Uncertain Magic by Laura Kinsale Read Free Book Online Page A

gave her no divine omniscience: there were levels and levels in the quicksilver shift of mind and emotion, but right now there was only anguished disbelief. "Mama," she said, and all the steadiness had left her voice. "Don't cry. Of course I won't elope—not now. But you must understand I want to be married. You and Papa can't look after me forever. I need a family of my own. All my happiness depends on it."
    Mrs. Delamore buried her nose in her handkerchief. "We
can
look after you forever," she cried in a muffled tone. "We want to!"
    Roddy squeezed her hands together in distress. "Oh, Mama!" How could she say that a lifetime of unfulfillment in her parents' home stretched like bleak winter before her? She was a burden to them, however loving their intentions. A burden to anyone who knew of her talent. They loved her as they would have loved a unicorn in their midst. Careful of the magic. Of the sharp and certain truth.
    And yet she was human, her needs and fears the same as theirs. She was not different. Not in her heart. She longed to be useful and necessary for her own sake. Not like Aunt Nell, sheltered and protected, imprisoned in her indulgent family for all of her life.
    "
Iveragh
." Roddy's mother could barely speak past the sob in her throat. "The things they say of him—"
    A multitude of sins were rumbling about her mother's mind, too incoherent for Roddy to catch more than a flash of mistresses and duels and dishonored maidens. Roddy frowned, remembering Lord Iveragh's face in the moonlight, and how quickly it had changed from despair to cold pride. "Mama," she said with gentle firmness, "I of all people should know that what people say isn't always the whole truth."
    Her father looked up from where he had been breaking a quill into fragments at the writing desk. He stared at Roddy a moment. "Do you know the whole truth in this case?" he asked suddenly.
    It was Iveragh's declaration of love that he meant. She met his eyes and committed herself beyond recall. "Yes," she lied. "Yes, Papa, I do know it."
    Her mother made a pitiful sound of protest. Her father narrowed his eyes. "And have you told
him
the whole truth, miss?"
    It took all of her determination to keep her face raised to her father's. "He understands everything."
    Not exactly a lie. She didn't dare admit that her gift had failed with Iveragh, for she knew her only hope was to convince her parents that she had seen some redeeming quality in him that everyone else had missed. Lord Iveragh knew all he needed to know. With him, she was a normal person instead of a freak, and she saw no reason ever to let him think otherwise. For that one virtue she was willing to excuse him any number of indiscretions.
    "Everything, Papa," she repeated, with extra firmness.
    Her father's lips tightened. He stared down at the desk and struggled. The decision shifted and wavered in his mind, tossed one way and then another. He'd spoken to Geoffrey, quizzed the younger man mercilessly, and received not only anxious .reassurance, but a written letter of recommendation as well. "A man of integrity," that letter had said. "A noble friend." There was no mention of Iveragh's reputation, Iveragh's insolvency. Nothing but Geoffrey's high-flown phrases of assurance and commendation.
    Her father thought of the look on Iveragh's face as he made his offer. Pride and hard truth, with no sly insinuations. Not a simpering dandy with a weakness for the card table: no one had accused the earl of that vice. And only just come into his inheritance—
at thirty-five, by God, long after a man ought to be allowed control of his own affairs. Found it ruined—some nitwit trustee, no doubt. A shame, a damned shame, ill luck that any man might have. But my daughter
...
my daughter… my precious curse. Our poisoned blood. Nell and Jane. Oh, God… Nell and Jane. A wasted life and a broken one
.
    He looked up, and Roddy saw herself then as her father saw her. Against the background of dull velvet and