There was always tonight…
Rory shifted so she might better see the scrap of paper. His friend’s penmanship left something to be desired. Either that, or he’d written the letter without much light. The paper was thin, and the ink smudged, but she’d had a lot of practice reading poor penmanship. The letter opened by saying he hoped Rory had received at least one of his letters. Apparently, he had sent half a dozen.
Rory looked up at her. “I’ve only received two, and the first was dated several months ago.”
“Look here. He says he is living at a tavern called the Silver Unicorn in Seven Dills—he must mean SevenDials.”
“Now he tells me,” Rory said. “I might have gone to see him when I was in Town if he’d said where he was before, but perhaps he was forced to relocate and has only now settled.”
They read on in silence for a moment, Genevieve thinking the letter sounded perfectly fine until Lord Kingston—rather, the former Lord Kingston—mentioned that he thought the witch’s sister had come to the tavern and left a counter-spell for him. Ah, this was the daft part of the letter, then—the part where the men seemed to truly believe they had been cursed by a witch.
“He must have sent the counter-spell in another letter I didn’t receive,” Rory said. “He says he will copy it out again.” He turned the letter over, and Genevieve squinted to make out the next lines. The paper was so thin that the ink from the front had bled onto the back.
Rory held the letter up then down then looked at her. “I can’t make this out.”
“I can. Shall I read it to you?”
“Please.”
She took the letter from him and read,
“Procure petal of flower, dash of dust of thefae.
Combine now in this goblet, please if youmay.
Hear me now, great goddess of good andlight.
Take mercy on these children. Ease theirplight.
Lose they may all they holddear,
But open a path to clean thesmear.
“I see why he thinks that is a counter-spell from the witch’s sister. The last line of the letter is a plea for you to write him back and his signature,” she said.
Rory took the letter from her and studied the spell. “She must have taken pity on us—the witch’s sister, that is. We were just stupid children, not that our age excuses our actions. But a cursethat destroyed our lives seems rather harsh. She could have marched to the school and reported us to the headmaster. He’d have beaten us badly enough that the three of us would have had to stand for our lessons for a week. She might have ordered the headmaster to request compensation from our parents.”
“Would the headmaster have written to them? Wouldn’t that mean he’d have to acknowledge you were off the school grounds in the middle of the night, and he’d had no idea? I think it unlikely the woman whose livelihood you ruined would never have received compensation. I don’t think that’s why she cursed you, though.” Having dealt with many unruly children, Genevieve could sympathize with wanting to curse them. She’d certainly muttered uncomplimentary phrases any number of times. “If I had to guess, I’d say she was angry and lashed out in the moment. Her sister, probably more levelheaded, tried to mitigate the damage.”
Rory looked at her, and Genevieve closed her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not saying I believe any of this, but if I did, that would be my assumption.”
Rory rose, too much the gentleman to sit while she stood. He paced to the window and looked out on the last of the lilacs. Their blooms littered the grounds as fall began to take hold in earnest. Summer had certainly released her grip on this part of Devon as late as possible.
“You used the wordmitigate,” Rory said. “I would have usedabsolve.”
“Because she says,open a path to clear the smear?”
“Exactly. There’s a way to undo the damage of the curse. A path.”
Genevieve studied him, his broad shoulders and straight back. Did he understand what he implied? Perhaps not fully. “Rory,” she said quietly, “even the counter-spell refers to your losing all you hold dear.”
He didn’t move away from the window, but his shoulders slumped slightly. “It can only be my wife and son.”
She didn’t argue, though she was not at all convinced a curse could cause an accident that would kill a mother and her child. “How could any counter-spell undo that damage? Even if I believed in witches, I don’t believe any human is powerful enough to bring someone back from the dead.” She had wrapped her hands around the back of his chair and dug in hard to keep her from saying what was truly on her mind—would he rather still be married to Harriet?
She didn’t need to ask the question. Of course he would rather his first wife was alive. Of course he wanted his son to live. He’d only married Genevieve because he needed a mother for Frances. She had deduced that Rory’s marriage to Harriet had been troubled, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t loved her. He’d married very young for a man, especially a privileged son of a duke. Perhaps he’d done it for the wealth Harriet had brought to the union.
She dismissed the idea almost as soon as she entertained it. She didn’t know Rory well, but she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t the sort of man to marry for money. If he’d married young, it was because he had loved the woman.
