Magic most deadly, p.3
Magic Most Deadly, page 3
“Oh,” Maia said.
He smiled again, and this time there was real warmth in the smile rather than mere politeness. “You told me your name—at least your first name, and I met Miss Electra earlier and if she’s your sister I know your family name is Whitney—but I haven’t told you mine yet, even though you’ve been listening to me chattering on about all sorts of nonsense. I’m Lennox Davies. My friends call me Len.”
“How do you do,” Maia said automatically, then felt, once again, like a fool. What an absurd thing to say after the conversation they’d been having!
But once again Mr. Davies didn’t seem bothered by her stupidity. “I am very well indeed, Miss Whitney. Very well indeed.”
Death in the Dark
Len realized the smile on his face was real, not the practiced smirk of the fool-about-town he was supposed to act. He’d slipped out of character in the conversation as well—the questions were supposed to be silly, but something about Miss Whitney had struck a spark, and he’d found himself enjoying the back and forth too much. Dash it, he had only come out here because he thought there was a strong chance the papers were going to be exchanged tonight, and more likely outside than in, and bringing her a drink had made a good excuse for following her out. He’d expected her to say yes, she had come out here to be alone—she had that look about her—but she’d been too gracious, and the next thing he knew they were having a real conversation.
He wasn’t supposed to be a real person to anyone when he was on a job. What was he thinking?
Miss Whitney did look smashing in the moonlight. Her frock looked black out here, but he knew from earlier that it was a rich red frock that brought out the red in her otherwise brown hair. The simple style looked elegant on her tall, stately frame.
He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes, but he liked the wisdom and the patience behind them, not something one usually found in a woman of that age. Yet she wasn’t anywhere near stuffy or dull, either. He’d seen the humor in her at dinner, and she’d shown it again now.
In fact, if he was honest—which he always tried to be with himself, at least, since he couldn’t be with anyone else—he had been paying more attention to her in the ballroom than he had been to the rest of the crowd, and following her out had been a pleasure more than an excuse. He would have to be careful. This was no time to lose his head over a woman, no matter how engaging her smile or how well-spoken she was or how enchanting he found her laugh.
He tore his gaze away from her face in time to see a shadow slip out through one of the other windows opening onto the terrace a short distance behind Miss Whitney. He couldn’t make out details from this distance in the poor light, aside from the fact that it was a man, and of about average height and build. There was no woman with him, or Len might have suspected a tryst. As it was, he suspected this was the buyer of the papers, leaving for the meeting.
Len needed to follow him, but having engaged Miss Whitney in conversation he couldn’t very well bolt after the fellow without a word of explanation.
“I do beg your pardon, Miss Whitney, but I am suddenly finding myself in need of stretching my legs. Dashed long auto ride here this afternoon, y’see, and then sitting all through the meal. I think I’ll take a turn around the garden.”
Miss Whitney rose when he did. “I suppose I ought to return inside,” she said, not-quite-sighing. Len had the mad impulse to ask her to walk with him, as she was clearly much too proper to invite herself—but of course he couldn’t, since he wasn’t actually walking around the garden, but following a sneaking villain, who even now was crossing the lawn and heading toward the woods.
Len must have been too obvious in watching the fellow, or else missed his proper cue to respond to Miss Whitney’s statement, for she frowned and followed his line of sight to where the man was furtively skirting the edge of the lawn.
She looked at Len, looked back at the man, and looked at Len again, her brain clearly trying to work out what was going on.
Len hastened into an explanation that he hoped would satisfy. “You caught me, Miss Whitney. I saw this fellow creep out in a furtive way, and I think he might be stealing something from the Foys, or up to something unsavory. I don’t want to accuse him without proof, though, especially since there’s a chance he’s just a waiter sneaking out to meet his sweetheart, don’t you know, so I thought I might follow him and see what he’s up to before deciding on a course of action.”
To his surprise, a flash of something like excitement crossed Miss Whitney’s face. “Right!” she said. “Let’s go.”
“What—not you,” Len said, casting another agonized glance. The man was entering the fringe of the woods now. If he didn’t hurry, he’d lose him. “It could be dangerous.”
“I know these woods better than you, better than probably anyone else here, including Dan,” Maia said. “I can help you follow him without needing to use the trail, so that we can stay hidden. Besides, there’s no way I would let someone possibly steal from Julia and Dan and not try to stop them. If you don’t let me come with you, I’ll come alone.”
There was no more time to argue, and Len couldn’t very well use a spell on a non-magician to stop her, although really he wasn’t supposed to use spells even on other magicians, as that sort of thing was frowned upon by the High Council. Still, sometimes in his work he had to do the ungentlemanly thing.
Not in this case, though. There was no yielding in the laws against letting non-magicians find out about magic.
“Very well,” he said, giving in. He would just have to figure out a way to keep her from learning what was really going on while at the same time stopping the exchange of the papers. A dashed nuisance, but what could he do?
This was what came of letting oneself be distracted by a delightful woman.
Len stalked off the terrace, trusting Miss Whitney to keep up, only to find her moving briskly ahead of him.
“I say, hold up, if the fellow is watching from the trees he’ll see us!” he hissed, catching up to her.
“Not if it looks like we’re going elsewhere,” she said, veering from the path. “This will make it seem like we’re going to the glasshouse, but there’s a break in the treeline before we get there that will let us walk parallel to the path. If we’re quick enough, we can walk beside this man instead of following him, and we won’t have to worry about being seen.” She cast a quick glance at his feet. “So long as we can move quietly, that is.”
Len wasn’t about to tell her that there had been more than once that his life had depended on his ability to move quietly, and since he was still here, obviously it had worked, but his pride was ruffled.
Still, her plan was a good one, and enough to make him almost glad she had insisted on joining him. Had he been alone he could have used the chameleon spell to go unnoticed behind this chap, but this allowed him to save his strength for a bigger spell, should it be necessary to prevent the exchange of the papers.
How he was going to use any spell without Miss Whitney noticing was another matter, but he would face that challenge when and if it arose.
Against all reason, Len’s spirits lifted. Dire as the situation was, nothing made him feel more alive than using his wits and keeping on his toes, ready to jump one way or the other depending on the situation, everything on the line and no one to save his skin should he fail. This was what kept him in the job through the bleak times. This was why he could never quit to live the life of a leisured English gentleman, return to the family estate and settle down to raise a family and keep the Davies line going for another generation. No feeling in the world was better than this.
They had reached the gap in the trees by this point. It was narrow, but Miss Whitney turned sideways and slipped through without so much as a flutter of her skirt catching on the rough bark of the oak tree. Len hunched his shoulders, sucked in his stomach, and followed suit. He felt his back scrape against the tree a little, but considering how much broader he was than Miss Whitney, he wasn’t too terribly ashamed.
“Stay close,” she muttered, avoiding the hissing sibilants that would have come with a whisper. Dash it all, if only she were a magician, what an agent she would make! She had all the right instincts.
Len followed hard on her heels, admiring how quietly she stepped, never once cracking so much as a twig. He hoped she was as impressed with his ability to move silently. There were patches of moonlight filtering through the trees here and there, but for the most part it was instinct and training that kept him from tripping over roots or rocks or walking into branches.
They had gone about a hundred feet into the woods, in a particularly dense part with practically no light coming through the trees at all, when he heard the voices. Len stopped at once, resting a hand on Miss Whitney’s shoulder to stop her as well, though from the way she froze it seemed unnecessary—she must have heard them too.
The trees and the darkness hid the speakers from Len and Miss Whitney, but the words carried clearly through the air.
“Do you have them?”
The voice was exactly that hissing whisper that Miss Whitney had avoided so adroitly. It carried admirably on the still night, but was unfortunately stripped of anything that might identify the speaker. Len cursed silently and wished for a spell to help him see in the dark. Such things were considered highly dangerous—casting a spell on oneself was not as bad as casting a spell on another person, but still carried high risk—but he would have done it if he’d been a stronger magician. With his skills, though, he could only get halfway through before losing strength, and that would be a disaster.
He was back to trusting his wits and straining his ears. Ignoring Miss Whitney for the moment, he moved in the direction of the voice, stopping before he crossed the line of trees next to the path. He stayed in the deepest shadows, pressed tightly against a tree so that he couldn’t be seen. Unfortunately, that limited his ability to see as well—he could make out the outlines of three people, but nothing more. Still, at least now he was close enough to do something when the time came.
A presence at his elbow told him Miss Whitney had moved forward with him. He wished she’d stayed behind, but that would have been too much to hope for. She had already proven she was not the type to stay safe when dangerous deeds needed to be done. It was an admirable trait, but at the moment, one he wished she didn’t have.
“Of course I have them,” another voice answered the first. This was louder than the whisper, clearly male, and clearly nervous. “Do you have the money?”
That had to be Corbin. Selling the papers for money! Len clenched his fists. Alec—and Jamie—had paid for those papers with their lives, and Corbin would trade them for filthy lucre. He would wring the fellow’s neck—once the papers were secure. Until then, he would muster his patience.
“And who is this?” the whisperer hissed. “I thought we agreed no witnesses?”
“My valet,” Corbin said sullenly. “I’m not so stupid as to come alone. I know your reputation. He’s here to make sure you don’t kill me and take them without paying.”
“And how will he do that?”
“He has a pistol aimed at you.” Now Corbin sounded smug. “If you don’t follow through, he’ll shoot you.”
Len’s entire body stiffened. Firearms! This had gotten much more dangerous, especially for the silent woman at his side. He knew a spell to ruin the inner works of any gun, but how to cast it without Miss Whitney noticing?
“How clever of you,” the whisperer hissed. “But how do I know that you don’t intend to take my money and then have your man shoot me rather than give me the papers?”
“You’ll have to trust me,” Corbin said.
Len held back a snort. He held the intention of the gun-ruining spell firmly in his mind. Luckily it was too dark for Miss Whitney to clearly see his motions for casting the spell, but she might sense his movement. He would have to shape the incantation with his mouth and made the motions subtly with his hands, and hope that it was enough to work without Miss Whitney noticing anything odd. Breathing slowly and steadily, he opened his mouth to begin.
“Trust you? I think not,” the whisperer said. “And unfortunately for you, I have excellent night vision. I know exactly where your man is standing.”
“What does that matt—” Corbin began, when there was a loud “pop” and a brief flash of light followed instantly by a soft sigh, a crackle of branches, and a thump as the third outline crumpled to the ground.
Len went cold. He knew those sounds. The threads of the spell were lost as he frantically went over his options of how to salvage this mess and protect Miss Whitney who, the Lord be thanked, hadn’t moved a muscle since this entire thing started.
“What—Carter!” Corbin shouted.
“He is dead,” the whisperer said, and the lack of any emotion in that voice would have chilled Len’s blood if he hadn’t already been cold as ice. “You fool! You brought along a man to protect you who couldn’t see his target in the dark—or when his target was aiming a weapon at him in return. Now, give me those papers.”
“You killed him,” Corbin said, sounding stunned. “You killed my man.”
“I’ll kill you too if you don’t give me those papers.”
There was a softer “thump” as Corbin presumably tossed the case containing the papers at the whisperer.
“My thanks,” the hiss came. “Here is your reward.”
Len braced himself for another shot, but the noise this time was a jingle, as of coins in a pocket. There was another brief flash of light, as Corbin risked a torch in order to see what the whisperer had thrown to him. The light was aimed down, preventing Len from making out any details of the two remaining men, but he saw the glint of metal and heard the clinking of coins.
“What is this? This is just a few… Thirty silver shillings! That wasn’t what we agreed upon! Cheat! Cheat and murderer!”
“The proper payment for those who betray their own,” the whisperer said. “At least you have your life. I suggest you leave now, before I change my mind.”
Corbin swore horribly, but his fear was greater than his outrage, for eventually he turned, torched aimed at the ground before him, and crashed down the path away from Little Oaks. Len tensed his muscles. Now was the time—he would cast the spell to destroy the whisperer’s gun, spring out upon him, and wrest the papers from him. He began to mutter the incantation under his breath.
“Who’s there?”
In addition to excellent night vision, the whisperer appeared to have uncanny hearing. Len closed his mouth abruptly. For himself, he would risk getting shot, but he couldn’t run the chance of Miss Whitney being injured or killed. Despite Harrison’s warning of how important these papers were, despite his own burning desire to see Alec’s death avenged, despite his years of training, Len could not see another innocent life taken because of these papers—and because of his ineptitude.
The whisperer would return to Little Oaks. He had no reason to believe himself suspected. Len could track him down and regain the papers there.
He kept his mouth closed and his hands by his side, and stayed firmly behind his tree while the whisperer moved closer to the edge of the path, almost certainly looking for whoever or whatever had made the noise. Len wished he weren’t wearing a white shirt under his dinner jacket, but the tree protected him from even the whisperer’s excellent night vision, as after a few moments of scuffling about the whisperer, apparently satisfied, moved back up the path toward Little Oaks. They heard his footsteps retreating through the trees.
Still Len waited, and Miss Whitney with him, in case it was a trick, but at last, when the night creatures started up their usual chorus again, he breathed out and dared move.
“I say, Miss Whitney,” he said. “Are you all right?”
His mind still stunned by the events that had just occurred, he struggled to focus his attention on his companion, especially as she too seemed to have taken refuge behind a tree when the whispering murderer had looked for them. Len squinted, and it suddenly appeared as though a faint silver glow outlined Miss Whitney’s body. The moon must have come out from behind a cloud—but no, that didn’t make sense, either, as it had never gone behind one. What was this?
He shook his head. Whatever the cause, the faint light allowed him to see that at least Miss Whitney was still upright, albeit hanging on to a beech tree as though for dear life.
“I am not sure that I can move,” she said, her voice remarkably steady. “My body decided to stop obeying me the instant that one man fired—fired the—the gun.”
Len tried for a light tone. “Dashed good thing it decided to take charge by freezing, then.”
“Yes, it would have been rather inconvenient if it had decided to break into a foxtrot, wouldn’t it?” Miss Whitney’s giggle sounded dangerously close to a sob. Len recognized the signs of incipient hysteria, in part because he’d seen it in many people before now, men and women, and in part because he was feeling more than a little on edge himself.
“I say, Miss Whitney, this won’t do. Awfully sorry and all that, but we simply must pull ourselves together long enough to get back to the house.” He took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders, hoping the warmth would help to steady her.
She sobered. “You’re right. We must get help. That poor man! I should check … he might still be alive. If I can stop the bleeding while you get help …”
Len didn’t think there was any hope, but she was right, they should check. Not that he had any intention of leaving a lady with a dying man while he trotted off to fetch help! He wasn’t sure he even could get help. Where did his duty lie now? He had to recover those papers—would a dead body complicate or aid his mission?
“I don’t think it’s right for you to have to go near,” he said. “I can check him while you go find Foy and bring him here.”
“Nonsense,” she said, and she gave herself a shake and then moved past him, ducking under the low-hanging branches of the hemlock bordering the path. “I was a nurse for over two years during the war, Mr. Davies. I’ve seen dead and dying men plenty of times before now.”
