A Matter of Magic (30 page)

“Amelia!” Jasper had gone pale. “We can’t! The duns would be after me the minute they got wind of it.”

“What is it you wish to know?” Lady Granleigh said stiffly.

“ ’Ow did you come to ’ave an interest in that there platter? An’ what sort o’ interest did you ’ave?”

“I am very much afraid that I can answer that,” a new voice said from behind Stuggs.

Stuggs jumped back and whirled, so that he could cover both the doorway and the corner where Laverham, Stower, and St. Clair stood. Then he smiled and relaxed. “Sir!” he said, and stepped aside.

Four men entered behind him. Hunch was the only one Kim recognized; the other three were gentry toffs, middle-aged and dressed for riding, but she didn’t recall seeing any of them before. She glanced around the room, sizing up the reactions of the rest of the group. Lady Granleigh was staring at the man who had spoken, and she had gone rather pale. Jonathan Aberford turned red when he saw the second toff, but Robert smiled in relief at the same man. Laverham and Stower wore blank expressions; St. Clair’s eyes narrowed and his lips thinned as he stared at the newcomers, and Kim got the impression that he was not at all pleased. Stuggs was watching the third man with a respectful expression. Andrew, Renée, and Mairelon all looked startled to various degrees.

“What ’ave you been a-doing now, Master Richard?” Hunch demanded, ignoring the rest of the company entirely.

“An excellent question,” Robert murmured. “Perhaps you’ll do better at getting an answer than we have.”

“Well, well,” Mairelon said. He blinked, smiled, and swept a bow. “Your servant, Granleigh, Bramingham. I’m afraid you’ve missed most of the excitement, Edward.”

“I am desolated,” the third man replied. With a start, Kim recognized his voice: he was the Earl of Shoreham, who had sent Mairelon off to Ranton Hill in search of the Saltash Platter. “Richard, I hate to be overly
particular, but I seem to recall telling you not to attract atten—
Andrew
? What the devil are you doing here?”

“No, no, we’ve already had that bit,” Mairelon said. “I want to know what Granleigh here meant when he said he could account for Lady Granleigh’s, er, actions. And how you all happen to be here,” he added as an afterthought.

“I received some information last night, after Hunch left,” the Earl replied. He glanced toward Laverham and St. Clair. “I thought it sufficiently urgent to post down, but it seems to have been an unnecessary effort.”

“If you’re talking about the irregular relationship between Mr. Laverham and St. Clair, yes, that’s come out,” Mairelon said. “But where did you pick up these others?”

“Hunch told me you’d gone to Bramingham Place,” Shoreham said. “Naturally we went looking for you there. Mrs. Bramingham had just discovered that most of her houseguests had vanished, and Bramingham and Granleigh elected to come with me in hopes of hunting them up.”

“And in hopes of getting away from the excellent Mrs. Bramingham’s frenzy,” Mairelon murmured. “Quite understandable. Now, what was that you were saying about Lady Granleigh?” he asked, turning to the tall, distinguished man who had been first through the door.

The first man sighed and glanced toward the Earl of Shoreham. “My wife has a tendency to meddle,” he explained. Lady Granleigh stiffened and recovered her usual color, but her husband gave her a look that caused her to subside without saying anything. Kim was impressed; there must be more to this stuffy-looking cull than at first appeared.

“A tendency to meddle,” Lord Granleigh repeated. “And considerably more ambition than I had realized. I believe she was trying to arrange for me to be the next Minister of Wizardry.” He gave the Earl of Shore-ham another sidelong look as he spoke, as though checking his reaction.

“Nonsense, Stephen,” Lady Granleigh said unconvincingly. “You are perfectly capable of managing such matters yourself.”

“True,” Lord Granleigh replied. “A fact which you would be well advised to remember in the future, Amelia. Your interference this time could very easily have had unpleasant consequences.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Lady Granleigh said even more unconvincingly than before. “I am only here to keep Marianne from ruining herself with Freddy Meredith.”

“I don’t believe it,” the last of the three toffs put in. “Freddy’s a good lad. He wouldn’t do anything, er, dishonorable.”

“Freddy said something about a special license before he left, Mr. Bramingham,” Robert said, ignoring Lady Granleigh’s glare.

“Yes, I believe he has one with him,” Mairelon said. “Amazingly sensible of him, too. Any number of things might have gone wrong between here and Gretna Green, if he’d chosen that route.”

“Sensible?” Jonathan goggled at Mairelon.
“Freddy?”

“There, you see?” Mr. Bramingham said to the room at large. His eye fell on St. Clair, and he frowned. “Shoreham, what’s Baron St. Clair doing in the corner with this fellow pointing a pistol at him?”

“ ’E’s under arrest, in the name o’ the Law,” Stuggs informed him. “Along with these other two. I ’aven’t got straight yet which o’ ’em did what, but they ’as all done somethin’, and I ’ave my duty.”

“You ought to be arresting
that
man as well,” Jonathan Aberford grumbled, pointing at Mairelon. “Whoever he is. Didn’t someone say he was wanted?”

Andrew’s face set in grim lines. Mairelon only smiled and looked at the Earl of Shoreham. Shoreham returned the smile, then said to Jonathan, “He is certainly wanted by the French, but though our relations with them have improved a good deal, I don’t think our cooperation would stretch so far as to turn one of our people over to them. Particularly a man with such a distinguished record.”

“You’re too kind,” Mairelon said.

“Probably,” Shoreham agreed blandly.

Andrew’s mouth had dropped open, as had Lady Granleigh’s St. Clair had gone white; Renée D’Auber and Hunch looked smug. “What are you talking about?” Jonathan demanded.

The Earl of Shoreham sighed. “For the past five years, Richard Merrill has been one of the best agents the War Office has had the good fortune to employ. Is that clear enough for you?”

“But—but I thought he stole the Saltash Set,” Jonathan said, frowning.

“Merrill?” the Earl of Shoreham said. “It’s your turn to explain.”

“In a minute. I don’t think we were quite through with Lord Granleigh yet,” Mairelon answered. “I still don’t understand what Lady Granleigh’s ambitions for her husband have to do with the Saltash Set, or how she found out about it in the first place.”

“She listened at doors, that’s how,” Jasper Marston said waspishly, lifting his head for the first time since the Earl and his companions had arrived.

Lady Granleigh gasped. “Jasper, how dare you—”

“Oh, stop it, Amelia,” Jasper said. “There’s no use pretending to injured innocence. They already know most of it. They know
you
,” he added spitefully.

“You are not thinking about what you are saying,” Lady Granleigh said in a tone that could have frozen the Thames at mid summer.

“I know exactly what I’m saying! This whole mess is your fault, Amelia, and I’m not going to take the blame for it.”

“My fault? You are the one who brought along that Bow Street Runner! I suppose you are going to claim you knew nothing about it.”

“As it ’appens, ’e didn’t,” Stuggs put in. “I know my business, and it ain’t lettin’ no buffle’eaded toff in on the nick, beggin’ your pardon, sir.”

“It was your idea to get hold of that blasted platter!” Jasper said, ignoring Stuggs. “The whole thing was your idea, start to finish!”

Mairelon cleared his throat, which recalled the presence of an audience to the combatants. Lady Granleigh closed her mouth on whatever she had planned to say, and Jasper subsided on the hearth once more, holding his head. Mairelon smiled blandly. “And how would Lady Granleigh’s, er, acquiring the Saltash Platter advance you with the Ministry, Lord Granleigh?”

Lord Granleigh looked at Mairelon in surprise. “Good Lord, man, recovering the Saltash Set and catching the thief would give anyone a boost! One of those chaps down at the Royal College came up with a gadget that said so, and the whole Ministry has been buzzing ever since.”

“A gadget?” Mairelon frowned, distracted. “Not one of Fotherington’s crystals? He’s been trying to get them to make accurate predictions forever; do you mean to say he’s finally succeeded?”

“As it happens, yes,” the Earl of Shoreham said. “You can discuss it with him later.”

“How did he get it to—”

“
Later
, Richard. Right now, we want your story, and you must admit we’ve been very patient.”

“Too patient,” Hunch said darkly.

“Oh, very well. I think I have enough of the pieces to put together a fairly good picture. It’s a long tale, though; you’d best make yourselves comfortable.”

The Earl suppressed another sigh and leaned against the door. Mr. Bramingham, looking mildly puzzled, held a chair for Renée D’Auber, while the rest of the company (with the exception of Stuggs and his prisoners) settled themselves around the room. Watching Lady Granleigh and Jonathan Aberford vie for a chair, Kim was glad she’d bagged the footstool before it had occurred to anyone else to sit down.

“The story begins about five years ago,” Mairelon said, and Kim smiled, recognizing the familiar lecturing tone. “The Saltash Set, of which this is part, was being displayed in the antechamber of the Royal College of Wizards, to which I had recently been elected.

“Lord St. Clair”—Mairelon gave him an ironic half-bow—“had for some time been attempting to obtain the Saltash Set from the College, but for one reason or another, the College refused to sell. So he decided to steal it. Having no experience with the finer points of theft, he approached his illegitimate half brother, Daniel Laverham, for assistance.

“Laverham sent St. Clair a young man named James Fenton, who I must suppose was both an accomplished housebreaker and extremely loyal to Laverham. Laverham, you see, disliked and distrusted St. Clair—”

“With reason!” Dan Laverham interrupted, glaring at Lord St. Clair.

“Quiet, you,” Stuggs said. “You’ll ’ave your chance to talk later.”

“St. Clair arranged for Fenton to steal the Saltash Set,” Mairelon continued. “St. Clair must have taken care of the Royal College’s magical precautions against theft, and Fenton did the rest, including dropping one or two items he’d stolen from me in the antechamber to make it look as if I were the thief. He had even timed things so that I’d be on my
way home alone from my club when the theft occurred, so he had no reason to worry about laying information at Bow Street against me.

“Unfortunately for St. Clair, things began going wrong at that point. I ran into Shoreham here outside the club, and we got to arguing about the use of invocations in wards and protective spells. We ended up at Renée’s, experimenting with catnip and powdered pearls until the watchmen made their morning rounds.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?” Andrew burst out. “Why did you let everyone believe—”

“At first, because I didn’t see the need,” Mairelon said. “I didn’t think anyone would take the accusation seriously. And there was Renée’s reputation to consider.”

“Which was a great foolishness,” Renée D’Auber said emphatically. “I am the eccentric, me, and no one pays the least attention when I do odd things.”

“Not
now
,” Mairelon agreed. “But five years ago you were barely eighteen, and it would not have done.”

“Bah!” said Renée, dismissing these imaginary terrors with a wave. “You are altogether English, and very silly besides. Papa and I would have contrived something.”

“But once you knew the Runners intended to arrest you—” Andrew said and stopped, looking from Mairelon to Renée uncertainly.

“By then I had asked them not to say anything,” the Earl of Shore-ham said. “It was the perfect excuse for Richard to fly the country and take up residence on the Continent, and we needed someone like him to do just that. Someone who could deal with any level of society, someone who wouldn’t look too suspicious, and above all, someone who knew magic. Richard was perfect.”

“So Hunch and I fled to France,” Mairelon resumed. “Meanwhile, Fenton took the Saltash Set to Laverham instead of St. Clair. Since Laverham didn’t know the set had magical properties, he broke it up and sold it to spite his brother. By the time Fenton learned that the set was more useful together than apart, it was too late. The pieces were scattered, and practically impossible to trace.”

Laverham and St. Clair were looking at Mairelon as if he had suddenly acquired two heads; the rest of the company was listening with rapt attention. Kim shook her head in admiration. Mairelon had put it together so neatly that he might have been eavesdropping on Laverham and St. Clair the whole time.

“One of the pieces of the set, the bowl, was purchased by a German Baron,” Mairelon said. “I got wind of it, and after the war I stayed on the Continent to track it down. It took me nearly a year. Meanwhile, Laverham had recovered two of the four spheres, and the platter had fallen into the innocent hands of Mr. Aberford’s little group.”

Jonathan Aberford scowled, and Kim wondered whether he was more annoyed by Mairelon’s reference to the druids as a “little group” or by his characterizing them as innocent.

“That was the situation some four weeks ago when I returned to England,” Mairelon said, giving Jonathan a charming smile. “And things began to get complicated. Naturally I couldn’t return as myself; the Runners were still after me, and I have a great deal of respect for their abilities.” He and Stuggs exchanged nods. “So I chose the role of a market performer. No one expects a real magician to work for pennies and the occasional shilling in a market, so I didn’t expect anyone to look for me there. But I did send word to Shoreham, and I presume he told you, Lord Granleigh.”

Mairelon paused and looked at Lord Granleigh expectantly. Lord Granleigh nodded. “He did. We discussed the implications at some length.” He glanced at his wife and added, “In my study.”

“That will be how Lady Granleigh heard about it,” Mairelon said with supreme lack of tact. “She, ah, persuaded her brother to help her find me, intending, I suppose, to collect me and as much of the Saltash Set as possible and present the lot to the Royal College on behalf of her husband.”