"I thought you were worried about scandal," Grey protested. "We're getting married."
"If necessary," Pearl interjected.
He ignored her. "Marriage negates scandal, ergo, no scandal."
"Pearl won't be an apprentice anymore. She'll be a wife. Wives can't be magicians." Elinor glared up at him.
"Why the bloody hell not?" Grey demanded. "Amanusa is, and she's a wife."
"Yes, but Jax is not a magician in his own right. You are."
"And-?" Grey could not understand what Elinor was getting at. Pearl didn't seem to, either, for she looked as puzzled as Grey felt.
Elinor stopped glaring and stared at him, rising to her feet. "Do you mean to tell me that once you are married, you will continue to allow Pearl to practice magic?"
Grey blinked at her. "What do mean ‘allow'? How do you suppose I could stop her? Why should I want to? She is a sorceress. Magic is part of what makes Pearl Pearl. I can no more change that than I can alter the tides. And would not, even if I could."
Now Elinor joined the confusion club. "You would still bring her to investigate murders?"
"Why not? If she wanted to come." Grey finally caught inklings of what Elinor was on about. "You think I will be in the usual line of husbands, don't you? Pearl and I have already agreed that I would make a terrible husband and she a dreadful wife, so we've actually got all that sorted."
Elinor looked stricken. "But what about children? What about if she is with child?"
That thought didn't panic him, which was odd, because it always had before. The thought, not the reality. He had no bastards scattered about. Likely he didn't panic because he'd thought of it already, when he'd resigned himself to proposing, so he was past that point.
"Pearl is not a child," Grey said. "She is twenty years old."
"Twenty-one in March," she volunteered.
"And she has been caring for herself and her family for the past several years, bearing responsibilities far greater than her age. She is much more responsible than I am. I think we can trust her to know what is best, and to make sound, mature decisions-" He locked his best stern, admonishing gaze upon her. "-concerning her welfare and that of any child she might carry."
"Oh, no fair," Pearl protested.
"What?" Elinor's head swiveled back and forth. "What?"
"I knew you'd eventually get around to scolding me for going too long last night and nearly freezing myself, but that's just-low." Pearl scowled at him. "Now I have to make those sound, mature decisions, don't I?"
Grey merely smiled and buffed his nails on his lapel. He hadn't intended such a lesson when he began his answer to Elinor's question, but he was not above grasping an opportunity when it presented itself.
"Well, if I have to," Pearl said. "You do, too. And if you don't, I have the right to bully you into it, into sleeping and eating and all the rest. Fair's only fair."
20
"AGREED." GREY PUT out his hand.
Pearl eyed it suspiciously a moment before clasping it. "Agreed." They shook on their successful negotiation.
Only then did Grey notice that Elinor had a hand over her face, and her shoulders were shaking. For a moment, he was alarmed to think she was crying. After Pearl's tearstorm, it was his first reflex. But he quickly realized it was laughter that shook her.
"Well, I like that," he said indignantly. "Here we are working out the terms of our life together, and you're over there laughing."
"I should have known." Elinor wiped streaming eyes, still wheezing. "You've never been in the ordinary line of anything. Either of you. Why should I have feared you would have an ordinary sort of marriage?"
"Indeed you should not." Grey had quite a good pomposity act. "Ordinary? Never touch the stuff."
Elinor cleared her throat and sobered. "There is still much to worry about, but it has nothing to do with the two of you. I had thought to model the new ranks of female magicians after Miss Nightingale's hospital nurses. But you sorceresses keep getting married. It won't do for silly young girls to think that learning magic is a way to snabble a rich husband."
"They should learn," Pearl said, "that they can make themselves rich in their own right by practicing magic, and therefore don't need a husband at all."
"Except to avoid scandal." Grey kissed Pearl's hand. "And because the fellow begged and argued them into it."
Pearl sighed. "Yes, except for that."
Grey turned her by the shoulders and gently pushed her toward the bedroom. "Go and dress. Leave Elinor to plan her Female Magician's School. We have a murder to solve. Breakfast in my dining room in thirty minutes."
"It's only six-thirty," Elinor protested. "You can't possibly be rested after yesterday."
"And yet oddly-" Grey inhaled and stretched, feeling neither ache nor pain. In fact, a deep well of energy and power centered him. "I am. Quite rested. Vastly refreshed." He picked up his hat and gloves from the sidetable by the door. "Don't let Pearl dally."
Elinor ignored him. As usual.
THE TRUE REPERCUSSIONS of the morning's occurrences did not sink fully into Pearl's brain until she arrived at Grey's dining room for breakfast and realized that if he carried out his intent and married her, she would no longer be walking through Harry's garden and across the street for breakfast. She would walk downstairs. From Grey's bedchamber.
Or from her own next to it, if there was one. She'd never actually been to any of the rooms on the residential floor. She could be mistress of this house. And sleep with Grey every night.
Pearl plopped into her seat at the dining table just as her knees gave way. The memory of just how wonderful the reality of making love had been threatened to scramble not only her thoughts, but every muscle and joint in her body. She'd overheard so many girls describe the act at "not so bad, once ya gets used to it," that she hadn't quite believed the girls who argued it was "just grand, iffen ya find a bloke as knows wot 'e's doin'."
Grey obviously knew what he was doing. That alone was nearly enough to tempt her into giving in to his arguments and marrying the man. Nearly.
She believed Grey's promise that he wouldn't interfere with her practice of magic. What she couldn't decide was why. Because he didn't care enough to bother with her? Or because he cared enough to give her her heart's desire?
The depth of understanding he showed during their "discussion" this morning, before and after Elinor's arrival, scared her witless. Every moment he spent with her, everything he did, as opposed to what he said, convinced her more and more that the careless and dissolute facade was precisely that-a facade-and in reality, Greyson George Victor William Whatever Carteret was that rarest of creatures. A good man.
Being a good man, besides everything else he was, made him well-nigh irresistible. How could she not fall in love with him?
How could he possibly fall in love with her?
He was a good man. If they married, he would treat her with respect. He might even remain faithful. It might not be so bad, as he'd said. But she did not want to tie him into "not so bad" if there was the slightest chance for "just grand." Her own life would be just grand with the magic. She didn't need anything else.
"I'd make an offer for your thoughts," Grey broke into them. "But I'm afraid to know what they are."
Pearl was looking down at her empty plate. It had apparently once had food on it, and she must have eaten it. McGregor had taken to filling a plate for her, as he did for Grey on those mornings when they appeared too distracted or tired to do it themselves. She'd won the butler over, it seemed.
She looked at Grey and smiled. "No need to fear. I'm not thinking anything so dreadful."
"Not plotting a way to squirm out of our agreement?" He raised an eyebrow at her.
"As long as you recall what it actually is." Pearl was almost resigned to people knowing. It was possible to drag an engagement out for years. Surely in months, the scandal would die down. Especially if "nothing" occurred.
"In that case." Grey captured her hand before she realized what he was about, and brought it to his lips for a brief kiss. Not too brief to make her shiver.
He slipped a ring onto her third finger and eyed it, apparently for size. He kissed her hand again, over the ring, and released her, finally allowing her to see.
"It's not your mother's ring, or your grandmother's, is it?" she asked suspiciously. He'd found it terribly fast. It was a pretty thing, gold with a filigree dome where a stone would normally sit. Nothing she would expect a duchess to wear.
"Hardly." Grey laughed, then sobered quickly. "That doesn't offend you, does it? It's just that Mother's still wearing all her rings-sometimes all at once-and your fingers are so small, anything of hers would instantly fall off. This belonged to my youngest sister, one of the few I actually like. I thought it would be small enough to fit. And it does."
Pearl thought he would take her hand again, possibly for kissing, so she pulled it back. To examine the ring more closely. The dome was an airy confection of vines and leaves, with tiny violets peeping out here and there. It was more than just pretty. It was a work of art, seeming incredibly delicate, yet tough enough the collisions of life would not break it.