A Well-Timed Enchantment (7 page)

Oliver let go of Deanna. As though unsure what to do with himself, he momentarily rested his hand on his sword hilt, then crossed his arms. "The garden is a good place for eating lunch," he said.

"A picnic!" Lady Marguerite hooked her arm through his and started walking him into the castle, never checking to see if Deanna was following. "What a splendid idea! I do so love picnics. Except for the sun, of course." She laughed gaily, holding on to Oliver's arm and tipping her head to one side coquettishly.

Deanna took a step. Found she was steadier than she would have thought. Took another step. Behind them, she imitated Lady Marguerite's gestures. Boy, Oliver was eating all this attention up.
Traitor!
she thought.

"Let me show you to the rooms I've had prepared for you," their hostess said, never including Deanna with a glance. "I hope you stay. It's so pleasant to have someone with fresh ideas around the place."

Uh-huh.

Deanna rubbed her wrist where Oliver's fingernails had come close to breaking her skin, and followed the two of them up the stairs, whether they knew she was there or not.

Up stairs, through the Great Hall, up more stairs, along a corridor. The more they ignored her, the farther behind Deanna trailed as Lady Marguerite continued to chatter and laugh and cling to Oliver's arm. It wasn't fair. Oliver was supposed to help
her.
She couldn't handle this stupid quest on her own.
Turn around,
she wished at his back.
Notice me.
What was the matter with him?

Behind her, someone cleared his throat.

Deanna gasped and whirled around.

But it was only the pigman. Without his pigs for the moment, thank goodness.

Deanna held her hand over her racing heart as he took off his cap and slapped it against his leg, producing a cloud of dust. "Miss," he said.

"Sir." She curtsied and made to continue down the hall. Lady Marguerite and Oliver were just turning around a corner.

"Miss," the pigman repeated more insistently.

Just what she didn't need: someone else to take a sudden interest in her, but at least she had an excuse. "I'm sorry," she called back over her shoulder. "I can't stop."

She rounded the corner at a run and collided with someone. Leonard. He reeled back, but re-covered before she did. He held a bright bouquet of wildflowers out to her. "A thousand apologies for startling you," he said, bowing. "A thousand more for frightening you in the garden."

Without acknowledging him, she tried to pass, but he grabbed her hand and dropped to his knees. "Forgive me!" he cried.

"I forgive you," she said, to get him to let go of her hand. "Don't do it again."

"I won't." He pressed his other hand, the one with the flowers, to his heart. "My lady, I swear my undying devotion—"

"Yes, thank you, go away." She tugged at her hand but couldn't get it free.

"Take these flowers," he said, "as a token of my love for you. Take them and hold them in your hand, as I hold you in my heart."

She took the flowers. "Now let go of my hand, Leonard."

He stood, then kissed her fingers, and then, finally, let go. Til count the moments until next I see your fair face." He bowed and backed away.

She didn't dare turn her back on him, so she watched until he disappeared around the comer. With a sigh, she again faced the direction she had seen Lady Marguerite and Oliver going, sure in her heart that they had continued on without her.

Not only had they waited for her, but Baylen and his father had joined them. Baylen nodded in the direction Leonard had gone, rolled his eyes, and shook his head. Deanna felt her face go a hot red with humiliation.

Sir Henri didn't seem to notice. "Splendid," he said. "Splendid, you and Leonard hitting it off so well." He beamed proudly. "But now, tell us about this quest of yours. Can we help?"

Oh, yes,
she thought,
please.
She wanted nothing more than to dump this whole mess in somebody else's lap. But then there was Algernon. Sir Henri's brother. Baylen's and Leonard's uncle. Who made people—albeit unimportant people— disappear. How much did she dare tell them? If Algernon learned what it was that she was looking for, then he might get to it first. And she couldn't very well tell them to trust her, a complete stranger, and not their relative. The more she thought about it, the more her head began to spin.

"Lady Deanna?" Sir Henri said.

"We're looking for something..." she said slowly, "...small..."

Sir Henri nodded as though to encourage her to go on.

She bit her lip and wondered if she had said too much already.

"Small things are generally harder to find than large things," Baylen observed.

Boy, that was helpful. "This would have been lost in or near the pond that's in the clearing in the forest. But I have reason to believe that it's been brought back here."

Baylen said, "We were in the forest this morning."

"Yes?" Deanna said breathlessly.

"We didn't find anything." Baylen turned to his father. "Did we find anything?"

"I didn't find anything," Sir Henri said.

"We didn't find anything," Baylen repeated.

Deanna sighed.

"But," Sir Henri said, "if it's to be found, we'll find it. How about if you and Marguerite go off and do whatever it is that you women go off and do, and Baylen, young Oliver, and I will start this quest of yours."

"Oh," said Lady Marguerite. "Must you?"

Meanwhile, Deanna prickled under the comment about women, but after all that was what she had been looking for to hand this over to someone else. She looked warily at Oliver, who said nothing.

"Trust us," Sir Henri said jovially, throwing one arm around Baylen's shoulder and the other around Oliver's.

After all, she thought, the fair folk had specifically sent Oliver to help her, so maybe this was what they had intended. "Thank you," she said. Then, choosing her words carefully, "The only thing is that this is sort of a secret quest, so you can't tell anybody about it."

Sir Henri put his finger to his lips to indicate they were sealed.

"Go with them," Deanna told Oliver so that he would cooperate, "and do whatever they tell you."

He nodded solemnly.

I hope,
she thought, watching the three of them walk down the hall together,
oh, I hope that was the right decision.

The afternoon dragged miserably. Lady Marguerite kept trying to pump Deanna for information about Oliver: Was he always so quiet, what were his interests, did he enjoy the company of older women? That sort of thing.

Deanna tried to find out more about Castle Belesse and the people who lived there.

"It's just me and my brothers, Henri and Algernon," Lady Marguerite said. "And the boys, of course. Their poor mother's gone now. And there're the servants naturally. Actually, it's a very small castle."

"Any bigger and I'd have to drop bread crumbs," Deanna said.

Lady Marguerite looked startled. "Well," she said, "I suppose if you really wanted to..

It was eerily like trying to talk to Oliver. And how was Oliver doing? she wondered over and over. If he found the watch, surely he'd know enough to come straight back, wouldn't he? Besides, she found she missed his company. Everything was so strange here: the colorful tapestries that covered all the walls, the flags and banners that snapped in the wind, the stone
floors and incredibly high ceilings that made her voice resonate as though she were in a cathedral. But as strange as all this was to her, it had to be stranger yet to Oliver. And if he was the closest thing she had to a friend here, she was the closest thing
he
had to a friend
anywhere.

Lady Marguerite insisted that Deanna join her in her apartments, where she spent the rest of the afternoon weaving a tapestry that she said was Hannibal crossing the Alps. Some of the women servants joined them to work on their own projects: embroidery or mending. They were all amazed that Deanna didn't know how to sew and insisted on teaching her. Deanna gazed out the window and watched the sun get lower and lower in the sky and wondered if she had made the wrong decision. "Was Algernon in the forest this morning?" she asked.

"That's hard to say," Lady Marguerite answered. "Algernon comes and goes. Why don't you ask him?"

"Maybe I will," Deanna said. She was sure she'd made the wrong decision.

Late in the afternoon, Leonard joined them. He brought a mandolin, which he played softly, but at least he didn't say anything embarrassing.

By evening she could make passable button holes; but while buttonholes were nice, they were hardly in the same class as saving human civilization. On the other hand, surely Oliver had everything under control. Surely. She hoped.

Oh, Oliver,
she thought as she went back to her room to freshen up before the evening meal,
be there. Please be there.

He wasn't.

Someone,
someone
—if she had three guesses, they'd all be Leonard—someone had put a potted rosebush outside her door. Deanna unsnagged her gown from it, then went inside and sat down on the edge of her bed in exhaustion. "Freshen up," they had said, as though it weren't her very life that was at stake. Lady Marguerite, after quizzing her on what might be Oliver's favorite color, had announced that she would change for supper. They were all supposed to meet in the Great Hall. Deanna threw down the silly conical hat in frustration.

Someone tapped on the door.

Oliver!
she thought. But before she could say anything, Baylen's voice called, "Lady Deanna?"

She told herself that the sinking sensation she felt was due to her need to compare notes with Oliver, to see what he had found out, and perhaps lay new plans. "Yes? What is it?"

Baylen entered. She still thought his droopy mustache gave him a romantic, melancholy air, but she had long since come to the conclusion that all of Castle Belesse's inhabitants were at least a little loopy. He said, "Father said to stop by when it was time to eat so you don't get lost getting to the Hall again."

"Thank you."
Mr. Tact.
"Did you find anything?"

"Find," he said, "anything?"

It was difficult for her to keep from shouting. "My quest."

"Oh," he said. "That. We didn't get started yet."

This time she didn't even try to keep her voice level. "What do you mean, you didn't get started yet? You've been gone all afternoon."

"Yes, but Father wanted to test Oliver out first See how good he is with a sword, that sort of thing. Why? Is there some rush with this quest thing?"

"Yes, of course there's a rush—what do you mean your father wanted to test how good he is with a sword?" she shouted all in one breath. She had a sudden awful thought. "You don't mean your father challenged him to a sword fight?"

Baylen nodded.

"Is he all right?" Deanna's heart pounded hard enough to hurt.

"Your Oliver? Sure. It was a friendly match. No training, but he's got good fighter's instincts—always lands on his feet."

Idiot,
she thought, now that she knew Oliver was safe. And just what did Baylen mean by
Your Oliver?

Baylen glanced out into the corridor. "Here he comes. Father set me to watch over him once he got sick."

"Who got sick?" Deanna asked, hoping, though it wasn't nice, that Baylen meant Sir Henri. But one look at Oliver answered her. For someone who was pale to begin with, he had no color at all, and his hair was damp around the edges as though he'd just rinsed his face.

"Him," Baylen said. "Been sicker than a dog most of the afternoon." He didn't see the look Oliver shot behind his back at that. "Maybe something you ate," he suggested.

That didn't bear thinking about at all. "Are you all right?" Deanna asked. Oliver didn't look too steady on his feet.

He nodded, his eyes looking overly large in his white and pinched face.

Baylen clapped him heartily on the shoulder. "Well, ready for supper, then?"

It wouldn't take much, Deanna thought, for Oliver to either throw up or go for Baylen's throat. "You know," she said, "maybe it'd be a good idea to skip supper this once. Oliver needs time for his stomach to settle, and I had a bigger lunch than usual so I'm not hungry at all. Why don't you thank your family for us, but tell them we'd rather not eat?"

"I don't know." Baylen scratched his belly reflectively. "Aunt Marguerite's not going to be too well pleased."

Deanna could imagine. She smiled and stayed where she was.

Baylen shrugged. "Right, then."

She waited for him to leave, then turned to Oliver. "Why didn't you look for the watch?" she demanded.

"You said to go with them and do what they said," he pointed out.

It was true, and he looked so sick and weak
she relented. "I think you better lie down. Come on, let's get you back to your room." She put her arm around him, afraid that he might faint or collapse on the way, but found that he was steadier than he appeared. He jumped, startled at her touch, and after that it seemed somehow impolite to withdraw her arm. She escorted him to his chamber halfway down the corridor, embarrassed to death and hoping he couldn't tell.

"There you go," she said cheerfully as he got onto the bed. He didn't go under the covers but just curled up on top, looking miserable. "Anything I can get you?"

"Like what?"

"1 don't know. Water? A blanket?"
Take two aspirin and call me in the morning,
she thought wryly. They didn't even have aspirin here. What if he was
really
sick?

He shook his head. "Why aren't you going to supper?"

"I thought it'd be a good chance to take a look in the wizard's room, while everybody's in the Hall. Explore."

Oliver sat up. "Not alone."

She couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement. "Yes, alone. You're in no shape to come along."

Oliver paused to reflect on her wording. "I'm well enough." He stood gingerly. He swayed a bit, blinked those big green eyes, then started for the door.