Ruby Red: Edelstein Trilogie 01 (18 page)

“She doesn’t know French,” said Gideon, also in French. “And she isn’t the girl you were expecting.”

“But how can that be?” The count shook his head. “All this is extremely [gap].”

“Unfortunately, the wrong girl was prepared for the [gap].”

Yes,
unfortunately.

“A mistake?”

“This is Gwyneth Shepherd, a cousin of the Charlotte Montrose I mentioned to you yesterday.”

“Ah, another granddaughter of Lord Montrose, the last [gap]. And thus a cousin of the [gap]?” Count Saint-Germain’s dark eyes were resting on me, and I began singing in my mind again.

Send her victorious, happy and glorious …

“It’s the [gap, gap] that I simply do not understand.”

“Our scientists say that it is perfectly possible for a genetic [gap] to—”

The count raised his hand to interrupt Gideon. “I know, I know! That may be so, according to the laws of science, but nonetheless, I do not feel happy about it.”

I shared his feelings.

“No French, then?” he asked, switching to German. I was a little better at German, or at least, my mark had been a regular B for four years now, but once again there were those annoying gaps in my vocabulary. “Why has she been so poorly prepared?”

“She hasn’t been prepared at all, sir. She speaks no foreign languages.” Gideon was speaking German too now. “And in every other respect, she is also entirely [gap]. Charlotte and Gwyneth were born on the same day. But everyone mistakenly assumed that Gwyneth was born a day later.”

“How could such a thing be overlooked?” Ah, at last I could understand every word again. They’d switched back to English, which the count spoke without a trace of foreign accent. “Why, I wonder, do I begin to feel that the Guardians of your time no longer take their work entirely seriously?”

“I think you’ll find the answer in this letter.” Gideon took a sealed envelope out of the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to the count.

A piercing glance rested on me.

… frustrate their knavish tricks, on thee our hopes we fix, God save us all …

I firmly avoided his dark eyes and looked at the other two men instead. Lord Brompton seemed to have as many gaps in his French and German vocabulary as I did (his mouth was slightly open above his many double chins, and he was looking a little foolish), and the other man, Rakoczy, was inspecting his fingernails closely.

He was still quite young, maybe around thirty, and he had dark hair and a thin, long face. He could have been quite good-looking, except that his lips were twisted as if he had a very nasty taste in his mouth and his skin was pale in an unhealthy kind of way.

I was just wondering whether he’d been putting pale gray powder on his face when he suddenly raised his eyes and looked straight at me. Those eyes were pitch-black, and I couldn’t see where their irises and pupils began and ended. There was an oddly dead look about them, although I couldn’t have explained why.

Automatically I went back to singing “God Save the Queen” in my head. Meanwhile the count had broken the seal and unfolded the letter, and with a sigh he began to read it. Now and then he raised his head and looked at me. I still hadn’t moved from the spot.

Not in this land alone, but be God’s mercies known …

What did the letter say? Who had written it? Lord Brompton and Rakoczy seemed to be very interested in it too. Lord Brompton was craning his fat neck to get a glimpse of the writing, while Rakoczy was concentrating more on the count’s face. Obviously the disgusted twist of Rakoczy’s mouth was permanent.

When he looked at me again, all the little hairs on my arms bristled. Those eyes of his were like black holes, and now I discovered why they seemed so dead. They didn’t reflect light; they didn’t have the bright sparkle that brings most people’s eyes to life. It wasn’t just peculiar, it was gruesome. I was glad there was a good five yards’ distance between those eyes and me.

“Your mother, my child, appears to be an unusually obstinate woman.” The count had finished reading the letter and was folding it up. “One can only speculate on her motives.” He came a couple of paces closer to me, and under his penetrating gaze, I couldn’t even remember the words of the national anthem anymore.

But then I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. The count was old. Although his eyes were bright and full of energy, his back was straight, and the sound of his voice was lively and youthful, you couldn’t miss the signs of old age. The skin on his face and hands was crumpled like parchment, blue veins showed through, and even under a layer of powder, the wrinkles on his face were obvious. His age made him look fragile. I almost felt sorry for him.

Anyway, all at once I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. He was only an old man, older than my own grandfather when I knew him.

“Gwyneth knows nothing about her mother’s motives or the events that have left us in this situation,” said Gideon. “She has no idea at all.”

“Strange, very strange,” said the count as he walked once all around me. “We really have never met before.”

Of course we hadn’t. How could we have met before?

“But you would not be here unless you were the Ruby.
Ruby red, with G major, the magic of the raven, brings the Circle of Twelve home into safe haven.
” When he had finished circling me, he stood before me and looked straight into my eyes. “What is your magic, girl?”

… from shore to shore, Lord make the nations see …

Oh, why was I bothering with this? He was only an old man. I ought to treat him politely and respectfully and not stare at him like a terrified rabbit in the presence of a snake.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“What is special about you? Tell me!”

What was special about me? Apart from the fact that for the last two days I’d been able to travel back to the past? Suddenly I could hear Aunt Glenda’s voice saying “Even when Charlotte was a baby, anyone could tell she was born for higher things. You can’t compare her with ordinary children.”

“I don’t think there’s anything special about me, sir.”

The count clicked his tongue. “You may be right. After all, it’s only a verse. A verse of doubtful origin.” He suddenly seemed to lose interest in me and turned back to Gideon. “My dear boy, I read here, with admiration, what you have already done. You have tracked Lancelot de Villiers down in Flanders! William de Villiers, Cecilia Woodville—the enchanting Aquamarine—and the twins I never met: you’ve ticked them all off the list. And just think, Lord Brompton, this young man even visited Madame Jeanne d’Urfé, née Pontcarré, in Paris and persuaded her to donate a little of her blood.”

“You mean the Madame d’Urfé to whom my father owed his friendship with Madame de Pompadour and ultimately with you as well?” asked Lord Brompton.

“The very same,” said the count. “I don’t know any other.”

“But Madame d’Urfé has been dead these last ten years.”

“Seven, to be precise,” said the count. “I was at the court of Margrave Charles of Ansbach at the time. I feel greatly drawn to the German states. The interest shown there in Freemasonry and alchemy is very gratifying. And as I was told many years ago, I shall die in Germany.”

“You’re just changing the subject,” said Lord Brompton. “How can this young man have visited Madame d’Urfé in Paris? Why, seven years ago he must still have been a child himself.”

“You persist in thinking along the wrong lines, my dear sir! Ask Gideon
when
he had the pleasure of asking for a drop of Madame d’Urfé’s blood.”

Lord Brompton looked inquiringly at Gideon.

“May 1759,” said Gideon.

His lordship uttered a shrill burst of laughter. “But that’s impossible. You can hardly be twenty years old now.”

The count laughed too, but with satisfaction. “So you met her in 1759. She never told me, old mystery-monger that she was.”

“You were in Paris yourself at the time, sir, but I had strict instructions not to cross your path.”

“On account of the continuum, yes, I know.” The count sighed. “Sometimes I am inclined to quarrel with my own rules.… But back to dear Jeanne. Did you have to use force? She wasn’t very cooperative with me.”

“So she told me,” said Gideon. “As well as the way you talked her into handing over the chronograph.”

“Talked her into it! She didn’t even know what a marvel she’d inherited from her grandmother. The poor device was lying around unused, unrecognized, in a dusty chest in an attic. Sooner or later, it would have been entirely forgotten. I rescued it and restored it to its former glory. And thanks to the figures of genius who will enter my Lodge in the future, it is still in working order today. That is little short of a miracle.”

“Madame d’Urfé also thought you were prepared to strangle her, just because she couldn’t remember her great-grandmother’s maiden name and date of birth.”

Strangle her? Yikes! How horrible was that?

“Quite so. Such gaps in our knowledge have cost me far too much time poring over old church records, when I could have put my mind to more important matters. Jeanne is a distinctly vindictive woman. Which makes it all the more remarkable that you persuaded her to cooperate.”

Gideon smiled. “It wasn’t easy. But I obviously struck her as trustworthy. I also danced the gavotte with her, and I listened patiently to her complaints of you.”

“How unjust. When it was I who nudged her in the direction of an exciting love affair with Casanova—and even if he was only after her money, a lot of other women envied her. What’s more, I shared my chronograph with her in a truly fraternal spirit. If it hadn’t been for me…” The count turned to me again, obviously brightening up. “An ungrateful female. I think she never really understood what was happening to her, poor old soul. Moreover, she felt insulted because her gemstone in the Circle of Twelve was only the citrine.
Why can you be Emerald and I’m only dull Citrine? No one who takes any pride in herself wears citrines these days!
” He chuckled. “She really was a very foolish creature. I wonder how often she traveled back in time in her old age. Maybe she stopped doing it entirely. She was never a greatly skilled time traveler anyway. Sometimes a whole month would pass before she disappeared. I’d say the female blood is considerably more sluggish than ours. Just as the female mind is inferior to the masculine intellect. Would you not agree with me, girl?”

Male chauvinist pig
, I was thinking as I kept my eyes cast down,
stupid, pompous, boring old chatterbox.
Oh, no! Was I crazy? I wasn’t supposed to be thinking of anything!

But obviously the count’s mind-reading skill wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, because he just chuckled again in a self-satisfied way. “Not particularly talkative, is she?” he remarked.

“She’s only shy,” said Gideon. “Timid.”

Intimidated would have been more like it.

“There are no shy women,” announced the count. “The modest way they cast their eyes down merely hides their naivety.”

I was fast coming to the conclusion that there was no need to feel afraid of
him.
He was only a self-satisfied old git who hated women and liked the sound of his own voice.

“You clearly do not hold a high opinion of the fair sex,” said Lord Brompton.

“Oh, I protest!” replied the count. “I adore women! Really. I just do not believe their intellect is capable of furthering the interests of mankind. That is why there is no place for women in my Lodge.” He favored his lordship with a beaming smile. “And for many men, I assure you, Lord Brompton, that is the crucial argument that causes them to seek membership themselves.”

“Yet the ladies love you! My father never tired of praising your success with the fair sex to the skies. We are told that women have always thrown themselves at your feet, here in London and also in Paris.”

The count fell silent at once, no doubt thinking of his days as a ladies’ man. Then he said, “Oh, it is not particularly difficult to beguile women and subdue them to your will, my dear sir. They’re all the same. If my mind were not on higher things, I would long ago have written a manual for gentlemen, advising them on the right way to handle women.”

I bet he would. I could think of a good title for it straight off.
Successful Strangulation, or How to Talk a Woman to Death.
I almost giggled. But then I realized that Rakoczy was watching me very intently, and my mood suddenly shifted.

I must be out of my mind! Those black eyes met mine for a second and then I looked down at the mosaic floor before my feet and tried to fight off the sense of panic threatening to overwhelm me. I knew for sure now that it wasn’t the count I had to beware of. But that was far from meaning that I could feel safe.

“This is all most entertaining,” said Lord Brompton. His double chins were quivering with delight. “You and your companions would have made good play actors, I’ll be bound. As my father said, my dear Saint-Germain, you could always come up with surprising stories. But I fear you can’t prove any of them. You haven’t yet performed a single trick for me.”