Lessons After Dark (12 page)

“Damn.”

Olivia hadn't expected profanity from Mr. Grenville, and certainly not at the breakfast table. Neither had almost anyone else. There had been only the one word, and it had been quiet, almost a whisper, but it had nonetheless made most people catch their breath. Even the footman paused for a second. At the other end of the table, Joan was watching her husband too, but she didn't look at all surprised.

Worried, yes. Olivia couldn't blame her.

Mr. Grenville was staring at a buff-colored slip of paper: a telegram. His lips were a thin line with a little bit of whiteness around them. Olivia wasn't certain he knew he'd sworn, or spoken at all, for that matter.

Bad
news.
Urgent
bad
news
. Olivia thought of death, of disgrace, of financial ruin, and glanced quickly across the table to Gareth before she realized what she was doing. He'd started taking breakfast with her and the Grenvilles in the last few days, for some reason, though he never talked much. Now Olivia was glad of it. He knew Mr. Grenville far better than she did.

But Gareth looked back with as much confusion as she felt.

It was late fall, almost winter, and the wind whistled outside. The sunshine was deceptively bright through the windows. The silver was old, and the food was rich, but Olivia remembered a small flat in London and the taste of dry toast. She'd left a piece half-eaten when the doctor had come downstairs to inform her of her husband's death. It had been summer then.

Very carefully, she put down her teacup.

“Simon?” Joan's voice was both steady and steadying. “What's wrong?”

Mr. Grenville looked up and let out a breath, only now seeming to focus on his surroundings. “Nothing. Nobody we know. It's from Gillespie.” He glanced over at Olivia, who held herself very still, then back at Joan. “He wants us to come up to London.”

Joan lifted her eyebrows. “I'm guessing not a social visit.”

“No. Not at all. It's that business in Whitechapel.”

The stillness around the table changed, transmuted into something both less and more fearful, relief that the news wasn't worse, dread of what might yet happen. Even out at Englefield, the papers had been very informative. The previous day's in particular.

Olivia picked up her teacup again, mostly to have something to do with her hands. She didn't realize where she was looking until she met Gareth's eyes again. No answers waited there, nor had she expected any, but there was comfort in his gaze nonetheless. It helped to know she wasn't the only stunned bystander in the room.

“I told you before,” Joan said, forehead wrinkling, “I don't recognize anything in this Ripper but a madman who's managed to find some easy targets in an awful neighborhood. What does Gillespie think we're going to find?”

“Perhaps nothing. Perhaps he wants only to confirm that we
are
dealing with a human here and not one with any particular powers. Or, perhaps not.” Mr. Grenville smiled a little, without much humor in it. “It's rather difficult to read a man's mood in a telegram, you know.”

“So we'll have to wait until we get to London. Which means I'd better start packing.” Joan rose from the table, glanced over her shoulder, and added, “St. John? Olivia? You'll have to manage the forest without us. Woodwell should be able to get you in and out if the maps fail.”

“We could wait—” Gareth began.

“You shouldn't,” said Joan.

“It's probably best not to take any chances,” Mr. Grenville added, “given what's already happened. If anything out there could affect this household, we'll need to know.”

“We'll head out today, then,” said Olivia. She picked up her tea and drank but didn't taste anything. Responsibility felt like a lead cloak on her shoulders.

***

“It should take a few days. A week at most. I'll certainly write if we're delayed any longer.” Simon prowled the library, three volumes in his arms already, and frowned dubiously down at a fourth. “You can write as well. Brooks has my address.”

As he turned to cross the room again, Gareth stepped to the side, then took refuge against the windowsill. His leg wouldn't permit much more dodging. Neither would his dignity. “I doubt I'll have to,” he said.

Simon paused. “I don't know what's in that forest or what Michael's display yesterday afternoon might have awakened. I do know I'm leaving you and Mrs. Brightmore with five students and the servants to keep safe. The killings in London are likely the fault of a human, probably without any magic at all, and I very much doubt there's anything human in the forest other than a few poachers. And they won't be the danger.

“If women weren't dead, I'd much rather stay here and keep a watch on Englefield.”

Gareth sighed and shook his head. “No. No, that's fair. I just wish you'd more information going in than three lines from some…who is this man?”

“Gillespie?” Simon chuckled. “It's somewhat difficult to describe him. He's a bookseller, let's say, and a magician. He was the one who recommended Mrs. Brightmore to us.”

A month ago, Gareth would have made a snide comment:
That's certainly a mark of distinction
, or something similar. He could feel the shape of it now in the back of his head, but other things seemed more important. “Oh? How does he know her?”

“She was his student for some years. Other than that, it's not my business to tell. You could ask Mrs. Brightmore about it, if you're curious.”

“You assume she'd tell me,” said Gareth.

Simon grinned suddenly, a man who'd found a welcome distraction, if a momentary one. “Oh, I think she would, at the right moment,” he said. “You get along very well when you forget to dislike each other.”

***

“I don't think we'll have too much trouble,” said Olivia, trying to sound like she believed it.

Not just for her own image. The Grenvilles did a decent job at hiding their feelings, Joan a little more so than her husband, but Olivia had spent enough time reading strange faces that familiar ones were easy. She saw worry there, and while she couldn't do anything about what they went to face in London, she could ease their minds about what they'd leave behind.

“I'm sure you'll all live,” said Joan, “and I don't give a damn about anything else. Will you be leaving after we do? For the forest?”

Olivia nodded. “Mrs. Edgar's watching Elizabeth and Michael, and the boys are old enough to be left by themselves for a few hours. Charlotte's out at the stables, waiting for me and Dr. St. John.”

“Be careful,” said Mr. Grenville, “but you know as much as I do, more in certain areas, and I wouldn't be leaving if I didn't think you could cope with the situation. I thought you should know that.”

“‘Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,'” Olivia quoted. Even so, hearing Mr. Grenville's opinion lifted some of the invisible weight that had settled on her shoulders and in the pit of her stomach.

The three of them stood in the hall, the Grenvilles wrapped tightly in winter travelling clothes, the servants bustling around them with baggage. Most of it was gone already. There wasn't much time left. Olivia couldn't think of anything she'd forgotten to ask about, or to say, but she was certain there was something.

“Just send the students into the ballroom for combat training,” Joan said. “Waite, Woodwell, and Fitzpatrick at one, Fairley and Donnell at three. Look in from time to time to make sure they haven't actually killed one another, but they know what to do.”

The door behind them opened. Olivia heard the sound and knew Gareth would be coming out, but she couldn't keep herself from glancing over her shoulder to make sure. Their eyes met for a second. Olivia expected the challenge she found in his expression, but was surprised to see camaraderie as well.
We're in this together
, his face seemed to say.
I'll do my part as long as you can manage yours.

Gareth crossed the room quickly, long legs covering a great deal of ground even with his limp, and came to stand beside her.

“Good luck,” he said to Mr. Grenville, holding out a hand. “We'll keep the place standing for you.”

“Good man,” said Mr. Grenville and shook hands heartily. “Remember what I said.”

In some ways, Olivia thought, the parting was ludicrous. The Grenvilles would be gone less than a fortnight, and yet they, as well as Olivia and Gareth, were acting as though it would be months before they returned. An observer would have laughed.

An observer wouldn't know what took the Grenvilles to London or what sort of danger might wait for them despite all their protestations. Even Olivia didn't know precisely. She'd seen glimpses of places and creatures when scrying, read cramped and obscure passages in books. She'd heard a few very dark stories. Nothing very probable, perhaps, but the possibilities were bad enough.

What waited in the forest might be worse.

“Have a safe journey,” she said at the last, not knowing what else she could say. “And a safe trip.”

A few more parting words, a few more bows and handshakes, and then they were gone in a flurry of November wind. The door closed behind them.

Olivia took a breath, turned back, and looked up at Gareth. “Well,” she said rather inadequately. “We should probably meet Charlotte, shouldn't we?”

While they met at the stables, it was just a convenient place. They didn't ride. “I'm not risking another incident on horseback,” said Olivia, “no matter what you can tell the horse in question, Charlotte.”

“Oh, I can't tell them anything if they're too scared,” Miss Woodwell said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes in a way that was almost equine itself. “They're a great deal like people, you know. Have you ever had much luck telling a man not to be stupid if something's frightening him?”

“I can't say I've tried,” Olivia said.

“I have,” said Gareth, not letting himself dwell on that particular memory, “and you're right. Shall we?”

Miss Woodwell grinned. “Absolutely. Except…will you be all right, Dr. St. John?”

Gareth lifted his walking stick. “I should be, with this. Quite possibly better than I would be riding.”

Olivia was carrying a stick too, but hers would never have done for walking. It was slim, polished, and about the length of her forearm. There were symbols carved along its length, letters that looked somehow Arabic and runic at the same time.
Wand
was the appropriate word, probably.

“I never saw you use that before,” said Gareth.

“I generally haven't needed it. Or any other tools. Words and patterns have mostly sufficed for anything that's come up here.”

They walked down the road toward the forest, with the wind plucking at their coats and hats and the sun bright in their eyes. Gareth turned his head a little, which also gave him an excuse to watch Olivia. He wasn't sure if that was an advantage or not.

He'd tried not to think about her, not to remember the taste of her mouth, the way her body had felt against his, soft and firm, or the sounds she'd made at the height of her passion. Sometimes he succeeded. Mostly he failed, particularly at night and in the morning, when he surrendered to memory and the partial relief of his hand.

Now he looked across at her, her face flushed and shining above her brown cloak, and felt desire and, more dangerously, simple admiration. Particularly when she turned her head and smiled.

“I forgot how pleasant it could be,” she said, “wandering about in the autumn.”

“Oh, rather,” said Miss Woodwell and laughed. “My nurses never liked it as much. I used to sneak out. To tell the truth, I used to slip my leash any chance I could get, any season of the year. But I always liked autumn best.”

“It must have been different outside of England,” Olivia said.

“Autumn, yes. Me, no. I never really reformed, you understand, just outgrew the bonds after a while. Englefield's pleasant enough to make me behave, though. I couldn't ask for anything better, except maybe the sea.”

Olivia nodded. “You were born on the coast, you said.”

“Born and raised on
some
coast or another. Near Millbay, and Cairo, and then Ramsgate. Now Ramsgate, I suppose…This boarding business makes it deuced difficult to say where you do live, doesn't it? But I've always been near the water till now. You too, I suppose.”

“Yes. Not the sea, but some sort of water.” Olivia turned toward Gareth a little, guarding her eyes from the sun. “And you?”

“Not growing up. My father always said God made the sea to try men's courage. My mother said he meant his constitution.” Gareth smiled, remembering. “Her brother was in the navy. I'd imagine a woman could hate the sea on that account, but she always seemed rather fond of it. On holidays and such.”

“Was your father religious,” Miss Woodwell asked, “or just, um, poetic?”

“Both, I think,” said Gareth. “He was a vicar. Still is, I suppose. He's getting ready to step down.”

That had caused another moment of dislocation when he'd gone home. Of course men did retire, even men of the cloth, and of course it had been some time. Gareth hadn't expected the man to go on eternally, changelessly preaching on Sundays and frowning over his sermons on Saturday nights. It had just been…odd to have proof he wouldn't. Odder than his own changes, in a way. He'd accepted he was no longer the young man he had been, but he'd been unprepared to find changes in his world as well.

“And you were in the army,” said Olivia, thoughtfully. “That's three of us with some connection.”

“Common enough for younger sons, certainly,” said Gareth, “even in this day and age.”

Miss Woodwell cocked her head, sparrowlike, and peered at Gareth. “I'd no notion you'd served too, though I should've guessed. Somewhere rough, was it?”

“Egypt,” he said, “and then the Sudan. Trouble enough, even for a surgeon, and I saw the worst of it only secondhand.”

“Bad enough, I should think! Papa got reassigned before things got very bad, but we heard plenty of stories. How about you, Mrs. Brightmore? Foreign lands and interesting chaps trying to shoot you?”

Olivia shook her head. “I might have gone with my husband,” she said. Her voice was no longer cheerful but matter-of-fact and brisk. “But he never went himself. He fell ill shortly after we came to London.”

“Oh,” said Miss Woodwell, looking chagrined. “Should've put a bridle on my tongue, shouldn't I?”

Again, Olivia shook her head, the fabric of her hood rippling around her face. “I brought it up, really. Besides, he's been at rest for years now.” She smiled. “At my age, one is bound to have lost a few people. It's neither a shock nor an affront when I find them connected to the conversation.”

“You've got about thirty years to go before you're allowed to start saying ‘at my age,'” said Miss Woodwell.

Olivia laughed. “Spend enough time around Mr. Fairley and anyone will feel decrepit,” she said. “Not that the rest of your fellow pupils are much less disturbing on that account.”

“The lady speaks truth,” said Gareth. He didn't intend his words to have a double meaning, but Olivia's gaze was wary for a second when she looked at him. “As a gentleman and the oldest member of the party,” he added, “I suppose it's my duty to grow a long white beard now and provide relative comfort to both of you.”

The women laughed at that. “I'd prefer you didn't,” said Olivia. Gareth thought only he saw her relax a little. He was almost certainly the only one to feel relief when she did.

A few more steps on a narrower road, and the forest enclosed the three of them.

***

Nothing about the forest
felt
different to Olivia. The shade made it even chillier than the road had been, a chill balanced somewhat by the fact that the trees shielded them from the wind, but that was all. She couldn't see anything that would have been out of place in any other forest, certainly neither lightning nor strange animals, nor could she hear anything strange, though they walked in silence for a quarter hour.

Then, when Olivia could barely make out the path behind them, she stopped to dig out the map Mr. Grenville had given them. She glanced quickly at Gareth and Charlotte, but their faces held only the same blank look she suspected was on hers. Olivia shrugged, half responding to them and half to herself.

“After all,” she said quietly, “if strange things happened here all the time, the place would have much more of a reputation. All the same, Charlotte, perhaps you should start making inquiries?”

“Glad to, as soon as I see something that looks talkative.”

Olivia nodded and frowned down at the map. She could see the path they were on. It would fork soon unless the map was out of date. Paths got overgrown in places like this, didn't they? She wished briefly she'd spent any time in the wilderness.

“Here,” said Gareth. He reached out a hand but didn't snatch the map as a younger man might have. When Olivia looked up at him, he lifted an eyebrow. “I
can
read a map,” he said, “and the two of you have other duties, as I understand it. Speaking of which…”

“After the first turn, I was thinking.” Olivia surrendered the map and began to walk again. “Far enough to be really inside but still some way away from the center.”

“And what exactly do you plan to do? No, not exactly, I don't think I want to know details.”

“I can simply draw energy, if I need to. Usually one puts power into something, a ward or a weapon or a good-luck charm, or disperses it back into the ground, as I did with Miss Donnell. But I believe it's possible to hold it and then release it.”

“And you know how much is typical? How much”—Gareth waved his free hand around, map and all—“effort for how much power, and that sort of thing?”

“For here, or for London, yes. I've done enough work to have some idea. I generally get some sense of my environment at the same time, magically speaking. Furthermore, given what happened before, I'd imagine any change will be…dramatic.” Olivia grimaced.

“We'll be on the watch for fireworks, then,” said Charlotte. “You've already taken one bad spill. Any more, and you might decide we're more trouble than we're worth.”

Remembered pain flickered through Olivia's mind, but only for a moment. The memory of pleasure afterward was far more vivid and far less willing to retreat. She hoped the gloom would hide her sudden flush.

“Right,” said Gareth. Was his voice a little thicker than it might otherwise have been? Olivia couldn't tell.

“Wait!”

Charlotte, frozen in her tracks, hissed a whisper toward them. She gestured with one hand toward the edge of the path, then spoke again, at normal volume but not in her normal voice. Her words had the same not-quite echo Olivia had heard before. “I see you there, but you don't have to run. We'd like to talk. I promise we won't harm you.” She knelt down, heedless of her dress hem falling into the dirt.

Something moved in the shadow of the trees, slow and close to the ground. Olivia spotted a dark muzzle, then shiny black eyes, and then a small, round body covered in prickles.

The hedgehog took a few more steps out, peered at Charlotte, and snuffled a few times. Rather large for a hedgehog, Olivia thought.

Charlotte blinked. “Charlotte Woodwell,” she said. “I'm a…student…over at Englefield. These are my teachers.” The hedgehog made a few more noises. “Yes. I don't see why not.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “She wants to come back with us.”

“Ah.” Olivia turned to stare at Gareth, who just stared back. Finding no help there, she turned to Charlotte again. “She likes you?”

“She doesn't
know
me,” said Charlotte, clearly finding the question absurd. “She wants to live around people, better food and less chance of being eaten. Says she's done it before.”

“I…yes, for my part.” Olivia said. “I don't know what the Grenvilles will say when they get home.”

“Oh, they won't mind,” Charlotte said, waving one hand airily. She turned back to the hedgehog. “You can come with us, but we're staying out here for a bit yet. The more you can tell us, the sooner we'll leave.”

“I see” said Gareth in the tone of a man who wasn't at all sure any of this was really happening. “If she's coming with you, perhaps you could chat while we walk?” He glanced around the forest. “Best to keep moving, I think, before it gets darker.”

“Might as well,” said Charlotte and then glanced back to the hedgehog and held out her hands. “Will you?”

The hedgehog trundled obligingly forward and let Charlotte, rather gingerly, pick her up. She didn't make much noise as they walked along, or not much that Olivia could hear: a few grunts, squeaks, or snuffles. Charlotte seemed to be listening intently, though. From time to time, she'd ask questions in a quiet voice or nod. Mostly, she just looked curious.

“To put it briefly,” she said, looking over at Olivia after a little while, “you're right about the place being strange. A couple times she's seen the colored lightning you mentioned, and the white birds, though she hides from the bigger ones. There's a white deer somewhere around here too, or was a few years ago.”

Olivia blinked and peered at the small creature in Charlotte's arms. “A few years? Must have been half her life.”

“That's another thing. The beasts here are normal for the most part, but every so often a few of them are born different. Bigger, smarter, longer lives.” Charlotte shrugged. “She says she's seen ten years, she thinks, and she doesn't feel old. She also says she went wandering for a bit when she was young and lived with a boy for a while.”

“Does she know why creatures are different here?” Gareth asked.

Charlotte snorted and shook her head. “Doesn't know or care. She's still a hedgehog, after all.”

“Right,” said Gareth and sighed as he looked ahead. Olivia followed his gaze and saw the path forking, the branches trailing off farther into the forest. “I suppose we'll go ahead with the rest of this outing, then.”