Page 20 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

Clara picked up the ribbon about the dog’s neck and led him away, though the dog fell into step beside her as nicely as if they had walked together hundreds of times. Behind her, Inka admonished the girls to get back to work.

“I suppose I should feel even worse now that I behaved so badly to Hendrik,” Clara told the dog as she brought him inside and up the stairs. “He certainly took some care in picking out the most beautiful dog he could find.”

The dog regarded her with gentle eyes. She sighed. “What should I name you, I wonder?”

Just then there was a knock at the door, and Nela appeared, summoning her to appear before Katrina. Clara shot a worried look at the dog as he rose to accompany her downstairs. “You had better stay here, I don’t think my mother will take kindly to a dog in the house, whether you were a gift from Hendrik or not.”

He gave a whine, but she closed the door before he could follow her. She could hear his whimpering and pawing as she followed Nela.

She found her mother seated at her dressing table, another maid standing behind her curling her hair, and her father offto the side, smoking from a long clay pipe. He gave Clara a weary, pitying look before Katrina launched into her rebuke.

“I would ask you what you have to say for yourself, except I don’t think I could stomach whatever paltry explanation you would try to come up with. Nela told me about your behavior yesterday, and while I am disgusted that you would so flagrantly disrespect the man you are supposed to marry, I am not at all surprised. Have you no shame? Have you no gratitude for the good match your father and I have worked so hard to bring about on your behalf?”

Another day Clara might have tilted her chin up and defended herself, but she was weary, raw after what she had seen the previous night. What’s more, her own guilt was wrapping itself around her like a constrictive vine. With downcast eyes, she murmured, “It was very wrong of me to speak to him so.”

Her mother was watching her with the narrowed eyes of a snake about to strike. Clara should have known the warning signs by now, but it still came as a shock when her mother rose and delivered a blow that sent her reeling backward.

“I can’t look at you,” Katrina said, and stormed out in a huff of curling papers and cloying perfume.

Blood bloomed on Clara’s lip, and curling up with her new pet suddenly was the only thing that didn’t want to make her burst into tears. Clara was just turning to escape when her father put down his pipe and stopped her. “I thought you liked this young man.”

For all her mother’s tempers and abuse, Clara at least knew where she stood with her, and there was a certain comfort in that. As her father’s cool gaze settled on her, she squirmed in her shoes, as if he could see into every little crack in her soul.

“Hendrik is a good man,” she said carefully.

“Yet you spoke to him as if he was an annoyance and treated him like a stable boy.”

She didn’t say anything to this.

“Perhaps you are still harboring some secret affection for the young man with whom you were meeting the other day?”

Her heart thudded in her rib cage. Did he still suspect Clara after her mother had sent Helma away? “There is no one. I suppose it was only my nerves that made me speak thus to Hendrik.”

Theodor continued appraising his daughter from behind the curl of pipe smoke. He got up suddenly, and for a moment it seemed as if he was going to come right up to her. But he just tamped out his pipe and nodded. “It’s natural for a girl to be apprehensive about her marriage and the duties that come with it. Your mother should discuss these matters with you. I will make sure that she does.”

Her body tightened as he walked toward her, and then headed instead for the door, leaving the rich scent of tobacco in his wake.

Clara walked with heavy feet back to her bedchamber. When she opened her door, the dog lifted his head, cocking it and regarding her.

Though it was only early evening, Clara fell into bed with her bodice loosened and shoes still on. Something warm and wet touched her face.

“I am completely without friends,” she murmured as she absently stroked behind the dog’s feathery ears. “Fenna is gone, and now Helma. And Maurits, though I suppose I never truly had him.”

The dog had gone still, her ear scratches no longer eliciting any reaction from him. He looked up at her with intelligent eyes, fierce loyalty already burning within them.

“Pim,” she whispered as she stroked the dog’s impossibly soft fur. “I shall name you Pim, for I believe that you are my resolute protector.”

A long, slow blink of those emerald eyes, and Clara knew that they understood each other.

“It seems that despite your abhorrent behavior, Hendrik is willing to go forward with the wedding plans.” Katrina sniffed as they sat down to breakfast the next morning. The night had brought a cooling of her mother’s temper, as well as word from Hendrik, apparently. “I am sure he is too good for you.”

“Yes,” Clara agreed miserably. “I am sure he is too.” So, it had all been for nothing. She was to marry a man that not only she didn’t love, but whom she had offended and needlessly heaped abuse upon. There was little reason to try to escape her future as a wife to Hendrik. At least this way she would be out of her mother’s grasp.

If only Helma were here. She would have put a bright face to the whole matter, distracted Clara with her tales of magic. She would have provided a bridge from Clara’s old life into her new, comforted her on this strange new journey.

As for Maurits, Clara did not even allow herself to think of him.

Clara stole back up to her bedchamber. Pim circled her legs, brushing against her skirts and asking for kisses. She scooped him up and carried him to the bed with her. “At least you still love me, though I’ve done little enough to deserve it.” In reply she got an enthusiastic, if not sloppy, kiss of agreement. “Come, let’s take a walk.”

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