Aubrey blinked. ‘Reading preferences?’
‘Never mind. We have afternoon tea together and discuss the sighs, the longing looks and the thumpings of the heart under crisp linen bodices.’
Aubrey looked around. Was it hot in here?
George, however, was interested in something else. ‘Afternoon tea?’
‘Oh yes. They have fine pastries here.’
‘Did you hear that, old man?’ George said. ‘I’m sure we need to sample their wares. Do our best for the alliance and all that.’
‘I’ll take you both when we’re done.’ Elspeth laughed. ‘Can you wait here? I won’t be long.’ She insinuated herself through the crowd, leaving Aubrey and George behind.
‘You know what Caroline would have said,’ George said as they shuffled away from the stairs and the flow of clerks and porters. ‘She would have said, “Don’t move. And do try to stay out of trouble.”’
‘Elspeth doesn’t know us that well.’ Aubrey dodged a rolled-up map that was being toted on the shoulder of a young man who appeared to be oblivious to the havoc he was wreaking as he peered from side to side, searching for someone or somewhere.
‘Pleasant enough, isn’t she?’
‘Elspeth? Quite. Able enough, too, if your reports are to be trusted.’
‘Believe me, old man, she’s top-notch in almost every way. Apart from her judgement.’
‘Her judgement?’
‘We spent some time together, you know, while we were on field training. Very modern, unchaperoned and all that. In a bunker by ourselves, she told me, quite sweetly, that I wasn’t her type.’
‘So you’re thinking she’s probably insane.’
‘Very droll, old man, very droll.’ George frowned a little. ‘It just struck me as a little odd, that’s all. I hadn’t pressed my suit on her at all. So to speak.’
‘She just blurted it out?’
‘Hardly. I don’t have the impression that our Elspeth blurts anything out that she doesn’t want to.’ He edged back against the wall to let a porter wheel past a trolley with a single drawer filing cabinet. ‘She did go on to ask about you, though.’
‘Me?’
‘Said she’d admired you from afar.’ His face was deadpan. ‘That’s when I became worried about her sanity.’
Before Aubrey could follow this further, Elspeth appeared at the top of the stairs and beckoned. ‘I think I’ve found him.’
The corridor was panelled with wood and displayed rather good Gallian watercolours. Sidelong, Aubrey studied Elspeth with renewed interest, but she stopped abruptly at a door halfway along the corridor, and gestured grandly. The light coming through the large arched window at the end of the corridor caught her hair. ‘Go ahead. I’ll join you in a moment.’
Aubrey raised an eyebrow. She made a gesture of exasperation, throwing up her hands and rolling her eyes. ‘Someone from the translation department wants to see me. Trouble with a document. But don’t worry, I’ll be back before you have a chance to miss me.’
With that, she was off and Aubrey was left bemused.
The door closed behind them, cutting off the buzz of Gallian office rearrangements with a very solid snick that Aubrey didn’t warm to at all, but his attention was taken up by the alarming sight of a tall, bald man pointing an alarmingly large pistol at him from the other side of an elegant desk.
‘Do not move,’ the bald man said in Albionish. ‘I will not hesitate to kill you on the spot if you do.’
Eleven
The office was dimly lit by gaslight, even in the middle of the day, because the drapes were drawn over the single tall window. The heavy wood panelling only emphasised the closeness of the confines.
Instant obedience never came easily to Aubrey. He was too willing to question first before agreeing to go along with commands. In the case of people pointing firearms at him and telling him not to move, however, he was able to quell this natural propensity.
At his side, it was George who spoke. ‘Who are you? What’s going on here?’
The bald man was sweating, Aubrey realised. His head and face shone, and was his hand trembling as it held the pistol? ‘Fitzwilliam,’ he said flatly. His eyes narrowed, and Aubrey, in a moment of acute alertness, saw the man’s finger tighten on the trigger – and he also sensed the magic spells that the pistol was overlaid with.
The equation was clear. If he moved, he was going to be shot, and shot by a magically enhanced weapon. If he didn’t move, he was still going to be shot. When it came to choosing, he favoured action over inaction, but before he could move the man grimaced and squeezed the trigger. Immediately, something whipped past Aubrey’s right ear with a deadly, low hum. The large mirror on the wall behind him shattered.
Aubrey instinctively ducked, much too late, then hunched at the shower of glass, but his mind was taken up with astonishment. Where was the report of the pistol? It hadn’t made a sound at all! Aubrey saw that the bald man was as astonished as he was; the would-be assassin was shaking his head at the revolver, staring at it in disbelief. Then a large vase flung by George struck the man squarely in the chest.
He grunted and doubled over. While hammering came from the door behind them, Aubrey pawed at a side table and sent a carriage clock after George’s successful vase strike and was pleased to see it collect the would-be assassin squarely on his shining skull. He screeched, then straightened and waved the pistol. ‘I will not miss this time!’
A deafening boom from the doorway interrupted the assassin’s plans. He dropped the pistol, sagged in the corner, swore and tried to staunch the flow of blood that was coming from a fresh, and nasty, shoulder wound.
Aubrey whirled. Elspeth stood in the doorway with a large and smoking revolver. She kept it trained on their assailant while George stalked him warily, a brass umbrella stand in his hand. ‘Careful, George,’ she said. Her voice was even and Aubrey noted how steady her hands were, holding the revolver in a manner that would draw admiring gasps from the shoutiest of military instructors.
‘He’s not a menace any more.’ Without taking his eyes off the bald man, George scooped up his pistol and pocketed it.
As if it were one of Ivey and Wetherall’s musical comedies, a trio of armed guards arrived after events had been resolved, almost tripping over themselves in their eagerness to get through the doorway. Aubrey had a giddy moment wondering if he’d ever live to see the day when armed guards appeared in the nick of time rather than too late, then, rather than having his knees give way and his head introduced to the carpet, he sat on one of the chairs. Captain Bourdin appeared, looking both distressed and offended, and pointed a pistol at Elspeth – rather needlessly as she was the target of each of the squad members. ‘M’mselle. Please to drop your weapon.’
She looked amused. ‘I’ll just engage the safety first, if you don’t mind. There.’
The revolver thumped to the floor.
‘Thank you. Now, you men, see to the cultural attaché before he bleeds to death.’
Aubrey rubbed his forehead. He could feel the effects of nearly being shot starting to assert themselves. His knees were trembling. His stomach was both hollow and cavernous. His mouth was devoid of moisture. He was relieved, naturally, to have survived, and he couldn’t help but feel grateful for Elspeth’s timely intervention, but he could see a long, complicated explanation ahead.
‘And you’re sure the weapon is ensorcelled?’ Captain Bourdin asked.
The captain’s office was a small, neatly arranged room toward the rear of the embassy. Through the window, Aubrey could see the cordoned-off area of the courtyard that marked the site where Major Morton and his bomb squad were. It was fifty yards away, but Aubrey wondered about the safety of their location. Or was it Gallian bravado, refusing to move away from the scene of danger?