Page 57 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
Hester groaned. “This is dreadful,” she said. “Not you, Imogene. I’m glad you’re here. I just can’t imagine that we’re terribly good company at the moment.” She looked around helplessly. “Perhaps it would be better if everyone just went home.”
“Not before congratulating me, I hope,” said the Squire from the doorway. “You see, Evangeline has just consented to be my wife.”
The words hung suspended in the air of the parlor for so long that Hester started to question whether they had ever been spoken at all. Surely she’d imagined it. Surely her brother had not just said that he was engaged to Evangeline. Surely Doom had not won.
But Evangeline was standing behind the Squire, her hand clasped firmly in his, and the look in her eyes was unadulterated triumph.
“My goodness!” said Lady Strauss, into the horribly awkward silence. “What a surprise!” She shot Hester a warning look and all at once the words landed and became something real, something that was happening right now, like the ground coming at you after the horse had thrown you off.
It’s too soon! Hester wanted to cry out. It can’t have happened so fast!
The sense of impending catastrophe had been with her for so long now that it had almost faded to background noise, but suddenly it all came roaring back, clutching at her throat like a strangler. Doomed, you are doomed, the worst has come, the worst is here, you have failed and all will be ashes…
But it can’t be! It’s too fast! I’m not ready… and Richard’s not back yet…
It was a tiny, hopeless thought, in a tiny hopeless voice, but it stiffened her spine. She was not a maiden in a tower, waiting for her faithful knight to save her. She was a grown woman, goddammit, and even if an aged spinster was among the most socially powerless of creatures, she would not concede to Doom without a fight.
But now was not the moment. Evangeline had moved, swift and sure, while Hester was still fumbling about, trusting to her brother’s instinct for self-preservation. If she was going to extract Samuel from Doom’s possibly sorcerous clutches, the last thing she wanted to do was show her hand too soon.
Bless Imogene for filling the gap. She roused herself from her horror and plastered a smile on her face. “How delightful! Samuel, you dog! You never so much as hinted to me!” She stretched out her hands toward the couple. “Why, you could knock me over with a feather!”
“Had to be a gentleman, of course,” said the Squire gruffly. “Couldn’t go talking until I knew my feelings were returned, don’t you know.”
“Yes, of course. Quite right,” said Lord Strauss, nodding approval.
Evangeline leaned in closer to the Squire, her cheek against his shoulder, and then suddenly Cordelia leapt up and clapped her hands together.
“Oh, how wonderful!” the girl cried. “We shall be a family now!” She practically danced up to the Squire. “Shall I call you Papa, sir?”
What, Hester thought, the absolute bloody blistering hell?
Then Cordelia giggled.
She had laughed often enough these last few days. Penelope Green could have pulled a chuckle from an anchorite. But Hester knew Cordelia’s laugh, a tiny, timid tapping, like a scattering of seeds across stone. It was certainly not a giggle, and it had never been accompanied by a girlish toss of her head.
Except for that one, terrible dinner. She’d giggled then, hadn’t she?
It’s happening right now. This minute. She’s being—what did she call it—being made obedient. Evangeline is working her body like a puppet.
Hester half rose out of her chair, heedless of the scream in her knee and the stab of sympathetic pain in her opposite hip. She had to stop this. She had to do—had to—
Do what?
Cordelia turned toward her, almost prancing across the intervening distance. Hester stared as she came closer, her mouth turned up in a broad smile. Her hands settled on Hester’s left arm.
Her eyes showed white all around the edges, like a frightened horse’s, and the horror and helplessness in them struck Hester like a blow.
I don’t know how to stop this. I don’t have the faintest idea. I send Richard off for proof, like an absolute mooncalf, when I should have been trying to find everything ever written about sorcery and how to stop it. She felt as if she was watching someone mortally wounded bleed out on the floor in front of her, with no idea how to staunch the flow.
“You shall be my aunt now,” said Cordelia’s mouth, while Cordelia’s eyes screamed.
Don’t give it away. Don’t let Doom know that you know. “Yes,” said Hester. “Yes, of course. How lovely that will be.” She patted the girl’s hand, feeling her skin crawl at the touch. Cordelia’s skin was ice cold and clammy with sweat.
Her eyes went over Cordelia’s shoulder, to where Doom stood, still clinging to the Squire’s hand. The woman’s gaze was slightly unfocused, her face arranged in a pleasantly neutral smile. Perhaps it was difficult to work two bodies at once. That seemed likely. Hester remembered how Cordelia had stood, blank-faced, in the corridor while her mother spoke to the Squire, not even acknowledging Hester’s existence.
“You must have so much planning to do!” said Imogene, once again coming to the rescue. Hester would send word to the Church requesting that she be canonized as a saint at once. “How soon will you be wed?”
“Oh, as soon as possible,” said the Squire carelessly. “I’ll send for a special license. No need for a big church wedding, you know, was never one for all that frippery!”
