His Lordship Possessed Read online

Page 10

 

  “But you didn’t tell the mayor that,” I guessed.

  “After I assured His Honor that I had dispelled the spirit from the premises, I discreetly arranged for the mayor’s opponent to withdraw from the election. ” He sat back on his heels and watched the flames catch. “Directly after that, he and his aide left Rumsen. ”

  He hadn’t killed them, as everyone had believed. “You blackmailed him. ”

  “I persuaded him to relocate to a city in the east where he might enjoy more success in the political arena. ” He rose and brushed some melting snow from his shoulders before regarding me. “Why are you smiling at me like that?”

  “You don’t believe in magic any more than I do. ” And now I had proof of it. “You’re an investigator like me. You only dress it up with spells and nonsense to hide your methods. So how did you disguise the blade you used on the snuffmage outside court? Was it some sort of trick, like the way you pretended to pop through the floors at Morehaven?”

  “Come here, Charmian. ” He removed a dust drape from a cushiony lady’s armchair by the fire and gestured for me to take a seat in it. When I did, he said, “I will answer your questions, but you must first do something for me. ”

  My first, automatic response was to refuse, but Dredmore had just diverted Walsh’s men from harming Rina and her gels, and had provided safe sanctuary for me. I owed him some cooperation, and we both knew it. “What do you want?”

  “Take off your pendant and hand it to me. ”

  The moment I did, I knew Harry would appear, but at least Dredmore wouldn’t be able to see him. I reached up, unfastened the catch, and held out the chain to him.

  The moment the pendant left my fingers, my grandfather’s misty form appeared. He didn’t say a word, but lunged at Dredmore, who quickly pocketed the pendant. As soon as he did, Harry turned semitransparent.

  “Why on earth did you do that, you silly twit?” my grandfather shouted.

  “Because I asked her to. ” Dredmore looked directly at Harry. “Hello, Ehrich. ”

  “You know my grandfather?” I looked from Dredmore to Harry and back again. “Hang on. You can see him?”

  “It’s a trick, Charm. ” Harry solidified enough to cast a shadow on the faded but still colorful Turkish rug. “He’s only making a pretense so he can use you. You must leave here at once. ”

  “You’d rather send her out to die in the snow than tell her the truth?” Dredmore came to stand behind me, and I saw his angry expression reflected in the oval mirror above the mantel. “She’s your own flesh and blood, old man. She deserves to know more than the bits and pieces that you’ve been feeding her. ”

  “He seems to be able to see and hear you quite well,” I advised my grandfather. The thought of how he had possessed Connell at Morehaven, and the prospect of him doing the same to Dredmore, made me gesture at a cluster of brass-studded bronze leather armchairs. “Why don’t we all sit down and talk about this?”

  “Sit down and talk. With him?” Harry uttered a bitter laugh. “You don’t know what spawned him, or what his sort can do. ” He looked at Dredmore for the first time, and there was pure hatred in his eyes. “But I know, boy. I know exactly what you are. ”

  “Have you told her what you’ve done?” Dredmore asked this with exquisite courtesy. “Why don’t you explain that, Ehrich? Or are you leaving that for others to do, just as you did in France?”

  “I know he was Houdini,” I told Dredmore, and watched the white puff of my breath float from my lips. “Why is it so cold in here now?”

  “That is his doing. ” He eyed my grandfather. “No more half-truths, Ehrich. Tell her who you were before you took possession of that Crown spy. Who you were when Harry White led his regiment into the Bréchéliant, and what you were when you came back out. ” He waited, but Harry said nothing, and the ticking of the great clock by the door seemed to grow very loud. “I see. She’s good enough to torment, to use, to manipulate, but not worthy of the truth. Fortunately for you, Charmian is now under my protection. ”

  “I beg your pardon. ” I stared at him. “Your what?”

  “Your what?” Harry strode forward without looking, banged into an end table, and caught it before it toppled. When he took his hand from it he left an icy print of his palm and fingers. “Your father may have wanted recompense for being taken. Like the others, Jack deserved it. But his battle was never yours. You can bloody well do as you like, but you won’t drag my granddaughter into it. ”

  “She’s in it to her ears. ” Dredmore was sneering now. “You had your chance to do right by her, Ehrich. More than a thousand of them, I should think. But you sacrificed her, and her mother, and her grandmother on the altar of Queen and country and your own pathetic schemes. ”

  “So now you’ll cut her throat?” Harry’s eyes took on a strange purple glow. “I will end you first, boy. ”

  The mention of murder made it high time for me to intervene. “Whatever quarrel you two have with each other, it’s nothing to do with me. Lucien, I can look after myself, so stuff your protection. Harry, I’m not interested in carrying on whatever feud you have with Dredmore or his father. ” I remembered Hedger’s strange reaction to learning that Harry was my grandfather. “Is there anyone who likes you?”

  “His name isn’t—” that was all my grandfather got out before Lucien stepped between us. His broad back kept me from seeing what he did, but his back muscles shifted, and then Harry abruptly vanished.

  “What did you do?” I asked, shuffling back a few steps.

  “I banished him back to the netherside. ” Dredmore turned to face me. “As long as you are with me, he cannot manifest or meddle with you. ”

  “Harry’s never meddled. ” When he would have come closer I went round behind the chair. “You, on the other hand, have inflicted an excessive amount of damage to my reputation, my person, and my life. ”

  He didn’t like that. “How have I harmed you, Charmian? By wanting you? By taking what you freely offered me? Or by trying to shield you from Walsh and dark forces that you cannot even begin to fathom?” He extended his arms in a helpless fashion. “Please, enlighten me as to which it was. ”

  I did. “You abducted me and held me prisoner against my will. You raced about assassinating snuffmages, never mind that I might be blamed for the murders. Oh, and you also agreed to kill me for twenty thousand pounds. ”

  “I took that fool’s money to give to you,” he shouted. “It was to help you settle into a new life—”

  “After I left Toriana with you for some secluded lovers’ nest overseas,” I tacked on, “ where I could nightly entertain you until you tired of me? I’d rather work for Rina. ”

  “You might as well. ” He turned away. “I’ve tired of you already. ”

  That stung, more than I cared to admit. “Problem solved, then. ”

  I came round and sat in the armchair. “Before I’m forced to leave the country and flee for my life, perhaps you should tell me about this thing between you and Harry. Start with how you’re able to see his specter, and exactly how you sent him off. ” I was particularly interested in the latter so that I might do the same if Harry became troublesome.

  Dredmore went to the overly large secretary and opened the upper cabinet, sliding aside a panel. “He’s not a specter. He’s a manifesting spirit. ”

  “There’s a difference?” I frowned as he shifted and I saw the rows of switches that the panel had hidden. “What’s that for?”

  Dredmore put his thumb beneath one switch and glanced back at me. “You. ” He flipped the switch.

  Two velvet-covered bars shot out from the ends of my chair’s arms, bending at hidden joints and locking together at the ends. Before I could get to my feet, they retracted, shoving me back against the cushions. A smaller pair of bars swung out beneath my skirts and did the same, trapping my ankles in place. When I pushed at the bars locked across my waist
, two cuffs popped out of them and snapped round my wrists.

  “Don’t bother struggling,” Dredmore told me. “You haven’t the strength. ”

  I tried but I couldn’t budge the chair’s automatic manacles. I’d never heard of such mech, but Dredmore could afford things other mortals could only have nightmares about.

  I looked up at him. “When you’re finished,” I said pleasantly, “you’d better plan to sleep with one eye open for the rest of your bleeding life. ”

  “That I do already, Charmian. ” He turned his attention to the panel, and I heard doors being bolted and window latches fastening, and then a white-painted board descended from the ceiling.

  I had nothing to do but wait and plot his slow, painful death, but still I jumped when the table beside me sprouted a complicated pile of gears, pulleys, and lenses.

  “Is it a torture device?” I asked, wondering if he meant to feed my hands to it.

  “It is called an illuminator. Let’s hope it lives up to its name. ” He left the secretary, going round to all the lamps and turning them down until the room became shrouded in darkness. He pulled the chair to the other side of the table machine, and popped a matchit.

  The bizarre rituals confused me, but the matchit didn’t. Surely he wouldn’t set me on fire, trapped as I was. “Lucien, perhaps I’ve been too harsh. You and I should talk more—”

  “Do shut up, Charmian. ” He used the flame to light a small row of candles inserted in the back of the device. As soon as their wicks caught, he adjusted a row of small mirrors, and several shafts of light merged and formed a glowing circle on the hanging board.

  “There is a difference between spirits and specters,” Dredmore said as he placed a cylinder lined with tiny, silverblack-etched glasses in front of the rows of candles. “We didn’t know what it was, not until after the war. ” He switched on the machine.