Sorcery and the Single Girl (22 page)

“Are you saying that the Peabridge reference librarian can’t locate a simple home address?”

“I’m saying—” But I stopped myself mid-sentence. I
did
want to find out where Graeme lived. I wanted to visit his house. I wanted to know more about him, to prove to Haylee—to myself—that he was the man for me. I pushed myself up from the couch’s deep, comfortable cushions. “I’m saying,” I repeated, “that going to Graeme’s house is an excellent idea. Besides, I still have his jacket. From that night at the Kennedy Center.”

“It’s only polite to return things that don’t belong to you,” Haylee justified for me.

“Only polite,” I agreed.

I don’t know why tracking Graeme down suddenly seemed like such a good idea. Maybe I was trying to impress Haylee. Maybe I was trying to convince myself—reassure myself that Graeme and I
did
have something special going on, something real. Maybe I was trying to exorcise the Insufficient Bad-boy once and for all.

Or maybe I was just desperate to get out of my “quaint” little cottage, with my boring plate of healthy vegetables, and my undrinkable pitcher of sugary rum and soda.

Before I knew it, I had fired up my computer and completed a quick Google search or three. Then, Haylee and I were in her Mini Cooper, driving to the Virginia suburbs, following directions from MapQuest. We were pulling up in front of a brick colonial, staring at its lush green lawn, its welcoming porch light, its stone walkway and late-blooming marigolds and lowerless clumps of day lilies.

Marigolds, I thought automatically, with an attention to detail that would no doubt thrill David Montrose. Useful for healing wounds and resolving stomach ailments. And for brewing into an aphrodisiac tea. And day lilies, I thought frantically, mentally steering away from aphrodisiacs. Good for treating wounds and burns and snake bites. And nervousness.

Not that there was anything to be nervous about. Nothing at all.

“Wait!” I cried, reaching out to touch Haylee’s arm as she pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

She braked to a stop, then looked at me questioningly.

“Drive around the block!”

She smirked, but she obliged me. And then she complied with my request to park four houses away, so that we could casually walk past Graeme’s front door, trying to catch a glimpse through his gauze-curtained windows. (No luck—the sheers were just heavy enough to keep us from seeing anything useful.) And she kept me company as we strolled down the block, trying to snag more of a view from the side of the house. (Still no luck—not enough space between buildings.) His backyard. (Yet more no luck—ditto.)

I thought about cajoling her into walking around the block, trying to count off the lots, to figure out which house backed on to Graeme’s, which backyard would be even with his. Before I could even try, though, Haylee shook her head and walked up the stone path to the front door.

Just like that. Brazen. Confident. Like she owned the place.

She ignored my chittering excuses, waiting only long enough for me to fold Graeme’s jacket over my arm and come stand beside her on the marble flagstone. Then, she raised the brass knocker (shaped like a perching gargoyle), and let it strike—once, twice, three times.

My throat went as dry as Neko’s so-called wit. My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that my entire body throbbed. I tried to remember why I had let Haylee drive me here, what I had thought to gain by hunting down Graeme in his home. His private home. His personal space. On his first night back in the country for nearly two weeks.

“This was a really bad idea,” I whispered to Haylee.

She smiled at me, calm as the cloudless sky above us. “I think you’ll be surprised.”

Before I could swear off surprises, before I could vow to live a boring life forever, a life of humdrum, stultifying ordinariness, the dead bolt whispered back. The doorknob turned. For the first time since our little field trip began, I thought to push my hair out of my face, and I wondered what had possessed me to leave home without even the quickest foray into my stash of makeup.

“What—” Graeme’s eyes fell on Haylee, and he looked surprised, shocked at this stranger standing on his front porch. She inclined her head toward me, and his gaze automatically followed. “Jane!” He glanced back and forth between us, rapidly processing what had to be an astonishing sight. His killer smile quickly banished any look of consternation. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?”

His accent seemed thicker in the evening air, and I felt my knees go trembly all over again. “Welcome home!” I said, realizing that both of them were waiting for me to say something. To
do
something. “Haylee and I were out, um, having dinner. We thought that we would just stop by and say hello. And I wanted to return your jacket. And welcome you back to town.” Well, that sounded idiotic, even to me. To compensate, I thrust his coat toward him. “Here!” He took the garment reflexively.

“I didn’t realize you had my address,” he said. But he smiled when he said it. I had to hold on to the fact that he smiled.

“I’m a librarian,” I said.

“How could I forget?” He extended a hand to Haylee. “Graeme Henderson,” he said.

“Haylee James.” She shook with the firm grasp of a business executive. “Pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” He looked back at me before I could even think about being jealous, before I could contemplate what my hair would look like if it were cut as short and spiky as Haylee’s. Or how my eyebrows would appear, if I plucked them so carefully. Or how my cheekbones might be coaxed out, with just the right combination of blush and toner.

“Where are my manners?” Graeme asked rhetorically. “Won’t you come in?”

“We don’t want to be any trouble,” I said. But Haylee was already smiling her cool smile and striding into the foyer. It would have been rude not to follow her. Downright uncivilized.

“No,” Graeme said. “No trouble. No trouble at all.” He closed the door after us and gestured toward the living room. “I just finished unpacking upstairs. I was going to catch up on some work.” He nodded in the general direction of an oversize rolltop desk. Spreadsheets drifted across the horizontal surface, an adding machine anchoring the paper storm. “‘Day, night, hour, tide, time, work,’” Graeme quoted, crossing the room to pull down the rolltop and hide away his labor.

“‘Play!’” I said, finishing off the quotation. I couldn’t help but flash a triumphant smile toward Haylee. “It’s a line from
Romeo and Juliet,
” I explained.

“I see,” she said. Her cool voice dampened a little of my enthusiasm. I caught her sideways glance toward Graeme, and I knew that she was measuring his blond good looks. I stood a little straighter.

Graeme, apparently oblivious to the inspection, waved us toward the couch. “Please. Have a seat. I’ll just be a moment.”

And he was good as his word. Haylee perched on one of the oversize armchairs, while I (exercising girlfriend’s prerogative) actually sat on the couch. She and I managed to chat about the coffee-table book—
Washington D.C., Then and Now
—and she was just urging me to look up the Peabridge, to see if there were any photographs of my home, when Graeme returned with a serving tray.

“I trust you both drink red wine?” We nodded, and he made a little show of pulling the cork and pouring the pinot noir. He passed around a small plate of chocolates, and I selected a perfect truffle, pleased beyond all reason that my boyfriend—yes, I was feeling confident enough now to think the word—my
boyfriend
had such sophisticated treats ready and waiting for random visitors.

Graeme settled back onto the couch beside me, looking utterly comfortable and relaxed, as if madwomen showed up, unannounced, more evenings than not. “Sometimes,” he said, “it’s best to go with the simple pleasures in life.”

I thought of my disastrous attempt at cocktails and nodded agreement.

“So, Haylee,” he said, turning his attention to my friend. “I’m afraid I don’t recall Jane telling me what you do.”

He was right, of course. I hadn’t mentioned her to Graeme, because I hadn’t realized she was going to be important in my life. Going to be my strongest link to the Coven. Going to be my new best friend (at least until I kept my promise to Gran and ironed things out with Melissa.)

Haylee sipped from her wine before she answered. “I’m an interior designer,” she said.

Graeme glanced around, as if seeing his own living room for the first time. “I’m embarrassed, then, to think of what you’d say about this place.”

She laughed. “It’s actually quite well done. Strong. Masculine. Except for that lamp, there.” She pointed toward a rather delicate stained glass lamp sitting on a table in the corner. “It doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the place.”

What an eye, I thought. I wondered what impression I’d made, with the eclectic collection in my cottage.

Graeme scowled at the lamp. “That thing. I’m keeping it for a friend.”

“Ah. The hazards of friendship.” Haylee raised her glass, as if she were toasting someone, or something. Before I could decide whether I should join in the toast (possibly implying that Graeme had bad taste in friends) or stay silent (letting Haylee take an odd, controlling hand in our conversation), my witchy new best friend changed the topic herself. “Your accent,” she said to Graeme. “I can’t quite place it. North of London, isn’t it?”

Graeme nodded. “Cambridge. You’ve got a good ear.” I wondered if I would ever be able to pick apart British accents so accurately.

And that led us into a discussion of travel. They were both much more worldly than I. I managed, though, to parlay my one trip to London into an entertaining tale about being lost in airports and missing not one, not two, but three different planes.

Hearing Graeme speak wistfully of home, I began to plot another trip to England. Perhaps I’d accompany him on his next business trip. We could go to Stratford, see William Shakespeare’s birthplace for ourselves. Wander through towns that still had thatched roofs and Tudor half-timbering. Sit in a pub and eat steak-and-kidney pie.

Well, steak pie, anyway. I would pick out the kidneys.

All of a sudden, a clock chimed twelve from somewhere deep inside the house. I hadn’t heard it earlier, but the deep, steady toll of the hour immediately made me think of Teresa Alison Sidney and the safehold, somewhere farther out in the Virginia suburbs. I darted a glance at Haylee, but she seemed not to make the same connection.

In fact, she seemed not to make any connection at all. She was stifling a yawn against the back of her teeth—a move made obvious by her thin, elegant bone structure. “I’m sorry,” she said, when she realized both Graeme and I were staring at her. “I must be more tired than I thought.”

I started to jump up. “
I’m
sorry! I’m so inconsiderate! And Graeme, you must be exhausted, after your trip!”

I wasn’t quite sure how the night had gotten away from me, except that I was enjoying being with Graeme—with Graeme
and
Haylee—so much. I’d been mesmerized by the conversation—by Haylee’s cool wit and by Graeme’s charming…Charming everything.

Haylee shrugged. “I should drive you home and then get back out here.”

“Out here?” I asked.

“I live in Arlington, too.”

I was mortified. Here, it was a work night, and I would have Haylee ferrying me around for another hour, after I’d already kept all of us up too late. “Graeme,” I said. “Let me just call a cab. Do you have a phone book?”

“We can do better than
that.
” Again, that perfect Graeme smile. It made me shiver at the same time that it melted something deep inside me. “Why don’t I give you a quick ride home?”

“I—” I couldn’t even think of a lie. I wanted him to drive me home. I wanted him to do more than that.

Haylee must have sensed the meaning behind my hesitation. “Well,” she said, giving in almost too quickly. “If you truly don’t mind…”

Graeme glanced at me and closed his hand over mine. “I truly don’t mind.” He excused himself to get his car keys and Haylee took advantage of his absence to flash me a wicked grin. “You look
smitten,
” she said.

“I am,” I confessed.

Graeme returned and made short work of turning out a couple of lights. He unlocked the front door and ushered us back into the brisk autumn night. My waist tingled where his fingertips brushed against me.

“Good night,” Haylee said at the curb. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She winked and got inside her car.

We settled into Graeme’s Audi, and I automatically pulled the seat belt across my chest. He turned the key and the motor purred to life. I leaned back against the headrest, taking a deep breath against a sudden surge of expectation.

No business meetings. No cell phones. No strange, last-minute interruptions.

Even with my eyes closed, I could hear the grin in Graeme’s voice. “And what do you think she meant by that?”

“I have no idea,” I said, managing a tone of perfect innocence.

His laugh was a throaty growl. I leaned forward, then, eager to be home. Eager to be parking in front of the Peabridge. Walking down the garden path. Fumbling for my house keys.

And then we were there.

I reached for the light switch. “We don’t need the light,” Graham whispered, centered in a pool of moonlight in my living room. His lips were already hot against my throat.

And he was right. We didn’t.

W
hen I woke, I lay in bed with my eyes closed, thinking that I was suspended in a magical sort of movie reality. Early-morning sunshine crept into my bedroom window, turning my eyelids crimson and warming my face like a honey bath. Every inch of my skin was aware of my cotton sheets; every pore seemed awakened and energized, freed from the tangle of my usual nightgown.

I remembered to listen for Graeme breathing beside me, but I could not hear him. Fighting a sickening swoop in my belly, I contrived to roll over, taking the top sheet with me. I took a deep breath to steady myself, and then I popped open my eyes.

Gone.

One quick glance confirmed that my clothes were strewn—strewn!—about the bedroom. So, I hadn’t imagined that part of the previous evening’s entertainment. But my dream date, my seductive Brit (who had kept up a steady purr of accented endearments through a level of activity that rapidly made me forget the entire English language) had disappeared.

I swore and kicked off the sheets.

I slashed my arms into the sleeves of my robe, cursing as the belt tangled around my waist. I was an idiot. A stupid, gullible idiot. Why had I let Graeme into the house? Why had I believed him when he whispered sweet nothings in my ear? Er, against the hollow of my throat? Okay, against every erogenous zone ever identified in any sex manual anywhere?

I blushed. I couldn’t even blame alcohol. My one glass of pinot noir had worn off well before Graeme’s clock struck midnight.

No. I had deluded myself. Once again. I had let myself believe that Graeme was the one, that he was the solution, the salve. I was such an idiot. Swearing at myself, I yanked open my bedroom door.

And my heart nearly stopped beating.

The door to the basement was open.

Surely, I would have heard Neko come home, drunk as he must have been on Mexican (or Colombian, or Argentinian) beer? He wouldn’t have changed his plans to stay over at Jacques’s place, anyway—not unless something had gone seriously wrong with the Frenchman.

“Neko?” I called downstairs, hating the tremulous note in my voice.

“Good morning.”

Graeme. Answering immediately. Cheerfully.

Relief slammed into me so hard that I needed to gripc the door frame to keep from falling. “Good morning!” I cried, and then I hurtled down the steps.

He had pulled on the khakis he’d worn the night before, and his white cotton shirt was wrinkled. He looked adorably sloppy with the tails untucked, like an incorrigible little boy who’d had enough of fancy family affairs. His hair was rumpled as well, and—truth be told—I could make out a few lines of fatigue around his eyes.

Well, I wasn’t at my freshest, either. It wasn’t like either one of us had slept a great deal the night before. It took time to get used to another body in bed, to grow accustomed to sighs and snores and shiftings on a mattress. Not that I ever snored. Not me.

“Mmm,” Graeme murmured, finally taking a step back. “I couldn’t sleep any longer—jet lag—so I came down here.”

“There really isn’t much to see,” I said. “That is, if you aren’t a witch.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He reached around me to pick up the book he’d been reading. I could just make out the flowery script stamped in gold on the worn leather cover.
Love Spells That Work.
What had the boys been thinking when they left
that
around? “You’ve certainly cast a spell on me, Jane Madison.”

I blushed, and I let him fold me back into his arms. Into his arms, and then on to the couch. He circled his fingers around my wrists, keeping me from undoing the buttons that marched down the long front of his shirt, his warm lips distracting me with memories from the night before.

I twisted on the couch to keep from slipping to the floor, and that’s when I saw it.

On the book stand. In the center of the room.

A jasper necklace, entwined with sprigs of fading greenery.

“Stop!” I pushed Graeme off me with a vehemence that must have stunned him. He staggered to his feet, but I was already crossing the room, scarcely remembering to tug my robe back into place. My voice shook as I asked, “Did you put this here?”

Eyes widening, he glanced from the stone beads to my face. “What?”

“The necklace! The jasper! Did you put it there?”

“Why would I—? Jane, what’s wrong?”

But it wasn’t just the jasper. It wasn’t just the threat of an anti-witchcraft necklace, or the herbs, which I could now identify as thyme and oregano, twined about the stone beads.

It was the book.

Or, more precisely, the
missing
book. My handbook on crystals was gone.

I wasted a moment looking for it, even though I was certain it had been on the stand just the night before. I had seen it beside Neko’s mint concoction; I had specifically made sure that its parchment pages were safe from the cosmetic compound the boys had made.

“Did you move a book from here?”

Graeme was staring at me as if I had gone mad. “A book?”

“A leather-bound book. It was right here. On the stand. Where the necklace is now.”

“The only book I touched was the love spell one. It was over there on the couch, draped over the arm. I was just going to close it, to protect the spine, and I started reading a few pages. But I didn’t touch anything else. I
wouldn’t
touch anything else.” He reached out, closed his hands around my upper arms. “What, Jane? What is it?”

I barely whispered. “Someone broke in here. It must have been last night. After Haylee and I left to visit you. Someone broke in here and stole a book on crystals. And left…that.” I pointed toward the necklace.

He followed my trembling finger and then turned me around so that I couldn’t stare at the mottled blood-red stones. “What is it?” he asked urgently. “What does it mean?”

It meant that I was no longer safe in my own home. It meant that David had been right, that the risk was increasing as we got closer to Samhain. It meant that someone was working, harder than ever, to keep me from succeeding at setting the Coven’s centerstone.

“It means that I have to call my warder.”

“Your warder?” He sounded so completely confused that I was catapulted back to mundane reality. I realized that I must sound like a madwoman. Who worried about finding an unexpected necklace, or losing one little book? Who jumped to life-and-death conclusions on a morning when she should be stretching sex-sore muscles and contemplating breakfast in bed?

“I’m sorry, Graeme. This has to do with the Coven. With the witches I’ve told you about. Someone has broken in here and left that
thing.
It’s a threat. A sign to witches that they aren’t welcome. That they might come to harm.”

“Do you…” He swallowed hard, then looked at me without flinching. “Do you want me to do something with it? Throw it away? Take it to the police?”

I shook my head. “The police would laugh you out of the station.” I shivered, feeling sick in the pit of my stomach.

“Jane,” Graeme said, and I felt the tiny hairs on his knuckles as he brushed the back of his hand against my cheek.

“It’s all right,” I said, but I was pretty sure I was trying to convince myself. Not Graeme. “Or, it will be. I need to get my warder here, now, though.” I caught Graeme’s hand in mine. “And I don’t want him to see you. Not this morning. Not right now.”

Graeme shook his head. “I want to help you.”

“The biggest help is leaving. Don’t make me explain to him why you’re here.”

His eyes widened. “Does your…warder keep you from seeing other men?”

I shook my head—a terse motion. An angry one. But I didn’t even know who I was angry with. “No. It’s not like that. But David thinks that I’ve made…poor choices before. I don’t want to waste time explaining us, when we should focus on finding my book.”

Graeme still looked uncertain, but he nodded, reaching out to pull me close to his chest. His arms felt like a solid wall around me. I longed to lean against him—to collapse against him—for a long, long time. His fingers strayed to the sash at my waist, and I finally had to close my hands over his. “Graeme…”

He pulled back, his rakish grin nearly stopping my heart. “Call me. Let me know what happens.”

“You know I will.”

And he was gone. Up the stairs. Out the door. Gone.

I knew what I had to do. I’d done it once before, in a panic. Now, I measured out my power, poured it into a single steady stream of magic.
Neko,
I thought, broadcasting my power like a radio beacon.
Neko. I need you. Home. Now.
And for good measure, I included David in my transmission. After all, he’d sense the power I was spending. Better to invite him than have him show up unannounced.

Not that I’d done anything wrong. This time.

I closed my eyes, the better to concentrate. “Neko!”

“No need to shout.” He stood in front of me, surveying the basement with the wariness of a hunter. Without his silly Mexican accessories, his leather pants and silk shirt seemed sleek, dangerous. His eyes darted to the corners of the room, and his nose twitched warily. I couldn’t help but glance down at my robe, wondering just how much Neko could sense about my escapades the night before. If he glanced at the clothes thrown around my bedroom, he’d conclude that Nate Poindexter was one smooth operator.

I shivered and jerked my sash tighter. Neko was my familiar, not my jailer.

He found the necklace immediately. Stalking around the book stand, he eyed the jewelry from every angle, his nostrils twitching as he recognized the thyme and oregano. He reached out one hand, a frown marring his smooth features, and he started to breathe through his mouth—as if he could sense more that way. As if the very air in the room could tell him what had happened. Who had been here, invading our privacy. Our safety. Our home.

“What do you sense?” David’s voice was quiet, but I could hear the urgency behind his question. I wasted a moment, wondering when I had become so accustomed to his presence that I did not flinch at his silent arrival.

Neko cast his head to one side. “Nothing particular.”

“What does that mean?” prodded my warder.

“I can feel
you,
” Neko said, shoulders twitching in annoyance. “And Jane of course. And Jacques and me.”

Jacques! Could he be the source of the eerie jasper warnings? That was absurd, though. He’d never shown the slightest interest in anything magical, and he’d certainly had ample opportunity, with all the time he spent at the cottage. He was interested in Neko’s body and—just possibly—my familiar’s mind (or at least his fashion sense.) But Jacques had nothing to do with the threat in my basement.

“And?” David prompted.

“And…the Coven.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but I ultimately needed to prod. “The Coven?”

“I can sense them here.” He moved his hand in the air above the necklace.

“All of them? Like they held a meeting here?” I could not picture all of those Junior League women crowded into my basement. Their warders would have needed to wait upstairs, maybe in my bedroom. Their familiars would have been painfully obvious, lurking in the shadows of my too-small basement room. They would all have been disappointed in the caliber of my refreshments, too, unless a pitcher of watered-down rum and a few dried-out vegetables on a platter were their idea of slumming fun.

“Of course not,” Neko snorted, and my fantasy image disappeared. “But there’s a…dusting. Like talcum powder, settled from the air.”

“How many were here?” David asked, his eyes darting around the room, as if he expected to find malefactors still lurking in the corners.

“One?” Neko said, but he made the statement a question.

“When?” David said.

“I can’t tell.” Neko twitched and shook his head in exasperation. “My mind knows that the jasper wasn’t here when I left last night. But I can’t sense how it actually got here. Something is blocking me.”

I asked, “Could someone have made it materialize here? Without actually coming into the basement? And then have stolen my book?”

David’s eyes narrowed. “It’s possible, but that would take a tremendous energy drain. Most witches don’t have anywhere near that level of skill, working with something as antithetical to their powers as jasper.”

“But Teresa Alison Sidney—” I started to argue.

“Oh, Teresa Alison Sidney could do it.” David nodded slowly. “She might be the only witch on the Eastern Seaboard who could.”

I rubbed my arms with cold hands, my belly turning queasily at the notion that the Coven Mother herself might be stalking me. “But why would she?” I asked, not caring that my voice was tiny. “Why would she try to frighten me like this?”

David glanced at me and seemed to awaken from his own spell. Squaring his shoulders, he crossed the room and settled a handkerchief over the necklace and herbs. The oily discomfort in my gut eased as soon as they were out of sight, even though I knew that they were still present in the room. “That’s the thing,” David said. “I don’t think that she is. There’s no reason for her to intimidate you.”

“But who…” I trailed off, realizing that if Teresa Alison Sidney hadn’t made the jasper materialize, then someone actually
had
broken into my cottage.

“Were you home last night?” David asked.

I braced myself for his disapproval. “No.”

Threading an even note of steel through his words, David said, “Where did you go?”

“Virginia,” I hedged.

“To the Coven?” David’s tone was disbelieving. “By yourself?”

“There are lots of other places in Virginia,” I said. “Who says we had to go to the Coven?”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

My lips clamped shut. I felt like a teenager, caught sneaking out after curfew. Neko glanced between us and then said, “Haylee.” He flashed me an apologetic smile, shrugging as if to say that his reply was all for the best.

“Haylee James!” David’s surprise was explosive. And a tiny part of my brain was relieved that he was so upset about Haylee. I just might get away without needing to admit that I had brought a man home after my excursion to the wilds of Virginia. After all, David was my warder, not my father. He had no reason to police my romantic liaisons.