by Kerstin Gier
“I can’t say the same for your conversation. It leaves a lot to be desired,” I said. “Is there something between you and Charlotte or not?”
“I thought you weren’t a bit interested in what was going on between me and Charlotte?”
I was still glaring at him. “Too right!”
“Then that’s okay.” Gideon handed me the iPod back. “Hallelujah” was coming over the earphones, the Bon Jovi version.
“That’s the wrong track,” I said.
“No, no.” Gideon was grinning. “I thought you needed something soothing.”
“You … you are such a…”
“Yes?”
“Such a shit.”
He came a step closer, so that at a guess there was exactly half an inch of space left between us. “There, you see, that’s the difference between you and Charlotte. She’d never say a thing like that.”
I suddenly found breathing difficult. “Maybe because you don’t give her any reason to.”
“No, that’s not it. I guess she just has better manners.”
“Yes, and stronger nerves,” I said. For some reason, I couldn’t help staring at Gideon’s mouth. “Just in case you were thinking of trying it again, if we find ourselves hanging around in a confessional somewhere twiddling our thumbs, I’m not letting you take me by surprise a second time!”
“You mean you wouldn’t let me kiss you a second time?”
“Got it in one,” I whispered, unable to move.
“That’s a pity,” said Gideon, and his mouth was so close to mine that I felt his breath on my lips. I realized I wasn’t necessarily acting as if I meant it seriously. And I didn’t. I thought it was much to my credit that I didn’t throw my arms around Gideon’s neck. But anyway I’d missed out on the moment for tearing myself free or pushing him away some time ago.
Obviously that was how Gideon saw it, too. His hand began stroking my hair, and then, at last, I felt the gentle touch of his lips.
“And every breath we drew was hallelujah,” sang Bon Jovi in my ear. I’d always loved that song—it was one of those I could listen to fifteen times running—but now I supposed it would be connected with the memory of Gideon for ever and ever.
Hallelujah.
SIX
THIS TIME we weren’t disturbed either by traveling through time or a cheeky gargoyle demon. While “Hallelujah” was running, the kiss was gentle and careful, but then Gideon buried both hands in my hair and held me very close. It wasn’t a gentle kiss anymore, and my reaction surprised me. I suddenly felt very soft and lightweight, and my arms went around Gideon’s neck of their own accord. I had no idea how, but at some point in the next few minutes, still kissing without a break, we landed on the green sofa, and we went on kissing there until Gideon abruptly sat up and looked at his watch.
“Like I said, it really is a shame I’m not allowed to kiss you anymore,” he remarked rather breathlessly. The pupils of his eyes looked huge, and his cheeks were definitely flushed.
I wondered what I looked like myself. As I’d temporarily mutated into some kind of human blancmange, there was no way I could get out of my half-lying position. And I realized, with horror, that I had no idea how much time had passed since Bon Jovi stopped singing “Hallelujah.” Ten minutes? Half an hour? Anything was possible.
Gideon looked at me, and I thought I saw something like bewilderment in his eyes.
“We’d better collect our things,” he said at last. “And you need to do something about your hair—it looks as if some idiot has been digging both hands into it and dragging you down on a sofa. Whoever’s back there waiting for us will put two and two together—oh, my God, don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“As if you couldn’t move.”
“But I can’t,” I said, perfectly seriously. “I’m a blancmange. You’ve turned me into blancmange.”
A brief smile brightened Gideon’s face, and then he jumped up and began stowing my school things in my bag. “Come along, little blancmange, stand up. Do you have a brush or comb with you?”
“In there somewhere,” I said vaguely.
Gideon held up Lesley’s mother’s spectacle case. “In this?”
“No!” I cried, and in my alarm my blancmange existence came to a sudden end. I jumped up, snatched the case containing the Japanese vegetable knife from Gideon’s hand, and flung it back in my bag. If Gideon was surprised, he didn’t show it. He put the chair back by the wall and looked at his watch again, while I took out my hairbrush.
“How much time do we have left?”
“Two minutes,” said Gideon, picking up the iPod from the floor. How it had ended up there I had no idea. Or when.
I hastily brushed my hair.
Gideon was watching me with a serious expression on his face. “Gwyneth?”
“Hm?” I lowered the hairbrush and returned his gaze as calmly as I could. Oh, my God—he looked so incredibly good, and a part of me was trying to turn back into blancmange again.
“Do you…?”
I waited. “What?”
“Oh, nothing.”
The familiar dizzy feeling was spreading through me. “I think we’re off,” I said.
“Hold tight to your bag. Whatever happens, you mustn’t let go of it. And come this way a bit, or you’ll land on the table.”
Even as I was moving toward him, everything blurred in front of my eyes. Only fractions of a second later, I made a soft landing on my feet, right in front of the wide-eyed Mr. Marley. The gargoyle was looking over his shoulder, grinning.
“At last,” said Xemerius. “I’ve had to listen to Ginger here talking to himself for the last fifteen minutes.”
“Are you all right, Miss Shepherd?” asked Mr. Marley, taking a step back.
“She’s fine,” said Gideon, who had landed behind me and was now looking me up and down. When I smiled at him he quickly moved aside.
Mr. Marley cleared his throat. “I’m to tell you you’re expected in the Dragon Hall, sir. The Inner Cir—Number Seven has arrived and wants to see you. If you’ll allow me, I’ll take Miss Shepherd to her car.”
“Miss Shepherd doesn’t have a car,” said Xemerius. “She doesn’t even have a driving license, dimwit.”
“No need, I’ll take her upstairs with me.” Gideon picked up the black blindfold.
“Do I really have to wear that thing?”
“Yes, you do.” Gideon tied the scarf together behind my head. As he did so, he caught a couple of my hairs in the knot, and it tweaked them, but I wasn’t going to squeal, so I just bit my lip. “If you don’t know where the chronograph is kept, then you can’t give the secret away, and we won’t find anyone lying in wait for us here when we land in this room some other time.”
“But this cellar belongs to the Guardians, and the ways in and out are always guarded,” I said.
“First, there are more passages in this vault than alleys running past the buildings in the Temple, and second, we can never rule out the possibility that someone in our own ranks might be interested in a surprise meeting.”
“Trust no one. Not even your own feelings,” I murmured. They were all so suspicious here.
Gideon put a hand on my waist and propelled me forward. “Exactly.”
I heard Mr. Marley say good night, and then the door latched behind us. We walked along side by side in silence. There were a lot of things I’d have liked to say, but I didn’t know where to begin.
“My instinct tells me you two have been at it again,” remarked Xemerius. “My instinct and my sharp eyes.”
“Nonsense,” I said, and Xemerius burst into a cackle of laughter.
“You take my word for it, I’ve been on this earth since the eleventh century, and I know what a girl looks like when she’s just been rolling in a stack of hay.”
“Hay?” I repeated indignantly.
“Are you talking to me?” asked Gideon.
“Who else?” I said. “I was going
to say hey, I’m ravenous—I could eat a horse. What’s the time?”
“Nearly seven thirty.” Gideon suddenly let go of me. A whole series of electronic beeps could be heard. Then my shoulder rammed into the wall.
“What’s the idea?”
Xemerius cackled with laughter again. “That’s what I call a real gentleman.”
“Sorry. The wretched mobile doesn’t get a signal down there, of course. Thirty-four calls in my absence, oh, great! That can only … oh, God, my mother!” Gideon sighed heavily. “She rang me eleven times.”
I was feeling my way forward along the wall. “Look, either you take this stupid blindfold off or you’ll have to guide me!”
“Okay.” His hand was back again.
“I could say a thing or two about guys who blindfold their girlfriends so they can check up on mobiles at their leisure,” observed Xemerius.
I wasn’t too keen on it either. “Has something bad happened?”
Another sigh. “I suppose so. We don’t often call each other. Still no reception here.”
“Watch out, there’s a step,” Xemerius warned me.
“Maybe someone’s sick,” I said. “Or you forgot something important. The other day my mum called goodness knows how many times to remind me to send my uncle Harry a birthday card. Ouch.”
If Xemerius hadn’t warned me, the knob at the end of the banisters would have caught me in the pit of the stomach. Gideon still didn’t notice. I felt my way up the spiral staircase as well as I could for myself.
“No, that’s not it. I never forget a birthday.” He sounded harassed. “It must be something to do with Raphael.”
“Your little brother?”
“He’s always doing dangerous stuff—driving without a license, diving off cliffs, climbing without safety gear. No idea who he’s trying to impress. Last year he had an accident paragliding and spent three weeks in hospital with a brain trauma. You’d think that would teach him a lesson, but no, he got Monsieur Po-Face Bertelin to give him a speedboat for his birthday. Of course that idiot goes along with everything Raphael wants.” Once we were at the top of the stairs, Gideon quickened his pace, and I stumbled several times. “Ah, at last! Here we go.” Obviously he was listening to his voice mail as we went along. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear anything.
“Oh, shit!” I heard him mutter several times, that was all. He had let go of me again, and I was groping my way blindly forward.
“If you don’t want to run into a wall, you’d better turn left now,” Xemerius told me. “Ah—looks like it’s suddenly occurred to him that you don’t have built-in radar.”
“Okay,” murmured Gideon. His hands briefly touched my face and then the back of my head. “Gwyneth, I’m sorry.” He did sound sorry about something, but I strongly suspected it wasn’t me. “Can you find your way back from here by yourself?” He undid the scarf, and I blinked at the light. We were standing outside Madame Rossini’s sewing room.
Gideon fleetingly stroked my cheek and gave me a wry smile. “You do know the way, right? Your car’s waiting. See you tomorrow.”
He had turned away before I could say anything.
“And off he goes,” commented Xemerius. “Lacking in the finer feelings department, if you ask me.”
“But what’s happened?” I called after Gideon.
“My brother’s run away from home,” he called back, without turning or slowing down. “Give you three guesses where he’s heading!” But he had gone around the next corner before I could make even one guess.
“Well, not Fiji, I bet,” I murmured.
“If you ask me, you’d have done better not to roll about in any haystacks with him,” said Xemerius. “Now he thinks you’re easy pickings, so he won’t go to any more trouble.”
“Shut up, Xemerius. You’re getting on my nerves with all this talk about haystacks. We kissed a bit, that’s all.”
“No reason to go beet red, darling.”
I put my hands to my glowing cheeks, feeling cross with myself. “Come on, let’s go. I’m hungry. At least I have a chance of getting some supper today. And maybe on our way we can catch a glimpse of these mysterious men from the Inner Circle.”
“I wouldn’t bother if I were you. I’ve been listening in on them all afternoon,” said Xemerius.
“Oh, good! Tell me more.”
“Boring, boring, boring. I thought they’d be drinking blood out of skulls and painting mysterious runes on their arms. No such luck. They just sat about in suits and ties, talking.”
“What about?”
“Let’s see if I can still remember.” He cleared his throat. “Basically it was whether they could break their own golden rules to outwit Black Tourmaline and Sapphire. Great idea, said some of them. Nope, no way, said others. Then the first lot said, But we must, you cowards, or we’ll never get anywhere with saving the world, and the second lot said no, terrible thing to do, also dangerous, what about the continuum and morality, and the first lot said, Yes, but never mind all that if it means saving the world. Then there was a lot of unctuous waffle—I think I slept through most of that. But then they all agreed that unfortunately Diamond is inclined to act on his own initiative, while Ruby seems to be a little idiot, unsuitable for time-travel missions Operation Opal and Operation Jade on account of being too stupid. Are you with me so far?”
“Er…”
“Of course I stood up for you, but they weren’t listening to me,” said Xemerius. “They were saying all information had to be kept from you as far as possible. They thought your ignorance and naivete, the result of an inadequate education, already made you a security risk, and you were also indiscretion personified. Oh, and they’re going to keep an eye on your friend Lesley too.”
“Oh, shit.”
“The good news is that they blame your inadequacies on your mother. Women are always to blame for everything, our friends the mystery mongers all agreed there. And then they started talking about evidence, dressmakers’ bills, letters, sound human understanding, and after a good deal of talk, they agreed that Paul and Lucy had gone back to 1912 with the chronograph and that’s where they’re living now. Though in this case now isn’t quite the right word for it.” Xemerius scratched his head. “Never mind, that’s where the two of them are, anyway, our friends are sure of that, and at the next opportunity your wonderful, strong hero is supposed to track them down, get some of their blood, and bring back the original chronograph while he’s about it. Then off they started from the beginning again, blah blah blah, golden rules, unctuous waffle—”
“Interesting,” I said.
“You think so? Well, if you do, that’s because of my witty and amusing way of summing up all that boring twaddle.”
I opened the door into the next corridor, and I was about to answer Xemerius when I heard a voice. “You’re still just as arrogant as you used to be!”
That was my mum. And sure enough, when I turned the corner, there she was, standing in front of Falk de Villiers with both her fists clenched.
“And you are as pigheaded and obstructive as ever,” Falk was saying. “You’ve done considerable damage to the cause with your attempts—for whatever reason you made them—to cover up the facts about Gwyneth’s birth.”
“The cause! Your precious cause was always more important to all of you than any human beings who got caught up in it!” snapped my mother.
I closed the door as quietly as possible behind me and slowly walked toward them.
Xemerius was working his way along the top of the wall, hand over hand. “Wow, she looks furious.”
He was right. My mum’s eyes were glittering, her cheeks were flushed, and her voice was unusually high. “We agreed that Gwyneth would be kept out of it. Wouldn’t be put in any danger! And now you want her served up to the count on a platter. Although she’s … she’s completely helpless!”
“That’s your own fault,” said Falk de Villiers coldly.
Mum bit her lip. “As Grand Master o
f this Lodge, you’re responsible!”
“If you’d shown your cards openly from the first, then Gwyneth wouldn’t be unprepared now. For your information, you may be able to deceive Mr. George with your story of wanting to make sure your daughter had a carefree childhood, but you don’t fool me. I am still extremely interested to know what that midwife will have to tell us.”
“You haven’t found her yet?” My mother’s voice wasn’t quite so shrill.
“It’s only a matter of days, Grace. We have our agents everywhere.” Now he noticed that I was there with them, and the cold, angry expression on his face disappeared.
“Why are you alone, Gwyneth?”
“Darling!” My mum rushed to me and gave me a hug. “I thought that before it all went on as late as last night, I’d come and pick you up.”
“And take the opportunity of tearing me off a strip,” added Falk, with a slight smile. “Why isn’t Mr. Marley with you, Gwyneth?”
“I was told I could go the last of the way back alone,” I said evasively. “What were you quarreling about?”
“Your mother thinks your expeditions into the eighteenth century will be too dangerous,” said Falk.
Well, I couldn’t blame her for that. And she didn’t know a fraction of the dangers. No one had told her anything about the men who attacked us in Hyde Park. I for one would sooner have bitten my tongue off. She didn’t know about Lady Tilney and the pistols either. As for Count Saint-Germain and the very sinister way he’d threatened me, so far I hadn’t told anyone but Lesley about that. Oh, and my grandpa, of course.
I scrutinized Falk. “I’m getting the hang of all that stuff about fanning myself and dancing the minuet,” I said casually. “It really isn’t risky, Mum. Come to think of it, the only danger is I might break the fan over Charlotte’s head.”
“There you are, Grace,” said Falk, his eyes twinkling at me.
“Who do you think you’re kidding, Falk?” My mum gave him one last dark look, then took my arm and led me away. “Come along—the others will be waiting for us before they start supper.”