Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(13)

“Enter,” came the master’s voice.

McKenna’s heart pounded so hard that he felt light-headed. Making his face expressionless, he entered the room and waited just inside the door. The room was stark and simple, paneled in gleaming cherrywood and lined on one side with long, rectangular, stained-glass windows. It was furnished sparsely, with bookshelves, hard-seated chairs, and a large desk where Lord Westcliff sat.

Obeying the earl’s brief gesture, McKenna ventured into the room and stopped before the desk. “My lord,” he said humbly, waiting for the ax to fall.

The earl regarded him with a narrow-eyed stare. “I’ve been considering what is to be done with you.”

“Sir?” McKenna questioned, his stomach dropping with sickening abruptness. He glanced into Westcliff’s hard eyes and then looked away instinctively. No servant ever dared to hold the master’s gaze. It was an untenable sign of insolence.

“Your service is no longer required at Stony Cross Park.” The earl’s voice was a quiet lash of sound. “You will be dismissed forthwith. I have undertaken to secure another situation for you.”

McKenna nodded dumbly.

“I am acquainted with a shipbuilder in Bristol,” Westcliff continued, “a Mr. Ilbery, who has condescended to hire you as an apprentice. I know him to be an honorable man, and I expect that he will be a fair, if demanding, taskmaster…”

Westcliff said something else, but McKenna only half heard him. Bristol…he knew nothing about it, save that it was a major trading port, and that it was hilly and rich with coal and metal. At least it was not too far away—it was in a neighboring county—

“You will have no opportunity to return to Stony Cross,” the earl said, recapturing his attention. “You are no longer welcome here, for reasons that I have no wish to discuss. And if you do attempt to return, you will regret it bitterly.”

McKenna understood what he was being told. He had never felt so much at someone else’s mercy. It was a feeling that a servant should be well accustomed to, but for the first time in his life, he resented it. He tried to swallow back the seething hostility, but it remained sharp and stinging in the back of his throat. Aline…

“I’ve arranged for you to be transported tonight,” Westcliff said coolly. “The Farnham family is conveying goods to be sold at Bristol market. They will allow you to ride in the back of their cart. Collect your belongings at once, and take them to the Farnhams’ home in the village, from whence you will depart.” Reaching into his desk drawer, he extracted a coin and flicked it to McKenna, who caught it reflexively. It was a crown, the equivalent of five shillings.

“Your month’s pay, though you are a few days short of the full four weeks,” Westcliff commented. “Never let it be said that I am ungenerous.”

“No, my lord,” McKenna half whispered. This coin, along with the meager hoard of savings in his room, would amount to approximately two pounds. He would have to make it last, since his apprenticeship would probably begin as unpaid labor.

“You may leave now. You will leave your livery behind, as you have no further need of it.” The earl turned his attention to some papers on his desk, ignoring McKenna completely.

“Yes, my lord.” McKenna’s mind was a welter of confusion as he left the study. Why had the earl not asked any questions, why had he not demanded to know precisely how far their short-lived affair had gone? Perhaps the earl had not wanted to know. Perhaps Westcliff was assuming the worst, that Aline had indeed taken McKenna as her lover. Would Aline be punished for it?

He would not be here to find out. He would not be able to protect or comfort her…he was being removed from her life with surgical precision. But he was damned if he wouldn’t see her again. The stupor faded, and suddenly his breath seemed to burn in his throat and chest, as if he had inhaled lungfuls of fire.

Aline nearly doubled over with agony as she heard the sounds she had been expecting…the quiet scrape of McKenna climbing up to her balcony. Her stomach roiled, and she clenched her fist against her abdomen. She knew what she had to do. And she knew that even without her father’s manipulations, her involvement in McKenna’s life could only have resulted in unhappiness for them both. McKenna would be better off to make a new start, unfettered by anything or anyone from his past. He would find someone else, someone who was at liberty to love him as she would never be. And no doubt many female hearts would be offered to a man like him.

Aline only wished that there was another way to set him free—a way that wouldn’t cause them both so much pain.

She saw McKenna on her balcony, a big shadow behind the web of the lace curtain. The door had been left slightly open…he nudged it with his foot, but as always, he did not dare to cross the threshold. Carefully Aline lit a candle by her bedside, and watched as her own reflection flickered to life in the panes of glass, superimposed on McKenna’s dark form before the door opened further and the image slid away.

Aline sat on the corner of the bed nearest the balcony, not trusting herself to come any closer to him. “You talked with the earl,” she said without inflection, as a trickle of sweat eased down her tense back.

McKenna was very still, reading the stiffness of her posture, the way she withheld herself from him. She should have already been in his arms by now. “He told me—”