Shadow Conspiracy (46 page)

I did not approve of the new mode of employing soulless automata or Promethean constructs—creatures pieced together from multiple corpses and shocked back into animation.

The butler’s eyes remained lowered, as if studying the intricate pattern of the deep fichu of white Buckinghamshire point ground lace—the hexagonal background made it a point ground lace—that disguised just how low my crimson gown draped. The lace alone probably cost two months of his salary.

“You may inform Lord Reginald and Rebecca Lady Reedstone that Madame Magdala has answered their summons.” I brushed past him before he could block my path to the interior of this tidy manor. I admired the clean mortar in the brickwork in a style dating from the time of the James the First. Situated ten miles north of London the owner had privacy and quiet while being close enough to his investments in the city to keep track of them. A modest home for a man who wielded tremendous power and wealth in the dirigible industry.

I sniffed delicately. The scent of desiccated roses and lilies atop the staleness of a long-closed house told me much. I could delay a few moments for more observation. I paused before the stippled mirror embedded in the hall tree. No, not stippled, dusty. Needing a better look, I untied my deep-brimmed bonnet and veil that matched my gown perfectly and thrust them into the butler’s hands. Then I smoothed my blonde coiffure, letting my gaze flit about while facing the mirror. What I thought were traces of cobweb turned out to be black threads caught in the frame.

The mirror gave me reflected glimpses of the parlour. A well executed family portrait in oils jumped to my attention. It showed Lord Reginald and his wife nearing their fifties, judging by the age lines around their eyes and the traces of grey in their hair. Between them sat a small boy child of about five. Black crepe draped the painting.

Now I knew why the fifth Baron of Reedstone had sent his private carriage for me, and agreed to my rather exorbitant fee.

“You may show me to your master and mistress,” I commanded the butler.

He sniffed in disdain as he proceeded me up the broad staircase that curved around the west wall of the majestic hall.

We processed up the staircase at a ponderous rate, thick Turkey carpet absorbing every nuance of sound from my sturdy boots. The butler took an awkward step toward the wall. The riser squeaked beneath his weight. His next step jogged toward the railing. Another squeak.

“If the sound of the carriage on the gravel drive and my ringing of the bell did not alert Lord Reginald and Lady Reedstone to my arrival, your game of musical stairs are insufficient,” I reminded him.

“We have our rituals. You have yours.”

“Agreed.”

“Automata find the squeak most irritating,” he unbent enough to explain. “Sometimes the monsters are hard to detect. The stairs reveal them every time and out they go.”

“I understand.” I hid a small smile. I had a whistle built into the steam engine that powered the card files of my research library at the Book View Café for much the same purpose. Also Promethean constructs found the bright gas lights scattered around the cafe most uncomfortable.

I had little prejudice against the unnatural servants. But I liked knowing who I dealt with, in case certain of my dead enemies had managed to transfer their souls into an immortal body or complex machine.

The butler announced me to his master and mistress in a small but cosy parlour overlooking the walled kitchen garden at the back of the house. A coal fire in the corner hearth spread too much warmth on this damp early summer morning. Rainy days brought welcome relief from baking temperatures but retained some warmth, unlike the summer of ‘16 during which summer did not come at all. We went from winter to autumn again to winter.

I blame the weather for the horrors that began that cold and rainy year.

“Lord Reginald, Lady Reedstone.” I curtsied the proper depth, not bowing my head, a little deeper than I would for an acquaintance of equal status, not as deep as I would for a duke or earl. These people had titles. I had dignity and a reputation.

I used that little impertinence to scan the room and my hosts in one quick glance. More somber black in their clothing. Heavy swaths of sombre cloth draped the bowed form of a hair wreath, lovely flowers made from locks cut from the recently deceased. Once round and hearty, both the lord and his lady looked drawn, reduced in health, energy, and size.

“Madame Magdala, please sit.” Lady Reedstone gestured toward a wing back chair adjacent to and matching her own. Lord Reginald perched upon a lyre back straight chair across from her.

“Will you take tea?” the lady asked. Her be-ringed hand fluttered around the pot on a tray table before her.

“I prefer coffee if you have it. But tea will do.” I settled my skirts and petticoats around me, feeling like a brightly plumed bird in this shadowed house.

The butler appeared at my elbow, placing a silver pot on the tray. The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee wafted pleasantly upward. “I was informed of your preference when I inquired about your reputability,” he murmured.

“Thank you, Simon,” Lord Reginald dismissed him.

When the door clicked shut, Lady Reedstone rounded on me. “We need to know...”

“You wish to know if you will bear another child to replace the one who has died,” I completed for her.

She reared back, gasping in astonishment, hand over her heart. The pulse below her ear beat visibly, rapidly.

“You asked for a Seeress,” I said on a light shrug, as if discerning people’s secrets was a special talent rather than keen observation and awareness of patterns. “I would not be worth my fees if I didn’t know why you asked me here.”

“Please, Madame Magdala. We need to know. We have no other child to inherit my title and lands which are entailed to the male line. I would like to keep my businesses away from the next heir. We have not many childbearing years left,” Lord Reginald said.

“And what will happen to your honours and your estate if you die without an heir?” I poured my own coffee, adding rich cream and turbinado sugar. My gaze went to the slight whirlpool I created with the spoon. I had to keep the vortex moving until I determined the right time to peer into the liquid, and sometimes beyond.

“My younger brother’s son will inherit both,” Lord Reginald explained. “His debts will eat up most of the assets overnight. His dissipations and his greedy friends will take the rest. I have worked hard to keep our ancient heritage proud and debt free. My heart breaks at the thought of that young man destroying it.”

“Little Reggie was the delight of our life. A surprise, at our age, a wonderful miracle that we hoped would continue the pride and dignity of our family,” Lady Reedstone sighed. “Alas, he succumbed to the whooping cough just three months ago.”

Most people in their situation wanted me to consult the ghost of the recently departed for comfort and reassurance that he no longer suffered. It was something I had never legitimately done, but faked often enough to the satisfaction of the clients.

“Let us see if the veils of time will thin for me.” I projected my voice so that it echoed a bit and took on a lower timbre. The accent of the Gypsy King father I claimed slid over the top of my neutral tones.

With a deep breath I closed my eyes for concentration. At the same moment I ceased my vigorous stirring of the coffee and removed the spoon from the cup. After a count of ten I opened my eyes and peered deeply into the liquid vortex, expecting to see no more than light brown coffee swirling inside fragile bone china.

Darkness persisted around the edges of my vision. The whirlpool expanded from rim to rim, seemingly growing beyond the cup. But it did not spill. It drew me in, forcing me to look deeper and deeper, to bring my soul forth and pour it into the whorls that distorted time and place, here and there, now and then.

“Not now,” I moaned. I couldn’t afford a genuine vision now. My visions rarely told me what I asked to see, and always came at the most inopportune times.

A sliver of silver pierced the centre of the whirlpool. It drew my focus with sharp intensity. Slowly it lengthened to fit across the entire cup. As it stretched it grew limbs and filled out. A filmy gown floated around the figure. She glided and pirouetted about in an exquisite and symbolic dance. Each step grew faster and more angry. I sensed violence building, ready to explode in catastrophe.

I only had true visions of impending disasters. This one was quite urgent. I needed to return to the Book View Café on Charing Cross Road and the latest newspapers from around the world to discover just where this vengeful sprite danced.

Desperate to end the session with the grieving baron and his lady, I sat back, resting my head, keeping my eyes closed. Still the silver spirit, tinged with green at the edges of her gown and diminutive wings leaped and spun in my mind’s eye.

“There is another child. Born out of the bonds of law and marriage,” I intoned.

Every noble had at least one illegitimate child, usually born before he settled down with a wife. Nearly as often born later when the marriage proved loveless. Not much of a guess there.

Lady Reedstone gasped. She gave her husband “the look.” Outrage, contempt, anger, betrayal, all in one concentrated stare.

Lord Reginald’s silence told me I had struck a truth.

“The boy child can be brought within the law.” They’d expect me to use archaic and symbolic phrasing. “The child can inherit with pride and dignity. The child needs you...” My words dissolved and my head lolled to the side.

My disorientation and exhaustion was expected at every reading regardless of what I did and did not see. Today I did not pretend.

My hosts excused themselves for a turn about the kitchen garden while Simon the butler provided me with ham salad sandwiches, pickled eggs, fruit compote, and a fresh pot of coffee. Somewhat restored, I rested another half hour before summoning the carriage that returned me to the Book View Café. I had a lot of work to do. And much to think about on the hour-long ride.

Dozens of patrons sipped coffee, conversed quietly, and read books at my establishment. I waltzed through the front door, shedding bonnet, lace gloves, and shawl in my wake. Toby, my servant, bodyguard and bruiser collected them before they hit the ground. He, like all my employees were the stray adolescents I had rescued over the years. Now grown to manhood, but still a bit foolish and naïve, he kept unwanted riffraff out and clean floors in.

I noted that my ensemble was newer, more fashionable, and just a bit more colourful, shorter and with a lower neckline and more expensive lace than any woman present.

I plucked a newspaper from a table, disregarding the protest of the customer who had been reading it. “I have a need for this,” I offered by way of explanation.

The bastard daughter of a Gypsy King is expected to be flamboyant and a bit outré.

The vision of the silver dancer in the shadows of the swirling coffee triggered memories in me. Memories of the long ago summer on Lake Geneva when I’d been plain Elise, nursemaid to baby William, the child of the genius poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his frightened young wife Mary.

No one notices a nursemaid. No one cares if she overhears forbidden plots and dangerous conspiracies. No one cares if she sees patterns of behaviour and draws conclusions. Lord Byron and Master Shelley dreamt of creating the first Promethean so they could become immortal poet kings. The plot was not only illegal but immoral and insane.

The chill in my bones told me that the silver dancer was connected to that plot I’d helped abort. I’d helped Mary Shelley escape with the Promethean prototype before Lord Byron could transfer his own soul into the body of a drowning victim. I did not yet know all of the connections. But I would soon.

I tucked my long legs beneath me while I curled up in the overstuffed chair in the first floor lounge above the main coffee room with the newspaper. The paper belonged to the Book View Café after all. My patroness Ada King, Countess Lovelace, the only legitimate child of the despicable and depraved Lord Byron imported newspapers from all over the world for our clientele along with the extensive library we had compiled.

Lady Lovelace did not know my connection to her father, of course. But I had found her and kept her close. When Lord Byron returned from the dead he would seek her out. She had never truly known her father, seen him rarely. I had, that frigid summer of ‘16 at the chateau on Lake Geneva. I’d know him in either a Promethean construct body or an automata made especially to receive his soul.

Nothing of interest in the London paper. Or the ones from New Deli, Hong Kong, or Stockholm. While I read, my assistant Reva—the true daughter of a Romany tribe—brought me the newly arrived Paris papers. Thanks to the Dirigible traffic, this one was only twenty-four hours old. I skimmed the headlines, catching a paragraph here, a stray word there. Nothing.

I was about to toss the pages on top of the others on the floor when one last sentence caught my attention.

On twenty eight June at eight of the clock, the Ballet du Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique to present
Giselle
, a new ballet, music composed by Adolphe Adam. Choreography by Jean Corelli and Jules Perrot.

Today was the twenty sixth.

Giselle
? Why did I know that name? Why had those two sentences resonated with the image of the silver dancer?