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A small inner voice was whispering to me, saying I’d better come to my senses, but Gideon’s lips and hands were telling me the opposite. So I can’t say how long it was before we moved apart and stared at each other, stunned.
“Why … why did you do that?” asked Gideon, breathing heavily. He seemed totally bewildered. He took a few steps back, almost swaying, as if to put as much distance between us as possible.
“What do you mean, why?” My heart was thudding so fast and so noisily that he could surely hear it. I glanced at the door. I’d probably only imagined the glimpse of a green dress that I thought I’d seen out of the corner of my eye, and the dress was still lying on the rug one floor lower down with Lady Lavinia inside it, waiting to be kissed awake.
Gideon had narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “But you…” With a couple of strides, he was at the window, pulling the curtains aside. There he went again—typical! No sooner did he do something … er, nice, than he had to do his best to spoil it as fast as possible.
“Looking for anything in particular?” I asked sarcastically. Of course there was no one behind the curtains now. My younger self had traveled back some time ago and would be just wondering where on earth she’d learnt to kiss so improbably well.
Gideon turned around again. The bewilderment had disappeared from his face, giving way to his usual arrogant expression. He leaned back against the windowsill with his arms folded. “What was all that in aid of, Gwyneth? A few seconds earlier, you were still looking at me as if you hated my guts.”
“I wanted—” I began, but then I thought better of it. “Why ask in that silly way? You’ve never told me why you kissed me either, have you?” A little defiantly, I added, “I just felt like it. And you didn’t have to go along with me.” Although then I’d probably have sunk right into the earth with shame.
Gideon’s eyes flashed. “You just felt like it?” he repeated, coming toward me again. “Damn it, Gwyneth! There are very good reasons why … For days now, I’ve been trying to … I mean, all this time…” He frowned, obviously annoyed by his own stammering. “Do you think I’m made of stone?” He said that in quite a loud voice.
I didn’t know what to say. And it was probably more of a rhetorical question. No, of course I didn’t think he was made of stone, but what in the world was that supposed to mean? The unfinished sentences before he asked it didn’t exactly make it any clearer, either. We looked at each other for a little while, and then he turned away and said, in a perfectly normal voice, “We must go. If we don’t get down to the cellar punctually, the whole plan will fail.”
Oh, yes, too true. The plan. The plan seeing us as potential murder victims who would conveniently disappear into thin air.
“Wild horses aren’t dragging me down there, not while Rakoczy’s lying over that desk, stoned out of his mind,” I said firmly.
“Look, first, he’ll be back on his feet again by now, and second, at least five of his men are waiting down there.” He put out his hand to me. “Come on, we must hurry. And there’s nothing to be afraid of; Alastair wouldn’t stand a chance against those Kurucs, even if he brought reinforcements with him. They can see in the dark like cats, and I’ve seen them do things with knives and swords that verge on magic.” He waited until I had put my hand in his, then smiled slightly, and added, “And I’m still here as well.”
But before we’d even started, Lavinia appeared in the doorway, and with her—as breathless as she was—the First Secretary in his bright parrot plumage.
“Ah, here they are. Both of them,” said Lavinia. She looked remarkably fit for someone who had been fainting away just now, if not quite as beautiful as before. Streaks of reddened skin showed through the layer of pale powder on her face. All that running up and down stairs must have made her break out in a sweat. There were spots of red on her plunging neckline too.
I was glad to see that Gideon didn’t even glance at her. “I know we’re late, Sir Alfred,” he said. “We were just on our way down.”
“That … won’t be necessary,” replied Alcott, gasping for air. “There’s been a little change of plan.”
He didn’t have to explain any further, because Lord Alastair came into the room after him, not in the least out of breath, but smiling unpleasantly.
“So we meet again,” he said. He was followed like a shadow by his ghostly black-clad ancestor, who instantly started uttering murderous threats. “May the unworthy die an unworthy death!” and so on. I’d nicknamed him Darth Vader when we last met, because of his hoarse voice, and I envied everyone else present, who could neither see him nor hear him. His dead beetle-black eyes fixed on us with sheer hatred in them.
Gideon bowed his head. “Lord Alastair, what a surprise.”
“Just as I intended,” said Lord Alastair, smiling smugly. “A surprise is what I wanted to give you.”
Almost imperceptibly, Gideon steered me farther into the corner, so that the desk was between us and the visitors, which didn’t make me feel much better, because it was a very fragile lady’s desk in the Rococo style. I’d rather it had been a good stout oak table.
“I understand you,” said Gideon politely.
I understood him too. The murder scene had obviously been simply shifted from the cellar to this pretty room, because the First Secretary was the traitor in the ranks of the Guardians and Lavinia was a snake in the grass. Simple, really. Instead of shaking with fear, I suddenly felt more like giggling. This was just too much for one day!
“But I thought you’d have been a little more discriminating in your murder plans, after getting the lines of descent of the time travelers into your hands,” said Gideon.
Lord Alastair made a dismissive gesture. “The family trees that the demon from the future brought us showed only that it is impossible to wipe out your lines of descent entirely,” he said. “I prefer the direct method.”
“Madame d’Urfé alone, the lady who lived at the court of the king of France, had so many descendants that it would take more than one human life to track them all down,” added the First Secretary. “Putting an end to you here and now seems to me an absolute necessity. If you hadn’t defended yourself so ably in Hyde Park the other day, it would all be over and done with now.”
moment, it occurred to me that he might simply have dropped Lavinia on the floor so that he could run after me, but it was no good: I was still feeling furious, or sad, or scared, or all of them together. I stumbled on up the stairs, blinded by tears, and into the next corridor.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Now Gideon was beside me, trying to take my hand.
“Anywhere! Away from you, that’s all,” I sobbed, running into the nearest room. Gideon followed me. Of course. I nearly passed my sleeve over my face to wipe away the tears, but I remembered Madame Rossini’s makeup at the last minute. I probably looked battered enough already. I glanced around the room, so as not to have to look at Gideon. Light from candles in brackets on the walls fell on the pretty furnishings, all in shades of gold. There was a sofa, a delicate little desk, a few chairs, a painting of a dead pheasant and some pears, a collection of exotic-looking sabers above the mantelpiece, and magnificent golden yellow curtains at the windows. For some reason, I had a sudden feeling that I’d been here before.
Gideon was standing in front of me, waiting.
