Her Ladyship's Curse

Her Ladyship's Curse Page 22

He nodded. “Anyone who saw it would have treated her very badly.”

“Because you were a spy.”

“No, my dear,” he said. “Because the star was my mark. Because I was Houdini.”

I stared at the specter. “You’re Houdini.”

“I was.”

“Harry Houdini the escape artist,” I said. “The man no manacle, lock, or prison could hold. The greatest mage who ever lived. The supreme master of all the arts, shadow and light.”

He inclined his head.

I thumped the carri’s side panel three times with my fist and called out, “Stopping here.”

The cab came to a halt, and the driver jumped down and opened the door. “Can’t stop here, miss. ’Tis yet near a mile.”

I reached for my reticule. “I’m tired of riding with a lying jackass.”

“What did you call me?” the driver demanded.

“Not you,” I said, gesturing at Harry. “Him.”

“Perhaps I should have mentioned before,” my grandfather put in, “that no one but you can see or hear me.”

“What?” I turned on him. “So now you’re only haunting me?”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

I regarded the driver. “You see the man sitting in the seat across from me, don’t you?”

He ducked his head in. “I don’t see no man, miss.”

“He’s right there. Right in front of your nose.”

The driver pushed his cap back to scratch his pate. “I don’t drive them what been bespelled, miss. Naught but trouble they are.”

“Apologize and tell him to drive on before he shouts for a beater,” Harry suggested.

“I’m so very sorry,” I said to the driver. “I had a bit of a bump earlier, and now I’m seeing things that aren’t there.” I rested my head against the cushions. “If you would be so kind as to drive on, I’d be eternally grateful.”

“As you will, miss.” He shut the door and scrambled up top.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Harry said. “You get that from your grandmother, you know.”

I closed my eyes. “According to the documents I found in the city’s protected archives, I have no grandmother.”

“On the contrary, you’re named after my Charmian.” He crossed over and sat beside me. “How did you get into the archives?”

“I turned into a specter and walked right past the guards; got that one from you.” I looked at him. This close he seemed as solid and real as a living, breathing man. “Why are you haunting me, Harry?”

“I’m your guardian.” He waited until I stopped laughing before he added, “Well, I would have been if your father hadn’t meddled in things he didn’t understand. Nevertheless, I am most definitely not your enemy.”

“What do you want from me?”

“It’s the other way round, dear gel. You have only to call on me, and I will rush to your side.” He pulled down the window shade. “Unless it’s daylight outside, or course.”

I didn’t understand his aversion to sunlight. “But if you can’t go outside during the day, then where do you go?”

He gave me an inscrutable smile. “Beyond this realm.”

“So you spend all your days in the netherside, is that it?” I should have known he’d lie to me. “Do you perform there as the Great Houdini for all the other spirits, or do you just lie about doing nothing?”

“I don’t care for where I go.” He sniffed. “I would stay here if I could.”

“That’s it, then.” I picked up my reticule. “I’ve had more than enough nonsense for one night, Harry.”

“My birth name was Ehrich Weiss,” he said quickly, “and I was not an agent for the Crown.”

I loosened the ribbons and reached inside. “Your papers say differently.” As soon as my fingers touched my pendant, Harry promptly vanished.

Perhaps this was what Harvison meant; perhaps my pendant contained the power to chase off bloody stupid men who annoyed me beyond all measure.

“I need a few more of you,” I told the pendant, before I refastened its chain around my neck.

Once the driver reached my flat, he brought the cab to a stop, but he didn’t climb down to help me out. He also drove off before I could pay him, and the last thing I heard before he turned the corner were the protective curses he was chanting.

At noon on Friday I took a cab to the Silken Dream, where Bridget came to whisk me back to her private workroom and dress me herself.

“You look awful.” Bridget, dressed in a lavender gown that should have clashed with her red hair and somehow didn’t, looked marvelous. “Burning the candle in the middle as well as at both ends, are you?”

“Be nice to me,” I said. “Last time I was here, someone tried to cut my throat in your alley.”

“So the beaters told me.” She encircled my waist with a measuring lace. “Two snuffmages, and you without a scratch. Why am I not surprised?”

“I’ll have you know they gave me a very nasty cut.” I held up my arm. “The chief inspector personally bandaged it.”

“Rina said he did quite a bit more.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Was the bandaging before or after he let someone try to poison you with joy?”

“He didn’t know they’d try again at the Yard, or he would have stopped them. He’s a friend.” I wound my good arm through hers. “Just like you.”

“I can’t toss you in the gaol,” she chided. “Much as I want to these days . . .”

Bridget not only dressed me in the heavenly blue gown intended for the empty-pursed Lady Richmond, she had Sarah brush out the rat’s nest on my head and arranged it into a crown of shining, interlaced coils. I only protested when Bridget brought a jeweler’s case into the dressing room.

“You can’t bedeck me in baubles,” I told her. “Walsh believes I’m poor.”

“You are poor,” Bridget said flatly. “But you’re going to dine with one of the finest families on the Hill, so it will be assumed that you have enough connections to borrow something decent. Which you do. Now shut up.” She took out a small waterfall of liquid silver strands and draped them around my neck. “These are spun quicksilver. Don’t fuss with them or they’ll tangle.”

“I won’t breathe.” The slippery weight of the cool silver made me shiver, then I winced as she snapped two heavy clips on my earlobes. “I don’t like earbaubs.”

“One does not call perfectly matched snow pearls ‘earbaubs,’” she corrected, coming around to inspect my face. “Yes, that will do. Now a wristlet.”

Instead of more pearls or quicksilver she wound a snake made of small sapphires around my wrist. Its eyes had been fashioned from tiny clear globes, each containing an even tinier red glowworm.

I held my arm away. “This is too much. I’ll only smash it.”

“It’s warded, and you’ll wear it for me.” She cupped my face between my hands. “Or I’ll tell Charlie everything, and he’ll have his men whisk you onto a yacht bound for Bali before you can sneeze.”

“You wouldn’t.” Of course she would, and Charles would do anything to make her happy, even if it meant shipping my ass round the world ten times. “I can deal with the Walshes one more time.”

“You’d better,” she warned, “because after tonight, Rina won’t let you go within a mile of the Hill.” She kissed my cheek. “Nor will I.”

Once Bridget had sprayed me with a little of the outrageously dear French perfume she wore, she sent me off to the Hill in her own coach. I’d ridden in the crystal-sided coach once before, when she and Charlie had sent me home from their castle in it, but this time it felt different. Since real wealth was forever out of my reach, I’d never considered what it felt like to be treated like royalty on a regular basis. It was a bit like strolling about in a dream where nothing could touch or harm you.

My dream evaporated when I passed Dredmore’s coach coming from Walsh’s Folly. A terrible panic seized me at the thought of seeing him again, until I forced myself to breathe and relax. It had been a dream, nothing more, and he couldn’t assault me in front of the family.

A footman in tails and gloves leapt off the back of the coach and helped me down. He glanced at the house and murmured something in French about waiting for me.

Delightful as the ride had been, it had to end, so I smiled at him. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”

This time the butler was waiting outside the door for me. He watched Bridget’s coach depart and then gave me a somewhat creak-kneed, respectfully low bow.

“Mistress Kittredge, you are very welcome.”

It had to hurt the old winge to say that, so I merely nodded and let him usher me along like the fine lady I wasn’t.

The family had assembled this time in a larger reception room adjacent to the formal dining hall. The butler announced me at the door before discreetly withdrawing.

Lady Diana pounced on me, clamping her hands on mine. “It is so good of you to come,” she said, her voice as tight as her eyes were reddened and puffy from weeping. She turned to the side and beamed at her husband. “Darling, you remember Miss Kittredge.”

Nolan Sr. ignored me and glared at his wife. “I thought I’d made myself clear about visitors, Diana.”

“I asked Miss Kittredge to dine with us before we had that conversation, my dear,” she said. “She has been most helpful to me.”

“As what?” Montrose said. “Your procurer of men?”

“Forgive my brother, Miss Kittredge.” An older woman sitting beside Miranda rose. She had a narrow face and frizzled hair but kind eyes. “Stepmama?”

“Yes, ah, Miss Kittredge, this is Lady Laurana Walsh, my elder stepdaughter.”