Keeper of Enchanted Rooms(43)

Mr. Fernsby shrugged. “He made a very good soup for dinner. He’s been in the States three months and wasn’t able to find work. I thought I’d give him a chance.”

Hulda softened. “I suppose that’s kind of you, Mr. Fernsby. We’ll have to see to it that he has what he needs. And I will interview him in the morning.”

Mr. Fernsby shrugged. “Do as you wish.”

Miss Taylor quietly excused herself and started up the stairs. The house didn’t challenge her.

Opening her bag, Hulda said, “I have a list of lighthouse workers for the bay, which might line up with previous owners and help us close in on an estimated build date.”

“As do I. And I copied as many genealogical charts as I could for potential matches.”

Hulda paused. “Oh. That’s good.” It had always been magical institutions that historically valued genealogy, but their research was useful for local government as well. “We can evaluate them in the morning. Unless you’d like to simply tell us who you are?” She directed the question to the ceiling.

The house didn’t respond. Perhaps it was busy haunting Mr. Babineaux.

Glancing over his shoulder, Mr. Fernsby stepped within whispering distance. “Are you all right? After that scare in Portsmouth?”

Hulda drew into herself. “Perfectly fine, Mr. Fernsby. I realized later that it could not possibly have been him—”

“Been who?”

She ruminated for a moment. “Mr. Silas Hogwood. He was my first client after I joined BIKER, and I ended up hiring on to his staff.” She stepped around him, to the stairs. Best to see exactly how the house had rearranged her things. “But it’s behind me now.”

“May I ask,” he added with a surprising hesitance, “what he was convicted of?”

Hulda’s hand squeezed the railing. No harm in answering, is there? “Misuse of magic, to put it simply. He was a very charismatic and diabolical man. His greed for power led him to do unspeakable things.”

Twisted bodies, dried out and folded like accordions. A wicked gleam in his eye. Hulda shook the images away.

When Mr. Fernsby didn’t respond, Hulda climbed her way up the stairs. She was nearly to the top when he called up to her. “Mrs. Larkin.”

She turned around. He’d come to the bottom of the steps. His usual mirth was absent from his face, rendering it long and stern.

“You’re safe here. I hope you know that,” he offered.

The reassurance pricked her chest. She nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Fernsby.”

She walked through the hall, the wizard in residence just missing her when he—or she—made the paint start falling in flashes of purple and yellow. She ducked into her room. It wasn’t particularly shrunken; Mr. Babineaux’s space had to be relatively small. Did he have a bed, or a pallet on the floor? She’d have to catalog the change in the morning.

Setting her bag on the bed, Hulda shook out her arms, forcing newly tense muscles to ease. She crossed to the small oval mirror on the wall, provided by herself, and peered into it. Took off her glasses, cleaned them on her skirt, and put them back on. Sleep on it, she reminded herself, and turned away, plucking hair pins from her scalp. She’d stopped at a street vendor before heading back into the Narragansett, but even then her appetite had been wanting. She needed some rest to clear her head.

With the last pin gone, Hulda shook out her hair, which fell a hand’s length below her shoulders—an adequate length for the styles that were currently in fashion. Hulda didn’t care much for fashion, but she did want to be presentable at all times, so she had to keep up with it to a degree. The mess was a third straight, a third wavy, and a third curly, from how it had been tucked and pressed. She pulled it back into a braid and crossed to the window, peering out. She couldn’t see much. Without city lights, the island got dark as pitch once the sun settled down, the bay around it illuminated only by lighthouses, none of which she could see out her window. A few streaks of dying plum twilight highlighted a passing swallow and a distant elm.

You’re safe here. Mr. Fernsby’s voice echoed in her thoughts. And she was, wasn’t she? Not even her family knew she was out in the middle of nowhere off the coast of Rhode Island; she hadn’t written to them yet. Something she should do . . . but perhaps without specifics, until she worked through this morning’s scare. The fewer people who could be compelled to provide that information, the better. Besides, there was no need to worry them. There were two men in the house now, as well, one of them more aware than he let on, one of them large enough to join the White House militia. Then again, the right spells could get around size and smarts.

Why would I not concern myself with you?

A smile tempted her. A prick stung her heart.

And almost immediately, mortification overwhelmed her.

“Oh no,” she muttered, stepping away from the window. Shaking out her hands. “No, Hulda, we are not doing this again.”

It was just a little spark, nothing important. But sparks led to embers led to flames, so it had to be snuffed now, before her heart again crumbled to ash.

Not only was it inappropriate to indulge in any sort of pining over a client, but Hulda . . . Hulda wasn’t made for pining. Not mutual pining, at least. Never in all her thirty-four years had any man, of any station or background, looked at her with any amount of sweetness. And when she got moon eyed over one or the other, it always ended in embarrassment, or heartbreak, or both. She had gotten rather numb to it after all this time, but a silly part of her still squeezed through now and then, and she loathed it more than anything else, including socks by the kitchen sink. A perk of being a consultant for BIKER rather than contracted staff—she usually didn’t stay around long enough to form any significant attachment.