"You promised you wouldn't mention Lord Cox's letter to Lord Coyle," I said.
"I never promised." Matt turned to me and lifted a lock of artfully curled hair off my shoulder. The intermittent streetlights cast his face in alternate light and shadow, and within each moment of light, he was a little bit closer, his lips a little more parted. He was going to kiss me.
I lightly smacked his shoulder. "You might not have promised in so many words, but it was still a promise."
He sat back with a sigh. "How is not promising still a promise?"
"It just is."
"Are you mad at me, India?"
"Yes. No. Perhaps." I snuggled closer to show I wasn't really mad and because it was a little chilly. He adjusted the fur collar of my stole and tucked me into his side. His warmth instantly enveloped me. "Do you believe Coyle when he said he didn't inform Cox’s half-brother?" I asked.
"No. He has no compunction about lying."
"But he had no reason to tell him."
"No reason we know of."
I yawned and tucked my hand inside his jacket to feel the comforting beat of his heart. "Oscar seemed unhappy after you spoke to him. Do you think he really is in love with Louisa?"
"Hard to say. She told him about proposing to Fabian, by the way. Louisa said she'd done it out of familial duty, as their families have a long association and it was expected."
"Then why did he look so cross when he came into the drawing room?"
"Because he didn't know about Gabe Seaford."
"Ah. So now he's aware it wasn't familial obligation but a pattern that proves she's after him for his magic." I yawned. "Poor Oscar."
"They deserve each other."
"They won't have each other, now. He'll call it off, or do the honorable thing and let her end it so that she can appear to be the jilter not the jilted."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps the lure of her fortune will help him overcome his misgivings."
Willie breezed into the sitting room, took one look at me with Aunt Letitia's portable writing desk on my lap, and clicked her tongue in admonishment. "You working on a Saturday?"
"It's a miserable morning," I said, indicating the rain-splattered window. "And this isn't work. I enjoy learning about magic." It fulfilled me in a way that only tinkering with clocks and watches had in the past. Now that I no longer had ready access to broken timepieces, I found my restlessness soothed by memorizing Fabian's list of magic words and attempting to put them together to create new spells.
"Sounds like work to me." Willie slouched into a chair by the fire with a loud sigh. She sighed again when no one took any notice of her.
Matt lowered the corner of the newspaper. "Something wrong, Willie?"
"I'm bored."
"Already? You just got out of bed."
"And it's almost eleven," Aunt Letitia noted without looking up from the letter she was reading.
"I slept in because I got in late last night," Willie said.
Duke lowered the newspaper he was reading just as Matt raised his. "Were you with Brockwell?"
"Ain't none of your business who I was with."
Duke rolled his eyes and lifted the paper again.
"Fine, I'll tell you." Willie stretched her feet toward the fire. "I met a woman down by the docks—"
"The docks!" Duke cried at the same moment that Aunt Letitia said, "Spare us the vulgar details." She might accept Willie's inclination for both sexes but she didn't like discussing it.
Duke put the paper down on the table and regarded Willie with concern. "You do know those women ain't looking for love."
"Who says I'm looking for love?"
"The only thing you'll find there is disease."
Aunt Letitia made a sound of disgust. "Must we speak of these things?"
"What about the detective inspector?" I asked. "Are you two no longer a couple?"
"A couple?" Willie scoffed. "We were never that. We were just two people who like each other's company, once in a while. We still see each other some nights, but neither of us wants to make it something it ain't. We're happy."
She did seem rather happy with the arrangement. I wondered if Brockwell was too.
"Who wants to play poker?" Willie asked.
"Not me," I said, once again concentrating on the list of magic words.
"Duke?"
"I'm reading the paper," he said, picking it up.
"As am I," Matt added from behind his newspaper.
Miss Glass lifted her correspondence higher to hide her face and avoid looking at Willie altogether.
Willie crossed her arms over her chest. "I wish Cyclops was here. He'd play a few rounds with me. Is he at Catherine's shop again?"
"He left early this morning," I told her.
"That shop'll be as clean as a drunk's empty glass by now. He's been there every day for a week."
Ever since Catherine Mason had lied to extricate him from Charity Glass's trap, Cyclops had shown his appreciation by helping Catherine and her brother Ronnie set up their watch and clock shop. The shop had opened for business a few days ago, but Cyclops insisted on being there to clean, carry things, and assist in any way he could. Willie was right; there was no need for him to be there now that the shop was in order. Tomorrow it would be closed, being Sunday. I wondered if Cyclops would invent a reason to visit anyway.
Talk of the shop reminded me of the black marble clock now sitting proudly on the mantel in the sitting room. It had been on display for many years in the shop, losing time every day, despite both my father and I working on it. While I'd managed to get every other clock and watch working, that one had always eluded me.
I'd never spoken a spell into it, however, until bringing it home a few weeks ago. The spell my grandfather had taught me didn't fix the clock straight away, but speaking the spell in conjunction with my continued daily tinkering had finally worked. The clock had not lost a single second all week. The satisfaction I felt bordered on elation.
Raised voices drifted up to us from downstairs, but we couldn't make out the words. One of the voices was Bristow's. Matt lowered his newspaper and frowned, listening.
A loud clatter rose above the voices. It sounded like the silver salver crashing onto the tiled entrance hall floor. "Stop this instance!" Bristow shouted. "You can't go up there unannounced!"
Footsteps pounded on the stairs.
Matt, Duke and Willie shot to their feet and made for the door, but the intruder barreled through it, almost careening into them. He pulled up short, his chest heaving with the exertion of sprinting up the stairs. His gaze flew past Matt and the others and fell on me.
Aunt Letitia gasped and reached for my hand. I took it, my heart in my throat.
I recognized the man. He was a leather magician by the name of Bunn. The last time he'd come here, Bristow and Peter the footman had marched him out after I'd refused to use my magic to extend his. So why was he back, and desperate to speak to me?
Chapter 2