The Midnight Queen (29 page)

“Sophie,” he began again, “This is not . . . it was not
all
our sisters' idea, and I should not wish you to think . . . I have been wishing, these many weeks—but I did not think that . . .” Nothing could be more ludicrously awkward than this frantic search for words. But she began to take his meaning now; the smile glimmering in her eyes was encouragement enough. “I have nothing to offer you, Sophie—nothing but my own poor self, which is pledged to your service already—but, Sophie—
cariad
, dearest love—Sophie, will you . . .”

The question was never finished, however, for, by way of an answer, Sophie stood on tiptoe and tugged on the lapels of Gray's coat, drawing his head down to hers until, for an eternal, intoxicating moment, their lips met.

Magick shivered the still air around them—whether hers, or his, or both together, Gray neither knew nor cared.

She loves me!
his mind repeated exultantly.

*   *   *

Sophie felt Gray's arms close tight about her, and her feet left the floor to dangle in midair; loosing her grip on his coat-collar, she wound her arms about his neck. Her ears hummed; through the frantic hammering of her own pulse she felt the pounding of his heart, as strong and urgent as though their bodies were not separated by layers of linen and muslin and wool.

They were both of them awkward and uncertain, to be sure; had she harboured any illusions that Gray might be more experienced in this arena than herself, they would have all been done away. For all that, she could no longer doubt what he felt for her, and she might have laughed aloud—had she had breath enough—to think how far her earlier fancies had fallen short of reality.

Gray raised his head, his brows drawing together in a puzzled frown, and set her gently on her feet. Head on one side, he stood for a moment looking down at her; his face was flushed pink, his chest rising and falling as rapidly as Sophie's own, and she had a sudden urge to giggle. “Listen,” he whispered.

The strange, discordant humming which Sophie had believed to be some fancy of hers, she now understood was quite real. Looking about them, she and Gray fixed their gaze at the same moment on the source of the sound: Jenny's gleaming cherry-wood pianoforte, whose strings, Sophie saw as they stepped closer, vibrated wildly, as though every key had been depressed at once.

“I am very sorry,” she said, “but I have not the least notion how to make it stop.”

“Oh, my Sophie,” he cried, subsiding onto the piano-bench and pulling her into his arms. “I should not love you half so well,
cariad
, if you were like other people.”

He bent his head and kissed her, eagerly, and she as eagerly replied. The discordant hum grew louder and louder, but neither of them heard it any longer, until at last—never meant to withstand such usage—the pianoforte's strings began to snap.

In Which Mrs. Wallis Is Surprised

At the first
jarring
twang!
from behind them, Gray and Sophie sprang apart, recoiling from one another as from an open flame. From opposite sides of the long, narrow room they stared at each other, Sophie's dismay mirrored in Gray's suddenly ashen face.

Another string snapped, and another, and Sophie cried out, distressed by the sight and sound, for already the instrument was a beloved friend. Abruptly the humming of the remaining strings began to die away, and only moments later the drawing-room was silent—but for their rapid, panicked breathing.

“What . . .” Gray began, looking from Sophie to the pianoforte and back again.

Then Sophie's teeth began to chatter, and at once he was at her side, folding his arms about her and murmuring words of reassurance. For a moment she relaxed gratefully into his embrace, remembering every fright, every scrape and misadventure, from which he had extricated her in the months of their acquaintance, and comfortably certain that he would do so again. Then the precise nature of the present difficulty burst upon her once again, and she stiffened in alarm.

“Sophie.” His voice was gentle, full of concern. She looked up into his face, tears standing in her eyes, and caught her breath at his expression. “Please,
cariad
, tell me—what is the matter?”

“That.”
Trembling, she gestured with one arm at the damaged pianoforte. “How can I—how can we—” The numberless other times when her magick had shattered or smashed or mangled things, and, much worse, had injured
people
—most frequently, Gray himself—paraded themselves before her mind's eye, echoing and strengthening the nightmare images that, despite half a lifetime's familiarity, had never lost their power to terrify. The tears would no longer be restrained, and she buried her face in her hands as she sobbed, “I am good for nothing but destroying things! Even what I love, I—”

“No,” Gray said fiercely, tightening his arms about her shoulders. “Sophie, you must not think so. The pianoforte is . . .
attuned
to you—as am I, it seems,” he added in a lower voice, with a shadow of laughter in it. “You have not destroyed it; only . . . only overwhelmed it. Some connexion must have amplified the resonance of your magick—yours and mine, rather—in the aether, and—”

There was a timid knock at the door; Sophie made to disentangle herself, but Gray seemed to have no idea of letting her go.

“Gray? Sophie?” came Jenny's voice from the corridor. Sophie flinched, wishing that she could disappear altogether. “May I come in?”

“Yes, of course,” Gray called, relaxing his grip very slightly.

The door opened slowly; Jenny looked about her, and seemed to relax when she caught sight of her brother with his arms about Sophie.

“The two of you have reached some sort of understanding, then?” she said, smiling.

“We—” Gray began, but Sophie—unable to bear being greeted so warmly, after what she had done—rushed to forestall him. “I have ruined your beautiful instrument, Jenny,” she cried, at last extricating herself, “and I am most dreadfully sorry. I beg you will let me pay for—”

“Whatever do you mean?” Jenny stepped closer to the pianoforte and began to examine it. Sophie, watching, saw the precise moment at which she recognised the damage, and braced herself for a storm of angry accusations, but, though Jenny looked deeply shocked, none came. “I . . . I shall write today to have the strings replaced,” she said instead, then, steadying, “It will not sound quite itself in the meantime, to be sure, but I should not call it
ruined
.”

She turned back to Sophie and Gray, her smile perhaps a little uneasy. “This explains the odd sounds I have been hearing, I suppose,” she said. “I rather feared—But, Sophie, tell me: I hope that . . . you will not think me presumptuous, I hope, if I ask whether I may call you ‘sister' . . . ?”

Sophie blinked. “I . . .” Turning, she looked up at Gray; with a tentative half smile that set her pulse racing again, he took her hands in his and whispered, “What say you, Sophie?”

“Do you mean”—she no longer cared whether Jenny might hear—“that you still—after—
that
—”

Gray looked perplexed. “Yes,” he replied. “Of course, yes.”

“There is my answer, then,” said Sophie. Joanna had been quite right, after all; surely no other man would repeat his offer of marriage, having witnessed such a display. “Of course, yes.”

Gray's look of confusion gave way to an expression of unalloyed delight. He bent to kiss her upturned forehead, and through all her doubts and trepidation, she felt certain of having chosen aright.

“Then I wish you joy!” said Jenny, so unexpectedly that Sophie jumped in surprise and knocked her head against Gray's chin. “And perhaps you will both come with me, and put an end to everyone else's suspense.”

“Gods and priestesses,” Sophie muttered—for she had had a dreadful thought: “I shall have to tell Mrs. Wallis, and ask for her consent.”

*   *   *

When it came to the point, Sophie was not quite brave enough for a private audience with Mrs. Wallis. They resolved, therefore, to make the petition for their families' consent a general one, hoping that whatever objections Mrs. Wallis might raise would be sufficiently answered by the enthusiastic approval which Jenny predicted from everyone else.

Sophie could not imagine how they would begin, but she had, despite so many years' experience, reckoned without her younger sister.

“Well?” As Jenny ushered them into the morning-room, Joanna put down her work and jumped up from her chair. “Are we to have a wedding, then?”

In spite of everything, Sophie began to laugh. “Joanna,
really
,” she said, for at least the thousandth time. “What a question!”

But this seemed to be answer enough, for at once she was nearly bowled over by her sister's congratulatory embrace. “Did I not tell you?” Joanna whispered smugly into her ear.

Over Joanna's shoulder, Sophie saw broad smiles on the faces of the assembled company—all but Mrs. Wallis, who was nowhere to be seen.

“Jenny?” she said, hesitant. “Where has Mrs. Wallis gone?”

Frowning, Jenny cast a questioning look at her husband. “I believe,” Sieur Germain began, “that Mrs. Treveur—”

But before he could elaborate, footsteps were heard in the corridor, and Mrs. Wallis's crisp voice saying jovially, “Miss Sophia! Mr. Marshall! You have at last decided to rejoin the mortal world, I see?”

This made Sophie blush—and Gray, too—as perhaps nothing else could have done.

Mrs. Wallis sailed past them into the morning-room and seated herself composedly on a sofa; the not-quite-acknowledged lovers regarded one another in silent consternation. There must be some accepted protocol for such circumstances, and, given a more usual sort of courtship, one or other of them must have taken the trouble to discover what it was. As things were, however . . .

“Sophie and I have something to say to all of you,” Gray began at last, boldly taking her hand. “I have made her an offer of marriage, and—and she has accepted it, and, as the five of you are all the friends and relations we have, we . . . we ask all of you to give us your consent.”

As though Master Alcuin and Sieur Germain had been wanting only this precise turn of phrase to match Joanna's exuberance, Sophie suddenly found herself and her betrothed—for so she must now consider him—enveloped in a flurry of cheek-kissing, back-slapping male felicitation. Jenny and Joanna stood back, exchanging self-satisfied looks, and Mrs. Wallis—

“Mrs. Wallis,” said Sophie, addressing her self-proclaimed guardian rather recklessly than politely, “have not
you
anything to say?”

To her astonishment—there seemed no end of astonishments today—Mrs. Wallis laughed aloud. “Indeed I have not,” she said. “I should not myself have chosen quite this means of carrying out your mother's wishes, but above all she wished you safe and happy, and the latter you undoubtedly appear. And, besides, I am quite speechless with surprise.”

“You cannot be serious, Mrs. Wallis!” Joanna exclaimed.

“Quite serious, Miss Joanna, I assure you,” said Mrs. Wallis solemnly—though her dancing eyes declared her quite otherwise. “I had not thought that any two persons so apparently blind to one another's feelings could manage to reach any sort of understanding in so short a time . . .”

“Well, you may thank
me
for that,” cried Joanna, “and Jenny, too, of course—I am sure they would never have spoken two words to each other about it, if we had not
made
them.”

“Mind it does not go to your head,” was Mrs. Wallis's only reply.

Though such kind of humour was not very much to Sophie's taste, it did at least suggest that her fears of opposition from this quarter had been misplaced, for which she was duly thankful.

“There is much to be done,” Mrs. Wallis resumed, putting aside her unaccustomed mirth. “We must agree on terms, and engage a priest—not too highly placed, I think—to draw up the contract and oversee the promises; and, of course, as to witnesses—”

“That does not sound like any wedding I ever heard of,” Joanna objected.

Mrs. Wallis gave her a disapproving look. “That, my child, is because you have been accustomed to consort with Breizhek servant-girls and farmers' daughters,” she said. “Such affairs are conducted rather differently among persons of gentle birth . . .”

But Sophie could not attend to her disquisition on the legal differences between handfasting and marriage by contract, and the advantages of the latter for women, in the event of divorce; she found herself wishing, with more honesty than propriety, that she and Gray had not left the drawing-room quite so soon.

“They cannot have so very much to discuss,” said Gray, with a rueful smile, “if they are settling the amounts of our respective fortunes.” Then leaning down to her, he lowered his voice to ask, “Are you happy, Sophie?”

Sophie stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I am frightened out of my wits,” she admitted, “but I cannot bring myself to mind it very much just now.”

*   *   *

Sieur Germain and Mrs. Wallis retreated to the former's private study to continue their discussion of contract arrangements; Jenny and Joanna, looking like cats in a dairy, descended to the kitchen to pester Mrs. Treveur for wedding delicacies. Gray was considering how he and Sophie might best escape everyone's notice for an hour or two when Master Alcuin approached them, smiling broadly, to remind them of the lessons they had been neglecting.

The rest of the day passed very much as usual—if a day spent belowstairs, drawing water from the air to fling hailstones at one another, and (despite Sophie's objections) learning to expand a tiny utilitarian flame into a large and menacing one, could any way be called usual. When the whole household met again before dinner, Gray and Sophie were both too tired to pay much heed to the general conversation; they sat together on a sofa in the drawing-room, companionably silent, and finding themselves placed next to one another at table, they clasped hands beneath the tablecloth and spoke, in low voices, of everything and nothing. Gray felt so extraordinarily fortunate that he could have laughed aloud.

At last his attention was called perforce another way, by Sieur Germain's asking him a direct question.

“I beg pardon, sir?” said Gray, drawing a chorus of tolerant amusement.

“We are deciding your wedding-date,” said his brother-in-law. “Have you any objection to being married on the day after tomorrow?”

Gray, astonished, looked at Sophie, whose shoulders lifted minutely.

“We cannot act too soon, I think,” said Mrs. Wallis, “for he may well return to investigate more thoroughly.” There was no need to ask whom she meant.

“I have written to the Temple of Tamesis,” Sieur Germain continued cheerfully, “and tomorrow we shall see what can be done.”

“I almost wish that Father
would
come,” said Joanna, spearing a piece of mutton with her fork. The rest stared at her, dumbfounded. “Not until afterward, of course,” she added hastily, “but I should so like to see his face, when he finds that it is true after all, and he can do nothing about it . . .”

“
I
should like never to see his face again,” said Sophie.

*   *   *

The priest of Tamesis, presiding goddess of the River Thames, was punctual to his hour, though he seemed ill pleased by the circumstances of his summoning. Having perused the sheet of paper on which were set down the proposed terms of the marriage contract, he looked up at Sieur Germain, frowning.

“This is a most peculiar document,” he said, disapproval in every syllable. “I find it difficult to believe that any two persons of gentle birth should agree to be married on such terms—or that their families should permit it.”

Sieur Germain shrugged his shoulders. “These are peculiar times,” he said blandly, “and we find ourselves in peculiar circumstances.”

“Neither of us has the least objection to the terms,” said Sophie, too anxious to be cautious about speaking out of turn.

“Certainly not.” Gray reached for Sophie's hand and pressed it reassuringly.

The priest fixed his eyes on them, and his frown deepened. “And do I understand you all to be living together in the same household?” he inquired. “This also is most irregular.”

“The circumstances, as I have said, are somewhat unusual,” Sieur Germain repeated patiently. “Miss Callender's home is in Breizh, and Mr. Marshall's at Oxford; as both at present happen to be resident in my home, it seemed far more sensible . . .”