A Widow in Waiting

By Anne B. Walsh

Who killed Alfred de Maine, Lord Farnton? Highwaymen on the backroads of Ireland, as his pretty widow Eleanor claims? One of the traveling folk camped near the village where Eleanor fled? A resident of Glenscar, protecting the village's hidden power? Or did John Marlowe, the son of Glenscar's squire, kill the lord to win the lady?

Eleanor knows the truth, but she also knows the value of a secret. Her greatest desire, to marry John as soon as her six months of mourning are over, remains obtainable only so long as it is unknown. Along the way, she must master her magic of moving, using heart and head to decide which stories to believe.

Will love and patience win the day, and Eleanor join hands with John at last? Or is she doomed to live and die a Widow in Waiting?

Welcome to a world where magic lives in the quiet moments of the everyday, and where rich and poor, settled and wanderers, might have more in common than they dream. Welcome to the Chronicles of Glenscar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne B. Walsh
• Release date: Jun 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476228297

Anne B. Walsh

Anne B. Walsh was telling stories about magic and intrigue from the time she could talk, but it took her twenty years to realize she could make a living at it. Her first novel, historical fantasy "A Widow in Waiting", has its origins in a PBS special which changed her life; her second, family-focused fantasy "Homecoming", takes its inspiration from some of her other writing; and her third, soft science fiction "Killdeer", stems from her constant interest in the ways in which the future and the past coincide. Anne lives east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with one roommate (Krystal), two black Labs (Buddy and Brando), and two black cats (Starsky and Hutch). Sadly, their Cane Corso mastiff, Bruce, passed away in mid-August 2013, and their first cats, Poppy and Sesame, who helped inform Anne's first collection of short stories, "Cat Tales", passed out of their lives after an accident on Christmas Day 2013. No one ever said life was fair. Anne's parents and siblings live two hours north of her, otherwise known as just far enough away. She has also been writing Harry Potter fan fiction for more than ten years and is known best in that genre as the creator of the "Dangerverse" alternate universe (which inspired "Homecoming"). Beyond writing fiction, Anne's preoccupations include reading fiction; singing anywhere that will have her, including her church and local galas; theatre, especially musicals; all forms of cooking; and her family and friends. Within writing fiction, her preoccupations are much the same, meaning most of her stories involve loving families, delicious food, and good music. Consider yourself warned. A number of projects continue to need Anne's attention as she writes her original novels. Among these are her ongoing fanfiction works in various fandoms such as Harry Potter and Frozen, and the themed fantasy anthologies she co-authors with her friend and fellow author Elizabeth Conall.

Book preview

Dedication

This book, and those which follow it, are gratefully dedicated to:

The Misplaced Apostrophe, and it's Misplacer.

Without you, none of this ever would have happened.

Acknowledgments

First on any list must be the gentlemen and ladies of Celtic Thunder, past and present, for being so exceptionally inspirational. Thanks are due to Sharon Browne, for assembling and managing such an amazing ensemble; to Phil Coulter, for writing and arranging gorgeous music for them, especially the songs of Storm; and to all the people who brought those songs to life:

Neil Byrne, Paul Byrom, George Donaldson, Keith Harkin, Ryan Kelly, and Damian McGinty, the incredible members of Celtic Thunder when Storm was filmed in 2009, and Emmet Cahill and Daniel Furlong, their latest awesome additions, all of whom have made me laugh and cry onstage and on screen;

Dave Cooke, Nicole Hudson, Conor McCreanor, Brendan Monaghan, Declan O'Donoghue, Joyce O'Leary, Ruth O'Leary, Megan Sherwood, and Anthony Stuart, the talented band who helped make Storm the marvel it is;

Charley Bird and Dierdre Shannon, whose voices woke dreams in me;

Stephan Dickson, Taylor James, Ethan LaFleur, Adam Lopapa, Justin Lopez, Hayley-Jo Murphy, Julianne Reilly, Cody Szarko, and Caroline Torti, whose dancing did the same.

Also important to mention is my immense debt to Georgette Heyer, originator of the Regency romance as it is currently known. Isabel and her family are my way of saying thanks for many years of reading pleasure. Jennifer Kloester, author of Georgette Heyer's Regency World, deserves a shout-out as well for an excellent and very helpful work of reference.

Now to more personal thanks. First, of course, is one Krystal Goulet, incredibly patient roommate, sounding board and source of ideas, and official provider of tea, doer of dishes, reminder to eat, and smacker out of bad moods to the author. This book should really have your name on it as co-author, but I know you'd kill me if I did that, so here's your mention instead. Thank you for everything.

For lap-warming, mood-raising, and other general feline services, many thanks go to the Poppy-cat and the Sesame-kitty. Now if I could just get the fur out of everything I own…

For beta-reading, proofreading, and encouragement, Phil Boswell, Elizabeth Hartung, Rachael Meltham, Selena Moon, and David Sandground. I would never have made it through without you. Thanks also to all my Facebook fans, and to the readers of the Dangerverse, who have been so patient while I was working on my original. More adventures in the DV are on their way!

Cristina Woods took a picture of a lovely black fan she owns for her blog about her wedding, A Novel Affair, and graciously allowed me to use it as my cover photo. Thanks, Cristina, and best of luck in your married life.

Josh Stein and Tom Trempus, of the Pittsburgh chapter of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, were very helpful in getting the vagaries of copyright law through my thick skull. Thanks for your time, gentlemen!

And last, to my family, especially my mother. Thank you, Mom, for telling me I couldn't. As Dad put it, you got my Irish up, and made me prove I could. Thanks also to the brothers and the sister, for not spilling the beans prematurely. Who says teenagers can't keep secrets? Love to you all, and to Grandmom, and here's to lots more years of good writing about functional families!

Chapter One

In all the worlds that ever were, there are stories which float upon the air, lighter than thought or breath, told to children by those who dream like children. They are stories of happily ever afters and tragic partings forever, of beauty and magic and music and daring, and in every world there is a name for them. Fluff, the people call them, nothing but fluff.

But fluff, despite its airy name, is not without a purpose. In every speck, every flake, every grain of fluff, there lies a seed. And though a million of those seeds may fall on rocky ground, the million and first will find good soil, and sprout, and grow.

From one such bit of fluff grew the stories you are about to read. They are stories of love and of loss, of laughter and of tears, of human beings at their worst and at their best, in a time when all the world was changing and a world where one thing would always be the same.

Here follows the first of the Chronicles of Glenscar, the story of the Widow in Waiting.

* * * * *

Eleanor de Maine, Lady Farnton, twisted her wedding ring nervously on her finger as she watched the mud-spattered traveling carriage rattling along the lane from the vantage point of her bedchamber window. Its occupants, she felt sure, had wasted no time in hurrying to her father's home, to hear the fantastical romance through which she had just lived from her own lips, after they had been informed of the one salient fact which touched them most directly by other means.

It could not be every day that a peer of the realm learned his son and heir had met his death by violence.

Closing her eyes as the carriage passed out of her field of view, Eleanor attempted to regain her precarious calm by imagining the scene which would unfold on the front steps of Langley Hall, once the coachman had brought the horses to a halt. Lord Calverton himself would surely be the first to alight, and his lovely Marchioness the second; neither was tall, but they made a striking pair nonetheless, the lady as dark as her lord was fair, both of them bearing their advancing years lightly. They would, of course, be dressed in the unrelieved black of full mourning, as Eleanor was herself, signifying the so-recent death of their eldest child, Eleanor's erstwhile husband.

Catching herself before she could topple into fearful recollections, Eleanor redirected her thoughts firmly to the envisioned arrival. It seemed unlikely that the second son of the family would have come on such a journey, as he would be fully involved with breaking the news to his wife and children that he, not his brother, would someday succeed to his father's dignities. But the youngest of the de Maines, some few years younger than Eleanor herself, the one bright spot she had seen in a future otherwise as dark as the gown she now wore—yes, Lady Isabel would surely have accompanied her parents, and to her company Eleanor was most decidedly looking forward.

It might have seemed ghoulish to bring a girl of eighteen on an excursion to hear the grim details of her older brother's demise, but unless Lady Calverton had also remained behind, there would have been no choice. To leave such a sprightly, intelligent, mischief-minded girl as Isabel alone (except for servants) anywhere, even in her family's country home, was to court disaster in all its myriad shapes and forms. One as taking as Isabel, who had inherited her mother's dark beauty but paired it with her father's whimsical sense of humor, was doubly vulnerable, and would be guarded as the precious jewel she was.

Eleanor suppressed a vague desire that her own father had guarded her better by reminding herself of all that she would have missed, had he done so, and drove the thoughts still further from her mind by allowing his figure to enter into her fancied scene. Dark-haired and red-faced, dressed in one of his usual neat suits of gray cloth cut ten years or more behind the times, Mr. Andrew Langley hurried down the steps towards his noble visitors, jumbling together, if Eleanor knew her father, his deepest condolences, his disbelief that such a thing could have happened in the year 1786, his offers to tell them the whole of the story as he understood it immediately, and his apologies that she herself was not feeling quite the thing and had not yet left her chamber that day…

Annie, she said without opening her eyes. Unless it's Isabel, I still have my headache.

"Of course you have, Noreen a chuisle, came the calm response from across the room. Of course you have."

* * * * *

Isabel rustled down the first floor corridor of Langley Hall behind the housemaid, enjoying the sound of her stiff skirts and the petticoats which supported them but wishing fleetingly that they were less heavy and cumbersome. Certainly they were lovely to behold, but they did make life a nuisance, especially when one needed to be in another place than the place where one was, and when one was in something of a hurry to accomplish this task.

Proper young ladies, of course, were never supposed to be in a hurry. Their lives were to be taken at a stroll, with delicacy and poise and grace. Isabel did her best to maintain a veneer of delicacy, and poise came naturally even in difficult situations, but grace had always been her downfall. Or more accurately, she thought with a secret smile, her downfall had been Grace.

Grace was one of the reasons she was so very eager to see Eleanor again, and to hear the whole story direct from her friend. Unless Isabel was very mistaken, Eleanor had been to one of the two spots on the whole earth where Isabel most longed to be, and had met some of the people Isabel considered the strangest and most wonderful in the world, in a dead heat with what was now, and had been for the last three years, the new nation and people of the New World across the ocean…

The housemaid scratched lightly at a door in the middle of the corridor, breaking Isabel from her brown study. The door swung open, revealing a stout, salt-and-pepper-haired woman in a gray gown one notch more elegant than the housemaid's simple stuff frock, hands planted on her hips. And what might you want? she demanded in a low voice, the lilt of her accent sending a pang of loneliness through Isabel. Sure and my lady's sleeping at last, the poor lamb, and I won't be waking her for any nonsense about officers of the law or depositions—she's told her father all she knows, and it's only right he should do the talking for her now, her that's left without her husband to protect her.

Lady Isabel de Maine, Mrs. Donovan, the housemaid whispered back, cutting her eyes towards Isabel and then back to Eleanor's door dragon, as Mr. Langley had so aptly described the woman who had been Eleanor's nurse in her childhood and her maid until her marriage.

Lady Isabel—well, then, and why didn't you say so before! Annie Donovan bustled out into the corridor, shooing the housemaid from her path, and dropped Isabel the tiniest of curtsies. Come right in, Lady Isabel, you're as welcome as the rainbow after the floods!

Isabel took a moment to smile at the housemaid and mouth a quick Thank you before she followed Annie into the room. Lying's a sin, you know, she said aloud without rancor as Annie closed the door behind her, catching sight of the empty bed a moment before she spied Eleanor herself, rising from her desk by the window with the joy in her blue eyes giving the lie to her gown of somber black.

Someone unacquainted with the situation might well have thought them true sisters. Both were small, slender women with dark coloring, though Eleanor had an inch or two the advantage in height and the build to match it, as befitted her three-and-twenty years to Isabel's eighteen. As well, their method of greeting one another bore little resemblance to any usage of polite society. Here in private, with only the tolerantly smiling Annie to see them, Isabel abandoned the leisurely approaches, the languid curtsies, the limply extended and received hands she had learned from childhood and flung her arms around her friend, receiving the same tight hug in return.

I want to know everything, she murmured into Eleanor's ear. The true tale, not that Banbury story Mr. Marlowe spun us about Alfred being shot defending you from highwaymen!

* * * * *

A thrill of fear shot through Eleanor. If even Isabel could see the flaws in the story she'd been told—

But Isabel, she reminded herself firmly, knew all the principals in the matter, by repute if not in person, and the story was, at least in part, designed to be disbelieved. As long as the world remained unaware of the full truth, all would be well.

And now that I've finally met Gr-Grace's mysterious brother, Isabel went on blithely, releasing Eleanor just in time for Eleanor to see a momentary look of chagrin flash across her face at her slip of the tongue, I see why Mama and Papa would never let me go to visit her in the summers, no matter how much I begged. He's quite handsome, 'in a country sort of way,' as your father said about Grace.

Must you tease? Eleanor asked, more snappishly than she had intended. Papa does his best with what he knows. And did you truly think Sh— She caught herself up this time, remembering almost too late what Isabel, acquainted with their newest mutual friend through several years at the same seminary for young ladies, likely would and would not know about her and her brother. "John was handsome?"

Isabel blinked at her in surprise. Well, he isn't ugly, nor even plain, she said slowly. But I haven't fallen hopelessly in love with him, if that's what you mean. I think we could be quite good friends if we got the chance, but everything about Mr. Marlowe says 'country gentleman' clear as a bell, and I prefer a man with a little more town bronze on him.

Eleanor relaxed with a smile, reassured as to her friend's intentions. Fair or dark? she said, reaching behind her to pick up the sheet of paper she had been studying before the de Maines' carriage had come into sight. I can offer you a choice.

Accepting the paper, Isabel exclaimed in delight. It's Grace! So this must be…her family? She ended on a questioning note, which Eleanor could well understand. The stories she would have heard from her friend would have mentioned a father, mother, and a single brother, and the drawing she now held in her hand showed not one but three young men posed in various attitudes around the seated man, woman, and girl.

Yes, and a friend or two as well. Eleanor drew Isabel to sit on the edge of the bed. She hated the need to lie to her sister-in-law, but even Isabel was going to have a hard time believing the whole truth, which was the reason the witch's brew of half-truths and outright lies had been concocted in the first place. I don't know how much she's told you about them, so forgive me if I'm repeating things you know already, but I have to go in the order it was told to me or I'll forget all of it.

She's been careful, even with me, never to say too much. Isabel settled her skirts around her. Which means I've always wanted to know more than I do.

I'm glad to help, then. Eleanor indicated the seated man and woman, happy to have something she could tell Isabel without guilt. Her father is Mr. Edwin Marlowe. He studies music and philosophy, and sometimes publishes books of one or pamphlets on the other. Mrs. Marlowe was Miss Anthea Franklin before her marriage, of the Manchester Franklins. Of course they cut off what few expectations she had when she eloped with the younger son of a tradesman, no matter how rich, so they had to go and live on the property Mr. Marlowe's parents deeded to him in Ireland.

Isabel nodded, studying the portrait of the older gentleman with his whitening hair and high forehead, his neatly trimmed whiskers and the gnarled hands resting on the carved ivory handle of a cane. He looked like one or two of the masters Eleanor could remember from her own school days, the ones who would listen most closely to their pupils' woes and provide the best advice for overcoming them, a talent Eleanor knew from personal experience he shared. His wife had bequeathed her own fair curls and charming smile to her daughter, and the lines of her face betokened the strength of character and determination she had passed to both her children.

And I'm sure you remember John, though he hasn't done himself justice here. Eleanor couldn't quite stop her fingers from caressing the pictured face of strong-boned, brown-haired John Marlowe, standing stiffly behind his father with one hand on the man's chair, and Isabel lifted her brown eyes from the drawing with understanding dawning in their depths.

You're the one who's in love with him, she said, catching Eleanor's hand in hers. Aren't you?

* * * * *

I…I think I might be. Eleanor pressed her free hand against her mouth. And now I sound like those simpering girls I despise, the ones who fall in love in an instant with every new man who takes their fancy, but this isn't like that, or I don't think it is. It's so hard to say…

Everything, Isabel reminded her as she trailed off. It was John who rescued you from the highwaymen, wasn't it, not Alfred? And you fell in love with him right then and there.

Not…quite. Eleanor glanced behind her at Annie, engaged in turning out Eleanor's wardrobe. Isabel, you know I'd tell you everything if I could, but there are secrets here that aren't only mine. Let me finish telling you who the people are, because the other two are the ones you might meet if your family goes into society at all this autumn. First there's a friend of the Marlowes, who's been staying with them until his affairs come about. Kieran Massey is his name; here he is, beside Mrs. Marlowe.

Kieran Massey, Isabel repeated, committing the name to memory and matching it with the fair-haired, merry-eyed man of Eleanor's age who stood at his ease, hands on his hips, the set of his shoulders betraying a nonchalant certainty that he could handle whatever the world threw at him. And the other?

He became the Marlowes' ward recently, when his parents met with an accident. Eleanor's eyes darkened in sympathy. Kieran is taking him to town to get a bit of polish, since he was never able to go away to school or travel much with his family. This is he, Nevan O'Grady.

Isabel looked long and hard at the bold, laughing lines which made up the broadly triangular face of a dark-haired boy about her own age, leaning his elbows on the back of Grace's chair. Is he about to…

Pull the comb out of Grace's hair? Eleanor laughed aloud. John did say he tried to show them as they are.

Which explains that smile on her face. She's already thinking of her revenge— Isabel broke off as Eleanor shivered, drawing her arms in around herself. Have I said something?

No, no, nothing. It's only… Eleanor turned to gaze out her window, where the intensely green expanse of Langley Hall's side lawn led down to a grove of trees by a small, sparkling stream. Isabel, how much did you really know about your brother? He could almost have been your father himself, you can't have been well acquainted with him, and there are things…

Things that no lady should know about, Isabel finished, making a most unladylike face. "If ladies never knew about all the things that ladies aren't supposed to know about, ladies would scarcely know anything at all. Only dresses, and dancing, and a little music and drawing, and how to make polite conversation and keep a party from becoming sadly flat. Never anything interesting, never anything useful. It's why I was so very drawn to Grace from the first moment I saw her, because she had an air of being able to do things rather than sitting in the parlor with her embroidery and waiting for the men to do them for her!"

She does, doesn't she? Eleanor still had her arms locked across her breast, but she was beginning to smile again, though it vanished with her next words. So you do know a few things. I thought you might.

I know that Alfred was shockingly wild, even by Papa's standards, and you know Papa was an adventurer when he was our age. So whatever he was doing must have been truly shocking, not just the usual things that men do when they're away from ladies, like gambling and drinking and getting involved with… Isabel fluttered her lashes. Women who are not quite the thing.

Eleanor nodded. That's almost all I know myself, she confessed. He told me things, but I was trying my best not to listen. I do know he took laudanum, because I thought sometimes of trying to find it myself and— She stopped short. The point is, I won't shock you too badly if I tell you that it was not a happy marriage.

I'd be more shocked if you told me that it was. Isabel set her friend's unfinished sentence aside for further thought when she should be alone. Why did you ever agree to marry him, Eleanor? I never thought you cared a rap for the title or the money, and I can't and won't flatter myself that you liked me so well you made up your mind to have my odious brother just so that we could be sisters. Was it only that you were afraid you'd never get another offer?

* * * * *

That was a part of it, of course. Eleanor felt her momentary chill lifting, chased away by Isabel's eternal lightheartedness. Isabel, if this is the way you talk in company—

Oh, no, in company I'm much worse, Isabel assured her, laughing a little herself. What do you think, you great gudgeon? We're as good as family now, even if my horrid brother is dead, which I didn't count as a loss when I first heard of it, and from what you're saying, it was less of one than I'd thought, so you're seeing the side of me I've never shown to anyone but…well, anyone but Grace, really.

Somehow I wouldn't be surprised to hear the masters at Miss Beasley's Seminary held a party when you'd both finished your educations, Eleanor murmured.

Isabel sniffed at this and continued. Mama knows a little, because she was a lively girl herself, though she liked parties and dressing and dancing much better than I do. But no, when I make calls with Mama or receive callers, or when we go out to balls and assemblies, I'm always on my best behavior. She sighed. If only so I don't lose what little freedom I have in town. Which I will anyway, now that Alfred is dead and we're in black gloves for the next six months at least.

So you are going to town this autumn, then? Eleanor indicated her own solemn clothing. "Papa was all for whisking me off to forget my sorrows in a whirl of gaiety. I spent nearly an hour convincing him that it would brand me forever as fast to do so, and that far from being moped about it, I would much prefer a quiet life for a little while."

I would prefer it myself, but Papa has business in town and Mama doesn't care to be at Calverton without him. Isabel grinned briefly. "And neither of them has any desire to leave me unwatched. So we will go to London, but we'll live very retired there. We may see a few people quietly at home, or go out to the occasional discreet party, but I shan't be allowed to dance at all and it would be quite improper for me to flirt or listen to any offers of marriage."

Which grieves you horribly, doesn't it? Eleanor chuckled. The truth, now. As dull as it will be for you to be cooped up through the Little Season and the first bit of the Season proper, you'll prefer it to listening to silly boys stammer through their earnest declarations of undying love and world-weary flirts declare that they've never felt this way about any other girl, when you know quite well that the first will forget you within a fortnight and the second are lying through their teeth.

"When that's the only amusement I ever get? Eleanor, how can you be so unfeeling?" Isabel drew herself up in feigned indignation, turning Eleanor's chuckles into outright laughter, from which she held off for a very few moments before joining in wholeheartedly. It was only when they had both subsided, and Eleanor withdrew a black-edged handkerchief from her reticule to wipe the tears of merriment from her eyes, that Isabel leveled a worryingly direct gaze at her.

You never did tell me how you came to marry Alfred, she said, her offhand tone not masking her determination to have the answer to her question. "And don't try to fob me off with some tale about being at your last prayers and agreeing to a marriage of convenience, or your being the only woman in the ton who'd have him. I'm personally acquainted with at least ten who'd marry a monkey if that would make them a countess."

Yes, but— Eleanor twisted her handkerchief between her hands, her worries rising fresh within her mind. "Isabel, it's not that I don't trust you, but this is a secret bigger than anything you can imagine. I'm still not sure that I believe it, except that I can't not believe, not with all the proof that I've seen. It doesn't only touch me and Alfred and your family and you, but John and Grace and their family, and all their friends—"

If you're going to tell her, go on and tell her, Annie advised briskly, rising from her knees beside Eleanor's wardrobe and the trunk into which she had been packing the brightly colored gowns Eleanor wouldn't wear for the next six months. But whichever you do, it's time to use their proper names now, unless you're afraid you'll go and call them by the wrong ones in company. It wouldn't matter so much if you did it in their homeplace, or if you knew no others for them, but when they're out in the world and you are too, those who know their true names miscalling them to one another does them no favors.

Eleanor and Isabel eyed one another for a moment. Eleanor was the first to speak. I wasn't sure she'd have told you.

I didn't know if you knew. Isabel spoke over her, their words overlapping.

Both stopped, frowning, trying to decipher the words the other had spoken, then both began again at the same time.

But when I heard you stutter on Grace, I should have known that you meant—

But when you started to say the S-H and not the J, I did think you might mean—

Annie shook her head over the vagaries of her young ladies, who were now laughing immoderately once again, and shut the lid of the trunk, flipping the latches shut.

It only makes sense, if you met them at home, that they would have given you their Irish names instead of their more English ones, Isabel said when they had both calmed down for a second time. Do they have one for you?

Sean calls me Noreen, the way Annie did when I was a little girl. Eleanor could sense the color rising in her cheeks, but the smile which insisted on coming to her face felt tender and a trifle disbelieving. After the nightmare she had lived through the summer months of this year, the awakening in the early days of autumn, with such attendant marvels as a man who looked upon her as a sacred gift from above rather than his chattel property, was still hard to credit at times. But I don't think you understand yet, Isabel. Grace, Grainne I mean, can't have told you everything, and I'm not sure I should either.

If you don't care to tell her, Miss Noreen, I will. Annie pushed the trunk in front of the door and came to sit on the other side of the bed, her arms folded across her ample front and a scowl on her face. Eleanor winced at the title appended to her name, sure proof that Annie was thoroughly peeved with her. Don't you think she'd have chattered about everything Miss Grainne told her long ago, if she were the chattering kind? But she hasn't and she won't, and besides, 'twas her own brother had that which made all the trouble, which means she might have a trace of it herself, and in any case entitles her to know.

Eleanor shook her head, beginning to twist her handkerchief again. You're right. Of course, you're right. It's only that— She stopped and looked up at Isabel, seeing the bafflement in her friend's eyes, knowing that in a moment they would be filled with the same mix of wonder and terror she could feel lurking in her own. "Isabel, what would you do if you found out quite suddenly that magic—not conjuring tricks or legerdemain, but true magic, the way it happens in stories—was real?"

Chapter Two

John Marlowe clung grimly to the strap affixed to the inside wall of the post-chaise with one hand, steadied his sister against his shoulder with the other, and attempted to keep his mind off her condition and his own helplessness against it by considering points of philosophy.

Foremost among these was whether or not he should continue thinking of himself as John. It had always been his practice to do so, since it was both the name by which he'd been baptized and the name to which he might have to respond in unfamiliar situations. That it was not the one which the majority of his friends most easily used to him, he regarded as a minor detail.

But now he had Noreen to consider.

He spent a few blissful seconds thinking of her, until a larger than usual jolt brought him back to reality. Every stride of the horses, every turn of the wheels took him farther from his love, and he would not see her beautiful face again in the flesh for six months. His dreams might bring her image to him, but that was a poor substitute for a man who longed to run his fingers through the impossible softness of her rich black curls, to feel the delicate skin across her shoulders ripple with the passage of his work-hardened hands, to gather her into his arms and feel her breath against his face as she lifted her sweet red lips to his…

None of which are thoughts I ought to be having with my sister beside me, he muttered aloud, shifting Grace so that her skull was no longer bouncing against his shoulder blade. And count your blessings, Marlowe, this time last week you didn't even know her name, much less where to find her or when you could claim her. Hell, this time last week you couldn't have claimed her. She was another man's wife, a countess no less.

All of which ranged perilously close to the things he'd promised himself he wouldn't think too hard about until he was safely home, able to discuss them with the other people who'd been present. Not to mention, it was shockingly off the topic. He'd been considering the question of his name, and the fact that the beloved he was leaving behind him, like the friends he was hurrying home to, preferred to call him not John but Sean.

And beginning as I mean to go on, it's Sean I must be. He heard the rhythm beginning to break out in his speech and bit down on it, bringing it under control. Allowing himself to drift would ruin the focus he needed to see this journey through without panic. But not yet. I have to be John for a little while longer. Long enough to get Grace home, at any rate.

He was beginning to wonder if he could even manage that.

Traveling with one's sister while she was unwell was difficult at any time. When the infirmity had not only sprung up literally overnight (the first night they had spent on the road, but it would have been nigh-impossible to turn back) but seemed to be growing worse and not better with the passage of time, it was a cause for serious worry. But when said sister was the sort of person for whom being on fire with fever might just become more than a figure of speech…

There were times, usually when his own gift was being particularly cryptic or his sister was using hers to play pranks again, that John halfheartedly wished his paternal grandfather had chosen another bit of land from the copious speculation-purchases through which he'd made his fortune to bestow upon his undutiful younger son. But Mr. Charles Marlowe had taken advantage of his opportunity to rid himself of a troublesome child and a troublesome estate all at once, and thus Mr. Edwin Marlowe had become the resident landlord of a tiny Irish village called Glenscar, whose people made their living from the soil and the sea.

The first year had been hard going, for the people of Glenscar were rightfully wary of strangers, but Edwin and Anthea Marlowe had won their new tenants' hearts by continuing the ways which had won them their social disgrace, namely a deep-rooted disdain for needless formality and an endless readiness to put their hands to anything which needed to be done. By their second winter in Glenscar, Anthea's first lying-in was attended by every woman in the village, while their husbands and brothers carried Edwin off to headman Seamus Darragh's cottage and got him sufficiently drunk that he was able to sincerely declare his newborn son beautiful.

The final barriers fell on that day, and the last secrets were told. Village and manor, for as long as John could remember, had lived as one, his own generation of cottage-children running in and out of Scardale House as easily and as often as he and his sister invaded their smaller homes. The hills, fields, and forests of Glenscar were his whole world for all but a few weeks of the year, and every piece of his heart which could be spared from loving Noreen was there.

The day they returned there as husband and wife, he thought, was the day he could safely alter the name he used within his mind, for in the moment they stepped ashore together, the staid, sober, and socially acceptable gentlefolk which were John and Eleanor Marlowe would cease to exist. In their places would stand Sean and Noreen, who laughed more than John and Eleanor would dare, who worked harder than John and Eleanor would wish, and who had one small but vital difference in their lives, one which they shared with the rest of the folk of Glenscar.

Sean and Noreen could work magic.

Though work isn't quite the right word, especially not for my gift. It comes and goes as it wills, not as I do. John laughed deep in his throat, a sound without a trace of humor in it. If I could choose what I dreamt and how much I saw, I'd have known who Noreen was long before this, and as much as I hate cities I'd have taken myself to London and won her hand before ever her bastard of a husband took it in his…

He swallowed a snarl of rage, forcing himself back to calm. Away from home, with Grace ill and wholly dependent on him, was not the time to give in to his emotions, no matter how infuriating it might be that the woman he had loved long before he had ever met her in person had been coerced into marrying a depraved nobleman. The Earl of Farnton was in God's hands now, and in less than half a year's time Noreen would be in his, no longer a lovely dream but warm and solid reality, his own wife to have and to hold, to adore and to cherish, as long as they both should live.

Until then, he had his powers, and his work, and his duties.

The first duty incumbent upon him, at the moment, was to make sure his sister survived what he guessed would be another three days of travel to see them safely home. Following on its heels was to accomplish that task without any delirious demonstrations from Grace which would have every superstitious fool for fifty miles spreading tales about witches or devils or the fires of hell. Powers were taken for granted in Glenscar, and John was sure they still existed in a few other hamlets scattered across the British Isles and very likely the world, but in all but those select enclaves, the sight of a young woman with flames flickering over her bare skin would send most people scrambling either for a bucket of water or the nearest man of God.

A bucket of water we can handle, he murmured, shifting Grace again as she stirred and mumbled a few unintelligible words. A man of God…that depends on the man. And the God, whether he 'shall not suffer a witch to live' or 'loves his neighbor as himself'. Always assuming they don't simply run us out of town for being godless Papists…

The chaise turned abruptly, nearly throwing John off the seat. He peered out the window, seeing lights ahead and hearing the chatter of voices and the strum of music. Night had fallen while he was lost in his thoughts, and they were arriving now at a posting-house, where he would have to hire a bedchamber for himself and Grace, pay off their current postilions, and make arrangements for new ones and another carriage for the morning.

It was a rhythm with which he'd become familiar in the last week or so of travel, though he couldn't say he was enjoying it. On the contrary, he had made up his mind that when he returned in six months for Noreen, he would book a seat on the Mail. The journey would be just as joltingly uncomfortable as this one, but the responsibilities would belong to someone else, and he would have no need of the distraction they now provided to keep him from fretting over a mysterious illness, or so he devoutly hoped.

Once he and his love were safely married, they would purchase a small closed carriage and a pair of horses and go west to the sea by easy stages, using the trip as a honeymoon. His family and friends' unhappiness at having been excluded from his wedding would last precisely as long as it took them to realize they now had an excuse to hold a massive wintertime ceili.

Grinning at the thought of the music, the dancing, the food and drink and general craic with which he and Noreen would celebrate the opening of their lives together, John braced himself against the opposite seat and held more tightly onto Grace as the chaise stopped in a brightly-lit courtyard with a jerk. He could hear the sounds of the postilions dismounting from the horses which they had been bestriding, and reached into his pocket to remove his wallet and count out their proper pay.

Just as his fingers closed around the leather folder, the music from inside the inn was replaced by a number of male voices shouting, and several more raised in raucous laughter. John frowned, momentarily forgetting that the post-boys needed to be paid in his concentration on the two most prominent voices in the clamor. It might be his homesickness playing tricks on his ears, but he was almost certain he could put a name to the voice now rising effortlessly above the sounds of merriment, and the one cutting through them in counterpoint—

Out! bellowed the first voice, and the second yelped comically, the laughter swelling to match. A dark blur shot past John's window, and a heavy impact on the roof of the chaise startled Grace into a sleepy murmur of confusion and both postilions into counterbalancing oaths.

John opened the door of the carriage and jumped down, unable to stop himself from smiling at the sight of the fair-haired man framed in the well-lit entrance to the inn, dressed in neat but battered traveling clothes, a six-stringed Spanish guitarra hanging across his chest from its strap over one shoulder. His finger was pointed towards the person John assumed had taken refuge atop their chaise.

"And stay out! The voice was a light tenor, faintly touched with the music of Ireland, which would have been pleasant to listen to if not for its current tone of aggrieved indignation. If I catch you back in here, I'll kick you a mile up the road!"

Making trouble again, are you? John said from the corner of his mouth, his smile widening into a grin at the hastily stifled curse from the silhouetted figure on the roof of the chaise as the musician at the inn door turned to go back inside. Stay up there for a minute, I have to pay these fellows…

The post-boys, having collected that John knew whoever was sitting atop their carriage and scuffing up the roof of it with his nasty boots, were now converging on him with roughly voiced demands for a large sum in excess of their agreed-upon price to cover any damage that the unknown might have done. John countered by pointing out the way that the chaise had managed to hit, as his tailbone and his sister's could attest, every rock and pothole a bad stretch of road had to offer over the past day of travel. Each side made a few dark comments about the other's parentage, appearance, habits, and eventual destination, John paid over what he had agreed on and enough extra to keep from being thought impossibly tightfisted, and both sides retired, well satisfied with their bargain.

Now, John said as one postilion returned to the horses' heads to reassure them that they would soon have a rest and a drink and the other began to remove the luggage which had traveled over the front wheels. Get down from there, I'm going to need your help.

With a slither and a thump, the unknown complied, revealing himself in the lights of the courtyard to be a boy of about eighteen, his dark hair mussed from his swift passage and his sturdy clothes showing the signs of several days' hard tramping. And what would you be doing if I weren't here, then? he challenged in a voice slightly at odds with his youthful looks, both deeper and more strongly accented than John's own or that of the musician who had chased him out of the inn.

Asking them to help me. John nodded towards the postilions. Or the innkeeper, or a stableboy, or anyone who wasn't busy and was willing to help. But you are here, and in trouble again if I'm not mistaken—

That's just what you are, the other interrupted. It's a game, Sean, nothing but a game. We hit on it a couple days back, and it pays like you'd never believe. What we do is, Kieran sets up to sing something, and any time he takes a little bit of a pause, I jump in and finish the line for him all wrong, and when he just can't take it anymore—

That part I saw. John tried to look adult and disapproving, but couldn't stop his lips from twitching. I hope you don't jump on top of every carriage which comes into the yard, Nev.

Oh, no. Nevan O'Grady flashed his teeth in his swift, disarming grin. Only the ones that're handy when I need them.

God help us all, John muttered. And speaking of help, give me a hand with Grainne. His sister's village name, acquired at the age of four after an incident at a fair and her preferred mode of address ever since, came naturally to his lips, having been called by his own a few moments before. She's not well, and I want to get her inside into a bed as soon as possible.

Of course. Nevan turned and swung himself easily into the chaise, another curse drifting out of the darkness a moment later. Mother of God, her skin's so hot I can't even touch her. What's the matter with her?

I wish I knew. John settled his feet in a wide stance as Nevan awkwardly nudged Grace along the seat, handling her by the blankets in which she was wrapped. It's as if her power's reacting badly to traveling, but she's been away at school for months at a time and it never affected her this way there…

Ma'll set her right as soon as you get her home again, never you fear. Nevan swapped onto the backward-facing seat, reached across, and levered Grace up by the flaps of her blanket, maneuvering her carefully out the door of the chaise and into John's arms. And you're not so far from it now that you're back on the main road west, so keep your head up. Why don't I run around to the kitchen and see about getting you a room—they're nearly full tonight, but there ought to be something left. And if not… He grinned once more. Sauce for the 'prentice is sauce for the master. If I can sleep in a hayloft, so can Kieran, especially for the two of you.

Thanks. John moved aside, cradling his sister to his chest, and watched his friend race away as the chaise rattled off to the stables behind him. For everything, he murmured too quietly to be heard, remembering all that he owed to this same impulsive, neck-or-nothing youngster. For Noreen, for Kieran, for all of us, really.

For one second, he thought he saw a shadow move at one side of the courtyard, but then laughed at himself for being an overimaginative booby. A gust of wind was blowing, that was all, rattling the lanterns hanging on either side of the inn door and making Grace stir once again. John hefted her a little higher in his arms and went to stand by their valises, running over the story he'd been telling, though the truth of the past several days, with all its mad twists and turns, kept trying to interfere…

The innkeeper came bustling out of the taproom door, from which the chorus of a slightly bawdy drinking song was also emerging, and John's attention went to getting his sister into a bed, in a private room, as quickly as possible.

* * * * *

Thirty minutes later, Grace was safely installed in a chamber which, though quite small, was both clean and private. John had thanked the innkeeper for his offer to have his own wife or one of the chambermaids sit with her, but declined. She'll sleep until I can get there, and it won't do if she sees a face she doesn't know when she wakes, he had explained, with an expression he hoped mixed the right amounts of chagrin and embarrassment. You see, she's been allowed to fill her head with all sorts of trash about gypsy kings and highwaymen and pirate queens, and now that she's ill and wandering in her mind, she's convinced she's living in just such a story. So of course any stranger must be a dastardly villain come to carry her off to a gloomy castle on a storm-swept shore, and I'd rather she not rouse the house shrieking nonsense.

An appreciative chuckle had told John he'd played his part to perfection, and it had been with a wash of heady relief that he had agreed to the suggestion that he share his own bedchamber with the strolling music-fellow who had come along and offered to play for his supper and his apprentice's. A bit of chaffering had brought down the usual fee for a room by about a third, which made up for the extra John had paid to give Grace her necessary privacy, and he had parted from the innkeeper on good terms. Now he was finishing a large meal of cold beef, dark bread, and boiled carrots in an apple glaze, and watching with a feeling of mild puzzlement as Kieran flirted outrageously with the barmaid.

The flirtation was no surprise. Kieran had been tossing ridiculous compliments at anything that wore skirts and couldn't curdle milk with its looks as long as John had known him, a matter of some five years. What was new was Kieran's slightly detached air, the way he kept glancing around the room in between his sallies. It was as if he were looking for someone, but he would surely know Nevan had made himself snug in the hayloft for the night by now, and he'd acknowledged John when John had come down the stairs from settling Grace, a matter of a quick twitch of the head without breaking the rhythm of his singing.

The barmaid tossed her hair and flounced off with a whirl of petticoats. Kieran shrugged and took another drink of his beer, then set his mug aside and started into one of the endless variations on the song of the Two Cruel Sisters. This one, besides playing up the violent end of the murderous older sister, went into much greater detail than the sentimental versions about what, exactly, the younger sister and the lover the two had both desired had done to, with, and for one another. As the crowd in the taproom tonight was almost exclusively male and already beginning to snigger in appreciation, John had to admit Kieran had fit his material admirably to his audience.

Among the few exceptions to the sea of masculinity in the room was a young woman sitting by herself on a seat built into the far wall, sipping slowly at whatever might be within her metal mug, her eyes fixed disconcertingly on Kieran as he sang. John let his own eyes travel over her slowly, as she was unlikely to notice his scrutiny.

The red kerchief which confined her sandy hair, along with the patched shortgown the color of good earth that she wore over her off-white shift and blue skirt, told him only that she was not, or was pretending not to be, a lady of quality. From the deep tan visible on the exposed portions of her skin and the scuffs on her sturdy shoes, he was fairly sure there was no pretense involved. A cloth-wrapped bundle rested by her feet, giving the impression that at any moment she might finish her drink, snatch it up, and be on her way. The features of her face were both exotically harmonious and faintly, annoyingly, familiar.

John drank the last few swallows of his ale, shut his eyes, and let the familiar sound of the guitarra's strings and Kieran's voice lull his mind into complacency. Calling up the face of the girl across the room, he sent it off on a quest through his memories, seeking for anything which might strike a chord with it, give him the clue to that elusive sense of recognition.

When the only thoughts which came to him were a few flashes of a storm-filled night about a week ago and the brief rough-and-tumble he and the other men of the village had engaged in with some mischief-bent traveling folk who'd camped nearby, he gave it up as a bad job. The traveler women had stayed entirely in the tents pitched among their wagons, where they wouldn't be sullied by the unexpected eyes of the outside world, during their caravan's few days' stop in Glenscar, so his mind was trying to play fustian tricks on him.

Stacking his dishes neatly (he'd cleared enough tables in his life not to be aware of how much work he could save an already hard-working maid by taking one moment himself), he rose and headed for the kitchen. The innkeeper's wife, on being informed that his sister was ill, had volunteered to make a brew of hot, lightly-spiced milk, which she swore would tempt any appetite. John didn't doubt her, but worried that Grace might not be able to come awake enough to drink it. The past day and a half, she'd done almost nothing but sleep.

It's like her own fire is eating her alive, he murmured, peering around the door to be sure he wasn't about to mow down an unsuspecting cook. I have to get her home so Aunt Roisin can look at her, find out what's wrong…

The sound of applause reached his ears faintly as he found the mug precisely where the innkeeper's wife had told him it would be, and a moment later Kieran came striding through the kitchen door, the guitarra now resting against his back. He clasped hands briefly with John, his eyes lighting on the milk. Grace? was all he said.

Grace, John confirmed. She's upstairs, if you want to see her, though she may not be awake. I only wish I knew what was the matter with her, and if I'm doing right, racing for home with her this way.

I may have an idea, and yes, I think you are. Kieran stopped at the bottom of the stairs and motioned John to precede him. The three of you left so quickly after Farnton was killed that you missed one or two of the lesser surprises of the day. Not that I want to spoil your enjoyment of what you'll find when you get back, of course.

"How would you like to be wearing a mug

Reviews for A Widow in Waiting

[Brie Donning · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved this book.
The magic was fascinating, but the characters were even more so. I cannot choose a favorite among them, for they all felt so real. John/Sean and Eleanor and Grace and Thunder and Shadow and Nevan and Keiran and everyone.
I was expecting one romance in this book, not the beautiful bits of many I got. And they were the sweet kinds of romance that I love for the most part. Some had more excitement, but that is needed.
I really don't know much about the era this is set in, but Glenscar, and Edwin Marlowe's education of his tenants intrigued me. It sounds like a place I would like to live, magic of my own or not.
Unless of course, I choose to join the Warbirds/travellers/gypsies. I loved them. Their development throughout the story is masterful.
The ending of the story wrapped up nicely, yet left me with a bunch of exciting questions, the biggest of which is: When is the sequel coming out?