Wrede, Patricia C - Mairelon 02 (20 page)

           
Mairelon
raised his eyebrows. "Dear me, don't you know?"

           
"No,
I don't." Kim clenched both hands in her lap to hold in her temper.

           
Mairelon's
eyes narrowed and he studied her for a moment; then he sat back, his mouth
twisted in a self-mocking smile. "Ah. Obviously I was mistaken."

           
"Mairelon,"
Kim said, exasperated. "You're just as annoying foxed as you are sober.
Mistaken about what? What are you talking about?"

           
"Lord
Franton, Marquis of Harsfeld, visited me earlier today," Mairelon said.
"He asked my permission to pay his addresses to you."

           
"He--You
mean that Tarnower chit was
right
? He's going to make me an
offer
?"

           
"I
believe that is what I just said." Mairelon sank down in his chair,
studying his brandy glass. "He seemed to have no doubt about your
answer."

           
"He
wouldn't," Kim said in disgust.
"Of all the sap
skulled things to do!
I don't want to marry a toff, and certainly not a
marquis!"

           
Abruptly,
Mairelon's eyes focused on her with alarming intensity. "You don't?"

           
"Well,
I don't have anything against marquises in general," Kim said,
considering. "But I don't want to marry Lord Franton."

           
"Why not?"
Mairelon said, still with the same
intense focus. "He's rich, he's titled,
he's
nearer your age than . . . He's near your age. And Aunt Agatha was quite
right--you couldn't be better established than to marry a marquis."

           
Kim shook
her head, searching for words. "If all I wanted was money . . . Lord
Franton's nice enough, but . . ."

           
"You're
not still worried about being socially acceptable, are you?" The edge was
back in Mairelon's voice. "Not after the triumphs of the past week!"

           
"Triumphs!"
Kim snorted. "I'm a novelty, like
a performing bear, that's all."

           
Mairelon's
eyes dropped to his glass. In a completely colorless tone, he said, "Lord
Franton doesn't seem to think so."

           
"Lord
Franton ain't got
no
sense," Kim said flatly.

           
"I
didn't think him
so
utterly senseless as that,"
Mairelon said, and an odd smile flickered over his lips.

           
"Well,
you ain't got no sense sometimes, neither," Kim retorted. "Thinking
I'd get leg-shackled to a marquis just because--If I'd of been that interested
in money, I wouldn't of worked so hard to stay out of the stews all those
years."

           
Mairelon
blinked, plainly startled. "It's not the same thing at all."

           
"It
ain't?" Kim shook her head and shivered slightly. The brothels of
Southwark had been among her worst nightmares since she had first learned of
their existence when she was five or six. "Marrying a marquis because he's
rich and titled would be more comfortable and more permanent than working
Vauxhall or
Drury Lane
, but
I can't see that there's much other difference."

           
"Ah.
I had never considered it in that light." Mairelon raised his glass and
drank, then set it too carefully on the table.

           
"Jenny
Correy didn't marry Tom because he was well off, because he wasn't, then,"
Kim went on, half to herself. "And a lot of folks said she was throwing
herself away on him, when she could have had Barnabas Totten, who's got his own
pub,
or Henry Miller down at the shipyard. But Jenny
and Tom are a lot happier than the ones who picked the best catch. They . . .
like each other, and they get on well.
Most of the time.
More than anybody else I know, anyway."

           
"I
am justly chastened," Mairelon said, sounding more like
himself
.
"Is there, perhaps, some other gentleman among your suitors whose
addresses you
would
welcome? The marquis gave me to understand that he
knew he was being a bit hasty, but he was desirous of, er, beating the
competition to the gate."

           
"You
mean he thinks I'm going to get
more
offers?" Kim said, appalled.

           
"He
doesn't seem to be the only one who thinks so," Mairelon said. "Aunt
Agatha mentioned it to me yesterday afternoon.
Is
there anyone, or would
you prefer that I turn the lot of them away?"

           
Kim shook
her head. "There isn't anyone."

           
Except you.

           
The
revelation was so blindingly sudden that the words almost slipped out, and she
had to bite her tongue and look away.
And you thought Lord Franton hadn't
got any sense
, she castigated herself. But sense had nothing to do with it.
She swallowed hard, and tears stung her eyelids. If a beauty like Letitia
Tarnower couldn't interest Mairelon, and a brilliant wizard like Renee D'Auber
hadn't attracted him in all the years they'd known one another, what chance did
she, Kim, have?

           
"Kim.
. . ." There was a long pause, and then Mairelon said in an altered tone,
"You know, I believe you are right; I
have
had a little too much of
this brandy."

           
With
a lightness
she did not feel, Kim replied, "If you
hadn't, you wouldn't have been so nattered about Lord Franton.
Silly clunch."

           
"Is
that remark meant for me, or for Franton?" Mairelon said.
"Never mind.
If anyone else wishes to propose to you, I
shall send him away, but I'm afraid you'll have to deal with the marquis
yourself."

           
"I
don't--" A prickle swept across her shoulder blades, and she stiffened and
broke off in mid-sentence. After a moment, she realized that she had cocked her
head as if she
were
listening for something, which was
ridiculous--you couldn't hear magic. "Something just touched the
house-ward," she told Mairelon. "It's still up, but--" Another
twinge interrupted her. "There it goes again."

           
"A probing spell?"
Mairelon said urgently.
"Or a steady pressure?"

           
"Not
steady," Kim answered. "Not really like a probe, either, at least,
not like the ones your mother showed me. More like"--she groped for the
image--"like somebody throwing a rock through a window and running
away."

           
"Probably
nothing that needs immediate attention, then," Mairelon said. "I hope
it didn't wake Mother."

           
Kim
nodded. In the silence that followed, they heard a loud creak from the lower
stairway. Immediately, Mairelon leaned forward and pinched out the candle. In
the dim glow from the dying embers of the fire, he rose and made his way
carefully to the library door, where he flattened himself against the wall.
After a moment's thought, Kim also stood. Taking care not to make any noise,
she slipped toward the bookshelves behind the door. There was nothing she could
do about the pallor of her lilac gown, but at least she would be out of the
line of sight of anyone entering the room.

           
There was
another creak, louder and nearer, and then the library door swung wide and a dark
figure entered. Mairelon waited until the man had passed him,
then
kicked the door shut and jumped. The two shapes went
down with a thump. Kim snatched up a vase,
then
hesitated, unable to tell which figure to brain with it.

           
"I
have him," Mairelon's voice said a moment later.
"If
you'd be good enough to manage the lights, Kim?
I'm a bit occupied at
the moment."

           
"Fiat
lux,"
Kim said hastily, and a rather wavery ball of light appeared
above the two combatants. She frowned and concentrated more carefully, and the
light steadied.

           
"Well,
well," Mairelon said. "Lord Gideon Starnes. To what do we owe the
pleasure of this unusual call, my lord?"

           
Lord
Starnes stared at Mairelon for a moment, and then all of the tension left his
body and he sagged toward the floor. "It
would
be you," he
said bitterly, and his words slurred very slightly as he spoke. "I suppose
now you'll tell her, and I'll have no chance at all."

           
"I
should be more concerned about my telling the Runners, if I were you,"
Mairelon said.

           
"I
haven't done anything," Lord Starnes said with as much dignity as he could
manage while lying on his back with Mairelon half-kneeling on top of him.

           
"Breaking
into a house is something," Kim pointed out.
"Even
if you aren't very good at it."

           
"And
especially when it's the second time," Mairelon said.

           
Lord
Starnes jerked. "How did you--It wasn't me!"

           
"Looby,"
Kim said. "If we hadn't guessed before, we'd know now." Holding the
light spell steady, she crossed to the table and relit the candle, then fetched
two more from the candlebox and lit them as well. It looked as if this was
going to take a while, and she wasn't sure how long she could keep the spell
going, especially if Lord Starnes was going to start saying things interesting
enough to distract her.

           
"Very
good, Kim," Mairelon said when she finished with the candles and let the
light spell fade. "Now, Lord Starnes, I should dislike having to summon
the Watch or lay information against you in
Bow Street
--but
I shouldn't dislike it enough to keep me from doing it. You had better
explain."

           
"And
hurry up, before the rest of the house gets here," Kim advised.

           
"Oh,
that won't be a problem," Mairelon said. "I made it quite clear that
I didn't want to be disturbed this evening."

           
Kim
frowned, but she couldn't ask him anything in front of Lord Starnes, even if
Starnes was, as he appeared to be, considerably more foxed than Mairelon.

           
"Letitia
will never have me now," Lord Starnes said miserably at that moment,
drawing Mairelon's attention back to him.

           
"Letitia?"
Mairelon frowned. "Not the
Tarnower chit? What has she got to do with you breaking into Andrew's
library?"

           
"She
told him to sheer off, tonight at Lady Souftmore's rout," Kim said.
"She's hanging out for a rich husband, and he wouldn't be one."

           
Mairelon
gave her an inquiring look.

           
"They
were talking out on the balcony and I . . . happened to overhear," Kim
said. "I was going to tell you, but we got to
discussing
other things."

           
"I
can't imagine why you thought I would be interested in Letitia Tarnower's
amours
,"
Mairelon said. "No doubt you had your reasons."

           
"That
wasn't all they were talking about. I'll tell you later."

           
"Do
you mean that?" Lord Starnes said, raising his head. His voice was
suddenly hopeful.

           
"Of
course she means it," Mairelon said.

           
"No,
did you mean what you said about Letitia--Miss Tarnower, that is?"

           
Mairelon
frowned. "Do you know, I was under the impression that
I
was the
one who was going to be asking questions and
you
were the one who was
going to answer
them.
I can't think how I made such a
mistake. Possibly it has something to do with the brandy."

           
"What
brandy?" Lord Starnes said, bewildered. "I wasn't drinking brandy; I
was drinking gin."

           
No wonder
he hadn't noticed the smell on Mairelon's breath. Kim sighed and plopped into
the nearest chair. If the two of them kept it up, this would take even longer
than she had thought.

           
"Is
that why you broke into my brother's house?" Mairelon said politely.
"Because you've been drinking gin?"

           
"Of
course not," Lord Starnes said.
"Can't expect to
find Blue Ruin in a place like this."

           
"Why not?"
Mairelon said. "The cellars at
Osterly House are half full of it, and the Racknetts practically bathe in the
stuff. Not to mention--"

           
"Why
did
you come, then?" Kim interrupted before Mairelon ended up
enumerating every gentry ken in town at which one could perfectly well expect
to find gin in great quantities.

           
"I
came for the book," Lord Starnes said.

           
"That,
we know," Mairelon said. "The question is, why? It isn't good for
anything."

           
"It is
the key to a fortune!" Lord Starnes said dramatically,
then
broke out in a coughing fit. "Could you move your knee?" he asked
Mairelon plaintively when he recovered.

           
"If
I move my knee, I won't be able to balance," Mairelon said. "Get up,
and we'll sit down at the table and talk in comfort."

           
"Oh,
very well," Lord Starnes said.

           
They
rearranged themselves according to this program, while Kim shifted impatiently
in her chair. Then Mairelon looked at Lord Starnes and said, "Now, about
this fortune?"

           
"It was
the wizards," Lord Starnes explained.
"The
Frenchies.
There were seven of 'em, and they knew the Terror was coming,
so they put all their valuables in a secret vault and locked it with a spell.
They each put part of the spell in a book, because they didn't trust each
other, y'see, and then they left
France
.
And the vault is still there, with a fortune in it seven times over, because
they never went back. But it takes all seven books to get in."

           
"Fascinating,"
Mairelon murmured. "And how do you come to know all this?"

           
"M'grandfather
knew one of 'em," Lord Starnes confessed. Having begun, he seemed almost
eager to tell his story. "Fellow he met at a concert in
Vienna
,
named d'Armand. They hit it off wonderfully, and d'Armand told him the whole
story and gave my grandfather his book for fear of losing it."

           
"That
sounds extremely unlikely," Mairelon said. "Especially since d'Armand
was killed very soon after he left
France
.
Have some brandy."

           
Lord
Starnes shrugged as he took the glass Mairelon proffered. "My grandfather
had d'Armand's book, and he said that d'Armand must have had a
what-you-call-it, a vision that he was going to die, because a week later he
drowned. And since Grandfather didn't know any of the other Frenchies, and had
no idea how to get in touch with them, he didn't do anything."

           
"That
sounds even more unlikely," Mairelon said.

           
"You
never met my grandfather." Lord Starnes sighed.
"Lucky
man."

           
"
Me,
or your grandfather? Never mind. What made you decide to
collect the rest of the books? I assume that is what you have in mind--collect
all seven of the books and claim the fortune."

           
"Letitia
Tarnower," Kim said. "That's what did it. I told you, she's hanging
out for a rich husband."

           
"I
will hear no word against Miss Tarnower," Lord Starnes said belligerently.

           
"No
one has spoken any," Mairelon reassured him. "About these
books--"

           
Lord
Starnes heaved a sigh. "I would never have thought of it myself. But
Mannering assured me that no one would know, and it would be the making of both
of us."

           
Kim's
eyes widened, and she and Mairelon exchanged glances.
"Mannering?"
Kim said in a careful tone.

           
"Yes,
he's a cent-per-cent, a moneylender, that I've done business with," Lord
Starnes said. Kim nodded, and helpfully refilled his glass. Lord Starnes took
an absentminded pull and went on, "I gave him d'Armand's book last year as
collateral, along with some other things. I thought he'd take it because he has
a great interest in wizardry, though I didn't realize at the time that he was
one himself."

           
"He
isn't," Kim said before she could stop herself.

           
"I've
seen him work spells myself," Lord Starnes contradicted her.

           
"When
was that?" Mairelon said.

           
"About
a month ago, right after he offered to take me into partnership over this
French vault," Lord Starnes answered. His shoulders sagged. "I didn't
realize he wanted a lot of poking and prying and sneaking into people's houses.
I thought we'd just quietly buy up the other books somehow, and then I'd go to
France
and . . . and . . . collect everything."

           
"I
see." Mairelon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "And when did you
discover that the business was more complex than you had anticipated?"

           
"When
Mannering sent me to get the first two books," Lord Starnes said. "I
thought--but he gave me a couple of twigs that he'd set spells in and told me
to break into the house. It was some awful place north of the city--"

           
"Not
Hampstead?" Mairelon said.

           
"No,
but near there, I think," Starnes replied. "It took me forever to
find it, and then when I got inside it was a regular rabbit's warren.
Books everywhere, stacks
of them, in the drawing room and
the dining room and even the
bedrooms
! I could only find one of the ones
Mannering wanted. I think they only
had
one--they were the two wizards
who were supposed to be married, you know, and what would they want with one
each?
Especially when they had all those others.
But
Mannering was very upset about it."

           
"Ah,
that would be the Comte du Franchard and the Comtesse de Beauvoix,"
Mairelon said, refilling Starnes's glass once more.

           
Lord
Starnes didn't notice. "Yes, that's right, the comte and comtesse. And
then we had to track down the book you have, and I didn't manage to get hold of
it, either." Lord Starnes sighed. "Mannering was livid. Said that if
I couldn't get him the book, I'd have to make payments on the loan he'd given
me! I had to go down to White's and it's a dashed good thing the cards were in
my favor that night.
Most of it."

           
"Is
that when you lost your ring to Lord Moule?" Mairelon said.
"The gold one with the ruby center?"

           
"Now,
how did you know about that?" Lord Starnes said, astonished.

           
"Magic,"
Kim told him.

           
"Oh, of course."
Lord Starnes tried to look
intelligent. Failing, he took another drink of brandy instead.

           
"It's
obvious how you were planning to, er, acquire the books that were here in
England
,"
Mairelon said thoughtfully. "But how were you planning to get hold of the
Russian book?
And the Hungarian one?
Or didn't you
know about them?"

           
"Oh,
I knew the books weren't all in
England
,"
Lord Starnes said. "That's one of the reasons I never bothered to try for
the seven of them myself. But Mannering said he'd arrange for the other two to
be brought to
London
, and Durmontov
showed up right on schedule. Whatever it was, it doesn't seem to have worked
with the Hungarian, though."

           
"So
Prince Alexei Durmontov is also involved in this interesting scheme of
yours?" Mairelon kept his voice carefully neutral.

           
Lord
Starnes looked startled.
"No, of course not.
If
we'd gotten him involved, we'd have to split the money with him. No, no,
Mannering tricked him somehow."

           
"That
explains it," Kim said, topping off Lord Starnes's glass again.

           
"It
didn't occur to you, I suppose, that the surviving wizards might want their
belongings themselves?" Mairelon said in a deceptively mild tone.

           
"They've
gotten along without them for thirty years," Starnes said sullenly.
"If they wanted the treasure back, they should have made some push to get
at it. And anyway, they can't get in without d'Armand's book."

           
Kim shook
her head incredulously. "So you and Mannering decided to lighten
six
wizards
? Of all the cloth-headed notions! Nobody with any sense tries to
crack a frog-maker's ken, let alone six of 'em. It's too chancy."

           
"I'm
a bit of a wizard myself," Lord Starnes said with dignity. "I got
past your wards tonight, after all."