A Study in Silks (26 page)

“A fine occasion,” said Bucky, appearing at Tobias’s elbow. He had a generous plate of food: lobster salad, foie gras, salmon in green sauce, and a little paper cup of ice cream that was quickly melting into a puddle. “Your sister looks radiant.”

“Eh?” Tobias looked for Imogen, a little puzzled by the statement. Imogen looked like Imogen. She was fluttering around the row of chairs set in the shade, making a fuss over the dowagers no one else wanted to talk to.

“Your sister. London must agree with her.”

Tobias gave a halfhearted shrug. “It’s the prospect of buying nine and twenty dresses for her Season. That sort of thing puts a sparkle in a girl’s eye.”

Bucky speared an olive with his fork. “And no doubt this blazing insight arises from extensive discourse with the fair sex?”

“My observation, or shall we say interrogation, of any woman’s wardrobe has little to do with shopping.”

Bucky rolled his eyes heavenward. “So which was most informative, petticoats or knickers?”

“Both were most unreliable witnesses. They came undone beneath the slightest pressure.”

Bucky dropped his voice. “One would have thought they’d keep their lips fastened. Or perhaps that’s the girl I’m thinking of. Or perhaps I’m thinking of the wrong lips.”

Tobias opened his mouth, closed it, and cast about for a change of subject before the conversation could get any more disgraceful. Most of the time, he found innuendo amusing, but not now. Today, he felt weirdly prim.

“Did you hear they’re betting on the Reynolds trial?” Bucky asked, his merriment fading a degree.

“Who hasn’t?”

They’d both known the woman from parties—not well, but enough to be shocked by the charges. Nellie Reynolds was a queen of the demimonde, a bastard daughter of some highborn lord. She was striking more than beautiful, but possessed of a resonant voice that captured one’s heart and wrung it without mercy.

“I heard she’s got a lawyer,” Bucky said. “A good one. He’s going to plead the evidence they found was all for the theater. Magic for entertainment purposes is allowed. Card readers and astrologers are exempt, so why not allow someone to own a crystal ball, if its only use is for playacting?”

“The whole thing is too macabre for me.”

“An anonymous donor is paying for a defense.” Bucky shifted uneasily. “Someone is brave, to go against opinion like that.”

They both stood silent a moment, sharing uneasy thoughts. The wish to rebel was easy. Facing the reality of it was something else. Eventually, Bucky saw someone he knew and hurried away.

Abandoning his teacup on the table, Tobias worked his way through the crowd to where his mother was accepting birthday wishes. Her pale gray and pink gown was accompanied by a tiny hat crowned in curling feathers. Lady Bancroft was tall and slender, but her fair hair and pale skin
seemed faded, like a painting left too long in the full glare of the sun—or perhaps in the glare of her husband.

“Dear Mama, happy birthday.” He bent and kissed her cheek.

“Tobias.” Her hand automatically touched his face—a maternal gesture she’d never quite surrendered.

“My congratulations on the party. You always put these affairs together with such exquisite taste.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “After so long in the service of your father, it becomes second nature.”

Tobias met her pale blue gaze, experiencing a slight twinge of apprehension. “I have a birthday gift for you.”

When finding a present for his mother, Tobias faced an age-old problem. She never complained about what he gave her, and never seemed to favor one year’s offering more than any other. It made it hard to tell which ones had truly hit the mark.

He pulled a small parcel from his jacket pocket and placed it in his mother’s lace-gloved hands. Then he watched for her reaction as she unwrapped the blue tissue paper with agonizing care. Inside was a delicate silver brooch shaped like a butterfly.

“How lovely!” she said, tilting to examine the garnets and pearls set into the wings.

Tobias reached down, pressing a tiny button on the butterfly’s body. The wings began to slowly fan. He pressed it again, and a soft, silvery chime rang as the creature moved. His mother’s lips parted in wonder, and she smiled. It was a wonderful smile—a real one that warmed him from the heart outward.

“You made this, didn’t you? It’s so delicate,” she murmured. “And so clever.”

“I had a jeweler set the stones,” he said, struggling to sound nonchalant.

“You’re as brilliant as your father was when he was your age.”

The words seemed to catch in her throat, and the smile stopped. Tobias scanned her face, wanting to bring back that instant of rare, genuine pleasure. Somehow, in his infinite
genius, he had managed to please her and stir an unpleasant thought at the same time. There were days when he marveled at his own ineptitude.

“Thank you so much, darling.” She put her hand to his face again, the pleasant, impersonal mask of Ambassador’s Wife firmly back in place. “Help me put it on. I want to wear it right away.”

Obediently, he pinned the brooch to her shawl and accepted a kiss to his cheek. He wondered how many hours he had to remain sober.

Too many
. His father was advancing, shirt so crisp beneath his cutaway coat it made one’s eyes water. A violent urge to flee seized Tobias, but with the eerie telepathy of mothers, Lady Bancroft took his hand. Lord Bancroft gave him a cool look and turned to his wife.

“My dear, you look lovely as always.” He lifted her free hand, kissing the air just above it. “Felicitations of the day.”

“Thank you, Lord Bancroft. I hope the arrangements meet your expectations.”

His father gave a perfunctory smile. “It’s a shame the prime minister couldn’t attend, but I had a very satisfactory discussion with the ministerial liaison to the Steam Council.”

“I’m pleased to hear it, my lord.”

Tobias clenched his teeth. Of course his mother’s birthday party would be used to further his father’s social connections. That was the way the world worked. But it still bothered him.

“What’s this?” Lord Bancroft indicated the fanning butterfly.

Her hand cupped it protectively. “A gift from Tobias.”

He shot his son a contemptuous look. “I would have thought you had outgrown your artisan phase.”

Tobias heard his mother’s indrawn breath, but knew she would not contradict her husband. She was too proper to even address him by his first name in public. Instead, she gently squeezed Tobias’s hand, offering covert sympathy. He returned the pressure and then took a step away. Otherwise,
it felt too much like he was a child again, hiding behind his mother’s skirts.

“I’m still fascinated by the possibilities of the imagination,” he said to his father, keeping his tone reasonable. “Not just the possibilities, but how many of them I can manifest.”

His father’s tone was low, but held the sting of acid. “Better if you manifested a career.”

“Perhaps I shall invent something that will make me a wealthy man.”

“Then you would do well to raise your sights above butterflies.”

“But it is merely a gift!” his mother interjected.

Both Tobias and his father stared at her. She had never, as long as Tobias could recall, intervened in one of these debates.

“What did you say?” Lord Bancroft demanded.

The moment hung in the sunny garden. At the other end of the lawn, someone smacked a croquet ball. Lady Bancroft looked away, hiding her face. Casually, as if merely moving to keep the sun out of his eyes, Tobias put himself bodily between his parents.

His father’s displeasure radiated like the blast from a furnace. “I’ve given you my opinion of your tinkering. It’s not an acceptable pastime any longer. Not with men like Jasper Keating, and their opinions count. You attract the wrong kind of attention to this house.”

“I have talent. How can that bring anything negative?”

“Unless you intend to mend pots for a living, you had best find other pursuits.”

“You were good with your hands once, too.” Tobias turned his head to look his father full in the face.

But Bancroft looked more drawn than angry. “This is no time to mock me.”

Tobias frowned. “I don’t understand.”

With a derisive huff of breath, his father stalked away. By the time he reached the drinks table, he appeared to be his smooth, urbane self once more. From what Tobias could see, whisky always improved Lord Bancroft’s mood. But once
he had refreshment, he wasted no time in moving to the far end of the property, away from his son.

Tobias stuffed his hands into his pockets, and then turned to his mother. “At risk of repeating myself, I don’t understand.”

Lady Bancroft gave him a searching look. “Perhaps that is for the best.”

“He did wonderful work. He made that machine that cut out those pastries you like. And do you remember those odd dolls he made for Imogen and Anna?” As a child, he’d thought them hideous and frightening, but now he could appreciate the skill it had taken to make them.

His mother shuddered. “Ugh. Don’t mention those automatons. Those were what made him give it all up.”

Tobias just had time to wonder about that before they were interrupted by a tall man wearing an elegantly cut dark suit.

“Forgive my intrusion,” the man said, sweeping off his top hat to make an extravagant bow to Lady Bancroft. “Madam, I come to pay my respects.”

Everything about the man was foreign, from his looks to his accent to his presumption that he could address a respectable woman without proper introduction.

“Who are you, sir?” Tobias demanded.

His mother answered with a laugh. “Why, this is Dr. Symeon Magnus. It has been far too long. You have not aged a day. You must tell me your secret.”

Tobias looked on in astonishment. Now that they’d been introduced, he recognized him, but only vaguely. His childhood memories were jumbled at best.

When Magnus bowed a second time, Lady Bancroft offered her hand. He lifted it to his lips in such a way that it brought color to her pale cheeks. Whoever he was, the man was smooth.

“This is such a pleasant surprise. Have you been in England long?” she asked.

“Not so long,” he replied easily. “Rest assured that I would not delay the pleasure of renewing our acquaintance, my lady.”

“Do you remember my son, Tobias?”

“Indeed, but he is now grown, I see.”

As they exchanged a nod, Tobias catalogued the man’s features. His dark, saturnine face was set off by a neatly trimmed goatee and mustache. His hair was too long for English fashion, but was thick and dark. From the quality of his dress and the fine silver carving on his walking stick, he was very well off.

“What an exquisite ornament.” Lord Magus indicated the butterfly brooch. “It operates on a spring, I assume?”

“Yes, it does.” He’d had enough of the man smiling at his mother. “What brings you to our fair country?”

“There is something here that I seek.” Dr. Magnus leaned both hands on the head of his cane, studying Tobias like a piece of prized horseflesh. “And if what I hear is true, I have come to see you.”

A jolt of surprise raised his hackles. “What business have you with me?”

The man grinned, teeth white in his dark face. “Allow me to render you pleasantly astonished.”

“How can I refuse such an offer?”

A flock of his mother’s friends were descending, so Tobias led the man out of earshot. They came to a halt underneath the oak tree.

Magnus leaned idly on his walking stick. “I have reliable information that you were the creator of the machine that destroyed
The Flying Dutchman
. An associate of mine observed you in possession of the remains.”

Tobias tensed, folding his arms. “You are drawing a great many conclusions.”

“Perhaps, but that pin your mother wears confirms all.”

“What associate?”

Magnus gave an enigmatic smile. “You have an almost magical facility for creation in your blood. I was there at the Royal Charlotte. It was a juvenile act, but such imagination promises enormous potential. Even more, I think, than your father, and I knew him at the height of his powers as a maker.”

Instinctively, Tobias reached out for the tree trunk, needing
support. He’d never had more of
anything
than the illustrious Lord Bancroft, much less a quality he valued. But who knew about the workshop? Had one of his friends spilled the tale?

He finally pushed past the surprise enough to speak. “Your praise is very generous, given that it was, as you say, a juvenile prank.”

“You are defensive.” Dr. Magnus tilted his head, studying Tobias with dark, fathomless eyes. “I suppose I cannot blame you. Few understand real talent.”

The man’s undiluted attention made him want to squirm, as if he were no more than a boy in knee pants. “Let me be blunt. What might I do for you?”

“What do I want?” Dr. Magnus flicked at the grass with the tip of his cane. “Always a dangerous question, fraught with unexpected perils.”

“And yet you clearly want something from me.” Hadn’t he had this conversation with Evelina just yesterday? He’d given her an answer that seemed clever at the time, but surely gave her no more satisfaction than Magnus was giving him now.

The man studied the ground, his voice slow and measured. “I have a great deal of money, and a great deal of knowledge. What I require is your artistic and mechanical talent. I’m wondering, if we pool our resources, just how far we might go.”

“Go?” The word promised everything, but specified nothing. Tobias was afraid to let himself become too interested.

“I have a number of projects in mind. When I first came to England, I meant to approach your father, but he seems, um, preoccupied.”

“My father?” Tobias asked in surprise. “He’s no maker. Not anymore.”

“So I’ve heard, sadly. He used to be, but I’m sure you know that.”

“I do.”

“Of course, we all used to be young. What I have in mind are young men’s projects, full of ambition and adventure.
They are somewhat esoteric.” Magnus smiled, and the smile was filled with mischief and a little wistful sadness.

Tobias was intrigued. People had wanted him for his name, or his looks, or what he might do for them, but never for what he loved about himself. “And in return for all this money and knowledge, all you want is my talent? And I assume that of my associates? I cannot claim to have built the squid on my own.”