But now, she was going to be a sorceress — she wasn’t going to be a witch, the equivalent to the wizard, she was sure of that. Her talents definitely did not lie in that direction. She had been brought into the circle of those who knew about The Tradition, and had spoken to a Godmother! Sebastian had just offered her her own household, and if the servants were on the unconventional side, well, so was she…
But was that enough without loving him? And did he love her? “I don’t think I can do without you” was not quite the same.
She put both hands to her temples. There were still two months to go before either of them could do anything about this. The King was not going to lift his edict, which was that three moons must pass since the one when she had been bitten. A great deal could happen in two months’ time. Look how much had happened to her in one! Sebastian might decide he loathed her. She might decide she loathed him. They both might decide this was the best idea of the century. The Godmother might oppose it. The King might oppose it. Her father might oppose it. A mob of torch-bearing peasants might discover that Sebastian was a werewolf and come storming the Manor.
They might actually fall in love.
They might…
She made her way into her bed, hardly noticing Sapphire’s ministrations, but the Spirit Elemental didn’t seem to take any offense. She had been certain that she would never be able to sleep, and took up the book on The Tradition with the certainty that she would still be reading by morning.
With the predictable result that she fell asleep with the book still in her hands, and woke in the morning, rather earlier than usual, with a slightly stiff neck and no more idea of what she was going to do than she’d had when she went to bed last night.
She wrote out her usual letter to her father, telling him about everything except Sebastian’s proposal — and the way that Eric had beaten the poacher. She got it into the box before her father would be at his desk with a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted him to do was not find his usual letter, since he already knew she was going out with Eric, and would assume that something terrible had happened to her. His letter was not in there yet, so all was well. Sapphire hovered at the closet, the movement back and forth of her ribbon telling Bella that the servant didn’t know what clothing to bring out.
“Is Eric back yet?” she asked.
The slate rose, the chalk scratched. “No” came the reply. “Mesa this morning. Not back 4 5 mor daze.”
Message? How — “How on earth does he get a message back here?” she asked.
“Pijin.”
Oh…well, that made sense. She knew there were several households in the city that kept pigeons for carrying messages. For that matter, her father had some, at the warehouse, for sending urgent messages back and forth from the port. And given that Eric wasn’t a magician, a pigeon or a human messenger would be the only way for him to let Sebastian know if he was going to be delayed or detained. A human messenger was not a good choice, all things considered.
Well, in that case —
“The same thing I wore last night,” she declared. “A pair of Sebastian’s breeches, one of my bodices and a shirt of some sort.” If Sebastian was offering her freedom — well, she would see how he took to her walking about in breeches.
Sapphire whisked out of the closet with a pair of rather lovely, buttery fawn-colored suede breeches, a bodice of a darker brown and a cream-colored blouse with huge sleeves caught up by ribbons at the wrist that she didn’t even know she had. And just as Sapphire finished lacing up the bodice, there was a faint tap at the door, it opened and a pair of beautiful, soft, brown leather boots came gliding in.
Now, she could see immediately that these boots weren’t new. But the Spirit Elementals had cleaned them, buffed them and refreshed them until they were actually better than new, for they had none of the stiffness of new boots or shoes. Sapphire steadied her as she tried them on. They were only a little too big, not enough to matter, not even enough for an extra pair of socks.
She had a good idea where they had come from — they’d probably belonged to Sebastian’s mother. She doubted very much that he would recognize a pair of her boots. A gown — perhaps. Or perhaps not. But not a pair of boots. Footwear was not exactly memorable.
Not this sort of footwear, anyway. She felt a twinge of amusement at some of the incredible shoes and dancing slippers Genevieve had ordered, both for herself and the twins. And, she supposed, it was possible one of the twins’ would-be swains would remember a pair of that fanciful footgear.
But probably not.
Well, since Eric wasn’t going to be here, and they weren’t going out on a patrol, that left her morning free for other things. Although this might be a test of sorts…
While she watched her father in the mirror, and read his letter, she thought about that. She was supposed to be counterfeiting Eric’s new Under-Gamekeeper. He might be testing her with this, to see if she was up to the challenge of at least a limited patrol alone.
All right, then, she would do it. In her coat, no one would be able to tell she was a woman. And she could get back with plenty of time to put in some work in the stillroom before she met Sebastian for dinner and her magic lesson.
A fine plan.
“I need my horse saddled and ready,” she told Sapphire, who whisked away.
She explained her plan to Sebastian, who readily agreed it was a good idea, ate her breakfast as quickly as she could manage and went out on her ride.
She returned — with a tangle of snares in her saddlebag — in good time to get some work done in the stillroom. She had a suspicion about those snares, because they had been just a little too easy to find. And it would
