Neither man had noticed Julian eating the majority of the bread. He shoved the remaining piece of cheese in his mouth with resignation. He had an inkling how the visit to the park was going to go.
He was right.
Scott suggested an impromptu sketching lesson and found Julian a nice view of the river and path. Dawson was more helpful, suggesting Julian position himself out of the wind and giving some tips about perspective. Ten minutes into the sketch, Scott decided he and Dawson should take a quick stroll and leave Julian to it. “After all, there is nothing worse than trying to work and constantly getting instructed.”
Julian stared at his tutor. Scott struggled to let Julian parse a complete sentence in Latin without jumping in to offer assistance. Did he realise how hypocritical his suggestion was?
Dawson glanced at the path and then back at Julian’s sketch. “I don’t know. We’ve already lost Julian once.”
“That was different. He’s not going anywhere this time, are you?” Scott frowned at Julian. “Independence is good for a boy his age.”
Julian tilted his head. “Independence is good for me at the park, but not when it comes to reading material?”
“You have to build your way up to that, and honestly, with your taste in novels that’s going to be quite a journey.” Scott turned back to Dawson. “There, you see? He wants to be left alone. Let’s promenade.”
Dawson didn’t look convinced, but he allowed Scott to steer him down the path.
Julian watched them go. He had half a mind to follow. He was no nearer figuring out how Dawson broke the rules with impunity. Then again, a perfectly ordinary young gentleman would apply himself to his sketch. Julian looked down at his half-formed scribble.
He heard the bench creak. He looked up just as the arm looped around his shoulder, the boy plopping down onto the seat beside him. “Surrounded by so much of interest, and you’re staring at a blank piece of paper.” His tone was mocking. “Tell me you haven’t spent too much time with people.”
Julian’s stomach gave a lurch. He flicked the sketchbook shut. “It’s not going to be a blank piece of paper much longer.”
The boy cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not going to find life making notes on a piece of paper—or by studying how the humans do it.”
This time his stomach lurched with alarm. How had he known? “I suppose you’re going to say I should live it with you.”
The boy’s smile was wide and wicked. “Thought you’d never learn.”
Julian paused. That had not been the answer he’d anticipated. He was uneasily conscious that the rules he’d learned for himself about human behaviour were curiously inadequate when it came to this boy.
He smirked at Julian, eyes glittering as if he relished his discomfort. “So? Are you going to stay in your cage or are you going to take your freedom?”
“I’m not in a cage.” The words were immediate. Julian swallowed, trying to push away the tight feeling in his chest.
“Oh?” His tone was insolent. “You obey their rules, go where they let you go, wear what they tell you to wear, spend your time as they want you to spend it.”
Julian digested that. Pip had promised him, Cross too, that they would never put him in a cage.
“How can someone who spends so much time watching people not see something so obvious!” The boy sighed theatrically, turning aside in an attitude of despair—and tugged Julian’s sketchbook out of his hand.
“Hey!” Julian scrambled to his feet. “Give that back!”
The boy skipped out of his reach and waved the sketchbook at him. “If you want your book back, you have to come with me. Your tutor can’t scold you for that, surely.”
Julian glanced down the path Scott and Dawson had taken. No sign of them. And they hadn’t hesitated to leave him…
The boy cocked his head. “You don’t want to stay, do you?”
That decided him. “No, I don’t.” Julian joined him. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.” The boy darted down the path.
Julian gave chase. This was what he’d lacked, what he’d been missing all that day, the sheer joy of being in motion, the challenge of keeping pace with his companion.
The boy was no easier to catch than he’d been as a cat. He wove through traffic with the same reckless ease. Julian was brought up short as a brougham and a set of four thundered by right in front of his nose. By the time horses and carriage had moved on, the boy had vanished.
Julian caught his laughter. The boy hung on the back of a passing carriage and hung there. He raised Julian’s sketchbook in salute.
Not so fast. Julian sized up the approaching carriages. He spotted an old brougham. He didn’t think about the difficulty of it—he simply focused on the approaching carriage and getting the timing of it. He jumped.
He was a fraction too early, knocking against the back of the carriage. Instinct kicked in: he grabbed the top of the carriage before he could fall. Balanced precariously on the edge of the step, he risked a glance ahead of him.
The boy met his eye and nodded, his glance approving.
Julian felt giddy.
The boy left his carriage at the corner of the main road and led the way to a house, obviously abandoned. The overgrown garden was the closest thing to a forest Julian had seen since they arrived in Paris.
“You won’t find a better place for hide and seek in the whole city,” the boy said. “In fact, you won’t find me.” As easily as that he was gone, his voice hanging in the air. A branch shifted. Did Julian hear bird wings?
“Won’t I?” Julian shrugged out of his jacket and tie, hanging them on a nearby bush. The boy might be able to change his shape, but even so, he was no match for his other self’s nose.
The contest was close. So close in fact, that they were still arguing about it when they returned to the park.
“Climbing is cheating,” Julian repeated firmly. “You know I can’t follow you into a tree.”
“It’s not my fault that you’re limited. If you’d really wanted to catch me, you could have,” the boy said loftily. “You didn’t want the game to end.” He jostled Julian. “Admit it—you had fun.”
Julian paused to digest his feelings. He felt curiously light, warm despite the winter chill that had penetrated his boots and made his cheeks sting. “I did.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. Didn’t I say you would?”
Julian raised an eyebrow. “And you’re an expert in me?”
The boy held out his sketchbook. “I know more about you than you do me.”
Julian didn’t take the book. “That doesn’t prove much.”
“You’re like me,” the boy continued. “Different. Only I’ve been different much longer than you.” He paused, looking at Julian as if suddenly seeing him for the first time. “Is that why you don’t see things? You’re still so new.”
New? Julian digested that. “I’m thirteen years old.” As far as they could tell anyway. “That’s not new.”
“Compared to me you’re an infant.” The boy shrugged carelessly. “I expect you’ll grow out of this desire to be one of the humans soon enough. Things will be so much better once you realise you don’t need them.”
Julian bristled. Thirteen years old was hardly a child! “So I can be alone, just like you?”
The boy’s face took on a curious expression. “There are others like me.”
“Where are they?”
“Elsewhere.”
Julian tilted his head. “And where exactly is elsewhere?”
The boy curled his lip. “You won’t find it on any map, if that’s what you’re asking. You won’t find it in any of your father’s books either. But they’re there.”
When had the boy learned about Pip’s collection? Not from Julian. Had he been spying on them? Julian did his best to shrug in a casual way, burying his alarm in the pit of his stomach. “So why aren’t you with them?”
“Because I’m here.”
The boy’s manner, usually expansive, was now clipped, his words abrupt. “Not that here is any great prize.”
Julian’s frown deepened. “You’re here alone, even though you don’t like people?”
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “Better alone than suffering the company of fools. It’s your precious people’s fault that they left, and I’m stuck here at all. So, I’ve got no reason to want to hang around your humans, have I?”
For someone who didn’t like humans, the boy had spent an awful lot of time hanging around Julian’s extended family. “Why—”
“Your keepers have spotted you,” said the boy. “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”
Julian looked up. The bench where he’d sat to do his sketch was in front of them, Scott and Dawson waiting beside it. They spotted Julian and hastened towards him.
From this distance, it was impossible to gauge expression, but Scott’s stance told Julian he was in trouble. His shoulders drooped.
“They can’t tell you off if you’re not there to be told off.” The boy held out his sketchbook.
Julian snatched it back quickly, before he could change his mind. “I’m not leaving them to be like you.”
The boy turned aside. “You can’t say I haven’t given you every opportunity. Enjoy your cage.”
“It’s not a cage!” Julian yelled after him. All the same, as he walked towards Scott and Dawson, mentally picking up the threads of his everyday life, he felt a sense of loss, of confinement. Was he trapped like the boy said?
No, Julian told himself firmly. That’s what he wants you to think.
“Where have you been?” Scott started as soon as they reached speaking distance. “When we returned, and you weren’t here—”
“A boy grabbed my sketchbook and ran off with it,” Julian said. “I had to get it back.”
Scott blinked. “You what?”
“He grabbed my sketchbook,” Julian explained. “So, I ran after him. He went to this old house with an overgrown garden with it and it was ages before he gave it back.”
Scott scrubbed a hand over his face. “Are you telling me you followed a strange boy into the depths of Paris? Alone, with no one around to help?”
This felt like a trick question. Julian considered his options, but he couldn’t see any alternatives. “Yes?”
“You could have been kidnapped! Robbed—murdered! This isn’t Foxwood Court. You’ve got to be more aware!”
“But I wasn’t kidnapped, robbed or murdered,” Julian pointed out. “And I got my sketchbook back. Not that I did much sketching.” He looked up at Dawson, wondering if he should apologise.
Dawson looked pale. His gaze was not on Julian but past him, and he groped blindly for Scott’s hand.
Julian turned. There was nothing to explain Dawson’s sudden transfixion—nothing but the boy sauntering into the distance. “Are you all right?”
Scott was startled out of his reprimands by Julian’s question. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Frank. What is it?”
“A ghost,” Dawson repeated. “Perhaps. Do either of you see that man?” He pointed.
Julian turned his head. “A man? No.”
Dawson staggered back. “Have I gone mad?”
Scott seized his arm, supporting him. “Tell us what this is about. This man you saw, who is he?”
Dawson raised a shaking hand to his forehead. “I can’t tell you anything about him. Only—he’s the one in my paintings. I’m sure of it.”
11
Scott’s fingers were on the piano keyboard, but his eyes were focused off in the distance. Julian did not recall ever hearing this melody before. It had started out as Lord Bayham but was now entirely different, strangely sad but with a quiet beauty. Julian’s chest filled with heaviness, but at the same time, he did not want the melody to stop.
A hand settled on his shoulder. Cross beckoned him to follow.
Julian stood, surprised to find his legs stiff. It did not seem that long ago, they’d sat down after dinner, Scott suggesting some light music as they read. He followed Cross into his room, pausing to breathe in the comforting scent of his beard oil.
Cross shut the door behind them. “Did something happen today?”
Julian considered the question. “A lot of things happened. What do you mean?”
He motioned to the door. “Mr Scott seems out of spirits. Did you, by chance, see Mr Dawson today?”
“He gave me a sketching lesson in the park.” Julian hesitated. They were on dangerous ground here. Dawson had been shaken by whatever he’d glimpsed. Scott had taken them into the nearest restaurant and insisted Dawson drink something fortifying. They’d spent the better part of the next hour going over all the things Dawson might have seen. By the time they’d seen him back to his godmother’s hotel, Dawson was in a much better state of mind.
Not so Scott. As soon as the door closed on Dawson, his confident manner had lapsed. He’d spent the carriage ride back to their hotel in silence, only speaking as they quit the carriage. “By all rights, I should tell Lord Cross about you running off this afternoon. You see that, don’t you, Julian?”
Julian had nodded, resigned to more punishment. “Yes, sir.”
“But it would be a shame to worry him right now. So, I’m going to propose an arrangement. I will not mention your absence to Lord Cross—if you promise not to run off again.”
This was more than Julian had dared hope for. “I promise.”
“I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t mention that Dawson and I went for a walk together.”
At the time, Julian hadn’t wondered about that. Now? He worried his lip.
“How is Mr Dawson?” Cross continued.
“He seemed well—when we first saw him.”
Cross raised his eyebrows. “But not after?”
Julian tugged at the end of his sleeves. Scott hadn’t said anything about Dawson’s claim. “He saw someone that upset him.”
“Who?”
“He didn’t know.”
“How very curious.” Cross studied Julian.
He braced for the next question. Instead, deliverance came from an unlikely source—an urgent knock at their hotel door.
Cross tilted his head quizzically, looking at Julian. “Is that our door?” Julian nodded. “We’re not expecting any visitors.” He walked out of his room. Julian followed.
Scott opened the door to the apartment. “Frank! What’s happened?”
Dawson didn’t reply. He scanned the room, spotting Julian. He advanced towards him, seizing his arm. “Julian. This morning, at the restaurant. You remarked that I’d been painting.”
The hair on the back of Julian’s neck prickled. He was conscious of Scott and Cross watching him. “Yes, sir.”
Dawson’s fingers tightened on his arm. “What made you say that?”
He was in big trouble now. Julian weighed his options.
“Please.” Dawson’s voice cracked. His usual scent of pomade and tobacco was tainted by a sour note—fear.
“You smelled of turpentine.” Julian tried not to think about Cross standing behind him, his mouth one flat line of disapproval. “After you’re done painting, you always clean your brushes with it.”
Dawson gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “At least I tidied up after myself.” He let go of Julian’s arm, digging his pipe out of his pocket.
Julian frowned at him. Dawson had evidently rushed over to their hotel. He’d forgotten a coat. He still wore the suit he’d been out seeing Paris in, and his tie was not knotted properly. “But you said you hadn’t been painting.”
“That’s what I thought. How many painters do you know who work in their sleep? Was I dreaming? Possessed? I don’t even know—” Dawson seemed to recollect that they were having this conversation in front of Scott and Cross. “I beg your pardon. I don’t know what I was thinking—to barge in like this! I—”
“In the circumstances,” Cross said gravely, “we can overlook the interruption.” H
e looked at Julian. “Go down to the restaurant. Ask them to send up a bottle of brandy and glasses for three.”
By the time the brandy arrived, Dawson was calm enough to give an account of his discovery. “The first I knew anything was awry was after dinner. Octavia asked if I was done with her paints. I’d returned them to her studio, but she insisted they were not there now. She was right. The paints were gone. We found them in my room, along with a—” Dawson swallowed. “Another painting.” His fingers were locked around his unlit pipe. “One I had no memory of painting.”
“Julian could be mistaken,” Scott started.
Dawson cut him off. “There was other evidence. A smear of paint on my nightshirt. A rag left in my washstand. The painting itself… It’s my way of working. I came here hoping for anything that might explain this. Now…” He sank back in the armchair. Of all the men present, Dawson was the tallest, but he did not seem tall now. His usual capability had deserted him completely.
Julian’s shoulders tensed. Seeing Dawson so unlike himself put his skin on edge. His other self shifted beneath his skin, senses alert.
Scott patted him on the shoulder. “Courage, old chap. Have a sip of this.” He wrapped Dawson’s fingers around a glass of brandy.
Dawson’s mouth flickered into a brief smile. “Easier said than done. This has rattled me.”
“The circumstances are certainly strange enough to rattle one.” Cross pulled on his coat. “I hope you will not object if Scott and I call on your godparents and see this painting for ourselves?”
“What?” Dawson looked up, startled. “I couldn’t ask that of you—”
“It is no bother,” Cross said. “And we can—if you would like—bring a change of clothes back with us. We have an empty bedroom.”
Julian sucked in a deep breath. Was Cross suggesting Dawson take Pip’s room? That was betrayal! Pip was coming back!
He was coming back—wasn’t he?
“I couldn’t possibly intrude,” Dawson protested, but there was a weakness in his protest.
The Worst Behaved Werewolf Page 6