Page 133 of Ruby Red (The Ruby Red Trilogy 1)

“Well, in your place I don’t suppose I’d believe me either,” I said understandingly. “I’m afraid I don’t have any proof … oh, wait a minute!” I reached down into my décolletage and brought out my mobile.

“What do you have there? A cigar case?”

“No!” I opened the mobile, and it beeped because it couldn’t find a network. Of course not. “This is … oh, never mind. I can take pictures with it.”

“You mean paint them?”

I shook my head and held the mobile up so that Lord Brompton and Rakoczy appeared on the display. “Smile, please. There, that’s it.” There hadn’t been any flash because the sunlight was so bright, which was a pity. A flash would surely have impressed the pair of them.

“What was that?” Lord Brompton had hauled his massive body out of his chair surprisingly fast, and he came over to me. I showed him the picture on the display. I’d caught him and Rakoczy very well.

“But—what is it? How is that possible?”

“It’s what we call photography,” I said.

Lord Brompton’s fat fingers caressed the mobile. “Wonderful!” he said enthusiastically. “Rakoczy, you must see this!”

“No, thank you,” said Rakoczy wearily.

“How you do it I don’t know, but that’s the best trick I’ve ever seen. Oh, what’s happened now?”

Lesley was on the display. His lordship had pressed one of the keys.

“That’s my friend Lesley,” I said, wishing I could see her in real life. “I took the picture last week. Look, there behind her is Marylebone High Street—her sandwich came from Prêt à Manger—and there’s the Aveda shop, see? It’s where my mum always buys her hair spray.” I suddenly felt terribly homesick. “And there’s part of a taxi. A kind of coach that drives along without any horses—”

“How much would you want for this box of tricks? I’ll pay you any price you ask, any!”

“Er, no, really, it’s not for sale. I still need it.” Shrugging regretfully, I closed my box of tricks—I mean, my mobile—and slipped it back into its hiding place inside my bodice.

Not a moment too soon, because the door opened and the count and Gideon came back, the count smiling with satisfaction, Gideon looking rather grave. Now Rakoczy too rose from his chair.

Gideon glanced at me intently. I looked defiantly back at him. Had he expected me to make off while he was out of the room? It would have served him right. After all, he was the one who’d drummed it into me that I must stick close to him at all times, only to abandon me himself at the first opportunity.

“So, how would you like to live in the twenty-first century, Lord Brompton?” asked the count.

“I should like it very much! What fantastic ideas you do have,” said his lordship, clapping his hands. “It was really most amusing.”

“I knew you’d enjoy it. But you might have offered the poor child a chair.”

“Oh, I most certainly did. But she preferred to stand.” His lordship leaned forward and spoke in confidential tones. “I would really like to buy that little silver shrine, my dear count.”

“Silver shrine?”

“We have to leave now, I’m afraid,” said Gideon, crossing the room with a few strides and placing himself beside me.

“I understand, I understand! The twenty-first century awaits you, of course,” said Lord Brompton. “I thank you most warmly for visiting me. It was wonderfully entertaining.”

“I can only agree with you,” said the count.

“I hope we shall have the pleasure of meeting again,” said Lord Brompton.

Rakoczy said nothing. He just looked at me. And suddenly I felt as if an icy hand had been laid on my throat. I gasped for air, alarmed, and looked down at myself. Nothing to be seen. Yet I felt the fingers closing around my windpipe.

“I can press harder whenever I like.”

It wasn’t Rakoczy saying that—it was the count. But his lips hadn’t moved.

Bewildered, I looked from his mouth to his hand. It was more than four yards away from me. How could it be around my neck at the same time? And why did I hear his voice in my head when he wasn’t speaking?

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