Kat, Incorrigible (11 page)

“Hmm. Let me think. … Perhaps because I know you?” Angeline stood, smoothing down her dress. “I don’t have time right now to pry the answers out of you. Elissa is expecting me.”

“What a pity,” I said. “Well, have a good time. Come back whenever you want to interrogate me again or come up with any more wild stories.”

Angeline went very still. “Don’t get cocky, Kat. You haven’t forgotten any more than I have what happened three nights ago.”

Mama’s cabinet. Coldness crept inside my chest with the reminder. “And?” I said, with as much bravado as I could muster.

“I won’t let you hurt Elissa any more than you have
already,” Angeline said, and closed the door behind her.

I heard her footsteps retreat down the hallway, then another door open. Angeline’s and Elissa’s voices mingled for a moment in easy communion. Then the sound cut off with the snick of Elissa’s bedroom door closing, shutting the two of them in cozily alone, together. As usual.

I snatched up the reticule and flung it against the door with all my strength. Beads showered off it in all directions.

“Devil take her,” I whispered. “Devil, devil, devil!”

I jumped off the bed and paced around the tiny room. It wasn’t big enough for proper pacing. There was barely any floor space outside the bed. I stalked to the broad windows and stared outside. Grantham Abbey rose up before me, massive and powerful even in its ruined state. My eyes traced the high, empty window arches, outlining the blue sky. My breath slowly began to even itself out.

I wondered what Angeline and Elissa were talking about right now.

I set my teeth together with a snap. It didn’t matter what they were talking about. It didn’t even matter what they thought of me. I didn’t care.

But I had to get out of this room, into somewhere I could run. And there was only one place I could do that without being sighed at and lectured half to death.

I slid back onto the bed. Taking a deep breath, I picked up the golden mirror. It burned against my skin with familiar heat.

If Angeline had found it …

Wait.
I jumped off the bed and hurried to the door. I didn’t want any more nosy visitors while I was gone. I locked the door and set the little key safely on my bedside table.

There. Angeline and Elissa would have to stay right out of it. I was the only one in the world who knew where I was going, and my sisters had nothing to say in the matter.

I sat back on the bed, breathing easier this time.
Mama
, I thought, and closed my eyes as I clicked the mirror open.

Heat swept through my chest. A hot wind seized me and flung me inside out.

When I opened my eyes, I was sitting in Mama’s Golden Hall. My head didn’t hurt. I hadn’t hit anything on the way. I laughed out loud with sheer delight.

I was getting better at this, and wouldn’t Angeline be shocked to hear it!

I stood up and stretched luxuriously as I stared at the vast hall around me. I’d been scared and overwhelmed last time, but I’d also been right about one thing: It was a perfect space to explore. I couldn’t wait to see what lay beyond it.

I had at least three hours before anyone would expect to see me. I could do anything I wanted.

I started across the empty golden room. There had to be doors hidden somewhere along these smooth,
shining walls, I was certain of it. And I was determined to find out where every one of them led.

The only warning I had was a soft popping sound behind me.

I spun around, lifting my fists to the boxing position Charles had taught me.

“Oh, I do hope you won’t choose to hit me, my dear,” Mr. Gregson said. He straightened the glittering spectacles on his nose as he smiled at me. “I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you again.”

“How—?” my voice came out as a croak. I swallowed
and started again with more force. “You were supposed to be occupied with the house party!”

“I was,” said Mr. Gregson. “But I left a warning signal in place to alert me as soon as you returned here. It was a very sensible precaution. After all, I couldn’t waste my time waiting here for you to come back, could I? I would never get anything else done.” He shrugged. “You showed remarkable restraint, though. I must admit that I did not expect you to wait so long.”

“I’m not a complete fool,” I said. Inside my head, though, I could hear both my sisters’ voices in unison:
Kat, you little fool!
I’d known better than to come back at all, hadn’t I? I’d sworn not to. But here I was again, and no
one even knew where to look for me if I didn’t escape.

I wasn’t about to reveal my fear, though. Instead I looked pointedly past Mr. Gregson’s shoulder. “Where is your friend? Was she too afraid to come back, after last time?”

“Lady Fotherington?” Mr. Gregson’s eyebrows rose above his spectacles. “Both Lady Fotherington and I thought it best that she remain in London for the moment. She was, of course, able to heal the physical damage you had done. You needn’t worry about her well-being.”

“I didn’t,” I muttered. But I couldn’t stop a small pang of relief from shooting through me. The crunching noise I’d heard when I hit her nose had made me feel sick every time I’d remembered it, even though she had completely deserved it and I didn’t regret it at all.

“Mm,” Mr. Gregson said, and coughed stiffly. “Regard-less, I—we—felt it would be better if I came alone to Grantham Abbey, as your first meeting together had not gone so, er, pleasantly as one might have hoped.”

“This meeting won’t go pleasantly either,” I said. “Especially not if you’re planning to cast any more spells on me to let you steal Mama’s magic books.”

Mr. Gregson winced. “Please, my dear. Guardians do not cast spells. Guardians work magic. It is quite a different matter.”

I kept my fists raised in boxing position. “Regardless,” I said, “I didn’t see you stopping Lady Fotherington from attacking me last time.”

“Lady Fotherington is sometimes a bit impetuous, but she has only the best interests of our Order at heart, and, of course, your own best interests as well, my dear. If you had never come back through the mirror, you could never have been taught the full extent of your own powers. Fortunately, I, knowing your mother rather better than Lady Fotherington ever did, knew perfectly well that there was no need to work any magic upon you to bring about what we all desired. Your own natural curiosity, much like Olivia’s—”

“Never mind that,” I said. I didn’t want to think about what my curiosity had led me into … or how horribly, unforgivably predictable it had been. I knew that even my own sisters would have agreed with Mr. Gregson about that, which made it even worse. “I’m not joining any Order with Lady Fotherington in it,” I said. “Much less one that expelled my own mother. So if that’s all you’re here to talk about—”

“You have no idea what you are dismissing so cavalierly!” Mr. Gregson took out his pocket handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “Really, Miss Katherine, I must ask you to be reasonable. You do not seem to have any notion of how fortunate you are even to have this opportunity! It is offered only to—”

“‘Only one child in each generation of a family,’” I quoted. “I heard you last time.”

“No,” Mr. Gregson said. “That is not what I said at all.”

I lowered my fists, frowning. “Yes, you did. You said—”

“Not every child who inherits the powers of a Guardian is offered the chance to join our Order.”

I tried to raise just one eyebrow, like Angeline. They both came up together, so I had to settle for looking surprised instead of sardonic.

Mr. Gregson fixed me with a firm look. “Your family hovers on the edge of respectability in Society’s eyes, and thus in the eyes of our Order. If they were but one step lower on the social scale—if your father had turned to trade rather than to the clergy; if your mother had married a merchant rather than a vicar—”

“Wait a moment,” I said. “You said last time that my parents’ marriage was the whole reason Mama was exiled from your snobby Order. Didn’t you?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Not … exactly. The point is—”

“What could possibly have been wrong with Papa? He’s a clergyman. That’s the most respectable position there is!”

“The Church,” said Mr. Gregson, “has never understood the necessity for any kind of magic, even the respectable and natural form that we practice.”

“Hmm,” I said, and thought,
Not that respectable, if you have to keep it a secret
. He kept going, though, his voice speeding up with agitation.

“One could hardly approve of any clergyman as a husband for a Guardian. And your mother—Olivia Amberson, of all women! The most powerful young Guardian I had
ever trained!—was choosing not only to marry a man who could never appreciate her, but to bury herself in a community that would never accept who she was. It was the most phenomenal waste of ability I have ever seen in my life. I begged her to reconsider—we all begged her—but she would not listen to any of us. She was too young to understand the risks she ran, and too foolishly in love. And, to be fair, he did seem quite besotted with her at the time.”

Besotted
. I remembered the love spell in Mama’s magic book, with Papa’s name written beside it. Every sarcastic thought I’d been forming tumbled straight out of my mind. My lips formed an
Oh
that I didn’t say out loud. Instead I asked faintly, “How long do love spells last?”

He cocked his head to one side like an inquisitive bird. “That depends on the strength of the spell. Sometimes, only a week. Others last for years.”

“Oh,” I said, and closed my mouth tightly.

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” I said. “I only wondered.”

I hoped Mama’s love spell had lasted for years. I hoped it had lasted all her life. I hoped it had never faded away and left Papa blinking at her with blank surprise, wondering how he could ever have sacrificed his career for her sake.

My chest hurt. I blinked hard and set my jaw. “Why couldn’t she stay in the Order after she married Papa? Did you expel her just because”—I could hardly even say
the words, they sounded so ridiculous in my mouth—“because she married beneath herself?”

“Oh, no. Of course, it would have been difficult for her to disguise her activities from your father and everyone else in the community. A clergyman’s wife in a small country village has an extraordinarily public position, and it all would have been dreadfully inconvenient for everyone. But despite everything …” Mr. Gregson sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping. “I had no idea how far she had strayed from our path until Lady Fotherington came to me. She had gone to your mother, tried to make her see sense about that absurd betrothal.”

“Oh, I can imagine that meeting,” I said.

“Humph,” said Mr. Gregson. “Well, perhaps you can. But it was much worse than any of us had anticipated. For during the course of their confrontation, Lady Fotherington found evidence—quite incontrovertible evidence—that your mama had betrayed us all.” He lowered his voice as if he were speaking blasphemy. “Olivia had actually been practicing witchcraft, as a Guardian!”

“So?”

“So?” He shook his head. “Young lady, it is the most unbreakable law in our Order! We protect Society against the misuse of magic—against rogue witches! It was witchcraft that nearly burned Parliament to the ground in 1605. It was witchcraft that led to the Civil War, when Cromwell and his associates turned against us all. Guardians were
burned at the stake because of the damage witchcraft had caused!”

I gritted my teeth. “Are you going to tell me that witches are the only people who have ever misused magic?”

He flushed. “Our membership requirements have changed in the last two hundred years,” he said stiffly. “Nowadays, any Guardian who might misuse their powers would never be trained by us in the first place.”

Ha!
I thought. Any Order that would keep Lady Fotherington and expel Mama had no notion of reasonable membership requirements. But I had more important matters to pursue. I put on my most innocent voice. “And your Order pacifies witches. Isn’t that what Lady Fotherington said?”