Page 174 of Ruby Red (The Ruby Red Trilogy 1)

“Not in the least. My little sister thinks he’s a wicked magician.” I thought of something. “Do you have any brothers and sisters yourself?”

“A little brother,” said Gideon. “Well, not all that little now. He’s seventeen.”

“And how old are you?”

“Nineteen,” said Gideon. “Or as good as nineteen, anyway.”

“So if you’ve left school, what do you do?”

“Officially I’m down to study at the University of London next year,” he said. “But I think I can take this term off.”

“What subject?”

“Inquisitive, aren’t you?”

“Only making polite conversation,” I said. I’d picked up that expression from James. “So what are you going to study?”

“Medicine.” He sounded a bit embarrassed.

I bit back a surprised “oh!” and looked out the window again. Medicine. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting.

“Was that your boyfriend at school today?”

“What? Who?” I looked at him, taken aback.

“That guy behind you with his hand on your shoulder.” It sounded perfectly casual, almost as if he wasn’t interested.

“You mean Gordon Gelderman? God, no!”

“So if he’s not your boyfriend, how come he can touch you?”

“He can’t. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed he was doing it.” I hadn’t noticed because I was fully occupied watching Gideon exchanging sweet nothings with Charlotte. The memory made me blush furiously. He’d kissed her. Or almost.

“Why are you going red? Because of this Gordon Gallahan?”

“Gelderman,” I corrected him.

“Whatever. He looked like an idiot.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “He sounds like an idiot too,” I said. “And he’s useless at kissing.”

“I wasn’t actually asking for the precise details.” Gideon bent down to retie his shoelaces. When he straightened up again, he crossed his arms and looked out the window. “Here we are, look. Belgrave Road. Excited by the idea of meeting your great-great-grandmother?”

“Yes, very.” I immediately forgot what we’d just been talking about. How strange all this was. The great-great-grandmother I was about to visit was some years younger than Mum.

She’d obviously married someone rich, because when the cab stopped outside the address in Eaton Place, it was a very posh house. And the butler who opened the door to us was posh too. Even more so than Mr. Bernard. He was actually wearing white gloves!

He examined us suspiciously when Gideon handed him a card and said we were paying a surprise teatime call. He was sure, said Gideon, that his good friend Lady Tilney would be very pleased to hear that Gwyneth Shepherd had come to visit her.

“I suspect he doesn’t think you’re posh enough,” I said as the butler disappeared with the visiting card. “No hat and no side-whiskers.”

“No mustache either,” said Gideon. “Lord Tilney has one from ear to ear. See that portrait of him in front of us?”

“Wow,” I said. My great-great-grandmother had weird taste in men. It was the kind of mustache you’d have to put in curlers at night.

o;I’d like to tell him I’m sorry,” said Robert. Obviously it had taken him a long time to work out what he wanted me to say.

The poor little boy. I’d have liked to stop and give him a big hug. “But it wasn’t your fault.”

---