Heart's Magic (10 page)

"Why not?" His eyes
smoldered at her, as if alchemical fires burned deep inside him.
"You liked it. I know you did. There's no 'arm in a few kisses or a
bit of a cuddle."

"Of course there is. In
kisses like that one. In--in licentious cuddling."

He grinned at her, his gaze
no less heated. "Is that wot it was? Licentious?"

"Harry, stop it. I am
serious about this."

He stopped, sighed, ran a
hand back over his hair, which did not help its disarray.
"Right."

He'd backed her almost to
the fireplace. Elinor ducked around him, hoping to make it to the
door and away. He caught her arm before she'd taken three steps,
swinging her around to put himself between her and the door
again.

"Oh no," he said. "You're
not running away, not till we 'ave this out. I can see you mean wot
you're saying, that we can't be kissin' and such. I got that. What
I don't understand is why. An' you're not leavin' 'ere till I
do."

"Harry--" She ground his
name between her teeth.

"I know. We might be 'ere
all week with you tryin' to explain. Some things I don't see so
clear--like when it's not about magic. But it is wot it is. So
explain it to me."

Elinor jerked her arm free
of his grasp and plopped in the upholstered chair there by the
fireplace. "You are so infuriating!"

"Makes us even then." He
stood in the middle of the room, legs spread, hands propped on his
hips. "You're absolutely incomprehensible besides. But you're
female, so--" He shrugged. "I'll do my best to comprehend, if
you'll explain."

"You simply cannot go about
indiscriminately kissing people," Elinor huffed.

"I was very discriminating.
I kissed
you.
Only
you."

"All right then,
me.
You cannot just be
kissing me willy-nilly."

"You said that. Wot you
still ain't said is why. That's what I'm waiting for. An' don't
tell me you don't like it, 'cause I don't want to be callin' you a
liar."

"Maybe I did. Like it, I
mean. But I didn't want to. I can't." Elinor hunted for words to
make him understand. She didn't know why he didn't already. It was
so obviously clear to her. "Harry, kisses--especially if one likes
them--don't stop at just kisses. They lead to--to scandal. I just
became magistrate of the wizard's guild. I cannot afford any
scandal in my life. Not even the hint of it."

"Is that all you're worried
about?" Harry flipped his hand, dismissing scandal as lightly as he
had the wizard Dodd. "We'll get married, then."

"What?!" Elinor popped up
from her chair, shock slamming into her.

"Married. It's no trouble."
He shrugged, appallingly unconcerned.

"
No.
Absolutely not." So many emotions
tumbled through her--anger, alarm, horror--she couldn't grasp other
words, words she needed.

"I don't mind."

"Well, I do. I am not
marrying you. I am--"

"Wot? I'm good enough to
kiss, but not good enough to marry?" His eyes narrowed, fists
moving to prop on his hips.

"I did not say that. Stop
twisting my words." She stamped her foot. He made her so angry that
she actually stamped her foot. She never did that. Elinor tried to
collect her emotions and smooth them over.

"I didn't do it right, did
I? That's wot's got you all tempered up." Harry went down to one
knee and caught her hand.

That hand had a tight grip
on her skirt--probably to keep it from striking him for his
deliberate misunderstandings. She would not let go, would not give
in to him in any way. So a fold of her skirt came up with the hand
he took.

"Elinor, my sweet, would
you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife?" He looked up
at her, his face as serious as she'd ever seen it.

That was the only reason
she didn't strike him with the hand he didn't have hold of, because
there was no tiny quirk at the corner of his lips or teasing glint
in those smoldering eyes. He meant it.

"No." She snatched her hand
out of his hold and walked around him, heading for the
door.

She got a little farther
this time before he caught her, spun her around, and deposited her
on the green velvet-covered sofa.

"No? Just
no?
" He loomed over her,
only one hand finding its hip prop. The other pushed through his
hair first. "No explanation, no--nothing?"

Elinor sighed. She was
going to have to go into blunt detail. "You don't want to marry me,
Harry."

"I asked, didn't
I?"

"You just want to--to make
love." She selected the best euphemism she could for the act.
"You're not in love with me."

"Who says I'm
not?"

"You do yourself. We both
know you'd have said it--in your second proposal at the least--if
you were."

Harry groaned, head falling
back briefly, though not long enough for her to consider escaping.
"I ain't good at words, Elinor. You know that. It don't mean I
don't feel things."

"I'm sure you do. Feel
things, I mean. But I seriously doubt what you feel is love. Be
sensible, Harry. Pleasant as--as making love might be, it's not
worth the ruination of both our lives, not to mention the wizard's
guild, the Magician's Council, and all of England."

His lips twitched, as if
only now, when she was at her most serious, did she say something
that amused him. He cleared his throat. "Crikey," he said. "That's
some mighty powerful fu--making love. 'Ow do you reckon us gettin'
married'll bring down the empire?"

"I didn't say the empire,
Harry. I said England." She huffed a little sigh. "But you're
right. If England falls, the empire likely won't be far behind."
She cocked her head at a thought. "Are there dead zones in India?
Or Africa? Has anyone investigated?"

"Yes, we looked. No, there
don't seem to be any dead zones in India or Africa. They use magic
different than we do. An' you're ignorin' the real question, which
is, why won't you marry me?"

Elinor laced her fingers
together. She hadn't tried to put this into words in a long time.
Surely she still could. "I just became magister of the wizard's
guild. I may only hold the position for a week, until the challenge
with Mr. Dodd, but I could win that challenge, too. Possibly any
challenge they throw against me."

"You will."

Again, that confidence he
had in her. Where did it come from? Surely not just because he
wanted her.

"Be that as it may--" She
waved the dismissive hand this time. "If I am the wizard's
magister--now that you've talked me into it--I have to
be
the magister. If I
marry you, I will become Mrs. Harry Tomlinson and nothing
more."

He swayed as if avoiding a
blow. "You think I'd stop you from working magic? I'm the one who
took you as apprentice, who gave you the chance--"

"I know. I'm grateful
beyond words. And that's not what I'm saying. What is between you
and me here in private has nothing to do with what the world
outside these doors sees or how they interpret that. The world will
see--" She paused, the ramifications of recent developments making
themselves clear.

She wanted to get up and
pace, but when she moved to stand, Harry...growled. So she stayed
on the sofa.

"Wot?" he said. "Wot will
the world see?"

"The wizard's guild
subsumed under the alchemist's guild, with you as the real magister
of both." Another thought struck her. "They may believe it already,
since I was your apprentice."

Harry snorted. "They don't
know you very well then, do they, if they think you'll go any way
but your own."

"Having them think the
other way, that I'm leading you by the nose and acting as magister
over you would be equally as bad." Elinor frowned. "There are
probably some who think that way, too."

"But that ain't the real
reason, is it?" His voice was softer, not so angry. "'Cause you
just got to be magister today. Why won't you marry me?"

"It is the reason. Or it's
related to it. I cannot marry and continue to do the work I must
do." Elinor shook her head at Harry's scowl. "I
cannot,
Harry. It is impossible. A man
can have both family and profession because his family supports him
and enables him to carry out that profession. A woman cannot,
because she is meant to be the support. A woman who wishes to do
something else--like Miss Nightingale, for example--must focus her
energies on her purpose. My purpose is magic and now, giving other
women the chance to become magicians.

"It's a tremendous change
in the way the world works, Harry. That kind of change requires
sacrifice and I make that sacrifice willingly."

Harry looked rather as if
someone had walloped him in the head with a cricket bat. He sank
onto the sofa beside her. "So, it's not me you object to, then.
It's marriage itself."

Elinor took a long, slow
breath and let it out just as slowly. Finally he began to grasp the
issues. "Exactly."

He frowned, shaking his
head as he thought. "Amanusa's married. Pearl's married. They don't
seem to be 'aving any difficulties mixing magic and
marriage."

"They're sorcerers." Elinor
felt the rush of heat to her face. She rarely blushed, but this
deserved it. "It's not a guild secret or I wouldn't know this, but
don't be spreading it around or the scandal would be so horrific
we'd
never
get any
more sorcery students. Do you swear to keep it quiet?"

"Sure." Harry gave a little
almost-shrug. "Why not?"

"Sorcerers get magic from
making love. From physical desire. They almost
have
to be married. Besides--" She
adjusted her posture, sitting up straighter, wedging herself in the
corner, farther away from Harry. "Pearl isn't the magister and
Amanusa's husband isn't a magician at all. It's not the same.
Though I can't say that Pearl's marriage to Grey hasn't caused
complications."

"All right." Harry nodded.
"I don't say I agree with your reasoning, but I can see it. I
understand why you think you can't marry. But Elinor, there's
something between us."

He brushed a fingertip
along her neck from her ear down to the low round collar of her
dress. It made her shiver. "Yearnings," he said. "Feelings.
Wanting."

"Ignore it." Her tone was
brisk. Far brisker than she felt. "It will go away."

"I don't think so." He
teased her earlobe with that finger and traced around the shell of
her ear before laying his hand, warm and heavy, on her upper arm.
"I'm not much in the petticoat way. You know that. I been too busy
to bother much with chasing down females, especially since too many
of 'em ain't got good sense. But I don't want you just 'cause
you're here an' I don't 'ave to bother with chasing
you."

When had he moved next to
her, pinning her in the corner?

"I like you, Elinor. An' I
want you somethin' fierce." His eyes blazed into hers, the amber
glints in the mixed-up hazel-green-brown of his eyes somehow
flaring brighter. "That's not something that'll go away just by
wishing, or pretendin' it ain't there. Especially since you fancy
me as well."

"Harry, we
can't."

"Why not? You won't marry.
I get that. I think it's stupid, but I get it. But--do you really
mean to cut yourself off from living?" He picked her up and set her
in his lap and God help her, she was too weak to climb back out of
it. "We'd be good together, we would," he murmured, nuzzling her
neck.

He had one arm round her
back, the other weighting down her legs. His perfect lips nibbled
heated kisses along her jawline, following as she leaned away from
him. She should get up, push her way out of his lap. Why didn't
she?

"The scandal--" she
whispered.

"We can keep it quiet, if
that's wot you want. No one would know." His hand had found her
breast again, his fingers tracing its contours. "You're givin' up
marriage. Do you honestly, truly want to give up
everything?
Every bit of
pleasure, of--of bein' with somebody you care for? I do care for
ya, Elinor. I ain't good at sayin' so. No good at flower words or
even the regular words properly said, to tell you the truth. But
wot I say, even if I say it badly, I mean it. Every
word."

He stroked his fingers
across her naked back. Somehow, while he was distracting her with
his hand on her breast and his low-voiced, plain-spoken seduction,
he had unbuttoned her dress halfway down her back. And now that she
realized it, she still didn't utter a word of protest as he eased
it off her shoulders so he could kiss them with his beautiful
mouth.

"I'm afraid," she
whispered, shocked into voicing the truth by the feel of his mouth
there, where no man had ever touched her bare skin.

"I'll look after you. I'll
take care of you. Don't you know I could never hurt you? Never let
anyone else hurt you?" His hand--the one that wasn't still
unbuttoning her dress--had abandoned her breast to find her ankle
beneath her foaming petticoats. "I'm good at that, at doin' wot I
say."