“And everyoneclaimswomen are the more practical sex...” He heaved a weary sigh. “Don’t you even recall requesting that I be hired?”
“I did no such thing!” I’d hired every member of Thornfell’s staff myself, and they were already on-site, too, all except...
Oh, no.I shut my eyes against the horror of the most obvious explanation.
My new professor of weather wizardryhadn’tyet arrived—and weather wizardry was the one area of magical specialty that I couldn’t teach my students myself, in a pinch. It was taught in an entirely separate curriculum at the Great Library, and I’d never cared to look into it on my own. Unfortunately, as I’d found to my dismay over the last few months, even the most eccentric and impoverished weather wizards in all of Angland had refused every blandishment I’d offered to recruit them, because the Great Library had issued a blanket mandate: no graduate was toevertake up any position at my school, on pain of having their names struck forever from the legendary register of alumni.
Thatwas why I was covering every other aspect of magical training at the school myself—and why Wrexham had taken up the added task of hunting out an available weather wizard during all of his missions across the nation in the past five weeks. In his last, scrawled note, which had appeared on my mantelpiece only two days earlier, he had assured me that he’d finally secured a clever, well-qualified weather wizard willing to anger the Great Library by taking up an appointment at my school. He had neglected to mention that wizard’s name in his note, and I’d been far too relieved to care about that small detail.
NowI knew why my darling husband had been so uncharacteristically ‘forgetful.’
“Mrs. Wrexham,” said Luton, “I don’t know if you’re aware, but you are making the most unnerving noise in your throat right now. I find it deeply irritating.”
“I was just...anticipating my next conversation with my husband.” As I flicked my eyes open, I bared my teeth in the semblance of a smile. “He and I have a great deal to discuss, it seems. And for future reference, I am still Miss Harwood.”
Had I been a politician, as my parents had intended, Wrexham would have automatically taken my surname upon our marriage; but I’d passed the mantle of my mother’s political inheritance on to Amy with deep relief, and she’d taken the title of ‘Mrs. Harwood’ upon her own marriage instead.
In another kind of marriage, with a magician as the husband and an ordinary, nonpolitical sort of woman as the wife, I would indeed have become Mrs. Wrexham, as Luton had so annoyingly presumed.
But Wrexham and I were a new kind of match—the first known marriage in Anglish history between two magicians of different genders. So, in the end, we’d followed the practice of those couples who shared a gender rather than a profession, and we’d each retained our own surnames after all.
It might have seemed a radical decision to anyone else, but Mr. Luton looked ready to perish from the tedium of being forced to consider anyone else’s circumstances for a single moment. “Iamcarrying a letter for you,” he sighed, “but I’d much rather have a cup of tea or claret before we have to suffer through all of that nonsense about salaries and exactly how you’ll manage all of my requirements. What on earth possessed you to build a school so far from civilization?”
“Argh!” In a last-ditch moment of hope, I strode forward and yanked the front door open to peer outside, just in case...but the hired carriage that had brought him had already disappeared down the long curve of the drive that led first to Harwood House, my family’s ancient home, and from thence onward to the wide world beyond.
There was to be no easy disposal of my newest member of staff after all...and worst of all, I had to admit that Wrexham had been right: if I meant to prove to the Boudiccate that I was offering my students a comprehensive education, one that could stand proudly in comparison to the Great Library’s syllabus, then even hiring Luton was better than hiring no weather wizard at all.
It was a bitter pill to swallow...and the thought of Miss Birch’s expression, when I had to inform her that he would be staying after all, was even more intimidating.
I let the front door fall shut with a thud. “For once, Mr. Luton, I agree with you.” I sighed. “I could do with a great deal more tea before you utter another word.”
3
Aquarter of an hour later, I was resting limply in a wingback chair in the staff parlor with my latest cup of tea propped between my hands as young Luton’s extraordinary demands and absurdly over-inflated expectations washed across me in an endless cascade.
When the bell at the door suddenly broke through his monologue, I leaped to my feet so quickly that a tidal wave of tea splashed from my porcelain cup into its saucer.
Salvation!
If the Boudiccate’s haughtiest inspectors, in their worst possible moods, could only stalk in right now to save me from my newest staff member, I would overwhelm them with the sincerity of my welcome.
“Alas!” I placed the sloshing, over-full saucer onto a side table and briskly wiped my hands. “I must attend to our new arrivals, but I’m certain you can find your own way to your staff cottage, Mr. Luton. It’s past the stables and the gardens, just before the woodland begins behind Thornfell, and—”
“I beg your pardon.” He snorted, not bothering to lower his own cup of tea as he sprawled back in his chair. “If you’ll recall, Miss Harwood, you still haven’t even heard all of my terms or—”
“MisterLuton.” Crossing my arms, I gave him my best glower. “This little chat has been an...enlighteningintroduction to your tenure here at Thornfell, but you know as well as I that you are in desperateneed of this position. Therefore, you are in no position to make a single one of these demands upon me.”
His jaw dropped open, but I held up one hand to halt any outraged—and outrageous—protests. “I was at the same Winter Solstice house party as your aunt, you may recall. I overheard her informing all of the ladies thereexactlyhow impossible you’ve found it to secure any paying work since graduation, no matter how many times she’s called in favors from her oldest friends. Despite all of her influence and your own undeniable gifts, the reputation you left behind at the Great Library has left you entirely unhireable.”
A wave of red swept upwards from young Luton’s collar. “I was the finest weather mage to study at the Great Library in decades! If you could see the marks that I achieved—”
“Those wereacademicachievements,” I said flatly. “As we both know by now, the realities of life outside the Library are rather different.” A wave of reluctant fellow-feeling swept through me as his jaw tightened and his gaze fell away from mine. “You know,” I continued in a softer tone, “I couldn’t persuade anyone to hire me for mage-work, either, despite all of my own achievements at the Great Library. Of course, in my case, it was for a different reason, but—”
“Well, clearly.” He gave a snort of amusement, the color fading from his fair skin. “Who would wish to hire awomanto cast their magic?”
Clenching my jaw, I took a deep, sustaining breath. “Regardless. You’ve been granted your chance at long last, Mr. Luton, to prove that youcanshine outside the Great Library after all. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste it...and I certainly wouldn’t make any more foolish comments like that last one if you ever hope to prove yourself a useful teacher to our students. They deserve your respect, and youwillgive it to them.
“Oh, and...” I was halfway through the doorway when I remembered my final obligation and turned back. “There are several lovely pathways to explore the woods just past your cottage, but you shouldn’t venture down any of them for at least another month or so.” At his baffled frown, I added: “It’s bluebell season, you see.”
