The Courtship of Julian St. Albans by Amy Crook

greens as
well?” asked Chudleigh, from a few seats farther down the table, stuck in
the middle and unable to really talk to Julian or his sister unless the room
grew quiet.
    It was Emmeline who chose to answer, much to
Chudleigh’s disappointment. “No, though they were grown on the property.
There are extensive vegetable and herb gardens on one side of the house.”
    The man next to her asked a related question,
and the conversation swirled closed again, rising up to swallow her answer.
    “Do you grow your own ingredients,
Benedict?” asked O’Connor, sounding almost genuinely curious.
    Alex shook his head. “I’ve got a few small
potted plants, but nothing I’d rely on living long enough to use magically. I
buy what I need and keep it in stasis cubes if I need it to stay especially
fresh.”
    “Those are pretty expensive, aren’t
they?” asked Julian, sounding unflatteringly surprised that Alex could
afford such a thing.
    Alex shrugged. “So are the things I
make,” he said. He’d funded his own collection of those cubes from a
couple of very lucrative fertility charms, which could only be created by a
mage who was not only fertile but had never had children.
    “So you do more than conjure butterflies
and catch murderers after all?” said Pembroke, his tone politely
inquiring.
    Alex took a sip of his wine, testing phrases in
his head before he answered. “I do create magical objects, though I don’t
sell luck charms at the fair.”
    Julian chuckled and said, “I don’t think
you’d sell very many, you’re far too imposing.”
    “Hexes and curses, perhaps,” said
Willoughby, which made them all laugh, even Alex, though not for the same
reason.
    Alex ate more salad with a wry little smile on
his face, thinking of the very few such spells he’d created in his time, all of
them while still at school.
    “I dare say you’ve amused him,” said
Pembroke, making Alex glance up from his food curiously.
    “Perhaps I just like the salad,” he
said, eating a candied walnut and a strawberry together with great relish.
    “It is a very good salad,” said
Julian in a teasing tone. Alex made a mental note to keep being droll rather
than letting himself descend into the same sort of sniping as the other men,
since it seemed the former amused their quarry far more than the latter
impressed him.
    That seemed to cue the other men into eating,
themselves, though Alex knew that the food wasn’t really the point, merely
another topic of conversation, another way to judge or impress.
    “Have any of your tenants been affected by
the recent storms?” asked Alex curiously. He’d spent a bit of time looking
into the St. Albans assets, and even making Victor explain the source of their
own fortunes, fleshing out Alex’s admittedly spotty memories of how it all fit
together.
    “I don’t think so,” said Julian
shyly. “That’s more Emmy’s thing now, though of course my future husband
would want to know,” he said, laughing softly as if chiding himself for
not thinking to find out.
    “How are the Benedict lands faring?”
asked Pembroke, clearly expecting Alex to be equally ignorant.
    “There’s been a little flooding, but
nothing that couldn’t be handled,” said Alex, pleased that someone took
his bait. He did hate to revise, only to find the subject wasn’t on the test.
“No houses, just a few fields to the south that have always had
problematic drainage.”
    “So no big crop loss, then?” asked
O’Connor, sounding genuinely interested.
    Alex shook his head, taking another sip of
water for a throat unused to so much talking. “I believe one had sheep
that have been moved, and the other two were feed rather than cash crops, so
though they might have to supplement winter stores if the fields don’t dry out,
there’s not much financial loss.”
    He and O’Connor discussed land ownership for a
bit longer, Alex learning a lot about the O’Connor family in the bargain.
Phineas was a second son, and