The Prisoner's Key: Glass and Steele, #8

by C. J. Archer

  Her mouth twisted to the side and her finger tapped a rapid rhythm in the crook of her arm. She grunted in what I suspected was meant to be indifference. But I knew Willie well enough to know her emotions were very close to the surface. She'd been rattled by having to make a choice between Matt and me, and now she was struggling not to show it to all of us, but to Brockwell most of all.

  "Are you ready to give up on us?" he prompted. "To walk away?"

  "I don't know."

  "Willie," I scolded.

  Duke thumped her shoulder. "Give him a kiss and let's go home."

  Brockwell looked horrified. "This is a crime scene. And I have to return to the Yard to process the paperwork. Thank you for your efforts in the investigation, Mrs. Glass. You too, Glass. It is appreciated, as always."

  He walked off. Willie opened the carriage door and indicated I should get in ahead of her.

  "Willie," I hissed at her. "Stop being petty and go after him."

  "He doesn't want me to," she said, a pout in her voice.

  "Of course he does," Matt told her. "Besides, he needs a ride back to Scotland Yard and it'll be awkward if you sit close together but don't speak. So either go and invite him nicely or make your own way home. It's your choice."

  She stared after Brockwell, retreating along the alley. "I s'pose it's a long way to walk." She trotted after him. After a brief conversation, she took his face in her hands, pulled his head down and planted a kiss on his lips.

  They returned and climbed into the carriage. She was all smiles while he baffled.

  The first thing we did after depositing Brockwell at Scotland Yard was visit Chronos. He wasn't happy to see us at first, but a quick explanation of the evening's events lifted his spirits.

  "This is excellent news!" he declared. "Fabian! Fabian, you can come out now. The danger is over. The real murderer has been caught."

  Fabian appeared at the top of the stairs. "India? Is this true?"

  "Yes," I said. "The police are no longer blaming you for the murder. Another man has been arrested."

  He came down the stairs and clasped both of my hands. He kissed them then grasped Matt and kissed his cheeks. Matt took it in his stride, no doubt used to the European custom from his youth.

  "This is wonderful news." Fabian dragged his hand through his mop of hair. It had suffered from lack of care and Makassar oil. His eyes looked tired and his cheeks drawn, but his smile was big and genuine.

  "Your men can stop watching my house now, Glass," Chronos said. "Tell the police to leave me alone too."

  "I am still an escapee," Fabian told him.

  "Your debt has been paid," I said.

  He frowned. "Who paid it?"

  "We suspect Lord Coyle."

  He blinked. "Not my brother?"

  "No."

  "Be careful, Charbonneau," Matt said. "Coyle will use it against you one day. He likes people to owe him favors, particularly magicians."

  "You could repay the debt with a piece of magical iron," I said hopefully.

  Fabian nodded. I didn't have the heart to tell him it might not be enough to satisfy Coyle.

  "How did you find the killer?" Chronos asked.

  "It's a long story," Matt said. "And it involves India's bravery."

  "Mine?" I said, laughing. "I was terrified."

  "No one would have guessed." He kissed the top of my head.

  Chronos beamed at me. "Come in, come in. India, you deserve a strong drink. I don't doubt you were brave. You might have the Glass name now, but you're a true Steele, through and through."

  "Are you going to tell me I get it from you?"

  "Lord no. From your grandmother. Her bravery was frightening at times. Truly frightening." As his voice faded, I thought he'd become lost in distant memories, but he shrugged it off and smiled. "Let's have that drink."

  "Not tonight," I said. "I want to go home and dine with Matt. There is something I want to tell you, however. Both of you." I pulled the watch out of my reticule. "This is my new watch, the one Matt gave me after my last one broke. It not only chimed tonight, but saved my life. Just as the other did."

  "I knew it." Chronos smacked his hands together. "I knew you were powerful and that it wasn't your father's or grandmother's magic in that old watch." He beamed and took both my hands in his. "My granddaughter, master magician."

  "Don't say that out loud," Matt warned him.

  "That is good news," Fabian said. "Good news, indeed. Soon, we shall begin our experiments. Yes?"

  I smiled. "Yes."

  I felt refreshed the following day. It was a relief to have the murder solved and Fabian free. I spent the morning with Matt, walking through Hyde Park and boating on the Serpentine, followed by luncheon at Café Royal in Regent Street. In the afternoon, Aunt Letitia and I paid a call on a friend. While I itched to return to my spell making with Fabian, today wasn't the day to restart. He needed time to recover and look for somewhere to live, and I needed time to reflect.

  Aunt Letitia and I returned home late in the afternoon to find Duke and Willie arguing with Cyclops in the entrance hall. Upon seeing us, they fell silent. Duke shuffled his feet, Willie crossed her arms, and Cyclops wouldn't meet our gazes.

  Aunt Letitia didn't appear to notice their awkwardness and retreated to her room to rest.

  "I'm going to my room too," Cyclops muttered.

  "I'm going out," Willie said, pushing past me.

  Duke shrugged and followed her.

  I stood in front of the door, blocking their exit. "None of you are leaving until you tell me what's happened." I pointed at the library. "In there. Now."

  Duke and Cyclops wordlessly complied but Willie grumbled all the way. "You're a shrew now you're married."

  "I prefer to think of myself as more assertive. Do you know if Matt is home yet?"

  "He ain't."

  "Then I'll have to deal with you three on my own." I shut the library door. "So who'll start? Why are you arguing?"

  Chapter 16

  Cyclops perched on the edge of the table and folded his arms, his lips pressed together. I wouldn't get an answer from him.

  "Cyclops is being pig-headed," Duke said.

  "That's nothing new," I said. "Is this to do with Catherine?"

  "Rycroft. He sent his men here again today."

  "What happened? Are you all right, Cyclops?"

  He nodded then shot a glare at Duke. "Traitor."

  "He's your friend and has your best interests at heart," I said.

  "Aye," Willie chimed in. "And friends help each other. You got to let us help you, Cyclops, or this could end in disaster."

  "What did Rycroft want?" I asked.

  "Rycroft wasn't there," Cyclops said. "Just his men. They followed me to the stables."

  "Did they set upon you?"

  "No."

  "We stopped them," Willie said, hands on hips. "If we hadn't been there, there ain't no telling what they might have done."

  It didn't bear thinking about. Cyclops was a powerful man and could defend himself, but not if he was outnumbered.

  "Why didn't you want to tell us?" I asked him. "Matt and I need to know or we can't fix it."

  "I don't want to come between you and Matt's family," Cyclops said. "He needs them if he's going to fit into English society. He can't make enemies of someone like Rycroft. Not on my account."

  "That's absurd. Matt doesn't need Rycroft. Anyway, marrying me was a far worse faux pas to commit in their eyes than being friends with you."

  "And we're Matt's family," Duke added. "Maybe even more of a family than them."

  Willie clapped Duke on the shoulder. "They're right, Cyclops, and you know it, only you won't admit it. So, are we going to tell Matt when he gets home?"

  Cyclops expelled a breath. "He's going to get mad, and then he's going to call out Rycroft. It ain't going to end well."

  "He is not medieval," I said. "He won't challenge anyone to a duel. He will simply see that Rycroft leaves you alone."<
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  They were strong words and seemed to reassure Cyclops, but they felt hollow to my ears. Matt had tried and failed to speak to the Home Secretary after Rycroft threatened to have Cyclops deported. He would try again, but there was little else he could do. We had to rely on Hope to convince Charity to tell her parents the truth. It was such an enormous task that I doubted she'd succeed.

  If she failed, what could be done?

  "Until this is resolved, you should remain in the house," I told Cyclops. "If you must go out, take both Willie and Duke."

  "I ain't going to be a prisoner, and I ain't dragging you and Matt into this."

  "You're not dragging anyone. Besides, it's Matt's uncle, so Matt is already involved. You could say he dragged you into it."

  "I can't wait around here to be at Cyclops's beck and call," Willie said. "I got things to do, friends to meet, and poker games to win."

  "I'm sure the three of you can all go together."

  She arched a brow at me. "Jasper'll like that."

  "Oh. Perhaps you can conduct those visits alone. Are you and Brockwell, er, friends again?"

  "Sure are." She winked. "He can't resist my—"

  "Don't tell me!" I put up my hands. "I don't wish to hear it."

  "I was just going to say he can't resist my American charms."

  Duke snorted and Cyclops chuckled. "Aye, that's what he can't resist," Cyclops said.

  Willie blushed, which only made the men laugh more. She stormed off. "It ain't like that between us," she shot back over her shoulder. "We ain't giddy lovebirds like Cyclops and Catherine, or Matt and India. We're just two people who get along."

  "As do Matt and I," I said.

  "But we ain't getting married, and we don't want to. That's the difference between you and us."

  "You say that now," Duke said. "But I reckon he'll have you walking down the aisle by this time next year."

  Cyclops nudged Duke with his elbow. "More like she'll march him down the aisle. Think we should warn him before it's too late?"

  "You ain't funny!" She jerked open the door and strode out of the library.

  Duke and Cyclops grinned like schoolboys.

  "What have I missed?" Matt asked, his gaze tracking Willie's exit. "Why does she look like she wants to shoot something?"

  "Jasper Brockwell," Duke said.

  Matt smiled. "Say no more." He looped his arm around my waist and kissed me. "Did I miss an important meeting?"

  Duke crossed his arms and arched his brows at Cyclops, but Cyclops merely focused on the floor. It looked like they were leaving it up to me to tell Matt.

  When I finished, Matt sat on the edge of the table beside Cyclops. "I'll see that this ends," he told his friend. "And soon."

  Cyclops nodded once then left, followed by Duke. I took Matt's offered hand and found myself pulled gently into his chest. He trapped me in his arms and gave me a grim smile.

  "Any suggestions?" he asked.

  "We wait for Hope. If she fails, we'll think of something else."

  "I can't believe he wasn't going to tell me."

  "You know what he's like. He wanted to spare you, protect you."

  "I don't need protecting."

  "That hasn't always been the case. When your watch stopped working properly, you were vulnerable. The three of them worried about you and were prepared to do anything for you."

  He conceded the point with a shrug and his lips curled up at the corners with his smile. "I'm not vulnerable anymore. In fact, I feel very healthy," he murmured against my mouth. "Very healthy indeed."

  It felt good to sit down with Fabian again and resume my lessons. He looked like his usual well-groomed self, with sleek hair swept off his forehead and neatly pressed suit. There was no sign of Newgate's misery in his cleanly shaved jaw or the brightness of his smile. He was as enthusiastic to get started as me.

  However, it was not ideal to undertake our lessons beneath Chronos's roof. My grandfather had insisted Fabian continue to live with him, and being without his family's allowance, Fabian couldn't afford to refuse. We did our best in the parlor, but Chronos's hovering and constant interjections became too much for me. I growled at him, snapped at him, and ordered him to go away, only to find that he either didn't listen or came back within minutes.

  "I'm just going to sit here silently and listen," he said after I asked him to leave again. "You won't even notice me."

  Fabian and I continued to discuss a point of pronunciation, attempting to say a particular word with various accents and emphases. It was almost impossible to tell if we were saying it right until we inserted the word into a known spell. If it worked, then we had the pronunciation correct, but if it didn't, we had to try a different way. The process of trial and error was incredibly slow, especially since we didn't know what the result would be.

  The enormity of the task before us loomed like a mountain, one I wasn't entirely sure I could climb. I did know I wanted to try, however. Learning the language and practicing new words to make new spells fulfilled me in a way little else did. It was like tinkering on my watches. Somehow it just felt natural, right.

  Chronos knew it too, and he watched me with a knowing smile. It had been he who told me I needed to be actively involved in spell casting and the world of magic or suffer the emptiness that resulted in leaving it all behind. I hadn't told him he was right, and I didn't plan to. He was smug enough.

  There was a knock on the door, answered by Chronos's housekeeper. A moment later, a set of heavy footsteps clomped along the hall. The footsteps were accompanied by the thud of a walking stick.

  "Good morning," Lord Coyle said. "I wasn't expecting to see you here, Mrs. Glass."

  "Nor I you, my lord."

  "Bring in tea," Chronos said to the housekeeper. She bobbed an awkward curtsy for Lord Coyle, but his lordship wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the papers we'd spread out on the table.

  I hastily tidied them up. "Are you here to see my grandfather?" I asked.

  "I want a word with Mr. Charbonneau. In private."

  "You may speak in front of my friends," Fabian said, matching Coyle's regal tone. He didn't look in the least intimidated by Coyle. Perhaps that was the French way, or it was simply borne from a lifetime of wealth and privilege almost equal to Coyle's.

  Lord Coyle lowered himself into a chair without being invited and indicated we should all resume our seats. Chronos frowned at him but sat wordlessly. As much as my grandfather thought of himself as superior, thanks to his magic, he was a true middleclass Englishman and somewhat in awe of the nobility.

  "Are you here to tell Fabian that he owes you for paying off his debt?" I asked. "Don't deny it. We know you paid it off."

  Lord Coyle's lips flattened, disappearing beneath his white moustache. "You have taken the wind out of my sails, Mrs. Glass." To Fabian, he said, "My friend told you that I will want something in return for helping you?"

  "I am not your friend," I said.

  "No doubt she has warned you against owing me anything."

  Fabian met his gaze. "I will repay you as soon as I am able. Until then, my gratitude will have to be enough."

  Lord Coyle lifted a dismissive finger off his walking stick. "Of course, of course. A small token of that gratitude is sufficient."

  "What sort of token?" I hedged.

  "Nothing too extraordinary. A piece of iron with your magic in it, Mr. Charbonneau, that's all. Shall we say the key you used to escape from Newgate?"

  Fabian frowned as if he couldn't quite believe it. Nor could I. Where was the demand for a favor to be called in at a later date?

  "You see, Mrs. Glass?" Lord Coyle's smile sickened me. "That is all I want. Just a piece of magic iron from Mr. Charbonneau." He rocked back and forth in the chair then pushed himself to his feet. "I'll collect it another time. Enjoy your studies." He nodded at the stack of papers and books on the table. "Mrs. Glass, will you walk me out, please."

  "I will," Chronos said, stepping forward.


  I shook my head at him and led the way. "What do you want to say?" I asked his lordship at the front door.

  He plucked his hat off the hat stand and tapped me on the shoulder with it. "Did you think I'd bother asking him for a favor?" He shook his head. "The man could be back in France soon and out of my reach. Then I'd have nothing. The key will do nicely. See that he doesn't renege on the deal."

  "Only if my agreement to do so frees me from my own obligation to you."

  He chuckled. "Well done for trying to negotiate, Mrs. Glass. Well done indeed. Good day."

  He opened the door only to balk upon seeing the man on the other side, about to knock. It was Fabian's brother, Maxime. Lord Coyle couldn't have failed to notice the family similarity as he stepped aside to allow Maxime in.

  "You must be Mr. Charbonneau," he said, putting out his hand. "Fabian Charbonneau's brother."

  Maxime shook it, frowning. "And you?"

  "Lord Coyle."

  At the mention of a title, Maxime hesitated. His gaze flicked to me then back again. "I am pleased to meet you, my lord. Are you a friend to Fabian?"

  Fabian emerged from the parlor, followed by Chronos. The housekeeper also appeared, carrying a tray with teapot and cups, making the small entrance hall quite crowded. Chronos shooed her away and she retreated to the parlor to deposit the tea tray.

  "He is not my friend," Fabian said to Maxime.

  "And he was just leaving," I added, opening the door wider.

  Lord Coyle grunted. "A shame we cannot be friends, Mr. Charbonneau, considering all I have done for you, and for so little in return. So very little."

  Fabian straightened. "I have promised you the key. That is all you will get."

  "Assistance?" Maxime asked. "Is he the reason you are free, Fabian? Did he help the police catch the killer?"

  "You didn't know?" I asked.

  "This is the first time I have seen my brother," Fabian told me. "He does not yet know of your great assistance and that of your husband."

  "Ah, I see." Maxime took my hand and patted it. "On behalf of my family, I wish to thank you, Mrs. Glass. If there is anything I can do, anything at all, please ask."