was such an incompetent coward.