THREE
Wilhelmina sat with Mairin at the log fence surrounding the heartwitch's low-slung farmhouse, sorting through buckets of blackberries. Mairin's two youngest sisters had started out earnestly trying to help, but their assistance had quickly devolved into pelting each other with berries, and running away laughing when Mairin put a firm stop to the battle. Currently they were playing tag with a trio of puppies on their heels; well, Wilhelmina _counted_ three. There had to be more, from the racket they were making - half a dozen, perhaps. Or twelve, or twenty.
She sniffed appreciatively at the aroma drifting out from the farmhouse kitchen: simmering berries and apples, with a handful of spices she couldn't quite identify. She'd offered to stay in the kitchen and help with the jam, but Morwen had chased her out with a mock-threatening ladle waved over her head; Queens came in a poor second to hearthwitches when it came to territoriality. So instead she was out in the yard, getting her fingers stained purple and dust all over her skirts, and enjoying herself immensely.
Mairin was dividing her attention between berries and her shrieking younger sisters, while Dirdre, yet another sister, was sorting berries with quiet concentration. A Rose-Jeweled witch in her late teens, Dirdre was strikingly lovely, with hazel eyes and long, dark red hair, but she was considerably less boisterous than any of her sisters. She'd offered to stay inside as well, but Morwen had chased her out with even less ceremony than she'd expelled Wilhelmina.
Wilhelmina yelped, snatched her bucket out of danger with one hand and braced with the other as one little girl and two puppies tripped and fell into her lap. After a confused moment of sorting out whose legs (and paws) belonged to whom, she set the little girl on her feet, shoved a puppy nose out of her blackberries, and watched as the child sprinted off to join her sister. Mairin flicked a glance at her that blended surprise and approval.
"I wouldn't expect you to be at ease with children like that. I always thought the aristocracy had nannies from the time they could walk."
"One governess, and she was horrible," Wilhelmina said. "But I always liked to play with Jaenelle when we were little, whenever she - well, whenever I could."
"Suppose your family kept her busy with studies, if they knew she was going to be Witch."
Wilhelmina bit her lip. "Not exactly. I wish they _had_ known, or that Jaenelle had done a better job keeping her secret. As it was, my grandmother thought she was mad, and..." And everything had gone wrong from there. Alexandra had discouraged Leland - subtly and otherwise - from bearing any more children by Robert Benedict, while watching Wilhelmina to make sure none of Jaenelle's "eccentricity" surfaced in her. If it had, Wilhelmina had no doubt she would have been packed off to Briarwood within the day. Alexandra couldn't afford another unruly child reflecting on her control of her family. "And things got complicated after that," she finished lamely. "I didn't get to see Jaenelle much after she turned five."
"I couldn't stand that," Mairin said on a rush of sympathy. "I mean, my sisters can be annoying sometimes, but they take care of me, and I take care of them. And Mam takes care of everybody, whether they want it or not," she added with a grin.
Wilhelmina smiled back. "I take it that's a warning?"
"Oh, _yes_," Mairin said with feeling. "She meddles. She matchmakes. She _cooks_. Don't let her give you any food, not living alone like you do, or you'll wind up with it piling up to your ceiling before you can eat it all."
She had to agree with Mairin by the time they finished the berries - and pouring the jam, and supper, and cleanup - and she got ready to go home. In repayment for her help that afternoon, Morwen promptly loaded her down with ten jars of last year's jam.
"Three?" Wilhelmina said a little desperately.
Morwen gave her a considering look. "You're too thin. Eight."
Mairin stifled a snicker. Wilhelmina sighed.
Eventually, they settled on six jars of jam and some fresh bread to eat it with. As sure of obedience as any Master of the Guard, Morwen assigned Dirdre to help carry the food home. Wilhelmina was perfectly capable of vanishing it all until she got home, and would have said so - except that she caught the slight widening of Dirdre's eyes and the quelling look Morwen shot Mairin when her oldest daughter opened her mouth to volunteer. Whatever subtle communication passed between the three of them, she didn't want to interfere.
So she simply waited for Dirdre to ready herself and set off on the path for home, shrugging into the shawl she'd brought against the cool night air. The younger witch bundled herself up in a coat that was too bulky for the season, wrapping it around her until it completely obscured her from neck to knees, and faced the short walk to Wilhelmina's house like a child determined to gulp down its medicine as quickly as possible.
She tried to make conversation on the way home, but Dirdre's responses were stilted and nervous. She took no offense, though; she'd been at least that shy at Dirdre's age, and had hated people trying to force her into conversation. She still did. So they walked in silence to the garden gate, where Dirdre handed over her share of the jam with a murmured word of thanks, and promptly bolted for home.
Wilhelmina looked after her worriedly. She'd _felt_ the affection and goodwill in Mairin's family, but that muted, wary tang in Dirdre's psychic scent was too familiar for her to ever ignore. The threat might not come from within her own family, but something had scared the girl badly. Badly enough that Wilhelmina's nerves were thrumming with sympathetic fear.
She frowned after Dirdre's disappearing figure, then sighed and turned to go inside. Whatever thinking she had to do would best be done in a warm kitchen, and not in the garden. On the doorstep, she froze, alerted by the faint trace of a masculine psychic scent that clung around her door.
Masculine, but not human. She relaxed just a fraction.
Still, she was tightly wrapped in both Purple Dusk and Sapphire shields before she opened the door, and her mouth set itself in an unfamiliar, determined line. This was _her_ home, and she didn't care for anyone, male or female, intruding.
But the dangerous glitter in her Sapphire ring died away when she saw what was waiting for her inside the door. A Kindred tiger just at the end of adolescence, Opal Jewel gleaming against his fur and tail wrapped neatly around his paws. Only the tip was twitching with some suppressed emotion.
*Lady.* The tiger dipped his head in a courteous greeting, but his green eyes never left hers. *I am Jhaliir. Tell me about my brother.*
Wilhelmina sat with Mairin at the log fence surrounding the heartwitch's low-slung farmhouse, sorting through buckets of blackberries. Mairin's two youngest sisters had started out earnestly trying to help, but their assistance had quickly devolved into pelting each other with berries, and running away laughing when Mairin put a firm stop to the battle. Currently they were playing tag with a trio of puppies on their heels; well, Wilhelmina _counted_ three. There had to be more, from the racket they were making - half a dozen, perhaps. Or twelve, or twenty.
She sniffed appreciatively at the aroma drifting out from the farmhouse kitchen: simmering berries and apples, with a handful of spices she couldn't quite identify. She'd offered to stay in the kitchen and help with the jam, but Morwen had chased her out with a mock-threatening ladle waved over her head; Queens came in a poor second to hearthwitches when it came to territoriality. So instead she was out in the yard, getting her fingers stained purple and dust all over her skirts, and enjoying herself immensely.
Mairin was dividing her attention between berries and her shrieking younger sisters, while Dirdre, yet another sister, was sorting berries with quiet concentration. A Rose-Jeweled witch in her late teens, Dirdre was strikingly lovely, with hazel eyes and long, dark red hair, but she was considerably less boisterous than any of her sisters. She'd offered to stay inside as well, but Morwen had chased her out with even less ceremony than she'd expelled Wilhelmina.
Wilhelmina yelped, snatched her bucket out of danger with one hand and braced with the other as one little girl and two puppies tripped and fell into her lap. After a confused moment of sorting out whose legs (and paws) belonged to whom, she set the little girl on her feet, shoved a puppy nose out of her blackberries, and watched as the child sprinted off to join her sister. Mairin flicked a glance at her that blended surprise and approval.
"I wouldn't expect you to be at ease with children like that. I always thought the aristocracy had nannies from the time they could walk."
"One governess, and she was horrible," Wilhelmina said. "But I always liked to play with Jaenelle when we were little, whenever she - well, whenever I could."
"Suppose your family kept her busy with studies, if they knew she was going to be Witch."
Wilhelmina bit her lip. "Not exactly. I wish they _had_ known, or that Jaenelle had done a better job keeping her secret. As it was, my grandmother thought she was mad, and..." And everything had gone wrong from there. Alexandra had discouraged Leland - subtly and otherwise - from bearing any more children by Robert Benedict, while watching Wilhelmina to make sure none of Jaenelle's "eccentricity" surfaced in her. If it had, Wilhelmina had no doubt she would have been packed off to Briarwood within the day. Alexandra couldn't afford another unruly child reflecting on her control of her family. "And things got complicated after that," she finished lamely. "I didn't get to see Jaenelle much after she turned five."
"I couldn't stand that," Mairin said on a rush of sympathy. "I mean, my sisters can be annoying sometimes, but they take care of me, and I take care of them. And Mam takes care of everybody, whether they want it or not," she added with a grin.
Wilhelmina smiled back. "I take it that's a warning?"
"Oh, _yes_," Mairin said with feeling. "She meddles. She matchmakes. She _cooks_. Don't let her give you any food, not living alone like you do, or you'll wind up with it piling up to your ceiling before you can eat it all."
She had to agree with Mairin by the time they finished the berries - and pouring the jam, and supper, and cleanup - and she got ready to go home. In repayment for her help that afternoon, Morwen promptly loaded her down with ten jars of last year's jam.
"Three?" Wilhelmina said a little desperately.
Morwen gave her a considering look. "You're too thin. Eight."
Mairin stifled a snicker. Wilhelmina sighed.
Eventually, they settled on six jars of jam and some fresh bread to eat it with. As sure of obedience as any Master of the Guard, Morwen assigned Dirdre to help carry the food home. Wilhelmina was perfectly capable of vanishing it all until she got home, and would have said so - except that she caught the slight widening of Dirdre's eyes and the quelling look Morwen shot Mairin when her oldest daughter opened her mouth to volunteer. Whatever subtle communication passed between the three of them, she didn't want to interfere.
So she simply waited for Dirdre to ready herself and set off on the path for home, shrugging into the shawl she'd brought against the cool night air. The younger witch bundled herself up in a coat that was too bulky for the season, wrapping it around her until it completely obscured her from neck to knees, and faced the short walk to Wilhelmina's house like a child determined to gulp down its medicine as quickly as possible.
She tried to make conversation on the way home, but Dirdre's responses were stilted and nervous. She took no offense, though; she'd been at least that shy at Dirdre's age, and had hated people trying to force her into conversation. She still did. So they walked in silence to the garden gate, where Dirdre handed over her share of the jam with a murmured word of thanks, and promptly bolted for home.
Wilhelmina looked after her worriedly. She'd _felt_ the affection and goodwill in Mairin's family, but that muted, wary tang in Dirdre's psychic scent was too familiar for her to ever ignore. The threat might not come from within her own family, but something had scared the girl badly. Badly enough that Wilhelmina's nerves were thrumming with sympathetic fear.
She frowned after Dirdre's disappearing figure, then sighed and turned to go inside. Whatever thinking she had to do would best be done in a warm kitchen, and not in the garden. On the doorstep, she froze, alerted by the faint trace of a masculine psychic scent that clung around her door.
Masculine, but not human. She relaxed just a fraction.
Still, she was tightly wrapped in both Purple Dusk and Sapphire shields before she opened the door, and her mouth set itself in an unfamiliar, determined line. This was _her_ home, and she didn't care for anyone, male or female, intruding.
But the dangerous glitter in her Sapphire ring died away when she saw what was waiting for her inside the door. A Kindred tiger just at the end of adolescence, Opal Jewel gleaming against his fur and tail wrapped neatly around his paws. Only the tip was twitching with some suppressed emotion.
*Lady.* The tiger dipped his head in a courteous greeting, but his green eyes never left hers. *I am Jhaliir. Tell me about my brother.*