by C. J. Archer
A sense of foreboding settled into the pit of my stomach too. I glanced at Matt for reassurance, and he offered it to me in the form of a small smile.
“It won’t happen the way you think,” he told Nash. “You’re forgetting that Charbonneau isn’t interested in Louisa for a wife. She’s artless. He wants the mother of his children to be a magician. She can knock on his door all she likes, he won’t let her in.”
The professor smiled weakly. “I hope you’re right.”
As did I.
But the sense of foreboding would not go away. Fabian’s situation had changed overnight. He might no longer think as he once did. If Louisa was the only friend he had left in the city, he could turn to her, and together they could form a new scheme that ensured magic remained powerful into the future.
Chapter 16
It was an evening when I was glad our friends liked to visit unannounced and stay for dinner. I needed the distraction, but even more importantly, I needed to be surrounded by people I loved and trusted. We convinced Professor Nash to return at eight and invited Catherine too. She arrived just five minutes before Chronos and Lord Farnsworth, who seemed to assume they had a standing invitation.
Mrs. Potter always prepared enough for unexpected guests and we sat down to a hearty feast. The dining room soon filled with the sounds of our friends and family enjoying their food and one another’s company. My heart swelled.
As the final course’s plates were cleared away, I caught Matt watching me from the opposite end of the table. He smiled warmly and raised his eyebrows in question. I nodded and his smile widened.
The ladies retired to the drawing room after dinner, although Willie stayed with the men in the dining room because, as she put it, she’d rather drink port and talk about horses and gambling than sip tea and discuss fashion and wedding arrangements.
As far as our party was concerned, she was right about the topic of conversation. Although they’d not set a date or received her family’s blessing, Catherine was eager to tell Aunt Letitia and me about her plans for her wedding day.
“I didn’t realize Cyclops had asked you,” Aunt Letitia said, sounding put out that she hadn’t been told.
“He hasn’t. Not properly. But we have an understanding, and as soon as Nate asks my father, we’ll set a date.”
“And when will he ask your father?”
She glanced toward the door. “He’s waiting for the right moment. Hopefully that moment will be soon.”
“Oh?” I asked. “Are your parents starting to accept him?”
She shook her head. “They like him, but they’re still saying my life will be difficult if I marry him, and they don’t want that for me.”
Aunt Letitia clasped her hand. “I offered before and you didn’t want my help, but I’ll ask again. Do you want me to speak to them?”
Catherine smiled. “No, thank you, Miss Glass, but all will be well very soon. You’ll see.” She glanced at the door again as voices drifted up to us from the entrance hall.
Footsteps pounded on the stairs, accompanied by Bristow ordering someone to wait.
I stood, as did Catherine, ready to face the forceful newcomer.
Gareth Mason burst into the drawing room, and I sat back down with relief.
Catherine’s youngest brother was little more than sixteen years old, and hadn’t fully grown into his long limbs yet. He was all angles with a mop of blonde hair that fell into his eyes as he removed his cap. He scrunched it in both hands as he bit his lower lip.
Catherine rushed to him. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Pardon my intrusion, Mrs. Glass, Miss Glass, but I need to speak to my sister.”
More footsteps approached the drawing room, but it was only Matt and the others come to see what the commotion was about.
Cyclops pushed his way through. “Gareth! What are you doing here?”
“I’m in a bit of trouble. Can you help me?”
“What sort of trouble?”
“My friends wanted me to join them on a nighttime…excursion, and I refused.”
“What sort of excursion?” Matt asked.
“They want to go to the cemetery and…look around.”
Catherine clicked her tongue. “You mean get drunk and deface property. Honestly, Gareth.”
He put up his hands in surrender. “I told you, I refused. You know Ma doesn’t like me going out at night. But this time my friends are being real insistent. They say they’ll beat me if I don’t go.” He nibbled his lip again. “I’m scared, Cath.”
Despite his big eyes and forlorn look, she had no sympathy for him. She reminded me of her mother as she thrust her hand on her hip. “Those boys are always getting you into trouble. When are you going to learn to stay away from them?”
His gaze narrowed. “Probably now.”
She huffed out a breath. “We’ll notify the police.”
“No! They’ll know it was me who told on them! They’ll beat me senseless, Cath!” He turned to Cyclops. “What should I do?”
“You can tell me where to find them,” he said. “I’ll have a word with them.”
Gareth blew out a breath and his body relaxed. “Would you? That would help. They’d listen to you. Can you come now?”
“Of course.”
“Me and Duke will come too,” Willie said.
“No!” When we all looked at Gareth, he added, “I think just Cyclops. Too many and they’ll react the wrong way. They’ll think they’re being ambushed. I don’t want to make enemies of them more than I already have.”
“I don’t know,” Willie hedged.
Cyclops clapped her on the shoulder. “I’ll be fine. They’re just a few local lads, and I’ll do my best impression of a cutthroat pirate. They’ll be quaking in their boots when I finish with them.”
Willie reluctantly agreed to let him go alone, but she complained about it for some time after Cyclops and Gareth left. I think she was more frustrated at being left out than worried about their safety.
“That was rather a to-do,” Lord Farnsworth said as he sat beside Aunt Letitia. “Are you all right, dear lady?”
“Yes, of course,” she said with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulder. “Dramatic interruptions are commonplace in this household. I’m rather used to them.”
I resumed my seat beside Catherine on the other sofa and clasped her hand. “They’ll be all right.”
She gave me a comforting smile. “I know. I am sorry for Gareth’s interruption. It’s been a pleasant evening up until now.”
“And it shall be again,” Aunt Letitia said. “Cyclops will see that those thugs leave your brother alone. They’ll be too terrified to put a foot wrong once he’s finished with them.”
Willie frowned at the door. “Wish I’d gone with them. Ain’t nothing scarier than a woman dressed like a man wielding a gun.”
“Amen,” Chronos muttered.
Cyclops arrived home an hour later looking satisfied with himself. He accepted a glass of brandy from Duke and took a seat. We all waited for him to speak, but it took Willie kicking his ankle for him to notice us staring.
“All is well,” he said. “Gareth is safely home, and his so-called friends have promised to leave him alone.”
“What did you have to do to them to get them to promise that?” Willie asked.
“A few well-chosen words did the trick.”
She scoffed. “Words? That’s not much fun.”
He smiled at Catherine and she smiled back.
“Did my parents see him come home?” she asked.
His smile vanished, replaced by a small wince. “They did, sorry. I wanted him to be quiet, but he made a real ruckus when he let himself in. They came downstairs to see what was going on. I think we woke them up.”
“How did they react?”
“They were worried at first when they saw me, but Gareth told them what happened.” He laughed softly and shook his head. “He made me sound like a hero saving him from a l
ife threatening situation. That boy can act better than anyone I’ve seen on stage.”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, he can’t. He must have been more worried than he let on when he was here, that’s all. Thank you, Nate. I do appreciate you going to his rescue.”
He tried to contain his shy smile, which only made him look sweet. Catherine looked as though she wanted to kiss him right in front of everyone, but she remembered where she was and refrained.
Aunt Letitia rose and pretended to read the ladies’ magazine opened at the page of wedding dress designs that Catherine had set down when Gareth arrived. Instead of returning to her seat, she stopped beside Catherine and whispered, “Perhaps now would be the right moment for him to ask your father.”
An invitation came the following day from Mrs. Delancey, asking Matt and me to join her and the rest of the collector’s club for an evening of “magical entertainment.”
“What do you suppose that means?” I asked him as he read the invitation in his study.
“Perhaps she plans to have a fairground magician perform sleight-of-hand tricks.”
“Very amusing.”
He tossed the card on his desk. “It would be more entertaining than the usual lectures. At least for me.”
“You don’t have to go.”
“I want to go. I want to see what they think about Charbonneau now.”
“Do you think they’ll know about it yet?”
“They are a close-knit group with some well-informed people among their membership. They’ll know.”
Collector’s club meetings were always fraught affairs, and I often didn’t want to attend. But I found that I agreed with Matt about this one—I was curious to see what they thought of Fabian now.
Matt was also right about them knowing. The sudden cessation of all conversation upon our entry was a clear sign that we were the evening’s main topic of gossip so far. Mrs. Delancey recovered first, inviting us into her drawing room with warm smiles and a friendly greeting.
“You haven’t brought your interesting little cousin, Mr. Glass,” she said, peering past us.
“I didn’t think Willie was invited,” he said.
“That doesn’t always stop her though, does it?”
The group was smaller than usual. Mrs. Delancey had clearly invited only specific members, not the entire club. This wasn’t going to be a usual meeting or lecture then. Indeed, I suspected it had been hastily put together to discuss Fabian’s betrayal and to see my reaction.
Going by Louisa’s dark expression, she was taking Fabian’s side, as Professor Nash suspected she would. The professor himself was with her. Going by his red face and heavyset brow, they’d been having a heated exchange, although I couldn’t imagine the quiet professor winning against the forthright Louisa.
Oscar was not present, but Lord Coyle was, along with Hope and Sir Charles Whittaker. I thought Sir Charles had a nerve showing up when he was not a collector. Most likely few others in attendance knew that, however, and he wanted to maintain his disguise.
I sidled closer to Matt, suddenly feeling surrounded by people I didn’t like. The professor was the friendliest face, until Lord Farnsworth breezed in, all swagger and toothy smiles.
“Why the long faces?” he asked with blustery innocence.
The professor shushed him and whispered something in his ear.
“Oh, that.” Lord Farnsworth waved a hand in the air. “Terrible business, just terrible, but we must all look on the bright side.”
The professor frowned which caused his glasses to slip down his nose. “There’s a bright side?”
“Of course! Glass isn’t dead!” He started a round of applause, and Mr. and Mrs. Delancey and the professor joined in. Even Sir Charles clapped, but I suspected that was to keep up his ruse of affable gentleman of leisure.
“Stop it!” Louisa snapped. She even stomped her foot on the floor. “Stop this at once. It’s cruel to celebrate the smearing of a good man’s name.”
“I say, Louisa, steady on. Why are you taking his side?”
“Because he didn’t do it.”
“He did,” I told her through a tight jaw. “He admitted as much to us but refused to repeat his confession to the police.”
Louisa’s eyes flashed. “This is an abomination. Fabian is one of the most powerful magicians in the world. His magic is strong, his lineage ancient. We cannot blame him for wanting to strengthen it.”
“Would you forgive so easily if he tried to kill someone you loved?”
“Of course.”
Lord Farnsworth leaned closer to me and whispered, “She doesn’t love anyone.”
Louisa’s nostrils flared and she stormed up to me. “Fabian may not be innocent, but he shouldn’t be derided. Everyone deserves a second chance, and I’m going to extend that courtesy to him, even if no one else will.” Her gaze darted around the room at the faces staring back, finally settling on Lord Coyle. “What about you? You covet pieces of Fabian’s iron for your collection. Would you abandon him now when he needs your influence the most?”
Lord Coyle covered the head of his walking stick with both hands. “My dear, I have no interest in Mr. Charbonneau’s affairs, criminal or otherwise. He is free to sell me pieces of magic iron or not. That won’t change.”
Louisa tossed her head and strode out of the room.
Mrs. Delancey raced after her, calling for a footman to notify Louisa’s coachman that his mistress was leaving.
Mr. Delancey came up to us and greeted Matt with a handshake and me with a bow. “I’m not sure Louisa will get another invite after that little tantrum. I thought she was particularly engaged to that ink magician fellow, the one who wrote the book on magic.”
“She was,” I said. “But not anymore.”
“Well, well. Ordinarily I’d sympathize with the chap for having his heart broken, but I think he escaped the noose with that one.”
“I don’t think his heart was engaged in the first place.”
He moved off only to be replaced by Professor Nash. His face was still flushed and his brow creased. “Her support for Charbonneau was more public than I expected it to be, but love can make one act rashly, so I’m told.”
“You think she loves him?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I don’t know.”
“She’s in love with his magic,” Matt said.
Mrs. Delancey returned, a hard smile on her face in an attempt to smooth over the social disaster Louisa had caused. The evening turned as excruciating as her smile from that point. The entertainment she’d promised turned out to be Mrs. Delancey showing us her magical objects yet again, and telling us how she’d acquired them.
Lord Coyle broke away from the group during Mrs. Delancey’s speech about her set of magical silver forks. He walked off without a word to his wife. When she realized he was no longer by her side, Hope picked up her skirts and raced after him. At the door, he glanced back at Matt and me and jerked his head for us to follow.
I thought we shouldn’t do as commanded, but Matt wanted to know what Lord Coyle wanted. We slipped away and joined Lord and Lady Coyle in the small chamber off the drawing room. His walking stick leaned against a table and a cigar was wedged between his thick lips. He struck a match and lit it.
“I don’t think our hostess would like you smoking in this room,” Hope said.
He puffed three times on the cigar, sending smoke billowing around him. “I hear you rejected an offer to work for the Home Office.”
I managed to keep my features schooled despite my surprise, but Hope did not.
She blinked rapidly at me. “Why do the Home Office want to employ India?”
“Come now, my dear, try to use that brain of yours for something other than spending my money. I know you have one. Marriage to me cannot have dulled your intelligence already.”
It was as if he’d slapped her. She stepped back and seemed to recoil at the same time, her face wincing as if in pain.
Ma
tt took pity on her and explained. “The home secretary wants India to drop bombs from flying magic carpets in wartime.”
Hope gasped. “But how did they know you can do that, India?” Even as she said it, she turned to her husband. “You told them, didn’t you? That’s why you met with Sir Charles. You told him we saw India flying off on a carpet with the iron magician, and Sir Charles told his superiors.”
Lord Coyle removed his cigar from his mouth and pointed it at his wife. “There, you see. That’s the intelligent woman I married.”
“Are you finished?” Matt snapped. “India and I have a talk we want to listen to.”
Lord Coyle grabbed his walking stick and leaned into it. “I wanted to thank India for rejecting the home secretary’s offer. If not for her rejection, I doubt Mr. Matthews would have offered the same position to me.”
“You’re working for the government?” I blurted out.
He smiled as he bit down on the cigar. “I gave Sir Charles the information about you flying off on a carpet on the condition he credit me as the source. It seems he kept his promise, and after you rejected the job, Mr. Matthews came to me.”
“You are hardly a replacement for India,” Hope said with a sneer.
“Of course, of course. Nothing is as good as a powerful magician to fly the carpet. But I have other skills that India could have provided but chose not to—I can act as a liaison between the government and magicians; I have a lot of sway with the community.”
“Through blackmail and intimidation,” I bit off.
He gave me a rueful smile. “I have ideas too. Lots of ideas as to how magic can be harnessed for the good of the British Empire. In this, I am probably more valuable than you, as my interests align with the government’s in many ways.”
The floor suddenly felt unsteady beneath my feet and the air left my lungs. This was what Lord Coyle wanted all along—power and influence at the highest level. He was not interested in money, nor did he care about being influential among the collector’s club members. He didn’t even particularly care about magical lineages or the future of magic. He wanted to direct national policy and wield power on a global scale, and he saw his knowledge about magic, and his ability to manipulate magicians as a means to obtaining it.