A Matter of Magic (18 page)

The tall man who was in the act of climbing out of the ruined coach was not Dan Laverham. He had the same narrow jaw and sharp eyes as Dan, and the same long nose, but his dark hair had less grey in it. Under the superfine coat he wore, his shoulders were broader and more muscular than Dan’s. He could have passed as Laverham’s brother, if Laverham had had one who dressed like a toff, but he was
not
Dan Laverham. Relief made Kim’s knees feel weak.

“Accident, not outrage,” Robert said politely. “I am Robert Choiniet, and my friend with the unspeakable chestnuts is George Dashville.”

“I take it you were racing on a public thoroughfare,” the man from the coach snapped. “You should be horse whipped for such carelessness.”

“Possibly,” Robert said with unimpaired calm. “I doubt that anyone will do so, however. May I take a message to someone for you, sir? I must go by Stavely Farm first, but after that I am at your disposal.”

“Robert, you traitor!” George had finally succeeded in getting his animals under control, but his angry cry startled them into another round of sidling and head-tossing. “You can’t mean to go back to Austen and claim you
won
!”

“Why not? Just because your driving was so bad that you overturned instead of merely losing by an inch or two?”

“Enough.” The man from the coach spoke with a quiet deadliness. “I have no interest in your disagreements, and you will oblige me by saving them for another time and place.” He turned to Robert Choiniet. “You will go by Bramingham Place and inform them that Lord St. Clair
has met with an accident on the road. I trust you are capable of giving them sufficient directions. Beyond that, all I require of you is that you do not return.”

“I understand perfectly, sir,” Robert said coldly. “Give you good day.”

He raised his hands a quarter of an inch. His horses sprang forward, eager to be away, and the phaeton swept off down the road. George Dashville stared after it, spluttering incoherently, while the Baron straightened his cravat and brushed at his coat and breeches. Kim shook herself out of her daze and eased herself farther down the slope of the ditch. A low stone wall ran along the far side; if she could get over it, she had a good chance of getting around the entire muddle of men and carriages without being seen.

Her luck held. The chestnut horses took exception to the Baron’s abrupt movements, and George’s efforts to keep them from bolting occupied both his attention and St. Clair’s while Kim slid over the wall unnoticed. She bent over and crept along it, keeping her head low despite her curiosity. She didn’t want St. Clair to catch her, even if he wasn’t Dan Laverham. From the way Mairelon acted, St. Clair was as bad as Dan. She didn’t straighten up until the Baron’s caustic observations regarding George’s horsemanship began to fade with distance.

Kim’s back was sore and stiff from her long, crouched-over walk to avoid Baron St. Clair, so she took things easier on the last mile to Bramingham Place. Once she reached the drive leading up to the house, she slowed even further. She enjoyed looking about at the bushes through which she and Mairelon had dodged the night before, though the manicured lawn and meticulous placement of the trees made her nervous. Besides, she was in no real hurry to complete her errand.

Slow as she went, the house drew inexorably nearer. Kim sighed and
straightened her jacket. She had better get this over with before her nerve failed her. She went up to the door and knocked.

The door opened at once, and Kim thought she saw a faint, fleeting expression of surprise on the face of the butler who had opened the door. “Message for Miss D’Auber,” Kim said, touching her cap respectfully.

“Very good.” The butler held out his hand.

“The master said I was to give it only to her.”

The butler’s features stiffened into cold disapproval, but all he said was, “I will see that she is informed. Wait here.”

The door closed, leaving Kim standing on the step outside. Kim frowned at it. She had a vague idea that there was something not quite right about the butler’s action, but her knowledge of gentry kens was limited to the most likely location of the silver. She shrugged. Wait, the man had said; well, she would wait, then. She sat on the step and stared out across the drive.

Several minutes later, Kim heard the door behind her open. She could practically feel the butler’s disapproving stare digging into her spine, and smiled to herself. She twisted her head and shoulders around without rising and looked up with an expression of hopeful inquiry.

“Miss D’Auber will see you,” the butler said. His mouth was turned down at the corners and he was standing rigidly erect, as if to make up for Kim’s informality.

“Good,” Kim said cheerfully, and scrambled to her feet. “How soon will she get here?”

The butler winced. “She will see you in the green saloon. I would not presume to say how soon. This way.”

Kim tried to suppress a grin as she followed the butler. She was only partially successful, but as the man’s back was toward her it did not really matter. He led her down a short hall and showed her into a large room with pale green walls and spindly-legged chairs covered in green-and-gold-striped silk. There were two gilded pier tables between the windows, each with a large gold-rimmed mirror hanging on the wall above it, and at the far side of the room stood a small writing desk.

As the door clicked shut behind her, Kim eyed the chairs dubiously. They did not look as if they were meant to be sat on, but the two footstools
did not look any sturdier and she couldn’t sit on the pier tables. She finally settled herself on a footstool, reasoning that if it collapsed under her she would be closer to the floor. She had hardly sat down before the door latch clicked again, and Renée D’Auber walked into the room.

“I am Mademoiselle Renée D’Auber,” she announced, frowning at Kim. “You have a message for me, yes?” Her auburn hair shone in the sunlight and her figured muslin morning dress was the height of elegance. Looking at her made Kim feel small and rumpled and unpleasantly aware of the dust and grass stains her clothes had acquired on her walk to Bramingham Place.

“Yes,” Kim said shortly. She rose and reached into her jacket for the letter Mairelon had given her. As she did, she saw Renée’s eyes widen.

“But what is this? You are a girl! Of what is it that Monsieur Merrill is thinking?”

“You ask him, if you want to know,” Kim said. French or not, this woman was altogether too fly for comfort. Kim scowled and tapped Mairelon’s letter with her forefinger. “And how’d you know this was from him?”

“It is of all things the most likely,” Mademoiselle D’Auber replied. “Who else would know I was here? Also, I have been asking for him, and he would of course hear of it. It is unimportant. Give me the message.”

Reluctantly Kim held the letter out to her. Mademoiselle D’Auber took it and tore it open at once without stopping to look at the seal. She turned away as she began reading; a moment later Kim heard a brief exclamation in what was presumably French. Kim had no idea what the words meant, but the tone in which they were spoken was one of surprise rather than anger or annoyance.

Renée D’Auber glanced over her shoulder at Kim, then returned to the letter, this time studying it with evident care. Kim wondered what Mairelon had said about her and what this Mademoiselle D’Auber thought of it. She shifted uncomfortably, wishing she could sit down again but not daring to do so for fear of offending Mademoiselle D’Auber.

Mademoiselle D’Auber finished reading and turned back to face Kim. “Of a certainty, this is not at all good,” she said, waving the letter.

“That’s what we thought,” Kim said, emphasizing the “we” slightly.

“To find the real platter becomes a thing most necessary,” the Frenchwoman went on as if she had not heard. “I do not at all see how we are to go about it.”

“We?” Kim said.

“But of course! It is why I am here, to help.”

Kim’s frown returned. “Hold on! I thought you was the one that nicked the real platter. Mairelon said nobody else could of got to it before we did.”

“Monsieur Merrill is not altogether right,” Mademoiselle D’Auber replied. “I looked at Monsieur Bramingham’s so-remarkable platter yesterday afternoon, yes, but at once I saw that it was only a copy. I thought, me, that Monsieur Merrill had been very clever, but now I find that it was not him at all, but someone else. It is most annoying. This business is not well arranged, I think.”

“It ain’t no fault of ours,” Kim muttered.

Renée had crossed to the writing desk and did not hear. “I shall write something for you to carry back to Monsieur Merrill,” she said, taking out a sheet of heavy, cream-colored paper. “And you must take his letter with you as well. I will allow Madame Bramingham to persuade me to stay here for another day or two.” She made a face as she spoke, then shrugged and bent over the page.

“Why do you want me to take Mairelon’s message away again?” Kim asked.

“But it would be most awkward if it were found!” Mademoiselle D’Auber said, writing busily. “Monsieur Bramingham would of a certainty call the Bow Street Runners. He has already spoken of it. It was very foolish of Monsieur Merrill to take the copy of the platter, I think.”

So Mairelon’s letter had not included all the details of the previous night’s events! Kim considered the implications of that while Renée finished her letter, and she began to feel more cheerful. “Why did you come—”

“A moment.” Mademoiselle D’Auber sanded her letter, then folded it neatly and sealed it with a blob of wax, muttering under her breath as she did. Her voice was too soft for Kim to hear what she was saying, but
each word had a sharp, crystalline quality that distance and muttering could not disguise. Kim remembered the spell that Mairelon had cast to test her truthfulness, and backed up a pace.

Mademoiselle D’Auber finished and straightened up with a smothered sigh. She studied the paper for a moment, then turned and held it out to Kim along with Mairelon’s unfolded letter. “Here; take this to Monsieur Merrill and tell him that I will be at the inn down in the village tomorrow morning at, oh, ten o’clock precisely.”

Kim nodded and took the letters, doing her best to hide her reluctance. Renée D’Auber had put some sort of spell on that letter, Kim was sure of it. And she, Kim, was going to have to carry the thing all the way back to Ranton Hill at least, and maybe farther, if Mairelon had given up waiting at the inn and gone back to the wagon. Kim wasn’t normally squeamish, not even about magic, but she didn’t like not knowing what kind of spell she was carrying.

Mademoiselle D’Auber watched closely as Kim stowed the letters away beneath her jacket, which did nothing to improve the state of Kim’s nerves. “There is one thing more,” the Frenchwoman said. She fixed her eyes on Kim’s face and said with great seriousness, “It is of all things the most important that Monsieur Merrill not leave before I see him. You understand? So if he thinks to go, you must try to stop him. I think he will listen.”

“Be the first time, if he did,” Kim said, shrugging. “I’ll tell him, though.”

“Good.” Renée D’Auber gave Kim a long, measuring look, and Kim found herself wondering once again just what Mairelon had said about her in his letter. Then the Frenchwoman went to a long, embroidered bellpull and gave it a vigorous tug. A few moments later, the door opened and a footman stepped into the room. “Mademoiselle?”

“See this . . . boy out,” Mademoiselle D’Auber said.

“Mademoiselle.” The footman bowed. With a single, sidelong look at the enigmatic Frenchwoman, Kim followed him out of the room and down the hall to the door of Bramingham Place.

When Kim arrived back at the inn late that afternoon, she found Mairelon in the public room playing cards with Freddy Meredith. They were the room’s only occupants, and judging from the litter of coins near Mairelon’s left elbow, they had been at it for some time. An empty wine bottle lay on the floor beside the table; a second bottle, barely a third full, stood next to the pile of coins that had been wagered on the current hand.

Kim paused in the doorway, wondering what the magician could want with a cloth-head like Meredith. Her eyes flicked from one to the other, and she frowned. Both men were impeccably turned out, from the stiff folds of their cravats to their gleaming Hessian boots; they looked the perfect picture of a pair of gentry. That, Kim realized, was what was bothering her. She had seen Mairelon in his gentry togs before, but she had never realized how well they suited him. No, not quite that, either. She had never realized how well the whole role suited him.

Still frowning, Kim stepped into the room. As she did, Meredith looked up and saw her. He blinked blearily in her direction. He was, Kim saw, more than a little bit on the go. “Who’s this, Merrill?”

Mairelon turned. “Kim! What news?”

“Message for you, sir,” Kim said, remembering just in time that she was still playing the part of an errand boy.

“Can it wait?”

Kim hesitated. What on earth was she supposed to say to that? “I think you should look at it, sir,” she answered at last.