Part 31 (2/2)
”And somehow, mysteriously, he will vanish on the way. Highwaymen, no doubt.” Meg's gaze turned pensive. ”Are all those inventors and mechanics and engineers going to change the world for better or worse?”
”Both,” Simon said wryly. ”We're on the verge of a great new age, my warrior maiden, and there will be pain and anger and disruption. Change hurts. But ultimately, this new age will benefit the great ma.s.s of people. There will be more education, more wealth, more choices for everyone. No longer will bright lads like Jemmy die in chimneys and girls like Breeda become maids because there are no other jobs for a poor farm girl. I can't see the whole shape of the future, but I do know that it will be a better one than if Drayton had his way.”
”Good.” Meg trailed her fingers through Simon's hair, wondering how long it would take him to get the forum on track. When the disruptions had been smoothed over and the mechanics and engineers given the chance to talk each others' ears off, she and Simon could go back to Lady Beth's and some privacy. A long, long night of privacy. ”But since I'm no maid, I can't be your warrior maiden anymore.”
”No matter.” He laughed and drew her closer. ”Now you're my warrior queen.”
EPILOGUE.
Emma was bouncing in her carriage seat. ”We're almost there!”
Meg was bouncing almost as much. ”I recognize the stone bridge! The vicarage is just around the next bend!”
Simon smiled at the sisters. A week had pa.s.sed since the final confrontation with Drayton, and it had been a busy one. Soon Moses would take Lily back to Ma.r.s.eilles to his family, and to become his bride. Jemmy had decided to go with them. He wanted an education, and a chance to ride horses.
Breeda had sailed for Ireland to visit her family, but after that she would join the others in France. The bonds the four of them shared were too powerful for them to go their separate ways. Simon had already written a French Guardian he knew in Ma.r.s.eilles to continue the training of the former thralls.
David White had recovered from Drayton's attack with no damage, and no clear memory of what had happened. Later, though, when he had returned from the forum br.i.m.m.i.n.g with ideas, he had confided to Sarah that while he was unconscious he had flown through a tunnel of light. At the end he had found the pure radiance of G.o.d.
The Lord had given him the choice of staying in heaven or returning to earth. Of course he chose Sarah and his unborn child, because G.o.d would always be waiting. Simon learned the story from Sarah when she called to thank him privately for whatever he had done.
The carriage pulled up in front of the sunlit vicarage. Emma tumbled out without waiting for the guard to lower the steps for her. ”Mama, Papa!”
Meg stepped out more slowly, yearning but nervous. Ten years was a long time. Simon climbed out last, thinking it best to stay in the background while the reunion took place. He was an outsider at a family's celebration.
”Emma! Meg!” Suddenly the yard was full of Harpers, two tall young men and the vicar and his wife, not to mention three dogs and several cats. A spaniel old enough to have a gray muzzle leaped at Meg with an ecstatic howl that seemed almost human.
”My darling girl!” Meg's mother embraced her, weeping. ”I never believed you were dead, never. This last week while waiting for you to come home has been an eternity.”
”Mama, Mama.” Tears ran down Meg's face as she hugged her mother with breath-squeezing strength. ”For so long I had thought I was alone. How could I have forgotten how blessed I am?”
The Harpers ended in one grand, untidy hug, happiness breaking down their reserve. Simon lingered by the carriage, trying to suppress an unworthy pang of envy as he observed the bonds of love connecting the Harpers. Even at its best, his family had never been so loving. Magic had its limits.
The vicar turned and offered his hand. ”Forgive our rudeness, Lord Falconer, and please accept our grat.i.tude. You have given us a gift beyond price. For ten years, I believed my eldest child dead. I never dreamed that she would come home whole and alive and beautiful.” He smiled wryly. ”Not to mention a countess.”
Simon returned the older man's handshake. ”I'm sorry I was unable to ask you for your daughter's hand. We are well and truly wed now, but we hope that you will marry us again in front of all your friends and family. As soon as possible, for now that Meg remembers her family, she says she won't feel properly married until you have performed the sacrament.”
”It will be my privilege.” The vicar's gray green eyes, so like Meg's, were shrewd. ”My daughter has chosen well.”
Simon saw a spark of power in the older man, and guessed where at least some of the Harper magic came from.
Meg turned and took his arm, her smile radiant despite the tear tracks on her cheeks. ”Come, my love, and meet your new family.” As she drew him forward, Emma took his other arm.
Suddenly he wasn't an outsider after all.
In later years, near the ancient estate of the lords Falconer, there came to be tales of a mysterious white unicorn that sometimes rode through the night as fast as the wind. On his back he carried a fairy queen whose bright laughter and dark hair rippled through the darkness.
But, of course, they were only tales.
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
Though the term ”scientist” wasn't coined until the 1830s, the eighteenth century was the Age of Enlightenment, and Western society teemed with theories, experiments, and lots of the Georgian equivalent of garage inventors. From this ferment of ideas and experiments grew the Industrial Revolution.
However, since I was tied to the 1740s because of the events of an earlier, related book, A Kiss of Fate, I fudged some of the allusions to inventions that appear in this story. David White's steam engine bears a remarkably strong resemblance to the Watts steam engine, which didn't come along until three decades later. The same is true for some of the famous spinning and weaving inventions, and the great age of ca.n.a.l building hadn't quite begun. But my portrait of an age of invention is real in spirit, if a trifle premature.
There really was a Royal Menagerie in the Tower of London from the thirteenth century until the 1830s, when the remaining animals were transferred to the new Regent's Park Zoo. The medieval collection began with royal gifts from foreign potentates, but over time it turned into a real crowd-pleaser. In the eighteenth century, the Tower of London was the city's biggest tourist draw, so much so that the phrase ”going to see the lions” was shorthand for touring London.
The lions were extremely popular, and often a lion was named for the monarch. Some of these lions lived so long that one has to a.s.sume new lions were subst.i.tuted when old ones went to that great savannah in the sky. After all, one wouldn't want a lion named for the king to die prematurely-it made people start wondering how long the monarch would survive. Apparently there is nothing new about political spin!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
A lifelong reader of science fiction and fantasy, M. J. PUTNEY can still quote Robert Heinlein with no encouragement whatsoever. A graduate of Syracuse University with degrees in eighteenth-century literature and industrial design, she followed a peripatetic path to success as a writer. Now a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author, Putney has been a nine-time finalist in the Romance Writers of America RITA contests and has won two RITAs for her historical novels. Her books have been listed four times by the American Library a.s.sociation among the top five romances of the year. The chance, with Stolen Magic, to combine fantasy with her love of history and romance is an example of real-life magic in action. Visit the author's website at .
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