Page 10 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

Hendrik frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. What man?”

“Your servant... Maurits,” she said, trying not to blush as the name passed her lips.

“I don’t believe I employ anyone of that name.”

Hendrik was looking at her with something between confusion and dismay, and Clara’s stomach flipped. “So you didn’t send a servant here the other day to see me first?”

“Of course not!” It was the first emphatic statement she’d heard from him.

Her stomach dropped. It had been bad enough that Maurits had tried to lure her into his boat with him, had made her feel things in her body she had never felt before, but he had also lied about working for Hendrik.

“Oh,” she said, trying for a light tone. “I must have been mistaken.”

With a nervous tug at his beard, Hendrik offered his arm again, and they continued walking. “I hope that my servants would know better than to interfere in my personal affairs,” he said.

Clara pushed the thoughts of Maurits and who he was from her mind; he had probably really been the fishmonger’s man and had decided to come back and have some fun with her. “In any case,” she said, “I suppose my father will want to speak to you before you leave.”

“Yes,” Hendrik agreed quickly. “And... indeed, I am most anxious to speak to him. I... That is, he is already aware of my intentions, but after speaking with you... Well, I hope that you too will look upon my suit favorably.”

It wasn’t the way his pale eyes searched hers, or the anxious twitch of his lip that made her say yes. There was nothingremarkable about the man that stood before her, other than the fact that he was a man, throwing her a rope to climb out of her dull and miserable life.

“I would like that very much,” she said with a sweet smile.

His shoulders sagged with relief. Without warning, he took her awkwardly by the upper arms and pressed her mouth with a kiss. His lips were cracked and dry, and his breath more than a little stale with wine. But she stood her ground and let him probe his tongue into her mouth. When he drew away his eyes were full of dewy stars and excitement. He sketched a hasty bow, and without a word, turned and quickly stalked back to find her father.

She watched him go. Well. If she was supposed to feel anything remotely like what she had felt with Maurits, then she was more than a little disappointed. With a shrug and a sigh she picked up her hem and made her way back to her bedchamber, where the flowers she had picked still lay on her table, now wilted and forgotten.

Chapter Seven

Clara awoke the next morning full of hope and excitement, the early morning light gilding the edges of the memory of her kiss with Hendrik. The day quickly lost its rosy glow as she fell into her usual routine: sit, embroider, walk, sit, spinet, sit. Her mother had found her tone at breakfast impertinent and struck her across the cheek, leaving an angry red mark. It wasn’t as hard a blow as Clara had taken before, but it knocked her backward all the same, and she’d staggered to keep her balance. In doing so she had knocked a vase off the table, and incensed her mother anew. The wedding couldn’t come soon enough.

The dowry was negotiated and the date settled. Because Hendrik was a Catholic, her parents had conceded to a ceremony in the Old Church. What an adventure it would be to be married in a Catholic church, with all those murky rituals under the gilded gaze of statues and icons. Her mother always frowned and shook her head when they passed the Old Church in the square, but Clara had caught glimpses of the decadent stained glass and smelled the wafting incense on the breeze.

In the meantime, there were clothes to be ordered, linens to be sewn, trunks to be packed. Days no longer stretched on with no end in sight, punctuated only by her mother’s yelling and blows; now there was a light at the end of a dreary tunnel.

Clara was sitting in front of her mirror, dabbing some powder at the flourishing bruise on her cheek when a faint tapping noise brought her back to the present. It was coming from the window casement, gentle yet persistent. Rising and pushing open the glass, Clara found a magpie sitting on the sill, cocking his head at her.

She shooed the pesky bird, but it was adamant that it belonged there, hopping from little foot to little foot. In its beak it carried a limp silver fish, the same kind that Maurits had brought the other day. It regarded her one last time, head cocked, before taking off into the gray afternoon.

Clara only hesitated a moment before throwing on her cloak and sneaking downstairs and out to the grounds. Clouds were building, and the grass was still wet from the morning’s dew. She caught a flash of black through the tender green leaves, and tromped after the magpie.

When she broke through the thick trees into the clearing, the magpie was nowhere to be seen. “Wicked bird,” she muttered. Her slippers were soaked through, and she was sure to get another smack when her mother saw the state of her hem.

“I assure you, while I may be wicked, I am most certainly not a bird.”

At the sound of the deep, musical, voice, Clara spun around. It was him. Her mouth went suddenly dry, her stomach tight. The copse felt smaller with him in it, his quiet intensity radiating a kind of heat within her. Fear quickly replaced the fleeting gladness at seeing his handsome face. He had come to finish whatever it was that he had started. He would lure her into his boat and bear her away somewhere, do unspeakable things to her. Nearly slipping on the wet grass, she hurriedly backed away.

Maurits raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I mean you no harm, and no ill will.”

“You don’t work for Mr. Edema,” she said. Her pulse was racing, both from anger and being startled, and maybe a little because of the excitement of it all. “I ought to scream for my maid.”

He was a fool to come back. He knew that she would uncover his deceit as soon as she met Hendrik Edema, but he’d had to see her again, just once more. “But you won’t scream, will you?” he said. He could have exerted his power over her—heshouldhave—but something told him that she would come willingly without it. The thought gave him pause, a thread of heat running through him.

She gave the smallest shake of her head. Her chin was obstinately tilted, and he was transported to the moment they had nearly kissed the other day.

“Who are you?” she asked. “And why did you come, first under the ruse of being a fishmonger, and then a servant?”

He couldn’t tell her the truth, and she would not have believed him anyways. Whyhadhe come? The first time had been to gain her trust, and the second to carry out his errand. But now he was standing before her, with no intention of doing either, and not the faintest clue of what came next.

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