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Sassy’s face must have blanched, because her ladyship reached out for Sassy’s hand. “Oh, my dear … you are white. Has he stepped over the line?” She clucked her tongue. “I see that he has. No,” she said, her voice firm, “then, you will not need to suffer his advances any longer.” Lady Margate looked troubled as she stared off for a moment.
“Oh, my lady …” Sassy was not sure what she could say. What would Lady Margate think of her son if she knew what he had tried only last evening?
“I am an old fool.” Lady Margate patted Sassy’s fingers. “I should have realized what he was about.”
“Oh, he means no harm, I’m sure,” she said quietly and suggested, “Perhaps I am a bit too shy …”
Lady Margate did not comment on this, but her eyes held a sad expression. “No need to make excuses for him. I have done that, I am afraid—too often.” She clucked again as she made up her mind. “Very well. Go for a walk, and I shall immediately put quill to paper …”
* * *
It was a cool morning. Sassy wrapped her cloak tightly about herself as she walked in the Margate gardens while trying to sort out her jumbled thoughts. Netherby Halls? She felt excitement at the prospect of being useful.
She had turned one and twenty a few weeks after she had lost her father, and with her majority, the transition she was experiencing was nearly complete. Her thoughts bounced off one another, and memories weaved themselves around those thoughts.
Her mother had spoken to her about the flood of magic that would begin to seep into her mind and into her blood. She had spoken of the responsibilities that came with it. Like all the women in her mother’s line, Sassy was a white witch, but her mother had told her she was meant for more, so much more. What did that mean?
Her mother had always said the magic’s intensity had passed over herself but had landed deeply etched in Sassy’s inner being. Now Sassy knew how true that was, for she could feel it growing inside her.
She had used it without thinking last evening with Sir John. To her surprise, she’d not been frightened, only disgusted.
Without calling on it, her magic seemed to take form, whispered words into her mind, and she had found the magic seemed almost to work itself. No wonder her mother had been so strict regarding its use.
She touched her ring, which her mother had given her in place of a wand before she passed. Its stone centered in the gold was iridescent and unique. Engravings in the gold could not be read by an outsider and looked like a mere design.
The ancient Gaelic word Solas, an innocent word that if seen by a ‘clear’ human would simply mean light, to her family meant so much more.
All at once, the face of her dream lover flashed before her eyes. He seemed always to be there—calling to her. Oh, but the heat that rushed through her whenever he came to mind. It just had to stop …
~ Four ~
THE JOURNEY TO Netherby took Sassy over roads in poor condition, making her all too sorely aware that what she had thought might be somewhat exciting was in fact an endless tribulation of bumps, boredom, dust, and a memory that left her yearning for something she would never have.
When they passed a young woman heavy with child obviously in need of help, Sassy had stopped Lady Margate’s driver. She took some bread and fruit from the basket that had been prepared for her and jumped out of the carriage.
The girl thanked her with her eyes lowered. Sassy offered her a ride, but the girl declined, saying she lived with friends, just around the bend.
She thanked Sassy once more for the food, saying that she hadn’t had a piece of fruit in months, and went on her way.
Sassy returned to her carriage and sighed heavily. She recalled how, when she was fifteen, she and her parents had gone on a trip to Dover. They had seen a girl no older than she was at the time, heavy with child. The girl was in rags and begging in the street as people unfeelingly passed her by.
Sassy’s father had nodded an assent as Sassy looked imploringly at him, and she’d run over and given the girl the money she had saved to use on this trip. When she returned to them, her mother had stroked her cheek and Sassy had asked, “Why was the girl alone like that?”
Her father had answered crisply, “She gave her love before taking the man’s name.”
This immediately triggered a sense of injustice in her, and she turned to her mother. “But … if she gave her love, did not the man … take it?” She shook her head. “Why, then, should he not have to help her?”
Her mother had said softly, “He should have to help her, shouldn’t he? You are quite right, but this is an imperfect world, love, and justice is rarely distributed equally. Remember that when you make choices.”
Her father had reached over and touched her mother’s face, and they had proceeded with their day, but that image had struck her and stayed with her. And now, what was she doing? Dreaming of making love with a man she was certain she had never even met, whom she’d seen only once across an avenue.
At the end of a long day of travel, the driver of Lady Margate’s barouche stopped at an attractive and well-kept posting house. He appeared tired as he assisted her from the carriage and opened the door of the inn for her to pass through. He left her there and went to meet the livery boy that had hurried towards him.
Sassy sighed to herself. What she wanted after the tedious day was to wash, have dinner alone in her room, and sleep away all her confusion.
That was what she wanted, and as a small, thin woman wearing a full white apron and a white linen cap came crisply forward, she smiled hopefully.
The woman’s gaze traveled over Sassy and then out to the barouche visible through the window overlooking the courtyard. “What do ye want?”
