Bewitching Season (25 page)

“Cards?” Persy put a hand to her forehead. “My head is starting to ache so. Just the
thought
of

cards makes it worse. And my stomach …” She gulped some air as Charles had once taught her and

emitted a satisfactorily disgusting belch. Mama jumped and looked alarmed.

“I don’t think you want her at the Lyons’ dinner if she’s going to keep doing
that,”
Charles

commented with an air of ghoulish interest. “It’s positively horripilatious.”

“But …” Mama sat down next to Persy and felt her forehead. “You do feel rather clammy.”

“Perhaps I ought to stay home tonight. If I rest tonight and tomorrow, then I should feel better in

time for that ball tomorrow,” Persy suggested.

“Oh dear. Dorothy Gilley will be disappointed. And tomorrow we had some calls and some

shopping planned. But you are probably right. You cannot go to the Lyons’ if you’re in danger of—

well, you know what I mean. Why don’t you go have a lie-down, dear? You have been working so

hard tutoring your brother along with everything else that it is no wonder you’re feeling seedy.”

“I’ll help her up to her room,” Charles said, rising and offering Persy his good arm with a

solicitous expression that nearly convulsed her.

Lady Parthenope looked misty-eyed. “Thank you for being so concerned about your sister. You are

all such good, dutiful children.” She patted his shoulder, touched Persy’s cheek gently, and shooed

them from the room.

Persy was torn between guilt and laughter. She managed to hold in the latter until they were up the

stairs and out of their mother’s earshot. “You ought to be on the stage, you little devil!” she whispered

at her brother.

“Good, aren’t I?” He grinned. “You weren’t bad, either. Bet you never thought you’d be glad I

taught you how to burp on command. Maybe Eton’s been worth it after all. Right, then. Tonight while

they’re all out we’ll get your disguise ready, and tomorrow while they’re shopping we’ll go to

Kensington.”

13

T
he next afternoon, a pair of boys strolled down the path from the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens

toward the warm redbrick façade of the palace. The taller of the two boys held a dripping model

sailboat tightly to his chest. He walked with small, hesitant steps, which seemed to irritate his

companion.

“You’re not wearing a dress anymore, Perse! You’ve got to walk like a boy now,” Charles

muttered from the corner of his mouth.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Persy hissed back at him. “I feel practically undressed. It’s hard to get

used to having bare legs.”

It was also hard to get used to the neckerchief tied untidily around her neck and the disreputable

felt hat pulled down over her ears to hide her hair. Charles had given her one of his arm bandages to

bind her chest with, but it felt very strange not to be wearing a corset in public. And the trousers had

been abstracted from Papa’s dressing room after a breathless few moments hiding from his valet,

because Charles’s had proved far too snug. Not that Papa’s fit her terribly well.

“They’re not bare. You’ve got to try, Persy. That’s better. How about a little swagger, like this?”

Charles demonstrated.

Persy giggled, and he shushed her. “Stop that! Boys don’t giggle. You’d better just be quiet, and let

me do the talking if we have to.”

“All right,” Persy replied in as deep a voice as she could.

Charles giggled.

“I thought you said boys don’t giggle?” Persy croaked.

“I can’t help it. You sound like a bullock with the quinsy.” He gave her a small shove. She bumped

into him and put out her tongue at him. This was actually starting to be a little fun.

“That’s better. Now we look like boys.” Charles kicked Persy in the shins.

“Ow! Do we have to be quite so realistic?”

“Yes. You can do it too—ow! Not
that
hard! Let’s go this way. I don’t see any doors here.”

Persy looked up at the looming building. “Ally could be behind any of those windows,” she

murmured, and clutched the boat harder.

“That’s what we’re here to find out.” Charles trudged purposefully along. Persy broke into a trot to

keep up with him.

If anyone had told her just yesterday how differently the sexes moved, she would have scoffed. But

now, unencumbered by corsets and layers of petticoats and long skirts, she could well understand the

difference. There was a very good reason women and girls didn’t run, with their lungs constricted and

their legs hampered. Her new freedom was a little frightening, but given time, she thought that she

could get used to it. Very used to it. In fact, she was not looking forward to resuming her regular mode

of dress, and she knew that she would always have the memory of this freedom in the back of her

mind somewhere whenever Andrews laced her into a ball gown.

As they rounded a corner to another wing of the palace Charles nudged her. “There,” he said,

pointing with his chin at a small door. “It’s not a main entrance, so there aren’t likely to be a lot of

people around it.”

“But it’s more likely to be locked,” Persy said, squinting.

“So? I’ll bet you can open it. And it’s in a sort of angle of the building, so we won’t be as

noticeable. Come on. We can put the boat in those bushes there, and come back for it when we’re

through.” He looked around them, and Persy was grateful that gathering clouds had kept many

strollers from the gardens that day. Would anyone notice a pair of boys trying to open a door into a

royal palace?

“Charles! Wait a minute. I just thought of something.” She dumped the boat into a bush and took him

by the shoulders.

“What?”

“Don’t wiggle. I’m going to see if I can put a cloaking spell over us both.”

Charles gaped at her. “A cloaking spell? When did Ally teach you that?”

“She didn’t. I learned it on my own. It’s easy to cast but takes a lot of energy to maintain. I’m not

sure if I can do it for both of us. Perhaps if we stay close, or hold hands …” She closed her eyes and

muttered the words she’d read in one of Ally’s grimoires. All at once a slight stuffiness surrounded

her, and the twittering of birds and distant clomp and clatter of a passing carriage in the lane beyond

the palace sounded muffled, as if there were a blanket over her head.

Charles’s eyes widened. “I think it worked,” he whispered. “Are we invisible? Does it cloak

sound, too?”

“I’m not sure. The book wasn’t clear on that point. We’d better be quiet, though, just in case it

doesn’t. And no, we’re not invisible. We’re just very difficult to see. If someone were looking for us,

they’d be able to find us.” She held on to his good hand and pulled him to the door. “You’d better

hold on to me because the cloaking spell might not work if you let go, and I may need both hands to

open this.”

Charles nodded and put his hand on her shoulder, and they both turned to examine the door. No

keyhole, so it must bolt from the inside. Persy breathed out a sigh of relief. “This will be easier than

trying to enchant a lock. All I have to do is move the latch, or bolt, or whatever it is.”

“Without seeing it?” Charles sounded skeptical.

“I may not be able to see it, but I know it’s there. What it is isn’t important. It’s what I do with it

that is. You’ve heard Ally say that many times. I’m not enchanting the latch so that it will move. I’m

exerting my will to cause the door to do what I want, which is to open. How it chooses to do that is

up to it. Do you understand?”

“Um, what if it decides to open by exploding, or falling to pieces or something?” Charles’s eyes

swiveled nervously around.

“It won’t. A door is meant to open and close. That’s its purpose. I’m just asking it to fulfill that

purpose. It wouldn’t open by exploding, because then it wouldn’t be able to open and close anymore.

Of course, if someone else were standing on the other side, willing it to stay shut, it might crack or

splinter under the strain. We never tried anything like that with Ally, because she said it was a cruel

thing to do to a poor inanimate object that couldn’t help itself. Now, do you want me to open this

door, or not?”

He still looked nervous, but nodded.

Persy turned back to the door and closed her eyes again. There was a faint grinding noise, as of

metal scraping against metal, and the door sagged open a crack. Persy turned to smile at Charles, and

almost lurched into him.

“Bravo, Perse!” Charles hissed. “Hey, what is it? Are you ill?” He pushed her upright.

“I just lost my balance. I’m all right,” Persy muttered and held on to his shoulder for a moment. She

had forgotten that she would be doing two spells at once, the cloaking and the opening. Sustaining

more than one spell at a time was doable, but it took a certain amount of concentration. She took a

deep breath, and the momentary dizziness subsided. “I’m fine. Let’s go in and get busy, shall we?”

They found themselves in a long corridor. Charles peered down its length. “What do you think,

Persy?”

“I think we need to open doors and look behind them. There’s no telling where she might be.”

Persy paused to make sure the cloaking spell still covered them.

“Right ho!” Charles tucked Persy’s hand under his good arm and pulled her down the hall to the

first door in sight.

The first half-dozen doors were disappointing. Most opened to reveal stacks of broken furniture, or

barrels and boxes, or merely emptiness and an odor of deceased mice. But at least no one came to

disturb their search. At the end of the corridor Persy opened a final door, revealing stairs. “None of

these rooms seems to be used for much. Let’s go up.”

“But at least we haven’t run into anyone down here.” Charles hung back.

“Don’t get all hen-hearted on me now, Chuckles. You were the one who wanted to come search the

palace while we had tea with the princess. Show some spinal fortitude, won’t you?” Persy tugged on

his hand. Had she and Charles changed places? After her timidity out of doors, she now felt a fierce

sort of joy at sneaking around the palace, at actually doing something about finding Ally instead of

moping at home.

Charles swallowed and followed her up the stairs, still clutching her arm. They had a brief moment

of terror when a hod-carrying footman suddenly appeared on the stairs above them, but he passed

them by without a glance.

“Golly, Perse!” Charles whispered after the footman’s footsteps could no longer be heard. “Your

spell’s a stunner.” But he maintained his death grip on her arm just the same.

The doors that lined this corridor were taller and more handsomely made. But again, most of the

rooms behind them, though also larger and obviously once intended for living in rather than storage,

were either empty or held a few pieces of dust-sheeted furniture. Their tall windows were covered

with moth-eaten velvet and brocade draperies, shutting out the light. There was an aura of neglect

about them that surprised Persy.

“This is where the heiress to the throne of England lives?” she muttered in disgust to Charles. “The

plaster was falling off the ceiling in that last one, and most of them have cracked panes in the

windows and at least a dozen mice or worse in each. Did you notice?”

“What about Princess Sophia’s rooms? Are they as shabby as this?” Charles asked.

“Well, no. But they smell old, and the plaster on the fireplace in her drawing room is stained as if

there’s a leak somewhere. It doesn’t seem to bother her.” Persy scowled at a loose floorboard in the

corridor. “But Princess Victoria should live someplace splendid and beautiful. It’s only right.”

“Maybe the king won’t let her.”

“No, that’s not true. Papa told us the king would like it if she lived at court so that she could learn

more about being a queen. It’s her mother and that dreadful Sir John Conroy who keep her here, so

that she won’t be exposed to any ‘evil influences.’ But I can’t think of any influence more evil than

damp and dry rot, can you?” She peeked behind another door, wrinkled her nose, and slammed it shut.

“Shh, Persy. You’re getting too loud.” Charles tugged on her arm.

How long had Papa said it had been since a king had lived in Kensington Palace? Eighty years? No

wonder it was falling into rack and ruin. It was a shame to let such a handsome old building

deteriorate like this. It was a royal residence, after all, and a historic one, too. Hadn’t William and

Mary lived here after the Glorious Revolution put them on the throne? And Queen Anne?

And now another queen lived here—or at least a queen-to-be, Persy reminded herself. But she was

half a prisoner in this tumbledown old building, thanks to the ambitions of her mother’s crafty

advisor. Persy remembered Sir John’s bold manner and the unpleasant quirk in his smile when they

met him in Princess Sophia’s apartment. Her fingers curled around the knob of the next door, and she