Kat, Incorrigible (12 page)

He shrugged. “If we must. If they use their powers against innocent members of the public, for instance, or if we deem them a significant threat to Society itself.”

If they use their powers against innocent members of the public …
As Mama had, with her love spell. And as Angeline had, only a week ago. Coldness crept through me at the thought.

“How exactly would I pacify a witch?” I said sweetly. “If they were misusing their magic? If I were … protecting Society?”

Lady Fotherington might have noticed the sharp edge hidden in my voice. Mr. Gregson only looked confused.

“Well, we do have ways of modifying a witch’s magical powers, if necessary—of taking away even their most
ingrained ability to use them. But that is of no matter now. It will be many years before you can control your own powers to that extent, and at any rate, that—”

“Taking away their powers,” I repeated flatly, and gave up on sounding sweet. “Why didn’t you do it to Mama, then? Wouldn’t it have solved all your problems?”

Mr. Gregson suddenly looked much older. “Olivia had been my student,” he said. “She was a Guardian. Expulsion was enough of a punishment for her. The process of pacification might have damaged her mind irreparably. To take such a risk … no.” He shook his head. “No. The Head of our Order agreed with me. If you had seen Olivia’s distress—if you had seen her reaction when her portal was closed, and she was shut out of our Order and the Golden Hall forever …” He took a deep breath. “Even Lady Fotherington could not have desired more than that. Not if she truly considered the matter.”

You don’t know Lady Fotherington at all, if you think that,
I thought. I’d met her only once, but it had been enough to know one thing for certain: She had truly hated Mama. I would have wagered any sum that when she’d discovered Mama’s witchcraft, she had been absolutely delighted. Even now, more than twenty years later, she was still seething that her revenge hadn’t been complete.

“Thank you,” I said politely, and started to turn away. “That’s all I needed to know.”

“I’m glad.” He relaxed, smiling. “You’ve already discovered
your portal, of course; otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

I hesitated. “You mean the mirror?”

“Indeed. You thought we were inside the mirror itself at first, didn’t you?” Mr. Gregson’s smile turned into a smug grin. “Quite amusing, really, but entirely misguided. No, no, it is merely a portal to our hall. We all have them, under various disguises—my own is this pair of spectacles I wear, inherited from my father. I imagine the mirror displayed some strong reaction when you first touched it? It drew you toward it, in a manner that could not be resisted?”

“Well …” I hated to be so predictable, especially to him.

“Of course it did,” Mr. Gregson said. “So, you see? The choice has been made.” He beamed at me complacently. “Now all that remains is for you to begin your training. I believe the first step ought to be—”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I think not.” I slitted my eyes half-shut, trying to remember last time. When I’d left …

“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Gregson looked at me as if I’d suddenly started speaking Spanish. “What are you saying?”

“I told you,” I said. “First you expelled Mama, which made her miserable, and then Lady Fotherington tried to make me her magical slave. I’m hardly going to join you after all of that, am I?”

I didn’t mention the real reason I’d bothered to stay and
ask him so many questions—and the real reason I would never, ever join his pompous Order. I knew exactly what they did now, and especially what they did to witches. Mama had only escaped because of Mr. Gregson’s fondness for her; Angeline wouldn’t have any such protection if she was ever discovered by them.

“But you don’t understand. The work of our Order—the urgency of our need! If you only knew how vital it was to—”

“I’m sure it is,” I said. “So perhaps you should have thought twice about expelling Mama. Perhaps you should think twice about being so prejudiced in the first place.” I closed my eyes.
There.
I had it: the thread of connection I’d found just at the last moment last time, when I’d run from Lady Fotherington and flung myself at the golden wall. I smiled.

“But my dear young lady—think of your own potential magical powers! If you don’t join us, you’ll be stunted—you’ll never learn how to use them properly, you—”

Mr. Gregson’s sputtering was the last thing I heard before I landed with a bounce on the green and yellow covers of my bed in Grantham Abbey. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, bright and clear and entirely different from the deep golden glow of the hall I’d stood in only a moment before. The bed was satisfyingly solid and real, there were no signs of whirlwinds or hurricanes in the room around me, and I was wonderfully, perfectly alone.

The mirror was back in my hand, closed and latched once more. I looked down at it and laughed out loud. Then I tossed it in the air and caught it again.

I was getting better at this. I was almost certainly safe, too. Mr. Gregson was far too proper to follow me out of the hall and into my own bedroom, no matter how irate he might be. He wouldn’t be able to lecture me or work any magic on me in public, in full view of all the other houseguests, either. As long as I stayed away from the Golden Hall, I was safe.

Unless … Sudden discomfort coiled in my stomach. Lady Fotherington had stayed in London for the moment, Mr. Gregson had said. But if he gave up on convincing me through self-righteous lectures alone, would he decide to summon her? And then—

I stood up, closing my fingers tightly around the mirror.
Let her come.

By the time we all went down to dinner, two hours later, I’d patched up the reticule just about well enough to carry with me. Stepmama gave me a definite Look, though, when she saw it looped around my arm with half the beads knocked off. She sighed and shook her head.

“Thank goodness no one will be looking at you, Kat,” she said. “At least Elissa looks perfect.”

Elissa really did look beautiful. Even her pale cheeks only set off her deep blue eyes and fair hair, and she was wearing her newest and finest gown, of pure white
muslin, with puffy short sleeves, a modest round bodice, and a string of pearls around her neck—Stepmama’s pearls, I realized. I bit down hard on my lower lip at the memory they brought back: Mama’s broken pearls, lying scattered around her cabinet …

“Do hurry, Kat! We don’t wish to be late, tonight of all nights,” Stepmama snapped, and herded us all down the long corridor and grand flight of stairs.

As we reached the bottom of the stairs, Elissa’s hand found mine and squeezed. I squeezed it back.

“Elissa,” I began, in an urgent whisper.

“Hush,” she said, and smiled at me more wanly and unhappily than ever as she let go of my hand.

“Now,”
Stepmama said, and ushered us, smiling as fiercely as a general, into the crowded Long Gallery.

There must have been at least fifty people in the
gallery, and at first all I could take in was a confused mass of gowns and coats and far, far too much high, trilling laughter ringing in my ears.

But Stepmama plowed straight through the crowd toward our goal.

“Smile, girls,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “And Kat, if you say a single word out of place, I vow I’ll see you locked in the nursery tonight no matter what Rosemary might say.”

I didn’t bother to grace that with a response. Even if I’d wanted to, I was too busy avoiding the hard male elbows that jutted out from the crowd around us, just asking to be knocked into, and the women’s hands flung out for
emphasis, glittering with rings. I’d never been allowed to attend a single dinner party back in our own village, and those parties only ever included six or eight families, all of whom I’d known my entire life. I’d never even seen this number of strangers before, let alone been required to mind my manners in front of them.

For a moment, the nursery actually sounded like an appealing option. But only for a moment.

I was concentrating so hard on avoiding the shift of arms and elbows all around me as I followed in Stepmama’s wake, I completely forgot to look where my feet were going. So the first sign of disaster didn’t come until it was too late.

I stepped back to avoid a swinging arm and landed on something soft. My right foot caught and slipped; my arms swung out, searching for balance; I pulled them back before I could hit anyone; and then I lost the battle altogether and fell flat onto my back in the middle of the crowd, knocking into at least three people on the way. My head hit the marble floor with a thud that was almost—but only almost—enough to drown out the ripping sound from around my feet, and the sounds of breaking glass nearby.

Nothing could have drowned out the shriek that came straight afterward. “My gown! What have you done to my new gown?”

I cringed and closed my eyes. Pain thudded through my skull. But there was no escape.

All the laughter and buzzing talk of the crowd vanished as if it had been sucked right out of the room. Then whispers erupted around us, and footsteps hurried toward me. I felt a cool, familiar hand against my cheek.

“Kat?” said Elissa. “Kat, can you hear me?” Her voice shifted as she spoke to someone else above me. “She did hit her head. Do you think she—?”

“Oh, she’s not unconscious,” Angeline said in a low, scathing whisper, from my other side. “She’s only embarrassed. As well she should be. Come on, Kat, you might as well get up before Stepmama can pull you up by your hair.”

I opened my eyes. My sisters both knelt beside me, and Stepmama was hurrying back toward me, rage in her eyes. Nearby, two footmen were cleaning up the remains of two broken wineglasses. I let Angeline help me up.

“I am sorry,” I said to the crowd at large, and heard my voice waver pathetically. “I tripped—”

“I ordered this gown all the way from
Paris
,” said the voice I’d heard before. It came from a tall, fish-faced blond woman who wore an enormous silk turban like a Turkish sultan. She pointed down at the train of her crimson gown. The flounces around the hem had been torn half off; they hung limply from her skirts, dragging against the marble floor. “This was the first time I’d even worn it!”

The whispers intensified. I felt the whole crowd staring at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, and curtsied as well as I could.
It made my head spin horribly. “I didn’t mean to, truly.”

“We are all so sorry,” Stepmama said. She gave me one of the most furious looks I’d ever seen from her. “Katherine is very young and inexperienced, and she will be—”

“You ordered that gown from Paris, you said?” Angeline repeated the woman’s words with a slight frown, speaking as lightly as if she were only mildly curious. But I knew that look in her eyes. “Is that not illegal, ma’am? In a time of war against the French? In fact, I thought it had been specifically prohibited by His Majesty’s government.”

“Well …” The woman fluttered her fan higher as color mounted in her thin cheeks. “That is hardly—”

“You would have had to order the gown rather than go to Paris yourself, naturally,” Angeline said thoughtfully, as Elissa’s face went paler and paler beside her. “For only the smugglers ever actually cross—”

“That is quite enough!” Stepmama said. “Madam.” She curtsied stiffly to the fish-faced woman. “You have our deepest apologies. From all of us. If you will do us the honor of having your gown conveyed to our apartments this evening, my own maid shall see to its repair.” Of course, what that really meant was that Stepmama would stitch it up herself. None of us had a maid to do our sewing for us.