“I begin to feel myself very fortunate to have the services of two such competent magic users,” I remarked, not entirely tongue-in-cheek.
Keenan looked smug. “Yes, lady.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding Lord Pecus. It was not as easy a task as I would formerly have supposed: he was not at the Watch House (the reason for which I declined to guess) and seemed to be always just around the corner no matter where in the Manor I betook myself. I was even forced to the expedient of refusing to answer his knock at the door when I retired in annoyance to my suite once again. I felt a little guilty at this last ruse and more so at the stab of illnatured pleasure it gave me to do so.
I would have to be careful tonight at dinner: it would not do to lose my temper. I had not done so properly in many years, and the last time I had done so, a man had died. It was, in fact, the sort of thing that made one think twice before allowing one’s red hair to catapult oneself into a towering rage. I certainly wished Lord Pecus to think I was decidedly out of charity with him: it was quite another thing, however, actually to be so.
I will admit to some measure of trepidation as I went down to dinner. It was nothing that I hadn’t expected, however; and in anticipation of this very feeling I had dressed myself very carefully in the grandest, most forbidding of my dinner gowns. It was dull gold, with a high, filigreed collar and gracefully long sleeves slit right to the shoulder, from which inner sleeves of more gold filigree clung to my arms right down to the wrist. It was girdled around my hips with a golden cord, and cut open at the front to display an underskirt of dark yellow; all in all presenting a great deal of gold, and conveying a pleasing sense of dignity.
Vadim looked at me with wide eyes as I turned to observe myself in the mirror, but busied herself with my hair without commenting.
It was Keenan who said: “You look diff’rent, lady.”
“Very good,” I said, looking at him from the corner of my eyes. Vadim had achieved a precarious arrangement of my hair that sat grandly atop my head, and I didn’t dare move before it was properly affixed. “That is just what I want. Where have you been?”
“Makin’ stuff.”
“By ‘stuff’, am I to take it that you are referring to another spell?”
“Yeah.”
“Hm.” I applied a few dabs of golden lip-rouge with one finger and thoughtfully eyed the effect. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about those. Are these spells of yours an impulse of the moment, or a carefully implemented plan?”
Keenan shrugged. “Make ’em when I need ’em.”
A slight smile touched my lips. “Are you feeling particularly fearful of your health, Keenan?”
He gave me a pugnacious look that told me he was perfectly well aware that I was teasing him, and said distantly: “’S’for you, lady.”
“I see. I seem to remember that the last time you gave me one of these, I found myself in no inconsiderable danger shortly thereafter.”
“That’s the way they work,” Vadim put in, tucking in a few pins with a light touch. “That’s Keenan’s sight.”
“Is that so? In that case, my appreciation knows no bounds.”
Keenan looked as if he were not quite sure whether or not I were joking. While he decided, I took a final look in the mirror and swept downstairs to dinner.
The dinner was a particularly fine one, once again suggesting that Lord Pecus knew me rather too well. After my exertions this morning I found my stomach dreadfully empty, and the immediate delicacy of it faded away very quickly under the influence of an excellent course of roast beef. Lord Pecus didn’t attempt to engage me in conversation, for which I found myself vastly thankful. If he had tried to do so I would have had to be quite short with him, and it was difficult to be short with Lord Pecus.
He would be expecting something of me, of course; and since the best way to succeed in my plan was to make sure that he thought I was up to something else entirely, I made up my mind to ignore him. Unfortunately, it was not as easy to ignore the fact that Lord Pecus’ green eyes were observing me steadily each time my eyes chanced to fall in his direction. After encountering his gaze for the third time in a row, I elected not to turn my gaze toward him again. It seemed safer.
He spoke to me once at the end of the meal, to ask if I would take a little tea, but didn’t look surprised at my quiet negative; and before long I found myself wearily climbing the stairs to my suite once again.
Vadim was there to help me undress once again, for which I was surprisingly grateful. I allowed her to unbutton and unpin to her heart’s content, merely stepping in and out as the occasion required, and betook myself to bed with Keenan’s spell under my pillow. Keenan seemed inclined to stay and watch anxiously but was shooed away by Vadim, and I was left in peace to look rather listlessly over the Book of Interesting Excerpts to see what I could discover about poor little Lady Topher. There was nothing out of the ordinary: nothing, that is, apart from the now-familiar confusion that seemed to exist between different accounts which put one servant in multiple places. I had thought long and hard about that dual presence that had ailed the Book, trying to piece it together with poor Papa’s predicament, but the Book had been adamant that the excerpts were correct and complete; and my thoughts had led me to the reluctant conclusion that something in its internal magics had somehow decayed or gone wrong.
It left me unsure if Lady Topher’s servant had really been in the room with her, or in her own bed – or perhaps neither! – at the time of the murder; and I at last put the Book aside in frustration, ignoring its sulky protests that It isn’t my fault!
I sat blindly in thought for some time longer until it became apparent that someone was waiting respectfully by the door, waiting to be acknowledged.
I looked up. “Yes, Vadim?”
“I’ve put Keenan to bed,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”
I gave her a faint smile, and remarked: “Bored, are you?”
“No, lady. I thought you might need something, that’s all.”
“Not tonight, I think. Tomorrow will be a different story, however. How good is your memory, Vadim?”
“Middling, lady. Is it a message?”
“Something of the sort. You’ve studied Lord Pecus’ wards, have you not?”
Vadim gave me a sharp glance. “In or out, lady?”
“Both, I rather think,” I said thoughtfully. “For instance, how would I go about getting out without setting off alarms? I assume there must be a way, since the servants are not kept prisoner. How does Keenan manage?”
“Oh, that,” Vadim said dismissively. “That’s just Lord Pecus letting him out. The servants have their masks: they’re all recognized by the house wards.”
“Indeed!” My heart sank, and then rallied. “There are unfitted masks, aren’t there?”
Vadim’s eyes grew sharp, and she nodded. “The footmen were going to fit us with masks, so I think so, lady. Would you like me to find out where they are?”
“No, I think not,” I said, considering it. “I have another task for you.”
I sent Vadim off with a message quite early the next day.
She looked at me doubtfully. “Enough Dory Brown to lime a perch? That’s all?”
“Believe me, it’s more than enough,” I told her. “Susan will know what you mean. And if she asks you if it’s a big perch, tell her it’s very big.”
Vadim grinned. “Oh, I understand that bit,” she said.
And after all, it turned out to be not terribly difficult to appropriate one of the spare masks. By appropriate I mean, of course, steal; but if Lord Pecus thought that keeping them in the butler’s closet was good security, it was just as well for him to be shown his error.
No one looked amiss at my presence below stairs. I had learned long ago that if one walks as though one belongs, one will invariably not be questioned. Neither was I. My biggest fear was that the blank masks would have an alarm on them, and I picked one up so gingerly that I al
most dropped it again immediately when it proved to be free of security magic.
Nevertheless, it seemed sensible not to bring it back to my own suite, and I spent a little time wandering the manor in search of a conveniently handy nook before it occurred to me that the single most appropriate place for it was indubitably the umbrella stand. From the umbrella stand I could leave the manor at any time, and since servants did not tend to linger in the great hall I was not observed hiding the mask. Nor would I be, I fervently hoped, in retrieving it. If I had my way Lord Pecus would be by far too occupied to notice my absence, but I had no desire for a fracas with any of the servants either. They were quite nice, by and large; and despite a tendency to try and smooth things over with Lord Pecus and I, they were suitably backwards about being forward.
I didn’t quite know what to do with myself after the business with the mask. If I had been at home or at the ambassadorial quarters, I could have gone shopping or at least out to tea in order to while away the time. At Pecus Manor there was little to do but wait in quietness for battle to be joined. And I was under no misapprehensions that it would not be battle: Lord Pecus, if (or more accurately, when) he found out, was bound to be furious. I was more or less resigned to being confined to one of the cells below stairs after my campaign tonight, and I hoped fervently for poor Papa’s sake as much as my own that my meeting with the Earl of Horn was fruitful.
I remained in my suite until I found myself folding and refolding my evening gloves, and then decided resolutely that enough was enough. Lord Pecus had not yet returned from the Watch House, so I felt myself free to take a turn or two about the garden. The day had not been a pleasant one, more muggy than warm, and now the sky was threateningly overcast. The Gluasians were sure to be enjoying it immensely, I thought caustically.
Then I had to smile because I had scented the storm on the warm breeze, and for a moment the expectation of the storm mingled with the expectation of an exciting night, bringing a familiar sparkling feeling to my chest. I was becoming distressingly Glausian in my sentiments.
The afternoon was a dark one, and I didn’t realise how late the hour had become until I saw, with a little shock that shivered from my spine to my toes, that Lord Pecus was striding toward me down the darkening garden path.
Bother! There went my opportunity of sweeping grandly into the dining hall. I wasn’t even dressed for dinner!
My annoyance made it easy to quash the smile of welcome that automatically rose to my lips. Instead, I nodded my head coolly in acknowledgement and said: “Good evening, my lord.”
What a good thing I had already given Keenan and Vadim their instructions! By now, Keenan should be sneaking into Lord Pecus’ office to sprinkle an odourless, heat-activated powder over Lord Pecus’ chair of choice. It was Dory Brown, one of the most powerful sleeping drugs I have ever had the misfortune to be dosed with. A relic of one of the far flung countries we visited that had not yet discovered the efficacy of magic, it was happily not well known in Glause.
Lord Pecus, with no idea of his danger, stopped a few feet from where I stood.
“Good evening, Isabella.”
“Good evening, my lord.”
He was silent for a moment, his expression hard to read in the twilight. “Are you coming in to dinner?”
So he was not going to take the hint, was he? I regretfully decided against assaulting him with another ‘my lord’ quite so soon, and nodded. “I lost track of the hour. My apologies.”
I must have gotten into the habit of curling my fingers into the warmth of Lord Pecus’ huge arm, because when he offered it to me I had a constant struggle to remember to keep my fingers just touching his forearm, light and impersonal. Once Lord Pecus made an instinctive move to cover my fingers with his own, but recovered the movement in time, and we were able to proceed to dinner without the unpleasant necessity of my dropping his arm.
I ate absently, and little. Twice, I looked up to find Lord Pecus watching me with a frown.
“You don’t like glazed ham, Isabella?”
“Hm? Oh, yes, certainly. I find that I’m not so hungry tonight, my lord.”
“Isabella-”
“A momentary lapse, I assure you,” I told him briskly, trying to ignore the pleading note to his voice.
It was no part of my plan to let Lord Pecus think he was forgiven, and it was a little frightening to think how easily it could be done by a mere word from him, spoken in that tone. Lord Pecus had entirely too much influence over me.
I considered for an instant what reply would be most dampening, and added: “Do pass the salt.”
Suitably dampened, Lord Pecus did so. It was harder to see his face tonight, lending a disagreeable confirmation to the idea that I was well and truly caught up in the love curse. The last month had seen it stretched thin enough to allow me to see his face each time we were together: that it was harder to see tonight was unfortunate but necessary. Love curses are, by and large, an unimaginative and repetitive form of the curse. I had a good idea of what needed to be done to break the spell and no doubts about my ability to break it when the time came, so it didn’t seem unnecessarily cruel to allow a setback. I hoped Lord Pecus would see it the same way.
He tried, poor lamb. He asked me, determinedly enough, how my day had been; and when a few quiet words informed him, went on to inquire as to Susan’s progress. He was not discouraged by my brief replies, but continued to draw answers out of me on a range of different subjects until I found it hard to keep my lips from twitching. No doubt that was his intention. It didn’t help that his eyes were on me, glowing with laughter and – was it? – tenderness.
At length, I dabbed my lips with the napkin, laid it aside, and said: “I believe I’ll retire, my lord. I’m a little weary.”
Besides, I needed the small amount of sleep I could get before setting out to meet the earl. I pushed away from the table, making a small incline of the head in Lord Pecus’ direction, and shook the wrinkles out of my skirt.
It was perhaps unfortunate that he reached out and grasped my wrist just as the doors opened to admit a footman. Despite the footman, Lord Pecus didn’t seem to feel the need to let go.
“Isabella.”
The footman stared in a less than wooden manner, a worried crease between his brows and the teatray unremembered in his hands. I would have been flattered if I had thought the concern was for myself and not Lord Pecus. The servants, although less obvious than Melchior, had permeated the air with a gentle hope during the length of my stay, and it was quite clear that they expected me to break the curse. I fully intended to do so, but there was the matter of the Earl of Horn to be concluded first.
“Let me go, Alexander.”
“Oh, have some tea,” he said, smiling a little.
I found it necessary to say with some coldness: “Have the goodness to release me, Lord Pecus! I refuse to be manhandled in front of the servants!”
The smile vanished, succeeded by a deep furrow between Lord Pecus’ brows; and the footman, coughing in a wellbred manner, was fixed with a narrowed glare that made him visibly whiten.
“What,” said Lord Pecus, between his teeth: “Do you want?”
“The ah, teatray, my lord.”
“Well?”
“Where would you like it, my lord?”
“I think Lord Pecus would like it taken to his study,” I said briskly, managing at last to pull my hand away. “He will be taking tea alone tonight.”
For a moment it looked as though Lord Pecus would have caught at my wrist again, and I skipped away nimbly, keeping myself out of reach. “Oh no, my lord! I’m still far too cross: we should only quarrel, and I dislike quarrelling. We will talk tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” agreed Lord Pecus, and this time he let me leave unhindered.
*
“I don’t understand,” said Keenan darkly. “I fort you didden want me to get nabbed?”
“I’ve no desire to see you er, nabbed, Keenan,” I replied.
“Well, wot’d I pinch this thing again for?”
His tone injured, Keenan presented the Earl of Horn’s dynamo.
“It’s very simple,” I said, receiving the dynamo from him. “Lord Pecus will most certainly know that you’ve been in his study again: that we cannot help.”
“I was careful!” protested Keenan, his tone rising in excess of injury.
“No doubt, but Lord Pecus is more careful. Therefore, if we cannot prevent him knowing that you were there, we must by all means prevent him from knowing why. If Lord Pecus thinks you are stealing the dynamo, he’s less likely to suspect that you’ve doried him.”
Keenan frowned fiercely for an instant before a grin spread across his face. “Oooh, I like that!”
“I daresay you do,” I said ruefully, reflecting once again on the possible dangers of introducing Keenan to such ploys. “Has Vadim returned yet?”
He jerked a thumb eloquently toward their chamber. “She’s pinched someone’s clothes.”
“Already?” I said admiringly. “How expeditious of her!”
Keenan leaned frowningly against the bedhead and said: “Wot now?”
I had a momentary vision of Lord Pecus, his huge form prone in his brown leather chair as the Dory Brown took effect.
“Now,” I told him, with a sparkling smile: “We wait!”
Chapter Eight
I was able to snatch a few hours of sleep that night, and awoke with the pleasurable sensation of exhilaration that typically comes from an early journey to a much anticipated destination. I have never had any difficulty in waking myself up when required; one of the results of my diplomatic (and sometimes not so diplomatic) adventures, and my early education at Trenthams, which was as comprehensive as it was exciting. I blame Annabel. It must have been all that scrabbling around ruins while people constantly tried to murder us. If it wasn’t for Annabel, I would have been a perfectly well adjusted, perfectly well behaved old maid.
In all probability, I would have found it a dreadful bore.
I was far from bored at present. Vadim was in a state of high excitement that matched my own, her fingers fluttering restlessly as she set my cap carefully over my hair and tied the smart white apron about my waist, and when I turned to observe myself in the mirror, she was bouncing lightly on her toes.
Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence) Page 29
