Thornbound Page 3

  The gentleman who stood with his back to me now had tight salt-and-pepper curls above the sliver of dark brown skin displayed over his elegant cravat, and I recognized him immediately. Lionel Westgate had been chief magical officer for the Boudiccate ever since the days when I’d been a sulky young girl dragged by my mother to observe her political meetings against my will.

  She had butted heads more than once with Mr. Westgate—a powerful magician and an honorable man with a will more inflexible than iron and a mind that was never easily changed nor diverted. Like my mother, I had always respected him, even when he had infuriated me in later years for his obdurate refusal to even consider opening his brotherhood of magical officers to me as a female recruit.

  In that, at least, he was no more nor less hidebound than most gentlemen in Angland. My husband was not so stupidly closed-minded...but we could have done a great deal worse in the Boudiccate’s choice of magical officer to accompany this aggravating inspection. So, I swallowed down my irrational disappointment as I looked beyond Mr. Westgate to see who our political judges would be.

  Three women stood before him, and the first was nearly fully blocked from view by his broad shoulders, but as I recognized the other two, my lips stretched wide into a smile of pure, astonished wonder.

  Lady Cosgrave, stylish as always in a peacock-feathered bonnet and a silver-trimmed pelisse, was one of the youngest members of the Boudiccate, still only in her mid-forties. More importantly, she’d been one of Amy’s closest friends for years. To win her as one of our auditors was a gift beyond any I’d dared to hope for—but behind her stood an even more welcome sight: Lady Cosgrave’s young, long-limbed blonde cousin—and political protégée—Miss Fennell, who was my own Miss Banks’s secret fiancée.

  There was no politician in the world who could be more committed to the success of our radical new school...because tradition dictated that no lady should be invited to enter the Boudiccate unless she was married to a practicing magician. Until now, that ancient rule had prevented any ambitious young politician from wedding another lady, no matter what her own private inclinations might be—so for the sake of Miss Fennell’s romantic and political future, Thornfell College of Magic could not be allowed to close down.

  My shoulders relaxed for the first time in weeks as I swept forward without waiting for Amy to lead the ceremonies as usual. “Lady Cosgrave!” I held out my hand. “Miss Fennell! And Mr. Westgate. What a pleasure to welcome—”

  “Miss Harwood.” Lady Cosgrave cut me off with a tone more chilling than ice. “And...Mrs. Harwood. Of course.” She flashed a quick, cool glance at Amy and then looked away, dismissing my sister-in-law entirely. She didn’t grant my brother—whom she’d known for twenty years—so much as a look.

  Frowning, I let my hand fall to my side, unclasped. Beside Lady Cosgrave, Miss Fennell’s strong face was set in inscrutable lines...and her hazel gaze was fixed as firmly upon my face as if her own fiancée—whom she hadn’t seen in weeks—wasn’t standing a scant five paces away from me.

  Something was very, very wrong—and I knew it even before the third woman stepped out from Mr. Westgate’s shadow.

  “Well, well, well. Cassandra Harwood, how you’ve grown. Or should I say Cassandra Wrexham now?”

  “It’s Cassandra Harwood.” My voice sounded odd to my own ears, my numb lips moving on no more than instinct...that, and my old refusal to ever let this woman see how deeply her words always stabbed into my bones.

  I had been a woman grown for many years. But the sound of that too-familiar voice flung me directly back into the lowest point of my adolescence, before Amy had taken on the role of my mother’s assistant and slipped seamlessly into our family forever...

  After Jonathan had walked quietly into our family’s private drawing room one day to find our mother’s then-assistant tormenting me in that soft, silky voice that Annabel Renwick had always used whenever she cornered me on her own, without anyone else close enough to overhear us.

  It had been as obvious to Annabel as it had been to me that I was unsuited to being my mother’s heir. I had never disagreed with her on that. But the particular zeal with which she, at nineteen years of age, had chosen to maliciously attack a twelve-year-old girl for that simple accident of birth—for months on end!—was enough to stun me in retrospect.

  I’d been far too proud to ever tell my mother about that stream of sly, vicious commentary—a lurking threat that came to cling like poisonous vines around my days, a constantly watching menace in my own home. Likewise, I’d refused to sensibly go into hiding in my bedroom, no matter how unsafe every other room in our house had become. Thus, it had taken months before any adult could step in and help me escape from her.

  “Still,” Annabel said now, a smile playing on her generous lips, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the chaos you’ve caused for our entire nation. You always were the worst student of politics I ever met.”

  “Luckily,” said Amy, “she was one of the best students of magic ever to attend the Great Library.” Sweeping to my side, she took my arm in hers and looked expectantly at the Boudiccate’s chief officer of Magic. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Westgate?”

  My tight chest eased just enough to let me finally release my breath. Amy had chosen her target and her question well, as always—for as much as Lionel Westgate might disapprove of me and my endeavor, he would never deign to lie in public.

  “Yes.” He gave a tight nod.

  A ripple of pleasure passed through the audience of my students’ mothers, and recalled me to the moment. Too many eyes were watching for me to allow myself to be paralyzed by shock—or to let my emotions rip free into long-repressed fury.

  I was no awkward twelve-year-old girl anymore being forced into a shape she could never fit. I was an acknowledged expert in the field that I loved, and I was creating my own space in the world, no matter what a venomous adder like Annabel Renwick might think of it. If I hadn’t been so stupidly proud all those years ago, I would have let Jonathan tell Mother the truth about her assistant when he’d first discovered it. Instead, on my desperate insistence, he had created a fictional lesser offense that had got her safely dismissed from Mother’s service—but had allowed her to keep her entrée in the political world.

  That was a mistake that more than one member of our family had paid for across the years. If Amy could bring herself now to face down the woman who’d stolen her own promised seat in the Boudiccate all those years ago, I could do no less than stand tall by her side.

  I closed my free hand over Amy’s where it rested on my arm, and I straightened my shoulders. “I can see that this inspection will be a...fascinating experience for all of us,” I said. “Welcome to Thornfell College of Magic. I do hope you’ll all make yourselves quite at home.”

  There was no chance left at a fair inspection. Annabel had blamed me for her dismissal from my mother’s side; she had been deceptive and malicious for as long as I’d known her; and I had no doubts of what decision had already been made for Thornfell’s fate at the end of this week.

  However, I did have one burning certainty to support me as I smiled fiercely at my old tormentor.

  She should have accepted her good fortune, all those years ago, when I’d foolishly allowed her to escape my mother’s wrath. Miranda Harwood might have been a demanding—and sometimes impossible—mother, but she had been a lioness in defending her children against all enemies. She would have been utterly ruthless in the destruction of Annabel’s prospects if she’d known the torment I’d endured...

  But I was my mother’s daughter, and I had a whole school full of hopeful young women to protect now.

  Annabel Renwick had no idea of the battle she was in for.

  4

  By the end of the evening, a dull, throbbing ache emanated from my jaw, which had been clenched beyond womanly endurance for hours. But I’d won my first skirmish: I hadn’t risen to a single one of Annabel’s taunts, no matter how enticingly she’d dang
led them before me. Better yet, even the harshest judge could have found no real fault in the opening lecture I’d just delivered to my new students at the end of their delicious evening meal.

  Young Luton, of course, had spent most of that lecture making faces of skeptical consideration throughout even my mildest points as he sat at the back of the room, scoffing an entire bowl-full of Miss Birch’s candied almonds after delivering his own introductory remarks to our new students; but the fact that he made no audible comments of disagreement was a clear sign that he too was making an attempt at self-control.

  The most qualified judge in the room sat in the chair beside Mr. Luton, listening with no expression at all on his lean, dark face—except for one brief wince when Luton spat a whole shower of almond fragments onto his lap in a choking fit near the end, just after I’d described exactly how weather wizardry would fit into our syllabus.

  Unlike young Luton, Lionel Westgate was not prone to giving away his private thoughts. But he rose as I strode towards the door, following the exodus of chattering young magicians on their way to bed, and his pose was watchful enough to make me pause.

  “Mr. Westgate.” I glanced beyond him to the cluster of Boudiccate inspectors, all huddled together in one corner of the room, murmuring too quietly to be overheard. “Am I being summoned to an official meeting?”

  “No.” His voice grave, he gestured discreetly toward the door. “May I beg the favor of a tour around the grounds before you retire for the evening, Miss Harwood?”

  My head felt light and brittle with exhaustion. I had been pushing myself through the day on nervous energy, and I was rapidly running out of that finite resource. I still had to find an opportunity to consult with Miss Banks and Miss Fennell before either of them went to bed, and I needed to carefully re-think my lesson plans for tomorrow, now that they would be given under Boudiccate inspection.

  But Lionel Westgate was my husband’s supervisor and one of the most highly respected magicians in all Angland. It would be madness to turn down any opportunity to argue my case with him in private.

  “Of course.” I drew a deep, invigorating breath.

  Fresh air, I told myself firmly. All I needed was the taste of the cool night air to start my thoughts moving briskly again.

  I’d worked through sleepless nights often enough in my student days—but then, of course, I’d had Wrexham working beside me at the same ancient study table in the Great Library, the two of us staying awake together long after all of our fellow students had given up and gone to bed. We’d teased and challenged each other to ever greater heights in our endless rivalry to win the highest marks, the greatest victories...and most of all, to impress each other at every turn.

  Those nights, I hadn’t needed any sleep; I’d felt utterly alive for the first time in my life. We hadn’t so much as kissed, at first—we’d barely even touched except for accidental brushes of arms and shoulders that had left me tingling for hours afterward. The mere, crackling awareness of all that lean, focused brilliance at my side, like captured flame—his silky, smooth dark hair tumbling over his forehead as he’d leaned over his books; his long, light brown fingers turning the pages and inspiring dizzying fantasies of how they’d feel if they ever brushed against my skin—had been more than enough to keep me pricklingly wide awake and determined to prove myself to both of us, no matter what that took.

  And now, the memory of those late nights in the Great Library was enough to turn my smile genuine as I led the chief magical officer of the Boudiccate through the bronze-and-green corridors of my own school, past scattered girls who’d lingered in the wide foyer to chat on their way back to their private quarters.

  They shot us awed and wide-eyed glances; I gave them firm nods in return. “Don’t stay up too late,” I told them. “Classes start early in the morning, and you’ll want to be alert.”

  For the first time in all the years I’d known him, Mr. Westgate’s stern lips twitched in unmistakable amusement. He had the grace to stay silent until the great front door swung shut behind us, leaving us alone and unobserved except by the birds and small insects who swooped through the cool, darkening air and pecked at the pebbled drive beyond our feet.

  With all the loud and bustling confusion of student arrivals at an end, the wild denizens of the fields and woods around Thornfell were re-emerging to claim their territory for the night. It had always been a favorite time of mine to sit outside and think in peace. If I knew my brother and my sister-in-law, they would be outside right now, too, taking their usual evening walk around the lake that glimmered in the distance, beyond the great bulk of Harwood House.

  Mr. Westgate inquired, “Did you often retire early to bed in your own student days, Miss Harwood?”

  I aimed him a sidelong glance, my smile turning mischievous. “Did you?”

  At that, he let out a huff of air that might almost have been a laugh, and turned to cast his own sharp gaze across the rolling landscape.

  “Of course, you already know the Aelfen Mere,” I said, gesturing toward the lake in the distance.

  Along with the Boudiccate’s other magical officers, he’d attended annual balls beneath those waves in my younger years, back when my mother was still one of the Boudiccate’s most famous hostesses and my late father’s greatest spell had still held sway beneath the lake. To begin our tour of the rest of the estate now, I led him in a circling path around Thornfell’s rambling red brick walls.

  Rabbits, small and brown and quick, startled out of the grass before us as we walked, and a flash of red in the corner of my eye heralded a fox slipping swiftly out of sight. The woods rustled temptingly beyond our modest gardens, thick and green and far more vibrant than any of the plain hedges my new gardener had tamed into submission a few weeks ago. We were lucky, at least, to be at the height of spring; after a few discreet evening visits from Miss Birch across the past week or two, I could already glimpse bright flowers starting to unfurl in their new beds, where thick, tangled undergrowth had reigned supreme for the past twenty years or more.

  Still, I wasn’t surprised to see Mr. Westgate’s gaze slip past the unimpressive gardens—and young Luton’s plain stone cottage—to the great, whispering woods that sprawled beyond, large enough to swallow Thornfell’s grounds many times over.

  “Your father used to tell stories about those woods,” he said. “He claimed they were some of the most magical in Angland.”

  “They certainly are,” I agreed, “but I wouldn’t venture inside them while you’re here. The—”

  “Bluebell season, yes, yes, I know.” He waved my words aside with one flick of his hand. “We all heard your warning after supper. Both warnings, in fact. I may be aging, Miss Harwood, but you may rest assured that my ears still function perfectly well.”

  I bit back a sigh. “I wouldn’t doubt it, but I thought I’d better repeat it more than once tonight. Students have never been famous for taking heed of sensible warnings.”

  “Hmm.” He gave a quiet snort and shook his head, clasping his hands behind his back. “You never did, as I recall—before or after your student days.”

  Well. There were so many ways to interpret that statement that I couldn’t even begin to respond. From the first time I’d revealed my own magical powers to the world at large, defying all of my mother’s threats and warnings, to the moment last year when I had cast a spell that everyone knew no solitary magician could ever manage, in my final attempt to prove myself to everyone who refused to hire a woman to cast magic...

  I took a deep, steadying breath. “We all make mistakes,” I said. “But with luck, we can learn from them—and help others to learn, too.”

  “An admirable way of putting it.” He turned his fierce gaze to me, his thick brows lowered. “But how many other people should pay the price for our mistakes?”

  My throat felt suddenly dry. “I beg your pardon?”

  “All the times I’ve visited this estate...” He shook his head slowly, his gaze never leaving
mine. “So famously magical, so undeniably glittering...yes, you Harwoods have always shone in politics and magic alike. There’s no question of the power in your family. But perhaps that’s what’s led to your fatal flaw: as a dynasty, you were gifted too much power to care for unexciting duty.”

  A sharp spike of pain jabbed through my jaw as it re-clenched. I had to force myself to breathe steadily, in and out through my teeth, as memories jostled before my eyes—my mother working so tirelessly through her too-short life, throwing everything she had at the good of the nation; Jonathan, supporting all of us throughout with his quiet, thoughtful kindness and his deeply principled strength; and Amy, who cared so fiercely for everyone...

  It took a long moment before I could allow myself to speak. “My family,” I said, “has raised every generation for centuries to serve Angland to the utmost of our abilities. We—”

  “The utmost of your abilities,” he repeated. “An exhilarating challenge, to be sure. But what happens when the good of the nation demands that you relinquish your own abilities? That you step aside from personal glory for Angland’s sake?”

  And now we came to that same bitter old question, still furiously unresolved, all these years after I’d first won my place in the Great Library and naïvely thought the matter decided forever. My teeth ground together and my eyes narrowed as I glared up into his pitiless face. “It can never be for the good of the nation for half of Angland’s natural magic-workers to be stifled in their abilities! If we want ours to be the strongest nation in the world, with a magical defense that none can match—”

  “Cassandra Harwood,” said Lionel Westgate with weary finality, “I’ve known you since you were a little girl. I watched your first public performance of magic beneath that lake, and I know as well as you that it had nothing to do with bolstering Angland’s magical defenses. No, you only wished to show the extent of your own power off to the world—as you Harwoods are always so eager to do. Why do you think I never hired you as an officer of magic, despite all of your famous skills?”