Weather Witch

“Are we not instructed to use the gifts we have been provided by the Divine, Catrina?” Rowen asked, raising his eyes to the ceiling and clasping his hands together in the most perfectly pious of poses. “It just so happens I intend to use well those things I have in a most impressive size. Like my disproportionately large imagination. As well as other things of”—he coughed—“substantial size that the good Lord saw fit to gift me with.”

Jordan thought the grin that twisted his lips was most assuredly cocky. She tore away from his arm to cover her mouth with her hands, her eyes suddenly as disproportionately large in her head as the things of more than sufficient size he alluded to. Her gaze strayed to his trousers and she twirled away, blushing and coughing when she realized what she was doing.

Rowen laughed so hard the sound startled the beasts in the menagerie, sending them screaming, screeching, and rattling their cages’ bars. Jordan snatched Rowen’s arm once more, peering around him at the assorted cages. Something with sharp teeth pressed its mouth between the bars, gnashing needlelike fangs in her direction.

“Oh! How awful!” Jordan whispered, tugging on Rowen’s arm to maneuver him away from the menagerie. “Dangerous things should be kept under lock and key!”

“They are only little and surely not as frightening as the orangutan that inspired Poe—” But Rowen allowed himself to be led away by Jordan.

Jordan shook her head.

“You must be more careful with what you say in public, Rowen. People will talk…” Catrina scolded.

He shrugged. “Jordan craves attention.”

She swatted at him again. “Not of that type. Women will be staring at you, wondering…”

“Do you think so?”

“Why yes, of course,” Jordan said, thinking sometimes they were as different as their favorite candies: he as bold as the smoky-flavored Black Jack, and she as sweet and understated as Salem’s lemon Gibraltar.

“Hmm. Well. You should know, Jordan, that I also crave attention from time to time,” he admitted, his voice going lower, softer.

Jordan picked up the fan hanging at her hip and snapped it open. The gown was far warmer than she thought it would be.

“Rowen,” Catrina warned.

Jordan turned to look at her friend. “Fetch us drinks, please?”

“What?” Catrina blinked. “Do I look the part of a servant?” she asked, rolling her hand down before her to draw attention to the finely wrought gown she also wore.

“N-no,” Jordan stammered, “but neither is there a waiter or butler here.”

“You are the hostess,” Catrina said. “Perhaps you should go and fetch drinks for Rowen and myself.”

“I am the guest of honor,” Jordan protested.

Catrina blinked again. “Fine. I will tote and carry.” With a flick of her wrist she opened her fan and traipsed off toward the fountain, glancing over her shoulder but once.

“You are far too anxious, Jordan,” Rowen whispered, his eyebrows lowered. He ran a soothing hand over her forearm and she rested her other hand atop his.

“I’m sorry. You know…”

He nodded. “I do. And you hide your nerves well from everyone but me. If they only knew that is why you act the way you do. People love you, Jordan. You are more popular than you know.”

She glanced down at the floor but something about her brightened. “At least, adorning your arm I am well presented and better loved for people’s love of you. You are so much better than me, Rowen.”

He snorted. “Sixth of the Nine here.”

“Does that truly matter?”

He looked startled. “Yes. I think it must. Our society is built around rank and order. Rank is the most important thing we have.”

She stiffened, hearing something so closely akin to her father’s justification for rejecting Rowen coming from Rowen’s own lips.

“If certain things weren’t in their place…” he continued.

“There’d be chaos.”

He nodded.

“Spoken like a true military man.”

A waiter carrying a tray full of hors d’oeuvres paused before them and Rowen took a fistful, popping them into his mouth and barely chewing between bites. “A truly hungry military man.”

Jordan was far enough into their friendship that such moves no longer stunned her. “Rowen,” she admonished softly as the servant drifted away.

Rowen blinked at her. “Did I take too many?”

She smiled. “Actually I half expected you to clear the entire tray. And lick the poor waiter’s hand for crumbs.” She winked at him and he straightened. “You’ve already been to the kitchens to see Cook, haven’t you?”

He grinned, for a moment looking all of twelve. “You are stunning,” he said, dragging her toward the broad French doors and onto the veranda that stretched along one side of the estate’s back, hemming in the gardens and ending where the property dropped suddenly away.

They walked all the way to the end of it, Rowen striding like a man on a mission.

The Below spread out at the Hill’s foot, buildings seemingly alive and creeping with flickering lights through the shadows the deepening evening threw.

Rowen interlaced his fingers with hers.

“This is—improper,” she protested.

“Improper?” He arched an eyebrow. “You’re afraid of what someone may say about being this close here— now?”

“We are—again—unchaperoned…”

“Exactly.” He leaned in, his eyes closing, and she dodged away from his willing lips, neither of them aware of Catrina standing inside the distant doors and seeing all.

Rowen caught Jordan’s wrist and drew her close, encircling her waist with his arms.

A breeze blew up from below, rattling the topiaried tree branches and bending them toward the raised veranda’s floor. Green leaves snapped off and spiraled around the pair’s feet as a storm built in the sky above.

“Come. Let’s go back inside,” Jordan said.

Rowen’s eyebrows drew together. “What is wrong?”

“You said you had a surprise for me…”

The metallic threads in her dress sparked like lightning traveled their careful stitches, and the wind tugged at her hair, pulling free one of her many curling locks.

With quick hands, Rowen caught the rogue curl and held it a moment, running his thumb along its silky length before tucking it behind her ear. “Yes.” He unfurled a smile. “I do have a surprise for you. Would you like it now or shall I draw you out more publicly for my presentation?” he asked, straightening from where he leaned against the veranda’s banister.

“No, no…” She slipped her fingers free of his and clutched his arms, standing a good distance from the French doors and the crowd surely wondering where the party’s hostess had disappeared to with her most regular gentleman caller.

He grinned. “Make up thy mind,” he whispered. “Chaperoned or…” He skimmed her lips with his thumb. “… not?”

“Not. But only for a moment longer,” she promised. “Rowen, you know I adore you.”

His back went ramrod straight at her choice of words. “Yes.”

“You are an absolutely amazing and talented man of fine breeding and nearly noble rank. Socially speaking