Page 19

Chapter nineteen

Alexander

Alexander was in his study, still hard at work on the document full of notes he was making for Beatrice, when the door opened without a knock and his wife strode in with a grin on her face. She was followed by Guinevere, who looked slightly less excited.

“We found a book, and Guinevere has something for you to try,” Beatrice announced as Rose scurried toward her.

“You do?” he asked, not daring to hope.

Hope was a dangerous thing. If you allowed it to take root, it would grow…then leave you with nothing but ashes when it burned.

“What do you have for me?”

Guinevere closed the door of his study and looked around the room before saying quietly, “I have a potion for you to try.”

Alexander frowned at the small jar in her hand. “A potion?” he asked. “Like a magic potion?”

Guinevere shushed him. “Not so loud.”

“I will make sure nothing happens to you,” Alexander reassured her. “If this potion will fix me, then you will have my eternal gratitude.”

“I don't know if it will work,” Guinevere cautioned, arriving at his desk and handing it to him. “But I thought about the basics of your curse and how you cannot speak the words. So I played with that after reading the book Beatrice found, and came up with this potion that may help you to speak more freely.”

“Really?” Alexander asked, eyeing the jar. “I don't suppose you've tried it yet?”

“She doesn't have a problem with speaking,” Beatrice reminded him as she picked up Rose and began to cuddle the kitten in her arms. “What harm can it do to try it?”

“It might taste gross,” he said.

“It probably will,” Guinevere admitted. “I haven’t learned how to make them taste good in addition to doing what they need to do.”

“Of course I get the apprentice,” Alexander muttered. Beatrice shot him a glare, and he took a deep breath. “Fine, I will try it,” he said. “Just don't let it kill me.”

He took the potion and didn't dare to take a breath before pouring the contents down his throat. The first breath he inhaled after swallowing tasted as if he had just eaten the contents of a frog's stomach.

“What was in that?” he croaked. Guinevere began to list several herbs and other ingredients. He wasn't paying attention. He hadn't really wanted to know, and now his stomach was beginning to gurgle.

“Just wondering,” he asked, “what happens if it comes back up? Will it still work?”

“I don’t know,” Guinevere admitted.

Alexander clutched at his stomach as the potion began to bubble inside him.

“Is it supposed to feel like I'm boiling a pot of water in my stomach?” he asked, grimacing.

He tried to stand, but Guinevere appeared and pushed down on his shoulders.

“I wouldn't stand yet,” she said. “Just let it do its job.”

As Alexander grew lightheaded, he glared at the maid. “This is the last time I'm ever taking a potion,” he muttered before slumping over on his desk.

When his eyes opened again, everything was hazy. How long had he been out? He sat up, glaring at Beatrice and Guinevere. His wife was making her way around his desk with fear on her face, so he probably hadn’t been out long.

When he sat up, she let out a sigh of relief, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

“Are you well?” she asked quietly, almost as if she was afraid to say anything. Rose jumped from her arm to sit on his desk in front of him, licking her front paw as if to say she wasn’t at all concerned for him.

He opened his mouth to ask what they had done to him, but no words would come out. It was as if he had been completely silenced by the potion, not merely sentenced to not speak of his curse.

“What happened?” he roared, though no sound came out of his mouth. The girls stared at each other.

“It may have been too little,” Guinevere said with embarrassment. “I shall have to make another potion, my lord, to bring your voice back.”

Alexander glared, and Beatrice let out a giggle. He turned to glare at her.

“I'm sorry, Alexander,” she said, still giggling. “But you must admit, it is a little funny.”

He shook his head and pointed at Guinevere, then pointed at the door.

“Right away, my lord,” she said, bowing her head before scurrying out of the room. Beatrice continued to laugh at him as she attempted to talk to him about what she had found in the library that morning. Apparently, there had been a book on potions, which is where Guinevere had found the recipe for the particularly nasty concoction she'd forced down his throat.

“I need something else to eat,” he wrote, showing the paper to Beatrice. “So I can get the taste of frog out of my mouth.”

Beatrice grinned and rang the bell for Jenkins. She asked for tea and sandwiches to be brought, then returned to his side.

“What are you working on?” she asked, leaning over to look at the paper spread in front of him. She grimaced as she realized it was his will.

“You mustn't give up hope,” she said.

Alexander shook his head. He wasn't going to try to explain it to her. Beatrice would have to hope enough for both of them.

“Well, I won't give up hope,” Beatrice said, as if reading his thoughts. “Because we’re not going to let this defeat us. I plan on growing old with you here, and you'd better not let anything get in the way of that, especially not your own doubt.”

Alexander shook his head again. He wasn't letting his doubt win. He was simply being realistic. If he hadn't been able to figure out what to do by now, how were they going to manage it?

Before she could say anything else, there was a knock on the door, and Dietrich strode in.

“Ah, good. I was looking for you, Beatrice,” he said. “I was hoping that we could go over plans for setting up a guard around the place. They may not be able to help with magical problems, but if the sorcerer arrives with men of his own, we can make sure that we are at least protected on a human level.” Dietrich looked at Alexander. “What do you think?”

Alexander turned and glared at Beatrice.

“Alexander may be having a little difficulty speaking at the moment,” she said in a measured tone that didn't at all imply that she was at fault.

Alexander glared at her some more.

“I am hopeful that his voice will return to him momentarily,” Beatrice said with a grin.

“What did you do?” Dietrich asked, sighing. “I'm sorry, Lord Dunham. She is quite a troublemaker. I should have warned you before you married her.”

Alexander sighed and rolled his eyes.

He would have married her anyway, but it would have been nice to know that she had a devious side before he did. He would have been more prepared for her to do something like have him drink a potion that would take away his voice.

Fortunately, it was only a little while before Guinevere came scurrying back into his study with another potion for him to try.

He held his breath as he accepted it. Should he even attempt to try this one? If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to speak…but who knew what would happen after he drank this one?

And if he didn’t drink it, he wouldn’t have to taste that awful mess again.

But it wouldn't do for him to be mute for the rest of his life.

He closed his nose and took the potion in one big gulp. As it slid down his throat, it burned. Was it going to make his situation even worse?

His stomach began to rumble as it bubbled inside him. If he’d thought the first one tasted like frogs, this one tasted even worse.

He gagged and turned to Beatrice and Guinevere. He didn't want to open his mouth, fearing his voice wouldn't work, but he did.

“That is the most awful tasting thing I have ever tried in the world. Why on earth did you make me do that?”

He couldn’t stop more words from pouring out. “I can't believe you took away my voice with the first potion, and then the second potion to make it come back was even worse. What am I supposed to do now? I'm just going to keep talking about it because I can't seem to stop talking. Guinevere, what did you do to me?”

Guinevere, Dietrich, and Beatrice stared at him in horror.

“Somebody give me another potion. I don't want to be talking like this for the rest of my life. Beatrice, this is your fault. What happened? Go find that book you found. Where is it? I need to find the recipes and make it so you can make me stop talking because I can't make myself stop talking and this is going to drive me mad, and it's going to drive you mad, and it's going to drive Dietrich mad, and Guinevere mad, and the whole world mad because I can't stop talking and nobody is going to want to be around me and I am going to be sick of myself.”

Beatrice turned to Guinevere, who shrugged.

“Somebody figure out right away how to make this stop before I have to start screaming.”

“Why don't you talk to Rose?” Beatrice suggested, picking her from her spot on his desk and shoving the kitten into his lap as all three of them scurried out of his study.

Alexander kept talking to the kitten, the words driving him wild as he couldn't stop talking. Rose stared at him in the way only a cat could, asking silently if he had truly gone mad. He tried to explain to the kitten what was going on, but he wasn't sure she understood any of it because, frankly, he didn't understand it either.

As he kept talking and talking, his voice began to grow hoarse. He stumbled to the door and yanked on the bell pull.

Jenkins popped his head in and Alexander said, “Would you please get me some tea?” before turning back to the cat and beginning to talk to her again, hoping that Jenkins wouldn't realize he couldn't stop talking.

This was worse than the silencing potion from before. How were they going to turn this off, and what was it going to do to his tongue? Would he be able to speak after this at all? Would he even want to hear himself talk?

Maybe it would be enough for him to be quiet forever. Maybe he didn't need the silencing curse broken, maybe he could just be quiet for the rest of his life. That would suit him better than the never-ending monologue.

Jenkins came in with the tea and stared at him curiously as he poured it, while Alexander continued his monologue to the cat. “Thank you, Jenkins,” Alexander said, before returning to Rose and telling her a story about his childhood when he had been playing with some kittens of his.

It was more information than had come out of him in years. But since he couldn't stop talking, telling his kitten about cats seemed like a decent enough way to pass the time while he waited for the others to come back with a potion that would hopefully stop the issue.

It felt like hours before they came back, and his throat was quite sore when Guinevere approached, her fingers trembling as she handed him another potion bottle. “I'm so sorry, my lord. That one must have been too much. Let's see if this one will work better.”

Alexander growled as he held his nose and drank the rest of the potion. This one, surprisingly, neither tasted like frogs nor made him want to vomit. It tasted fine, and as it settled in his stomach, there were no unpleasant side effects. Was it possible that this potion was just right?

He waited for a moment, taking a sip of tea now that he was no longer talking nonstop.

“Can you speak?” Beatrice asked after a moment.

“I believe so,” Alexander said, then closed his mouth and waited to see if the unstoppable stream of words would start again. But it didn't happen. He was able to control whether he talked or not.

That was something he hadn't taken for granted until the past couple of hours.

He never should have listened to Beatrice or Guinevere in the first place.

“Now, what was all that for?” he growled, turning to Guinevere. “It's not like it's actually going to let me talk about the sorcerer and the stupid curse he put me under.”

He stopped talking, his eyes wide. Beatrice and Guinevere grinned and hugged each other, and Dietrich clapped. “You did it,” Beatrice squealed to Guinevere.

Alexander looked at the women with an apologetic grin. “I'm sorry for doubting you,” he said. “I should have trusted you both.”

His wife shook a finger at him. “And don't you forget it,” she said. “I am almost always right, especially when it's something I find in a book.”

Alexander laughed and turned to Dietrich. “Is she always like this?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” Dietrich said with a sigh.

Alexander stood as Beatrice approached him with a giddy grin and threw her arms around him.

“I'm so glad you can talk about it,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest.

“I am, too,” he admitted, wrapping his arms around her, leaning down, and taking a deep breath. Her hair smelled like flowers, and she fit into his arms just right.

He never wanted to let her go.

And for the first time in many years, he felt a bit of hope. Maybe he could win, and maybe he could enjoy the rest of his life with Beatrice. And maybe, just maybe, the feelings he had for his wife were turning into love. And that was more than he had ever dared to hope for.