“I say, those flowers all along the driveway are daffodils, right?”
“Yes,” Amelia answered.
“And would you call that blossom on those trees over there?”
“I would.”
“Blossom. In autumn.” Caleb glanced back over his shoulder. “Did we accidentally take a wrong turn and end up in the southern hemisphere?”
Crossing her arms, Amelia frowned at the view in much the same way a doctor frowns at a mysteriously ill patient—somber, yet not unexcited by the challenge. “Magic,” she said. “That blue light is a sure sign of it.”
“Strong magic,” Caleb added, “considering lambs are frolicking in that field.”
“A fey line must run through here,” Amelia mused as she began walking again. Her brother Gabriel, a geography professor,had once shown her a map delineating the various seams of thaumaturgic minerals that crossed Britain and that very occasionally flared up to cause magical disorder. (Which is to say, she’d snuck into his bedroom when he wasn’t home and peeked at the highly classified document, since she had a theory about historic events and zones of earth magic). “If that’s the case, and Sir Nigel does have thaumaturgic antiques in his collection, we may be facing an interesting situation.”
“I wouldn’t call it interesting,” Caleb grumbled, pulling up the collar of his coat protectively. “It’s eerie.”
Amelia gave him an amused look. “It’s lambs and flowers.”
“Exactly. It should be wind-torn trees and desperate women escaping ravishment from their cruel landlords.”
Amelia blinked at him, utterly confused. “What?”
“You’d understand if you read books,” he said, grinning mischievously.
“I read b—” She stopped, frowning, although mostly at herself for taking his bait. Caleb chuckled, and when Amelia smacked his arm it became an outright laugh.
“You are a fiend,” she told him.
“But a pretty one,” he argued.
They turned into the driveway. A gust of wind swept past them, setting their coats billowing. White blossom petals scattered through the dim air like sorrows. A lamb cried out plaintively for a mother that was nowhere to be seen.
Amelia shivered, and Caleb looked at her sharply. “You’re cold again,” he accused her.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“Come here, I’ll give you my coat.”
“You can’t,” she said, walking a little faster as he began toslip the garment off his shoulders. “It’s not safe. Ottersock will surely have mentioned to Miss Tunnicliffe that we’re enemies.”
“Why would he?” Caleb reasoned. “In fact, considering she might have thought it a problem, and given the job to Cambridge Uni instead, he more than likely kept it secret. And there’s no one here from Oxford—no Madame Kharensky, no Throckmorton—to tell her about it. We’re safe, Meely.”
Safe.Amelia felt a warm sigh go through her. Safe to smile and talk freely without damaging their reputations, let alone their careers. Gladness swelled her heart, and for a moment she thought she might actually cry from it. Pretending to squabble and feel angry had been so hard, these past few months.
But gladness was a short hop to the perilous chaos of joy. Retreating at once into self-restraining calm, she said a brusque “Hm.”
Caleb understood this to be acceptance, however, for he removed his coat and practically tossed it onto her back. Then, walking backward as Amelia continued to march along the driveway, he began to wrangle her arms into the sleeves, grumbling all the while about her apparent determination to ruin his life by dying of a chill. Once he had her sufficiently clothed, he turned to walk beside her, and he rubbed her upper back as was his habit whenever he disrupted her nerves with his behavior.
Disrupted, however, was an understatement. Amelia felt like one of the blossom trees, buffeted, shaken, and coming apart. And actually not entirelysafeafter all. Caleb fussing with her clothes was nothing new; indeed, they had been doing it to each other forever—him shifting her hat to a more fashionable angle, her straightening his tie, him fixing herunbuttoned cuff, her straightening his tie (again) or jacket. But now, appallingly, she imagined him removing her clothes instead…
A clap of thunder made her jolt. The drizzling rain intensified, as if the clouds had shattered.
“Run!” Caleb shouted. He grasped Amelia’s hand, and they raced together along the driveway toward the castle. His coat, too big for her, slapped against her legs…the wind snatched her beret…hairpins dislodged, sending strands of hair tumbling down to whip across her face. Now everything about her was in disarray. She felt as if she might unravel all the way out of her sensibleness into a wild and silent ghost that would wander the fells in search of its lecture schedule.
The thought should have left her aghast. No Tarrant ever tolerated unravelment. It was practically the family motto: Tidy, Organized, and Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip to Such a Degree That Stress Is Too Scared to Approach You. (Or, as was formally printed on their stationery,Stabilitas Perpetuus.) But perhaps whatever magic surrounding Ravenscroft Manor that had made daffodils flourish in mid-autumn also revived a remnant of the happy child she’d once been, for all of a sudden she found herself laughing. Caleb glanced back at her, and at the sight of his delighted grin, Amelia knew she would indeed become a ghost after she died, never mind science or sensibleness, for she would never leave him.
“All right?” he asked through the loud thrum of the rain.
