Otherworldly Discipline: A Witch's Lesson (9 page)

“Because we aren’t perfect, Charlotte, but that doesn’t mean we can’t dress like we are,” he grabbed her hands and stopped them. “This isn’t America, Darling. We do Windsor knots here.”

She stared blankly at him, stating without words that she had no idea what a Windsor knot was, and if he was really that picky. He picked his hands up, tied the tie slowly with crisp movements, and then untied it even faster, grabbed her hands, and put it on the open ends to instruct her to try as he continued to button up the front of his shirt. “And I don’t know why Ashcroft didn’t start earlier. Probably because he fancies you.”

Her hands stopped moving.

“You’re not done,” he reminded, poking at her hands.

He fancies her? Ashcroft? It was impossible. “Not likely,” she finally doubted decisively, continuing.

“Oh, he definitely
does fancy you,” he assured. “The only doubt I had was whether or not that was the reason why he didn’t take you in hand sooner.”

Her eyebrows narrowed, but she wasn’t annoyed. Now she felt nervous. “Did he tell you this?”

“No, he’s done nothing but deny it,” Moriarty admitted breezily. “But it’s
plain
enough. I’ve never seen him so damn vertiginous about a woman before.” Her eyes popped wide open, but before she could say anything, he added, “Nothing that a good mind
-
clearing trip to the Earthside wouldn’t fix, of course. He’s been too long without a woman.”

This seemed to calm her, although she found herself biting her cheek in response. “Is that what you do?” she asked, trying not to seem fazed by Moriarty insinuation. “Go to Earthside just to sew your wild oats?” She suddenly sneered and retied the tie. It was a failure.

He took pity on her and put his hands over hers to show her how to do it, saying, “Yes. That’s exactly what I do, and I deserve it.” He found that his tie was tied. “Excellent. Now pull it like this and create seemly dimples in the fabric like so….” He illustrated and then showed off the knot and adjusted it. “Lovely, eh?”

She was less than impressed and hopped down. “Not any lovelier than what I did before. Looks the same to me…”

“So do red and burgundy. Your opinion is worthless,” he stated it like it was a simple fact, as if it was in her nature
to be worthless. With that, he took a couple of heavy steps towards an arm chair and fell heavily into it, groaning and moaning. He looked like he had just done something exceedingly strenuous—like swam the English Channel, not simply
just
dressed and bathed. “You’re lucky you have someone like me to pick out nice things for you and to burn away a history of poor clothing choices.”

She pressed her lips tightly together. “Yeah… About that… I’m actually sort of annoyed about that…”

“Oh, I would be too if
I owned hideous things like those
.” He grinned. “You’re very welcome.”

“No, I mean…” She put her hand over her eyes. Talking to Moriarty could be so stressful. “I mean, you didn’t have the right to touch my things, let alone toss them
.
”

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t run away for six weeks you’d still be the proud owner of a pair of sweatpants that say ‘juicy’ across the bottom.” He rolled in a way that communicated that he thought that article of clothing was one of the more lower-class things he’d ever seen. “I didn’t have your assistance when we were moving you in, so I had to adlib.”

She crossed her arms across her chest. She understood that they were going to argue and, in a way, looked forward to it. After all, she couldn’t argue with Ashcroft anymore without worrying about her bottom’s welfare.

She took a deep breath.  “Look, Moriarty, I came in here to thank you—”

“Of course you did.”

“—for saving my life from that weird demon thing. And possibly for giving me mouth-to-mouth without biting me or doing any funny business. But if—”

“Funny business?”

“—you touch my stuff again I will give you another fat lip. Though—”

“Don’t act like you could do that if I was paying attention. You
gave
me an uncalled for boot to the face—”

“—I’m nonetheless willing to apologize for your injury and thank you for saving my life… and stuff. Which is a first. But I do want you to acknowledge, in exchange, that you crossed
a
line with the clothes.”

“That’s not an apology. That’s a negotiation! Did you think I would fall for it because you didn’t take a breath?” He looked at his fingernails as if to check them for cleanliness. “I didn’t cross any line at all. I didn’t just save you from a demon, I’m saving you from yourself. Your welcome and your welcome.”

She put her hands to her hips with frustration and glanced out the window for a moment to collect her thoughts.

“You know you look good, Charlotte. Stop fighting it.”

She found herself trying to keep a grin off of her face when she looked back at him. “You are so arrogant that it’s
almost
funny. Not completely funny, you know. More like cartoonish, actually. Like a clothing super
villain.”

“Are you still planning on
assisting me
this morning?” he asked her, waving his hand through the air to veer her off
topic.

“I suppose,” she replied thoughtfully, looking him over.

“Good. I’m famished. I need a cigarette and lunch, and I… I’m not comp
letely sure I can get out of this
chair. But when you get my lunch from Naomi
,
don’t say anything about me smoking in here, or else I will drown and then eat you myself. I will find the energy in me to do so. She’s insufferable about it.”

She grimaced. The last thing she wanted to do was to go to where a bunch of servants were—the kitchens—where everybody would look at her and think the same thing. That she was spanked. “Can’t you, like… diet?”

“Just go downstairs and get it for me,” he asked her again, wearily. He studied her expression, and then grinned. “You look nervous,” he said, like her nervousness was just as delicious as lunch.

“No, I’m just—I just…” She decided halfway through the sentence that Moriarty was the last person she could trust as a confidant. She gave frustrated huff.

But he knew her hesitancy like he had read it on her face. And then he teased her with the information. “Have lunch with me. You can put a pillow down for yourself…” He broke out in a chuckle, but then grimaced with pain, but recovered. “Just try to behave yourself until then.” He winked.

It was going to be a long
couple of days with Moriarty. That was for sure.

Moriarty couldn’t believe how fast the time was moving. Ashcroft had already been gone three days—which was only slightly disconcerting; Ashcroft was always optimistic concerning how long something would take, especially when it came to dragon problems.

He wouldn’t have believed it, but something between Moriarty and Charlotte somehow clicked into place like a well-fit puzzle piece. They’d finally learned how to act around each other—something that they were never able to do in her short day
visits there, but something that happened fast once they were in close quarters.

They learned that they both liked dishing out misery and insults. As soon as that was efficiently discovered, they got along—or rather, did not get along, splendidly. It was as if Charlotte was the sister he’d never had, and never really wanted… Still, she seemed to like spending time with him more than not, and he found himself thinking likewise in spite of himself.

He had finally had a great day—he enjoyed not being in pain for the first time since Charlotte’s rescue, and also found that Charlotte seemed to be coming into her own. She had spent most of her free time reading the book that Ashcroft had instructed her to read before he left, obviously trying to turn a new leaf.

In fact, if he didn’t know any better, Moriarty would even go out on a limb and claim that Charlotte was trying to impress Ashcroft. After all, she did what she was told, and she hated every second of it, yet she continued to find more to do when she’d finished. Moriarty had found her after breakfast in Ashcroft’s study, fingering over the covers of Ashcroft’s book collection. When she heard Moriarty step behind her, she had said, “Creepy,” with a hum.

“What is?” he asked, leaning against the shelf, watching her continue to thumb over the
bo
o
k
covers.

“These are all written by Ashcroft,” she turned around and raised an eyebrow. “Is that weird or what? There has to be hundreds! Most of them are written by hand!” she gestured towards the packed bookshelves around them that lined the walls all the way up to the tall two-story ceiling.

“That isn’t creepy for an Archivist,” Moriarty assured with a smirk. “That’s what his kind does, and needs to do for their survival. They collect, study, analyze, experiment, and document. Ashcroft does this more than most, which is probably why he’s regarded unofficially as the head of his faction.”

“But there’s so much…” she said in a way that sounded nearly frustrated, as if she believed that there simply shouldn’t be so many books in one place.

“There is. And I could name a dozen wizards who would love getting their hands on all this knowledge,” Moriarty couldn’t help but having a lecturing tone, defensive of Ashcroft. “You have no idea how fortunate you are. Ashcroft is one of the most powerful wizards in existence because of this knowledge. He rarely comes across a creature that doesn’t fear him.”

“I don’t fear him,” she said, bringing her shoulders back proudly.

“That’s because you’re stupid, not because you’re brave,” he guaranteed. Charlotte made a face at him, but he ignored it. “You haven’t considered that while you can create spells eventually, your powers are finite. Ashcroft can use the known powers of any faction. You, however, can only use the powers
that can be harnessed
by your own race. And you’re very, very lucky that Ashcroft was able to get the confidence of a Byndian to be able to learn your race’s spells. No one else can make that claim—the Byndians were an extremely tight
lipped race who didn’t trust outsiders.”

“Well, then why were we so easily killed off?” she demanded, looking offended.

He shrugged. “
Your race had many, many enemies. As does everyone with power. You control the elements, and therefore your kind collected massive power and were very sought-after to have in a war. But your kind had a civil war and then assassins from other factions killed you off one by one.
Your faction has always been poor at defending themselves
, slow to heal,
easy to injure and to be made ill
,
and extremely poor at attack. They were more comprised of
making alliances that would
protect them
—” He stopped his sentence short when he saw Charlotte weave wearily from foot to foot.

He realized then how withered
she looked—much like a flower caught in too much sun. “Are you feeling well, Charlotte?” he asked her, putting a hand on her forehead. She wasn’t warm; there wasn’t any fever.

“Yeah,” she said, blinking. “I sleep like hell here.
I’m okay. I’ll pass out eventually.”

But she didn’t.

He woke up in the middle of the night that evening to Naomi’s soft rapping at his door. Naomi had her hair up and braided under her cap already. “What?” Moriarty asked firmly, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I got up to get a drink of warm milk, and I saw Charlotte’s light on. This is the fo
u
rth night in a row I seen a li
ght on in there, but I ain’t said
nothin’. But I’d never heard cryin’ before. When I knocked on her door, she said she was fine, but I know what I heard. I figured you were closer to her. She might tell you what’s wrong…”

“Why do I care if she’s been crying?” he charged, not wanting to be plugged as the ‘caring staff member’—he’d never hear the end of others’ discomforts that way. “She can cry if she wants!”

But Naomi raised an eyebrow. “You don’t fool me for a second, Moriarty Miles. You don’t spend every wakin’ moment of the day with just anyone, you know. You care, you old coot.”

“No I don’t,” Moriarty said, and closed the door on her. “Not at all. Never wake me again!”

As soon as Naomi was gone, and there were no witnesses to him acting on his concern, he walked down the hallway and went into Charlotte’s room without knocking. He found her wiping tears off her cheeks when he came in.

“Knock, much?” she sniffed tersely.

“No, I don’t. I am steward, after all. This is my tower,” he looked her over. She had a big book open across her lap. “Please tell me that your sniffling noise that’s frightening the servants is only because you’re reading something sad or because you’re getting a cold.”

“I’m just… Tired,” she complained.

“Then go to sleep,” he advised, walking to her oil lamp to darken the room. “Good evening—”

“Don’t turn it off!” she hissed venomously. He stopped in his tracks, and turned the lamp up higher as his fingers were already on the switch.