Ecanus Publishing
Ramsgate
Kent
United Kingdom
Published by Ecanus Publishing 2013 as a Kindle ebook.
Published in print version 2014.
Published as ebook 2014
L E Frost asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-9926574-4-4
Jasper watched the dragonfly in the sunlight and wondered what it was like to fly so free through the world, the world outside the mirror. He tried again to count the days he’d been imprisoned in Guido’s Mirror but stopped, as he always did, too depressed to continue. For endless days the sun crossed the sky and spread rose gild over the tapestries in Elena’s antechamber. Though he hadn’t aged, it seemed like years had passed since the glass had captured him. He was trapped in a strange twilight where logic didn’t seem to apply.
I warned Mother not to buy the mirror from that strange man who came into the shop, but she wouldn’t listen. Her eyes lit with the fire that burns for beautiful rare objects, and I knew there would be no reasoning with her.
The man with the purple fleur-de-lis birthmark on his cheek and clownish jacket came into the shop with the mirror wrapped in black silk. He removed the cloth from the mirror and in a voice that reminded Jasper of running through autumn leaves, said, “Yes, it belonged to the family of Sismondi for generations. I’m not sure how old it is or which master craftsman designed it.”
Mother’s eyes lit up the moment she saw the mirror. Jasper saw their blue fire reflected in the glass. She was so entranced by the teak frame, carved with odd symbols and mythical creatures, and the amethyst colored glass, that she forgot her hard-earned business acumen. Sounding like a child in a candy shop, she said she’d never seen such skilled craftsmanship. The man, who said his name was “just Guido”, smiled a dark sort of smile. “Madam, it is one of a kind and very old. There’s not another like it in the world.” But strangely, he didn’t haggle about the price. He accepted mother’s first offer and quickly departed. After that Jasper was never comfortable in the shop again. He had the creepy feeling the mirror was watching him. Once, when he peered directly at it, which he normally didn’t do because it made him uneasy, the face of a man appeared in the glass. The man had spectacles perched on his nose and was dressed in Renaissance-style clothing. He had a distracted, scholarly air, and he gazed at Jasper with such poignancy it gave him goose bumps. A moment later the man was gone, and only the King Heron Lamp in the shop window was reflected in the glass. He tried to convince himself he’d imagined the man.
Jasper’s reminiscence was interrupted as Elena stormed into her chamber. The sleeve of her velvet gown was torn and her face was flushed. He watched unseen from inside the mirror as she fumed around the chamber. He pressed his ear against the glass and could just make out what she said. It had taken him a while to get accustomed to the English of her time, but now he was used to it.
“He thinks he can handle me as if I were a common strumpet! I don’t care if he is the Baron of Guthstaven and the darling of father’s eye!”
Jasper didn’t know who she was talking about, but he didn’t like him, whoever he was. He pressed his hands against the glass and willed with all his might to pass through and comfort her. But the mirror was as unyielding as the ice that covered Miller’s Sinkhole in winter.
Elena finally stopped her furious pacing and gazed out of the arched window of her chamber. A wren was perched on the grapevine growing up the castle wall. The sun through the window turned her hair to coils of gold, as she addressed the wren. “You are free to come and go as you wish, playing on the breeze, while I’m a prisoner of my father’s ambition. He would ruin my life by marrying me to whatever titled brute best serves his aim. I’m nothing more than his prime heifer or brood mare.” She stood at the window as the wren flew off to search for seeds in the sun-warmed garden below. When at last she turned away, the hardness in her face made her look older than her sixteen years. “I won’t be his tool! I’m going to fly from this cage!” She went to her dressing table and withdrew a pair of shears from a drawer. Staring into the amethyst glass, with an impish grin, she removed the netting from her hair. Then she began to cut her long, golden locks.
Jasper watched bemused, as curls fell like ribbons of sunshine onto the dressing table.
***
When her chambermaid knocked at the door to dress her for supper, Elena covered her cropped hair with a cloth and climbed into bed with the excuse she was ill. The chambermaid, a young girl about Elena’s age, clicked her tongue in an annoying manner and fussed over her with smelly poultices and bitter brews, until Elena finally got rid of her by pretending to fall asleep.
Moonlight drifted across the floor of her chamber as Elena thought, it must be nearly midnight by now. She rose from her canopied bed, reached under its skirting, and withdrew a parcel. A quiver of excitement ran through her as the string on the parcel dropped to the floor, the same thrill she’d felt as a child when sneaking downstairs to the dining hall at night to hide beneath the table with the greyhounds. There she’d stifled her giggles at the spicy talk of the guests, who assuredly would have censored their language had they known a child was listening.
She dared not light the candles in her chamber as that would draw the unwelcome attention of her maid in the next room. She took the articles from the package and held them up to the moonlight. There was a boy’s blue doublet, a linen shirt, and a pair of calfskin breeches. The breeches were a bit large, but she could cinch them with a belt. The boots were also too big, but when she slipped a scarf into each toe they almost fit. She’d stolen the clothes from the son of one of her father’s guests and had felt a bit guilty when her father raged at the chambermaids.
She peered into the mirror in the moonlight and saw a young man gazing back at her, but she couldn’t really make out his features. If that’s what I look like in these clothes, then I should fool anyone I encounter.
Elena didn’t know her aunt who lived in Willow Tree. Her father didn’t approve of his sister, so she’d never been allowed to meet Aunt Agnes. All she knew about her was that she was a clothier, of whom her father spoke with contempt. “Married beneath her blood and got what she deserved. The wastrel deserted her, and now she’s forced to work as a common tradeswoman to survive!” She wasn’t at all sure Aunt Agnes would welcome her, but since father disliked her aunt so vehemently, she felt sure Aunt Agnes must be a most agreeable sort of person. And besides, she didn’t really have anywhere else to go. Her hands trembled at the thought, but then she pushed her shoulders back and swaggered boldly around her chamber like lads do when trying to impress the girls. Giggling, she was glad she couldn’t see herself in the mirror now, because she probably looked ridiculous. But the silly posturing did make her feel better. She’d never been allowed to venture beyond her father’s estate by herself. One of her dreary, gargoyle-faced guardians always accompanied her. The idea of going out into the world on her own was frightening, but in an exhilarating way.
The few keepsakes she had from her mother fitted into her satchel, a gold locket with a snip of mother’s hair, a signet ring and a pearl brooch. Taking one last look around her chamber, she realized there was nothing she would miss, except the mirror. It had belonged to her mother, who insisted, in spite of father’s suspicious questioning, that it just appeared one day in her chamber, “as if by magic.” Elena had never seen another looking glass like it. It was a large piece of amethyst glass, unbroken by the lead strips that normally held small squares of glass in a large mirror or window frame. She wasn’t sure why, but mother’s glass had become like a friend. She’d grown up not having any friends because father kept her on such a tight leash. He’d forbidden her to spend time with the playmates she really liked and insisted on thrusting his boring choices for proper friends on her.
She’d been lonely, with no one to talk to about the things that really mattered, and so, she’d begun talking to mother’s glass. Somehow, it seemed to listen. When she touched the mirror’s gem-like surface, it was surprisingly warm, like the comforting stroke of a friend, and then she didn’t feel so alone. But she knew she couldn’t take the glass with her. It was far too heavy to carry. It was heartbreaking to have to leave it behind, but she had to escape the dismal fate of marriage to her father’s choice for her husband.
With her cheek pressed against the glass, Elena whispered, “Goodbye, dear friend, I’ll miss you.” Then she turned away and went to the window. Bathed in moonlight and filled with a wild abandon, she slipped out the window and climbed down the grapevine.
***
“No, she can’t really be gone!” Jasper cried, and pounded his fists against the glass. He’d watched as Elena donned the boy’s clothes and strutted around her chamber like a cocky, teenage tough. She even looks hot as a boy! But his enjoyment soon turned to horror, when she pressed her cheek against the glass, whispered goodbye, and climbed down the vine outside her window.
In his interminable time trapped inside the glass, he’d watched Elena grow from a girl with a fiery temper into a strong-minded young woman. Sometime during that delightful metamorphosis, he’d fallen in love. The only thing keeping him from going mad in this glass prison was the hope of escape. That it would be into a world five hundred years in his past didn’t matter, because of Elena.
Mom always nagged him about not having a social life, “You’re seventeen, honey, don’t you think it’s about time you started getting involved in social activities at school?”
He was never one of the popular kids, too intense and serious, and besides, he preferred the company of his music. He would get lost in the notes for hours when he wasn’t helping Mom in the shop, and would glance up in surprise to see sunset firing the posters on his walls in blood-red.
Jasper’s mother knew the only reason he stayed at home was to help her in the antique shop. Because she felt guilty, she would make half-hearted attempts at prodding him into leaving. But she was secretly terrified he would go. She knew he longed to go to the city and study classical lute technique. He’d taught himself to read music and was composing his own repertoire of polyphonic pieces, but he burned to learn more. There wasn’t anyone with the skill to teach him in the tiny, desert town of Benton.
A mere speck on any map, Benton consisted of a quaint gas station built in the 50s, a grocery/hardware store that used to be a mercantile, a tacky diner, a scattering of historic buildings and airstream trailers, and their antique shop.
When his mother’s fussing got on his nerves, Jasper would escape to the pinewood sanctuary of his loft and the embrace of his beloved lute. Mom gave him the seven course lute, with the rosewood body and carved spruce Rosetta, for his tenth birthday. His eyes had filled with tears as he’d cradled the lute and stroked its strings, as if he’d found something precious that had been lost.
A surprising number of tourists stopped in Benton because it had the only gas and food in fifty miles of desert. The tourists would gorge on the “Geronimo” breakfast at the diner, and then meander down the street, gawking at the historic buildings painted with water lilies, sprites, and other mythical creatures by the local artist, Julian Wood. Inevitably, they would wander into the antique store with the sign, “Camenae’s Treasures.” The shop seemed out of place in the little desert town, as if it had been plucked by a tornado from a New England village and set down in a bizarre munchkin land of dwarf palm trees, cactus, rattlesnakes and ceramic replicas of javalinas, the local wild pig.
The tourists that drifted into the shop handled the antiques, much to Mom’s annoyance and in disregard of the posting behind the counter: “Some of these treasures are over a century old. Please ask for assistance!” But they seldom bought anything. The small income their shop made from sales to tourists was just enough to get by on, so Mom couldn’t afford to hire an assistant. But though the store didn’t move much merchandise, it was a two person operation, with the research, cataloging, and restoration to be done, so Jasper gave up his dream of going to study music and stayed to help.
A loud click intruded on Jasper’s thoughts. He peered out from the glass towards the noise and saw a shadowy figure jump down from the window ledge and into Elena’s chamber. His heart leapt as he thought Elena had returned. But the figure crept into the room like a wary coyote, and he realized it couldn’t be Elena.
The intruder stopped directly in front of the mirror. A flash of purple in his eyes reminded Jasper of the glass. His face was white as a cadaver’s and his skeletal fingers caressed the mirror in a possessive way. Then he lifted the glass off the dressing table in the antechamber and carried it to the bed. As he wrapped the coverlet around it and secured it with a cord, the only view of the outside world Jasper had had for many years was plunged into darkness. The intruder carried the mirror to the window and scurried down the grapevine as nimbly as a monkey.
“No, that’s not right, it’s mistletoe I steep in briarwood for ten days, not mugwort,” Simon Lebeau muttered. He sighed, withdrew the pot from the burner, and flipped through the pages of an old tome. The formula he needed for removing the boils from the milk-white skin of the Duchess of Lockhaven was relatively simple as these things go, but it always seemed to take him several tries before he managed to get his formulas right. That is, if he got them right.
Simon pushed his spectacles up on his nose and glanced over at the portly crow perched on a cask. The crow stared back at him with night-black eyes and gave a little smirking caw.
“I suppose you could do better?” he asked testily.
The crow fluffed his wings and preened his feathers haughtily, as if to imply such a silly question didn’t deserve an answer.
Simon picked up the flask of white powder from the table and muttered, “You cantankerous spawn of a harpy!”
The crow made a clacking noise that sounded very much like laughter.
It had been about a year since Simon had come to the village of Willow Tree and opened his apothecary. He did a steady business here owing to the fact there wasn’t another chemist for miles around, but he was afraid he might have to leave suddenly. There’d been mishaps with his potions throughout his career that had kept him on the move.
Like the time Lady Meredith purchased a philter to compel the affection of a peach-faced young troubadour, and instead the potion beguiled all the maids in her household to follow her around with swooning glances. It caused quite a scandal, and Simon was forced to move. Then there was the time old Lord Ulrich wanted a tonic to cure his gout, and his concoction caused Ulrich’s rather bulbous nose to turn bright green. Simon made another hasty getaway, this time leaving all his belongings except his precious books, as the Lord’s men and dogs chased him through the countryside.
Since opening his shop in Willow Tree he hadn’t had a serious mishap with his potions, but he was never sure when the next catastrophe might occur, and kept a bag packed by the back door just in case.
He peered fondly around his modest shop. It wasn’t anything fancy, like the apothecaries in the city, but it was his. The shelves behind the counter were lined with vials and flasks of powdered chemicals, measuring spoons, and his treasured books. A room behind the shop had a bed, an old dresser, a wobbly table, and a cupboard for brined meats, tea, and flour. The well in the backyard supplied him with all the water he needed, and two fruit trees provided him with apples and pears.
Agnes, a clothier from the village, had taken quite a shine to Simon and often dropped by with fresh baked tarts and supper. She would insist, as she pinched his ribs, that he needed a good woman to fatten him up. Simon was a confirmed bachelor by choice, but this never deterred Agnes. She always put on her best gown before coming to call. Though her flirtations made him uncomfortable, Simon ate considerably better thanks to her cooking.
The bell on the shop door jangled, and Simon glanced up from his tincture as a tall woman in a white ermine cloak swept into the shop. He couldn’t see the woman’s face, because the hood of her cloak was drawn, but a chill entered with her, though midsummer warmed the lane outside.
The crow made odd, peeping noises when the woman entered the shop, and then flew off to hide in the cupboard in Simon’s kitchen.
“Good day to you, gracious Lady. How may I serve you?” Simon inquired, as he hastily wiped the mugwort from his hands.
“You are the apothecary?” she demanded, without polite niceties and in a voice that reminded him of clinking ice.
“Yes, I’m Master Simon, and this is my shop.”
The woman reached into her ivory-beaded bag and withdrew an oval mirror. She held the mirror up to the patch of sunlight streaming in through the shop window. The teak frame was carved around with alchemical symbols, and a phoenix rising from its burning nest was figured at the top. As the sun touched the glass, it sparkled with sapphire.
“I want a potion to darken this glass,” the woman demanded.
Simon couldn’t take his eyes off the mirror. It was lustrous as a jewel. He recovered from his amazement as the woman tapped her foot in an imperious manner. “But, Lady, why would you wish to tarnish such a beautiful glass?” In the brooding silence, he could hear Aristotle’s anxious clacking in the back room.
“In brief, Apothecary, this mirror carries an ancient curse that I want you to contravene. Numerous sorcerers, wood-witches and all sorts of charlatans have been engaged to break the curse, but all have failed. Before you ask, no, it’s not as simple as just shattering the glass. Many have tried and the mirror remains unbreakable.”
“There is a reference I came across once that had to do with cursed mirrors. Let me think,” Simon mumbled and scratched his head, “was that Selsius Cranbach’s Treatise on the Looking Glass, or was it Hofmeyer’s Potions to Remove Any Hex?”
“Then I will leave the mirror with you, Apothecary.” The woman interjected. “I will be back to collect it at the end of the week. Do not disappoint me.” The tone of her last remark sent a chill down his spine. She handed the glass to Simon and left the shop, and the air grew noticeably warmer with her departure.
***
A top-heavy cart bounced up the rutted road leading to the gates of Asphodel Castle. The horses pulling the cumbersome load strained at the yoke. A flock of crows in the trees lining the road flapped their wings and cawed as the wagon disturbed the peace of the midsummer morning.
The wagon gave one great heave over a deep rut and something shiny slipped from under the tarp and fell to the side of the road. It glistened in the sunlight like a drop of amethyst dew. The keen-eyed crows swarmed down on the object, and there ensued a battle of gashing beaks and clashing wings. The largest fellow, with only one eye, seized the prize in its bill and took off with the others in hot pursuit.
The driver of the cart clicked his tongue at the horses and slapped the reins across their withers. “She’ll be in a right state if we don’t get this load to her soon,” he muttered, as his eyes darted to the forest shadows, as if they concealed beasts waiting to pounce.
“Aye, and that’s not a pretty sight,” his companion shivered.
As the wagon rolled its way up the steep hill, another pair of sharp eyes observed the shiny object fall. An albino magpie, perched on Asphodel’s iron gates, shot off after the crow with the prize in its beak. Darting between the crow’s pursuers, the magpie wrestled the object away in mid-air and flew towards Asphodel Castle, the outraged crows close behind. As the magpie landed on the ledge of a tall tower, something strange happened to the flock pursuing him. They all plummeted to the earth, where they fluttered in confusion like fallen fledglings. The big one-eyed crow finally gave a loud caw and took off toward the tanner’s. He knew it was time for the flesh scraped from the hides to be thrown out into the yard. All the other crows flew after him.
The magpie hopped through a narrow window and up onto the shoulder of a tall woman in a white satin gown. It dropped the shiny object into her palm as she stroked its downy feathers.
“Well done, Hemonas,” the woman said, in a voice slightly warmer than thawing ice.
The magpie fluffed its albino feathers at the rare praise, and then flew to its roost to peck the strawberries that were its reward.
The woman held the jewel up to the sunlight breaking through the grey sky. It sparkled with wine fire, the only flush of warmth in the stark tower of white brick and dark wood. “With this talisman I will be able to track the convoluted schemes of Guido,” the woman said.
The magpie cocked its head at her words, as berry juice stained its snowy breast crimson.
“He thinks to trap me with the mirror, catch me unaware, but I know how his clever mind works and will be one step ahead of him,” the woman remarked. She carried the shiny object over to a table where five crystal balls were arranged in a pentagram. Tiny figures with slanted eyes glared at her from inside the spheres. She set the talisman down inside the pentagram, as the captives flailed their hands against the crystal.
“Now, my sylvan captives, we will see who rules the seasons. Brother Guido believes his autumnal fire is more powerful than the winter that comes to still it, but he’ll soon find he is no match for me,” the woman said. Her fingers, narrow as rushes, moved above the jewel talisman and it began to glow. Then a man with a purple fleur-de-lis on his cheek appeared in the jewel.
“Ah, Sister Melina, so you have one of Mother’s magic amulets,” the man said, with his black eyes riveted to the woman’s face.
“Yes, Guido, and I see your taste in apparel hasn’t improved,” Melina answered, and arched her white brows reprovingly at his coat dappled in red and yellow leaves. “Though you have the Amethyst glass, with this talisman I’ll have foreknowledge of whatever convoluted scheme you might hatch.”
“You sorely misjudge me, Melina, if you think I would plot against you. You and I have always been natural allies,” Guido responded, with a patronizing look he knew would irritate her. “It’s our golden-haired brother, with his infernal sunny disposition, and little Faun, with her maddening frivolity, that are our true enemies. Besides, the Amethyst Mirror is no longer in my possession.” He was rewarded by seeing her ice-blue eyes glint in shock.
“Then where is the glass, Guido?” she inquired skeptically.
He smiled that smug smile he always got whenever he managed to startle her. “I took it somewhere, or should I say, some time, where our siblings would never find it. It’s hidden centuries in the future, in an obscure little corner of the world, where the fools will never think to look for it.”
Melina eyed him sharply, but finally decided this was one of the rare times he was being genuine. “But I have felt the presence of the mirror in our time, and seen a man in the glass, though not clearly, when I gazed into Sapphire, its sister mirror.”
“You thought it was me, didn’t you?” Guido prodded with his smug grin. “No, dear Sister, some bumpkin living in that obscure little corner of the future has unlocked the magic of the glass and gotten trapped inside. It was he who caused the mirror to return to our time. Since the mirror did not return to me, it must have re-keyed its magic to the man imprisoned inside and taken him where he unconsciously desired to go. Why he wished to come here, centuries in his past, I can’t fathom, but there is no doubt the Amethyst glass returned to our time.”
“If that is true, then how did this person, with no magical talent, get the mirror to respond to his wishes? And more importantly, why are you so obligingly passing this information on to me?”
“Ah, it wounds me that you so mistrust me, Melina,” Guido pronounced, with an aggrieved sigh. “As you know, the magic of Amethyst can be spelled to respond to different types of keys. One that I created was a particular sequence of notes taken from an obscure madrigal by Avenal Dupree. The composer never notated the composition or played it for anyone. It was a trifle from his youth that he was embarrassed by, and rightly so for its naivety. I extracted it from his mind when I heard him perform for the bishop in Salisbury. The man in the future must have inadvertently stumbled across the same sequence of notes and played it near the glass, and so its magic was evoked. But, as I said before, it is our siblings who are our enemies. If we join together in our search for the mirror we are bound to find it before either of those idiots.”
Stroking the magpie’s snowy breast, Melina said, “I don’t trust you, Guido, but at least I understand you. You are right that we have certain traits in common, which is more than I can say for either of our siblings.” She paused, as the porcelain mask of her face cracked into as close a thing to a frown as it ever displayed. “If you are genuine in your proposal to unite against them, prove it to me. Give me the Tablet of Thoth you took from Sismondi Manor after Mother died.”
Guido’s eyes followed her, and he commented inconsequentially, “Really, Melina, don’t you think you could bring some warmth and color into this ice castle? It gives me chills just to look at it.” With a dismissive shake of his head, he continued, “Well, no matter, back to the point at hand. I know you think I have the tablet, but you malign me with your unfounded suspicion. It was gone when I arrived at Sismondi Manor after Mother’s demise. I’m convinced Mother, you know how devious she was, hid the tablet before she died. She knew how we all coveted it, and so concealed it where we would never find it. I searched every nook of the Manor and all the grounds, as I’m sure you and the others did, and found nothing.”
Melina fell silent as she remembered the last time she’d seen their mother, Gestamone Sismondi. She was lying on the couch in her workroom, surrounded by magical objects, spell books, and brewing potions. Her dark Mediterranean beauty, reminiscent of the faces haunting Roman tombs, was now stretched thin as paper over bone.
“Do not think death will pry from my lips the secrets I have guarded all these years. I see how the four of you, the issue of my womb, circle as jackals awaiting an ante-lope’s death throe,” Gestamone began, with effort. “Perhaps I have taught you all too well. You and Guido in particular take after me in your fierce ambition. I imbued each of you with the power of a season, nurturing you with complex spells and bitter brews as you grew inside me. It’s a shame you are not content with such a magnificent gift.” Then a spasm of pain wracked her shriveled body and she closed her eyes and clawed spidery fingers into the couch.
The impatient tap of Guido’s fingers brought Melina’s thoughts back to the present. “I don’t believe you. There’s no way you could have learned how to key the magic of the Amethyst mirror without the tablet. You’re the only one who has been able to key the locks on the mirror since mother’s death.”
He looked uncomfortable, but then responded with a sly grin, “As you know, dear Sister, I entertain a special affection for you, so I will confide something which I would never reveal to the others. I was able to extract a few secrets from Mother’s mind before she died. She fought me like a wild cat, but since she was so weak at the end, I was able to breach her guard. With the clues I managed to extract, I was able to create two new keys for the Amethyst mirror. But without the tablet, I don’t have the mastery over the glass that Mother did.”
Melina trailed her fingers over one of the crystal spheres on the table, causing the tiny figure inside to collapse to its knees. “I don’t trust you Guido, but since I detest the others even more than I do you, I will concede it might be wise to combine our efforts in the search for the Amethyst mirror.”
“I knew I could count on your good sense. I’ll come to you tomorrow so we may plan our course,” and then Guido’s face vanished from the talisman, and the warmth faded from the stark chamber.
Sunset touched the leaves of the apple tree with scarlet and streamed in the window of Simon’s little kitchen, as Agnes urged, “Please, have some more mutton.” She’d labored all day basting the mutton with wine and herbs, and baking the buttery fruit tarts she knew Simon relished. She’d also turned away a customer or two with the excuse she was ill, just to spend the afternoon bathing in rosewater. She was determined to beguile Simon tonight with her buttery confections, mulberry wine and considerable charm.
Agnes of Argyle managed quite well without a husband. But when Simon Lebeau opened his apothecary shop in Willow Tree, she’d gazed into his fawn-brown eyes and felt giddy. There was something about his gentle, scholarly manner and schoolboy awkwardness that gave a spring to her step and a glow to her cheeks.
“No, thank you, Agnes, I couldn’t possibly eat another bite,” Simon leaned back with a contented sigh.
Aristotle watched them from his perch on the bedpost and made rude clacking noises every time Agnes trailed her fingers over Simon’s hand when she passed the dishes. His commentary wasn’t lost on Simon, who sent him sharp, reprimanding looks.
“Perhaps another glass of wine,” Agnes inquired, and filled his glass without waiting for a reply.
He took a sip to please her, and somehow her hand ended up on his after she returned the decanter to the table.
At this point, Aristotle’s clacking became decidedly louder.
Ignoring him, Simon cleared his throat, “Ah, a most interesting customer came into the shop today.”
“Oh,” she caressed his knuckles with rose-scented fingers.
“Yes,” Simon began, starting to feel quite warm, though the kitchen was rather drafty. He found Agnes lovely and bright, but that was exactly the problem. He didn’t want to court or marry, because it would interfere with his apothecary work to have a woman in his life.
Simon loosened his collar and eased his hand out from under hers. “Although I couldn’t see her face because her hood was drawn, I’m certain she was Lady Melina Sismondi, the daughter of the late matriarch of the Sismondi family, Gestamone.”