Courting Magic (Kat, Incorrigible #4)(31)

Lucy paused, her eyes flicking from me to my attacker.

“Quickly!” said Mrs. Montrose, and twisted the knife again. This time, I didn’t try to hold back my gasp.

Alexander made a quick, abortive movement, then stopped. I could hear his harsh breathing.

Lucy reached into her reticule and pulled out the three large stones. They glinted in the golden light, beautiful and flawless.

Mrs. Montrose let out a hungry sound. “George! Take them, quickly!”

“And then what are you going to do?” I asked grumpily. “Kill us all?”

Mrs. Montrose did not reply. Still, her silence felt ominous.

Mr. Packenham limped over to take the stones from Lucy, but he was careful not to meet her gaze. That was the impressive thing about wild magic: although it was almost impossible to control—Lucy was the only person I’d ever heard of who’d managed to keep hold of it entirely—once wild magic was in play, its strength could never be broken by a Guardian. I wished I could have enjoyed the little drama that must have taken place earlier, when he’d discovered just how helpless his latest victim wasn’t.

He wasn’t a complete idiot, though, and he had been trained all his life as a Guardian. His forehead crumpled into a scowl as he studied the so-called diamonds. Then he lifted them to his face and sniffed. “Oh, dash it, Pippa.” He sighed. “They’re fakes!”

“What?” Mrs. Montrose’s dagger didn’t move, but I felt her shift behind me to get a better look. “You can’t judge a diamond in this half-light, you fool.”

“I don’t need to.” He sighed and closed his eyes. Guardian power blasted through the air, far stronger than I would have anticipated from him.

Apparently he had inherited something from his famous father after all.

The diamonds disappeared, replaced by three small hairpins.

“Ahhh!” Mrs. Montrose let out a cry of outrage. The knifepoint slipped fractionally away from my skin.

Alexander seized the opportunity. His power blasted through the air in a tightly focused gale of wind that sent the knife flying out of her hands and across the clearing.

I spun around, pulling up my own power. For a moment, I could see him hesitate as she dived forward and scooped the knife back up. Then he nodded, with a rueful half-smile, and moved away, dropping the magic-working that had lit the clearing.

He trusted me to fight my own battles.

Darkness descended around us, but it didn’t stop me. Within less than a minute, I had Mrs. Montrose’s knife pinned to the ground beneath my left foot. She was muttering rapidly under her breath, casting vicious spells at me as quickly as she could, but I snapped them each as quickly as they appeared with the ease of long practice. All of my own focus was on the magic-working I was building for her in my mind, crafting it step by careful step until…there!

Magic swept her up through the air and pressed her against the prickly hedge, with her hands and feet clamped together and her mouth pressed firmly shut.

Perfect.

Dusting off my hands on my gown, I turned away, leaving the poisonous Mrs. Montrose imprisoned and gagged for good measure. We were finished, but the others weren’t. In the center of the clearing, Alexander and Mr. Packenham were still locked in battle, and I’d been right in my judgment a few minutes ago: Mr. Packenham might be a drunken fool, but he was a drunken fool with serious magical power, and he knew how to use it.

All of his attention was fixed now on Alexander, their magic-workings buffeting against each other in the air between them like rams with their horns locked in combat. He didn’t even twitch as I approached. Clearly, he had already decided who was his most dangerous current opponent in the garden.

I rolled my eyes. “Lucy?” I said. “If you please?”

I couldn’t see her face clearly enough to make out her grin, but I could hear it in her voice. “Why, I’d be delighted,” she said, as if I’d just invited her to dance.

A rock from the ground by her feet rose into the air, aimed itself—and flew. It knocked into the back of Mr. Packenham’s head at exactly the same moment that I threw my own power in support behind Alexander’s and shattered Mr. Packenham’s magic-working entirely.

The rogue Guardian tottered, stumbled, and fell to the ground with a groan. But we weren’t finished after all. As Mr. Packenham’s head hit the grass, the Marquess of Lanham appeared at the gap in the hedge…

…Followed by at least half of the guests from the ballroom.





CHAPTER TWELVE


“Lucy!” the Marquess bellowed.

I clapped my hands to my ears, my head ringing. Really, it was a very small clearing. There had been no need to shout.

Alexander was already moving to place himself between me and Mrs. Montrose, hiding her from the view of the excited guests who were peering over the Marquess’s shoulder into the constricted area. Several of the new arrivals were armed with candles, which cast flickering streams of light across the clearing. I threw a magic-working of invisibility over Mrs. Montrose before any of them could see the unnatural, magically bound way in which she sat.

The Marquess didn’t even seem to notice our onlookers, though, as his gaze swiveled back and forth between Lucy’s demure figure and Packenham’s downed body. He looked positively deranged.

“Was Packenham—did he—?”