Keeper of Enchanted Rooms

Setting her bag on the bed, Hulda shook out her arms, forcing newly tense muscles to ease. She crossed to the small oval mirror on the wall, provided by herself, and peered into it. Took off her glasses, cleaned them on her skirt, and put them back on. Sleep on it, she reminded herself, and turned away, plucking hair pins from her scalp. She’d stopped at a street vendor before heading back into the Narragansett, but even then her appetite had been wanting. She needed some rest to clear her head.

With the last pin gone, Hulda shook out her hair, which fell a hand’s length below her shoulders—an adequate length for the styles that were currently in fashion. Hulda didn’t care much for fashion, but she did want to be presentable at all times, so she had to keep up with it to a degree. The mess was a third straight, a third wavy, and a third curly, from how it had been tucked and pressed. She pulled it back into a braid and crossed to the window, peering out. She couldn’t see much. Without city lights, the island got dark as pitch once the sun settled down, the bay around it illuminated only by lighthouses, none of which she could see out her window. A few streaks of dying plum twilight highlighted a passing swallow and a distant elm.

You’re safe here. Mr. Fernsby’s voice echoed in her thoughts. And she was, wasn’t she? Not even her family knew she was out in the middle of nowhere off the coast of Rhode Island; she hadn’t written to them yet. Something she should do . . . but perhaps without specifics, until she worked through this morning’s scare. The fewer people who could be compelled to provide that information, the better. Besides, there was no need to worry them. There were two men in the house now, as well, one of them more aware than he let on, one of them large enough to join the White House militia. Then again, the right spells could get around size and smarts.

Why would I not concern myself with you?

A smile tempted her. A prick stung her heart.

And almost immediately, mortification overwhelmed her.

“Oh no,” she muttered, stepping away from the window. Shaking out her hands. “No, Hulda, we are not doing this again.”

It was just a little spark, nothing important. But sparks led to embers led to flames, so it had to be snuffed now, before her heart again crumbled to ash.

Not only was it inappropriate to indulge in any sort of pining over a client, but Hulda . . . Hulda wasn’t made for pining. Not mutual pining, at least. Never in all her thirty-four years had any man, of any station or background, looked at her with any amount of sweetness. And when she got moon eyed over one or the other, it always ended in embarrassment, or heartbreak, or both. She had gotten rather numb to it after all this time, but a silly part of her still squeezed through now and then, and she loathed it more than anything else, including socks by the kitchen sink. A perk of being a consultant for BIKER rather than contracted staff—she usually didn’t stay around long enough to form any significant attachment.

Perhaps because Silas Hogwood was on her mind today, her thoughts drifted back to Stanley Lidgett, who had been his steward at Gorse End. Hulda had been only twenty-one at the time, still hopeful and perhaps a little desperate. Although twenty years her senior, Mr. Lidgett had carried himself well, bore a strong jaw, and worked with a logical effectiveness she’d admired. She recalled stupidly curling her hair every morning, cinching her corset a little tighter, always seeking him out to ask after his day or bring him his favorite tarts from the kitchen. Her affections were probably obvious to the man, and he’d addressed her with withering contempt after Mr. Hogwood’s arrest. Perhaps he’d known about the magical siphoning, perhaps not—regardless, he was fiercely loyal to his employer and very blatantly disgusted with Hulda.

He’d called her ugly, and a rat. She’d heard the first before. Never the second.

She’d sobbed the entire way back to the States.

Shortly after returning to her home country, she’d overheard another interest of hers mocking her mannerisms at a local restaurant. It was then she’d accepted her old-maid status. Once she resigned herself to it, she was able to focus on more important things, like her work. She’d stopped divining for herself. She’d stopped pinching her cheeks. Stopped adding lace to her dresses.

And she’d done very well for herself. Very well, indeed. She would greatly prefer to continue that trend.

Sitting on the edge of her mattress, Hulda set her spectacles on the side table and dropped her head into her hands. “It is good that you have a kind client,” she told herself, enunciating every word. “How very fortunate for you. And it will be equally good to sort out this business with the wizard so you can move on. Do your job, Hulda. No one wants anything else from you.”