A Suitable Replacement (6 page)

Max nodded stiffly. "If that is your wish, sir. I do not like it, and would like to see a wrong done to you righted, but it is your choice and I will accept that."

"Thank you. Goodnight then, my lord." He gave a brief bow and headed toward the door.

"You could stay for the rest of the ball anyway," Max said. "We could—"

"I never cared much for balls, and take no joy in staying where I am not wanted. The Chestertons hate me, and I am certain you would like to get on with your own life and friends."

Max shook his head. "I hardly—"

"Please, my lord. You've done enough. Goodnight."

The door closed quietly behind him and Max slumped, walking slowly over to the window to scowl out a shadowy garden. Would it have killed the damned man to spend a couple of hours with him? Max was not the best dancer in the world, but he hardly embarrassed himself. They'd had fun, had they not? He could still taste the gin, and those smiles were seared into his mind.

But it had been made painfully clear that Kelcey did not want to spend time with him. Well, why should he? They'd known each other barely two days, and under strained circumstances; Kelcey was going through a terrible time and Max was still trying to settle back into the rhythm of city life. It was stupid to think Kelcey would be his friend. One, he had been engaged to Mavin. In all his years, Max had never been able to compete with her and win.

Two, he had been engaged to Mavin until she ran off with someone else. Kelcey probably wanted never to see either of them again. The more Max thought about it, the more he wanted to bash his own head in.

Damn it all, why was Mavin
always
first? If he had been the one to help Kelcey instead of her, would events have played out differently?

Oh, what did it matter? He had known Kelcey two days. If he was upset about how the matter had played out, it was simply because he possessed as much ego as any man. Time to get on with all he had set aside.

Chapter Four

The door creaked, the first sound not made by himself that Max had heard in … hours, he supposed. Possibly days. The servants had orders not to bother him for any reason, unless there was smoke or he screamed, so whoever had opened his door had better have very good reason for bothering him.

They could also wait until his latest series of tests had concluded, unless whoever it was desired to die.

"Is that
goblin
blood?"

Max dropped the corked jar he was holding, hot surprise and cold dread slicing through him. The damned thing shattered all over, a perfect waste of time, effort, and money. He glared at the mess on his work table, the splashes of blood that had flown up to smear his spectacles, then shifted his ire to the figure looming entirely too damned close. "Who the hells let you inside?" He yanked his spectacles off his nose and fumbled around his nearby discarded jacket for a cloth to clean them, hating the burn he could feel on his cheeks.

Two weeks, two bloody fucking weeks of blissful normality, and then Kelcey walked in and shattered it. Must he gad about looking so handsome and distracting? It was horrendously unfair how effortlessly he had just ruined Max's equanimity, and all the more insulting he did it unwittingly.

Shoving his spectacles back on his face, Max demanded, "Well? Have you forgotten how to speak?"

"Um—Hugh. I came by to see how he was getting on, and thought I would say, uh, hello?"

Max flinched. "Of course you would want your manservant back, I apologize. He fit so seamlessly here that I—well, I have been … distracted. You should have mentioned it back—two weeks ago. I would have sent him straight on to you and paid him well for his troubles."

"Honestly he is happier here," Kelcey replied. "He hardly belongs to me; if he had not wanted to remain he would have done as he pleased. He stays with me out of loyalty. When I was foisted upon a woman who did not have time to tend yet another stray child, he took care of us as best he could. We parted ways when I was still a boy, but crossed paths again a couple of years ago. He lives a floor below me, and helps me out from time to time. I'm sure he enjoys having an entire household to look after again. Is that goblin blood?"

Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, Max replied, "Yes, it is. Strictly speaking it is a small quantity of extremely difficult to come by goblin blood heavily diluted in a special preservative solution. Not all that strange a thing to find in a lab devoted to studying goblins and magic theory, though it is an expensive thing that took me a great deal of time to obtain."

Kelcey winced. "My apologies."

"It is not your fault I am clumsy, though would it trouble you to make
noise
when you walk, sir?"

The winced turned into a little smile. "I am afraid it is a habit I cannot break, my lord."

"I sincerely doubt you have ever tried to break it."

Kelcey's smile widened, but he only asked, "Did you say magic theory? Your sister never mentioned you studied that. She said you were an expert on goblin biology and the chemical weaponry they used in the war."

"Chemical weapons, bah," Max replied. That was what he was required to call them, but he—and many others—were well aware they were, for lack of a better term,
magical
attacks, using science and weaponry far too advanced to belong to the human world. "If she did not mention my true studies, it is because she gets as tired as me of people reacting in precisely that manner." Standing up, Max shoved his stool under the table before stalking over to a cabinet that held cleaning supplies. Pulling out a sharp-smelling unguent made for cleaning up blood and a rag, he stomped back over to the table and began to carefully clean up the mess. He threw the shattered bits of glass into a metal bin to join the fallen remains of three jars and two beakers. At the rate he was breaking things, he would have to make another run to the chemist's shop soon.

"What manner? Surprise? I am not allowed to be surprised that you study such a controversial branch of science? That was part of the reason my parents rebelled, you know. They did not like that the governments of the world hide the truth about the Hollow Wars. Their belief was that if they would lie so thoroughly about a terrible event that spanned fifteen years then they likely lie about everything else and put all of us in more danger. I would have thought Lady Mavin would have mentioned you study magic for that reason alone. I am surprised I was never told to sever the relationship, given the crown still largely regards me as a traitor, though I was party to none of my family's plots."

Max said nothing as he finished cleaning up the spilled blood, throwing the rag in a bin for special cleaning and returning the unguent to the cabinet. Slowly returning to the table, he replied, "I don't study magic. I study magic theory, which is the idea that humans will eventually be capable of using what we presently call 'magic'. And it
is
science; we simply call it 'magic' because we do not yet know what else to call it. Once upon a time people thought fire was magic. And I, like many other 'crackpot scientists', think that the Hollow Wars—what most of us call the Goblin Wars because that's what they actually were no matter what the government says—were a first indication that we will someday possess such abilities ourselves."

"You truly think so?"

"How else to explain our strong resemblance to them, the way we were able to use their own weapons against them despite not really understanding what we were doing? We still do not understand much, though most of that can be laid at the feet of our dear governments, who prefer to pretend that largely unexplainable events never happened and blame a fifteen year war on made-up or heavily altered events, and people who either never existed or whose lives were egregiously warped. I do not venture so far as to say we will someday evolve into goblins, gods forbid, but will we eventually reach an equal state of magical ability and superior senses? Most assuredly. All my theories are sound, no matter what you or anyone else thinks." He snatched up his notes from the day's experiments and strode to his desk, dropping heavily into his seat and thumping the papers down before he went digging for ink and pen to properly transcribe everything. A shadow fell across his desk a few seconds later. "I am going to strangle you if you do not start making noise when you walk."

"We just discussed this," Kelcey replied. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to imply you were a crackpot or anything of the sort. My surprise was only that you studied something so controversial when you seem such a … non-controversial sort, for all you are very much like your sister."

Max laughed. "Non-controversial? Me? My parents wanted a nice, quiet, proper heir to follow in their footsteps, and instead they got an heir who brought wild animals into the house and smoke and drank and danced with anyone, and a little copy of her who liked to combine dubious substances just to watch them explode. My parents were not even surprised when I began to express interest in the Goblin Wars. They said given the number of 'witches' in the family, it was inevitable another such problem would crop up eventually." He rubbed the back of his hand where he still bore a faint scar from his first explosion at the age of twelve, remembered long lectures about discretion and trying to minimize the embarrassment he would cause them if he could not leave off his foolishness entirely.

He maintained that if they had not wanted him leaving off explosions (for the most part) in favor of the Goblin Wars, they should not have left Uncle Carter's journals lying about where anyone could find them. What were attics full of dusty trunks and crates for if not poking about? The discovery of the journals detailing thoughts and studies regarding the truth about the wars had provoked in Max a lifelong obsession, and he would stay his course no matter the ridicule and derision and accusations of insanity that met him.

"Your sister is full of controversy, but Mavin always spoke of you as the sibling who was smart enough not to stir up trouble every single place you went. I remember Lord Peterson said something snide one day about you and your studies, not realizing she was nearby, and … well, he looked very small by the time he was allowed to slink away. I never knew why he was speaking of you at all."

"He is a very sore loser," Max said. "I was gone these past three years on a special research expedition at a newly discovered Goblin Wars battleground. I am still writing up papers and finishing experiments that pertain to it. Fully funded and a chance for prestige that men would cheerfully kill to possess, and I not only beat him for a place in the expedition, I trounced him soundly."

Kelcey leaned against the edge of his desk, practically sitting upon it, and Max hastily looked down at his notes lest he get caught staring. Did the man have to fit his breeches that damned well? They nearly tipped from fashionable to obscene. Why was he still there, anyway? Max started to ask, then caught himself, worried the question would sound like he wanted Kelcey to leave—which he did, except he didn't.

Silence stretched on, save for the rasp of pen against paper. Finishing one sheet, Max set it aside and shuffled his notes to assess how best to transcribe the next session. Should he ask Kelcey to stay for dinner? Was there a dinner to stay for? When was the last time he had bothered to eat dinner?

"Have you heard from Lady Mavin at all?"

Oh. That was the real reason for his visit. He should have realized. Kelcey had made it clear at their last encounter that he wanted little to nothing to do with Max. Of course he would only pay a call to inquire after those persons he did care about. "I have not, but I'm certain she is being cautious, given all I have learned about her Lord Ridley in the past fortnight. You are not the only to have abandoned an engagement, and Lord Ridley's family is decidedly more hostile about the matter. She also knows better than to give me any hints as to her whereabouts; I have a well-honed knack for locating her."

"I hope she's doing well, because she is probably going to be miserable once she is dragged home to face everyone."

Max shrugged. "She'll weather it, she always has; she thrives on it." He finished transcribing his notes and set the papers and pen aside. Standing, he looked at Kelcey—and froze at the look on his face. "What?"

"You … look quite different than the few other occasions I saw you. Reminds me how often I arrived to take Lady Mavin out and she was not even dressed properly for receiving. With anyone else it would be scandalous, but I think the two of you it is simply … you. Too distracted for such trivial things as propriety." His mouth quirked with a fondness that made Max's stomach roil, as it was obviously all for his sister, and he didn't want to bloody fucking hear about his sister in scandalous disarray when her fiancé arrived to whisk her away for an evening about town. He did not want to see Kelcey smiling fondly about Mavin when Max wanted to drag him downstairs to his bedroom, strip him, and ride him until they passed out from exhaustion. That Kelcey could inspire him to such ridiculous things as
jealousy
despite everything was just one more piece of madness.

Stomping across the room, he snatched up his jacket where he had left it by his work station, then spun sharply on his heel to glower. "You are welcome to stay for dinner, sir, though I cannot promise it will be a terribly exciting one. Excuse me for a moment, I will go and make myself more presentable."

He left quickly, ignoring it when Kelcey called out after him, fleeing down to the second floor into the safety of his bedchamber. Movement caught his eye, and he saw himself in the mirror, grimaced at the messy hair, wrinkled and stained clothes. He had not even bothered to put on stockings, let alone shoes, that morning in his eagerness to try a modification to his latest experiment he had thought of while drifting off to sleep.

Bah. Max stripped off his clothes and cleaned up with the pitcher of water on the washstand near his bed, wiping away ink and a smudge of unguent that would leave his skin stained purple for a week—and he had thought he'd managed to be careful.