AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mother, I know who you are—come to my arms?
Lucy, I forgive you for abandoning me. Nothing can part us now? I must have made some funny kind of sound, and Gideon correctly interpreted it as the beginning of a fit of hysterics. He put his arm around my shoulders and supported me just at the right time, because my legs suddenly seemed about to give way.
“Maybe we should go into the drawing room?” suggested Lucy.
Good idea. If I remembered rightly, there were chairs to sit on in there.
The tea table wasn’t laid in the small, round room this time, but otherwise it was just like when we were last here, except that the flower arrangement had been replaced by delphiniums and stocks. A group of armchairs and delicate little straight-backed chairs stood in the bay window looking out on the street.
“Please sit down,” said Lady Tilney.
I dropped into one of the upholstered chintz armchairs, but the others stayed standing.
Lucy smiled at me. She came a step closer and looked as if she might stroke my hair. I nervously jumped up again. “I’m sorry we’re so wet. We never thought of bringing an umbrella,” I babbled.
Lucy’s smile widened. “What does Lady Arista always say?”
I couldn’t keep back a grin. “Child, I won’t have you soaking my good cushions!” we said in chorus. Suddenly Lucy’s expression changed. Now she looked like bursting into tears.
“I’ll ring for some tea,” said Lady Tilney in matter-of-fact tones, picking up a little bell. “Peppermint tea with plenty of sugar and hot lemon.”
“No, please!” Gideon despairingly shook his head. “We can’t stop for that. I don’t know for sure if I’ve picked the right time, but I very much hope that, from your point of view, my meeting with Paul in 1782 has already taken place.”
Lucy, who had recovered her composure, slowly nodded, and Gideon breathed a sigh of relief. “Then you’ll know that you gave me the count’s secret papers. It took us a little time to work out everything they told us, but now we know that the philosopher’s stone is not a cure for all diseases, it’s just supposed to make the count immortal forever.”
“And his immortality comes to an end the moment Gwyneth is born, right?” whispered Lucy. “Which is why he’ll try to kill her as soon as the Circle is closed?”
Gideon nodded, but I looked at him in some annoyance. We hadn’t had time to discuss those details properly yet. However, this didn’t seem the right time for it, because he was already going on. “Everything you two did was to protect Gwyneth.”
“You see, Luce? I told you so.” Paul had appeared in the doorway. He was wearing his arm in a sling, and as he came closer, his amber eyes were moving back and forth between Gideon, Lucy, and me.
I held my breath. He looked only a few years older than me, and in normal life, I’d have thought he looked brilliant with that raven-black hair, the unusual de Villiers eyes, and the little dimple in his chin. I supposed he couldn’t help the side-whiskers. It was probably the fashion for men at this period. But side-whiskers or no side-whiskers, he really didn’t look old enough to be my father, or anyone’s father, in fact.
“Sometimes trusting people in advance pays off,” he said, looking Gideon up and down. “Even people like this young ruffian.”
“And sometimes you just get outrageous good luck,” Lucy snapped at him. She turned to Gideon. “I’m very grateful to you for saving Paul’s life, Gideon,” she said with dignity. “If you hadn’t happened to be passing, he’d be dead now.”
“You always exaggerate, Lucy.” Paul made a face. “I’d have thought of a way to get out of the hole I was in.”
“Sure,” said Gideon, with a grin.
Paul frowned, but then he grinned as well. “Okay, maybe not. Alastair is a crafty so-and-so, and a damn good swordsman. And then there were three of them! If I ever meet him again—”
“That’s not very likely,” I murmured, and when Paul looked at me with a question in his eyes, I added, “Gideon pinned him to the wallpaper with a saber a bit later in 1782. Even if Rakoczy found him in time, I don’t think he’ll have survived that evening for long.”
Lady Tilney sank into a chair. “Pinned him to the wallpaper with a saber!” she repeated. “How barbaric!”
“No more than that psychopath deserved.” Paul put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder.
“Definitely,” Gideon quietly agreed.
“Oh, I’m so relieved,” said Lucy, her eyes on my face. “Now that you know the count is planning to kill Gwyneth when the Circle closes, it will never happen!” Paul was going to add something, but she went straight on. “With those papers, surely Grandpa can finally convince the Guardians that we were right and the count never had the welfare of mankind at heart, only his own. And those idiotic Guardians, particularly the repulsive Marley, won’t be able to dismiss the evidence out of hand anymore. Huh! Dragging the memory of Count Saint-Germain through the dirt, were we? He wasn’t even a real count, just an out-and-out villain, and oh—like I said, I’m so relieved, so very, very relieved!” She took a deep breath, giving the impression that she could go on and on like this for hours, but Paul put his arm around her.
“You see, Princess? It will all turn out all right,” he whispered gently, and although he wasn’t talking to me, for some strange reason, it brought me literally to the brink of tears. However hard I tried, I couldn’t hold them back.
“But it won’t,” I burst out, and never mind about drenching the cushions, I dropped into the nearest chair. “It won’t all turn out all right. Grandpa’s been dead for six years, and he can’t help us now.”
Lucy crouched down in front of me. “Don’t cry,” she said helplessly. But she was crying herself. “Darling, you mustn’t cry like that, it’s not good for the…” she sobbed. “His heart, I suppose? I was always telling him to lay off those buttercream cakes.…”
