The Twelfth Enchantment: A Novel

The Twelfth Enchantment is a work of historical fiction. Apart from well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by David Liss

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Liss, David

The twelfth enchantment: a novel / David Liss

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-1-58836-962-8

1. Young women—England—Fiction. 2. England—Social conditions—19th century—

Fiction. 3. Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788–1824—Fiction.

4. Blake, William, 1757–1827—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3562.I7814D37 2011        813’.54—dc22        2011001748

www.atrandom.com

Jacket design: Kathleen DiGrado

Jacket illustrations: Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, Agnes Rauch, c. 1825 (bpk, Berlin/Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg/Hanne Moschkowitz/Art Resource, N.Y.); Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts, Trompe l’oeil with letters and notebooks, 1665 (Musee des Beaux-Arts, Rouen/Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library International); The Granger Collection (magic chart); © Mary Evans

Picture Library/Alamy (angel drawing behind magic chart)

v3.1

For Eleanor and Simon

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Other Books by This Author

About the Author

1

THE HOUSE WAS ASTIR WITH ACTIVITY, WHICH WAS SOMETHING most unusual, for its owner, Mr. Richard Lowell, preferred his home to remain a very dour and torpid place. Accordingly, what transpired was activity without delight—that of a graveyard in which the sexton erects a particularly large or novel tombstone. Metaphors of this sort came easily to Miss Lucy Derrick, on whose behalf this commotion centered, for it was her intended husband whom the house prepared to receive. Lucy had no wish to entertain that gentleman. None at all. It was not that Lucy did not wish to marry Mr. Olson, for she had no doubt that marrying him was the most practical thing to do. Nevertheless, she would very much rather avoid the necessity of making conversation with him.

Marriage, as Lucy understood it, involved only infrequent dialogue upon the most essential of subjects, but today her role would be to think of all sorts of engaging things to say, which would not be easy, for Mr. Olson was no great talker. She had not yet discovered how to hold his interest, for their previous exchanges had been at gatherings and assemblies, where dancing or the consumption of punch could stand in for anything resembling an actual exchange of ideas and sentiments.

Mr. Olson’s social charms, such as they were, had no bearing on her decision to marry him. More than anything else, Lucy wished to be free of her uncle’s house on Pepper Street—near, if not exactly in, the most desirable neighborhoods of Nottingham. She wanted sufficient money that she could feed and clothe herself without reminders of the burden presented by these encumbrances. She wanted to be free of prying and critical eyes, free of the perpetual fear of making an error for which she would be punished like a child. She wanted to feel as though her life were her own, that it was a life in which she belonged, in which she had choices, purpose, even some pleasure.

There had been a time when Lucy had hoped for the things all young ladies desire. She had been the sort of girl—which is to say a very ordinary sort of girl of the middle ranks, though perhaps more that sort of girl than most—who took it upon faith that she was destined for a great and adventurous love. She had two older sisters, and surely at least one of them would marry with the family’s security in mind. Their practical unions would free Lucy to follow her heart, and she had longed to do just that.

Lucy no longer believed herself destined for anything in particular. Her life had come to feel alien, as though