“And on no account are you to allow Mr. Bramingham and the others to search this room,” she added.
“How am I supposed to stop them?”
“I leave that to you. Now, I think it is time I recovered enough to return to my room. You may escort me. After that, I suggest you rejoin Mr. Bramingham and tell them your story. You,”—she gave Stuggs a withering look—“had best stand guard outside the library door. It will look well, and that way we can be sure no one will come in and accidentally discover the platter before we have a chance to move it. Your arm, Jasper.”
The three conspirators went slowly out of the library, Lady Granleigh clinging to her brother’s arm as if she were about to collapse. The door closed behind them, and the room was empty at last.
Kim stirred, then poked Mairelon gently, somewhat surprised that he had not unlatched the bookcase door of their refuge. She felt him start at her touch. He let out a long breath and closed the little panel through which they had been looking. Kim felt him make a series of small movements, and then the bookcase swung wide.
Moonlight dribbled through the broken window, making Mairelon’s magical light unnecessary. Kim darted out and began pulling cushions off the sofa. Mairelon pushed the bookcase back into place and followed, but more slowly. “Hurry up!” Kim whispered. “We ain’t got much time.”
“Yes,” Mairelon said. “I know.” He picked up the last of the cushions and threw it viciously to the floor. Kim winced, glad that it had landed on the carpet and not knocked anything over. Even a small noise was likely to attract attention, now that the house was alerted.
Mairelon reached down and curled his hands around the handles of the platter. A moment later, he let go and stood staring down at it, a grim expression on his face.
“Someone got here before us,” he said in a low, tight voice. “This is a forgery.”
“A forgery? You mean it ain’t the right one?”
“Exactly.” Mairelon turned away. “We had better be going.”
Kim looked back at the platter and hesitated. “Are you sure? That’s real silver, I’ll go bail. And it looks a lot like that bowl of yours.”
“The silver’s real enough, and you’re right about the pattern, but it’s not the Saltash Platter,” Mairelon replied. “It wouldn’t fool any magician for an instant, once he got close enough to lay hands on the thing.”
“All right, as long as you’re sure.” Kim went to the broken window and peered out. “Don’t see nobody. Let’s pike off.”
“We can’t do it fast enough to suit me,” Mairelon murmured, and waved her on.
FOURTEEN
Kim and Mairelon had no difficulty in evading the searchers who were still scattered here and there on the grounds of Bramingham Place. The servants were spread out and the lanterns they carried were visible for a long way, which made them easy enough to avoid, and there was plenty of cover among the hedges and trees of the sprawling gardens. Kim almost enjoyed dodging through the shrubbery and hiding in the formal borders.
The walk back to the wagon was long, cold, and silent. They kept to the roads, where the moonlight let them see to walk more easily. Mairelon seemed sunk in contemplation, and Kim was too tired to ask what he was thinking. When they reached the wagon at last it was nearly dawn. Kim fell into her makeshift bed at once, and was asleep before she had time to notice whether Mairelon was doing likewise.
She woke to full daylight and the sound of dishes rattling. “Hunch?” she said hazily, lifting her head to see over the mound of blankets she was huddled under.
“I’m afraid not,” Mairelon’s voice said from near the door of the wagon. “Hunch can’t possibly be back before tonight, and I don’t really expect him til tomorrow at the earliest. You’ll have to put up with my cooking until then. Unless you have hidden skills?” he added hopefully.
“Gnngh,” Kim said. She wormed one hand out from under the blankets and rubbed at her eyes. “No.”
“Pity. You’d better come have breakfast before it gets cold.”
Kim realized that she was hungry. Well, no wonder; she’d done a day’s worth of walking since dinner last night, or at least it felt as if she had. She unwound herself reluctantly from the blankets and went out to correct the matter.
Mairelon was crouched over a smoky fire with a long stick in one hand. He was fishing for the handle of an iron pot that balanced precariously on top of two of the burning branches. “Just in time. Bring the plates over.”
“I thought you said it would get cold,” Kim said, picking up the plates. “Smells to me more like it’s getting burned.”
“Cold, burned, what’s the difference? Ah!” Mairelon snagged the handle at last and lifted the pot out of the fire. He lowered it to the ground and picked up a spoon. “How much do you want?”
“How much is there?” Kim asked, eyeing the black pot dubiously.
“More than enough for two,” Mairelon assured her. “I, ah, got a little carried away when I was adding things, I think. Here, take some. I’m afraid there isn’t any bread. We’ll just have to do without until tomorrow.”
Kim frowned at the lumpy greyish blob on her plate, then shrugged. She had eaten worse-looking meals in her life, and the worst any of them had done was to give her a stomachache. Hunch’s savory stews were spoiling her. She took a spoonful. It tasted burned.
Fortunately, Mairelon did not seem to expect her to give her opinion of his cooking. Kim ate slowly, sneaking glances at the magician when she thought he would not notice. He was unusually quiet, but perhaps that was just because Hunch was not there to glower and complain.
Mairelon caught her eye on her fourth or fifth glance. “Have I sprouted horns or a third eye, or is it just that I have charcoal smeared on my forehead?” he asked mildly.
“No,” Kim said. Rather than try to explain, she asked, “How did you know that platter last night was sham?”
“Any magician would have. I thought I told you that.”
“You said you knew. You didn’t say how.”
“Ah. Well, I knew because there wasn’t any magic in it.” Mairelon stared into the fire and swallowed another spoonful of his breakfast blob. “When a wizard puts magic into an object, it’s generally because he wants the object to do something. That means the magic has to be … accessible, and if it’s accessible it can be felt by other wizards. If the magic is destroyed or removed it leaves traces, which can also be felt. The platter at Bramingham Place hadn’t a farthing’s worth of magic in it, and it never had.”
Kim frowned. “But if any wizard who touched it would know it was a cheat, why would anyone bother makin’ a sham platter?”
“A good question. Possibly the forger wasn’t a magician, and didn’t realize there would be any difficulty passing it off as the real thing. Or perhaps she only wanted to keep people from realizing it was missing right away. After all, she couldn’t have known there’d be such a parade of burglars to blame it on.”
“She?” Kim straightened, staring at Mairelon. “You know who put it there?”
“I think so.” Mairelon poked at his breakfast. “Renée wasn’t part of the parade, you see, and she has more than enough information to have had the platter copied. I can’t think of any reason why she’d have come to one of Harriet Bramingham’s house parties, either, except to steal the Saltash Platter. She hates house parties.”
“Renée? You mean that French lady? I thought she was a friend of yours,” Kim said cautiously.
Mairelon’s laugh was without humor. “So did I. But she must have been planning this for a long time, certainly since before we left London. So why didn’t she tell me?”
“Maybe that Earl cove told her not to,” Kim ventured.
“Shoreham?” Mairelon frowned, considering. “I hardly think it’s likely. He wouldn’t have sent me here if he knew Renée was going to have a go at it.”
“He might of—”
“Might have.”
Kim smothered a relieved sigh. If Ma
irelon was correcting her speech again, he must not be feeling quite so downhearted. “He might have sent you anyway, if he wanted to get you out of London.”
Mairelon looked up with an arrested expression. “Quite true. In fact, it would be just like Edward. I wonder…”
His voice trailed off and he stared at the air above the fire. After a moment, he shook himself. “Well, there’s only one way to find out. Finish your breakfast, Kim. You’ll want it.”
“Why?” Kim said warily.
Mairelon gave her a winning smile. “You’re going back to Bramingham Place, to take a message to Renée before she leaves.”
“I’m what?”
“Well, I can’t go. Gregory St. Clair is arriving today, and I don’t dare chance his seeing me. Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”
Kim rolled her eyes and went back to eating. Burned and blobby or not, it was safer than talking to Mairelon.
* * *
Two days of relatively dry weather had done wonders for the roads, at least as far as travel on foot was concerned. Water still stood at the bottoms of the deepest ruts, and wagons and carriages continued to have a rough, sloppy time of traveling, but the edges of the lanes gave only a little under Kim’s feet and no mud dragged at her boots to make walking a weary chore. If she had not been so worried about the task Mairelon had set her, she might even have enjoyed the walk.
“Message for Miss D’Auber, sir,” she muttered under her breath. “The master said I was to give it only to her.”
She frowned, wondering whether she sounded flash enough. Remembering the words wasn’t hard, but the rhythms and the slightly different pronunciation Mairelon had insisted on were difficult indeed. And what if someone started asking her questions? She had some chance of getting the accent right for the sentences she’d practiced, but could she keep it up if she had to say anything else?
Firmly, Kim dismissed her doubts. She had agreed to run this rig, and fretting wouldn’t make success any more likely than it already was. Practice, on the other hand … “Message for Miss D’Auber,” Kim repeated in a low voice. “The master said I was to give it only to her. Message for Miss D’Auber.”
So intent was she on her muttered repetitions that she did not hear the sounds of the approaching carriages until they were almost on her. A shout and the crack of a whip startled her into attention at last, and she glanced over her shoulder. Two high-perch phaetons were heading full tilt along the road, side by side. Their drivers crouched intently over their reins, shifting their weight automatically to compensate for the dangerous sway of their vehicles, oblivious to everything save their horses and each other. The one on the left pulled ahead, but his advantage was a matter of inches. The other driver’s arm rose and fell, cracking his whip, and his horses leaped forward, bringing him even with the left-hand phaeton once more.
Kim dove for the ditch, praying that these Bedlamites wouldn’t overturn or run off the road until they had gone safely past her. The thudding of the horses’ hooves and the rumble of the carriage wheels grew louder, then passed by above her in a spray of water, mud, and flying gravel. As the sound began to fade, Kim looked up and saw the phaetons vanish around a curve in the road ahead, both of them still moving with furious speed.
She spat a curse after them as she picked herself up. Her left foot had landed in the muddy water at the bottom of the ditch, and some of it had gotten into her boot. The knees of her good breeches were wet and smeared with dirt and grass, and her hands were scratched and gritty. She cursed again and brushed herself off as best she could, then resumed walking, hoping darkly that something would teach those madmen a lesson. Maybe one of them would overturn his carriage and break a leg. Maybe both of them would.
As she drew near the curve, she heard shouts ahead. Prudently, she stepped off the road in case the phaetons were returning. The noises did not sound as if they were moving in her direction, but Kim took no chances. She trudged along the side of the ditch, sliding on the grass from time to time, until she rounded the curve and got a clear view of the road ahead. She stopped short.
Her wish had been granted: one of the phaetons had indeed overturned. It lay in a tangle of harness and broken wheels across the side of the road, while its owner, scowling ferociously and muddy to the eyebrows, tried to calm his frightened horses. On the opposite side of the road, a coach-and-four lay half in, half out of the ditch. A liveried postillion was tugging at the door of the coach, unconscious of the blood trickling down his face from a cut above his eye. His efforts only made the coach rock precariously. A second postillion was doing his best to control the four coach horses, which were plunging and rearing in a manner that threatened to reduce harness pole, coach, and all to splinters. The coachman lay motionless on the far side of the ditch, evidently thrown from his seat when the coach tipped over.
A little farther on, in the exact center of the road, the second phaeton had drawn to a halt. The driver was concentrating on his horses, and despite her poor opinion of his good sense, Kim had to acknowledge that he knew how to handle a team. Anyone who could come through such a tangle as this had been, at the speed he had been traveling, in a vehicle as notoriously unstable as a high-perch phaeton, without overturning his carriage or losing control of his horses … Kim could think of one, or perhaps two, hackney drivers in London who might manage such a feat if they were lucky. This gentleman did not appear to have turned a hair.
“Burn it, Robert!” The driver of the overturned phaeton backed up two hasty steps as one of the chestnut horses he was trying to calm half reared in the traces. “If either of them is hurt—”
“The master appears uninjured,” the postillion at the carriage said, temporarily abandoning his pulling at the door to peer through the carriage window. “And I believe John Coachman is not seriously hurt.”
“Not them, you imbecile, my chestnuts!” the infuriated driver cried. “Robert—”
“I would be happy to help you, George, but I can hardly leave my horses, can I?” Robert said, half turning without taking his attention from his restive greys. His voice and the outline of his face came together in Kim’s mind, and she recognized him as one of the druids she and Mairelon had spied on. George’s voice was familiar, too; he was probably another of them. Kim started to roll her eyes, only to be brought up short.
“Who, exactly, is responsible for this outrage?” said a cold, hard voice authoritatively.
Every drop of Kim’s blood seemed to congeal into ice. She knew that voice; she had fled from London to get away from its owner. First Jack Stower, now Dan Laverham, she thought in despair. She would never get away from them. She wanted to dive for the ditch and the hedge beyond, but she could not make her muscles obey her. It was all she could do to force her head to turn in the direction of the speaker. When she did, she suffered a second shock.
The tall man who was in the act of climbing out of the ruined coach was not Dan Laverham. He had the same narrow jaw and sharp eyes as Dan, and the same long nose, but his dark hair had less grey in it. Under the superfine coat he wore, his shoulders were broader and more muscular than Dan’s. He could have passed as Laverham’s brother, if Laverham had had one who dressed like a toff, but he was not Dan Laverham. Relief made Kim’s knees feel weak.
“Accident, not outrage,” Robert said politely. “I am Robert Choiniet, and my friend with the unspeakable chestnuts is George Dashville.”
“I take it you were racing on a public thoroughfare,” the man from the coach snapped. “You should be horsewhipped for such carelessness.”
“Possibly,” Robert said with unimpaired calm. “I doubt that anyone will do so, however. May I take a message to someone for you, sir? I must go by Stavely Farm first, but after that I am at your disposal.”
“Robert, you traitor!” George had finally succeeded in getting his animals under control, but his angry cry startled them into another round of sidling and head-tossing. “You can’t mean to go back to Austen and claim you won!”
/> “Why not? Just because your driving was so bad that you overturned instead of merely losing by an inch or two?”
“Enough.” The man from the coach spoke with a quiet deadliness. “I have no interest in your disagreements, and you will oblige me by saving them for another time and place.” He turned to Robert Choiniet. “You will go by Bramingham Place and inform them that Lord St. Clair has met with an accident on the road. I trust you are capable of giving them sufficient directions. Beyond that, all I require of you is that you do not return.”
“I understand perfectly, sir,” Robert said coldly. “Give you good day.”
He raised his hands a quarter of an inch. His horses sprang forward, eager to be away, and the phaeton swept off down the road. George Dashville stared after it, spluttering incoherently, while the Baron straightened his cravat and brushed at his coat and breeches. Kim shook herself out of her daze and eased herself farther down the slope of the ditch. A low stone wall ran along the far side; if she could get over it, she had a good chance of getting around the entire muddle of men and carriages without being seen.
Her luck held. The chestnut horses took exception to the Baron’s abrupt movements, and George’s efforts to keep them from bolting occupied both his attention and St. Clair’s while Kim slid over the wall unnoticed. She bent over and crept along it, keeping her head low despite her curiosity. She didn’t want St. Clair to catch her, even if he wasn’t Dan Laverham. From the way Mairelon acted, St. Clair was as bad as Dan. She didn’t straighten up until the Baron’s caustic observations regarding George’s horsemanship began to fade with distance.
FIFTEEN
Kim’s back was sore and stiff from her long, crouched-over walk to avoid Baron St. Clair, so she took things easier on the last mile to Bramingham Place. Once she reached the drive leading up to the house, she slowed even further. She enjoyed looking about at the bushes through which she and Mairelon had dodged the night before, though the manicured lawn and meticulous placement of the trees made her nervous. Besides, she was in no real hurry to complete her errand.
Mairelon the Magician Page 13
