Damsel Under Stress
Page 78

“A huge bouquet sounds like Philip’s style, though I would have expected a formal thank-you note along with it if he’d sent it to thank me for my help in getting his business back. And I haven’t yet actually accomplished anything there other than hooking him up with a lawyer.”
Only as Owen went off to his office to get to work and I went to my own desk did it occur to me that it also seemed like something Ethelinda might have done. The size and general tackiness of the bouquet certainly fit her taste. I’d hope Philip would have been more tasteful than that, though the Edwardian era wasn’t exactly known for its restraint and subtlety. If Ethelinda had sent flowers anonymously, she either had to be trying to make Owen jealous or make me mad at Owen because he wasn’t sending me flowers when someone else was, while also distracting me from Owen by raising the possibility of a secret admirer. If it was Ethelinda, that was the final proof of just how clueless she was. It hadn’t seemed to cross Owen’s mind to be jealous, and I wasn’t the least bit interested in the fictional secret admirer. I also wasn’t the kind of woman who’d want Owen to be jealous. I’d hope he’d trust me and my feelings for him. Besides, when in the past few weeks had I had time to meet someone who could admire me secretly?
Late in the afternoon, Owen came around the corner to my office, looking grave. “Are you ready to test your immunity?” he asked.
“I suppose it’s too late to change my mind, huh?”
“This was your idea in the first place. I argued against it.”
“Yeah, and I keep kicking myself. Well, let’s see how effective your potion was.”
He held out his left hand, palm open. Then he waved his right hand over it and a coin appeared in his palm. “What do you see?”
I leaned over to get a better look. “A quarter. You’re not doing one of your stage magic tricks, are you?”
He passed his right hand over his left again, and that time I could feel the tingle of magic in use. If I’d been wearing the locket, it would have given me a jolt. “Okay, now what do you see?” he asked.
“A quarter,” I replied with a shrug.
“That’s all? Are you sure?”
“Sorry. It’s one of the special state quarters, if that helps.” I started to turn away, then saw something colorful out of the corner of my eye. I blinked and turned back slowly, but the image faded when I looked at it head-on. “Okay, wait a second, I saw something in my peripheral vision, but it’s fading in and out.”
“It looks like you need another dose. I don’t know if it will have taken full effect by this evening, though.”
I followed him back out into the main lab, where he mixed up the potion and handed me a glass. “If the magic thing doesn’t work out for you, you’ve got a future as a bartender,” I quipped before I drank the potion, which was tea-flavored again.
He looked worried as he watched me drink. “I hope I got the dosage right. I may have underestimated your body weight.”
“Don’t ever apologize to a woman for that.”
He grinned. “I know. And notice that I was smart enough not to ask. I’m not entirely ignorant where women are concerned.” He checked his watch. “Let’s give that dose another hour to work, and then we’ll test you again.” I went back to my desk and tried to work, even though I was nervous about really losing my magical immunity. Part of me couldn’t help hoping that the potion didn’t work, after all, and it would turn out that I was no longer capable of being rendered susceptible to magic.
When Owen came back to my desk an hour later, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. “Here we go again,” I said. “Give me your best shot, O great and powerful Oz.”
“Oz wasn’t a real wizard. I am,” he said with his typical straightforwardness. This time, he didn’t bother playing magic tricks. He simply held out the hand with a quarter in his palm, said a few words under his breath, and then asked, “Now what do you see?”
“A Sacagawea dollar?”
“What?”
“Just kidding. I see a quarter. Sorry.” But then I caught another one of those glimpses out of the corner of my eye. If I squinted just right as I turned my head, I could keep that image in place instead of it fading back to a quarter. “It’s one of those rainbow-colored bouncy balls, like you get in a gumball machine.”
“That’s it. But you can’t see it without squinting like that?”
“Not really. I can’t quite keep the image in focus. But it’s better than the last time when I could only see it out of the corner of my eye.”