Courting Magic (Kat, Incorrigible #4)(6)
“And shouldn’t you be dragging your feet about it?” Angeline frowned at me. “Don’t try to fob me off, Kat. You were in a temper when you left, but now you’re looking miserable.”
“Don’t be absurd.” I tried to give a careless laugh, but it came out sounding half-strangled. “What on earth would I have to feel miserable about? I’ve ripped all this expensive fabric before Elissa’s modiste has even arrived. I’m about to be paraded around half the drawing rooms and ballrooms of London in hopes that someone will choose to think of my dowry instead of my character. I’m—”
“Who said anything amiss about your character?” Angeline’s eyes narrowed until she looked quite wicked. “If anyone’s been insulting you—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I pushed past her, gritting my teeth. “You said it yourself. Only I would find a way to rip my muslin on a simple trip upstairs!”
…Or reintroduce myself to Alexander dressed up as a pincushion. No wonder he’d looked so horrified at the prospect of having to pretend to court me. It was a laughable idea.
It shouldn’t have been a laughable idea. It wouldn’t have been, with any other lady in the Order. But I’d always thought I didn’t have to worry about things like gowns and style when it came to magic.
Angeline remained on the staircase, but her voice followed me down, rich and perturbed. “I’ve never known you to care what anyone else thought.”
“I don’t,” I snapped. “But have you ever bothered to think through this whole début plan in any detail? What exactly do you think is going to happen if any young men are actually duped into proposing to me?”
“We-e-ell,” Angeline drawled, starting down the stairs, “I certainly wouldn’t swoon from the shock of it. Despite what you might imagine, you know, you really are quite passable. And—”
“And then what?” I demanded. I shot a quick look down the corridor, checking for any eavesdroppers, before I stepped back toward the staircase and lowered my voice. “I’m a Guardian, Angeline. How do you think they’ll feel when they discover that?”
Angeline blinked. “Well…if you find the right sort of man, one whom you can trust…” She lowered her own voice to a whisper. “Everyone brings secrets to a marriage, Kat. But you know Frederick understood the truth about me before he proposed. Why shouldn’t you find a young man who can accept your magic, too, and help you keep it quiet from Society?”
“Because this isn’t like your witchcraft!” I retorted. “It’s not a matter of casting spells around the house for my convenience. That kind of magic is easy to keep quiet. But I fight regularly—in serious magical battles, Angeline!—to protect innocent people from the magic-workers who would hurt them. It’s too important a duty to neglect. As long as I have the power to help, I’ll have to put my calling before any domestic arrangements. So…”
I looked her squarely in the eye. “Exactly which of those respectable, eligible young men you and Elissa have been rhapsodizing about would actually wish for a wife like that? One who put her magical duties before her household management, her reputation, and his companionship?”
For a moment, as Angeline gazed at me in silence, I thought I had actually made an impression on her.
Then her lips curved into a dangerous smile. “Are there, by any chance, any unmarried young men in that Order of yours? Because I think that would be an extraordinarily neat solution. Don’t you agree?”
“Don’t I—?!” My mouth dropped open. “If you had any idea—! If you knew the young men—!”
“Oh, really,” Angeline purred. “Do tell!” She leaned forward expectantly.
I snapped my mouth shut before I could let slip anything else I would regret.
Scooping up the torn skirts of my pinned-together muslin, I fled my vexatious older sister and her questions for the comparative safety of the drawing room.
It seemed that I had a great many preparations to make, after all, before Friday evening’s ball.
CHAPTER THREE
I might have dreaded my introduction to Society ever since my sisters and stepmother had first begun planning it three years earlier. I might have dragged and kicked my heels and put it off as long as possible. I might even be convinced with all my heart that it was absurd to waste a perfectly decent evening making small talk in a crowded room while gentlemen I didn’t even know judged me like a filly up for auction.
But none of that meant I was prepared to make a cake of myself by publicly failing in my début, either. For one thing, a magical mission was involved. I had never yet failed any mission I had undertaken for the Order. And even more importantly…
Well, I might not care a jot for Alexander’s opinion of me, any more than I did for that of either of the other two young men who had been ordered to publicly court me this season in order to keep our mission disguised from watching eyes. But I knew exactly what all three of them must be expecting of me after our first meeting on Tuesday in the Golden Hall.
I refused to allow them to be correct.
I knew I had made a good start when Stepmama’s eyes widened at my appearance.
“Oh, thank goodness!” She had been waiting in Elissa’s front hall along with Papa and Elissa’s husband, fanning herself anxiously, when Elissa and I started down the staircase to meet them.