A Restless Truth (The Last Binding #2)

Chapter 15

15

Violet’s chance to confront Lord Hawthorn wasn’t far off. That afternoon they’d arranged for Ross to interview Violet for his article and use the opportunity for him to report back about his day’s findings. Maud sent one of the stewards with an invitation for Lord Hawthorn to join herself and Miss Debenham for a friendly game of quoits on the upper deck.

“Quoits,” said Hawthorn flatly, when he appeared.

Maud passed him one of the stiff rope rings. “Nice healthy exercise in the fresh air.”

The Pipes and Drums were giving a performance the next day. The faint wails and rattles of their distant rehearsal could be heard like a battle taking place on the other side of a mountain. But the air was, inarguably, fresh.

“A ride on a horse or a good session of singlestick would be exercise.”

“When I locate the Lyric ’s stables, Lord Hawthorn, I shall let you know.”

He tossed a quoit with a careless flick of his hand. To Maud’s annoyance, it landed directly on the pole. Ross and Violet broke from their conversation and turned to watch.

“Behold,” said Hawthorn. “I am participating. Now: what emergency has arisen that requires my help?”

Maud explained the itch of Violet’s neck and the red rune that had been visible and then vanished again.

“And it occurred to me,” said Violet, eyes hard on Hawthorn, “that I do know a magician, from a family expert in runes, who has had a recent opportunity to lay his hands on me.”

There was a long pause. Maud worried at the inside of her lip.

“I am not a magician,” said Hawthorn.

Violet laughed. “Of course you are. Even if you—”

“I am not. A magician.” Each word was quietly and deliberately placed. “Or do you suppose I’ve been lying about the absence of my own power for the past fourteen years?”

“I don’t know.” Violet leaned back to rest her elbows on the railing. The breeze played with the feathers of her hat. “Have you?”

Hawthorn smiled at her. It was a smile searching for bruises with the intent of pressing down. Maud found her hand clenched tight around her last quoit, the roughness of it digging into her palm.

“Naturally,” he said. “Because you abandoned your family and the society that raised you for no reason other than childish petulance, I’m sure nobody else could have a real reason to do so.”

Colour slashed across Violet’s cheeks.

“Violet,” said Maud hastily. “You can’t truly think Lord Hawthorn is one of the villains of this piece. The truth-candle, remember?”

Violet’s hand went protectively to her neck. “This might not have anything to do with your contract.”

“What, then?” Hawthorn dripped aristocratic disdain. “There’s nothing I want from you, Miss Debenham. And if I did, I wouldn’t need magic to get it.”

“Oh, fuck you,” snarled Violet.

“No, thank you.”

Ross gave a cough. His eyes shone with amusement. It was time to intervene before this disorder amongst Maud’s troops got out of hand.

She said, “These people rune-cursed my brother. I’m willing to assume they’re employing the same tricks now. Lord Hawthorn, I believe that you didn’t put any sort of rune on Violet, but can you think of what it might be designed to do?”

Hawthorn picked up another quoit and tossed it. Something about the motion suggested he was relieving his feelings by imagining an act of more satisfying personal violence. This one, too, landed with a perfect wobble and thump atop the pole.

“If it’s not there now, I can’t tell you anything,” he said. “Fetch me if it appears again. The circumstances, if that occurs, may give you more information. It sounds like it may only be visible when it’s activated.”

“ Activated? ” Violet’s voice rose.

Hawthorn looked hard at Maud. “Your game’s starting to become more real, isn’t it? A sleeping charm in my whisky. A rune laid on Violet with God-knows-what purpose.”

“It started with a dead body,” Maud said with more firmness than she felt. “It was never a game. I’m not…” No, that would have been a lie. “I am afraid, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not giving up.”

For all that was worth. Maud was the most useless member of her own group. Hawthorn had knowledge and experience; Ross had lockpicks; Violet was the only one with magic. And their enemies, whomever they were, clearly knew it.

She forced herself to say: “I’m sorry, Violet. I can’t insist that you keep putting yourself in danger.”

Violet let her hand fall from her neck. “If this is to do with whoever killed Mrs. Navenby, then it sounds like my best option is still to help you find them. So we can make them remove it.”

Too late, in other words. Maud let herself feel miserable with guilt for two heartbeats, then squared her shoulders. Violet was right. The only way to fix this was to see it through.

“Do I get to nobly refuse to desert my post as well? Or does the offer only apply to the officer class?”

All eyes turned to Ross. Fairness warred with desperation in Maud. She needed all the help she could muster. But the writer had even less chance of defending himself against magicians than Maud did.

“A pity. One really can’t find good staff these days,” murmured Hawthorn, so diamond-posh that he was clearly doing it on purpose.

“Up your arse,” said Ross, not looking at him. “I didn’t say I was turning tail. You think I’ve never been in danger before? Besides—you’ve paid me. I don’t give refunds. And I keep my end of a bargain, which is more than I expect from…” A wave of his hand in Hawthorn’s direction.

“Thank you, Mr. Ross. I assume you didn’t find anything this morning?” Maud asked him.

“Might have done.” Smugness crept in at the side of his expression. He looked like a particular cherub in a painting that Maud had always hated. She’d been very glad when Robin sold it, when they moved into a smaller townhouse; that cherub had always made her want to poke her finger through the canvas.

Now, she could have seized Alan Ross by the curls and planted a kiss on his angelic forehead for the eager leap of hope beneath her breastbone.

“You did? You found something?”

“One of the things on your list of silver was a dressing set. Hairbrush and mirror? Matching, with twirly bits on the back? I saw those. Didn’t see any of the other things you mentioned in the same room, though.” The smugness spread across his mouth. “Just some lovely pearls rolled up in a scarf and tucked away in a drawer. Asking to be nicked, in such a shoddy hiding place.”

“Where? Whose cabin? Tell me the number—no, you’ll have to show me, I can’t get in on my own. Or—Violet?” Maud turned her eyes hopefully.

“There’s probably more than one silver brush and mirror set on this ship, Maud,” said Violet. “And would your murderer really leave it out on display? Use it?”

“It was a woman’s cabin,” said Ross. “Travelling alone, I’d guess. There weren’t any men’s clothes.”

“Women can be murderers,” said Maud. Mrs. Sinclair would have been proud of such a bluestocking proclamation. “Come along, Mr. Ross. No time like the present. I’d know Mrs. Navenby’s set if I saw it again, so you’d better let me into this cabin to check.”

Ross did so. The cabin was on B Deck. Maud had a cover story prepared about gathering names and donations for a widows-and-children charity event in London—she could slip into the language of philanthropy as easily as Adelaide Morrissey lapsed into Punjabi when annoyed—but there was no response when she knocked on the door.

Then they had to wait a few minutes for the corridor to clear entirely, during which Ross wielded his notebook and asked Maud a series of earnest questions about how she would advise the White Star Line to improve the Lyric ’s accommodations. Perhaps there should be a small selection of books in each cabin, to save the lazy traveller the walk to the first-class library?

Maud agreed this would be a charming addition, and—“All clear,” she said, feeling thrillingly like a street gang’s lookout in a penny dreadful.

Ross tucked notebook and pen away, pulled lockpicks from the pocket of his waistcoat, and turned to open the door. Maud imagined him ducking in and out of cabins like this all day, casually letting himself into places he wasn’t allowed. Roaming first class with jewels stuffed into his messenger bag, ready to touch his cap and ask for a quote—and all the while knowing he was worth less, in the eyes of the security officers, than one of the lapdogs carried around by first-class passengers. No wonder he’d scoffed at the idea of quitting. He was probably carved from sheer solid daring.

As soon as the door clicked he stepped away, gave Maud a mocking little bow, and strolled off. If Maud were caught, it’d be best if nobody was given an excuse to search Alan Ross’s belongings.

Maud slipped inside the cabin and closed the door behind her. Her heart beat faster. She could be daring too.

There was a mustily floral smell in the air, lavender layered with mothballs and shoe polish and soap, that reminded Maud of Mrs. Navenby’s bedchamber back in New York. Perhaps her cabin would have smelled like this, too, if Mrs. Navenby had lived past the first day on board.

The thought shook Maud into action. The silver hairbrush and mirror set lay in plain view on the dresser, surrounded by a profusion of bottles and jars. Some looked likely to hold medicines; some scent; some various creams and unguents. Each label held rows of tiny black writing. The cabin’s occupant was either a nervous health fiend or extraordinarily anxious about her complexion.

But was she a magician? Or a killer? Or—the thought struck Maud like a raindrop in a puddle—had the real killer gone to the trouble of scattering the stolen items among the belongings of others to avoid suspicion?

No. That was daft. Strange accessories suddenly appearing in one’s cabin would cause just as much confusion and comment as theft, surely.

Unless they believed them to be a gift of the White Star Line. Complimentary for use, like the chess sets and playing cards.

The puddle of her mind was alive with idea-drops now, its surface roiling with them. Maud gave her head a quick shake. Concentrate, Maudie .

At first glance the hairbrush and mirror did look extraordinarily like the stolen ones. They were the right size, the right heaviness, the brush’s dark bristles a similar length and tangled lightly with greying hair.

Maud’s heart sank as she turned the mirror in her hand. Twirly bits on the back, as advertised. But the pattern was, while similar, not the correct one. Maud was certain of it. This was a false lead.

It was still worth pursuing, she told herself firmly, letting herself out of the cabin again. It was—

She stopped, her hand on the doorknob. Perhaps four yards away stood a man, heavyset and wearing workman’s clothes. The corridor was empty but for the two of them. He was star ing right at Maud, arrested as she was halfway out of a cabin that wasn’t her own, and just as Maud began to haul her best baronet’s-daughter, of-course-I-belong-here smile onto her mouth… the man’s hands moved against one another, cradling faster than she’d ever seen anyone do it before.

Maud had barely time to inhale before he dragged the brimming spell over his own face, which— melted .

Maud’s stomach lurched with the sheer wrongness of it. Instead of a face the man now had a swirling, no-coloured mist, the outline of his head only just visible as if viewed in a mirror in a steam-filled room.

She knew what this was. Robin had described illusion-masks to her; Walter Courcey had used one, as had the men who attacked Robin and cursed him when he first took over the liaison job.

But it wasn’t only this that caused Maud’s hand to tighten on the door handle. It was how the man’s eyes had looked in the moment before the mask obscured them: wide with surprise, and then narrow. And absolutely devoid of anything that Maud would call human emotion.

Fear rose in Maud like hot water, soaking her from toes to teeth.

The man turned on his heels and ran.

Maud made an abortive move after him, then stopped, thinking furiously about her map. If she gambled that the man was hoping to reach a service staircase—if she assumed he’d be avoiding the main areas, with his face so magically hidden—if she wanted to get there ahead of him, or at least stay close enough that she could see where he went—

Maud turned, gathering all her energy to dash in the opposite direction to the masked man.

She collided at once, painfully, with someone else.

“Pardon me!” Maud gasped, extricating herself. “Oh, I do beg your pardon, ma’am, I…”

The woman was no taller than Maud, round as a currant bun in both body and face. She looked so perfect and comfortable an old lady that she should be in advertisement for something—boiled sweets, perhaps, or slippers. She also looked startled, as well she might, and she pressed a wrinkled hand to her old-fashioned bodice as she looked from Maud to… oh, dear. The half-open door to the cabin.

The old woman took an enormous, quavering breath.

“ Thief! ” she warbled, with substantial volume for her age. “ Thief! Help! ”

“I’m not—” Maud said desperately, but she didn’t have time for this. Not if she was going to have any hope of staying on the masked man’s trail.

She dodged a blow from a brocade bag large enough to hold three knitting projects and an embroidery hoop, stammered another apology, and took off for the end of the corridor with the old woman’s yells still rising behind her.

“Thief! Over here! Someone stop that girl!”