Hope gasped. “He was robbed? How awful. What did the thieves take?”
“A magical object,” Matt said.
“No wonder you think it was my husband. But I can assure you, he hasn’t sent a thief to steal from Mr. Charbonneau. You ought to look elsewhere for your culprit.”
“And you know everything he does?” I asked. “Every person he meets, including the woman who just left?”
Hope’s spine stiffened. So I was right. She’d come in here to ask her husband who’d visited.
Lord Coyle put out his hand to her. “Come, my dear. There’s no need to be jealous.”
Hope’s wince was almost imperceptible and I wondered if her husband noticed it. She hesitated a mere moment before going to him.
“She was a magician,” he told us.
“Who?” I asked.
“No one you know. I asked her here to touch a magical object for me and confirm whether or not it does have magic in it.”
“I could have done that for you,” I said.
“You are the one who gave it to me, and it’s fair to say I don’t trust you. Indeed, I shouldn’t say gave, I meant sold, and it was Glass, not you, who asked a considerable thing in return.”
My blood chilled and my heart raced. Beside me, Matt shifted his weight to his other foot.
“I see from your faces that you realize I now know you sold me an ordinary rug, not a magical flying one.” He indicated the rug beneath our feet. “I thought it was too small to be the one we saw that day.”
“You didn’t expect us to hand over something so valuable.” Matt did not pose it as a question so Lord Coyle offered no answer.
He merely sat there, holding his wife’s fingertips as if he’d just managed to catch her before she snatched her hand away. “You crossed me, Glass.”
“Go on,” Matt said idly. “Next you have to issue a threat. That’s how these exchanges go.”
I could have kicked him, but I doubted that would have shut him up. Matt was not going to bow beneath Coyle’s ferocity any more than Coyle was going to let us get away with the duplicity.
“I won’t threaten you,” Lord Coyle said. “Not if you give me the real magical carpet.”
“It’s lost,” I told him. “It landed in a paddock somewhere near Brighton and has since disappeared.”
“Perhaps a cow ate it,” Matt said without taking his cold glare off Coyle.
“I want that carpet!”
Hope and I both jumped at Coyle’s bellow. Coyle’s grip tightened on her fingers.
Hope swallowed. “You could speak the spell into another one.” She tapped her toe on the rug beneath her feet. “Why not this one? Do it now.”
“The spell was stolen from Fabian and I haven’t memorized it,” I said.
Her eyes widened. She turned to her husband.
He let go of her hand. “Another carpet will not suffice. I want the original. That was what I purchased.”
“Why does it matter?” Hope asked. “It will still be one of two flying magical carpets in existence.”
“It matters!”
I jumped again, but Hope seemed prepared this time. She regarded him with that superior air she often used on me. I wondered if it galled him as it galled me. After all, she was only on her lofty pedestal because marrying him put her there.
“No harm done,” Matt said. His cheerfulness got everyone’s attention in the way a sharp object down a chalkboard does. “No money exchanged hands and we hadn’t yet collected our payment. As to the matter of the burglary…”
Coyle pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“Can we at least look at your collection? Just to make sure, of course.”
An unexpected ally came in the form of Hope. “That seems like a good idea. We can have this resolved in a moment.” To her husband, she added, “We don’t want them thinking you’re a common thief.”
Coyle’s jowls took on a life of their own as he struggled to contain his rising temper. He failed, however, and his face turned a dangerous shade of puce. “I said get out!”
The door opened and the butler and a burly footman stood there.
Matt smiled at Coyle. “Why won’t you listen to your wife on this? If you want us to think you innocent, you should just open the secret door.”
“I don’t care what you think,” Coyle ground out between a locked jaw. He flicked a hand at the butler. “See Mr. and Mrs. Glass out.”
The butler indicated we should exit the library ahead of him.
“Then bring me a cigar,” Lord Coyle snapped.
Hope pulled a face. “You promised me you wouldn’t smoke in the house. It makes the furniture smell.”
“It’s my bloody house, my furniture, and I like the smell.”
“That’s the end of that love affair,” Matt said as the butler closed the front door behind us.
“I don’t think love had much to do with their relationship. Certainly not on her part. Her reasons for marrying Coyle were entirely avaricious.”
Matt gave Woodall the address Fabian had given for Mr. Trentham’s toyshop. He’d gleaned it from the toymaker at Louisa’s soiree. Once we were settled in the carriage, Matt tucked the blanket over my lap. When the horses set off, I rocked forward, bumping my forehead on his chin. He kissed the spot, his warm lips lingering invitingly.
But I wasn’t in the mood for kisses. “Do you think we need to worry about Coyle’s threat?” I asked.
“He didn’t threaten us. Not really.”
I regarded him levelly. “You know what I mean. Should we be worried that he knows we tricked him?”
“We should always worry about Coyle.”
I sighed. Worrying about Coyle and what he’d do was constantly in the back of my mind of late. The problem was, we weren’t entirely sure what he wanted. Money seemed the most obvious, but why? He had no heir to leave it to, unless Hope fell pregnant. Perhaps he wanted power, but I wasn’t sure how collecting magical objects would get it. Collecting information certainly did, and had allowed him to manipulate people and events to his liking, but not magical things.
“I wonder why he didn’t want us seeing his collection today,” I said.
“Probably because your spell is in there.”
“I suppose so.”
The question now was, who stole it for him? And if it was the toymaker magician, would he admit it to save himself? Or did Coyle have some incriminating information against him that would see him lie, no matter what?
Chapter 4
Mr. Trentham’s toyshop on High Holborn was a delightful fantasy land for any child. It was crammed with everything a boy or girl could dream up, from baby rattles to sophisticated train sets. A rather intricate dolls house with miniature furniture reminded me of a carpentry magician we’d met recently. It sat at the back of the shop beside a life-sized medieval knight complete with helmet, chainmail and shield. There were also toy soldiers arranged in battle formation, board games, rocking horses, boats and a collection of puppies that looked eerily lifelike.
It was the workshop at the back that delighted me more, however. Spread over a counter, desk and on the floor itself, were half-built toys, painting tubes and brushes, and internal mechanisms that looked similar to those used in timepieces. They must be for the drum-playing monkey automaton perched on the end of the long workbench. It looked poised to make a loud bang on its drums, and going by its mischievous expression, it couldn’t wait to annoy the adults of the household while delighting the children.