“I believe I am going to faint,” Lady Granleigh announced loudly. The company turned to look at her and she sank back against the sofa, fanning herself with one hand. “If I could have a little peace,” she said in failing tones, “I might be able to recover.”
“Of course, Amelia, dear!” Mrs. Bramingham said. “Mr. Bramingham, take these people into the green saloon. I’ll just get my hartshorn—”
“Alone,” Lady Granleigh said with amazing firmness for a purported invalid.
“But, Lady Granleigh—” Mr. Bramingham began, frowning.
“Very well,” Lady Granleigh sighed, cutting him off. “If you insist, I will allow Jasper to remain in case those villains reappear. But I must have quiet.”
“But Mr. Marston was going to explain—”
Lady Granleigh raised a hand to her head. “Can it not wait?”
Mr. Bramingham blinked, then shook his head. “Yes, of course, Lady Granleigh, as you say. Come along, my dear. Henry, take that thing to the morning room; I’ll come by in a minute or two. Come along, everyone, we must let Lady Granleigh recover.”
Lord Granleigh gave his wife a penetrating look, but allowed himself to be shepherded out of the room along with the rest. Only Jasper and his “man” Stuggs remained behind. As the door closed behind the crowd, Lady Granleigh stood up briskly.
“Ah, Amelia, hadn’t you better—I mean, what if someone comes back in and sees you?” Jasper stuttered. “You’re supposed to be in a faint.”
“I am not going to sit on that object for another instant,” Lady Granleigh replied. “And if it had not been for your ineptitude, I would not have had to. What possessed you to rouse the household like this?”
“I didn’t rouse the household, and if you’d listen for half a minute, you’d know it,” Jasper said bitterly. “It was that Bedlamite in the domino with his pistol and his—”
“I am not interested in excuses,” Lady Granleigh interrupted. “There will be time for that later. Right now we must decide what to do with this platter. We can’t just carry it up to your room, you know. The halls are full of servants; it will be hours before things settle down.”
“My room? Why my room? You’re the one who was invited for the house party. You’ve got that hulking great wardrobe and at least two dressing tables to hide the thing in. I’m just an overnight guest; all I have is a shaving stand.”
“You have neither a husband nor an abigail to pry into your things. I, on the other hand—”
“I should hope not!” Jasper said. Then he looked at his sister and snorted. “And if Stephen Granleigh has ever ‘pried’ in your things, I’ll . . . I’ll eat my cravat.”
“If you dare to so much as hint any such thing about Stephen, I shall feed it to you myself,” Lady Granleigh retorted. “Stephen is the soul of honor.”
“Too honorable for his own good,” Jasper muttered. His sister gave him a warning look, and he scowled. “Well, he is, and you know it, or why did you drag me into this mess in the first place? Granleigh stands to benefit as much as you do if he recovers the platter, but he wouldn’t stand this havey-cavey nonsense for a minute.” His expressive wave included the platter, the shattered window, the open display case, and his sister.
Lady Granleigh flushed. “That is not the point, and you are wasting time. What are we going to do with this platter?”
“Throw it out the window,” Jasper said in a sulky tone.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jasper. There are still people combing the grounds in search of those housebreakers of yours; someone would be sure to find it before we could recover it.”
“Why don’t you ’ide it be’ind some of them books?” Stuggs suggested.
Lady Granleigh gave him a scornful look, but as no better idea was forthcoming, she and Jasper set to work removing books from one of the shelves. Unfortunately they did not think to check the platter against the size of the shelf before they did so, and when they tried to balance it on its edge against the wall, it proved too tall. They were forced to remove it and replace the books, reproaching each other viciously the entire time.
In the end, they hid the platter under the sofa cushions. Lady Granleigh was not altogether pleased with this solution, and warned Jasper several times that he must make certain to remove it before the maids came to straighten up.
“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.
14
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 ba
ck 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 Mairelon 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 brea
k 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—”
A Matter of Magic Page 13
