Uncertain Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

contentment.
    In a small and pleasant gathering, Roddy knew well enough how to cope with her gift. It was a matter of concentrating on one person at a time, and letting the thoughts and emotions radiating from the rest fade to background. Like the babble of simultaneous conversation, the jumble of individual mentalities blurred easily into an indistinguishable mass. The occasional stronger thought would pop into her head: Mrs. Gaskell's affront at the flippant mention of her favorite card game Preference as "Pref," or Lady Elizabeth's growing impatience that tea had not yet been served; but mostly Roddy was able to control her gift and center her attention on Geoffrey's wife.
    Thus she knew, long before Mary marshaled up the courage to speak of it, that Geoffrey was expecting an heir come spring. Roddy knew, too, that Mary was somehow upset with Geoffrey, and worried about him.
If only
, Mary kept thinking, and
I wish he wouldn't
, but her preoccupation with the coming baby drowned out anything clearer than a vague jumble of politics and meetings. Roddy saw no harm in those things, which had been Geoffrey's passion all his life, and tried her best to ignore the privacies that inevitably flitted through the other woman's mind.
    It was boring. Roddy sat there and cooed over Mary's impending happiness and played cruel games, like saying that Allen was her very
favorite
name for a boy and then exclaiming over the delightful and amazing coincidence that it was also Mary's. And Katherine was so pretty for a girl. Mary thought so too? How singular!
    Silly
, Roddy thought, in deliberate meanness.
Sweet, silly birdwit
.
    Ok, Geoffrey.
    Why can't I be like that?
    The flow in the room changed. Roddy felt it, from her position facing away from the door, felt the pleasantries evaporate and curiosity take their place. A jolt of pure disgust soured the Irish girl's sweetness. Roddy looked around.
    Not one of Geoffrey's callers, except for Roddy and her mother, had known of Cashel's guest beforehand. For a suspended moment, admiration for the fine, athletic figure in the doorway was universal. Then Geoffrey said, "Iveragh. Come in."
    Attitudes changed. Instantly. The poorly concealed reactions of shock and affront made Roddy angry, though whether for Geoffrey's sake or for the earl's, she did not know. She reached out instinctively to take Mary's hand in support, but the other girl withdrew it in a wave of shame. The clear spurt of furious revulsion Mary felt for her husband's friend was impossible for Roddy to ignore.
    She slid her hand back into her lap. She hadn't known how it would be—that among gentle society the Devil Earl was truly a pariah. Already, some of the callers were standing up to take hasty leave, as if even an introduction would taint their pristine reputations. She watched him return her mother's greeting with a graceful, easy reply, and wondered if he was even aware of the antagonism which surrounded him.
    He gave no sign of it, though she was certain that he was. How could he not be, when half the room was preparing for a sudden exodus? They only hesitated because the baron's widow and Mrs. Delamore, first and second in precedence, had already acknowledged their introductions. True, Lady Elizabeth had done so only because she had taken a moment too long to make the connection between Iveragh and the infamous Devil Earl, but Roddy's mother was determined to show that she, for one, was willing to extend approval to Lord Cashel's guest. She said something to Iveragh about the invitation to dinner, loud enough for the rest of the room to hear, and one or two of the others relaxed enough to reseat themselves.
    Roddy could not keep her eyes from the earl as he followed Geoffrey from one chilly nod to another. Iveragh answered each with an unperturbed civility which appeared to Roddy to be far more well bred than the thinly veiled hostility he received in response. If he had really come to Yorkshire because of her, she