Magical Weddings (12 page)

Though built like a god, the man at the door didn’t resemble one, too rough around the edges.

She smiled to herself.

Way too rough
.

Clean-shaven, she knew he didn’t like having a beard, though his thick, tangled brown hair needed a trim. He had the face of someone who had never spoken English, but instead some long forgotten language of the Northern Hebrides, a Celtic warrior who would communicate with strange, slashing letters and fanciful, if crudely drawn beasts with long necks and limbs that knotted back on themselves, weaving around and through. His cheeks were too sharp, brow a bit wide, yet even she had to admit his eyes were pretty, a soft, ever-forgiving green.

Those at the top in Breens considered him brutish. She preferred to think of him as realistically war-hardened. Truthfully, there had never been a battle of any sort here. He wasn’t afraid of manual labor, though, so the scars and signs of injury had probably been acquired when various projects went sideways.

“Colleen!”

Hang on. I’m coming
.

He couldn’t hear her, of course. Nor was he part of the house as she was, so he would just have to wait for her to get there.

Once the spell had finished announcing the upcoming nuptials to the witches and warlocks of Breens last night, she’d gotten up immediately. No longer able to sleep, she’d gone to the kitchen with a pencil and a pad of paper to draw up a list of preparations. Years could go by between weddings,
thank God
, and that usually meant pulling furniture and décor, dishes and linens out of long-term storage. Drayhome might host many different types of events, conclaves and celebrations, but it owned three different sets of linens meant specifically for weddings. Another week would bring them to the end of May, so the ceremony and reception would be held out in the garden, which meant the Italian hemstitched set, first on her list of things to check this morning. While not as fancy as the Chantilly or Madeira lace linens, which she kept strictly for indoor use, the Italian made up for this by being sturdy and easy care.

After the last wedding a decade ago, she’d washed each of the tablecloths gently with Orvus paste and, because she loathed ironing, had used the estate’s ancient electric mangle leftover from the 1930s to finish them. Her inspections now showed neither damp nor insects had gotten to the fabric. A quick spell to release the creases at the folds, and to ease any last wrinkles was all she needed to get them on the tables.

“Colleen!” the man at the door shouted, and then under his breath grumbled, “Answer the door, dammit!”

Restacking tablecloths and napkins and returning them to the cupboards for the time being, she headed upstairs to rescue him from whatever trouble he’d gotten himself into. Pausing on the other side of the huge double doors, she saw his sigil infused in the wood, asking for permission to enter. He’d written it perfectly, yet the door had refused to open. She watched him hit the wood with an open fist, and then swing around one-hundred-eighty degrees, pull back abruptly as if confronted by something she couldn’t see, and seconds later knock furiously at the air.

She frowned.

What’s he doing?

Growling, he pivoted once more, entered his sigil again to no avail, turned around and gave a swift kick to empty space. His toe bounced off nothing.

An illusion. It was the only explanation. No matter which way he turned, Drayhome must be showing him the front doors and nothing else, holding him captive on the front porch.

The house didn’t want to accept his key.

Why?

What was wrong?

That she now sensed something
was
wrong, knotted the muscles between her shoulder blades with dread. His purpose for being here went beyond his wedding duties. He’d carried something else onto the property with him, an unhappiness Drayhome didn’t like. She had no fears about him trying to hurt her physically. That’s not what this was about.

His agitation with the illusion grew. He looked ready to put his considerable brawn into breaking down the entrance just to escape it. Drayhome served as the well to a great deal of power in Breens and nothing embodied this more than the thousand-year-old Douglas fir doors guarding the mansion, but if anyone could breach them, Ax was that person.

Stop
, she told the house.
We’ll never find out if we don’t let him in
.

Colleen drew in a deep breath and steeled herself to the inevitable. She would have to deal with others, dozens of people, at least for the next week, be friendly and pretend accessibility until the wedding was over, things returned to normal, and Drayhome was hers again.

Calmly, she opened the door on the right.

“Ax,” she said.

He had his back to her. Startled, he jumped a couple of inches, and then, recovering his machismo, turned. His eyes brightened when he spotted her standing in the open doorway.

“Finally!” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? Your house just trapped me out here with a fountain full of man-eating water lilies.”

“Good thing you’re a warlock then, and not a man.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the water feature and its flowers.

“I’m not certain they’re capable of making that distinction,” he said.

“Such a baby.”

“I swear I just watched them gulp down two perfectly innocent hummingbirds.”

She peered beyond him at the lilies in the fountain’s pond. “Nothing out there is eating hummingbirds,” she said. “See?”

As she pointed, first one, then a second of the lilies opened. Out flew two emerald green birds that hovered inches above the blossoms, wings humming like tiny, high-powered motors, before the creatures each zipped off in different directions.

“They were feeding,” she said.

“Hummingbirds don’t feed on water lilies,” he said.

“They do here,” she said, the satisfaction plain in her voice. “I designed them myself and had Mia spell them for me. The red color attracts the birds, and when they land in the center, it triggers the petals to close. A reservoir of nectar fills up at the bottom. They can drink their fill safely, and when they’re done, the flower reopens to let them out again.”

“Oh,” Ax said, though it verged on grunt rather than verbalization, hardly an expression of wonder. She saw his expression change to all business. “You know why I’m here.”

Do I?

“I presume you have a list for me?” he asked.

“In the kitchen,” she said and led him there.

Ax observed Colleen’s straight, glassy hair brush the tops of her hands as she leaned over the kitchen table, double-checking the items she’d jotted down on her pad. Standing beside her, he tried to peer at the list, but her bowed head and the brim of her cap got in the way. Not a baseball cap, the hat was one of several Irish flat caps she owned, the type typically worn when driving or riding a horse in open country. He’d never seen one on another woman in Breens or on U.S. television for that matter, which meant she was probably out of fashion. He respected that she didn’t care and wore them anyway, because they suited her.

Her fingers busied themselves, pencil tip touching each item on the list until she reached the bottom. From his angle above, he couldn’t even make out her eyes, just her eyelashes. Her hair was brown, eyelashes red. Neither looked dyed. It had to be a genetic anomaly. For years, he’d held an internal debate with himself about what color hid beneath the thigh-length sweaters and jeans. Red or brown?

Red. Let it be red.

He supposed either the lashes or hair color might be spelled. It you were going to cast a glamour on yourself, though, wouldn’t it make sense to be consistent?

Red. I’d like her a little wild
.

He flushed.

Colleen wasn’t telepathic, but…he stared up in trepidation at the ceiling and studied the walls around them…could Drayhome hear his thoughts?

God, let’s hope not
.

The run in with the front door had been harrowing enough. As much as he enjoyed his fantasies, Colleen had never given him any indication she would welcome him into her bed. If she welcomed anyone, that was. It had been eons since he’d entertained the concept of the two of them having a
thing
.

You’re here to do a job. Multiple jobs
.

Including the one he wanted to throw in the conclave’s collective faces.

Colleen leaned back and he got his first look at the list. He read the jobs off aloud in order.

“
Scrape moss off the exterior main house. Replace missing roof slates over third bedroom north wing. Get the effing rolling doors on the carriage house to effing roll
.” He paused the recitation. “Do I detect a hint of irritation with your beloved Drayhome?”

She tilted her head back to look up at him, and gave him a close-up view of the delicate freckles dotting her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t acquired those in the grey for which Oregon was known. Wherever she’d lived before coming to Breens the sun had shone brightly and often. That she did not have the same number of freckles on her arms and legs suggested it had been long ago, when exposing too much skin was frowned upon. In reality, he had no idea how old Colleen was. She looked mid-twenties, but could be anything between fifty and a hundred-and-fifty. He was nearing sixty; yet ageing had dramatically slowed for him half a lifetime ago. Humans would guess him to be thirty-two to thirty-three.

“On the contrary.” She smiled sweetly, tore the list off her pad and slapped it into his hand. “My irritation is with the effing idiot who couldn’t manage to effing fix the doors the last time.”

Meaning me
.

Colleen moved across the room to the kitchen’s massive white and pale grey porcelain stove and fired up one of six gas burners. She filled a kettle from the tap and set it on the burner.

“I
did
fix them the last time,” he said. “They were in perfect working order when I left last fall. Talk to your Drayhome.”

“I do,” she said. “Daily. Hourly.”

“Now there’s a frightening thought.”

“Why? It’s what I do. How else am I supposed to be in tune with the spirit of a place if I don’t communicate?”

“Then perhaps you’ll ask this hovel why it doesn’t like its carriage doors to stay fixed,” he said.

Contrary to stated beliefs, he was not an idiot. He
had
fixed them correctly, four times now. Either Drayhome utterly despised him or had a perverse sense of humor to drag him back here again and again to re-hang them. He glanced at the next item on her do-list.

“Clean out the attics? How does that even begin to rate as wedding prep?”

“We have boxes of stuff up there from previous weddings we never use,” she said.

“No one wants to see a bunch of crap from Drayhome’s old weddings.”

“They’re antiques!”

“So are we. Technically. To most of the people coming it’ll just be old crap. You haul that stuff out and they’re going to start asking themselves,
when do we get new crap?
”

“Yes,” she said. “When
does
Drayhome get some new crap? Everything in this house is creaky and old. We haven’t had an update in more than half a century, since before I arrived, anyway. Here I am cooking on a stove from the 1920s.”

“I thought you liked the Glenwood.”

“Okay, you’re right, I do, I love it.”

Pulling open the door to the stove’s upper oven, she slid out a baking sheet. Scents of chocolate and roasted walnuts suddenly clouded his thoughts.

Damn. She made me scones. There is no way I am telling her today
.

They had just under a week until the wedding. Long enough for him to find the right moment to break it to her.

Not just any scones, she’d baked his favorites, chocolate buttermilk with walnuts and dried apricot. Colleen was one helluva witch, but she was a genius at baking. Never sweet enough to be brownies, nor bland enough to be something as wrong as chocolate dinner biscuits, her scones always struck the perfect balance.

He caught himself groaning and prayed it had been inwardly, that she hadn’t just heard. He didn’t need his weaknesses on display.

“What I don’t like,” she said, “is the Roman Era plumbing and the fuse box from the dawn of fuse boxes.”

“Now you’re just exaggerating,” he said.

“No, I’m not.” Colleen’s tone sharpened. His offhand comment clearly infuriated her.

“Roman Era plumbing?”

“It might as well be.”

“Wrong continent for one thing,” he said. “Unless Caesar’s legions made a slight detour across the Atlantic when they were conquering Europe. As well as traveling through time.”

She reached up into a cupboard for a tin of tea, slamming it to the counter.

“To hell with you, Ax. To
hell
with you.”

“Been there often,” he said. “It’s called The High Priest’s house.”

Head of the emergency conclave, the high priest was his boss, or at least the person with the power to boss around him and everyone else. He couldn’t name a single witch or warlock among his friends who liked the man or agreed with his decisions.

Colleen warmed to her outrage, not even bothering with a tea ball, grabbing a handful of loose tea from the tin, and flinging it at a fragile china teapot.

Good aim. I think half of that made it inside
.

She followed the tea by pouring in boiling water from the kettle with an angry whoosh and banging the pot’s lid into place. An audible crack from the ceramic rewarded her actions. Hot water beaded up through the china at the site of the damage, and began leaking down the teapot’s curved side, drop by drop.

“Do you know how exhausting it is to be caretaker of Drayhome?” she asked. “To continually maintain the magic that keeps early 20 century wiring from frying and burning this place to the ground?”

Her hand shot out and seized a teacup off a shelf, fingers clamping around it tightly.

“Do you know how hard it is to use magic,” she said, “to resurrect the zombie boiler in the basement every day? I don’t even know how the thing works. I just have to rely on my gift to goad it back to life without blowing myself and the back half of the mansion to bits.”