“Good day, St. Clair,” Lady Granleigh said with a dignity that did not conceal her annoyance.
“Lady Granleigh,” Lord St. Clair responded, nodding a cordial greeting.
Below the table, Kim ground her teeth and made a rude gesture with her left hand. Lady Granleigh had left the door wide open, but tempting as the sight was, Kim still could not reach it. Lady Granleigh had stopped too close to the door, and what little space she had left was taken up by the overly large Stuggs.
“I confess I had not expected to find you here, but I thank you for your efforts on behalf of my ward,” Lady Granleigh went on, smiling insincerely at Lord St. Clair.
“Efforts!” Freddy said, outraged. He extracted himself from the tangle at last, with some help from Jonathan, and climbed to his feet, staring at St. Clair the whole time. “What efforts? He ain’t done anything but stand there and annoy people.”
“Your conduct hardly bears examination, Mr. Meredith,” Lady Granleigh responded. “I should be careful about casting aspersions, if I were you.” She looked pointedly down at Marianne.
Robert, who had knelt beside the unconscious girl and begun chafing her wrists, glanced up and said to no one in particular, “Could one of you get a glass of wine?”
“No, but there’s brandy,” Jonathan answered. He started toward a small cabinet near the fireplace, but came face-to-face with Jack Stower before he had taken two steps. Jack’s pistols and threatening glare were eloquent. Jonathan shrugged and went back to his original position.
“Aspersions! Well, I like that!” Freddy said to Lady Granleigh, undaunted by her arrogance. “I didn’t barge in through a locked door without so much as a by-your-leave. I didn’t wave any pistols about or make any threats. I didn’t frighten any ladies into a fit of the vapors, and I didn’t scare her straight into a faint!”
“You lured Miss Thornley here,” Jasper charged.
Robert looked up, visibly impressed. “Did you really, Freddy? I hadn’t thought you had it in you.”
“I didn’t lure anybody,” Freddy protested.
“You made Miss Thornley extravagant promises you had no intention of fulfilling!” Jasper said.
“I dunno,” Stuggs put in. “ ’E don’t look like the type, if you take my meaning.”
Jasper gave his henchman a withering look. “Why else did you bring Miss Thornley here, to this lonely place?” he demanded, turning back to Freddy.
“Hardly lonely,” Mairelon said in a low but clearly audible tone.
“Had to meet her somewhere,” Freddy said reasonably. “It would have looked dashed odd for me to pick the girl up off the side of the road.”
“No doubt,” Jasper sneered with an ironic glance at Jack Stower’s gun. “You and your ruffians would have looked odd anywhere.”
Freddy frowned. “Here, now! What are you insinuating?”
“I think it is perfectly plain,” Lady Granleigh said. “If Lord St. Clair and his friends had not arrived in time to stop you and your kidnappers, who knows what might have happened?”
“Marianne and I would have gotten married, that’s what would have happened!” Freddy retorted, too angry to continue trying to be polite. “What’s more, we’re going to tie the knot as soon as we get out of here, no matter what you say.”
“Freddy, you’re crazed!” Jonathan said.
“No, I ain’t, and I ain’t as foolish as you think, either. Got the special license right here in my pocket.”
“What!” Jasper’s eyes widened; then he whirled to face his sister. “Now see what you’ve done, Amelia! If you hadn’t set the girl on to this buffoon, we wouldn’t be in this pickle!”
“Be quiet, Jasper!” Lady Granleigh commanded. “There is no need for you to worry. Lord St. Clair, be so good as to have your men assist Miss Thornley into our coach. After we have gone, you may deal with these felons as you see fit.”
Before St. Clair could reply, there was a loud crash. Everyone jumped and turned. Dan Laverham was standing beside one of the long windows, which he had just broken, his pistols leveled at the assembly.
“I am afraid you have mistaken the situation, Lady Granleigh,” he said. He stepped forward, and shards of glass crunched under his feet. His face was a cold, expressionless mask. “I am not in St. Clair’s employ, nor have I the slightest interest in you, your ward, or any of your companions. I am here for one thing, and only one thing. Once I’ve got it, you may sort yourselves out in any manner that suits you. Until then, I have heard too much of your brainless chatter. I shall shoot the next person who speaks out of turn.”
St. Clair nodded. “Crude, but generally effective.”
“That includes you, St. Clair,” Laverham said, glaring.
Lady Granleigh drew in her breath at this breach of manners, which seemed to disturb her more than Dan’s pistols. St. Clair smiled, but said nothing.
“Much better,” Laverham went on. “Now, you, the highwayman. Is there somewhere in this pile to lock up this lot of lunatics while we search the rest of it?”
“Highwayman?” Freddy said with interest. “I say, Jon, you never told us anything about—” He broke off as one of Dan’s pistols swung in his direction.
“There are private rooms upstairs,” said Jonathan sullenly. “I think one of them has a lock.”
“The one on the end,” Freddy put in. “But it’s broken. The lock, I mean.”
“This is an outrage!” Lady Granleigh said, finding her voice. “Who is this person? Lord St. Clair—”
“I told you to be quiet,” Dan said. “Get over there with the others.”
“Better do as ’e says, mum,” Stuggs warned. “ ’E looks the sort as ’ud do you without blinkin’.”
Kim held her breath as Lady Granleigh, stiff with disapproval, moved away from the door at last. Now, if they would all stay busy at the other end of the room for a few minutes longer . . .
A shadow fell across the doorsill. Kim frowned and sank back into her uncomfortable half-crouch. Had Lady Granleigh brought a coachman, or had Ben awakened in spite of Lord St. Clair’s precautionary spell? Either way, she would be running into trouble. Not that she wasn’t in a proper mess already, of course, but Dan’s temper looked to be deteriorating rapidly, and she didn’t like to think what he might do if she didn’t get away on her first try. It would be better to wait for a more certain chance.
The motley company was slowly assembling in the corner, with occasional low-voiced grumbling that Dan pretended not to hear. Robert and Freddy between them supported the slowly recovering Marianne, while Jonathan stalked past and Lady Granleigh glowered impartially at everyone. For a moment or two, it looked as if Dan had gotten things under control at last; then Jasper said in a cross, too-loud voice, “But what is it the fellow wants?”
“The Sacred Dish!” Jonathan answered. He gave Dan and Jack a dark look. “But he shall not get it, however he tries.”
“The what?” said Jasper.
“The sacred dish,” Lady Granleigh said, giving her brother a sidelong glance full of meaning. “The platter that we gave to Mr. de Mare this morning.” She nodded in Mairelon’s direction.
“What?” several voices said at once. Lord St. Clair examined Mairelon with angry speculation, and both of Dan’s pistols swung to point at the magician. Kim cursed mentally and swiveled her head from side to side, trying to watch Dan and the door at the same time.
“I told you not to try any tricks with me, Merrill,” Dan said. “Where’s the platter? And this time, tell me the truth!”
The shadow on the doorsill shifted and withdrew, but Kim stayed where she was. With Dan so jumpy, she’d be shot before she was out the door if she made a run for it. She edged toward the front of the table with a vague idea of doing something, she wasn’t sure what, if Dan looked like shooting Mairelon.
“Merrill?” said William Stuggs, giving Mairelon a swift, sharp look. “Well, well.”
“What does that mean, ‘well, well’?” Jasper deman
ded, rounding on his servant.
Stuggs’s expression instantly resumed its usual appearance of placid stupidity. “Ain’t ’e the cove you was lookin’ for in London?”
“Answer me!” Dan said to Mairelon. “Where is the platter?”
“Which one?” Mairelon asked. “The one your man Stower left by my campfire, or the one Lady Granleigh was so anxious to get rid of? Or one of the other fakes Fenton seems to have been peddling?”
“The Saltash Platter, you buffoon!” Laverham shouted.
“Infidel! What have you done with the Sacred Dish?” Jonathan cried at the same moment.
“Fenton?” said Freddy, frowning. “I’ve got a footman by that name. What’s he got to do with Jon’s dish?”
Mairelon lifted his bound hands and scratched his ear. “I don’t have any better idea where the Saltash Platter is than you do, Laverham.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“Why not?” Mairelon shrugged. “It’s true.”
“I gave you the Saltash Platter this morning,” Lady Granleigh insisted in her most superior manner. “How dare you suggest otherwise!”
“Oh, you gave me a platter, all right, but it was a forgery and you knew it,” Mairelon said. He gave her a charming smile that expanded to include the entire ring of surprised, confused, and skeptical faces. “By the by, how do you happen to know anything about the Saltash Platter, hmmm?”
“Never mind!” Dan said. “I don’t care about her, and I don’t believe you.” He raised his pistol and slowly and deliberately cocked it. “For the last time, where is the Saltash Platter?”
“I don’t have it,” Mairelon said.
“But of a certainty you do not,” said a new voice. Dan whirled, and everyone else’s head flicked toward the door. Kim bumped her head on a table leg, cursed, and turned to see Renée D’Auber standing in the doorway. Her auburn hair was dressed in ringlets and threaded with a peach-colored ribbon that exactly matched the delicate muslin of her walking dress, and she smiled brightly when she saw the faces turned toward her. “I have it.”
“Renée!” Mairelon said. “What are you doing here?” Then his face went blank as a stocky, sandy-haired man stepped into the doorway beside her, and he added in a thunderstruck tone, “Andrew?”
23
Hello, Richard,” said the sandy-haired man. He sounded nervous and uncertain, which Kim thought was understandable under the circumstances, but his attention was fixed on Mairelon rather than on Dan or Jack Stower. “I, um, it’s been a while.”
“Well, well,” said St. Clair. “This is becoming quite the family gathering.”
Dan Laverham glared at St. Clair. Mairelon did not move; he seemed as oblivious to the crowd around him as the man he had called Andrew. Kim frowned, puzzled both by St. Clair’s comment and the unusual strength of Mairelon’s reaction. Then her head jerked and almost hit the underside of the table again as several fragments condensed into the memory of Mairelon’s voice saying in a flat tone, “The evidence was overwhelming. Even my brother Andrew believed it.”
“What are you doing here?” Mairelon said in the same tight voice Kim remembered.
“Trying to keep your head out of a noose,” Andrew replied. Now that Kim had remembered who he must be, she could see how much he resembled Mairelon in his middling height, neat build, and rounded face. Andrew glanced at Renée D’Auber and added, “At least, that was the original idea.”
“What do you mean by—”
“Then you do have the Saltash Platter?” St. Clair interrupted, looking fixedly at Mademoiselle D’Auber.
“Nonsense,” Lady Granleigh said. She made an urgent motion at her brother, but Jasper, who did not appear to have the slightest idea what she wanted of him, remained where he was.
“But, yes, I have it,” Renée D’Auber told Lord St. Clair. “Though I do not at all see why it is you who ask, when it is this person with the pistols who was so very curious before.”
“Where is it?” Dan demanded.
“Don’t tell him,” Freddy advised. “Fellow ain’t the thing at all, that’s my opinion.”
“For once, I agree with you, Freddy,” Robert murmured.
“Freddy!” Marianne had recovered enough to pull away from Robert and clutch at Freddy’s arm in protest. “Oh, be careful! That man might shoot you!”
“It would be a singular service to humanity if he did,” St. Clair said. “I have seldom met a more tiresome group, or one more foolish. Mademoiselle D’Auber—”
“Quiet!” Dan commanded. “Or I’ll shoot you, Gregory! I’m tired of your interference.”
“You seemed in need of some assistance,” Lord St. Clair said with unruffled calm. “I was only trying to help.”
“I don’t want your help, you insufferable—”
“But you know each other!” Renée D’Auber said in tones of pleased surprise. “It is a thing remarkable, I think.”
Mairelon shook himself and tore his eyes away from the man in the doorway. “Yes, St. Clair, how do you come to know Laverham? And how long have you been, er, acquainted? At least five years, I think?”
“Oh, much longer than that,” St. Clair replied. “I expect you would be vastly interested in the details, but unfortunately I don’t intend to give them to you.”
“Perhaps Laverham can be persuaded?” Mairelon said.
“Not by you,” Dan snarled. He turned back to Renée. “Give me the platter.”
Behind Renée, Andrew made a gesture of protest, but he had enough sense not to say anything. Renée D’Auber tilted her head and considered Dan Laverham with an air that suggested something unsatisfactory about the object of her scrutiny. “It is not at all possible for me to give you the platter now,” she said at last, as if granting a great concession in answering at all.
“Renée,” Mairelon said warningly.
A muscle in Dan’s jaw jumped. “Don’t lie to me,” he said in a tone that made Kim shrink back from the edge of the table, just in case he turned in her direction.
“I tell the truth,” the Frenchwoman said, affronted. “And it is quite true that I cannot give you the platter now. I am not a fool, me, and I do not wish to lose it. So I do not carry it about with me, especially when there are housebreakers and highwaymen and persons with pistols everywhere. If you were not yourself without sense, you would have comprehended that and not bothered me with silly questions.”
Mairelon made a muffled, choking noise. Dan lowered his pistols slightly and studied Renée through narrowed eyes.
“She ain’t no dull mort,” Jack Stower offered. “I bet she done it like she says.”
“I have no doubt of it,” St. Clair said. “If, that is, she has done anything at all.”
“Ain’t no knowing,” Stuggs said with an air of deep gloom. “She’s French.”
“It’s easy enough to tell whether she’s lying,” Dan said. He walked over to the card table and set something heavy down just over Kim’s head. She flinched and backed away slowly, hoping he would not drop anything. If he bent over, he could hardly miss seeing her. At the rear of the table, she stopped and curled into a lumpy, motionless ball, waiting for Dan to move away again.
“What do you think you’re doing, Laverham?” St. Clair said sharply, and Kim had to suppress an urge to peer over the edge of the table to see what he was referring to.
“I’m going to find out which of them is telling the truth,” Dan answered. “If it’s Merrill, the Saltash Platter is in this building somewhere. That’s close enough for me to find, even with only two of the indicator balls to use as a base for the location spell.”
“Freddy!” Marianne said in a carrying whisper. “Is he going to cast a spell?”
“You know not what you do,” Jonathan said in his best master-druid voice. “Beware the consequences of defiling the hall of the Sons of the New Dawn!”
“Quiet,” said Dan. “I’ve had as much of your posturing as I can stomach. Jack, keep an eye on them.”
This last instruction seemed unnecessary to Kim, since, from the way his pistols had been waving about, Jack had been trying to watch everyone at once for some time. She could just see him out the side of the table and through the latticed back of a wooden chair, his jaw clenched and his eyes compressed to slits of grim concentration. Stuggs was creeping around the outside of the group toward him, craning his neck to get a look at Dan. Did the great looby think this was some kind of show, or was he fool enough to try a trick on a real magician in the middle of a spell? Then Dan began to speak diamond-sharp words Kim could not understand, and every other thought left her mind instantly.
She knew at once that something was wrong. Always before when she had heard magicians at work, the too-solid words had settled quickly into an orderly arrangement, full of dangerous corners and edges but as firm and stable as the words themselves. Dan’s words were floating free, jostling against each other like a market-day crowd, fighting the structure the magician sought to impose on them.
The magicians in the room were also quick to realize that Dan was in trouble. Renée D’Auber stepped backward into Andrew, her eyes widening, and brought up her left hand in a contorted gesture.
“Renée, don’t!” Mairelon cried. “You’ll only cut what’s left of the basic binding!”
“Break off, you fool!” St. Clair said to Dan at the same moment. “You’ll have the house down in another minute.”
“He can’t break off,” Jonathan said with bitter satisfaction. “If he does, he’ll lose what control he has. He’ll lose it soon, in any case. His obstinacy has doomed us all.”
Jasper Marston made a gobbling noise and collided with his sister as he tried to leap for the door. Marianne gave a ladylike shriek and fainted again. This time, Freddy caught her without mishap. Dan’s voice droned on. Robert stared at Jonathan and demanded, “What do you mean by that, Jon?”
“He has fallen afoul of the protections of the Sons of the New Dawn,” Jonathan answered. “I warned him not to meddle!”
“You might have tried warning him you had a protective spell up, you young idiot!” Mairelon said acidly as, with two swift motions, he undid the special knot Kim had used and stripped the binding cords from his wrists. “What did you use? Quick now!”
A Matter of Magic Page 21