Prunella stared at him over the rim of her cup.
“That would never have occurred to me at all,” she said, with candid astonishment. “Of course I would never tell the Society about the treasures. They would want to take them away from me. I have not made up my mind to use them myself, despite my mother’s instructions—Youko and Tjandra suffice for my purposes, and after what I had to do to make Leofric leave, I am not inclined to take on a new familiar. It would be like a second betrayal. But I shall certainly preserve the treasures for my daughters, and their daughters. And ifyoutold the Society, I should very likely have to kill you, for I could not permit my mother’s pains to be so thrown away.”
“I suspected you would have a different view of what your duties required,” said Zacharias. “As a private citizen, I might well agree. In my public role, I should have found it difficult to sustain such a view.”
“How extraordinary,” said Prunella. She uncovered the teapot and cast a quick, professional glance over its contents, saying, “I am due another assassination attempt, I see. I must arrange for this wretched Bloxham to be sent away. He is not an ill-looking creature, despite his inability properly to orchestrate a murder. I might see if the Fairy Queen desires an addition to her retinue.”
“Is it so bad, being Sorceress Royal?” said Zacharias.
“Assassins aside, you mean?” said Prunella. “It is not soverybad. I am very good at it,” she added, speaking as of a matter of fact. “It has made me wholly unmarriageable, but I cannot lay all of that at your door. Do you remember that shocking gossip Mrs. Gray, and the day she caught me flying about with dear Mr. Hsiang? I could not make out why she should be driving about the Park so early in the day—with Sophia Kendle, too, who was never friends with her before. It seems that Mrs. Grayhad made inquiries about my family, and she contrived to discover an ancient relative of my father’s, an unpleasant old uncle who disowned my father when he married my mother. Of course, the first thing Mrs. Gray did was spread the news about town, starting with Sophia, because she was a particular friend of mine. That’s spite for you!”
“Your mother’s identity is known, then,” said Zacharias, watching Prunella closely. She did not seem overly distressed, however.
“Only that she was a black woman. No one in England seems to have heard of Seringapatam’s Grand Sorceress, and I have no intention of teaching them,” said Prunella. “It is quite absurd what a fuss there has been about it. So long as they thought me the offshoot of a noble family—my mother abibiabandoned by my father—I was acceptable, it seems. But now that they know my father was a nobody who was married to my mother—and more to the point, neither of them left me any money—all my suitors have abandoned me. Sophia will not even speak to me—though that may be because I named her husband to the Presiding Committee. She would rather he were a Member of Parliament.”
“You nominated Kendle to the Committee?” said Zacharias. “I thought he disliked you.”
“He dislikes me extremely,” said Prunella agreeably. “It is ever so diverting to see him sitting in Committee meetings, gnashing his teeth because I gave him his step. He is tremendously useful: because he will insist on openly regretting Midsomer, everyone else is terrified of agreeing with him in anything. All I have to do to ensure a motion is passed is persuade Kendle to vote for the opposite course.”
“It seems you are having a salutary effect upon English thaumaturgy.”
“They all quake at my approach, if that is what you mean,” said Prunella. “It is that I caused the death of my familiar that frightens them the most. Everyone considers my want of feeling perfectly appalling.”
“Does that surprise you?” said Zacharias.
Prunella lifted her chin in the defiant gesture so familiar to him. “I cannot regret it, though I miss Nidget, and I know I used it barbarously. It deserved better of me. But I sacrificed it to help you, and I would do it again.”
Zacharias cast his eyes down, his cheeks warm. He was surprised, looking inward, to find that his decision had been made, almost unbeknownst to himself. It remained only to gather his wits and courage for the attempt. He had not expected to be brought to the point so soon, and he could not tell if this were the perfect time, or the worst. But he must do it now, or spend the rest of his days in regret.
“Have you any wish to marry, in the circumstances?” he said. “I myself doubted, as Sorcerer Royal, whether my duties would not prevent my enjoying any domestic happiness.”
“I never thought of that, you know,” said Prunella. “I only wished to have my own establishment, and not have to teach, like Miss Liddiard and all the rest of them, and be snubbed by my betters, and abused by my charges. Now, however, I have the stipend, and since Lady Wythe has kindly insisted that I remain with her, that suffices for my needs. But I do regret the prospect of children. I can hardly bequeath the treasures to my daughters if I do not have any daughters at all. However, there is no purpose in worrying about it, since it is unlikely anyone will ever offer for me.”
“There, I think, you are wrong,” said Zacharias.
“You know what I mean,” said Prunella impatiently. “I suppose I could always call upon the butcher’s boy who used to linger in Mrs. Daubeney’s kitchen, but I had grander ambitions. I did not only wish to be married, you know. I desired to wed someone wealthy, who was excessively in love with me, and would let me do whatever I wished.”
“That is still open to you,” said Zacharias. His throat constricted, and for a hideous moment he thought he would not be able to get it out, but by some miracle he managed to continue. “I inherited an ample provision when Sir Stephen died. I have been contented with asimple life, but if you—that is to say, if I were required to live in a higher style, my income could easily support it.”
Prunella looked blank. “I have not the least idea of your meaning.”
“I only meant to say that I would marry you,” said Zacharias’s voice, seeming to come from very far away, and not from himself at all. “That is, I would like to, if you would take me. I fulfill the conditions you specified, though I do not presume to believe that that alone is a sufficient incentive for you to accept my offer.”
Prunella shot out of her chair as if the cushion had burst into flames beneath her, and scuttled to the other end of the room. Youko, peacefully at work on a piece of seed cake, looked up in alarm. Tjandra flew to the chimneypiece, squawking.
“What can have possessed you to say that?” she rapped out.
Now that the thing was out, Zacharias felt more comfortable. “It seemed the right time. I am sorry to have alarmed you, however.”
“Oh, it does not trouble me at all,” snapped Prunella. She started pacing around the room in her agitation. “It simply came into your mind? You had no reason to think your offer would be welcome?”
“I can see I have surprised you,” said Zacharias. He hesitated. “Perhaps it would have been better to have given you some warning—to have built up to it. Courtship is not an area in which I can boast any expertise, however. My work, my experiences—indeed, my inclinations—have been such as to put it out of my power to make a proper study of the practise.”
“What did you go for to do it, then?” said Prunella belligerently. “When we were talking so pleasantly!”
“When you were haranguing me for having made you Sorceress Royal, you mean?”
Prunella was not listening.
