Weather Witch by Shannon Delany

slammed into him at top speed, the solid mass of his body enough to throw her onto her rump. “John?” she asked as he reached down for her hand, begging her pardon.
    “Yes, Miss Chloe. Is John.”
    “Perfect. I need you to help me carry something heavy. And we need to make haste.”
    “I can make haste, Miss Chloe.”
    “That’s what I am counting on. This way. And no questions, you understand?”
    She glimpsed just enough of his dark form in the shadows to see his head full of tight salt and pepper curls nod in agreement and once more she hiked up her cumbersome skirts and hurried back to Lady Astraea’s chambers.
    *   *   *
     
    Rowen stomped his way up the large stairs leading to his family’s main porch and would have thrown open the door in a dramatic fashion had not the servants stolen the opportunity by opening the doors quite politely in advance and even bowing to their young master.
    It infuriated him even more—the fact he could not throw an appropriately sized tantrum on his family’s estate because they were too well taken care of by servants who bent and scraped to his mother’s every wish. He turned and watched her hurry up the stairs, her parasol bobbing as she took each step. Ridiculous to carry a parasol at night, but Mother wished not to muss her bonnet in the wet.
    “Rowen, be a dear and—” She held out her parasol, its top damp from water still dripping from rooftops.
    He took it from her without a word. And seethed a bit more at his automatic reaction.
    She cleared her throat and a butler appeared to help her remove her jacket. “It is simply dreadful out,” she said with a disdainful sniffle.
    “And the party, madam? How was it?” the butler, a young man only a half-dozen years older than Rowen, asked, glancing at Rowen although he addressed Lady Burchette.
    Rowen puffed out a sigh and shook his head.
    “Let us never speak of that event—or that family—ever again, Jonathan,” Lady Burchette said simply.
    The butler’s eyebrows shot up, but Rowen turned away, unable to do anything, unwilling to say any more. Rowen stalked away.
    “Master Rowen,” Jonathan called, “your coat and hat, young sir—”
    “Oh, let him be. Poor thing,” his mother said. “He nearly ruined his entire life tonight. Over a girl. Can you imagine?”
    Jonathan pressed his lips together in a firm line and shook his head no . A poor liar, he was not caught because Lady Burchette was uninterested in anything about servants’ lives. They lived to serve . How important or interesting could their existence possibly be?
    Rowen threw his hat to Jonathan.
    “Boy,” Rowen’s father called. “Join me in the study for a drink.”
    Rowen blew out a sigh, shook his head, blond hair flying, and stomped away. Down the main hallway he went, past the portraits of his ancestors and the picture of his entire family standing together—the picture in which his mother tersely proclaimed Rowen showed too many teeth—men were meant to be stoic, not funny.
    He paused before the picture, examining his face perfected in paint. It was not a bad likeness, though his jaw was a bit stronger in reality and the artist had somehow missed the too-obvious dimple in his chin. His upper lip looked oddly long because his mother had insisted the artist paint over his grin.
    His father looked suitably stoic. Or cowed. Rowen was never sure which.
    But the painter was rumored to be the finest in the city—and one of the best in the entire region. He had quite the reputation and that mattered far more than accuracy. Lady Burchette had even said once Rowen obtained Jordan’s promise she would arrange to have her included in a brand-new sitting.
    His mother had promised Jordan would be as much a part of their family as Rowen felt he was a part of hers.
    And now?
    It was all ruined.
    He growled out his frustration, his hands snapping forward to grab the picture by its frame and dash it onto the floor where he could better dance on