Magical Weddings (18 page)

Such talents were rare among The Rede; only a handful existed that she knew of. Even something as minor as getting a driver’s license entailed a ridiculous expenditure of power, thus the high prices charged by the witches and warlocks who could create a permanent record or implant a lasting memory in humans. To employ a maid, even one with whom she never communicated in person, but who would remember to report to Drayhome and perform a rote list of tasks at a certain time each week would cost far more than she could ask The Priest to authorize.

Thank God I have Ax to help when things are at their worst.

Had Ax.

Her stomach sank as she mentally replayed the mortifying exchange in the attic for what had to be the hundredth time. Calling him a lackey, a coward.

Saying it in front of Lysée, Shelley and Mia! And he was right there! I embarrassed him in front of everyone.

She couldn’t take it back. She’d tried, tried everything she could over the last couple of days, hoping to make it up to him by preparing his favorite foods, telling everyone who would listen how much she appreciated his work.

I’m not a dog, Colleen
, he’d said.
I don’t heel
.

She moaned her own embarrassment and buried her face in her hands.

The cooking, the compliments, it just looks stupid. Like I knew I got caught, and I’m trying too hard.

Which didn’t change his part in the affair, however. Technically Ax was The Priest’s lackey. He did what The Priest told him to do. Who would refuse? Not if you didn’t want your life made miserable. Drayhome had known. Ax was supposed to tell Colleen first thing on the morning after the wedding spell. God forbid Ramsay Wise show up and actually do it himself.

Sadness rolled through her, but she was already on her way to acceptance. She’d do everything in her power to host the best last wedding at Drayhome. Then she would pack up everything, all wedding specific furnishings and have them ready, the two sets of wedding china, the silver pieces brought out only on those occasions, the Chantilly lace linens, though not the Madeira, and have them waiting for The Priest’s people to cart away to his residence as he surely would ask to do.

What worried Colleen most was what this diminishment in responsibilities portended for her role here at Drayhome. Removing her as wedding hostess was not a good sign. What would go next? Would he take the conclave meetings away from her? Perhaps even the rituals? Would she be reduced to caretaker of a place no one ever visited or used? In that case, why keep Drayhome in the community at all?

I’ve got to make what I have left count.

Every meeting had to mean more. She needed to prove her worth to them with each circle and ritual, every healing ceremony, every Samhain and Yule.

I’m so tired.

“Colleen?”

She sat up sharply, guiltily at her name. The person calling was still too far away for her to physically hear him, but the house transmitted his voice, let her know he was close. He left the third floor landing and chose the south wing rather than the core of the house to search. She recognized the warlock, Lawrence, the caterer’s helper, making a beeline for the maid’s quarters and the bathroom where she’d sought refuge.

You have got to be kidding me. Here? He tracks me down
here
?

Could she not be left alone for five minutes?

She heard him now. “Colleen?”

He passed her hiding spot, and then stopped. Slowly walking backward two strides, he unerringly turned and after a moment, hesitantly knocked at the bathroom door.

“Colleen? You in there?”

Sometimes she hated living amongst witches and warlocks.

“Be with you in a minute,” she said through the door and flushed the toilet she hadn’t used.

“Oh. Oh, right. Sorry,” Lawrence said as he waited for her to wash her hands. “Derby wants to know if you have a second set of cocktail glasses he can use for the first course.”

Toweling her hands dry, she pasted a smile on her face, and opened the door.

“Sure. No problem.”

“He couldn’t find any in the cupboards.”

“I know where they are. I’ll go get them.”

“Thanks, Colleen.” He gave her shoulder a pat and hurried ahead, presumably to let the caterer know.

She hauled the first of four boxes of crystal cocktail glasses into the kitchen a few minutes later. This set hadn’t been used in years, and she’d forgotten to spell them to keep the dust off the last time she’d put them away, which meant washing them all over again, by hand.

Putting her back into it, she hefted the box toward the counter beside the sink when wooziness hit. Colleen tottered, balance gone, arms suddenly leaden. From a great internal distance, she watched the box slipping from her grasp, two dozen hand-blown, gold-rimmed stemware glasses about to crash to the floor.

Strong arms reached around her, capable hands catching the box before it could fall. She tumbled backward into a muscled barrier with the permanence of fortress walls, except stone fortifications didn’t generally give off the shockingly raw warmth she felt at her back.

“Steady,” Ax said.

Her ears buzzed. The world spun, dizziness smearing the kitchen into incoherency.

Her knees gave out.

“I’ve got you.”

And he did. Because she couldn’t manage to stand, he did that for her, arms squeezing protectively around her and propping her up, as he leaned both of them forward and set the box of glasses on the counter.

“You do like to break things.”

“Didn’t you know?” she said. “It’s my main talent.”

“Ah, and here I thought running and caring singlehandedly for a 48 room mansion with a mind of its own was your gift.”

He scooped her up easily and settled her in the nearest convenient chair at the kitchen table.

Shake it off. You’re fine. Get up
.

Gripping the table edge, she braced her legs under her and pushed herself upward, but swayed instead of stood.

“Sit.” Ax pointed at the chair. “If I’m a dog, I get to be alpha dog.”

Her body sagged back down.

“Only for a second,” she said. “I’ll be okay in a second.”

“When was the last time you had something to eat?”

She stared at him blankly.

“Or even to drink?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure I–”

“I’m sure you didn’t. You’re going to sit there like a good beta dog and have something.”

“Don’t call me beta dog.”

“I’ll call you whatever I want.”

He lit a burner on the Glenwood, filled the kettle with water from the tap and selected what he apparently believed to be her second favorite cup, now that the Belleek was gone. His large hands didn’t have the easiest time with the tea infuser, but he got it and the cup filled with lapsang souchong and boiling water respectively, placing cup and saucer in front of her at the table.

“Put your hands around it. Warm yourself up. Your skin feels like rain on an icy window in Portland in February.”

“How poetic, but you haven’t been to Portland in over three decades.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t remember.”

“There’s no difference between a window in Portland and a window here.”

“Be quiet and drink your tea.”

Ax pulled open the door to the refrigerator and slid out a pan holding leftover brisket. A couple of minutes later, he set a hearty sandwich beside the tea.

“Eat that while I go get the rest of these,” he said and gestured at the glassware. “They’re in the–?”

“Service alley for the large dining room.”

He nodded and left.

Colleen managed a couple of bites and sips of tea before Ax returned, carrying all three boxes stacked one on top of the other.

“I’m assuming these need washing and drying.”

“Yes.” Already she felt better, and rose to get started.

“Do you need remedial obedience school?” he asked. “I told you to sit. Finish your food.”

“I think you’ve carried the canine metaphor a bit too far.”

“And I think I’ve earned the right.”

Her face flushed with renewed embarrassment.

Neither of them said anything after that. Ax washed and dried. She ate and drank tea. His hands mesmerized her, dipping in and out of the soapy water, cautious and gentle in their handling of the glassware, fingers taking their time wiping, and rubbing, and slowly polishing each crystal rim with a clean white cloth.

She may have been half out of it, but the stark sensuality she’d felt at just having his arms wrap around her, her back colliding with that impervious chest, built from years of toil, awoke fantasies she’d didn’t realize she harbored. A wild side she never dreamed she owned envisioned making love with him in dangerous places around the estate, naked on an armless, gold tasseled dining chair in front of one of the 12-foot mirrors in the ballroom; rocking a small rowboat so hard with their sex they overturned themselves and had to finish standing in the water; committing the ultimate sacrilege of devouring each other in Spirit’s bedchamber, feverishly tangled in coral satin sheets.

Soon Ax was on his third box of cocktail glasses, and though the fantasies faded, their imagined waves of pleasure easing her anxieties, if not actually satisfying her, Colleen felt physically stronger. Her dizziness was gone. She pulled another cotton towel from the row of cubbyholes over the sink and joined him at the sink. Her fingers trembled slightly when he handed her the first glass to dry, a little residual shakiness still to work itself out of her system, but Ax pretended not to notice.

They finished the job ten minutes later.

“Thank you,” she told him. It was only two words, but she did her best to convey more than that simple sentiment.

He set the last of one hundred glasses on the kitchen table. “What are these for anyway?” he asked.

“The caterer, Derby, wanted them. He’s…” Colleen used her connection to Drayhome to search for the warlock. “…arguing about something with Lysée in the hallway between the ballroom and conservatory.”

“Do you want me to help you pack them up?”

“No. Thanks. I don’t know what his plans are for–”

The front doorbell rang.

Ax had tensed at the sound, completely out of character for him.

She frowned. Unusual. Ax was the only one involved in planning weddings who used the front door. Nor was she expecting a formal visitor.

Who…?

A gorgeous, dark-haired warlock in an exactingly tailored suit waited on the stoop. She recognized him instantly, one of The Priest’s other…lackeys…or, no, not so much lackey as confidant. He could have used his sigil to enter, but instead waited for someone to come and answer it for him.

What does he want?

“If you don’t need me, I’m heading out to the auxiliary parking area to get it ready,” Ax said.

Distracted, she barely heard him leave through the side door.

“Colleen, how are you?” Marius Runyon was over the threshold and standing at the center of the grand foyer before she could even gesture with her hand for him to enter. She closed the door and turned. With their relative positions in the room and Runyon’s proprietary stance, she was overcome by the disorienting impression of being the visitor and he the one magnanimously allowing her entry.

“Busy,” she answered truthfully, adding, “Fine,” to sound less rude.

“I hope you don’t mind me taking a look around,” he said.

“A look around?”

“I’m here on a cataloging mission actually.”

“Okay,” she said, but didn’t really understand, knowing he’d probably fill her in. She’d had very little contact with Marius as opposed to some of the others on the conclave, but whenever they had conversed in the past, she remembered he always liked to make his position clear, no matter what they might discuss.

“The Priest would like me to tag some items to have moved to his residence once the wedding concludes on Thursday.”

“Ah,” she said. “I figured he would send someone by, though not this soon.”

“Time is short you know. We’re up against a deadline.”

Deadline?

“I’m afraid you’ve caught me off guard,” she said. She had the feeling they were talking at cross-purposes.

“I know. All of this has probably come as something of a shock, hasn’t it?”

“A little.”

“Only a little? Quite the trooper you are, Colleen. Good for you!”

He meant it as a compliment, she supposed, but it came off condescending at best.

“Thank you. I’ve already started an inventory for you of all wedding furnishings here at Drayhome.”

His smile was lukewarm. “How thoughtful,” he said.

She veered around him and started toward the back of the house and the kitchen. “It’s not complete, but I can go get it if you like.”

“Thanks. Maybe later,” he said.

She pulled up short.

He smiled at her again and a chill lifted the fine hairs at the nape of her neck.

“I prefer to make my own list,” he said.

“All right.”

She observed he hadn’t brought anything with him to make that list. No notebook, pad or paper.

“Would you like me to bring you something to write with?”

“No. Thank you.”

Of course not, you idiot
.

She remembered the second she asked. Marius Runyon was one of those rare memory talents. He not only had the facility to implant memories in others, his gifts extended to an iron trap memory of his own.

He strolled away from her toward a large artwork on the wall between two doorways leading off in opposite directions from the foyer. Pausing in front of the surrealistic painting of a “Spirit Bird,” enveloped by the mystic glow from an orb-like light, possibly the full moon, Runyon reached out and stroked the frame with his index finger.

“Nice,” he said, and then under his breath, “That will definitely have to go on the list.”

“Excuse me?” Colleen said. “You want the Morris Cole Graves? Why?”

“Why wouldn’t I…wouldn’t Ramsay, I mean? He has very discerning taste, which I share. He trusts me completely to select what to take.”