No Proper Lady (17 page)

Ellie stared at him, though she was obviously trying not to. Every time Simon met her eyes, she went red and looked away for a moment, but then her gaze would jump back to him, and her hands would twist in her skirt. Simon couldn’t blame her. If he looked half as bad as he felt, he would draw anyone’s attention.

And Simon rejoiced in every bit of it: his boneless limbs, his aching head, and the tight dryness in his throat. He hurt, but he
felt
, and he felt with his own body. For a few moments after he woke up, he’d simply flexed his hands, staring at them, and then looked down his body at his legs and arms. Everything was whole. Everything was there.

Eleanor could stare as much as she liked. She could, if the impulse took her, have stood on her head or shrieked at the top of her lungs, and Simon still would have been glad because she would have been present to do it. This was his world. He could have wept with joy.

But she was looking upset, and so he smiled. It wasn’t hard, despite his weariness. “I’ll be all right, Ellie. I’m just a little worn out at the moment.”

“That’s very good to know. I’d hoped—” She broke off quickly.

One of her hands was bandaged, Simon saw now. There were shards of blue china scattered around the floor. “You did it,” he said, staring back at her now. “Didn’t you?”

Eleanor looked down at her hand. “I cast the spell. Joan threw the water.”

“Thank you.” He tried to put everything he felt into the words: relief, joy, gratitude. Love. “You saved my life, Ellie.”

Her head came up, and for a moment, her eyes glowed with both happiness and pride. “I could hardly do anything else,” she said softly. “After all, you did the same for me.”

In that moment, he understood some of the constraint that had been between them, understood it even as it vanished.
There was never a debt
, he might have said, but she’d felt one even if he hadn’t. Now they were on even ground. Eleanor would stand a little straighter from now on, he knew, and meet the world more squarely.

If this misadventure had done only that much, Simon would have been glad of it.

Getting up went all right. With a substantial effort of will, Simon even managed to do it without taking Joan’s hand. “All right,” he began, and took a step toward the door.

It was as if the entire world moved, and not the way he was going. He stumbled forward, clutching at the wall. “Simon!” Eleanor gasped behind him.

Then Joan was at his side with one of her arms around his back, holding him steady. Highly mortifying. She didn’t laugh, though, and she didn’t immediately start cosseting him. She just held Simon still while he gasped for breath and pushed wet hair out of his face.

“He’s all right,” she said matter-of-factly. “This happens. Wasn’t just astral travel, though, was it?”

He shook his head, panting. “Guardian beast. Spirit. Something. Had to get away—blasted it. It threw me—”

Exhausted and giddy, he might have gone on, letting Eleanor know everything he’d tried to keep from her, if Joan hadn’t interrupted. “Yeah, that’d do it. At least you can stand. I’ve seen men be carried out feet first after this kind of thing.”

“So he’ll be all right, then?” Eleanor asked.

“Should be,” said Joan. “It might take a couple days. Can you go tell the servants that he’s sick or something? I’ll get him out of here.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.”

As Eleanor departed, Joan took a quick look around the room and then sighed. “You can tell me how to clean up later, I guess. Hold on to me.”

“Don’t you want to know—” Simon began, but Joan shook her head.

“I want to know later,” she said. “And I will. For now, we’re moving.”

They’d closed the door and gotten a few steps past it when Mathers and one of the footmen hurried up to them. Whatever Ellie had told them, it had certainly sounded serious. “I’m all right,” Simon said again through the swaying dizziness.

Mathers replaced Joan with cautious efficiency. “Very good, sir. James, send for the doctor.”

Simon considered objecting, but there was really no reason to. It would only make him look strange. His doctor would examine him, find nothing, and conclude that it was some sort of chill or fever—or, if the opium showed up, would tactfully caution him against it. The man was discreet.

Besides, right now, he just wanted to lie down. The joy at being back in his own world was fading slowly, but it was fading, and he was becoming conscious of, among other things, the clammy wetness of his clothes. So he let James send for the doctor, he let Mathers dry him off and put him to bed, and he sank gratefully onto his pillows.

Home
.

The doctor asked why his hair was damp. Simon told him something close to the truth, that Joan had woken him with a pitcher of cold water when other methods failed. “Hmm,” the doctor said, and went on with his examination.

“Exhaustion,” he pronounced at the end, “and strain. Keep to your rooms for the next few days. Eat bland food and avoid strong drink.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Simon.

The world was now fading. He didn’t want to let it. It was too dear to him just now, even when he couldn’t move his head much: the familiar furnishings of his room, the noises from the street outside, the smell of wood smoke from the fireplace. The sheets were crisp and cool against his skin.

Joan slipped in, closed the door quietly behind her, and walked over to Simon’s bed. There she stopped and stared down at him, arms folded over her chest.

“Projection? On your own?” Her voice was low, but it had the parade ground and the barracks in it. “Great idea. Fucking terrific idea. You people have a real highly developed survival instinct, you know that? Forget what happens a hundred years from now—how the hell did we survive this long?”

“Well,” said Simon, smiling up at her. It was good to see her face, even when it was angry. “We don’t usually encounter legions of the damned here.”

Joan glared at him for a few moments, but then she sighed, unfolded her arms, and sat down on the edge of his bed. “That’s the problem with living in this world, I guess. You’re not prepared for the worst. I wish you’d told me, though. I would’ve stuck around.”

“Believe me, I wish I had told you,” he said. “But you were doing your part. If you’d stayed, I wouldn’t have thought it was safe.”

“Scrying on Reynell, huh?”

“On his house.” The memories came flooding back, and Simon swallowed. “The book’s there, I think. And…I don’t know what else. It’s a dark place. Whatever he’s done—whatever he’s doing”—he could only pray it was the latter, knowing that neither of them would be in a position to stop it for a while yet—“it leaves traces behind.”

“I’d have expected that,” Joan said evenly. “And then there was a guardian that could see the astral, and it threw you to my time?”

“I think so.” He described it in as much detail as he could so that Joan could recognize it, yes, but also just to get it all out. As he talked, he saw recognition on her face.

“Sounds like it,” she said, and turned her head away from him, looking out the window.

The sky outside was a hazy blue. It couldn’t compare to the brilliant hues in the country, away from the smoke of London, but it was bright and peaceful. Somewhere, it wasn’t. Somewhere, there were piles of bones and patches of moving darkness.

“Those automobiles,” Simon said. “People were trying to escape. They knew something was coming, didn’t they?”

“They did,” said Joan.

For a minute, she was silent. Then, without turning from the window, she sang in a low voice:

“And in the streets, the children screamed.

The mothers cried, and the prophets dreamed.”

She sat in the afternoon sunlight, utterly respectable in blue serge, her hair still mostly neat after everything. There was no hint of anything wild or untamed about her, let alone otherworldly, but her voice made Simon shiver.

“Have you been there?”

“Maybe. There are a couple places that fit the description.”

“Then every city is like that?”

Joan turned. Her smile was a knife slash. “No. Some of them are black glass and poisoned air. The bombs fell there at the end, and they don’t even leave bones. Nobody goes there.”

“God,” he said. Even with his eyes open, nightmarish images flashed in front of him.

“You really didn’t get it, huh?”

“I thought I did,” he said quietly.

“Yeah.” Joan sighed and her face softened a little. “Bad enough when you’re used to it. It must be hell to see if you’re not. I’m sorry, Simon.”

Simon shook his head, though the motion made him wince. “Hardly your fault, was it? Projection on my own—fucking terrific idea.”

For once, he seemed to shock her. Joan drew back for a second and then laughed, bright and golden. “I deserve that. Shouldn’t underestimate you. But damn, I thought you’d burst into flames or something if you swore like that.”

“Me? Not at all.” It was a pity that they hadn’t met in his own world—at the theatre or one of the salons or any of the other places he’d gone back when a bit of scandal or an aching head had been the worst consequence the world held for him. “One tries to speak nicely in polite society, though. And around ladies, in general.”

“That kind of lets me out, doesn’t it?”

“Hardly,” Simon said, with more strength than he’d planned to.

Joan laughed again, startled for a second time. For all that there’d been no self-pity in her question, it had been sincere. “You’re really sweet sometimes,” she said and added quickly, “It’ll probably get you in trouble.”

“As opposed to the placid and uneventful life I’ve been leading?”

“Well, you don’t need more excitement, do you?” Absently, Joan reached out and brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead. It was a gentler motion than Simon would have expected from her, calming and very pleasant. She didn’t move her hand away afterward, and he was glad.

“How did you get in, anyhow?” he asked. “I swear I’ve got the only key to that room. Did you—ah. You picked the lock, didn’t you?”

“If you can call it that.”

He had to laugh at the disgust in her voice. “I’m just as glad it’s not up to your standards, considering everything. Not all of us have your talents.”

Joan smiled, conceding the point. “It’s just training,” she said. “Well, a lot of training.”

There might have been wistfulness in her voice. Simon couldn’t tell, not really, but he remembered how she’d taken to dancing and riding. Now she couldn’t do either without playing a part.

“If you want to,” he said, “you can use the room I was in. To practice, I mean. I’ll have a key made for you.”

She stopped for a second and blinked. Not a woman to squeal or gush, Joan, but he could see surprise on her face and then delight. “Really?” she asked, and hastily cleared her throat. “I mean, I won’t be disturbing anything?”

“Not a thing,” Simon said. “In fact, once I get my strength back, you’ll have a sparring partner if you’d like one. I could use a few lessons, I think.”

“Hey—” she said, totally abandoning the patterns of speech she’d mastered. “Hey—thanks. Really.”

Simon let his eyes drift closed and thanked God when there was only unmoving darkness in front of him. Joan’s body was a vague warmth by his side. He wanted to move toward it, but even dazed and weak, he remembered some of the proprieties. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, hearing himself slur the words a little as weariness advanced on him. “Dreadfully scandalous, you know. People will talk.”

“What people?” she asked. Simon knew that she was smiling and that her eyebrows were raised just a little. “And what exactly do they think you’re going to do to me like this?”

“God only knows,” said Simon. Though he could imagine. Not that he could manage any of it right now. Still he welcomed his arousal at the thought, faint as it was. It was more proof that he was alive.

“Or maybe,” Joan said, speculative and amused, “they’re worried about what I could do.”

The idea was simultaneously laughable and stirring. Simon had seen certain little-discussed publications showing bound men, haughty women, bonds and whips. The dim heat he’d felt earlier grew stronger. “I doubt anyone worries about my virtue,” he said thickly.

“How sad for you.” Joan started to get up. “But if—”

Despite his exhaustion, he wanted her badly in ways it was best that he couldn’t carry out right now. But when Simon caught her wrist, it had nothing to do with sex. She was warm and human; she was the one person in his household who’d lived through what he’d seen. “Please,” he said. “Stay. Until I sleep.”

If Joan had looked at all askance in that moment, Simon would have summoned up the remains of his dignity and sent her away.

But she didn’t even look surprised. Quite the contrary. In fact, she had a look of recognition on her face when she sat back down. “Sure,” she said. Her hand found his hair again. “Sure. I’ll stay.”

Something was wrong.

The first thing Alex noticed was his creature’s absence. The thing wasn’t much for greeting him—or, rather, he’d bound it not to greet him the way it would have liked—but he could sense its presence from two rooms away. He knew, from the moment he put his foot on the second-floor landing, that it was gone.

Simon
.

Alex yanked open the study door, stepped in, and slammed it behind him. He’d long since stopped worrying about what the servants would think. They knew better than to talk; he’d made sure of it when he hired them. And there were more important things to do right now.

He stalked over to the bookcase and pressed a spot on the underside of one shelf. A narrow drawer slid out, and Alex allowed himself to breathe again when he saw his manuscript looking just as it had when he’d put it away the night before.

Sitting down at his desk, he took a yellow candle out of the top drawer and lit it. The smoke rose almost immediately, smelling strong and sweet, a bit like roasting pork. Alex stared into it for a second, let his eyes unfocus, and pronounced a long harsh name.

The strands of curling smoke grew and solidified, turning pink. Unlike in the past, though, their outlines remained fuzzy, and Alex could still see the shapes of his study through them.
Wounded
, he thought, and indeed there were vivid gold shapes burnt into the writhing flesh of the creature.

It would be no good to him for weeks. Alex swore and then focused his will again. “Tell me what happened.”

In a moment, he was looking through the creature’s eyes—or whatever—as Simon’s astral body opened a gap in the wards and slid in.

Didn’t think it was a trap, did you?

There was at least some pleasure in that. Even if it wasn’t unmixed. Simon had fallen for the trap because Simon still didn’t think much of him.
If I’d bothered to study wards as intensely as you did,
Alex fumed,
I would have been much better than you by now. But I got better at other things. More important ones. As you found out.

In the creature’s memory, Simon went very still, as if stunned. It struck then, grabbing Simon by one leg. They struggled for a while.

Then everything went blindingly gold. Enraged and wounded, the creature flung Simon outward along the dimensional roads. He vanished into a maelstrom of shifting worlds, and the creature went elsewhere.

Alex couldn’t follow either of them and keep his mind. Not yet, anyhow. He muttered another word, dismissing the thing. No point wasting the candle, after all. It had cost him no little effort to make. One couldn’t get…materials…like that easily.

He wondered idly if Simon had made some provision to get himself back. Perhaps he was dead now, or as good, his mind blasted out of space and time. The prospect should have made Alex entirely happy or at least relieved. He could deal with Simon readily enough, but doing so was a dashed inconvenience.

But, as it had been when he set the hounds on Simon, Alex’s pleasure was mixed with regret. He shouldn’t have felt it, of course. Simon’s treachery should have killed off any feelings save hatred, and yet he did. A mark of a sensitive nature, perhaps.

I never
wanted
this
, Simon, he thought at the absent man.
You could’ve left me alone, you know. A friend would have.

Alex found the bottle he kept in his desk and poured himself a glass of port. He couldn’t make himself drink it immediately, though. Instead, he stared down at the ruby liquid, all his pleasure in the day gone.

And it had been such a good day. Oh, propriety had forced him to spend it with a gaggle of Society maidens and their beaux, but he’d been able to talk mostly to Mrs. MacArthur. She seemed more receptive by the day, both to the theories Alex advanced and to his own person.

He’d even thought that she might make more than a plaything in the end. It would be no bad thing to have an apprentice for some tasks, and a woman wouldn’t be the threat a man would, particularly when Alex was confident that he could keep her loyal.

After Harrison’s séance next week, he’d thought, she would be as good as his. The man was an amateur, of course, but one with a few visible gifts. More importantly, the party would be private, quiet, and dark.

Harrison was suggestible enough in Society matters. A word in his ear would secure Mrs. MacArthur an invitation. After the day’s conversation, Alex was certain she’d attend.

Yes, it had been a good day. And now it was spoiled.

If Simon was still alive—and it was best to assume he was—he knew more than he had before. He probably didn’t know about the manuscript, but Alex was well aware of how his study looked in the astral. Seeing that, Simon would naturally try to intervene, preaching choirboy that he was. Particularly since Alex was winning over his mistress day by day.

Well, the wards would hold very well against force. Simon couldn’t direct any attack from a distance that Alex wouldn’t be able to rebuff, just as Alex doubted he could take care of Simon remotely, now that he was prepared.

Simon would seek him out, probably in private. Eleanor’s name was at stake, after all, and now her friend’s.

Alex thought of the creature and of the other…allies…that he’d made since the Great Ones had started teaching him their secrets. He smiled into the dim room. Perhaps it would be for the best if Simon did decide to have it out with him.

Perhaps that would even give Alex the opportunity to make Simon see reason. And if not, a man could do only so much on his own. Even the Church said that.

He downed the rest of the port and got to his feet, fingering the ring on his left hand. It was plain gold with only a small emerald, not outstanding in any way. Alex had been very careful about that. Just as carefully, he now took it off and slipped it into the innermost pocket in his waistcoat. Where he was going, it didn’t do to show jewelry openly. Even he could be overwhelmed by a gang of thieves.

The sun was setting when he left the house, carrying a large black bag and walking briskly.

Allies didn’t come cheaply, after all. And if Alex was going to use them in the future, now was the time to start the diplomacy.

***

It didn’t take long for Simon to fall asleep once he let himself. Joan wasn’t surprised. Projection took it out of you, especially when it went wrong. And Simon hadn’t exactly been relaxing lately.

Now, watching him, she thought that she’d never
really
seen him relaxed. He’d come close sometimes when they’d gone riding together back at Englefield and during their first week in London when she’d sat in his study and they’d played cards. At those times, Joan had seen a little bit of the way he had used to be: as careless as the average wealthy man in this time, though more learned than most.

He had the beginnings of lines around his eyes now. Not many of them, but they were there. Compared to the other men she’d met at balls, he was thinner as well and wearier. Henry had mentioned it once.
He was never what you might call stout, but now—well, we’ll make him go to a lot of dinner parties.

Someone should. Poor bastard. Joan passed her hand over Simon’s hair again, took a few strands of it in her fingers, and let them fall.

It was hard on him, this new duty. She wished it hadn’t happened, but she couldn’t wish that Simon hadn’t gotten involved. He was a good man, too bound by this world’s idea of honor, sure, but maybe that helped even while it exasperated her. She could trust him the way she would never have trusted anyone from her world after only two months. Not just to keep her secrets and not stab her in the back, but to know what needed doing and to go after it.

To be her partner.

In his sleep, Simon murmured something and turned toward her. As if of its own volition, Joan’s hand slid through his hair again and then downward, leaving her palm cupped against his cheek. His skin was warm and still damp from the water, a little rough with five-o’clock shadow.

He looked very young and very old at the same time. Very mortal. Very tired.

Two hours before, he’d nearly died—or worse—trying to figure out where the book was. Trying to help her like he’d been doing for more than a month, like he’d offered the first time he spoke to her, though she’d been covered in blood and holding a gun.

Rage surged up inside her, blinding and white-hot.
He’s going to come out of this
, she snarled silently—at Reynell, maybe, or the Dark Ones or the universe itself.
You do whatever you want with me. Maybe I deserve it. But he’s going to be alive when this is over and whole and happy. Or I’ll rip your goddamn face off and feed it to you.

The anger left her shaking and shaken too when it passed through her. She wanted to spring up and go for someone’s throat, to put her fist through a window, to fight something. Anything. She wanted to run away.

There hadn’t been much use for emotion in her life, but she wasn’t a moron and she wasn’t a robot. She knew what it meant, this rage. Same thing as the fear she’d felt earlier when Simon lay without breathing.

I care about him. A lot.

She pulled her hand away from Simon, stood up, and leaned her head against the window. The glass was cool against her forehead. Joan closed her eyes.

You couldn’t surrender. Not to the Dark Ones, not to their minions, and not to yourself. But the first part of a fight was knowing your enemy.

I love him
, she thought slowly, and then spat it out.
I’m in love with him.

Oh, God. I’m really fucked now.