AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Although maybe Lady Arista is right, and gambling is the root of all evil,” I went on. I was in my element now. “At first we played for sherbet lemons, but now the stakes are higher. My brother lost all his pocket money last week. My word, if Lady Arista got to hear about that…” I leaned even farther forward and looked deep into Gideon’s eyes. “But don’t let Charlotte know, or she’d tell tales of us. I’d sooner she invented stories about stolen chronographs!” I sat up straight again, feeling extremely pleased with myself.
Gideon was still looking impressed. He gazed at me for a while in silence, and then he suddenly put out his hand and stroked my hair, which wrecked my self-control right away.
“Stop that!” He really was trying every trick in the book! Bastard. “What do you want here anyway? I don’t need company.” Unfortunately it didn’t sound as venomous as I’d intended, more like rather pathetic. “Shouldn’t you be traveling around on secret missions, getting blood out of people?”
“You mean Operation Trunk-hose yesterday evening?” He had stopped the stroking, but now he took a strand of my hair in his fingers and played with it. “Mission accomplished. Elaine Burghley’s blood is in the chronograph.” For a couple of seconds, he stared past me into space, looking sad. Then he had control of himself again. “So all we need is blood from the obstinate Lady Tilney, Lucy, and Paul. But now that we know what time Paul and Lucy are living in, and under what names, that’s only a formality. In fact, I’m going to see Lady Tilney tomorrow morning.”
“I thought you’d had some doubts about the aims we’re all supposed to be pursuing,” I said, freeing my hair from his hand. “Suppose Lucy and Paul are right, and the Circle of Blood should never be closed? You did say that was a possibility.”
“Correct. But I’m not about to say so to the Guardians. You’re the only person I’ve told.”
Oh, what a cunning psychological move! You’re the only one I trust.
But I could be cunning as well if I wanted. (I only had to remember the poker story.) “Lucy and Paul said the count can’t be trusted. Do you think so too?”
Gideon shook his head. Suddenly his face was serious, and he looked tensed up. “No. I don’t think he’s evil. I just think…” He hesitated. “I think he considers the welfare of an individual less important than the common good.”
“Including his own welfare?”
He didn’t reply to that, but put out his hand again. This time he wound my strand of hair around his finger as if around a curler. Finally he said, “Suppose you could develop something sensational, for example—well, let’s say a cure for cancer and AIDS and all the other diseases in the world. But to get hold of it, you had to let someone die. Would you do that?”
Let someone die? Was that why Lucy and Paul had stolen the chronograph? Because they thought the price to be paid was too high, I heard my mother’s voice saying. Was the price a human life? I instantly had vivid scenes from films before my eyes, with crosses hanging upside down, human sacrifices on an altar, hooded men murmuring Babylonian incantations. Although that didn’t seem quite right for the Guardians—maybe with one or two exceptions.
Gideon was looking at me expectantly.
“Sacrifice one human life to save many others?” I murmured. “I don’t think the price for curing all those dreadful things would be too high, if you look at it from a practical viewpoint, I mean. How about you?”
Gideon said nothing for quite a long time. He just let his eyes wander over my face and went on playing with my strand of hair. “Yes, I do think it would be too high,” he finally said. “The end doesn’t always justify the means.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to carry on doing what the count tells you to do?” I burst out with that—admittedly not very subtly. “Like playing with my feelings, for instance? Or with my hair?”
Gideon took his hand out of my hair and looked at it in surprise, as if it didn’t belong to him. “I didn’t … the count didn’t tell me to play with your feelings.”
“Oh, no?” All of a sudden, I was furiously angry with him. “Well, he more or less told me he did. Oh, come on! He was impressed, he said, to see how well you’d played your part, when you’d had so little time to manipulate my feelings—and when, stupidly, you’d put so much energy into working on the wrong victim, meaning Charlotte.”
Gideon sighed and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “The count and I did have a few conversations about … well, the things men do talk about. His view is—and please remember, the man lived over two hundred years ago, so we might take that into account—his view was that women are ruled solely by their emotions, whereas men let reason guide them. So it would be better for me if my female partner in time travel were in love with me, and then I could control what she did if there was any difficulty. I thought—”
“You thought!” I interrupted him angrily. “You thought: right, so I’ll see about getting that to work as well!”
Gideon unwound his long legs, stood up, and began pacing up and down the room. For some reason or other, he suddenly looked upset. “Gwyneth, I didn’t make you do anything, did I? In fact, I’ve often been pretty lousy to you.”
I stared at him, speechless for a moment. “And I’m supposed to be grateful to you for that, am I?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Or rather, yes.”
“What does that mean?”
His eyes flashed at me. “Why do girls fancy guys who treat them badly? Obviously nice types aren’t half so interesting. That sometimes makes it difficult to preserve your respect for girls.” He was still prowling up and down the room, with long, almost angry strides. “Especially as boys with jug ears and spots don’t take liberties nearly so often.”
“You’re just so cynical and superficial.” I was totally baffled by the turn this conversation had suddenly taken.
Gideon shrugged his shoulders. “Who’s being superficial here, I wonder? Or would you have let Marley kiss you?”
For a moment, I was genuinely put off my stroke. Maybe there was a tiny, very tiny grain of truth in what he said.… But then I shook my head. “You’ve forgotten something in your impressive chain of reasoning. In spite of your spot-free appearance—oh, and congratulations on your healthy sense of self-confidence—I wouldn’t have let you kiss me if you hadn’t lied to me and pretended to have real feelings for me.” All of a sudden, tears shot into my eyes. But I went on, even though my voice was unsteady. “I wouldn’t … wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.” Or even if I had, I wouldn’t have let it show.
Gideon turned away from me. For a moment, he stood there motionless, then he suddenly kicked the wall with all his might. “Damn it, Gwyneth, have you been so scrupulous about the truth with me? You lied to me whenever you could, isn’t that more like it?”
As I was looking for an answer—he really was an expert at turning the tables—the familiar old dizzy sensation came over me, and this time it made me sick to my stomach. Horrified, I clutched Anna Karenina to my breast. It was probably too late to pack up the basket.
