“Harriet,” Mother said, “talk of money is unseemly.”
Harriet said nothing, but she turned a meaningful look at Beatrice. Beatrice looked at the carriage curtains and stayed silent. Harriet was right to worry. But she’d fulfilled Nadi’s wishes. She would get the grimoire back in time.
The carriage leaned in its springs as the driver took the sedan around a corner. In the distance, the chapterhouse clock tolled midnight.
Nadi faded from her awareness, slipped out from under her skin to return to the ethereal realm. Beatrice felt strangely empty, feeling for Nadi’s presence as if it were a lost tooth.
Beside her, Harriet shivered.
“Regardless. It was time to go home,” Beatrice said.
“How many cards did you give out?” Harriet twisted in her seat and squirreled her hand into the pocket-slit on Beatrice’s gown. “You stole cake napkins?”
“I couldn’t find anywhere to put them.”
Harriet yanked her hand from Beatrice’s pocket and pulled out a card case, inspecting the small stack of address cards nestled inside. “Beatrice! Did you give out a single card?”
“I did,” Beatrice said. “I gave out two.”
“Only two?”
“Harriet, please don’t shout so,” Mother said. “To whom did you give your cards, Beatrice?”
“To Ianthe Lavan and his sister.”
Mother and sister went dead silent. The carriage wheels crunched and rattled, their vibrations jostling the carriage out of tempo with the horses’ clipped two-beat gait. Harriet made a strangled squeak and clapped her hands to her cheeks.
“Ianthe Lavan?” Mother asked. “His prospects are excellent.”
“Ianthe Lavan? He’s perfect. Beatrice! How could you?” Harriet flicked her wrist and smacked Beatrice’s knee with the closed vanes of her fan. “You can’t leave the Spring Assembly Dance having given out only one card to a man like Ianthe Lavan! It makes your intentions far too plain! You need him to compete against several suitors for your attention. You can’t just lay your heart at his feet and hope he chooses you.”
Beatrice snatched the fan out of Harriet’s hand. “That’s enough. I am tired of you parroting out the plots of all your lace-ruffle novels as if they paint a real picture of bargaining season. I am not a prize for a raft of gentlemen contesting among themselves to win me, and I will not manipulate anyone into competing for my hand.”
“That’s exactly what you need to do, though,” Harriet huffed. “If you think yours is the only card he claimed, you are in for a long fall.”
Beatrice flinched at the sting. “I never made that assumption. In fact, I know it was not.”
“Ianthe Lavan is heir to a shipping fortune so vast we can’t conceive of it. He wears the rose sword of the first mystery of the chapterhouse. He’s an expert horseman, a superb dancer, an able sword-fighter, the figure of fashion—he is miles above a banker’s family.” Harriet’s eyebrows pushed worried lines across her forehead. She held Beatrice’s arm, shaking it as if it would make her words carry more weight. “His family has more connections than a spiderweb. Their wishes become laws. He claims dukes and princes for friends, speaks four languages—Mother. She’ll never land him if she doesn’t do this properly, don’t you see?”
“Leave Beatrice be,” Mother said. “I’m sure she will do very well, even without the wisdom of your bargaining season knowledge. She is so strong in the power, gentlemen will want her even without playing hunt and chase with multiple suitors.”
“But it’s the best way,” Harriet insisted. “Multiple suitors increase Beatrice’s appeal. But now she’ll look like she set her sights too high, and everyone loves a comeuppance.”
“Harriet,” Mother said, and her even tone had lost its patience. “I did not raise you to be the kind of girl who indulges in theatrical despair at the slightest disturbance. Did I?”
“No, Mother. But I never had a chance to meet any of the younger set. It’s not just Beatrice’s chances that were diminished by leaving early. I need to make friends too—and so we should go back.”
“We can’t go back,” Beatrice said. “I told you, I feel ill.”
But she wanted to be back on that terrace. She wanted to kiss him again—wanted it so profoundly it frightened her. No, no. Let him call on Danton’s awful sister, the one with the overly busy gown. She needed to keep her distance.
“We are already home,” Mother said, and just at that moment, the carriage rolled to a stop before their door.
Harriet gazed at Beatrice, worry etched so deeply on her brow that Beatrice wanted to soothe her. A girl Harriet’s age shouldn’t have such worries. And she had to make sure that her actions didn’t bar Harriet from the debut she wanted when she was of age. When Father saw the benefit of commanding a greater spirit’s abilities and knowledge to enhance his business ventures, he would agree to let her go quietly into spinsterhood while they worked together. Thornback sorceresses were rare and considered a bit tragic, but if she were too valuable to Father, he’d never make her marry.
But for now, she had to continue with the plan—social success, romantic failure.
Beatrice twisted to touch Harriet’s arm. “The next major event is the cherry blossom ride. Perhaps someone will buy my lunch basket. I’ll even let you pick my riding habit, and I will follow all your advice. It’s not too late, I swear.”
“The violet,” Harriet said. “It’s your best. But if we don’t get out there and meet people, no one will bid on your basket at the charity picnic.”
“Done,” Beatrice said. “We’ll go out and meet people, I promise.”
Beatrice climbed out of the carriage. She took a deep breath of salt air and paused to make out the dark spots on the wide stone stairs. Scattered across the steps were the tiny blue-violet heads of springtime’s kiss, dark and fragrant in the lamplight from their carriage. Beatrice’s heart went still—and then she gasped as Harriet landed on the sidewalk next to her and shrieked, grabbing Beatrice around the waist and jumping for joy.
“He came! He came! He must have flown to get here in time, but you have a suitor!”
“Stop jostling me,” Beatrice said, but Harriet was already picking up each blossom, gathering them in one hand. “Maybe it wasn’t Ianthe.”
“You only gave out one card to a gentleman. Who else could you have met who would leave springtime’s kiss on your step?”
Beatrice’s face tingled. “No one, I suppose.”
“I don’t know how you did it, but you’re a success. You need to press these in a book. Oh, this is so exciting! You have to wear your best day gown tomorrow, and practice your chamber music, and—”
Ianthe. It had to be him—he had raced from the assembly hall to scatter hastily picked flowers across her step, a gesture that signaled his particular interest. What would Ysbeta have said to that detour? She touched her lips and the memory of that kiss shivered through her, the sensation as powerful as the magic she cast in secret.
Beatrice turned to her mother, who watched her with a proud smile, the warding collar glistening in the lamplight. Beatrice tried to smile back, but she couldn’t look away.