Unnatural Issue (32 page)

She nodded, slowly. Not that this made her feel any better . . . but he was right. She
could
fight back.

“Now I think you could use a good lie-down,” Peter continued, kindly. “Can you get to your room by yourself?”

She nodded again, and he helped her to her feet. “Don’t worry too much, if you can help it,” he urged, as he opened the office door for her and let her out. “And even if Charles thinks you ‘needn’t worry your little head about it,’ I will make sure you know everything we are doing.”

“Thank you,” she said faintly. And in a daze, she headed for her room,
very
glad that she wasn’t going to be alone in it.

Peter watched her go, with worry but also with admiration. The girl was holding up under the revelation of horror that would have sent virtually anyone he knew, male or female, screaming or fainting. Or both.

He sighed. Oh, he liked that girl. Brave, amusing, self-reliant . . .

. . . quite pretty, though not in the exotic way of his divas and dancers.

And eminently more sensible than all the society girls his mother kept throwing at him.
Good Lord, put one of those in this situation, and we’d be coping with more hysterics than a cage of monkeys with a snake in it.

Plucky, that was what she was. Just the sort of girl he wished one of those society wenches was.

For a moment, he was distracted by other thoughts. He was not the sort of fellow to whom an ascetic life appealed, but thus far, he had never found the sort of woman he could see spending the rest of his life with. There were not many unattached female Elemental mages about, and none of them had given him that spark he required, that kinship . . . and he was never going to do what his father had, and marry someone without any magic in her. What a disaster that would be!

Good thing I’m not the heir, only the spare. My dear old brother can take care of the family line.
But still . . . no, this was all futile, even if he could get past the expectations of his mother.

He shook off his distraction. The main thing was going to be making sure Susanne was not just safe, but able to defend herself. Because she was going to insist on just that, once she got over her shock. Lord, yes! He knew her well enough to know that. There was another thing about her—not just sensible but brave.

Oh, Susanne had plenty of faults. Working with her these past few weeks had shown him that. The chief of those faults was that she was not just stubborn, she was
damned
stubborn, and once she had an idea in her head, right or wrong, it took a steam engine and a chain to haul it away.

And she was . . . well . . . just a simple country girl with a wretched education. Fortunately that wouldn’t matter as long as she stayed out in the country among people she knew, but she’d be miserably unhappy anywhere else. She was intelligent enough to recognize just how . . . simple . . . she was, and take it to heart, and feel out of place and slighted. He had the shrewd notion that had been happening even when her father elevated her to the position of daughter and heir, and that had only been within the confines of the house she’d grown up in and the people she’d always known. It would be far, far worse if she went into the great world and people who were technically her equals snubbed her and made fun of her because of that.

And it would happen, even among the Elemental mages, who should know better. Just because someone had power, it didn’t follow that they were going to be shining examples of all the virtues the padres preached about.

Yes, indeed, first things first. And the first of the first things—

Get back to Alderscroft. Both by conventional means and arcane. In this situation it was just not possible to be too careful. Magical messages and physical ones could miscarry, but do both, and you should get through. The village post office had a telegraph, so did the Exeter Club, and among his many accomplishments, Garrick knew how to operate one. Time to rouse the postmaster, gain access, and have Garrick do the sending.

This was one message he didn’t want anyone else to see.

 

Garrick and a ten-pound note were able to get the telegraph off to Alderscroft at the Club. Peter had called up his undines and had already spoken to his “twin,” Peter Scott, who lived in London. Alderscoft was a Fire Master, and there was not a chance that Peter’s Water Spirits would speak with his salamanders, but Scott was a fellow Water Master, and getting hold of him was almost as simple a matter as picking up one of those new telephones and calling him up. He’d gotten Scott in his scrying bowl within moments of setting up the magic. Scott had promised that he would go straight to the Exeter Club and speak with the Old Lion directly. The Kerridges had already started on strengthening their defenses, and the next step in that would be to let everyone on the estate know—quietly—that there might be trouble.

“I’d like to keep Susanne’s name out of this,” Michael said, as they conferred around the table just before midnight. “Just let everyone know that we’ve discovered who the necromancer is and that there might be trouble with him.”

Peter grimaced. “I’m not sure that is a good idea, but . . . it’s your land and your right.”

“I don’t want anyone blaming her or suggesting we toss her out,” Michael replied. “After all, she’s the stranger here, and it would be only natural to do so.”

Peter was not at all sure that Michael was right; it seemed to him that Michael was underestimating his servants’ capacity for compassion.

Then again . . . they were
his
people. And Susanne was a stranger. When it came to a choice between a stranger and your own . . . you couldn’t blame people for choosing their own.

“Well, the best thing to do is get her out of England altogether,” he said, feeling a headache coming on. “The farther we get her, the less likely it is that her father will have any way of finding her.”

“Scotland?” said Charles.

He shook his head. “I’m thinking right across the Channel. I have some family connections in France. Jean-Paul Delacroix, a distant cousin, another Elemental mage. He’s got a little gentleman’s farm, probably not unlike Whitestone Hall, in the Ardennes. He’ll be pleased to play host to a pretty young woman, and all that water between her and her father will kill the connection dead.”

“Whitestone never went any farther away from the Hall than London, and then with extreme reluctance,” Michael said with a nod of agreement. “I know for a fact that he doesn’t know a soul outside the county, other than other Masters, much less the country.”

“Yes, well, Alderscroft will make damned sure he won’t be able to use the Lodge connections,” Peter replied grimly. Scott had been appalled. Even more appalled when Peter had told him just what Whitestone had planned for his own daughter. Alderscroft was going to get an earful. Peter Scott was
not
a “gentleman.” He was a tradesman, and he had been a merchant sea captain. As such, he was not handicapped by the reticence that one member of the gentry often displayed when confronted with the misbehavior of another member of the same. He wasn’t going to mince words with the Old Lion.

And he would make certain that Alderscroft got the word out before the night was over.

“Are you sure France will be safe?” Elizabeth worried. “Oh, not
magically.
But with all that nastiness brewing up over there . . .”

“It’s just the Balkans, my love,” Michael said dismissively. “The farthest it will get is Germany.”

Peter was not at
all
sure of that, but there was no point in saying anything. “Believe me, if I could send her to India, I would, and I am thinking strongly of Australia or New Zealand,” he replied grimly. “But I don’t have connections there, I don’t at the moment have anyone I could send with her, and we’d be sending her over blind. France is the best I can do right now.”

“How long will it take, do you think?” Charles asked worriedly.

He shook his head. “A week or two, at least. I have to contact my uncle first, then I’ll have to persuade her that this is the safest thing, then I’ll have to make arrangements. We can’t exactly bundle her into a basket and ship her off. She’ll need . . . good gad, almost everything. Wardrobe, since she can’t go haring off with nothing to wear but her uniforms, money, tickets . . . I’ll need to make sure Uncle Delacroix is available to fetch her right off the ship, because she hasn’t a word of French, so he will need to make arrangements at his end.”

“Beastly complicated.” Charles shook his head. “Is she going to be all right traveling alone?”

“She won’t be traveling alone,” Peter said firmly. “Garrick and I will take her as far as London. Peter Scott and Maya will see her onto the boat, and Scott will go with her on it. He’ll put her in my uncle’s hands. I don’t think you realize what a treasure she is.
The Puck
taught her the business of being a Land Ward.”

Michael gave a low whistle. “Then she is, or will be, damned powerful.”

“Is,” Peter replied firmly. “I say, who’s been teaching her? She just needs to know how to do things other than land-magic. Once she knows, it’s no odds, she gets them done. I wish I’d had more time with her. But uncle knows his business, and he speaks fluent English; he can take up where I left off.” Peter was very fond of his great-uncle, who would flirt outrageously with the English girl while at the same time making sure she knew she was absolutely safe with him. If she stayed with him for any length of time, she’d even get a certain amount of education outside of magic, and a bit of French polish. He hoped she would like it there.

Would she get enough polish to fit into society at some level?

“Then once we’ve taken her father into custody . . .” Charles hesitated. “Then what?”

“Then it’s in Alderscroft’s hands. He’ll have to find some way of confining the man, then faking his death.”
Assuming we don’t kill him, taking him.
He could see that thought in all of their faces, but they nodded. “One way or other, it will take some time before the estate gets settled on Susanne. Then she can come back here. At least then, she’ll have a means to support herself.”

Mentally he sighed. He had no doubt that she was capable of running the small estate with the help of whoever her father’s legal man was and the servants. After all, Whitestone himself hadn’t exactly been managing his own property all these years, and she could hardly do worse with her land-sense.

But even with French polish she wouldn’t fit into country “society.” London, yes, London society had room for all sorts of odd ducks if they had the blood and the money, but Earth Masters could not abide London. She’d probably confine herself to Whitestone Hall and the village and turn into a kind of lone eccentric, as so many Earth mages did, really being friendly only with animals and the Elementals. What a waste . . .

He shook off his melancholy thoughts. No time for that sort of speculation. “Right,” he said. “Now, about the defenses. You have me here now, too. What can I do?”

J
UNE was half spent, and all of Richard’s plans for bringing Rebecca back on Midsummer Night had long since fallen by the wayside. His best hope at this point was for Hallowmass Night. Now . . . on the one hand that was a better time for the ceremony. The barriers between the Spirit World and the Material World were thinner. Spirits traditionally crossed over then. It would be easier to force the girl’s soul out and easier to bring Rebecca across.

But he didn’t want to wait. He’d been delayed long enough. He wanted his property back.