Home.I had to squeeze my eyes shut for an instant to take in the perfection of thatfeeling.
When I opened them again, I found Wrexham looking nearly as wild as I felt, with his dark eyes wide and shocked-looking and his black hair falling around his face in haphazard disarray where my fingers had raked through it. His hands loosened their hold around me, sliding down to my hips, but he didn’t let go either, even when I sank back down onto the soles of myfeet.
“Harwood...” He stopped, shaking hishead.
For the first time since we’d met, my ex-fiancé was apparently lost forwords.
“Well?” A bubble of laughter surprised me as I took in his stunned expression. I grinned up at him, feeling every bit as young and as reckless as I’d been when we’d first met all those years ago. “You can’t say I didn’t warnyou.”
“If you had any idea...” He didn’t smile back. But the look in his eyes felt like a second embrace as he lifted one hand and carefully, gently traced the outline of my face. I leaned into his touch, breathing him in. “Harwood,” he murmuredagain.
He didn’t continue. He didn’t needto.
I shifted closer in to hug him tightly, laying my cheek against his chest. His heart beat rapidly against my cheek as he closed his own arms aroundme.
After two months apart, the relief was almostunbearable.
The idea of losing it again...was not to be thoughtof.
“Well?” My voice was muffled by his waistcoat. “What did your gardening expedition teach you?IsHilbury our rogue magician, do youthink?”
Wrexham’s warm breath ruffled the top of my head in his sigh. “Jeremiah Hilbury may well be the most cantankerous magician I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, which is an impressive feat in and of itself...but the bulk of his ire this morning derived from the unforgivable fact that the weather isnotbehaving itself according to his firm expectations. So...” The muscles in his back shifted against my arms as he shrugged. “I believe we can tick him off from our list ofpossibilities.”
“Then there’s only one name left.” I frowned, searching my memory. “Young Luton, Lady Cosgrave called him.” Try as I might, I couldn’t summon any image to accompany the name. “Do you knowhim?”
“Who, Luton?” Wrexham let out a huff of laughter. “I’ve been scowled at by him once or twice in passing, but he’s certainly never deigned to engage in a conversation. I believe he considers me to be hopelessly backward, old-fashioned and deplorably chained to theestablishment.”
“You?” I pulled back to stare up at him. “Is that ajest?”
He shook his head, looking unperturbed. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “I work for the Boudiccate, you see. That’s more than enough to damn me in his eyes. He’s quite the young firebrand in every possible regard—he even got himself sent down from the Great Library for over a year after an epic public eruption over the ‘ignorance’ of his teachers there. He was only finally re-admitted after his family paid a fortune to incite their forgiveness...and even then it was only on the agreement that he would stick to weather wizardry, as none of the other teachers would agree to work with him for anypayment.”
Wrexham shrugged. “He is genuinely brilliant, though, from all I’ve heard. He could have graduated at the top of the class, just like you, and specialized in anything he’d wanted, if he hadn’t been so keen to dismiss all of his teachers’ own work in his finalprojects.”
“Hmmph.” In my opinion, anyone who couldn’t see Wrexham’s own qualities could never be described as anything close to ‘brilliant.’Still...
“If he really has developed his own new methods for weather wizardry,” I said, “perhaps that could account for his having such different results than any other weather wizard in history.” Our teachers at the Great Library had been firm about the limitations of any human wizard’s power, and those fell far short of controlling the natural world itself, even if we’d been allowed to try. Still, the weather around us spoke foritself.
...And I had no time to stand about theorizing any longer. “Very well.” I nodded firmly and stepped back, pulling my hands free. “We’d better find him as quickly as possible, then, and see what we cando.”
“Harwood!” Wrexham’s voice stopped me just as I took my first quick stride toward the opening of the knot garden and the house beyond. When I turned back, I found him smiling ruefully down at me. “Aren’t you forgettingsomething?”
“Am I?” Iblinked.
Of course Luton might not wish to talk to us, but we would simply have to overcome that obstacle somehow. After all, we couldhardly—
“Us,” said Wrexham, shaking his head at me. “Are we betrothed again ornot?”
“Oh, that.” I rolled my eyes, my shoulders relaxing. “Really, Wrexham, do keep up! You have been publicly compromised, remember? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my brother has already sent out the notice to all of the London newspapers. In fact, considering all the time we’ve spent in here, Amy’s probably planned out the fine details of our wedding venue by now. I hope you weren’t expecting another long betrothal, because I doubt my family would stand for that again. They’re remarkably impatient people, youknow.”
“I see.” Wrexham’s lips twitched. “Good to know. In that case...” His long fingers closed around my wrist and yanked me in. Before I could take another breath, I was pressed against his chest, all of my sensible thoughts disrupted and my heart suddenly beating with disconcerting speed while his dark, intent gaze held mine transfixed. “I’ve always appreciated your single-minded sense of purpose,” he murmured, “but even while we’re pursuing our other goals today, don’t set thistoofar out of your mind, willyou?”
His warm, clever lips were remarkablypersuasive.
So were hishands.
My own hair was mussed and falling around my face by the time he finally straightened, and my legs felt shockingly weak. Perhaps itwasshock, come to think of it. After all, I’d spent two long months training my body not to expect this sort of thinganymore.
I clung to the open wings of his greatcoat for balance, sucking in shallow breaths as I waited for my disobedient heartbeat to settle and my foolish legs to regain their strength. His own heart hammered a rapid beat against my wrist. I flattened one palm against it, absorbing that beat into myskin.
