Olivia Amberson wrapped white-knuckled fingers around the windowsill in her small corner bedroom and recited every spell she knew by heart as she waited for her doom to arrive.
She had a startling number of spells to draw upon, actually, considering that she had begun her illicit study of witchcraft only nine months earlier. But then, she’d always thrown herself whole-heartedly into everything she did...
...Even, apparently, her own destruction. How could she have gone so far astray in so short a time? One small step after another, each one so full of hope and joy and a shining sense of rightness until...
The memory of Lydia Haverford’s fiercely satisfied smirk, as she’d held up Olivia’s stolen diaries of witchcraft last night in front of the whole gathered Order of the Guardians, made Olivia tighten her fingers around the cold windowsill until her clenched muscles burned almost as painfully as her humiliation.
At least she’d made one person happy through her fall from grace. Never again would Lydia have to witness Olivia master a new magic-working before her or be celebrated for any accomplishment in the Guardians’ own Golden Hall...
...Or see her dancing with George Stephenson. That, Olivia was nearly certain, was what had proved the final tipping point for Lydia past spitefulness into true hatred.
Of course everyone in Society knew that Lydia’s own betrothal to the wealthy Lord Fotherington would be announced any day now—and Lydia, every bit as much as her title-loving parents, would certainly sneer at the very idea of her ever marrying a poor Classics scholar like George, with no prospects outside the Church to recommend him.
And yet, every time that Lydia looked at him...
Well. After today, Lydia would be pleased once again.
Fortunate Lydia.
“Livvy!” Olivia’s younger sister bounced into the room and shook her head impatiently. “Are you still sulking up here? George will be here any moment, you know! Pinch your cheeks, for heaven’s sake—or cast a spell to put some color in your face.”
Olivia’s shoulders tightened. “I am never,” she said, “casting any spells ever again.”
“Pfft!” Anne flopped down on Olivia’s bed, throwing her arms wide with irrepressible fourteen-year-old exuberance. “As if you could ever stop yourself! I would never even try. At any rate, now that you’re not a Guardian anymore, you might as well finally focus properly on your witchcraft. It’s not as if they’ll ever let you back into their silly Order, will they?”
No. No, they had made that point exquisitely clear last night before they had sent her away for good. Even Mr. Gregson—the man who’d been as near as Olivia had ever known to a father, these past five years and more...
The sorrow in his face—worse yet, the look of unmistakable disappointment in his mild eyes, as he’d looked at her and asked: “Olivia, is this true?”
She had never thought she could lose more than one father in her life. But for the second time in living memory, a man she’d cared about had turned his back on her once and for all.
And it was that look on his face, as he’d taken in what she’d done, that had kept her awake throughout all of last night, tossing and turning in her narrow, bumpy bed...and fighting the truth of what she would need to cast aside herself today, for the sake of what little honor she had left.
She hadn’t allowed herself to weep in front of the other Guardians—not even as she was officially cast out and her own private portal to the Golden Hall closed forever under Lydia’s smirking gaze.
She hadn’t wept even after she’d returned home.
But she felt as empty and aching inside, now, as if she’d lost even more than her life’s vocation.
And now she was about to lose even more by her own choice.
She drew a long, shuddering breath. “George doesn’t need to think I’m pretty anymore.”
“I beg your pardon?” Anne frowned at her. “What’s he done to annoy you?”
“Nothing.” Olivia swallowed hard. “But I have. And I’m about to tell him everything.”
“Are you mad?” Anne jerked upright. “Livvy! He’s the first truly handsome man you’ve ever met who doesn’t mind that you don’t have a proper dowry. More to the point, you’ve been sighing over his ‘fine eyes’”—she rolled her own dramatically—“and his clever Latin verbs for the past six months, at least! Why in the world would you throw all of that away?”
Because I looked into Aloysius Gregson’s eyes last night and realized exactly what I’d done, Olivia thought miserably.
But there was no point trying to explain that to her headstrong younger sister. And there wasn’t any time left, either.
She’d looked away from the window as she’d argued with Anne. But the sound of a quick, familiar rapping on the front door below was exactly the signal she’d been waiting for.
Sounds carried easily in this narrow, thin-walled townhouse.
“Well.” Olivia stood up, smoothing down the skirts of her twice-turned, striped cotton morning gown over her modest hoop. The fresh powder in her hair tickled at her scalp, and the backs of her eyes burned with exhaustion, but she forced herself to smile down at her younger sister. “At least you won’t be losing me after all. That’s some comfort, isn’t it?”
“Hmmph.” Anne crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at her. “We’ll see about that. Just wait—when I’m old enough, I’m going to marry some fabulously wealthy and sophisticated aristocrat and travel everywhere—all across the Continent! Then you’ll wish you hadn’t been so stupid!”
I already wish that, Olivia thought wearily. But she walked out of the room with steady steps and her head held high.
If this was the last chance she would ever have to look George Stephenson in the face, she wouldn’t waste it in arguing with her younger sister.
By the time she reached the middle of the long staircase, she could hear her aunt’s voice rising and falling with the rhythm of her latest complaint, punctuated only by George’s low, soothing replies. Pausing outside the closed door of the sitting room, she drew a deep, sustaining breath.
She hadn’t told Aunt Winterson the news yet. She’d been enough of a coward to delay that particular calamity until after she saw George and told him the truth to his face.
Once her aunt realized that she was going to be saddled with her inconvenient older niece for years longer than she’d ever expected—and quite possibly forever, if Lydia Haverford followed through with her whispered threat to spread the scandal of Olivia’s witchcraft through her whole gossiping circle of high-society friends...
Don’t even think about that right now. Olivia pulled her lips into a false smile and walked into the room.
“Miss Amberson!” George’s face lit up as he jumped up from the sofa, his blond hair falling over his high forehead. All of his hair was absurdly, beautifully rumpled, which meant that he’d spent all morning studying until he’d finally glimpsed the clock, and hadn’t had time to comb his hair properly before he’d raced on those long legs to their promised appointment.
She loved that he always tried so hard to arrive at exactly the time that he’d promised, despite the hypnotic distraction of his books.
She loved that his face still lit up when he saw her now, even after she’d broken that cursed spell last night. She knew the spell was gone—even if she hadn’t broken it herself, there was no tell-tale scent of roses in the air—and yet...
Perhaps he was simply in the habit of being glad to see her.
She wished she wasn’t so hopelessly glad to see him, too.
Her hands itched to reach out and smooth away that stray lock of blond hair. Instead, she wrapped her traitorous fingers around her skirts and sank into a curtsy. “Mr. Stephenson.”
“Finally!” Aunt Winterson sighed loudly as she stood up. “I thought you’d never deign to join us! Some of us, young lady, have a great deal of work to do and can’t sit entertaining your visitors all day long. If I’m expected to put together a full wedding breakfast in less than a month, and deal with all the exhausting nonsense of this household—!”
“Forgive me, Aunt,” Olivia murmured, lowering her eyes.
“Hmmph.” Aunt Winterson sailed out of the room, snorting. “If I ever got a bit of real gratitude—!”
She left the door open the few crucial inches required for propriety, and Olivia waited until she heard her aunt’s footsteps rise up the rattling staircase.
Then she pulled the door shut with a click.
“Miss Amberson.” George’s eyes widened. Then his eyebrows quirked upward, and his smile stretched into a teasing grin. “Why, Miss Amberson,” he drawled. “Do you have any plans for this morning that I should know about?”
Respectful as always, he didn’t take a single step forward. But his blue eyes were suddenly sparkling with bright, enticing mischief, and it took every ounce of effort for Olivia to hold herself back from him.
Oh, she had had so many plans over the last several months...and for once, not even half of them had had to do with magic!
She’d never been alone with George in a room with a fully closed door before, so she’d never been able to enact any of her detailed fantasies. But she had calculated more than once exactly how high she would have to reach on her tiptoes to run her arms across his chest and wrap herself around him like a vine.
She’d imagined so many times just what it might feel like to capture those clever lips—so good at spinning theories and fancies that she loved—into a kiss.
Oh, she’d imagined...
She took hold of her rebellious imagination and folded her hands in front of her in a white-knuckled grip. “I thought we’d better have privacy for this.”
“Something’s amiss.” George did move forward now, frowning and reaching out for her hands. “Olivia...”
“Wait.” She drew a deep breath and stepped back until she was nearly touching the door. “You have to hear something first. Before you say any more.” She swallowed. “You see...”
He stopped, of course, the instant that she asked him to. He was always so very careful with her. From the first moment they’d met, he’d treated her as if she were someone astonishingly special. Someone not just worthy of his interest, but worthy of his care—and all without even knowing her true value as a Guardian. It was the first time anyone in her life had seen her as precious, not for what she could potentially do for them and for the nation, but simply for who she was: Olivia.
She was going to miss it so terribly much.
But she hadn’t treated him with the same care in return...and that recollection straightened her spine into rigid steel. “I think you should send a notice to the newspapers this afternoon,” she told him, and forced herself to finish: “because we are no longer betrothed.”
“What?” George started forward, then stopped himself with a visible effort. “Olivia—Miss Amberson—if I’ve done aught to offend you, or—”
“Don’t be absurd.” Olivia felt a sob, with wretched timing, start to creep up her tight throat; she forced it down, wrapping her arms around her chest to contain it. “You’re perfect,” she said miserably.
“I beg your pardon?” He snorted, wry amusement mingling with the confusion on his face. “I’m a scholar who too often loses track of time and forgets everything important in real life; I’ve no land or great prospects to offer any woman beyond the life of a poor vicar; and—”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Olivia said impatiently. “And I admire your scholarship tremendously.” The way he lit up with the pursuit of knowledge was one of the things that had first drawn her to him; it was a passion they shared, without him knowing it. “But I’ve been studying, too. That’s the problem.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Of course he didn’t. How could he, when she’d been deceiving him ever since they’d met?
Olivia sighed and closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of his familiar, beloved face creased in unbearable anxiety and affection.
“I was so happy when I met you,” she said softly. “But I couldn’t believe you would ever feel such a way about me.”
Even after she’d finally found her true place in the Order—an unexpected and dizzyingly joyful process, as she came into her own Guardian powers under Mr. Gregson’s training—Lydia and her friends had made it only too clear, again and again, that Olivia was included on sufferance, useful only for her powers...and only if she used them in the right way.
No questioning the ancient rules.
And most of all:
Never, ever investigating the possibilities of witchcraft. No, she’d been meant to let those natural abilities wither and die, unused and unexplored, only to satisfy the Guardians’ ancient, irrational prejudices and traditions which named that other branch of magic inferior to their own.
And the moment she had broken that single rule...
“Of course I feel that way about you.” George must have shifted closer; even with her eyes closed, she could feel the extra warmth shimmering in the air before her. His voice, rich and deep, resonated against her chest like the promise of everything she’d ever wanted. “Olivia, if I’ve ever given you any reason to doubt the strength of my affections...”
“You haven’t,” she said bitterly, “because you couldn’t.”
There. She finally opened her eyes.
It was a bitter gift to find him only inches away from her. They could have kissed, from this near distance. They could have done so many things, if she’d only had the courage and faith to leave magic out of it from the beginning.
“I’m a witch, George,” she said softly. “And...” No. Not a Guardian, anymore. That part no longer needed to be mentioned. Still, her lips trembled as she forced herself onward. “I met you and I...I wanted to be with you. And I wanted so badly for you to want to be with me. So...”
He was staring down at her, not speaking.
“So,” she finished, letting out all the worst of it in a rush, “I cast a love spell on you. I know it was wrong! I should never have done it. And I know...”
He still wasn’t moving. Was he even breathing?
“I know,” she forged onward, her throat clenching against her words, “that you must have a disgust of me now, which I understand completely. But I’m releasing you from our betrothal, at least. You’re free. And...and if you feel that you must tell the world the truth about me and what I did, you may do so without reproach. Lydia Haverford will probably have told all of her friends by now, anyway. So, you see, I’m utterly ruined, and you’re well shed of me.”
She tried to smile, but it was a useless, failed attempt. “At least you can find someone with a proper dowry now. So perhaps your own prospects won’t be so poor as you’d imagined.”
“My—?” Breaking off, he stared at her for one more moment, shaking his head in apparent disbelief. Then he swung round, and took a long stride away from her.
Oh, God. That was it: the moment she’d been waiting for ever since they’d first met.
He was leaving her, forever.
Wait. No. He was pacing; she knew that move.
Her breath caught in her throat as she watched him stride around the small, rectangular sitting room, his eyebrows furrowed. She knew that look so bittersweetly well.
Of course George wouldn’t simply walk away. How could he?
No, he was taking the time to think this through, just like any other intellectual puzzle that had ever occurred to him.
A bubble of impossible laughter choked in her throat. It vanished as he spoke without looking back at her.
“You study witchcraft.”
“Yes.” She drew a deep breath. “I’ve been studying it for the past nine months, actually. Experimenting and learning on my own.” When he didn’t reply, she continued quietly, “I know you must consider it to be terribly shocking, and...well, I know all of Society thinks it’s wrong, but I was born for this, George. You wouldn’t believe how quickly it’s been coming to me!”
“Of course I would.” He shook his head impatiently, visibly shaking off her statement. “You were born to be a scholar, Olivia. Anyone who ever talked to you for ten minutes could see that. If any of the Oxford colleges would simply allow ladies to attend...”
He finally looked over and caught her stare. “Oh, come now. Did you think I hadn’t been listening to you in all of our talks, these past six months? You don’t only follow everything I say about my work, you truly listen, even when I’m being an utter bore about it—and the questions you ask about it are far cleverer than any I ever hear from my undergraduates! They’ve all spent their lives being tutored in Latin and Greek, and you haven’t—but you took to it like a fish to water. No, I’ve known ever since the first night we met that you have a passion for knowledge—and an astonishing mind to work with, too.”
“I...” No. Olivia closed her mouth with a snap.
She was exposing quite enough vulnerability already, without adding a piteous Do you really think so?
She knew the truth of her own skills already...and she didn’t need to make her rejection any more painful, once George had finally finished his excruciatingly careful process of thinking this whole matter through in a logical fashion.
“So you’ve been studying magic,” he continued steadily, “and you cast a...love spell on me.” He shook his head slightly—whether in shock or some other emotion, she couldn’t tell. For once, it was impossible to read his expression. “When, exactly, did you cast that spell?” he inquired.
“Only three days after I met you.” Olivia’s hands clenched around her skirts. “I...already knew, you see. But I thought...”
“Mm.” He nodded briskly, still pacing, as if that were only one more piece of interesting information being added to a challenging puzzle he’d already begun to solve. “Of course you did. Your father left, your mother died, your aunt loudly loathed being forced to take you and your sister in...” He shrugged, his voice sounding bizarrely calm as he took another sharp turn by the far sofa. “Why should you ever assume that anyone else would ever want you, without a bit of magical assistance to push them in the right direction?”
Olivia didn’t answer that question. She couldn’t.
Was it any consolation to discover, after all, that he’d truly known her, too?
George reached up to tug hard at the long lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Tell me...” He came to a halt in front of her, his head tilted. “When, exactly, did you break this spell?”
Of course he must know it had been broken by now. It was only logical, after all: if he were still spellcast, he would be forced to love her no matter what terrible truths he discovered about her. Whereas, the way he must be feeling now...
Olivia set her jaw hard. “Last night,” she whispered.
She had known exactly what she had to do then, when her magical mentor—her almost-father—had looked into her face for the final time and said, “Olivia, what have you done to him?”
And the realization that had come crashing over her...
The pain of it rippled through her all over again.
She’d wanted so badly to be loved.
But what she’d done to achieve it...
“I see,” said George in calm confirmation. “So you broke the spell, you were found out for your witchcraft by Lydia Haverford—even before you broke that spell, possibly?”
She nodded, mute with shame.
“And now you’re utterly ruined. Well, in that case...” George finally came to a halt in front of her, tipping his head to look down at her with an expression of cool analysis. “There’s only one difficulty with your theory, Olivia.”
“Oh?” She blinked the stupid, useless tears back from her eyes and forced herself to meet his gaze full-on. “What theory?”
“Your theory,” he said, “that you’ve done me a terrible disservice and must now release me for my own good.” Astonishingly, one end of his wide, clever mouth curled upward into a half-smile of...could that actually be tenderness?
She held her breath. Of course he would be gentle about their parting. George was always gentle. And yet...
“You cast the spell three days after you met me,” he told her, “but unfortunately, you were rather too late.” The other end of his lips curled upwards as he reached out to brush the tips of his fingers, feather-light, against her cheek. “You see, Olivia Amberson, I fell in love with you the very first night that we met. So I’m afraid that your terribly shocking love spell had no effect on me at all.”
Olivia stared at him. Her skin tingled where his fingers had brushed against it.
“But...” she began in a bare whisper of sound.
George shrugged, lacing his hands together behind his back. “Of course I’d be extremely interested in hearing the theory behind your spell, if you’d ever care to explain it, but I’m afraid I can’t recollect a single change in my feelings that occurred after that third day. What I can quite clearly recollect, and what my supervisor at St. John’s will corroborate if you need any further evidence...”
He leaned closer, until the words whispered into her ear like a spell. “...Is that the very first morning after I met you, I wrote him a letter, alerting him to the fact that I would need to give up my fellowship at the college as soon as possible...because I’d met the woman I desperately desired to marry. And the only question in my mind, by then, was whether or not you’d ever be foolish enough to accept me.”
“Wha—? No!” Olivia shook her head, her gaze clinging to his as her chest squeezed tight. “That’s not possible,” she said through her teeth. “It can’t be!”
“No?” He smiled down at her, shockingly confident. “I’ll ask him to send you the letter, if you like.”
“That’s not what I meant at all!” She pulled away from him, taking two rapid steps into the room as she fought for distance, to clear her head. “If that truly is what happened...” She squeezed her eyes shut, battling the burning pain that wanted to overwhelm her.
If she’d only had faith, all those months ago...if only she hadn’t taken that one reckless step and ruined everything...
“You can’t marry me now,” she said with finality, spinning around to face him. “You know you cannot, no matter how you might feel! Lydia Haverford is about to publicly expose me as a witch. What sort of a career in the Church do you think that revelation about your wife would win you?”
He shrugged. “It would be rather unusual, certainly, but as I’ve already secured a post...”
“That was only a starting position and you know it.” She waved one hand in desperation at him. “Just look at you! You’re brilliant, you’re handsome, and you have everything ahead of you. You know you were meant to advance further in life! You should be a bishop by the time you’re forty. You can’t shackle yourself to a known magic-worker like me!”
“Can’t I?” He was still smiling at her. How could he be smiling? “What if I married my heart’s delight, then?” he asked mildly. “Instead of shackling myself to anybody?”
“George!” The word rose to a near-shriek; she clapped a hand to her mouth, with a guilty look up at the too-thin ceiling. Then she hissed: “George! You’re supposed to be clever, remember? You don’t have to do this to yourself!”
“I know I don’t.” He spoke with the same calm certainty that he might have used in discussing the time of day. “But you know, I am rather clever, as you’ve mentioned. And that’s why I know one thing for certain: I’m going to love you for the rest of my life, Olivia Amberson. And that is a magic I’ve no interest in losing.”
He’d always been so careful with her. So respectful.
But as she stood gaping at him now, he took one quick stride and yanked her against his tall, lanky frame in a way that felt remarkably shocking.
And then...
Well!
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who had spun a certain sort of fantasy, these past few months.
When she finally emerged for breath, some minutes later, her whole body felt as melted as custard, nestled into him. And she had been right about one thing after all: they truly did fit perfectly together.
“Oh, George,” Olivia sighed against the shoulder of his unfashionable brown morning coat. She didn’t even try to hold her tears back anymore. They slid down her face, free at last after everything she’d gone through. “You really are a fool to marry me, you know.”
His smile sounded in his voice as he rested his cheek against her powdered hair. “I’d be more of a fool to let you go,” he told her. “Can you only imagine what remarkable children we’ll have together?”
She let out a burst of tear-choked laughter at that thought.
Two impractical, passionate parents, no prospects whatsoever on either side, and a generous heaping of inherited magical skills...
Any children they ever had together would be terrifying.
...Or perfect.
...Or, quite possibly, both.
“I can’t wait to find out,” she told him sincerely.
Olivia Amberson had lost so much within the past twenty-four hours that the after-effects would ripple through the rest of her life.
But at this particular moment, as she thought about her future, it was impossible not to smile.
