The last person a scientifically-minded lord wants to consult is a fortune-teller. And yet Gareth Carhart, Marquess of Blakely, finds himself doing exactly that in order to prove to his gullible cousin that "Madame Esmerelda" cannot see the future.
Madame Esmerelda--otherwise known as Jenny Keeble--doesn't need special powers to know scientific tests are bad for business. But just because Jenny's a fraud doesn't mean she'll surrender. She decides to subject Gareth's scientific mind to more illogic than it can bear. And so she predicts that the marquess will marry another woman, but only if he first completes tasks. Humiliating tasks. He'll have to hand-make gifts. Sing in public. The only way he can disprove her predictions is to perform at her command, and she's sure he'll give up first.
Tasks or no tasks, Gareth won't capitulate. There's another way he can demonstrate Madame Esmerelda isn’t an otherworldly, metaphysical oracle. He'll show she's more than susceptible to his very worldly, very physical charms....
. Is the book finished?
. Yes, kind of. It's done, and it's at the length that I think everyone
calls "100,000 words." I don't think I need any major structural changes.
But there are a lot of parts that are still in desperate need of tweaking, and I'll want to get a few opinions on it before
I start sending it out. Right now my goal is to have it ready to rumble by mid-April of 2008.
. Hey... I remember you talking about this a long time ago. Wasn't the heroine's name
Claire Cunningham once upon a time?
. Yep. I finished the first draft in March of 2007. I knew I needed to do some
revisions, but I had this cool idea for a second book. So I wrote that and then came back to this one and realized
that "some" revisions was far too generous, and there were major structural problems. I ended up collapsing my heroine
with the fraudulent fortune teller in the original version. And the villain with the heroine's brother. I also removed
a whole slew of irrelevant characters. It's much better this way around. Trust me.
. How much rewriting did you do?
. The original version came to something like 95,000 words. I kept about 300
of them.
. So it's a completely different book?
. No.... The same central elements appear in both of them. Gareth has
matured a lot, but he's basically the same sort of person: wry and funny when he has the chance, but now bogged down with a lot more
responsibility. And the crucial moments are the same. There's a bet about a fortune teller; someone changes
their mind and burns things; someone else gets depressed; and at the end of it all, Ned gets his freedom, which
is not what anyone would have expected it to be. The
elephants and the oranges are new, though. Also the conflict and the character arcs. Those are new, too.
. So your first draft was pretty bad.
. Yes. It had a lot of lovely dialog, but very little conflict.
It took me a long time to figure out that "conflict" is not the same thing as "a goal you can't get." Conflict
needs to be deeply personal. And so wanting something for someone else.... It's just not good enough. I
needed my characters to want for themselves. Anything else, and they won't dig deep enough to make it
a strong enough story.
. Isn't that the point where you need to just shove the manuscript under
the bed and write something else?
. No. I actually think that some of the writing advice that is given is
really bad, if taken together. Take the following two things: "Turn off your internal editor on your first draft" and "Don't waste
time revising something that's not good enough." If by "revising" you mean picking up words on the page and shoving
them around for maximum efficacy, yeah, revisions won't help a fundamentally flawed manuscript. But if you never
make yourself fix that fundamentally flawed manuscript, I think you'll actually lose the chance to figure out what
you did wrong. As it is, writing is mostly blundering about in the dark. When you stub your toe against something,
you should take the opportunity to feel your way around the obstacle instead of turning around and setting
off in the opposite direction as far as you can go. That means you have to be willing to rewrite instead of revise. It's really hard
putting conflict in a manuscript that doesn't have any. But once you succeed, you will never make the no-conflict
mistake again. You will instead make a whole host of other mistakes.
. Is the book good enough?
. I wish I knew.
. Have you tried to sell it?
. Not yet.
. Wait a second. Who's asking these questions?
. Me.
. So they're frequently asked because . . . ?
. Because you haven't asked me any questions at all. The questions I ask myself
are the most frequently asked. But it's easy to change that. Mail me!
welve years of plying her trade had taught Jenny Keeble to leave no part of her carefully-manufactured occult atmosphere to chance. Sandalwood smoke wafted from the brazier. It added just the right touch of the occult: not too cloying, yet unquestionably exotic. Well worth the hefty price she'd paid. Black fustian draped precisely over her rickety table. Garishly colored hangings, purchased from gypsies, transformed the tiny front room into a mystical portal.
Every detail--from the cobwebs she left undisturbed in the corner of the room, to the gauze that draped the basement windows of her rooms and filtered the sunlight into indirect haze--whispered this was a room where magic worked and spirits conveyed sage advice.
Precisely what Jenny wished her clients to believe.
A sharp rat-tat-tat sounded and anticipation flooded Jenny's veins. She glanced down for one last check of her costume. The virulently red-and-blue striped skirt, paired with a green blouse, gave her an otherworldly, exotic look. Layer after heavy layer obscured her waist and fluffed her out until she resembled nothing so much as a round, multi-hued melon. She had let the sun bronze her once-fair English skin, and she'd outlined her eyes with thick black kohl. Jenny adjusted the yellow dotted kerchief that tied her dark hair, took a deep breath, and schooled her face to mystery.
Jenny Keeble ceased to exist. In her place stood Madame Esmerelda. A woman who could see anything. Who predicted everything. And stopped at nothing.
With her lies firmly in place, Jenny opened the door.
Two men stood on her stoop. Ned, one of her favorite clients, she had expected. He was tall and thin, a shock of light brown hair topping sharp features. His lips curled up in a broad, welcoming smile. But there was another fellow with him. The stranger was extraordinarily tall, even taller than Ned. He stood back, his arms folded in stern disapproval.
"Madame Esmerelda," Ned said. "I'm sorry I didn't inform you I was bringing a companion."
Jenny swallowed unease. Madame Esmerelda knew nothing of unease. Instead, she armored herself with a knowing smile. "Ned, you must know you cannot surprise me."
Ned turned to the other man. "See? Isn't that proof enough for you?"
Proof? A shiver went through Jenny. Proof, in connection with her profession, was the dirtiest of words. She peered at the man who stood, tapping one foot, behind Ned. His coat was carelessly unbuttoned. Some tailor had poured hours into the exquisite fit of the jacket. It was cut close enough to the body to show off the form, but loose enough to allow movement. His sandy-brown hair was tousled, his cravat tied in the simplest of knots. The details of his wardrobe bespoke an impatient arrogance, as if his appearance was little more than a bother, his attention reserved for weightier matters.
That attention shifted to Jenny now, and a shiver raced down her spine. With one predatorial sweep of his eyes, he took in Jenny's costume from head to toe. She swallowed.
"Madame Esmerelda," Ned said, "I've brought my cousin."
A cold glimmer of irritation escaped the other man, and Ned expelled a worn-out sigh.
"Yes, Blakely. May I present to you Madame Esmerelda." The monotone introduction wasn't even a question. "Madame, this is Blakely. That would be Gareth Carhart, marquess of Blakely. Et cetera."
A cold beat of apprehension pulsed through Jenny as she curtsied. Ned had spoken of his cousin before. Based on Ned's descriptions, she'd imagined the marquess to be old and perhaps a little decrepit, obsessed with facts and figures. Ned's cousin was supposed to be coldly distant, frighteningly uncivil, and intimidatingly vague.
But this man wasn't distant; even standing a full yard away, her skin prickled in response to his presence. He wasn't old; he was lean without being skinny, and his cheeks were shadowed by the stubble of a man in his prime. Most of all, there was nothing vague about him. She'd often thought Ned had the eyes of a terrier--warm, liquid, and trusting. His cousin had those of a lion--tawny, ferocious, and just a little feral.
Jenny gave silent thanks she wasn't a gazelle.
Ned continued, blithely unaware of the direction of Jenny's thoughts. "He doesn't think you can predict the future."
Neither did Jenny. She resented sharing the trait.
Ned beamed at her. "Blakely's going to demonstrate the accuracy of your predictions."
The expression of slavish delight that lit Ned's face on this pronouncement made Jenny think of that terrier, this time leaping about in a hysterical frenzy as it deposited a mangled rat at its owner's feet.
"Demonstrate? Scientifically?" The words whooshed out of her, as if she'd been prodded in the stomach. Jenny grasped the door frame for support. "Well. That would be. . . ." Unlikely? Unfortunate? "That would be unobjectionable. How shall he proceed?"
Ned waved his hand at his cousin. "Well, go ahead, Blakely. Ask her who you're going to marry."
Lord Blakely scoffed. "I'm not marrying. And I'm not consulting this old charlatan."
Ned and Jenny spoke atop each other. "She's no charlatan!" protested Ned.
But Jenny's hands had flown to her hips for another reason entirely. "Thirty," she protested, "is not old!"
Ned turned to her, his brow lifting. A devastating silence cloaked the room, and Jenny realized that in her disquiet, she hadn't spoken in Madame Esmerelda's character. She'd spoken as a woman.
And the marquess noticed. That clear-eyed gaze flicked from her head down to the garish round skirts obscuring her waist. He seemed to see through every one of her layers. His appraisal was thoroughly masculine. A sudden tremulous awareness tickled Jenny's palms.
And then he looked away. A queer quirk of his lips; the smallest exhalation, and like that, he dismissed her. Jenny was no lady, no social match for Lord Blakely. She was not the sort who would inspire him to tip his hat if he passed her on the street. She should have been used to such dismissals. But underneath her skirts, she felt brittle, like a pile of dried-up potato parings ready to blow away with one strong gust of wind. Jenny's fingernails bit crescent moons into her hands.
Madame Esmerelda wouldn't care about this man's interest. Madame Esmerelda never let herself get riled. Madame Esmerelda had always been Jenny's escape from the ignominy of her bastard birth. And so Jenny swallowed the lump in her throat and smiled mysteriously. "I am also not a charlatan."
Lord Blakely raised an eyebrow. "That remains to be seen. As I have no desire to seek answers for myself, I believe Ned will question you."
"I already have!" Ned protested. "About everything."
All too true. By the time Jenny had realized how dependent Ned was on her advice, the damage had already been done. It was obvious from his painfully awkward questions that his family paid him little mind and less respect. Jenny had not only given him attention, she'd tried to convey to him a little confidence. She cloaked her words to him in hocus pocus, but if she'd stripped the mystical references from everything she'd ever told him, she'd given advice. Nothing more, nor less.
Jenny floated to a chair and sat down, and gestured for the men to take their places beside her. When everyone had settled in place, she clasped her hands in front of her.
Lord Blakely rubbed the cheap fabric that loosely draped her chairs between thumb and forefinger. "I'm sure you are aware Ned must marry," he said. "Madame--Esmerelda, is it?--why don't you tell me the name of the woman he should choose."
Ned stiffened, and a chill went down Jenny's spine. Advice cloaked in a spiritual guise was one thing. But she could see no reason to bully Ned into marriage at his young age.
"The spirits have not chosen to reveal such details," she responded smoothly.
The marquess pulled a bit of lead from his pocket and licked it. He bent over a notebook and scribbled a notation. "Can't--predict--future--with--specificity." He squinted at her. "This will be a damned short test of your abilities if you can do no better than that."
Jenny refused to let her irritation show.
"I can say," she said slowly, "in the cosmic sense of things, he will see her soon."
"There!" crowed Ned in triumph. "There's your specifics."
"Hm." Lord Blakely frowned over the words he'd transcribed. "The 'cosmic sense' being something along the lines of, the cosmos is ageless? No matter which girl Ned meets, I suppose you would say he met her 'soon.' Come, Ned. Isn't she supposed to have arcane knowledge or some such?"
Jenny placed her hands atop the table, gripping the rough surface. If she kept them there, perhaps they wouldn't itch to snatch the kettle from the fire. The better to bring arcane knowledge of iron cracking against scientific forehead. But Madame Esmerelda would never resort to violence.
She pitched her voice to soothe. "Of course, it is possible to give more specifics. In ancient days, soothsayers predicted the future by studying the entrails of small animals, such as pigeons or squirrels. I have been trained in such things."
A look of doubt crossed Lord Blakely's face. "You're going to slash open a bird?"
Jenny's heart flopped at the prospect. She could no more disembowel a dove than she could earn an honest living. She paused, then pointed a finger dramatically.
"Ned, go into the next room. I want you to bring back the small sack you find on the table there. Do not open it. Do not look inside."
Ned gulped and jumped to his feet. Seconds passed; Jenny sat in unmoving silence, her chin held high. She didn't even let herself wince when a dull crash sounded, followed by Ned's quickly-stifled imprecations. Ned finally returned with his hands full of burlap. He offered the sack to Jenny, but she tucked her hands behind her back and shook her head.
"No," she said. "Sit down. It is your future which is at stake. That means your hand must be the instrument of doom. The contents of that bag? You will eviscerate it."
Ned swallowed. His liquid brown eyes pleaded with her.
Lord Blakely gaped. "You kept a small animal in a sack, just sitting about in the event it was needed? What kind of creature are you?"
Jenny raised one merciless eyebrow. "I told you I was expecting the two of you." And when Ned still hesitated, she sighed. "Ned, have I ever led you astray?"
Of course she had. But Jenny's admonition had the desired effect. Ned drew a deep breath and thrust his arm gingerly into the bag, his mouth puckered in distaste. Jenny resisted the almost overwhelming urge to laugh. The expression on his face flickered from queasy horror to confusion. From there, it flew headlong into outright bafflement. Shaking his head, he pulled his fist from the bag and turned his hand palm up.
For a long moment, the two men stared at the offending lump. It was brightly colored. It was round. It was--
"An orange?" Lord Blakely rubbed his forehead. "Not quite what I expected." He scribbled another notation.
"We live in enlightened times," Jenny murmured. "Now, you know what to do. Go ahead. Disembowel it."
Ned turned the fruit in his hand. "I didn't think oranges had bowels."
"Why not?" asked Jenny. "Some have navels."
Lord Blakely fished in his coat pockets and came up with a polished silver pen-knife. It was embossed with bay leaves. Symbol of nobility; his Lordship had no doubt chosen the design to emphasize how far above mere commoners he stood. Lord Blakely held the weapon out, as formally as if he were passing a sword.
Ned accepted it soberly. He placed the sacrificial citrus on the table in front of him, and then speared it with one fell blow. Jenny allotted herself one short moment of wistful sorrow for her after-dinner treat gone awry as Ned stabbed again and again. Pulp sprayed everywhere.
"Enough."
Ned stabbed once more, male warrior to his core.
She reached out and covered his hand with hers. "It's dead now," she explained gravely.
He pulled his trembling hand away and nodded. Lord Blakely took back his knife and cleaned it with a handkerchief.
Jenny studied the corpse. It was orange. It was pulpy. It was going to be a dreadful mess to clean up. Most importantly, it gave her an excuse to sit and think of something mystical to say--the only reason for this exercise, really. Lord Blakely demanded specificity. But Jenny knew that specifics were the enemy.
"What do you see?" asked Ned in a hush.
"I see . . . I see . . . an elephant."
"Elephant," Blakely repeated, as he transcribed her words. "I hope that isn't the extent of your predictions. Unless, Ned, you plan to marry into the genus Loxodonta."
Ned blinked. "Loxo-wha?"
"Comprised, among others, of pachyderms."
Jenny ignored the byplay. "Ned, I am having difficulties forming the image of the woman you should marry in my mind. Tell me, how do you imagine your ideal woman?"
"Oh," Ned said without the least hesitation, "she's exactly like you. Only younger."
Jenny swallowed uncomfortably.
"Whatever do you mean? She's clever? Witty?"
Ned scratched his chin in puzzlement. "No. I mean she's dependable and honest."
The mysterious smile slipped from Jenny's lips for the barest instant, and she looked at him in appalled--and flattered--horror. If this was how Ned assessed character, he would end up married to a street thief in no time at all.
Lord Blakely's hand froze above his paper. No doubt his thoughts mirrored hers.
"What?" Ned demanded. "What are you two staring at?"
"I," said Lord Blakely, "am dependable. She is--"
"You," retorted Ned, "are cold and calculating. I've known Madame Esmerelda for two full years. And in that time, she's become more like family than anyone else. So don't you dare talk about her in that tone of voice."
Jenny's lungs caught fire. Her vision blurred and her head swam. Jenny had no experience with family; all she remembered was the cold school where her unknown parents had paid her tuition. She'd known since she was a very small child that she stood alone against the world. That had brought her to this career--the sure knowledge that nobody would help her, and everyone would lie to her. Lying to them instead had only seemed fair play.
But with Ned's words, a hunger filled her. It wasn't a desire that she could comprehend in the confines of her head. It enfolded her skin, blazed through every inch of her flesh.
Family. The opposite of loneliness.
Ned wasn't finished. "You see me as some kind of tool, to be used when convenient. Well, I'm tired of it. Get your own wife. Find your own heirs. I'm not doing anything for you any longer."
Jenny blinked back tears and looked at Ned again. His familiar, youthful features were granite. Beneath his bravado, she knew he feared his elder cousin. And yet he'd stood up to the man just now. For her.
She wasn't Ned's family. She wasn't even his friend. She was the fraud who'd bilked him of funds in exchange for false platitudes and advice. He'd given her something more precious than money. And he was asking her to repay him with more lies.
Well. Jenny swallowed the lump of regret in her throat. If deceit was all she had, she would use it. But she wouldn't lie to Ned. At least, not about something as important as marriage.
Lord Blakely straightened. That outraged glower on his face--cold and stubborn--indicated he thought Ned was his tool. That Lord Blakely was superior in intelligence and birth to everyone else in the room, and he would force their dim intellects comprehend the fact.
Jenny bit back a savage smile. He'd pay for that arrogance. She was going to make the marquess regret he'd ever asked for specifics.
"Ned, you recently received an invitation to a ball, did you not?"
He puckered his brow. "I did."
"What sort of a ball?"
"Some damned fool crush of a debut, I think. No intention of going."
The event sounded promising. There were sure to be many young women in attendance. Jenny could feel her revenge forming already.
"You will go to this ball," she pronounced. And then she swept her arms wide, encompassing the two men. "You will both go to this ball."
Lord Blakely looked taken aback.
"I can see nothing of Ned's wife in the orange. But at precisely ten o'clock and thirty-nine minutes at this ball, Lord Blakely, you will see the woman you will marry. And marry her you will, if only you approach her in the manner I prescribe."
The scrape of Lord Blakely's pencil echoed loudly in the reigning silence. When he finished, he set the utensil down carefully.
"You wanted a scientific test, my lord." Jenny placed her hands flat on the table in satisfaction. "You have one."
