He grunted when something jabbed his ribs. “Oh.” Jordan’s mother withdrew her closed fan from his side and flicked it open before her face, leaving only her glaring green eyes visible.
Rowen corrected his slouched position.
She raised both her eyebrows and fluttered her fan slightly.
Rowen scooted Jordan a little away from him.
With a wink that made Rowen straighten further, Lady Astraea stepped back into the crowd.
“Some simple trickery now—my lady.” He beckoned to Serafina duBois. “You seem a clever lass. Might you assist me?”
Serafina nodded, flouncing her way to the illusionist.
Jordan stiffened, watching her. Of all the girls in Jordan’s circle of friends it was readily agreed that Serafina was the prettiest. With her rosebud mouth, petite nose that turned up perfectly at its tip, and a head full of soft golden curls, she looked as angelic as her namesake. It could not be denied that Serafina was lovely to look upon. But clever? Hardly. This was the girl who had drunk ink, mistaking it for tea. If the illusionist could make Serafina appear clever it just might be the finest illusion ever witnessed.
Serafina dipped a little curtsy to the crowd and all the young men clapped.
Even Rowen.
Jordan’s too-wide lips pressed together in a frown.
Catrina tapped her own forehead lightly, her gaze drifting to Jordan, who forced herself to relax and erase the faint crease of worry that would eventually deepen into a wrinkle. Sighing, she focused on Serafina.
The illusionist’s assistant pulled a piece of paper from the decorated trunk, passing it to her master with a flourish. It was the same stuff used to wrap packages at Wilkinson’s. Nondescript, brown, and of a sturdy weight. Rectangular in its proportions. Another flourish and scissors were handed to the illusionist, their handles and body black except for the silver sheen of the blades themselves.
“I shall now issue a challenge,” the Wandering Wallace declared. “If anyone here can cut a perfectly proportional five-pointed star from this paper without drawing a single line and using these scissors, I shall allow him to choose any item from my trunk of tricks.”
His assistant gasped an obviously rehearsed response, her slanted eyes widening and her small mouth drawing into a perfect
No one had successfully taken the illusionist’s challenge.
But, wine flowing freely and Rowen’s friends in attendance, it was only a moment before the challenge was accepted.
And lost.
Another accepted, another piece of paper was butchered, and another young man returned to the crowd perplexed.
They grew still and the illusionist grinned, waving another piece of paper, taunting them. “Is there no other taker? No other among you to take my challenge?”
“It cannot be done,” a disillusioned member of the aristocracy declared. “A perfectly proportioned star is too difficult a shape to construct without the aid of proper tools and appropriate mathematics.”
“That is nearly precisely the argument our country’s founding fathers used against dear sweet Betsy Ross when she suggested five-pointed stars to adorn our nation’s flag! But Mrs. Ross was an enterprising soul and, in the same spirit, with my help, the good lady—”
“Serafina,” she volunteered.
“The good lady Serafina,” he said, “will help me show not only that it can be done, but it can be done with only a single cut of the scissors!”
Skepticism flooded the crowd in barely audible gasps as the Wandering Wallace took one last piece of paper, waving it before the crowd. He handed it to Serafina.
“Now we shall fold this paper. Here,” he instructed, adjusting Serafina’s fingers on the paper. “And here. Now unfold … Now fold here … And here and here … Here, unfold. Here. Unfold. And cut from here to there!”
Serafina did each thing as he prescribed and with a hiss of the scissors and a moment of unfolding, the promised star was produced. Everyone clapped, and Serafina curtsied once more and danced her way over to Jordan. “For the true star of the evening,” she said, handing over her paper prize.
Jordan smiled, finding Serafina quite clever indeed. Gently, Jordan refolded the star and slid it up her sleeve.
The illusionist, finishing some card tricks and a few more bits of bird work, glanced at Rowen, and cleared his throat.
Rowen leaned over Jordan, whispering, “Back in a moment.”
She tilted her head and watched as he strode out of the crowd and stood front and center with the illusionist.
Lightning crackled in the clouds overhead.
Rowen cast a wary look at the sky but grinned for the crowd. “I have studied with the Wandering Wallace and have learned a few things from him, but not, of course, the face of the man beneath the mask. Some things, it seems, are to remain secrets—but not all,” he said. “And this evening, as a tribute to the lady who has me bewitched—”
The crowd gasped.
Micah laughed at them, saying, “He speaks figuratively, not literally. Had he truly been bewitched he would be unable to talk about it. Everyone knows that.”
Rowen smiled, adding, “She has bewitched my imagination, and so I shall share with you a special trick.” He motioned to Jordan. “Please step forward.”
Lowering her head, she did so.
Rowen threw a hand out to her and, as she took it, he proclaimed, “My lovely assistant!”
The crowd clapped and Jordan raised her head, straightened her spine, and put her shoulders back.
“I said I had a surprise for you.”
“Rowen.” Her eyes darted to the crowd and back. “Not here…”
“Have a little faith,” he said, the words tight. He grinned at the crowd, all showman, and said, “That is a lovely hairdo. Do you fine people not agree?” Clapping answered him. Rowen stepped up beside her to seemingly examine her hair. “Elegant. Wrapped very tightly and yet with so much body to it … Colorful ribbons weaved in…” He reached up and tugged one slightly, his grin tilting when the ribbon bounced. “But what’s this? One seems different…” He turned her so one side faced the crowd and his hand closed gently around one ribbon and then he yanked his hand back, trailing a long set of colorful handkerchiefs after it.
Jordan’s hands flew to her mouth and the crowd rioted with laughter.
“Look at you,” Rowen mused, “you’re so beautiful there’s beauty wrapped up inside you that no one has glimpsed until now.” He looked away from her then, addressing the crowd once more. “What would a young lady want on her seventeenth birthday but…” He drew the last word out so it became the longest single syllable ever uttered as he bowed before her and, on the ascent, produced a bouquet of “… flowers.”
Jordan clutched them to her and blushed.
“And, as I would not dream of doing anything but sharing such a delightful lady with all of her friends and family…” He towed her forward gently, lowering his face so his lips came level with her ear. “Be brave, Jordan,” he whispered, and swallowing, she held tight to the smile smeared across her face for the good of the guests. The crowd parted for her and, taking her hand, Rowen led them back inside, pausing in the main hall where three waiters held a large silver platter on which balanced a cake in three dramatic levels.
Seventeen candles burned in a fiery ring around the cake’s top tier and the waiters lowered it with aching care so the entire thing balanced just before Jordan’s smiling lips.
“A wish, a wish!” the crowd chanted.
Jordan blushed and nodded. She turned from the cake, clutching Rowen’s hands, closed her eyes and screwed her face up in her most thoughtful look before whipping around and blowing the candles out with a puff of breath that left her dizzy.
The guests burst into cheers and raucous clapping.
But everyone fell silent when the Wardens marched in.
Heavy boots slapped out an intimidating rhythm on the marble floor, drowning out every sound except the
