The Courtship of Julian St. Albans (13 page)

Julian seemed to enjoy Alex’s discomfiture,
however, and his fingers slipped thoughtfully over those pink lips before he
grinned and sipped his own tea. “I can see you’re already developing new
cravings,” he said, looking smug and flirty at once.

There was something about the phrase, the tone,
that made Alex want to check himself all over again for influences. “Not
entirely new,” Alex protested, “Just more refined.”

Julian laughed delightedly at that, sipping his
tea. Alex had the image of him doing just this as a child, sipping tea and
looking smugly delighted whenever he got his way on something he hadn’t been
sure he could convince his parents about. “It’s always good to refine
one’s palate,” he said.

Alex sipped his own tea and wondered if he
could get away with crying for mercy, or changing the subject. He’d always been
terrible at actual flirting, he could only do it when he didn’t actually want
the person, which reminded him again quite sharply that he wasn’t supposed to
want this person. Which only made it worse.

He sighed and let himself smile wryly.
“Perhaps I can teach you to enjoy something a bit more pedestrian once in
a while, as well.”

Julian grinned. “I have always wanted to
try a few things beneath my station,” he said, which gave Alex some very
naughty mental images indeed.

“More tea, sir?” asked one of the
servants, and Alex nearly laughed with relief that it wasn’t him who had broken
through that invisible boundary of propriety to garner this subtle scolding.

Julian made a little moue of annoyance that was
sexy and sort of cute, which Alex felt was utterly unfair, and waved the
servant away. “We’ll just have the one cup, and then take a tour of the
grounds, right, Alex?”

Alex inclined his head and sipped his tea.
“As you say,” he said, but he winked over his cup.

Julian’s smile was almost as good as the thrill
of triumph that he’d get his tour after all.

~ ~ ~

Alex was impressed at how well-organised the
grounds were. “Did someone lay this all out on purpose?” he asked, as
they crested a hill and could look down at large portion of the immediate
lands.

“What do you
mean?” asked Julian, head cocked curiously.

“Well, at the Benedict estate, everything
grew sort of organically out from the main house, which has also grown a few
times, so it’s all a bit of a patchwork, with gardens here and there and
chickens in inconvenient locations, though of course out front everything seems
perfect,” explained Alex.

“Oh, yes, Grandfather Julian got tired of
always having to walk around the chickens and pigs to get to his hunting dogs,
and he declared that they were going to have it all make sense.” Julian
laughed. “The way Mother tells it, the whole estate was in total disarray
for a couple of years, but after that it never ran better.”

It bothered Alex a little to hear Julian still
referring to his late mother in the present tense, as though she was just on an
extended vacation on the continent, but he supposed everyone must deal with
grief in their own way. “It sounds dreadful to live through, but much
better to live with afterward,” he said.

“Oh, yes, it’s brilliantly laid out now,
everything’s so sensible and it makes less work for everyone,” said
Julian. “I actually liked some of the management around the estate, back
before I got all caught up with Cecil and then Emmy took over,” he said
wistfully.

Alex brushed his knuckles over Julian’s in what
he hoped was a comforting or possibly flirtatious manner. “I’m sure you’ll
get the chance again, once your husband knows you’re interested,” he
reassured him. “I certainly wouldn’t mind sharing the duties.”

“Taking care of the home is considered
quite a proper pastime for a consort, too,” said Julian. “Cecil and I
talked about it sometimes, but we hadn’t really figured anything out yet.”

Curious, that he used past tense for Mandeville
every time, but not his mother. More mysteries, but Alex thought perhaps this
one was related, somehow. “You’ve got a lifetime to get it figured out,
with whoever you choose.”

“With whoever I choose out of my suitors,
you mean,” said Julian, that bitterness of lost choices back in his voice.

“Well,” said Alex, twining his hand
with Julian’s and then kissing the back, “I hope you chose suitors you
actually wanted to be Courted by, for the most part, then.”

Julian looked over sharply but he couldn’t find
whatever he was afraid of seeing in Alex’s face, so he smiled wanly. “I
chose as best as I could, but none of them… None of you are my Cecil.”

“I shouldn’t say this,” said Alex
softly, stroking his thumb over Julian’s from tip to wrist and back again,
“but I wish I could give him back to you.”

Julian flushed and looked down. “That’s
not fair to any of you,” he said softly.

“Nothing about this is
fair,” said Alex.

Julian sighed and looked back up, eyes
glittering with unshed tears. “Don’t be so bloody understanding, you’ll
just make me cry and I want to be done with crying,” he said, voice tight.

Alex pulled him into an utterly improper hug.
“I promise not to tell if you have one more good one in you,” he
said.

Alex had always been bollocks at comfort but
this felt easier, because he knew the grief of a lost parent, though not both
at once, and he knew the pain of a broken heart if not a murdered lover. None
of this was his fault in any way so it was easy to just be strong and
reassuring, because he really was doing his best to make things better, in his
own limited way.

Julian seemed to sense that and his arms came
up to cling at Alex’s ridiculous purple suit and he cried, soft and sad and
broken, not for long but for long enough.

“I suppose I ought not to use Willoughby’s
gift with you here,” said Julian wetly, once he stepped back and began to
dab at eyes and nose with one of the charmed handkerchiefs.

Alex reached out to touch the black pearl on
one of Alex’s cuffs, and smiled. “You’re using my gift, too, so I think I
can handle a little rivalry if it makes you feel better.”

Julian grinned, then turned away and blew his
nose, looking more composed when he turned back, if a bit red around the edges.
“That’s why I like you, you know, because you’re so much more interested
in being sensible and getting things done than following convention or being
all properly inoffensive.”

Alex thought that was rather the best
compliment he’d ever received, and it must have shown on his face because
Julian’s expression softened and warmed. “Thank you,” said Alex, not
knowing what else he could say.

For Julian, that seemed to be
enough.

~ ~ ~

Alex got a few more clues about the running of
the household, but he left the St. Albans estate more confused than when he’d
arrived. Julian had given him another of those distractingly soft kisses to his
cheek when he left, and then whispered in his ear, “Next time, you’ll kiss
me properly.”

Alex had been completely unable to argue with
that, and he wondered how Smedley would take the news. He wasn’t sure, given
his reputation for being a thoughtless bastard at crime scenes, if he could get
away with claiming it was all acting.

He was very frustrated that
it was no longer all acting.

“But I don’t want to
run the St. Albans estate,” said Alex petulantly.

“Sir?” said the driver, rolling the
window down between them. “Did you have a request?”

Alex laughed. “Nothing you could help me
with, no, I’m just talking to myself. You can tell Victor I’m just as eccentric
as ever.”

“Ah, yes, sir,” said the driver,
giving him an appropriately strange look in the mirror before rolling the
privacy panel back up.

It was almost a relief when Lapointe called and
asked if he could still consult on perfectly normal murders, or if his social
calendar was too busy.

~ ~ ~

“So, what’s the deal?” asked Alex.
He’d stopped by his flat to get out of the ridiculous suit and back into his
comfortable black, then convinced Victor’s driver to take him out to the crime
scene, confident he could get Lapointe to drive him home. He had cookies.

“Shady magical artificer,” she said,
gesturing toward the shopfront. “Killed apparently by one of his own
creations gone amok.”

The dingy-looking windows held a variety of
magical items, some dusty and some in need of repair but all with a look about
them of malice or menace. The sign above the door was broken just below the
hinges so it gave no clue as to the actual name of the shop, but that never was
important for a place like this. People who came here knew what they wanted,
and those who didn’t want it would likely steer clear just from looking at the
displays.

“Never happen,” said Alex. “Are
you sure it wasn’t something he was trying to repair?”

“Nope,” she said
cheerfully. “That’s your job.”

“You’re so helpful,” said Alex
sarcastically. “Have they already removed the body?” Alex started to
pull out his usual white cotton gloves, then thought better of it and grabbed
some latex ones from the box by the door.

That got him a raised eyebrow from Lapointe,
but she answered his question anyway. “No, they know by now you like to
hear the vibes or whatever,” she said, making a wavy-fingered gesture.

He chuckled. “It’ll help me determine
what’s his make and what’s not,” he said. “In back?”

“Yeah, though the uniforms keep telling me
they feel like something’s not right out here, so you’ll need to check this
area out afterward,” said Lapointe, her levity falling away. She knew when
to be serious about a job, and that was one of Alex’s favourite things about
her, second only to her tolerance for him.

“Perhaps I should check in here first? Or
are they waiting on me,” he said; he’d had his phone off during the
Courtship tea, so he wasn’t sure how long the crime scene had been cooling
before he got here.

“Techs are already done, but the coroner
would like to be home before it’s too late,” said Smedley from the
doorway.

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Why’re you on
this?” he asked, though it wasn’t hostile, just curious. He’d been under
the impression that Smedley only went after bigger fish.

“You’ll see,” said
Smedley, and Alex rolled his eyes.

“Of course,” Alex
said, pulling out a tuning fork. “Body first, then.”

“And leave your phone on next time,”
said Smedley, leading them deeper into the back rooms of the store, which was
more spacious than it looked from outside.

Alex raised an eyebrow at
Smedley’s broad back. “Jealous?”

Smedley snorted. “You wish. I’m not so
easily swayed by your creamy mounds as the good doctor.”

Lapointe didn’t even try to
hold back her laugh.

CHAPTER
12

In Which Someone is Hurt, Someone is Helped, and Male Bonding
Occurs

Alex ignored Lapointe’s laughter in favour of
the sight before him, which was a gruesome scene indeed. The man had been
sitting at his workbench when the device attacked, and it had evidently been
armed with some sort of claws or small blades from the look of the body. Alex
would have been surprised he was allowed in at all, if Smedley hadn’t said the
crime scene techs had already been through, given the inevitable smudging of
blood evidence.

“Has the device been
found?” asked Alex dubiously.

Smedley chuckled. “Worried for your pretty
face?” He slapped Alex on the shoulder, and Alex got a wash of his
personal magic, the melody martial and strong. “Don’t be, we took care of
it already.”

“Armistead’s even promised not to
reassemble it,” said Lapointe with a wicked chuckle that told Alex that
Armistead had not dealt well with being called out to a scene like this one.

Alex chuckled at the thought of it. “Make
sure it doesn’t reassemble itself, either,” he warned, then stepped
forward and struck the tuning fork on his palm, rather harder than usual, given
the change in gloves.

If he’d thought the St. Albans reception was a
cacophony, he’d been sadly mistaken. The magic in here was nearly all
discordant, some of it broken or repeating like a scratched record, and none if
it was pleasant. Alex stepped forward and, after a nod from Smedley, touched
the body.

He was shocked to find that this man was the
source of the charm that had felled Alex himself not too long ago. “How
long ago did he die?” asked Alex, stilling the tuning fork and turning to
the waiting agents.

“Six, maybe seven hours,” said
Smedley. “Kept it cold in here, so not much smell yet.”

Alex’s nostrils flared involuntarily, and he
was assaulted with a wash of iron-bright charnel reek, which he’d managed to
mostly ignore until now. “He’s the man who made the inkwells,” said
Alex, stepping back over to them, his shoes leaving little smudges on the
bloody floor. “I’d recognise that sound anywhere.”

It also explained why Julian had seemed less
affected today — some enchantments could be cast to survive the caster, but it
was at a greater cost in personal energy. Alex wondered if the killer had known
that his charms would lose their efficacy, or if he’d been told they’d last
past the man’s death.

“So you don’t think this was an
accident,” said Smedley, and it wasn’t a question.

Alex snorted. “The day after his
enchantment inadvertently gets someone at the Agency? Not likely.” He
turned and sighed. “Are there any pieces of the attack device left
here?”

“Not that we could find, but you’re
allowed in the lab, as long as you don’t touch anything,” said Smedley.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, it could
easily have been one of the others, you know, I’m not the only mage on your
payroll.”

“You’re the only one who handles evidence
with such disregard for your personal safety, though,” pointed out
Lapointe.

“Details, details,” said Alex. Then
he sighed. “I suppose I have to go over this whole place, don’t I?”
he asked, unhappily rhetorical. He turned back to the room and struck his
tuning fork, and prepared to do his job.

He was going to send them a
huge bill for this.

Alex had a system with Lapointe, and he was
happy to find that Smedley’s presence didn’t disrupt it overmuch. He would pick
up an item and listen to it, then dump it into the waiting evidence bag with
some sort of abstract comment, and she’d seal it up and make notes, then get
another one ready while he kept on.

In a place like this, it
seemed to take forever.

Alex’s world narrowed to the dissonant threads
of magic, picking them apart and following each one to its source, then
categorising it and moving on to the next, and the next. At some point around
the sixth or seventh time he’d struck his tuning fork, Lapointe made him stop
for some water, but then he kept on, moving through the room in a manner that
might seem random to anyone outside his head. His pattern was dictated by the
sounds he heard, and once he started following the threads, even such broken
and evil threads as the ones in this room, he never seemed to want to stop.

It was only when he tried to deposit something
in a bag and there wasn’t one waiting that he noticed something was wrong.

His ears seemed to pop and time to stretch and
warp as he turned and saw Murielle, lying on her back in a pool of blood,
though it was anyone’s guess whose blood it was.

“Help!” yelled Alex, annoyed that
they’d been left alone though of course that was how he always demanded they do
it, and he moved forward cautiously, slipping his amplifying charm out of his
vest pocket and into his palm under the glove. Men rushed into the room and
froze, looking around with a new terror of their already horrifying
surroundings, wondering who might be next.

There was something buzzing with insect-like
magic under Lapointe’s body, nothing from this room, though, a new voice in the
unpleasant chorus. “Be careful, she’s been attacked by something,” he
said, moving around her, slowly, slowly.

Alex saw a flash of movement, and his foot came
down instinctively, crushing the little automaton beneath his expensive shoes.
“I’ve got it, help her!”

Dr. Tamlinson pushed past the two officers
who’d been holding him back, rolling her over to find a small wound in her
shoulder that bled much faster than it was meant to. “I think there’s
magic, but I can’t get a hold on it. Benedict?”

Alex knelt but he could just barely hear it, so
he stripped off a glove and gently touched her shoulder, following the spell on
the wound until it was all he could hear. “Salt, it’ll hurt but it should
disrupt the spell,” he said distantly, trying to get the feel of the
caster while one of the techs sealed the nasty, broken doll into one of their
little magic-proof chests.

Those weren’t standard on crime scenes, so the
first device must have really freaked someone out, to have them still on hand.

“Where am I going to get-” began Geoff
in exasperation, laughing when Alex handed him a small packet of the stuff.

“Get it right into the wound, and
apologise later. She likes French macarons,” he said, still trying to
follow the thread of that magic. He knew he’d heard it before, from someone
he’d met only once or twice, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure it was one of
the suitors. It was familiar, but… No, he couldn’t place it, and it was
already fading under the wash of pure salt, until it sputtered out entirely and
the blood flow stopped.

Geoff grinned. “Brilliant,” he said,
getting a bottle of saline out of his kit to clean and dress the wound
properly.

“She’ll need blood,” said Alex,
standing, brows knit. “Three or four units, from the look of the
floor.”

“We’ve got it in the infirmary,” said
Geoff, competent and confident now that he was in his element. “I should
put some more magical remedies in my field kits, I guess.”

Alex shrugged. “Salt is usually more
useful in my line of work than yours,” he said, looking down at Murielle’s
frighteningly pale face. “I’m just glad I had some on me.”

“We all are,” said Smedley, and then
they were putting Lapointe on a gurney and wheeling her away. “Now, I saw
what she was doing, do you think you can handle me as a substitute? This place
needs to be cleared tonight, before anyone else gets hurt.”

“Yes, of course,” said Alex,
straightening. “I’ll be less methodical and look for the fully functional
pieces first.”

Smedley laughed. “If that was methodical,
I’d hate to see it when you just wing it,” he said. “Let’s get some
food into you first, you’ve been at it nearly three hours.”

Alex blinked again, then shook his head.
“No, you’re right, this is more important,” he said, trying to get
past Smedley to the box of gloves.

“We’ll keep everyone out until you’re
done, but even I know that you’re using up energy doing this and you can’t
stand to get any thinner.” He paused and then added, smirking, “You
might lose some perkiness in those creamy mounds of yours.”

Alex laughed and consented, though he did do a
quick sweep of the outer room. He made them box up anything that looked
remotely insectoid, after Smedley confirmed the first had been a macabre sort
of beetle, and the second a seemingly innocent honeybee sculpture.

Then he let Smedley treat him to a wonderfully
mediocre curry down the block, and no less than three mango lassis and a
half-dozen orders of gulab jamun. The sugar would do him good, and he even
drank the sickeningly sweet syrup the treats were served in, washing it down
with a cup of perfectly-made chai. “Get me two more chais to go, and I
won’t tell them you got mild like a big girl,” said Alex, getting up.
“I’ll just be a moment.”

Smedley chuckled, but when Alex returned from
the loo there were three steaming cups of chai, and a fat styrofoam tub with
another half-dozen orders of gulab jamun inside. “In case we’re still
working after they’re closed,” he said, handing Alex one of the drinks and
the sweets to carry.

“I almost don’t hate
you right now,” said Alex, impressed.

Smedley laughed. “You might even accept my
assignments someday,” he said, steering Alex out into the street and back
to the scene of the crime.

~ ~ ~

It was nearly dawn by the time Alex and Smedley
stumbled into the infirmary, giddy with exhaustion. “Have you kept our
dear Murielle alive?” asked Alex, throwing an arm over Geoff’s shoulders
in a manner he suspected he might regret, once he wasn’t punch-drunk on fatigue
and too much sugar. It turned out the Indian place was open all night, which is
about all that had kept him going through the truly dismal contents of the
shop.

But it was done, now, and
they could finally visit Lapointe.

“She’ll be fine, she got her four units
and woke up sometime during the third to yell at me for potentially
compromising evidence,” said Geoff with a chuckle.

“You did preserve her
clothes?” said Smedley.

Alex laughed this time. “The spell’s on
the creature, the salt will have disrupted it on her and her clothing both, no
evidence to spoil unless it left a stinger behind.”

“But I put her shirt and jacket in
evidence bags anyway,” said Geoff dryly. “There wasn’t a stinger,
Armistead confirmed that it stayed intact for stinging someone else. You’re
lucky it didn’t go right through your foot, Alex.”

Alex grinned. “Not lucky,” he said,
“well-shod.” The spells that kept the soles of his shoes intact
through wear and tear and crime scenes would have also deflected the stinger,
unless it had been specifically designed to go through them.

They both looked down, then up, wearing
identical expressions of confusion.

“They’re spelled. Custom-made, paid for
with the sort of private commissions that the department can’t afford,”
said Alex with a grin. “Ridiculously posh.”

Their laughs held different timbres, Geoff’s
full of warm understanding and Smedley’s wry. “Well, good thing for all of
us you don’t go around in department issue, then,” said Smedley.

“Can we see her?” asked Alex, trying
to make himself stand up straight and not quite managing.

“Only if you promise not to try to drive
home,” said Geoff. “Either of you.”

“On my honour,” said Smedley, holding
up a hand that wavered a bit. “Gonna put us in separate cabs, no creamy
mounds for me!”

They all laughed at that, and Geoff let them in
to see Lapointe anyway, for which Alex was grateful.

“Have you been in my whisky?” asked
Murielle, laying in bed in a white hospital gown. It was the sort that wrapped
across the front rather than tied up the back, and Alex thought better of Geoff
for letting her wear it despite the difficulty it would add to cleaning the
wound.

“Nope,” said Alex,
“Just too much magic.”

“Too much chai,”
said Smedley.

“Too much sugar,” added Alex,
swallowing back a wave of reaction-nausea. “Urgh, way too much.”

“Sit,” said Geoff, steering Alex into
a chair, and then producing one for Smedley, too. “I’ll get something for
both of you.”

Lapointe chuckled weakly. “You look worse
than I do, Benedict,” she said, “Did they make you clear the whole
place in one night?”

“I volunteered,” said Alex, scooting
the chair until he was by her bedside properly. “It was awful, wondering
how long you’d been bleeding and I hadn’t even noticed.”

“You always did tune the rest of us out
when you had magic to chase,” she said, but there was no real rancour in
her tone, just dry amusement.

Smedley grinned. “I
helped, you know,” he said.

She smacked her forehead.
“I’ll never figure out what’s in the bags now!”

Both men laughed. “I showed him your
system,” said Alex. “He fed me curry.”