Beyond Compare

by Candace Camp

  She unlocked the door and crossed the room to the case where the reliquary sat. She stood looking into the case for a moment. Obviously, the box was safe and sound, just where it should be. There was no need to take it out. But Kyria realized that she wanted very much, indeed, to take the box out and hold it. It was an odd feeling and one that seemed to grow stronger every time she looked at the box.

  Opening the door, she picked up the reliquary and held it for a few minutes, tracing the carving and the diamond in a caressing way. There was something about the stone that soothed her, attracted her, and she felt strangely reluctant to set it down. Finally, however, she put the reliquary back into the case and locked it, then turned and left the room, carefully closing and locking the door behind her.

  Later, upstairs in her room, she let Joan help her undress and brush out her hair. Then, belting her dressing gown around her, she took out a sketch pad and pencil from one of her drawers and sat down in the comfortable chair by the window.

  All the time her maid had been brushing out her hair, a design had been teasing at the back of her mind, and she wanted to get it down on paper before she forgot it. She drew a long upward curve, turning it down at the end and curling it in upon itself like a seashell. A quick line up the middle split it into two strands, and she finished it with some crosshatching. She studied the design for a moment, then began to draw a necklace. It would be in gold, she thought, a series of these symbols, each linked to the next. Perhaps earrings with the same figure engraved on them—a small block of gold. Her fingers nimbly added little drops dangling from the bottom edge of the block.

  There was a classical look to it, she thought; it rather reminded her of the ancient jewelry her father collected, although she could not recall any with that particular design. She tilted her head to the side, thinking. Only a certain sort of gown would look right with this jewelry…

  She flipped over to a new page and began to sketch a gown, her fingers moving quickly over the page. Kyria smiled as she drew. She could well imagine what her mother would say about her frivolous nature, drawing dress designs after everything that had happened today. But the drawing soothed her nerves, and she was pleased with the result.

  As she drew, her mind wandered to Rafe, and her smile deepened. She would have been surprised if she had been able to see the way her face softened and her eyes took on a certain glow. He was different from what she had supposed him to be when she first met him. She was excited to be going to London with him to investigate the reliquary box—and she knew that only a part of that excitement, maybe not even the larger part, had to do with the investigation.

  She stood up, a faint smile lingering on her face, and tucked the sketch away in one of her bags. Whatever happened, she thought, as she slipped out of her dressing gown and laid it across the foot of her bed, this trip promised to be interesting.

  * * *

  Torches lined the walls, casting a flickering golden glow against the sand-colored blocks of stone and partially illuminating the men in front of her. They walked with measured tread, and she followed woodenly behind them. She could not see their faces, only their backs, covered in the white ceremonial robes. Wide, golden bracelets wrapped her arms, weighing her down, and her head beneath the headdress felt heavy, too. She could smell the cloying scent of the incense, making her eyes burn.

  She had not been able to sleep the night before because she had been so excited, so scared…Now the moment was upon her, and fear clutched icily at her stomach, creeping up through her chest.

  The time was almost upon her…

  * * *

  Kyria’s eyes flew open, and she lay for a moment, her breath rasping in her throat, panic gripping her. It took a few seconds for her brain to clear. What a bizarre dream! And yet so strangely familiar. She had dreamed it before, or something very like it, although she could not quite recall the details of that other dream. There was that heavy scent and the flickering lights and…fear.

  She shivered a little and pulled her covers, which she had partially kicked off, more tightly around her. The cause of the strange dream was nerves, she supposed, an excess of fear and fury left over from the day’s events. Still, it was unsettling. It made no sense. She had no idea where she was in the dream or even who she was, let alone who the faceless men were.

  Burrowing deeper into her bed, she tried to push the dream out of her mind. But it was a long time before she finally fell asleep.

  * * *

  Kyria and Rafe boarded the train for London the next morning. The twins had persuaded their mother to allow them to ride into the village with Kyria and Rafe, and they came aboard to check out the compartment before Kyria finally shooed them out and sent them back to the coachman, waiting on the platform below.

  Kyria was very conscious of the small derringer in her reticule, as well as of the valise Rafe carried, inside of which lay the precious reliquary. She herself had put it in the valise this morning and had opened the valise to check it during the carriage ride to the village. She was tempted to open it again, but she resisted. It would be foolish, she knew, to appear too interested in the valise. She would have to be content with the knowledge that the case was tucked safely between Rafe’s legs and the wall of the train and that Rafe was carrying the pistol she had used for target practice the day before inside his coat.

  She glanced out the window as the train began to chug away from the station. The coachman and the twins had already gone. She settled back into her seat.

  “I have been thinking about tonight,” Kyria began. “The best way for me to dress to go into the tavern is as an ale-guzzling, old woman.”

  “Is that right?” Rafe looked at her with interest. “I thought you were going to go as a boy.”

  “I saw that there would be problems with that. Even with dirt on my face and such, I would still look too young and, well, dandified, don’t you think? I mean, I think I could pass as a lad, but not the sort who would frequent that sort of drinking establishment.”

  “You’re right there,” Rafe agreed.

  “And, as you pointed out, if I went as a woman of the night, that would present an entirely different set of complications. But who ever notices an old rummy?” Kyria asked triumphantly. “I’ll wear some old clothes out of the ragbag, and I’ll roll them in the dirt. I’ll put dirt in my hair and on my face, and wear a cap. And I can black out several of my teeth. Alex did that one time to play a joke on Olivia, so I know how.”

  “I think it would be better if we waited in the carriage and watched the tavern.”

  “But then you would see only who went in and out. What if our man was inside when we arrived? And wouldn’t it look suspicious to have a carriage, even a hack, hanging about outside? I’ll wager it isn’t the sort of establishment where people arrive or leave in a hansom.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s far better than taking you inside there and someone seeing through your disguise.”

  “No one will,” Kyria argued. “I’ll make myself look so that even you won’t recognize me. I’ll just come up to your table and beg for a drink, and then in a little while I’ll pretend to fall into unconsciousness from the drink.”

  Rafe’s mouth twitched. “You have quite a performance planned.”

  They continued to debate the merits of her suggestion for the next few minutes, and after that they fell into a silence. Lulled by the rhythmic sound and motion of the train, Kyria began to feel sleepy.

  She had not slept well the night before. Even after her peculiar dream, she had kept thinking about the dream and what it meant. And when she finally had gone to sleep, she had tossed and turned.

  And now on the train, Kyria’s eyes had just fluttered closed when she was startled awake by the door to the car slamming shut and a conductor rushing through. Just before he reached the door at the end of the car, it opened, and another man in uniform burst in, and the two of them began to talk excitedly.

  Kyria looked questioningly at Rafe, and he shrugged,
then stood and crossed to the open door of their compartment and looked out. A strange look crossed his face, and he turned back to Kyria.

  “He was talking pretty fast, but I think the gist of what he said is that they’ve caught a couple of boys without tickets in the horse car, pretending to be stable lads.”

  “The twins!” Kyria jumped to her feet. “I knew I shouldn’t have let them accompany us to the train station!”

  Picking up their valise, Kyria and Rafe followed the conductor to the horse car, where a group of stable lads were gathered interestedly around a skinny man in a train attendant’s uniform who had his hands curled into the collars of two youths. The boys were dressed in rough trousers and shirts, with a few artistic streaks of dirt on their faces, and they were talking earnestly and at great length to the attendant.

  The boys were, in fact, the twins, and after a few minutes of explanation to the conductor and payment for the two boys’ fare, as well an apology from the twins for the trouble they had caused, Kyria and Rafe returned to their compartment with the twins in tow.

  “It would serve you right if we got off at the next station and took the first train back to Broughton Park,” Kyria told her brothers tartly.

  “You need to be in London tonight,” Con pointed out, obviously unperturbed by her threat. “Taking us back would mean you would miss your chance of catching the man who hired the men who invaded Broughton Park.”

  “Besides, we can help,” Alex added. “Look at how we got on board the train without anyone noticing us.”

  “You two are a sneaky pair, all right,” Rafe admitted, grinning. “What I don’t know is whether you’re training to be investigators or criminals.”

  Kyria sighed. “It’s a wonder I haven’t turned prematurely gray, given the way you two act.” She sighed and sat down. “Now change back into your own clothes and wash your hands and faces. I’ll send the family a cable at the next station and let them know you’re with us.”

  The twins grinned and made their way down the corridor to the water closet to clean up. Kyria looked at Rafe and shook her head. “I wish I could ship them back immediately. But I’m afraid none of the servants except the head groom can really keep the two of them in line. We’ll have to keep them with us until Mother can send Jenkins to fetch them back. I am sure they know that, the little wretches.” She grimaced at Rafe. “Oh, stop grinning. You are as bad as Theo. You positively encourage them.”

  “You have to admire their ingenuity.”

  Kyria pressed her lips together, trying to look severe, but finally she had to chuckle. “Be that as it may, I am putting the largest, fastest footman in charge of them until Jenkins arrives.”

  * * *

  The rest of the trip passed without incident, although they did lose Con for a few minutes in Paddington station when he caught sight of an organ grinder with his monkey.

  They were met at the station by the assistant coachman, who had been left behind with the skeleton staff that resided in their London house when the family was in residence at Broughton Park. Kyria was surprised that Reed was not there to greet them, and the coachman explained that he had been called away to Liverpool on business for a few days.

  The news took Kyria somewhat aback, but she quickly recovered. She was sure that she and Rafe could handle the matter of the reliquary on their own. For the sake of propriety, Rafe offered to seek a room at a hotel, but Kyria waved off the notion, pointing out that a houseful of servants and the lively twins’ presence should be chaperon enough. In truth, though she would not have admitted it, she did not like the thought of being at Broughton House without Rafe there.

  When they arrived at the town house, a solid redbrick Georgian mansion, Kyria made it her first task to carry the reliquary into her father’s study and lock it away in the large wall safe. After that, she spoke to Phipps, their London butler, regarding the foreign man who had brought her the reliquary.

  Her hunch that he had visited their London house first was correct, for both Phipps and the footman who had opened the door to the man remembered his visit well. He had spoken in broken English and they had understood little of what he said, but they agreed that he had asked specifically for Kyria.

  “Bit of cheek, that,” the footman added. “Not even a ‘Miss’ or ‘Lady’ in front of your name.”

  “Impertinent,” Phipps agreed. “I told him to seek you at Broughton Park, my lady. I hope that was all right.”

  “Yes, of course. That was fine.” Kyria could not help but think that if only she had been here, the poor fellow might not have died.

  Kyria selected a footman named Denby to keep watch on the twins. He seemed young and fit enough to chase about after the boys, and his thick arms looked as if he could lift a twin in each hand. His only fault, as best she could see, was a placid nature, which she feared might make him too likely to overlook many of the twins’ transgressions.

  Reminding the boys that they would be returning to Broughton Park as soon as Jenkins, the head groom, arrived to fetch them and that they would not be helping her and Rafe in their inquiry, she turned them over to Denby. The boys, naturally, protested, although they gave in finally after Kyria told them that they could help her with her costume for the visit to the waterfront tavern this evening.

  Whether her look was due to their help or Kyria’s own expertise, Rafe was not sure, but he was taken aback when she came down the stairs that evening, outfitted for their adventure.

  While Kyria had been preparing for her role, Rafe had spent most of his time trying to think up some reason to leave her behind this evening. The last thing he wanted was to see Kyria exposed to any danger, and going into the sort of place he expected the Blue Bull was seemed to be jumping into the most dangerous situation one could find. As if the risk of drunken brawls or men pawing her was not enough, he could not imagine Kyria, with her tall, striking, flame-haired beauty, blending in with the tavern’s patrons. Taking her with him was risking discovery for both of them, not only among the tavern’s rough clientele, but also with the very man they were hoping to catch.

  But when Kyria walked into the informal drawing room, he came involuntarily to his feet, his jaw dropping open in astonishment. In Kyria’s place stood a bent, dirty crone several inches shorter than she, as well as a lifetime older.

  A scarf, stained and smudged, covered her head, and below it a tangle of brown hair, streaked with white, tumbled out, matted and dirty. The same scarf covered part of her forehead, and below it Kyria’s milk-white skin was several shades darker and caked here and there with dirt. Her nose looked somehow wider and her eyes smaller, and her lips were thin and colorless. She walked with a stoop, as if her back hurt, and her lithe body was covered in bulky rags of an indeterminate color that gave her a lumpish shape. Shoes with holes in the toes completed the picture.

  When Rafe said nothing, merely stared in astonishment, Kyria broke into a grin, displaying the pièce de résistance: four of her teeth appeared to be missing, and the remainder were an appalling yellowish color.

  “Good Lord!” Rafe exclaimed, recoiling.

  Kyria burst into laughter, followed by the twins, who had come downstairs to view the results of their handiwork.

  “Isn’t it wizard?” Alex cried, coming around to look at Kyria again. “You look horrible,” he told her happily.

  “Wizard,” Rafe agreed dryly, adding, “well, at least I won’t have to worry about fighting off your admirers.”

  “I told you I could blend in,” Kyria reminded him. “Oh! The last thing—we need to splash a bit of liquor on me. Gin would be best, but I doubt Papa or Reed have any here.”

  They went to the smoking room, accompanied by the twins, and rooted through the liquor cabinet, and though they could find no plebeian gin, they shook a bit of whiskey over her ragged clothing to add a realistic smell.

  Kyria slipped the heavy revolver Rafe had given her into a pocket amidst the folds of her clothing and stuck the small derringer up her
sleeve. Rafe, with a pair of Colts and a knife in a scabbard strapped to his arm beneath his sleeve, was even more heavily armed.

  “Did you expect to be attacked in Europe?” Kyria asked, watching him check his pistols and thrust them into his belt, one at his side and one at the back.

  He grinned at her. “When you transport silver ore, you get accustomed to arming yourself. A useful habit, as it turns out.”

  “Mmm.”

  They took one of the family carriages, an old-fashioned one that did not bear the ducal crest on the side, and though the coachman looked dubious about their destination, he drove them to Cheapside without a murmur. As they neared the tavern, the streets grew increasingly narrow, until there was barely room enough for the carriage to move between the dark and dingy buildings. There were few street lamps to light the way.

  They found the Blue Bull, a narrow brick building, its color unrecognizable beneath the years of grime. A sign hung above the door, sporting a blue bull—or at least half of one, for much of the figure’s lower body had weathered away. Rafe had instructed the driver to drive past the tavern when he found it and let them out a block away so that no one at the tavern would see them emerging from a conveyance so at odds with the neighborhood. The carriage rolled on past the next narrow cross street before it stopped.

  Rafe stepped down from the carriage and glanced carefully around, then reached up to help Kyria out of the vehicle. She looked around her. The street was so dark she could see little, but she was well able to smell the place. The stench of rotting refuse assailed her nostrils.

  Rafe sent the carriage into a side street to await them. He would have taken a hack, since it would have been less-conspicuous a vehicle, but he suspected that they just might need a quick getaway, so it would be better to have a carriage waiting for them.

  “Are you ready?” he asked Kyria in a low voice.

  “Yes, go on—it won’t do for anyone to see us out here chatting,” Kyria said.

  Rafe looked around sharply once more. It went against his grain to turn and walk away from Kyria, leaving her to follow, but given the roles they had adopted, it would not do for them to be seen entering together. He tugged his cap lower on his head and began walking toward the tavern, using all his discipline not to turn around to look at Kyria following him.