Cinderella Six Feet Under (29 page)

Traps
. Harmless mousetraps! That was what Malbert was forever tinkering on in his workshop. That was what those odd metal boxes were.

“—and I set them free, in the countryside. Usually in the evenings, when my daughters are out.”

“Do you feed the cats, too?” Ophelia asked.

“How do you know of my cats?”

“Oh. Well, you must have mousers.”

“I feed the cats,
oui
, I feed them amply so that they might not murder the poor little mice.” Malbert bent over the trunk, scooped a mouse out, and placed it on the ground.
“Adieu.”
He closed the trunk. “That was the last one for today. Good evening, Lord Harrington, and Mademoiselle—”

“Stonewall,” Ophelia said quickly. She ducked into deeper shadow.

Malbert, pulling his empty trunk, left.

*   *   *

Ophelia and Penrose
waited for Malbert to get a nice long start back to the château. There was no point in crumbling the little fellow's dignity any further. He may have brandished a cleaver at Ophelia, but she
had
been a disguised stranger under his roof.

“We should have asked him about the feet in the pickling vat,” Ophelia said.

“I cannot imagine how you might've woven
that
into the conversation, Miss Flax.” Penrose smiled.

“It is not so humorous. I saw them with my own eyes!”

“There must be a rational explanation.”

After a minute, they set forth along the curve of lakeshore. Several small rowboats lay on the gravel bank.

From somewhere beyond the rustling reeds came a rhythmic creaking sound. Not frog-peeping, and accompanied by hollow wooden thuds. As they stood watching, a rowboat slid into sight from behind the reeds. It edged towards the middle of the lake. The moon hung low in the ink-blue sky, and it shed a shimmering white line across the water. The rowboat passed through the moonbeam.

“Only a fellow with his lady,” Ophelia said. “Mighty romantic. Let's go.”

“Wait. Do my eyes deceive me, or is that . . . Prince Rupprecht?”

Ophelia squinted. “Certainly looks it.” The prince's pale hair caught stray light, and even from this distance Ophelia saw the glimmer of his medals. The lady, seated across from him, wore a bonnet and some kind of veil. She held herself with ladylike stillness.

“I've got an awful feeling about this. The prince is the murderer. He ought not be alone with a young lady. And where's he taking her? Shouldn't she have a chaperone? If something were to happen to her, well, that'd be blood on our hands.”

“I tend to agree.”

Ophelia was already leaning over and shoving one of the rowboats into the water. She hopped in. The rowboat wobbled from side to side and her skirts swayed, but she managed to sit without capsizing.

Penrose leapt into the boat just as it launched out onto the water. He clambered around Ophelia, sat, took up the oars, and began to stealthily row. Out they went, past the thicket of reeds and into the wide-open water. Because Penrose was rowing, his back was turned to Prince Rupprecht and his lady. Ophelia watched the prince as well as she could through the dark. He seemed to be making for the far shore. He was speaking to the lady; his rumbling voice reached Ophelia's ears. He did not seem to have noticed Ophelia and Penrose's boat.

Then a
third
rowboat nosed into Ophelia's vision. Off to the right and a little behind them. It must have been hidden in the reeds.

“Professor.”
Ophelia tipped her head.

“I had no notion the lake would be such a popular spot this evening.” Penrose leaned into the oars, and they sped up.

The third boat was occupied by two narrow, hooded forms. Were they two ladies, or two slight gentlemen, or one of each? Impossible to tell. But they were plainly aware of Ophelia and Penrose, for two pale faces turned towards them. Ophelia's scalp crawled as she stared into the hollows of two pairs of eyes.

She'd never believed in ghouls, but she was thinking about giving it a try. “I fancy those two spooks are turning their boat towards us. Steer away, would you? I don't know who they are, but I don't reckon I wish to.”

Penrose stole a quick glance. “Good heavens, it cannot be—no. Impossible.”

“What? Who?”

“Don't laugh, but I would avow that is Lady Cruthlach at the oars.”

“L
ady Cruthlach
behind the oars? How could that be? Her arms would snap like twigs if she tried to row a boat. And Lord Cruthlach can't sit up like that. Hume carries him around.”

“Hume was concocting elixirs from that book. They might've had a revivifying effect.”

“I couldn't believe that hogwash if my life depended on—”

CRACK!
Something zinged past Ophelia's ear. One of the spooks had fired a gun.

“Get down!” Penrose cried. He rowed harder, and Ophelia threw herself to the bottom of the rowboat.

Another
CRACK!
Penrose stopped rowing and hunkered down. He patted at his jacket.

Searching for that revolver of his, no doubt.

“Let me row!” Ophelia said. “They're catching up!” The spooks' oars were splashing closer and closer.

“No. I could not live with myself if something were to happen to you.” Penrose pulled the revolver from his jacket and checked the cylinder. He lifted his eyes and the gun's barrel over the edge of the rowboat. He aimed.

BANG!

Ophelia heard a
plop
. Penrose slid the revolver back into his jacket.

“That's it?” Ophelia asked.

“Shot it out of Lord Cruthlach's hand.”

“Almost too easy.”

“I've had a bit of practice.”

“I'm afraid to inquire.”

“Suffice to say that you and I, Miss Flax, could go into business together as a circus act.”

“You'd shoot apples off my head?”

“Something of the sort.” Penrose was on the seat and rowing again. “Do stay down, Miss Flax. They've drawn rather close, and they might have another gun.”

Penrose rowed hard for a half-dozen strokes. His jaw was tight.

Suddenly, an oar splintered through the side of the boat, just in front of Ophelia's face. Water gushed in.

“Hang it,” Penrose muttered. He patted for his revolver.

Ophelia tried to struggle upright, but the boat was already tipping. She dumped sideways into the lake. She knew how to swim, but one did not customarily swim in a crinoline, corset, boots, and four layers of skirts. Her bottom half swelled with water. She churned her arms but she could barely stay afloat. Penrose shouted to her, reached out. He wasn't watching Lord and Lady Cruthlach.

Lady Cruthlach, her face hidden in the shadow of her hood, pushed Ophelia under with an oar.

Ophelia screamed into the black, cold water. It filled her mouth, eyes, ears. She thrashed her arms, but the pressure of the oar bearing down between her shoulders was insurmountable.

She would die here.

A bright picture flickered. The swimming hole in New Hampshire, where she and her brother, Odie, had gone when the air was thick with damp summer heat and biting insects. The water there had been cool and sun-dappled, it had smelled of minerals. She saw Odie's smiling brown eyes, which she had not seen for years past now. She had always supposed, but never known for certain, that he'd died in the war, so seeing him like this now, did it mean
she
was dying?

The pressure of the oar lifted. Ophelia surged to the surface, her lungs burning for air. She fought against the dead weight of her skirts for a brief moment, and then strong arms were around her waist, pulling her through the dark water as she coughed and said good-bye to Odie's eyes. She was carried through the shallow waters to the shore. She was set down upon the gravel.

“Miss Flax,” Penrose murmured. “You were almost—oh God.”

Ophelia coughed again. Water poured from her mouth and nose.

“Lord and Lady Cruthlach are escaping to the other side. And the prince and his lady, too, have disappeared onto the far shore. But we shan't give chase. Come, now, are you able to walk?”

Ophelia nodded. She wished she could cry.

Arm in arm, they limped, dripping, back to the château.

*   *   *

When Ophelia entered
Miss Stonewall's guest chamber, soaked and shivering, she found Prue and Dalziel hunched over a chessboard by the fireplace.

“Who taught you to play chess, Prue?” Ophelia asked, smearing water from her eyes.

“Ain't playing chess. Playing checkers with the chess set.” Prue looked up. “Ophelia! What happened to you?”

“Suffice it to say that I'm in need of a hot bath.” Ophelia glanced at Dalziel. He seemed a nice enough fellow, but he
was
Lord and Lady Cruthlach's grandson. “Will your grandmother and grandfather attend the ball this evening?” she asked him. She couldn't bring herself to admit that she believed the old codgers had nearly drowned her in the lake.

“They were invited, but no, they will not attend. They are at home in Paris. You have not met them, Miss Flax, but it is rather difficult to picture them on a dancing floor.”

Prue laughed. “Hume would have to do
all
the work. All right, Dalziel. Time for you to hook it. Ophelia needs her privacy. But won't you come back later and keep me company till midnight?”

“Of course, Miss Prudence. And I shall bring you something to dine upon.”

“You'll make certain nothing happens to Prue, won't you?” Ophelia asked.

Dalziel studied her. “I shall guard her with my very life, Miss Flax.”

Ophelia had no choice but to trust him.

“Quite a puppy dog, isn't he?” Ophelia said to Prue, once Dalziel had gone.

“It's only fair, Ophelia. You've got
two
.”

*   *   *

After the incident
at the lake, Gabriel bathed, tended to the bump on his head from Hume's wooden spoon, the other bump on his head from the automaton's champagne bottle, and affixed a fresh plaster to his bullet-nicked ear. Then he changed into evening clothes and went down to Prince Rupprecht's opulent gaming room, along with about half of the chaps in the château. After nine o'clock chimed, he went out to the ballroom to find Miss Flax. He brought his glass of Bordeaux with him.

What he meant to say to her would not be easy. But it had to be done.

At first, he did not see her. He was just about to wonder if he'd been foolish to leave her unguarded with Lord and Lady Cruthlach on the loose, when he saw her.

His heart wrung itself.

Miss Flax stood against a wall beside a row of glum wallflowers in gilt chairs. But Miss Flax was no wallflower. She wore a ball gown of eggshell blue, with an embroidered cream satin overskirt and a snug bodice with tiny tulle sleeves. Her hair was swept behind a cream satin band. Her cheeks were flushed and her dark eyes flashed.

She did not resemble the woman he'd been fretting over in the gaming room. The woman who would hang nappies out on a clothesline across Harrington Hall's rose garden, or instruct their children how to do the horseshoe-toss in the portrait gallery, or serve Indian pudding and molasses to aristocrats. No, Miss Flax looked like . . . a gentlewoman. And that was, oddly, a bit dismaying. Because for some reason, Gabriel did not wish for Miss Flax to be a gentlewoman; he wished for her to be simply
herself
.

He swallowed the last of his wine, set aside the glass, and waded through the crowd towards her.

“Miss Flax,” he said when he reached her.

She lifted her brows. “What's the gruff voice on account of, Professor?”

“Truth be told, I've a blinder of a headache. Would you . . .” He swallowed. He felt like a bloody schoolboy. “Would you kindly come outside with me please, Miss Flax, and desist in peering into my mug as though you were looking through a spyglass?”

“You certainly do seem as though you require a breath of air.” She took his proffered arm, but gingerly.

This was off to a dismal start.

*   *   *

Outside the ballroom,
a terrace overlooked the formal gardens and, beyond, a great, shadowy park. A strip of starlit river shone behind black trees. Hanging paper lanterns lit up the gardens, a fairyland of topiaries, fountains, gravel walks, and white stone stairs.

Ophelia slipped her arm out of the professor's as soon as they got outside. He was acting shirty and she hadn't a notion why. Things had seemed fine enough when they'd parted after their dip in the lake.

Ophelia walked silently at Penrose's side down a few flights of steps and into the formal gardens. Ladies and gents were already up to some naughty tricks in the maze and behind statues. Ophelia and Penrose both pretended not to notice. A string quartet sat on a platform in the middle of a marble pool. The musicians sawed away—Mozart, maybe—by the light of candelabras.

“Feel better?” Ophelia asked Penrose. “Your headache, I mean.”

He stopped, pushed his hands in his pockets, and scowled into the distance.

“Well. Perhaps you ought to be by yourself, because you seem mighty testy,” Ophelia said. “I think I'll just go—”

“Miss Flax,” Penrose said. He didn't look at her. “There is something I must say to you. Something rather important.”

Her innards flip-flopped. “Oh?”

He paused. Gathering his thoughts. That didn't bode well. When folks had to gather their thoughts, it usually meant they were scrambling around for the nicest way to say something rotten.

“In recent days,” Penrose said, “or, really, not precisely in recent days, but beginning in Germany, when and where I first made your acquaintance, but particularly in recent days, we have, at any rate, I believe we have, ah, become something of—well, we have formed a bit of a friendship. Have we not?”

“I reckon so. Yes.”

“I am glad we are in agreement on that point. Now, there are certainly those who would argue that a lady and a gentleman cannot and indeed, by rights
ought
not, form friendships. In particular, young, unmarried ladies and unattached gentlemen.”

“Unattached gentlemen? What about Miss Ivy Banks?”

“That is precisely it, Miss Flax. Precisely. It is with these social reservations, as it were, that I—”

“Hold it right there, Professor.” Ophelia steadied the wobble in her throat. “I see where you're headed.”

“You do?”

“You're about to remind me of Miss Banks. I don't require a reminder.”

“Yes. I have a confession to make. You see, I admit that there was
some
truth in what I said about Miss Banks. My mother, for instance, wishes me to marry a lady of a certain . . . well, for lack of a better term, of a certain class.”

Ophelia's heart frosted over.

“And Miss Banks is the very epitome of the lady I ought to marry. Do you understand what I am saying, Miss Flax?”

“You're saying we ought not be friends anymore. I couldn't agree more. You can have your Latin-spouting, fossil-digging, retiring lady
and
her perfect handwriting, because I don't give a hoot
or
a holler.” Ophelia spun around and grabbed handfuls of slippery silken skirts. She ran up the stairs to the terrace, nearly losing her left slipper along the way.

*   *   *

Ophelia pushed into
the ballroom and made tracks to the champagne table. The crowd was thick, the orchestra sounded shrill, and guests chattered and elbowed.

Why must the professor so cruelly rub her nose in things? Or was he only being honest?

Ophelia didn't know. She only needed to patch up this jagged wound. She wasn't a tippling lady, but there had to be
some
reason folks turned to tiddly when the times got rough. She reached for a glass of champagne. Thick, gloved fingers whisked it away. She opened her mouth to give someone a piece of her mind.

“Mademoiselle Stonewall,” Griffe said over the din of flutes and oboes, “how is it that
la plus belle
, the most beautiful lady, is also the one with the so-sad face?” He passed the glass to her. “Come,
ma chérie
. Drink. It will do you good, eh? What has happened to your shoulder?”

The mechanical bear-claw marks showed on Ophelia's bare shoulder. “Cat scratch.”

“Ah. What an enormous cat it must have been.”

Ophelia drank the champagne down like water and held out her empty glass for more.

Griffe refilled her glass, tucked her arm in his, and led her out onto the terrace.

Ophelia scanned the gardens below. No sign of Penrose. Probably off composing a love sonnet to you-know-who.

“Deserve to have each other. Prigs,” she muttered.

“
Pardonnez-moi
?”

“Did I speak aloud?” Ophelia looked into her empty glass.

“It is perhaps,
mademoiselle,
that you are unsettled by the crush. Perhaps they do not have such balls in Ohio, in the Cleveland?”

“Something like that.” The champagne had already peeled off a layer of care. “I'm feeling much better, as a matter of fact.” Griffe really was nice, in a burly, furry fashion. He was like one of those alpine rescue dogs who carried little casks of brandy around their necks.