Witches Incorporated (6 page)

Swallowing a groan, Melissande reached for her half-nibbled bread roll. She was fond of Monk’s sister, she really was, but for the last three weeks all Bibbie could talk about was the gross unfairness of Great-uncle Throgmorton’s will. And really, once you’d agreed fifty or sixty times about the unspeakable rottenness of mingy old men who were stuck in the middle of last century, what else was there to say? Apart from
Oh for the love of Saint Snodgrass, do shut up!
and that would only lead to unpleasantness… which wasn’t a good idea. They had enough on their plates without adding hurt feelings to the menu.

“I know, I know, it’s not fair,” said Monk, impatiently sympathetic. Then he turned. “The thing is, Mel, Great-uncle Throgmorton was a die-hard old fogie. Women as Decorative Objects, Seen but Seldom Heard, that kind of thing. Not to be trusted with money or property or anything remotely smelling of business.”

“Yes,” she replied, with heroic restraint. “Bibbie has mentioned that, in passing. Very outdated of him.”

“Still,” he added, “you’re welcome to come and live here with me, Bibbie. I already told you that. It’s a big house, we could rattle around in it together and never bump into each other from one week to the next.”

Bibbie pulled a face. “No, thank you very much. If you want someone to pick up your discarded socks and cook your meals and dust cobwebs off the ceilings then you can blasted well pay for the privilege, Monk. I have
no
intention of being your housekeeper.”

“What?” Monk adopted an air of wounded disbelief. “Bibs, how can you even suggest it?
I’m
not Aylesbury,
I’d
never treat you like that! I’m the
nice
brother, remember?”

Even though she was still cross, Bibbie smiled, a little. “Well. Nicer than Aylesbury, anyway,” she conceded. “But I’m still not moving in. You spend most of your time staggering about in a thaumaturgical haze. I’d have to start cooking and cleaning and picking up your socks out of self-preservation and I have
much
better things to do with myself.”

“That’s it, ducky,” said Reg, chortling on the back of the fourth dining chair. “You tell him.”

Now Monk was looking put out. “What better things?” he muttered. “It’s not like you’re solving the great metaphysical mysteries of our time, are you?”

Which was
exactly
the wrong thing to say. Melissande, wincing, debated pitching the remains of her dinner roll at him. Bibbie didn’t bother debating, she just went ahead and threw her untouched bread, hard.

“Hey!” said Monk indignantly as the missile whizzed past his head to explode in a shower of crumbs against the peeling-papered wall behind him. “Don’t do that!”

“I’ll do it if I want!” Bibbie retorted. “Every time you say something horrible I’ll throw something at you, I swear. Starting with bread rolls and working my way up to—to
elephants
! You’re just like Aylesbury, Monk. You’re as bad as Great-uncle Throggie, and if you think I’m going to sit here and—”

“Deary, deary me,” said Reg, sidling closer along the back of her chair. “I suppose this brings back fond family memories, does it?”

Melissande spared her a sharp glance. “No.”

But of course it did. Well. Memories, anyway. Most of them… difficult. Dinner in New Ottosland’s palace with Lional and Rupert, so often a volatile affair. Of course, then it had been Lional doing the throwing and the shouting with Rupert ducking and herself cast in the thankless role of peacemaker. Usually with very little success.

She felt her insides squeeze tight.
Lional
.

Enough time had gone by now that she could get through two or three whole days at a stretch without once thinking of him. Guilt and regret ambushed her less frequently. But the pain was still there, buried deep and lingering. She thought it might never completely go away. She wasn’t sure if she wanted it to. If the pain went away it might take Lional with it.

And whatever else he was
…
whatever he became
…
he was my brother and part of me still loves him. Still wants to love him.

Which was, perhaps, the hardest thing of all to reconcile.

Bibbie and Monk were still spatting, dredging up nursery-tales of cross and double-cross, of who got the biggest scone at tea-time and who was
never
allowed to stay up late on Fireworks Night and who
really
put the fizzing incant in Nanny’s sugar bowl which led to
everyone
getting spanked.

It was all so very
silly
.

Melissande picked up her nibbled dinner roll, pulled it in half and took aim at her business partner and her business partner’s brother, who was also her young man. At the moment. More or less. Sometimes, it seemed, far less than more. His Research and Development work for Ottosland’s government tended to swallow Monk alive, and hardly ever spat him out again. And even when they did spend time together, a part of his attention was always… somewhere else. Off in the ether. Reg called it the peril of being involved with a genius. For herself, she preferred to call it tactless.

She tossed the bread.

As one, brother and sister turned on her. “Don’t do that!” they chorused, and even though Bibbie was magnificently fair-haired and Monk was dashingly dark, they were in that moment of unified outrage as alike as two peas in a dilapidated pod.

“Why not?” she demanded. “You’re carrying on like five-year-olds, the pair of you, so why should I be left out? What are you fighting over, anyway? Monk’s already got a housekeeper, Bibbie.” She looked at him. “Haven’t you? You must have a housekeeper. I mean, you’ve got a butler. And obviously someone’s cooked dinner.” She waved a hand at the table, littered with their emptied bowls of mock turtle soup. “And I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine the footman who helped serve the first course. So obviously you’ve got hordes of servants catering to your every whim.”

“And huddling in corners making fun of you,” Reg added. “Don’t forget that. Better than a circus you are, sunshine.”

Monk gave her a dirty look then cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. The servants. The thing is…”

“They don’t belong to Monk,” said Bibbie. “Not this lot, at any rate.”

Melissande frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they aren’t the servants he inherited from Great-uncle Throgmorton. They’re on loan, every last one of them.”

“On
loan
?” she said blankly. “What are you talking about? Servants aren’t—aren’t
library books
. You don’t just
borrow
them.”

“Not usually, no,” said Monk, harassed. “It was an emergency.”

“So where did they come from?”

“Mother,” said Bibbie, and giggled.

“You borrowed your mother’s butler?” she said, incredulous. “And her footman? What about her cook?”

Monk hunched into his dinner jacket. “Yes, the cook too. Actually, the under-cook. I didn’t leave Mother to
starve
, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“But
why
? Honestly, Monk, you’re starting to sound like Gerald. What’s going on? What happened to the staff who came with the house?”

Reg hooted. “I’ll tell you what happened, madam. He scared them away, butler to boot boy, with his experiments and his smelly smoke.”

“Is that true, Monk?” Melissande demanded.
I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it.
Except that she did. This was Monk, after all. “Is that why every one of your great-uncle’s servants gave notice? Are you
experimenting
again?”

Now Monk was looking distinctly evasive. “Well—”

“You
are
!” she said, and leaned sideways to poke a finger in his shoulder. “
That’s
why you keep dashing out of the room, isn’t it? You’ve got one of your madcap inventions percolating somewhere in this house, haven’t you?”

Monk’s expression shifted from evasive to bolshy. “So what if I have? It’s what I
do
, Mel. I
invent
things.”

“Things that get you into a lot of trouble!”

“Things that save lives!” he retorted. “And expand our knowledge of the etheretic plane!”

“Things that aren’t sanctioned by the Department!” she groaned. “Things that get you hauled over the coals, put on probation and rapped over the knuckles till you can’t hold a pen! Monk, you raving
idiot
, are you out of your
mind
?”

“Of course he is,” said Reg. “Every last genius I ever met was both oars short of a rowboat. And even then you can’t trust them to paddle. Don’t see why your young man should be an exception.”

Melissande turned to Bibbie. “Did you know about this?”

Bibbie shrugged. “Of course.”

“And you didn’t try to
stop
him?”

“Stop him?” echoed Bibbie, eyebrows raised. “Why would I stop him? You heard him, Melissande. Inventing is what Monk does.”

Very carefully, Melissande folded her hands and rested them on the dingy white tablecloth.
Saint Snodgrass, I beg you, give me strength… “
Monk, as a recent beneficiary of your illegal inventing I suppose I shouldn’t criticise, but
honestly
. I do wish you’d think
first
and invent
later
. The stink from what happened in New Ottosland has barely evaporated. You’ve only just been released from probation. So
why
would you risk running foul of the Department again so soon after—”

“I’m not risking anything!” said Monk, defensive. His untidy black hair flopped over his eyes. As a rule she found it appealing, but now it annoyed her. He was hiding. “Because I
am
off probation, and that means I’m free to—”

“Frighten a bunch of servants with your thaumaturgical shenanigans!”

“Mel, I’m
telling
you, the domestic staff quitting has nothing to do with me!” said Monk. “It’s Great-uncle Throgmorton’s fault. He won’t leave.”

Bibbie sat back, staring. “What do you mean, he won’t leave? He’s dead, Monk. He left weeks ago.”

“Huh,” said Monk. “That’s what
you
think.”

Melissande exchanged a look with Reg. The wretched bird dropped one eyelid in a rollicking wink, clearly prepared to take her entertainment where she could find it.

Much help you are, Reg. Thanks ever so.

She turned back to her perplexing and frequently infuriating young man. “Are you saying the house is
haunted
, Monk?”

Monk slumped. “I think so. Yes. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.”

“But that’s silly,” said Bibbie. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, every wizard worth his staff knows that.”

“Well, someone forgot to tell Great-uncle Throgmorton,” said Monk morosely. “Because the boot boy swore blind the old geezer kicked him down the scullery stairs. Cook claimed he flattened five soufflés in a row. And both the parlour-maids were certain he pushed them out of bed. Twice! Sadie said he pushed her into the
chamber pot
—which she
hadn’t
got around to emptying. So everyone quit, which is why I had to ask Mother to lend me some of her people. But she can’t spare them for more than a few days because Father’s invited the High Hantofeermi of Tetin to stay with us after next week’s international symposium. And even if she hadn’t, and I could keep them, there’s
already
been muttering and they only got here this morning. I very much doubt this lot will stay the night. Oh, Bibbie—” He turned to his sister, beseeching. “I do wish you’d move in. You know how Great-uncle Throgmorton felt about
gels
. He’d run away screaming if he thought he’d have to share the house with you.”

“Well, Monk, flattered as I am by your generous offer,” said Bibbie, pink with crossness, “I’ll have to decline.”

“Decline?” Monk was almost wailing. “But
why
? I mean, you could have your own work room here, Bibs. You know you miss having your own work room. And I wouldn’t keep coming in telling you how you’re doing it all wrong, like Father always does. Why
wouldn’t
you want to move in?”

“Why?” Bibbie echoed. “I swear, Monk, for a genius you can be
such
an idiot. Because I’ve only just moved out of one family home, that’s why, and I’m not the least bit inclined to move into another. I like being on my own, thank you very much.”

“But you’re not on your own,” Monk objected. “You’re sardined in that boarding house with a bunch of other girls. Every time you turn around you’re tripping over one of them, you said so yourself.”

“Maybe I am,” said Bibbie, her colour still heightened, “but the point is, Monk, that not one of them is related to me and that’s as good as being on my own.”

Reg chuckled. “That’s the way, ducky. Twist the knife. The only good brother is a squirming brother.”

“And another thing,” said Bibbie, with a pleased nod at Reg. “Great-uncle Throgmorton left you
two
houses—this one and the terrace in Pilkington Mews. But I don’t seem to recall you asking me if I’d like to live there. If you’re so worried about me turning into a sardine, why not hand over its front door key right now?”

Monk was gaping. “How can I, Bibbie? You know the terms of the old fogie’s bequest!
Gels cannot be permitted to set up their own establishments.
I might not agree with him, in fact you know I don’t, but I’m stuck with his instructions.”