Page 4 of Salt Magic, Skin Magic
Thornby gave him a nod. “Good day, Mr Blake.”
Blake got to his feet, face darkening. “So, youcansee me. How clever.” He gave a sarcastic bow. “How did you manage that? Reveal charm?” His grim mouth twisted scornfully. “Well, here we are. Let’s stop playing games, shall we?”
It was Thornby’s turn to stare. A charm? What games? Of course he could see Blake—he was there in plain view.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I know,” Blake said. “You can tell me what you’re doing to Lady Dalton. Then you can tell me why. AndthenI’ll decide what to do with you.”
There was such menace in his voice Thornby nearly took a step backwards. What was this about Lady Dalton? He generally had as little to do with her as possible. He had, perhaps, not been especially civil to the snivelling creature, but he hardly felt it necessary to be charming. And in any case, he hadn’t seen her all summer. Becauseshehad been in London for the season, whilehehad been here.
Despite his confusion, the injustice stung.Hewas the wronged one.Hewas the one bloody well being kept at Raskelf by mysterious means. Lady Dalton could do what she liked. She could leave, couldn’t she?
There was, too, a very private reason which made the baseless accusation sting the more for coming from Mr Blake. Lying in bed last night, Thornby had allowed himself to entertain one or two fantasies in which Mr Blake overcame his initial unfriendliness and permitted certain delicious intimacies. Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen. Blake thought him a cad who was bothering a lady. Thornby looked away from his dark-browed glare, feeling a fool for having allowed the fantasies in the first place.
It was then he noticed a narrow tape of supple leather that lay on the grass, encircling Mr Blake and his overcoat. It had faint blue writing on it, in some angular foreign script. Inside this peculiar item, a white handkerchief was spread on the rough grass. And on top of the handkerchief lay a small heap of orange sand with a blue glass eye balanced on top.
Thornby’s skin began to crawl. Protestations of innocence died on his tongue. He must get away from this madman. Quickly. He backed a step and found his voice. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you mean, sir. Good day.” He bowed and walked on, fast.
Chapter Two
“You little bastard,” John Blake muttered.
He pocketed the glass eye and the sand, coiled the spancel, and began to follow Lord Thornby—heir to Raskelf, sometime painter of immodest pictures of ladies, and, it now seemed clear, witch—since only another magician could have seen through the invisibility conferred by the sand, eye and spancel charm.
John had had a trying couple of days. He wasn’t used to life in a country house, especially one as grand and ancient as Raskelf. And he wasn’t used to being on such close terms with the aristocracy. He’d agreed to come here as a favour to a friend and he was deeply regretting it.
George Catterall, Lady Dalton’s cousin and only living relative, had taken John for a very good dinner at his club, and over the brandy begged him to rescue the lady from her step-son, the evil Lord Thornby.
“She’s beside herself,” Catterall had said, in a low voice. “She says whenever she stays at Raskelf her things go missing, or turn up in places she never left them. Or she finds odd things in her rooms, like acorns, or pebbles in her shoes. She’s certain someone’s using—you know—the stuff you do. I can’t ask anyone else. I don’t know anyone else who uses it except Rokeby, and I wouldn’t trust him with tuppence. She says it all began when Lord Thornby came home. But he won’t leave and, well, to make things worse—” Catterall’s broad, fair face, already pink with fine wine and brandy, flushed red and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Deuce take it, John, she’s got connubial troubles. Dalton doesn’t treat her like a wife anymore, and she’s convinced it’s some sort of spell.”
“I see.” John glanced around the womb-like comfort of the club dining room. The gentlemen at the adjoining table seemed half-asleep in a haze of beef and burgundy. “There are other reasons for a man to cool off. Dalton’s a fair bit older, isn’t he? Maybe he just can’t.”
“He’s in his fifties, but she says it was all right until Thornby came along. God’s teeth, man, she’s not making it up! She’s not that type of girl. Thornby’s terribly peculiar. She says he dresses in some fancy old-fashioned get-up like a Regency buck. Andlooksat her sometimes insucha way, she says, and refuses to go to church. And you remember that fuss over a lewd painting last year? That was him.” Catterall took another sip of brandy. “I can vouch for him being odd; he took a parrot to her wedding. We could all hear it screeching in the vestry. And afterwards he gave it to her as a wedding present! Now that’s peculiar, you have to admit.”
John sipped his brandy and sorted through this catalogue of sins and oddities to decide if there was anything in it. Possibly the strange looks meant something. Acorns, stones in the shoes, things going missing—all these could be magic, or just ordinary mischief. The parrot? Animals could be familiars, but there his experience stopped. John’s area of expertise was the inanimate: iron and glass, salt and sand. It was true he was hoping to escape the factories and foundries, but this seemed a step too far.
