Aubrey was still coping with the chill that Tallis’s words brought when a slip of paper was thrust at him. While still reading it, he stood and scanned the room, but both George and Caroline had gone.
Room 7a was on the ground floor, toward the rear of Darnleigh House, and it was where he was to report to a Captain Foster. With some difficulty, Aubrey negotiated the chaos that came from dozens of people trying to find their way in unfamiliar surroundings, for he was constantly asked directions by khaki-clad operatives, all looking formidably fit and vigorous. He was keen to hear from Caroline and George about their training, to see how much of this vim was due to the Special Services regime and how much came from the candidates themselves. Perhaps athletes and manual workers were high on the list of prospective recruits for the Special Services?
He amused himself with visions of Caroline teaching these muscular recruits a thing or two in unarmed combat until he fronted the door marked 7a.
He knocked, sharply, smiling in anticipation.
‘Enter.’
Aubrey stepped into the room with what he hoped was the right amount of jauntiness. Not too much, nothing brash, but the step of a confident, well-trained Magic Department operative.
‘Aubrey!’ George cried, turning around in a chair that faced the single desk. ‘Old man!’
A bespectacled, sour-faced captain stood behind the desk and in front of a large map of the Continent. He didn’t shout, for which Aubrey was grateful, but chided George nonetheless. ‘Steady on, Doyle. This isn’t a party.’
Aubrey held out his slip of orange paper. ‘Captain Foster. Fitzwilliam, Aubrey, reporting, sir.’ Then he smiled at Caroline, who was sitting next to George.
Except she turned and wasn’t Caroline at all.
Ten
Gaping’s a good way to draw attention to yourself, Fitzwilliam,’ Captain Foster said, ‘so stop it and sit down.’
Aubrey was so stunned, the captain’s voice seemed to come from far away. A veteran planner, Aubrey was experiencing the sensation that things on top of rugs feel when the rug decides to exit horizontally, with speed. His plans, his expectations, his neat order of events that he’d taken for granted had all been thrown into the air.
No Caroline? That was impossible, unwarranted, unnatural! They belonged together. Caroline, George and he had been through dangerous adventures and acquitted themselves with honour. Craddock and Tallis knew this. Even Prince Albert, the heir to the throne himself, knew it. Whatever was the Directorate thinking?
He seized on this. Perhaps it was just a mistake. This sort of thing happened – in the hurly-burly of war, communications went astray, documents were lost, identities confused. Surely that was it. All he had to do was point this out, speak to a few people and all would be well. His plans would be back on track, his mission set in motion again.
It was all he could do to stop himself groaning aloud. This sort of thinking was the Old Aubrey, the Aubrey who manipulated people to satisfy his own needs – without asking theirs. Caroline wouldn’t want his interfering in her life, not like this.
Slowly, he began to realise that the others in the room were staring at him.
‘Are you quite done?’ Captain Foster stood behind the desk, leaning forward and propping himself with both arms. His glasses were rimless. His hair was sparse but it was well arranged on his dome of a head.
‘Yes, sir,’ Aubrey managed. His thoughts still whirling, he fumbled his way into a chair next to George, who was between him and the strange girl.
In the brief glimpse he’d had, it was no wonder George had sat next to her. She was striking – golden hair, and with extraordinary pale blue eyes, the colour of summer sky just above the horizon. Her whole face had been enlivened by the twitch of her lips she gave him. Not quite a smile, but an indication of humour, nonetheless.
She looked nothing like Caroline. It had simply been his expectation, assuming that he’d be reunited with her, that had made him see her in that chair.
‘You obviously know Doyle,’ Captain Foster said. ‘This is Elspeth Mattingly.’
The smile that Elspeth offered him this time was unhesitating, bordering on a grin. ‘Fitzwilliam. I’ve heard a great deal about you, but most of it led me to believe that you were rather more self-possessed than this.’
Aubrey only prevented a grimace with great effort. ‘Don’t believe what you read in the newspapers.’
‘Newspapers? I never read them.’ She glanced at George when he gasped, but immediately redirected her disconcertingly even gaze back at Aubrey. ‘I have friends at St Alban’s. They’re impressed with your magical ability.’
‘Really?’ Aubrey was pleasantly surprised and he felt himself warming to her. Most people knew of him through his father or through various references in the press. He’d learned to bear the burden, but it didn’t mean that he enjoyed it. To have it otherwise was refreshing.
‘Truly,’ she said solemnly. Then she grinned again. ‘But don’t let it go to your head. My friends are easily impressed.’
‘I hate to interrupt,’ Captain Foster said. He picked up a clipboard. ‘And I’m glad you’ve got off to such a cosy start, but we have work to do.’
Testily, he went on to outline a new program of training, this time as a team. After they were all kitted out in their Directorate blacks would come more firearms, more map reading, and more communications training, but now it would be supplemented with team exercises.
Nothing like a few nights in a swamp to bind a team together, Aubrey thought as he read through one of the exercises, a simulated incursion at Exmouth Marsh. His eyes widened when he read that some of the ammunition used would be live.
It definitely wasn’t a game any more.
As they were the only occupants of the motorbus that was taking them to the training facility, Aubrey learned more about Elspeth Mattingly.
‘When war was declared, my father insisted that I do what I could. Since it sounded more exciting than languishing in Miss Jarvis’s Finishing School I jumped at the chance.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘There’s no patriot like one who adopts a country, is there?’
‘Albion has been good to many newcomers,’ Aubrey said.
‘It certainly has been to him. He’s made his fortune here, and he has connections at the Ministry of Defence, which is why I found myself at Lattimer Hall with Commander Tallis.’ She laughed. ‘He wasn’t convinced, at first, but after I impressed him with a few things, he accepted that my father hadn’t been mistaken about my abilities.’
‘She’s a fencer, old man,’ George said. ‘You should see her with a sabre.’
She smiled at him. ‘You’re a dear, George. I would have been bored to death during the training without you.’
Aubrey was still grappling with the notion of someone so petite using the most bloodthirsty of fencing weapons. ‘The sabre?’
‘Miss Jarvis’s School had some unorthodox methods, which was probably a good idea since it dealt with unorthodox pupils.’
‘Ah.’
To Aubrey’s amazement, she leaned over and prodded him in the chest. ‘You’re too polite, Aubrey Fitzwilliam, I hope you realise that. You want to ask, but daren’t, for propriety’s sake.’ She grinned and Aubrey couldn’t help but grin back while he rubbed the prod spot on his chest. ‘So I’ll tell you. Miss Jarvis’s School was Papa’s last hope. It’s for notoriously difficult young women and you need to have been thrown out of at least five schools before Miss Jarvis will look at you.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘I’ve been expelled from eleven, run away from four, and bought one and closed it down while I was there.’