David Liss - The Twelfth Enchantment - A Novel

Though it took all her will, Lucy pushed him away. With only a few inches between them, she looked into his beautiful, wild face and staggered back a few steps. “The world may yet choose to despise me, but I will not despise myself.”

“Lucy,” Byron began.

“I am tired,” she said. “I must be gone from here by noon tomorrow or I shall be married or ruined. I have few resources. You may have made a career out of sacrificing everything to your pleasures, Lord Byron, but I cannot.”

He reached out, stroking her face with the backs of his fingers. “Lucy, you are confused.”

“No!” she shouted, not caring who heard, not caring if Lady Harriett and all her servants were awakened. She walked away from him, toward the fire, as though its heat might burn away her shame and desire. “I am tired and I am frightened and I am desperate, but I am not confused.” She took a deep breath and ran a hand over her face. “Do not attempt to seduce me again, or I shall hate you. I must sleep and clear my mind, and in the morning, I shall escape this house. My niece, my flesh and blood, is held prisoner somewhere, and the monster that has taken her place sucks the very life out of my sister. I will not sacrifice them on the altar of gratification. I cannot fail my family again. Are you my ally or not?”

He bowed in response. “You must never doubt that I am. I shall obey your wishes and meet any challenge you may present to me.”

“Will you obey me?” asked Lucy, thrilled by her anger and her sense of power and authority. She had neither lied nor deceived nor used vile magic, and he was still hers. Women were magic. “Will you do as I ask without question or hesitation?”

He bowed again.

She thought of the things she had yet upon her, the knowledge she yet possessed. She had three pages of the Mutus Liber , stolen from Lady Harriett’s library, and neither that witch nor Byron nor anyone else in the world knew she had them. Even now, those pages called to her, sought her attention, like an itch inside her mind. There was a puzzle, a riddle to solve, and she would solve it. She was more dangerous than anyone knew. Lady Harriett’s words meant nothing. She was mighty, she told herself, and she would not be stopped.

“These walls shan’t hold us,” Lucy pronounced, feeling her courage form into something material and adamantine. “Lady Harriett and her allies and her imps can do nothing against us.”

He turned to open the door. “Then I shall see you well rested in the morning, Lucy.”

“I wish you good night, Lord Byron.”

He began to walk out and then turned to her. “As a point of clarification, do you say that I must never try to seduce you ever, or not while we remain here?”

The thinnest smile, constrained but quivering, danced upon his lips, and Lucy could not help but laugh. “Here to be sure,” she said. “We shall see what comes later.”

The smile blossomed fully. He bowed one last time and closed the door behind him.

Sitting on her bed, Lucy listened to the ticking of the tall case clock outside her door, and she heard nothing else. Perhaps ten minutes passed. Perhaps twenty. When it seemed like enough time, she removed from the folds of her skirt the pages she had cut from Lady Harriett’s book. By the strong light of several tapers, she began to unravel their meaning, which came into sharp relief. Persuasion . She could not escape the word, just as with the first set of pages she could not escape the notion of sacrifice. But Mary was not there to tell her what it meant or how to apply it to her needs, so Lucy had no choice but to discover that for herself.

Before allowing herself to sleep, Lucy had opened her curtains so she would awaken at first light. Nevertheless, she remained in deep slumber perhaps later than she wished, not rising until an hour or so after dawn. She refreshed herself as best she could with water from the basin, dressed, and began to go through her materials that she had collected the night before, organizing her notes and charms. She had fallen asleep before finishing, too exhausted to go on, so she finished her work now, writing for as long as she dared. When the clock struck eight o’clock, she knew she could wait no longer. She had perhaps four hours to escape Lady Harriett’s estate.

Though she had slept only a few hours, her mind was much clearer, sharper, focused by anger and desperation. Lucy opened up the bag she kept hidden in her gown and examined once more the herbs, the tools, and the ingredients. What she hoped to do was possible. From memory, she made a talisman of vulnerability. She would not be surprised again by Lady Harriett’s strength.

Placing her bag within the secret compartment in her gown, she left her room and knocked upon Byron’s door, and found him dressed and ready to attend to her.

“Let us then see if Lady Harriett will offer us breakfast,” she said.

Here they had a bit of good fortune, perhaps the only good fortune upon which they ought to depend, so Lucy embraced it most gratefully. Breakfast was, indeed, set out—a series of chafing dishes with eggs, toast, bacon, porridge, and meats. There was salt, which Lucy required, and she saw a parsley garnish, which she quickly pocketed. Upon the table was a vase containing a variety of wildflowers, including, Lucy noted, bluebells. Lady Harriett was careless to leave such things lying about.

They were not to dine alone, for sitting at the table, enjoying a plate piled high with sausage and bacon, was none other than Mr. Buckles. His tall frame was stooped over his plate while he worked his knife and fork with determined fury, slicing and smothering. His face was slick with perspiration, as though the act of cutting and eating taxed him to his limits.

He looked upon Lucy, took a bite of sausage, and then spoke while he chewed. “I hear I am to wish you, as they say, joy, Miss Derrick. To become Mrs. Olson after all. It is very grand, and more than you deserve, if I may be so bold. But it is Lady Harriett’s will.”

“Where is Lady Harriett?” asked Byron, touching his cheek. It had begun to bruise, disrupting his beauty like paint spilled upon a portrait.

“Lady Harriett and her associates have departed,” said Mr. Buckles. “Something happened with that John Bellingham fellow—some disaster that she blamed upon you, Miss Derrick. I am hardly surprised you would have something to do with that madman. A twitching sort of person, and always off upon what he is owed. ”

“When shall Lady Harriett return?” asked Byron.

“Her ladyship did not, ah, shall we say, trouble herself to tell me what is surely none of my concern. She has instructed me to marry you to Mr. Olson upon his arrival, whether she is here or no.”

Byron looked at the food and then at Lucy, and she nodded. She did not much feel like eating, but she required strength and did not wish to find herself in a dire situation too depleted to do what she must.

Lucy served herself a healthy portion of eggs and toast—the meat did not appeal to her today—and sat at the table as far from Mr. Buckles as she could while still able to conduct a conversation. Byron, for his part, put but little food on his plate—some sausage and porridge. Lucy sensed that, for a man of great appetites, he was an abstemious eater.

“How does my sister?” Lucy asked Mr. Buckles.

Mr. Buckles put a large piece of bacon into his mouth. “She is well.”

“And your daughter?”

He paused for but a second. “She is also well.”

“You know that for certain?” asked Lucy.

He smiled in his simpering way. “How should I not, ah, know?”

“How indeed?” asked Lucy. She drank a glass of water. She wanted neither hunger nor thirst to inhibit her in the time ahead.