The car’s engine idled, but the doors still did not open for several minutes. James’ fury grew with the intensity of his discomfort. The snow was thinner here as it filtered through the dome of trees, but the air was nearly arctic with cold. James’ breath fogged the air, shivering violently. His hands were numb on the WoodSprite’s handle.
Finally, both of the car doors swung open. Blake and Millie stepped out into the dim glow of the portico lamps, looked at each other over the car’s roof, and then moved to meet at the rear. Blake took Millie’s hands briefly, and then turned to the car. He opened the boot, swung up the lid, and withdrew something from inside. It was small and squarish, a gift of some kind. James nearly vibrated with rage as he watched the young man offer it to Millie. She accepted it, looked at it, and then threw her arms up around his neck, still holding the square object in one hand. She hugged him, and then, as James observed with a wave of blinding, affronted rage, she kissed him.
The boot lid banged shut suddenly, slamming so hard that it rocked the car and sent echoes across the snowy garden.
Blake and Millie both jumped back from the car, startled.
James saw this with some satisfaction before realizing that his wand was in his fist, aimed at the car. His knuckles were white, squeezing hard enough to make the tendons stand out on the back of his hand.
A light popped on in an upstairs window of the mansion.
Below, Blake saw this and swore urgently under his breath.
“Hide!” Millie rasped, and yanked her wand from a pocket. She waved it at the car and muttered a brief spell. The car wavered, and then took on the ephemeral color and texture of the snowy drive beneath it, effectively vanishing from view. James marveled reluctantly. He himself had never perfected the Disillusionment spell.
Millie ducked behind a stone balustrade at the base of the steps at the exact same moment that the curtains of the lit upstairs window twitched aside. A silhouetted figure appeared, peering down through the glass. From his angle high above, James could see that it was Mathilda, Millie’s older sister. She gazed this way and that, her suspicious eyes narrowed. Then, apparently seeing nothing out of order, she withdrew.
Far below, Millie peered up from behind the balustrade. Next to her, a shadow moved. Blake was hiding there with her.
James fumed furiously. Wand still in hand, he flicked it and muttered a spell of his own.
A snowball arose spinning from a drift near the steps. It hovered for a moment, and then arced up to the lit window, bashing against the glass with an audible rattle.
“What the bloody…!” Blake hissed, standing up to look around, annoyed and confused. Millie pulled him back down, but peered up herself, her eyes squinting. She was quicker, and knew what to look for.
After only a moment, she glanced up toward the tree canopy just as James summoned another snowball.
“James?!” she called up in a harsh whisper.
James flicked his wand. The snowball arced toward Mathilda’s window and bashed itself to powder.
Blake followed Millie’s gaze, spying James overhead. “It’s your boyfriend?” he asked, annoyance and amusement mingling in his voice.
“James!” Millie rasped again, stepping out from the shadows.
“Come down here! What in purple blazes are you doing!?”
James firmed his jaw and heaved a deep sigh. Resignedly, he swooped down and jumped to the top portico step as Millie ran up to join him.
“What are you doing?” she demanded again, so angrily that James’ own rage was dampened momentarily.
“What am I doing?” he rallied, standing up straight and hefting the WoodSprite between them like a shield. “What are you doing?
Sneaking out and… and… and… getting on with… with…!” He flapped a hand vaguely, disgustedly in Blake’s direction. For his own part, Blake stood in the shadows at the bottom of the steps, arms crossed, a look of weary impatience on his face.
For a moment, Millie appeared angrily confused. And then an expression of dawning realization descended over her face. Her eyes narrowed. In a low voice, she seethed, “You think I was copping off with him?!”
“Well!” James blinked, and faltered slightly. “Well, weren’t you?”
“James!” she hissed, her face going livid. “He’s almost ten years older than me! He’s a university student, studying industrial design and engineering! I’ve been begging him for months to teach me what he’s learning! We spent the night driving around looking at architecture!
Look!”
She thrust an object toward him. It was the squarish gift that Blake had just given her. James recoiled slightly, then glanced down at it, saw that it was a fat book, and read the cover: HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURAL DRAFTING & DESIGN, Volume 1.
“But,” James said, still staring at the book’s cover. “But, but…you kissed him!” He glanced up at her in time to see her eyes roll in angry impatience.
“I kissed him on the cheek! He’s like a brother to me! You really think I would… I would…” She turned her head to look down at Blake, so fast that her blonde hair flung out beneath her hat. “Do you really think I would betray you like that? With him!?”
“Hey, now,” Blake said, managing to look affronted.
James was about to respond when the unmistakable sound of an opening door interrupted him. Blake leapt out of sight behind the balustrade again as a band of light spread down the steps, brightly illuminating Millie and James.
“Well,” a voice called, and James was not at all surprised to hear a nasty smile in it. “What do we have here? Out for a romantic evening stroll, are we? Mother and Father will be just thrilled to know that you two are so… engaged.”
Millie didn’t even look toward the door. Her eyes locked onto James’ with a degree of furious pleading that took him a split-second to decipher. It wasn’t the fact that she’d snuck out for the night with Blake, a servant, that she was suddenly terrified of having discovered. It was that she’d been out with him studying Muggle architecture.
James needed barely a second to decide what he had to do.
“Yes,” he said, not breaking eye contact with Millie. “And it was all my idea.”
Millie’s eyes widened another fraction, but she managed, miraculously, not to gasp.
James finally looked up at Mathilda, not thinking, merely allowing instinct to take over. “I love this girl, you see. Millie,” he looked down at her again, at her speechless, bulging eyes. “I’m completely smitten by you. I can’t be without you. I’ve brought you out here this night, under this moon, to tell you that.”
He glanced upwards hopefully, tried to locate the moon through the lacework of trees and the pall of drifting snow. No moon was visible at all. Mathilda, fortunately, seemed oblivious of this fact.
“Really, now,” she stated flatly, cocking her head and placing one fist against her hip, causing her night robes to sway.
“But it’s too soon for you, Millie,” James went on loudly, interrupting, marveling slightly at his own inspired temerity. Fleetingly, he wondered if he was channeling Zane Walker. “I fear that you’re not ready to respond to my… er… romantic overtures. Go, Millie. Go!”