Ruby Red (31 page)

He grinned. “Not directly,” he whispered back.

Suddenly I knew what he meant. In the Rococo era it was a lot simpler to hide things behind lace trimming, I thought.

Unfortunately we had also attracted Mr. George’s attention.

He leaned forward. “You don’t have a mobile in there, do you?” he asked. “You’re not allowed to take things from our own time into the past.”

“Why not? It could be very useful!” (And that photo of Rakoczy and Lord Brompton had been brilliant!) “It would have been a lot easier if Gideon had had a proper pistol with him last time.”

Gideon rolled his eyes.

“Suppose you lost your mobile in the past,” said Mr. de Villiers. “Whoever found it wouldn’t be able to make out what kind of thing it was. But then again, maybe he would. And then your mobile could even change the future. So could a pistol. And I hate to think what might happen if mankind thought up the idea of sophisticated weapons any sooner than they did.”

“Such items would also be proof of your and our existence,” said Dr. White. “One little mistake could change everything and then the continuum would be in danger.”

I bit my lower lip as I wondered if losing a pepper spray in another time might change the future of mankind. Maybe any change would be only for the good if the right person found it.… Maybe I should tell Lesley to call off the plan to buy pepper spray, though, just to be safe.

Mr. George put out his hand. “I’ll look after that for you.”

Sighing, I put my hand down inside my collar and gave him my mobile. “But I want it back at once afterward!”

“Are we finally ready?” asked Dr. White. “The chronograph is prepared.”

I was ready. I had a slight tingling inside me, and I had to admit that I liked it much better here than having to sit in a cellar in some boring year to do my homework.

Gideon looked inquiringly at me. Maybe he was wondering what else I might have hidden away. “Ready, Gwyneth?” he asked.

I smiled at him. “Ready when you are.”

The time is out of joint; O cursed spite

That ever I was born to set it right!

W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
,
H
AMLET

FIFTEEN

ONE OF THE GUARDIANS
’ cabs, a horse-drawn hackney carriage, took us from the Temple to Belgravia, driving along the banks of the Thames, and this time I could recognize a fair amount of the London I knew outside the window. The sun shone on Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, and I was pleased to see people strolling down the broad avenues with hats, sunshades, and pastel-colored dresses just like mine. The parks were full of green spring foliage; the streets were well paved and not at all mucky.

“This is like the set of a musical,” I said. “I’d love one of those sunshades.”

“We’ve picked a good day,” said Gideon. “And a good year.” He had left his top hat in the cellar, and since I’d have done exactly the same in his place, I didn’t blame him.

“Why don’t we simply wait for Margaret in the Temple when she goes there to elapse?”

“I’ve tried that twice already. It wasn’t easy to convince the Guardians of those days of my good intentions, in spite of having the password and the signet ring and so on. It’s always tricky assessing the reaction of Guardians in the past. If they’re in any doubt, they’re more likely to back the time traveler they know and are duty bound to protect than a visitor from the future, someone they know either not at all or only very slightly. Like last night and this morning. We may be more successful if we visit her at home. And it’s bound to be more of a surprise.”

“But couldn’t she be guarded day and night by someone just waiting for us to turn up? We know she’s expecting that. She’s been expecting it for years, right?”

“
The Annals of the Guardians
don’t say anything about additional personal protection. They just stipulate that a novice Guardian has to keep a discreet eye on the place where every time traveler lives.”

“The man in black!” I cried. “A man just like that stands outside our house.”

“Obviously not making himself particularly inconspicuous,” said Gideon, grinning.

“Not in the least. My little sister thinks he’s a wicked magician.” I thought of something. “Do you have any brothers and sisters yourself?”

“A little brother,” said Gideon. “Well, not all that little now. He’s seventeen.”

“And how old are you?”

“Nineteen,” said Gideon. “Or as good as nineteen, anyway.”

“So if you’ve left school, what do you do?”

“Officially I’m down to study at the University of London next year,” he said. “But I think I can take this term off.”

“What subject?”

“Inquisitive, aren’t you?”

“Only making polite conversation,” I said. I’d picked up that expression from James. “So what
are
you going to study?”

“Medicine.” He sounded a bit embarrassed.

I bit back a surprised “oh!” and looked out the window again. Medicine. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting.

“Was that your boyfriend at school today?”

“What? Who?” I looked at him, taken aback.

“That guy behind you with his hand on your shoulder.” It sounded perfectly casual, almost as if he wasn’t interested.

“You mean Gordon Gelderman? God, no!”

“So if he’s not your boyfriend, how come he can touch you?”

“He can’t. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed he was doing it.” I hadn’t noticed because I was fully occupied watching Gideon exchanging sweet nothings with Charlotte. The memory made me blush furiously. He’d kissed her. Or almost.

“Why are you going red? Because of this Gordon Gallahan?”

“Gelderman,” I corrected him.

“Whatever. He looked like an idiot.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “He sounds like an idiot too,” I said. “And he’s useless at kissing.”

“I wasn’t actually asking for the precise details.” Gideon bent down to retie his shoelaces. When he straightened up again, he crossed his arms and looked out the window. “Here we are, look. Belgrave Road. Excited by the idea of meeting your great-great-grandmother?”

“Yes, very.” I immediately forgot what we’d just been talking about. How strange all this was. The great-great-grandmother I was about to visit was some years younger than Mum.

She’d obviously married someone rich, because when the cab stopped outside the address in Eaton Place, it was a very posh house. And the butler who opened the door to us was posh too. Even more so than Mr. Bernard. He was actually wearing white gloves!

He examined us suspiciously when Gideon handed him a card and said we were paying a surprise teatime call. He was sure, said Gideon, that his good friend Lady Tilney would be very pleased to hear that Gwyneth Shepherd had come to visit her.

“I suspect he doesn’t think you’re posh enough,” I said as the butler disappeared with the visiting card. “No hat and no side-whiskers.”

“No mustache either,” said Gideon. “Lord Tilney has one from ear to ear. See that portrait of him in front of us?”

“Wow,” I said. My great-great-grandmother had weird taste in men. It was the kind of mustache you’d have to put in curlers at night.

“Suppose she just gets the butler to say she’s not at home?” I asked. “Maybe she doesn’t want to see you again so soon.”

“‘So soon’ is good—as far as she’s concerned the last time was eighteen years ago.”

“As long as that?” A tall, slim woman with her red hair piled up in a style not unlike mine was standing on the stairs. She looked like Lady Arista, but thirty years younger. I saw, to my surprise, that the upright way she walked was just like Lady Arista as well.

When she stopped in front of me, neither of us said anything, we were so absorbed in looking at each other. I could see a trace of Mum in my great-great-grandmother. I don’t know what or whom Lady Tilney saw in me, but she nodded and smiled, as if satisfied with the way I looked.

Gideon waited for a while, and then he said, “Lady Tilney, I still want to make the same request as I did eighteen years ago. We need a little of your blood.”

“And I still say what I said eighteen years ago. You are not having any of my blood.” She turned to him. “However, I can offer you tea, although it’s still a little early. But we can talk better over a cup of tea.”

“Then in any case, we would be delighted to take a cup of tea with you,” said Gideon, laying on the charm.

We followed my great-great-grandmother up the stairs to a room on the street side of the house. There was a small round table by the window laid for three with plates, cups, cutlery, bread, butter and jam, and in the middle a platter of scones and wafer-thin cucumber sandwiches.

“It looks almost as if you were expecting us,” I said, while Gideon took a good look around the room.

She smiled again. “It does, doesn’t it? One might think so. But in fact I am expecting some other guests. Do please sit down.”

“No, thank you, in the circumstances we’d rather not,” said Gideon, suddenly very much on the alert. “And we won’t trouble you for long. We’d just like to have answers to a few questions.”

“And what are they?”

“How do you know my name?” I interjected. “Who told you about me?”

“I had a visitor from the future.” Her smile widened. “It happens to me quite often.”

“Lady Tilney, I tried to explain, last time, that your visitor was telling you lies,” said Gideon. “You’re making a great mistake by trusting the wrong people.”

“That’s what I’m always telling her,” said a male voice. A young man had appeared in the doorway. He casually sauntered closer. “Margaret, I always say, you’re making a great mistake by trusting the wrong people. Oh, those look delicious. Are they for us?”

Gideon had breathed in sharply. Now he put out his hand and clasped my wrist.

“Not a step closer!” he said.

The other man raised one eyebrow. “I’m only helping myself to a sandwich, if you have no objection.”

“Do please help yourselves. And if you will just excuse me for a moment…,” said my great-great-grandmother. As she left the room, the butler appeared in the doorway. In spite of the white gloves, he now looked like the bouncer of some really trendy club.

Gideon swore under his breath.

“Don’t worry about Stillman,” said the young man. “Although apparently he did once break a man’s neck. An accident, wasn’t it, Stillman?”

I stared at the young man. I couldn’t help it. He had the same eyes as Falk de Villiers, yellow as amber. Like a wolf’s.

“Gwyneth Shepherd!” When he smiled at me, he looked even more like Falk de Villiers, except that he was at least twenty years younger and his hair was jet black and cut short. The way he was looking at me was scary. He seemed friendly, but there was something in his eyes that I couldn’t interpret. Maybe anger? Or pain?

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” For a moment, his voice sounded husky. He offered me his hand, but Gideon grabbed me with both arms and pulled me close.

“Don’t you touch her!”

The raised eyebrow again. “What are you afraid of, young man?”

“I know exactly what you want from her!”

I could feel Gideon’s heart beating against my back.

“Blood?” The man took one of the tiny, thin sandwiches and put it into his mouth. Then he held both his hands out to us, palms upward, and said, “Look, no syringe, no scalpel, nothing. Now, let go of the poor girl. You’re crushing her.” That strange glance again when he looked back at me. “My name is Paul. Paul de Villiers.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “You’re the man who persuaded my cousin Lucy to steal the chronograph. Why did you do it, Mr. de Villiers?”

Paul de Villiers’s mouth twisted. “It’s funny to hear you call me Mr. de Villiers.”

“And I think it’s funny that you know me.”

“Don’t talk to him,” said Gideon. His grip had relaxed slightly, and now he was holding me close to him with only one arm. With the other, he opened a side door behind him and glanced into the next room. Another man in white gloves was standing there.

“That’s Frank,” said Paul. “And since he isn’t as big and strong as Stillman, he has a pistol, did you notice?”

“I noticed,” said Gideon, closing the door again.

He’d been right. We
had
fallen into a trap. But how was that possible? Margaret Tilney couldn’t have been laying a tea table for us and stationing a man with a pistol in the next room every day of her life.

“How did you know we’d be here today?” I asked Paul.

“Hm. If I were to tell you I didn’t know, I just happened to look in by chance, I’m sure you wouldn’t believe me, would you?” He took a scone and sat down. “How are your dear parents?”

“Keep your mouth shut!” snapped Gideon.

“But I was only asking how her parents are!”