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

by C. J. Archer

  Her eyes pooled with tears and she blinked rapidly. She did care for Fabian, but I was certain it was as more than a friend. She loved him.

  And he had rejected her because she wasn't a magician.

  He let her go and stepped away, rejecting her once more.

  "How did you know I was here?" Fabian asked us.

  "A friend of ours read it in the newspaper this morning," Matt said. "He recognized your name."

  I hadn't told Brockwell about Fabian, but Willie admitted that she had mentioned him in passing.

  "And you, Louisa?" Fabian asked.

  "Unhappy news travels fast in our circle," she said.

  He frowned. "I do not belong to a circle, here in England."

  "You do, you just don't know it." At his blank look, she added, "There is a community of powerful people with an interest in magic."

  "Magicians?"

  "I don't know. Some might be."

  It was his turn to look disappointed. "You are part of this community, India?"

  "No," I said.

  "She could be," Louisa said. "If she wanted."

  Fabian seemed satisfied with that answer, but I couldn't think why. If I were in his shoes, I'd want to know who belonged to this community and what their purpose was. Perhaps he didn't want to get involved since he didn't plan on staying in London for a long time.

  Matt and I made our excuses, leaving Fabian with Louisa. He didn't look entirely unhappy about it, but nor did he seem completely enamored by her presence.

  "I feel sorry for her," I said as we followed the guard along the corridor. "That's not something I thought I'd say about a woman who has everything."

  "You think she loves him?" Matt asked skeptically.

  "Yes, don't you?"

  "I'm not sure it's love or a need to control him."

  "Perhaps those are one and the same thing to her, as impossible to separate as a pendulum from an escapement."

  His lips tilted with his smile.

  "Thank you, Matt," I said as we approached the exit. "It was good of you to offer him a loan. It's a pity he didn't accept it, or Louisa's."

  "Why?"

  "I'm worried his masculine pride has got the better of him, as Louisa seems to think, and he intends to work off his debt in prison." I stopped. "We ought to tell him that could take years, not days. He might not be familiar with how the system works here."

  "The system is probably the same in France. But I don't think that's what he intends to do, either. He seems convinced he won't be in here long, however." He put out his arm for me and I took it.

  "Which means he has accepted a loan from someone else," I said.

  Matt seemed unsurprised by my reasoning which meant he'd already come to the same conclusion. The guard opened the door for us but before stepping outside, Matt asked him if Fabian had received any visitors other than us or Lady Louisa. The guard confirmed that he hadn't.

  "Then how does he intend to get out?" I asked as we climbed into the carriage.

  "He must have another source of income," Matt said. "One he couldn't access immediately. Whatever it is, it's none of our business. If Charbonneau's not worried then I don't think we should be either.

  Tinkering with my watch usually soothed my nerves but not after the visit to Newgate, nor the following morning. Fabian had spent a night in that cell. I couldn't begin to imagine what it must have been like for him inside those walls, surrounded by real criminals. We had to free him, but unless he accepted Matt's loan, I couldn't see how.

  I set aside my watch and opened the housing of the black marble clock from my father's shop. After almost thirty minutes, I realized there was no way I could fix it in my present state of mind. I opened the notebook I used in my studies with Fabian instead. There would be no meeting today; no opportunity to work with him on improving my knowledge of the known magic words. I had memorized almost all of the ones he knew how to pronounce, and we were about to move on to experimenting with others he'd uncovered through his years of research. He hoped that, between the two of us, we could string them together to form new spells.

  I closed the book again, however. I had no aptitude for learning today.

  "Can I help?" Matt asked, entering the sitting room. He joined me at the desk and peered over my shoulder. "Are you trying to study or fix the clock?"

  "Both. Neither." I sighed. "I can't concentrate on anything this afternoon. What about you?"

  "Instructions have been sent to my bank, but without knowing how much Charbonneau is in debt for, I don't know how much to set aside."

  "He might not change his mind."

  He rested his hands on my shoulders. "The money will be available if he does."

  I tilted my head back to see him better. He leaned down and kissed me on the mouth.

  "There's nothing more we can do," he said. "Why don't you visit Catherine and Ronnie? Take Cyclops with you. He could use the distraction too."

  Cyclops refused to go with me, but the arrival of Lady Rycroft and her daughters made him change his mind.

  "We were just on our way out," I told them. "Bristow will inform Aunt Letitia and show you to the drawing room."

  Lady Rycroft looked affronted. "It's not her we came to see. I wanted to ask you if you've spoken to Lord Coyle."

  "Not yet." I drew on my gloves. "If you'll excuse us, we have to go."

  "Us?"

  I indicated Cyclops, trying and failing to look inconspicuous in the shadowy recesses of the entrance hall.

  Charity's eyes narrowed. "Didn't my cousin dismiss him?"

  "One doesn't dismiss a friend." I signaled for him to step up alongside me but he hung back.

  The grooves around Charity's mouth deepened with her frown.

  "Didn't you hear India refer to him as a friend at dinner?" Hope asked.

  "I thought she was joking."

  "Why were you discussing him at all?" Lady Rycroft asked her daughters.

  "Charity mentioned him to India," Hope said, all sweetness. "Didn't you, Sister? Why was that again? I've forgotten."

  Lady Rycroft's severe brows plunged. "Charity?"

  "I… He…" Color drained from her face.

  "Did he speak to you?"

  Charity was trapped and she knew it. The only way out was to deny they'd met at all. Or embrace it. She chose the latter, but embellished it with a lie. "Yes," Charity blurted out. "And he was very…forward."

  Lady Rycroft clutched at her throat and gasped and gasped again, as if she couldn't draw breath. "I feel faint," she said, voice trembling.

  Hope grabbed her mother's reticule and wrenched open the drawstring. "Here," she said, waving a blue ceramic bottle beneath her mother's nose. "Try and breathe, Mama."

  Lady Rycroft breathed deeply and flapped her hand at her chest. Charity took her arm to help steady her while Hope continued with the bottle of smelling salts.

  Cyclops sank further into the shadows.

  "My poor girl," Lady Rycroft muttered.

  Charity's tale was quickly spinning out of control, and she didn't look as though she would change it. She didn't care what her lie meant to Cyclops, only that it made her look innocent. I couldn't allow her to continue with it.

  "The only forward one was you," I snapped.

  "Me!" Charity scoffed. "I'm just a girl."

  "You're a nasty little wasp who likes to sting. It was you who came in search of Cyclops and waited until he was alone in the stables. It was you who backed him into a stall."

  Lady Rycroft shoved Hope's hand and the bottle away. "I beg your pardon! How dare you say such slanderous things about one of my girls!"

  "It's true," I said simply.

  She stepped toward me and bared her teeth. She looked every bit the tigress defending her cubs, all signs of a fainting spell gone. "You may be Matthew's wife now, but you cannot speak to my girls like that. They are born Glasses. Before you damage the reputation of a young lady, remember that you lived under Matthew's roof for months before you marri
ed."

  I stiffened. "I have no wish to damage Charity's reputation, but she called into question the honor of a dear friend, and I have a right to defend him in my own home. Cyclops has more honor than your entire family, and I will not hear otherwise."

  "How dare you!" Lady Rycroft spat, spraying me with saliva. She looked as though she would say more, but Bristow returned.

  "Miss Glass will see you in the drawing room now, my lady," he said, as if he'd not just overheard us arguing.

  Cyclops grabbed my arm and steered me toward the door. "Let's go, India."

  I stopped at the door, however, and glanced over my shoulder. Lady Rycroft was flanked by her two daughters, her chin out and back ramrod straight. She was the eponymous noblewoman, born to order people like me about.

  But I held the upper hand.

  "If you wish me to invite Lord Coyle to dine with Hope, you'll cease your accusations." I marched out, clutching Cyclops's arm, my blood thrumming through my veins.

  Neither of us spoke until we were in the carriage and well away from the house.

  "That horrible, nasty woman," I hissed. "And her daughter's no better. I'm beginning to think Charity's not mad at all. She seemed to know what she was doing when she implicated you."

  "Thanks for defending me, India, but it wasn't necessary," Cyclops said.

  "Lady Rycroft wouldn't have given up until she'd run you out of London."

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and sighed. "Why does it matter? I ain't going to tell anyone what Charity did."

  "She thinks the only way to ensure the truth about Charity remains hidden is to get on the front foot and paint you as a reprobate. If the gossips hear something that contradicts her story, it'll be too late, and they'll be disinclined to believe the truth." I crossed my arms over my chest. "She has quite a nerve, accusing you of being at fault. She ought to hope Matt doesn't hear about it."

  "Don't tell him." He sat up and settled those liquid brown eyes on me.

  "I don't like keeping secrets from him," I said.

  He crossed his arms too. "Tell him if you have to, but it'll put him in an awkward position."

  He was right. Matt's relationship with his family was precarious enough without adding this to the mix. Besides, the last thing I wanted was to run to him every time I had a problem. "If Lady Rycroft stops accusing you, I won't tell him."

  "Then let's hope she really wants Hope to marry Coyle."

  Cyclops hadn't made me promise not to tell anyone else, only Matt. While I wouldn't tell Willie or Duke, because their outrage might see them do something foolish, I could talk to Catherine about it. I wouldn't have brought it up, however, if she hadn't noticed that something was wrong.

  "Those springs don't deserve it, India," she said with a crooked smile.

  I looked down at the springs I'd been removing from the box and was placing in the drawer in the workroom. Perhaps placing wasn't the right word. I'd been throwing them, and when the springs did what springs do and jumped out of the drawer because I'd thrown them too hard, I called them all sorts of names.

  "Sorry," I said. "I'm angry."

  "At Nate?"

  "No, of course not."

  She eyed the door to the shop where Cyclops and Ronnie were rearranging the clocks. "It's just that he seems unhappy. I thought perhaps you two argued."

  "Nothing like that. Very well, I'll tell you."

  The crooked smile returned. "I'd like it noted I didn't pressure you."

  I told her about our encounter with Lady Rycroft, which of course meant I had to tell her about Charity's encounter with Cyclops. She stood there, riveted to the spot, her face growing darker with each tick of the gilt and porcelain mantel clock.

  "The nerve of her!" she cried when I finished. "Horrid, spiteful, vindictive creature!" She slammed down a box of parts on the bench, knocking a watch Ronnie had been working on and sending it skittering across the smooth bench surface.

  I caught it before it fell off. "Lady Rycroft is all of those things, but she's not worth breaking a watch over."

  "I'm not talking about Lady Rycroft. I don't blame her for protecting her daughter's reputation. But Charity thinks she can do as she pleases with a man's life, without thought to his reputation and without consequence to herself. I am so relieved you were there to defend him, India. Imagine if you weren't."

  Cyclops and Ronnie entered, carrying boxes. Ronnie set his box down on the bench, but Cyclops hesitated. He eyed me then Catherine. We both resumed unpacking.

  "New delivery," Ronnie said, tapping the box with his finger. "Put the other one over there, Cyclops. My sister will help you unpack it. India, will you help me out in the shop? I've got some questions about a certain clock."

  I peeked through the gap in the door as it closed behind us, and I saw Catherine and Cyclops standing exactly where we'd left them, neither looking at the other.

  "They're in love," Ronnie said, voice low. "Don't look so shocked, India. I've known for some time that my sister had feelings for him, but I wasn't sure how he felt until now."

  "You asked him?"

  "I did." He shifted a shiny brass carriage clock along the shelf behind the counter only to move it back again. "He couldn't deny it, although he tried. It was obvious he was lying, and I told him so. He told me he wouldn't act on his feelings, that it would pass." He shrugged. "And I said it wouldn't pass for Catherine. I've never seen her like this before, all forlorn yet determined to make a go of the shop too."

  "And what did he say?"

  "Nothing. He hardly spoke after that." He jerked his thumb at the door to the workshop. "They just need time to talk alone, without anyone watching. Did you notice how charged the air was in there?"

  "Er, yes."

  "It's a good sign, if you ask me."

  The front door opened, ringing the little bell positioned above it. Matt strode in, followed by Willie and Duke. I knew from their grim faces that something was wrong.

  My heart leapt into my throat. Surely Lady Rycroft hadn't appealed to Matt. She must know he'd take Cyclops's side.

  "You need to hear the full story," I said, rounding the counter to meet them. "Charity lied to her mother and claimed Cyclops accosted her in the stables."

  "I don't doubt it," Matt said.

  "Letty told us what happened," Willie said. "She overheard the whole exchange. This ain't about the little Glass witch, this is something else."

  "It's Charbonneau." Matt took me by the elbows and dipped his head to meet my gaze. "Brockwell sent a message. Charbonneau escaped from prison last night."

  I gasped. "Escaped! How?"

  "The police don't know. But that's not all. There's a bigger problem. The man he owes money to was found dead this morning. Stabbed."

  My stomach plunged and the blood rushed between my ears. I could hardly hear my own voice as I said, "And the police think Fabian did it."

  Chapter 5

  "He didn't do it," I said for what felt like the thousandth time. "Fabian is no murderer. He's a good, kind man."

  Brockwell clasped his hands over the paperwork on his desk only to unclasp them and scratch his sideburns. Both of them. The deliberate delaying tactic wouldn't work on me this time, and I managed to neither tap my foot nor prompt him. It took a great deal of effort, however.

  "If he is a good man, why was he in prison for theft?" Brockwell asked.

  "It wasn't theft, and you know it. He couldn't repay his debts."

  "According to court documents, his family is extremely wealthy."

  "His family, not him. They cut off his allowance."

  "Which the court documents also mentioned," Matt said. He sounded far calmer than I felt. That was his tactic when dealing with the unflappable detective inspector, and I wished I could emulate it.

  "If the court believed him, he would not have gone to prison." Brockwell put up his hands to ward off further protests. "I admire your loyalty, but I think you should reconsider. Mr. Fabian Charbonneau
is a suspect in the murder of Douglas McGuire." He smoothed a palm over the file on the desk. "He is our only suspect."

  "May I see the report?" Matt asked.

  "No."

  "Then why are we here, if not to help you?"

  "To answer my questions about Fabian Charbonneau." Brockwell indicated the chairs opposite his desk. Neither Matt nor I had sat yet. "I'll do it in here, in deference to your considerable help to me in the past. Sit, Mrs. Glass." His mouth inched up at the corners. "I'm not yet used to calling you that."

  I sat. "We'd be happy to answer your questions, Inspector. Anything to clear Fabian's name. What do you want to know?"

  "Why do you meet with him every afternoon?"

  "I can't tell you that."

  Brockwell's lips pursed. "Is it to do with magic?"

  "Yes," Matt said. "There's no need to hide it," he said to me. "He won't tell anyone."

  I sighed. "Fabian is a magician and we—"

  Brockwell groaned. "Another one," he muttered. "No offence, Mrs. Glass, but your kind have caused me no end of headaches these last months." He flipped the papers on his desk until he found the one he wanted. "According to witnesses, Charbonneau visited McGuire the day before he was incarcerated."

  "Perhaps he was making an arrangement to repay the debt," Matt said.

  "A monogrammed handkerchief was also found at the scene of the murder with the initials F.C. embroidered in blue thread. Those are Fabian Charbonneau's initials."

  "And if I were going to set someone up for murder, the first thing I'd do is place something at the crime scene that belonged to that person. Is that all you have, Brockwell?"

  "There is, of course, the matter of Charbonneau's escape from prison on the very night his creditor is murdered."

  Neither Matt nor I responded.

  "On the very night after you two visited him."

  "Are you accusing us of helping Fabian escape?" I snapped.

  Matt leaned forward, his earlier amiability replaced by a scowl. "Let me be clear, Inspector. Neither India nor I had anything to do with Charbonneau's escape or the murder of his creditor."

  "Forgive me, but I must be impartial."