The Twelfth Enchantment: A Novel (36 page)

“Yes,” he said. “We shall comfort each other.”

Though it took all her will, Lucy pushed him away. With only a few inches between them, she looked into his beautiful, wild face and staggered back a few steps. “The world may yet choose to despise me, but I will not despise myself.”

“Lucy,” Byron began.

“I am tired,” she said. “I must be gone from here by noon tomorrow or I shall be married or ruined. I have few resources. You may have made a career out of sacrificing everything to your pleasures, Lord Byron, but I cannot.”

He reached out, stroking her face with the backs of his fingers. “Lucy, you are confused.”

“No!” she shouted, not caring who heard, not caring if Lady Harriett and all her servants were awakened. She walked away from him, toward the fire, as though its heat might burn away her shame and desire. “I am tired and I am frightened and I am desperate, but I am not confused.” She took a deep breath and ran a hand over her face. “Do not attempt to seduce me again, or I shall hate you. I must sleep and clear my mind, and in the morning, I shall escape this house. My niece, my flesh and blood, is held prisoner somewhere, and the monster that has taken her place sucks the very life out of my sister. I will not sacrifice them on the altar of gratification. I cannot fail my family again. Are you my ally or not?”

He bowed in response. “You must never doubt that I am. I shall obey your wishes and meet any challenge you may present to me.”

“Will you obey me?” asked Lucy, thrilled by her anger and her sense of power and authority. She had neither lied nor deceived nor used vile magic, and he was still hers. Women
were
magic. “Will you do as I ask without question or hesitation?”

He bowed again.

She thought of the things she had yet upon her, the knowledge she yet possessed. She had three pages of the
Mutus Liber
, stolen from Lady Harriett’s library, and neither that witch nor Byron nor anyone else in the world knew she had them. Even now, those pages called to her, sought her attention, like an itch inside her mind. There was a puzzle, a riddle to solve, and she would solve it. She was more dangerous than anyone knew. Lady Harriett’s words meant nothing. She was mighty, she told herself, and she would not be stopped.

“These walls shan’t hold us,” Lucy pronounced, feeling her courage form into something material and adamantine. “Lady Harriett and her allies and her imps can do nothing against us.”

He turned to open the door. “Then I shall see you well rested in the morning, Lucy.”

“I wish you good night, Lord Byron.”

He began to walk out and then turned to her. “As a point of clarification, do you say that I must never try to seduce you ever, or not while we remain here?”

The thinnest smile, constrained but quivering, danced upon his lips, and Lucy could not help but laugh. “Here to be sure,” she said. “We shall see what comes later.”

The smile blossomed fully. He bowed one last time and closed the door behind him.

Sitting on her bed, Lucy listened to the ticking of the tall case clock outside her door, and she heard nothing else. Perhaps ten minutes passed. Perhaps twenty. When it seemed like enough time, she removed from the folds of her skirt the pages she had cut from Lady Harriett’s book. By the strong light of several tapers, she began to unravel their meaning, which came into sharp relief.
Persuasion
. She could not escape the word, just as with the first set of pages she could not escape the notion of sacrifice. But Mary was not there to tell her what it meant or how to apply it to her needs, so Lucy had no choice but to discover that for herself.

Before allowing herself to sleep, Lucy had opened her curtains so she would awaken at first light. Nevertheless, she remained in deep slumber perhaps later than she wished, not rising until an hour or so after dawn. She refreshed herself as best she could with water from the basin, dressed, and began to go through her materials that she had collected the night before, organizing her notes and charms. She had fallen asleep before finishing, too exhausted to go on, so she finished her work now, writing for as long as she dared. When the clock struck eight o’clock, she knew she could wait no longer. She had perhaps four hours to escape Lady Harriett’s estate.

Though she had slept only a few hours, her mind was much clearer, sharper, focused by anger and desperation. Lucy opened up the bag she kept hidden in her gown and examined once more the herbs, the tools, and the ingredients. What she hoped to do was possible. From memory, she made a talisman of vulnerability. She would not be surprised again by Lady Harriett’s strength.

Placing her bag within the secret compartment in her gown, she left her room and knocked upon Byron’s door, and found him dressed and ready to attend to her.

“Let us then see if Lady Harriett will offer us breakfast,” she said.

Here they had a bit of good fortune, perhaps the only good fortune upon which they ought to depend, so Lucy embraced it most gratefully. Breakfast was, indeed, set out—a series of chafing dishes with eggs, toast, bacon, porridge, and meats. There was salt, which Lucy required, and she saw a parsley garnish, which she quickly pocketed. Upon the table was a vase containing a variety of wildflowers, including, Lucy noted, bluebells. Lady Harriett was careless to leave such things lying about.

They were not to dine alone, for sitting at the table, enjoying a plate piled high with sausage and bacon, was none other than Mr. Buckles. His tall frame was stooped over his plate while he worked his knife and fork with determined fury, slicing and smothering. His face was slick with perspiration, as though the act of cutting and eating taxed him to his limits.

He looked upon Lucy, took a bite of sausage, and then spoke while he chewed. “I hear I am to wish you, as they say, joy, Miss Derrick. To become Mrs. Olson after all. It is very grand, and more than you deserve, if I may be so bold. But it is Lady Harriett’s will.”

“Where is Lady Harriett?” asked Byron, touching his cheek. It had begun to bruise, disrupting his beauty like paint spilled upon a portrait.

“Lady Harriett and her associates have departed,” said Mr. Buckles. “Something happened with that John Bellingham fellow—some disaster that she blamed upon you, Miss Derrick. I am hardly surprised you would have something to do with that madman. A twitching sort of person, and always off upon what he is
owed.
”

“When shall Lady Harriett return?” asked Byron.

“Her ladyship did not, ah, shall we say, trouble herself to tell me what is surely none of my concern. She has instructed me to marry you to Mr. Olson upon his arrival, whether she is here or no.”

Byron looked at the food and then at Lucy, and she nodded. She did not much feel like eating, but she required strength and did not wish to find herself in a dire situation too depleted to do what she must.

Lucy served herself a healthy portion of eggs and toast—the meat did not appeal to her today—and sat at the table as far from Mr. Buckles as she could while still able to conduct a conversation. Byron, for his part, put but little food on his plate—some sausage and porridge. Lucy sensed that, for a man of great appetites, he was an abstemious eater.

“How does my sister?” Lucy asked Mr. Buckles.

Mr. Buckles put a large piece of bacon into his mouth. “She is well.”

“And your daughter?”

He paused for but a second. “She is also well.”

“You know that for certain?” asked Lucy.

He smiled in his simpering way. “How should I not, ah, know?”

“How indeed?” asked Lucy. She drank a glass of water. She wanted neither hunger nor thirst to inhibit her in the time ahead.

“I must tell you,” Mr. Buckles said, “how, let us say—I believe the word is
mortified
—yes, how mortified I am that you would treat Lady Harriett Dyer in this fashion. In light of the attention she had condescended to show you, both in offering advice in your affairs and in permitting her servant to marry into your family. Now, you break open her house. I hardly know how I shall look at my wife again given what her own flesh and blood has done.”

He went on in this manner for some time, permitting neither his chewing nor the repetitive nature of his subject to interfere with his discourses. As this conversation required not a word from anyone else, Lucy allowed him to proceed as he pleased until she was done eating. She then set down her utensils, pushed back her chair, and walked over to Mr. Buckles. Taking a deep breath, she raised up her hand and struck him across the cheek as hard as she could. She had not the power of Lady Harriett, and Mr. Buckles did not fly from his chair as he might have done in her imagination, but even so, the sound rang out with a reverberating crack, and Lucy could not be dissatisfied. Her own hand stung from the force of it, but she cared nothing for that.

Mr. Buckles remained motionless, tears in his eyes. He looked utterly bewildered, like a little boy who has discovered his father kissing the
kitchen maid, and suddenly sees that the world is not what he has always believed it.

Lucy turned to Byron. “Be so good as to restrain this man.”

He rose and did as she asked. He stood behind Mr. Buckles, holding his arms so that they were pinned behind the chair. “If Lady Harriett’s creatures should choose to interfere,” Byron said, “I may not be able to do as you ask.”

“Lady Harriett said we have freedom of the house,” said Lucy. “Let us use it.”

Mr. Buckles was beginning to find his voice. “How dare you!” he thundered. “How dare you lay hands upon me and restrain me. Do not think that Lady Harriett Dyer will not punish you most severely.”

Lucy struck him again. It hurt her far more this time, for her hand was now quite tender. What ought she to feel in striking her sister’s husband, the man who had cheated her out of her inheritance, out of the life that should have been hers? Shame? Rage? Revenge? She felt none of these things, only a hard resolve.

“Mr. Buckles,” she said, “be so good as to remain quiet until I ask you to speak. You are in the service of a monster, but you are far worse, for you would sacrifice your own child for your mistress. You disgust me, sir, and I have not the time to visit upon you the punishment you deserve for defrauding me of my inheritance. For now, I wish to know where I can find my niece.”

“I am instructed to tell you nothing, and I will tell you nothing,” he answered.

Lucy reached forward and began to unknot Mr. Buckles’s cravat. He look at her in shock, and Byron cocked an eyebrow in curiosity, but she would not pause to explain. Once the cravat was gone, she unbuttoned his vest, took the top of his shirt in each hand and ripped it open, exposing his pale, flabby chest, hairless and slick with perspiration.

“Stop this!” cried Mr. Buckles.

Lucy felt as though she stood outside herself. Never before had she done anything so audacious. Never before had she violated the bounds
of decency with such determination and disregard. In this place, at this time, propriety did not matter. Lucy would do what she must, would do what she liked, to save her niece, and she would take the consequences as they came.

She reached over to the center of the table and pulled from the vase a single bluebell, just as she had seen in the pages of the
Mutus Liber
. Those pages were meant for her. The flower was meant for her. All came together with ease and precision, like pieces of a broken dish. “Lean the chair back, if you would, Lord Byron.”

Byron leaned back the chair and Lucy showed Mr. Buckles the object in her hand.

“What do you do with that flower?” he asked with a horror perhaps inconsistent with Lucy’s instrument.

“It is a bluebell,” she said. “They grow near graves, you know. My father taught me that. And there is no greater truth than death. The bluebell, when used properly, will render you incapable of lying or withholding what I ask of you. The only difficulty is that it must be held over your heart, and I am not altogether certain you have one.”

“How did you learn such things?” Mr. Buckles demanded.

“I learned them from the
Mutus Liber,
” she said.

Mr. Buckles let out a shriek, like a frightened child. Then he swallowed hard and attempted to blink the moisture from his eyes. “I’ll tell you nothing,” he croaked.

“Let us find out.” She slapped the flower upon his chest and, losing herself in the process, moved the bluebell in a circle until the petals began to crumple and ball. She absented herself, muttering she hardly knew what, but words the pages of the
Mutus Liber
seemed to hint at. She pressed the flower into his breast until his skin ringed red from pressure.

At last, she came back to herself. “Now will you tell me what I wish to know?”

He opened his mouth and moved it back and forth. His jaw vibrated, his lips quivered. Then he spoke, his voice low and forced. “Yes.”

She smiled. “Much better, Mr. Buckles. Let us discover all your secrets.”

B
YRON CONTINUED TO BALANCE THE CHAIR BACKWARDS WHILE
holding Buckles still with one arm. “I realize you are enjoying yourself,” he said, “but we cannot know how much time we have before Lady Harriett returns. Besides which, holding the chair this way is rather uncomfortable. I suggest you ask what you must so we might depart.”