The Ring and the Crown Page 3

  When she was able to speak, Marie nodded. She had taken the latest tonic, but there was nothing that could be done; no amount of spell-casting or potion-making could ease her affliction. The wasting plague was a disease even the healers from the sisterhood could not cure. Marie had heard the sisters murmur that it was her mother’s advanced age that had caused Marie’s many ailments, as Eleanor had been over a century in age when she carried her to term. The pregnancy had been an alchemy of creation, made from the preserved seed of Eleanor’s long-mourned and long-dead husband when the queen had decided that, at last, she was ready to bear a child. Even so, the wasting plague was a virulent disease, and one that afflicted perfectly healthy people out of the blue.

  “Emrys assured me this one would provide the miracle we have been hoping for. He had the herbs brought from the East; the viceroy himself sent it from the mountains of the Himalayas,” the queen said, exchanging a sharp look with her enchanter.

  “Yes, Mama,” Marie rasped, her chest heaving and her eyes tearing as her mother grew more and more upset.

  “You must rest, dearest,” her mother said, rising from her seat to kiss Marie’s forehead. With papery lips against her skin, Marie tried not to shudder.

  Marie nodded, still coughing blood, and stood from her chair. She waded through the rows of bowed courtiers, letting her ladies lead her back to her room so she could lie down.

  It was an odd thing, her cough; as soon as she left her mother’s presence it abated, and she almost felt fine.

  The Astor manor in Washington Square had once been the grandest house in the city. It was built in the French-Gothic style with a touch of Beaux-Arts flair, three-and-a-half stories high, with an imposing limestone façade. But the corners of its cornice were crumbling. A few slate tiles were missing from the roof, so that copper flashings left long streaks of gray-green oxide collecting in the cracks. In a drawing room on the first floor, the formerly vibrant Renaissance-style space with a scene from the Trojan War painted on the ceiling was empty, save for a lone ebony desk, at which the daughter of the house was currently bent over her studies.

  Ronan Elizabeth Astor grimaced at the book in front of her. The reproduction was badly faded, splotchy, and gray, so that it was difficult to make out the face of the boy in the picture. He was either afflicted with a bulbous nose and tragically triple-chinned, or it was an unfortunate angle and even worse lighting. She decided it was likely the former, as a handsome suitor’s features would be discernible even in an abysmal photograph. As far as she was concerned, he was a dog just like the rest of them—all these princes and barons, aristocrats and lords, dukes and archdukes, and more counts than she could count. Total bow-wow, she thought with a naughty smirk. A collar would have been more appropriate than that ghastly ascot he wore. Her governess glared at her and rapped on the print with her finger. “Pay attention!”

  “One would assume that Viscount Stewart would have been able to afford a better court photographer,” she finally said in a bored voice. Ronan was tired of all this. For weeks, her governess had been showing her various portraits of titled, single male aristocrats from Debrett’s International—that august and authoritative guide to the landed, titled, and moneyed in the empire—and quizzing her on their names, positions and hobbies. It was a special edition, with lavish full-color spreads of their country estates, not the usual roll-call listing of names and titles. And therefore, it was much more helpful for a striving American outsider. All morning, Ronan had dutifully parroted back the correct responses until she knew their names, titles, and interests better than her own.

  This was to be her first London Season: a special privilege, as not many from across the sea were invited to court every year. Ronan had merited an invitation through a patron—an old friend of the family, one Lady Constance Grosvernor, who was a favorite of the queen. There were plenty of silly American girls who would jump at the chance to marry one of these fools, but Ronan was not one of them. At sixteen she had a restless, impatient quality that set her apart. It was the best and worst thing about her, depending on whom you asked.

  “I believe the correct answer is Peregrine Randolph, Lord Stewart, as that is the proper ‘courtesy title’ of the eldest son of the Marquess of Hillshire,” Vera Bradford admonished. Her nanny was very particular about such details, and Ronan’s mother had chosen her precisely because Vera had served at several great houses abroad, and knew the names and habits of the important characters intimately. Too intimately, the rumors had it—but then, there were always rumors of lordlings and their pretty young governesses. If one believed all the rumors, then one believed that Vera’s son would have been the rightful heir of Salisbury, if not for the absence of a silly little thing like a marriage ceremony. Noble and royal bastards: the world was full of them, babies like strays with Devonshire noses and Aquitaine eyes.

  Ronan wrinkled her own nose at the sight of the pudgy, squash-nosed boy in the picture. Peregrine Randolph, Lord Stewart was a handsome name wasted upon someone who was decidedly not. It was grossly unfair to think that she would be the one who would count herself lucky if he took a liking to her, and not the other way around. But as the heiress to a bankrupt house, with little access to the power of magic, such was her lot in life.

  “Lord Stewart,” she said in a flat voice. “Hobbies: archery, still life, and discussing Plato.” More importantly, the Hillshire riches included a vast collection of rare and valuable amulets forged by the brotherhood of Merlin. They were said to bring the bearer good life, good fortune, and good luck—though obviously not good looks. She smiled, and supposed that was where she came into the picture.

  The next photograph filled the whole page, which boded well for the wealth of the family of the aristocrat in question. This one was slightly cross-eyed and buck-toothed, but what did it matter if his family had a powerful enchanter at their disposal? Especially one who could make lands fertile and farms profitable. “Marcus Deveraux,” she said. “Or, as you prefer to call him, Charles Arthur Marcus Deveraux, Viscount Lisle. Hobbies include falconry, piano, and romantic poetry.” So pretentious. She bet he only knew that one line from Byron, the one everyone knew, about walking in beauty.

  She flicked her eyes at the next titled lord in question, a grainy photograph of a dark-haired boy with a prominent nose and chin. “Archie Fairfax,” she said. At a sharp glance from Vera, she relented and recited his real name. “The Honorable Archibald Fairfax. He prefers champagne, music halls, and noise.” Finally, an honest answer, she thought.

  Ronan sighed. They were all the same, these inbred, weak-chinned boys. They had too much money and time but too little to do, even as they professed a proclivity toward an athletic endeavor, supposedly cultivated an interest in some form of art, or followed the teachings of a great philosopher. Truth be told, it was common knowledge that boys from privileged backgrounds mostly favored cards, girls, and drink. Their only advantage came from their families’ magical holdings.

  Unlike her own father, who wasted his time on such wrong-headed pursuits as “technology” and “progress” and who would have been dubbed “Empty Pockets Astor” in the papers if anyone knew the truth of their situation. Thankfully, her mother was good at keeping up appearances. No one in New York knew how badly off they were.

  Perhaps she was just bitter. The Astors held one of the oldest and most important positions in the Americas; they were deeply loyal to House Aquitaine, and had been well-rewarded for it. If only her father had managed to hang on to more of his inheritance, instead of squandering it all away on frivolities—investing in such notions as railroads and steam engines that would never be built, nor run correctly. He continually assured his family they would soon receive generous dividends. But not soon enough for their comfort, she thought, knowing the vast sum that was mortgaged against the estate. That was the problem with Americans, they placed too much faith in science, when anyone could see that such pedestrian inventions as shoulder rifles or mechanized cannons would neve
r beat England and its powerful Merlin. The American rebels had learned as much during the failed Insurrection of 1776, when the Redcoats and Her Majesty’s magicians had laid waste to the attempted sedition with their superior spell-casting.

  Luckily, her ancestor had been on the right side of the rebellion, and had retained the governorship of New York and all the privileges that came with it. Their country home in Hastings was practically a castle. Of course, nothing could compete with the sprawling and magnificent stone piles that the Europeans called home, but even the queen had spoken fondly of her time at Hudson Park. Maintenance, however, was another matter; keeping up the estates and the staff had all but drained the family finances. Many of their beautiful things had quietly been sold to pay their monthly bills.

  Relief was on the way however, in the form of passage on the Saturnia, which was to take her across the Atlantic. Once there, she would be presented to the queen. It was her family’s dearest hope that Ronan secure a desirable mate and land an engagement before the season ended and all the eligible aristocrats repaired back to their country homes. As it was, her trousseau was not worth its mention in the Herald. The enthusiastic descriptions of the fabulous gowns she would be taking to London masked the shabby reality: scraping together the very last of their resources had only resulted in a trunk full of knockoffs of the latest Parisian styles. She had a few of her mother’s glamorous gowns, of course, but they were twenty years out of date. Her jewels, or lack of them, were an unspeakable tragedy. No longer did she have her great-grandmother’s famed Astor tiara, but only an expert reproduction—it was a fake, paste and glass, and created in utmost secrecy. The real one had been sold long ago to an Arabian princess, who was probably wearing it somewhere in the desert. A shame.

  Ronan was sailing across the sea so she could sell herself to the highest bidder, and she must make a match—a rich one that would allow her to pay off their debts and secure her future. And if the family came with a retinue of magicians at their beck and call, then all the better. It was tiresome living without a little glimmer every now and then. All of her friends had the latest fripperies from the empire: powders that turned your hair gold, creams that took away blemishes on the skin. She was at least fortunate in that she did not need a magician to appear beautiful.

  “There’s my favorite girl,” her father said, entering the room. He was a large man with a bristly beard and a gruff but gentle demeanor, the type who was called upon to play Father Christmas every holiday. “What’s this?” he asked, looking askance at the book on the desk, which was open to a lavish illustration of a ducal coat of arms. He made a face, realizing what was going on.

  “Oh, Daddy, it’s nothing,” Ronan said, closing the leather-bound book with a thump and handing it to Vera, who politely excused herself from the room.

  “Your mother puts strange ideas in your head, but an Astor of New York doesn’t need anyone’s help—remember that. You have your good name. You don’t need to scrape at the feet of those empire snobs.”

  Ronan held her tongue. To be honest, she did not have it in her heart to resent him. Her father was the one who had played backgammon with her and drawn her pictures as a child. He was the one who had attended her tea parties in the nursery, and read her picture books at night while her mother threw herself into the social whirl of the city. “Did you hear the Haltons have a new fortune-teller?” she asked eagerly. “She predicts a rise in the stock market.”

  “Bah, that dark magic has no place in the future,” Henry said. “Fortune-tellers are nothing but frauds, my girl.” She knew her father did not want to admit it, but if she did not succeed in marrying well, they would have to move out west—a last resort—to her mother’s people, the “barbarians.”

  She kissed her father on the cheek and left to dress for dinner, heading up the stairs. Ronan had always been fond of the grand staircase, with its oiled and shiny balustrade, treads that neither creaked nor wobbled, and rails solid as stone. When she was a child, she had turned it into a coliseum full of dolls, placing row after row of silk-garbed figurines on each of the steps. The stairs held her audience, while Ronan performed a dance at the base. Ronan remembered nervously descending these steps on Christmas mornings, her nightdress gleaming against the dark of the wood as she tiptoed toward the dazzling tree festooned with tinsel and presents. She’d miss these old boards when she went off to England. Not that they’d had much of a Christmas last year, anyway…and the ancient but beautiful brass chandelier that used to hang in the center of the room was gone now—sold, like all the rest of the most valuable décor.

  Rounding the corner, past the now-empty corridors with the scraped-away wallpaper and more missing paintings, she stopped for a moment to stare at the pendant lights, whose candle mounts had been recently retrofitted for Edison bulbs. It looked as if strands of lightning were trapped within their tiny globes. Was this not magic? Wasn’t this power just as grand and unknowable as the Merlin’s? Her father believed so. Sometimes, looking at those incandescent lights, Ronan thought he might just have a point.

  “Is that you, Ronan?” her mother’s voice called. She turned toward the sound, knowing it was more of an order than a question.

  Ronan entered her mother’s bedroom, the only room in the house that still had all of its original furniture. It was the best room as well, with a view of the park and gardens. Outside, the first street lamps had popped to life as the sun hung low near the horizon. Inside, a single Edison bulb lit her mother’s room with a strong, consistent glow. The white paneled walls amplified the light, making her mother’s chamber not only the largest bedroom, but the brightest one as well. Her father had insisted the house be paneled in walnut, but her mother had disagreed. Against her husband’s will she’d had her room paneled in silk sateen, a finish as bright as newly fallen snow.

  The bed was done in the English style, tall and canopied, dressed up like a queen’s with bunting stuck between four tall poles. The plush white rug beneath her mother’s bed abutted a second one that stretched underneath an armoire, a dressing screen, and a powder table. Each of these pieces was framed by a pair of gilded chairs, their backs pressed against the wall. Vera told her that the backs of chairs in great houses like theirs remained unpainted, because no one ever moved the chairs or used them. Ronan had never checked to see if it was true, if the chairs were indeed nailed to the walls, but it made sense. Everything in the room was meant to be admired. Every piece—from the exquisite French clock on the mantel, to the row of perfume decanters on the vanity, to her own mother.

  At thirty-five years of age, Elizabeth Astor was still extraordinarily lovely, if a little haunted-looking. Her hollow cheeks and red eyes were the result of many sleepless nights. She came from the provinces—she was from nowhere, her parents nobody. Her only treasure was her arresting beauty, which had won over her husband, the third son of the then-richest man in New York. The youngest boy was traditionally not meant to inherit, or expected to come to much; but when the elder and middle sons of Jackson Pierce Astor were both lost during the War Between the Americans thirty years before, the youngest had inherited the governorship, and little Sue-Beth Morley (the horror of that name—so common—it held the stink of dusty towns and tumbleweed)—suddenly found herself the reigning doyenne of New York. Upon her arrival in the city, her mother had had the good sense to adopt the name Elizabeth, and went by the name “Bits.”

  “Show me your court bow,” Bits Astor demanded now. “When your father and I were presented at court to meet the queen, they all said I had the most beautiful one.”

  Ronan rolled her eyes. Her mother was forever waxing nostalgic about the glories of her season. Knowing the ingrained snobbishness of the Franco-Brits, Ronan was sure that was not all they said about the social-climbing young American.

  “Yes, Mother,” she said, and dutifully displayed what Vera had taught her. The deepest curtsy, almost to the floor. Her head was bowed demurely, lashes against her cheeks, eyes downcast. Not onc
e must she turn her back on the monarch. It was said that Queen Eleanor had her Merlin destroy those who dared to disrespect her, and Ronan did not want to suffer such a fate. She respected the power of magic; it was why she found her dear father so misguided.

  “I sense a hint of rebellion in the curve of your cheek, my dear; and we must show utmost deference to the Crown. Again.”

  Ronan nodded and curtsied again, deeper this time—so low that she felt the backs of her thighs burn with the effort.

  When her mother was satisfied with her performance, she crossed the room to stand next to her daughter. She turned Ronan’s face toward the Venetian gold gilt mirror, one of the last antiques left. Bits’s hands were as delicate as a child’s, but her grip on Ronan’s chin was like steel. She turned it to the right, then the left, examining her daughter’s profile, and finally brought it straight back to face the mirror.

  “My lovely girl.” Bits smiled.

  Ronan looked at what her mother saw. Her otherworldly, celebrated beauty: the porcelain skin, luminescent and pearly; the high sweep of her forehead; a thin, sculpted nose; sharp cheekbones; her pink pout, a proper rosebud, ripe for the plucking. Her long golden tresses, finer than silk, fell on her shoulders loose and wanton; she had been impatient with her governess that morning, and had pulled away when Vera had tried to braid her hair and put it up properly.

  “You look exactly like me at your age; thank goodness for that. A consummate New York blonde, as they like to say,” her mother said with satisfaction. “This is your fate. These are your riches. This face will win you a prince; take my word for it. You are an Astor of New York. You should do no worse, as you have much more than I started with.”

  Ronan flushed. She looked at her face and her mother’s closely in the mirror. They were like twin images, except for the very faint lines around her mother’s eyes, the faded color in her thinner cheeks.