Doesn't she have daughters? Oh yes . . . planning on marrying into the family, are you, my dear? If you can manage it, that is. Well, there was the one saving grace of Reggie's condition; he was so heavily blocked that the Robinson woman could run him down with a locomotive-sized love spell and he'd be impervious to it. He was, in fact, the mirror opposite to an Elemental Master now, he was powerfully unmagical. She could throw spells at him for a week, and all that would happen would be that they would be swallowed up without a trace. And as for simple vamping—
Our Reggie's had every sort of woman there is fling themselves at his head by now. He's not going to think much of a couple of provincial belles hanging out for a title and a fortune. And if you can't recognize that, dear lady, you are an utter fool.
And sure enough, she was back on that so-precious introduction again. "It probably should be a letter, Lord Alderscroft," she was saying, with a melting smile. "Or better still, two—one to Lady Devlin directly and one I can hand-carry. Say that—oh, I am too diffident to push myself on her, but would she please look me up as I'm too terribly alone down there in the village?"
Maya gritted her teeth. Oh, please rescue me from these wretched peasants, she means. And she knew that Alderscroft's subconscious would recognize her tone and the cadence of her speech as well as her words and respond to it in spite of the fact that he knew she was as common as a dustbin. That was because she had the proper accent, and the proper manner, and everything in his upbringing and training was screaming out to his subconscious that here was gentry. For one moment she hated Alderscroft, his automatic response to the proper turn of phrase, his automatic assumption that anyone born to the strawberry leaves was "one of us" and deserving of special treatment and protection.
For one moment, she hated them all, and felt a powerful sympathy for the socialists and the Bolsheviks, and it was very tempting to think about throwing a bomb or two into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, just to shake them up a bit. Certainly you could fire a cannon off through there and never hit anyone who would be missed by society—
But then good sense overcame her, and she sighed, and acknowledged that there were aristocrats who were good stewards, and useful. And as for the rest, she forgave Alderscroft and his set for being idiots, and went back to paying attention to the conversation.
Well, there was one thing that being born a half-caste in India was good for, and that was in knowing what wouldn't work with the British aristocracy. Though she might very much like to point out to the old lion that the Robinson woman had played him like salmon on her line, it would do no good at all.
No, she would simply tell Alderscroft that the woman was heavily shielded and couldn't be read—that she certainly had ulterior motives for wanting that introduction and remind him of the two daughters looking for husbands—and that Fenyx's own grandmother would do a much better job of keeping an eye on him than any stranger ever could.
And then she would go confide her real feelings to her husband Peter—who would certainly, at that point, take them to his "Twin." And there was no one that Peter Almsley did not know among the Elemental Mages inside the peerage. Almsley's grandmother, who was herself a powerful Elemental Master, almost certainly knew Reggie's aunt, who was another. And when those two heard what she had to say. . . .
Now Maya smiled for the first time since she began listening to the conversation, struck by the mental image of a herd of water-buffalo surrounding an injured calf to protect it from a tigress.
The tigress had no notion of what she was about to face.
Alison was pleased with herself. Despite some setbacks, this trip to London had been unexpectedly productive. She sat down at the little desk in the sitting room of their suite to catch up on her correspondence, while the girls unpacked the day's purchases.
"Mama," said Carolyn, idly tracing the line of the fringe on the new shawl she had purchased that morning, "What do you know about the Americans getting into the war?"
Alison looked up from the letter she was writing to Warrick Locke. "The Americans have no intention of entering the war, child. President Wilson is a pacifist. If the sinking of the Lusitania did not accomplish it, nothing will. Why?"
"Well," Carolyn persisted, with a small, sly smile playing about her lips, "It's just that—you had rather they didn't, wouldn't you?"
"It would interfere greatly with my plans, yes," she said sharply. "And it would probably interfere with our income as well. Why do you ask?"
"She asks because she's been meeting with that American boy, from the embassy in the tea room," Lauralee interrupted, frowning with jealousy at her sister. "And she doesn't want to get in trouble over it, so she wants to make you think she's been doing it for—"
"Lauralee—" Alison held up a warning hand. "First, do not frown. Frowns do not improve your looks, and cause wrinkles. Secondly, let your sister answer for herself. Carolyn?"
"He is the ambassador's son," Carolyn protested, pouting prettily, in a way that Alison approved. "And you know Mama has been busy, and you know we've been hearing rumors in the hotel! I thought I ought to find out at first hand!"
"And it has nothing to do with the fact that he's tall, and blue-eyed, and looks like—" Lauralee muttered, sullenly.
"And don't allow jealousy to show, Lauralee," Alison reproved absently. "It gives one jowls. What did the young man tell you, Carolyn?"
"That the President will certainly enter the war next month!" Carolyn said in triumph. "He's going home to enlist! So are most of the young men on the embassy staff!"
Alison's lips tightened. This was no part of her plans. At the moment, the war was at a stalemate—both sides were worn out and weary, and the conflict might well drag on for years, which was very good news for the Earth Elementals that she favored, and for her plans concerning Reggie Fenyx. For the latter, she planned more fear—her Elemental creatures making his life a never-ending round of attacks of terror—until the one girl who could drive them away appeared in his life. At which point, he would probably marry her on the spot. Or at least be willing to.
But to complete the plan, she would need time. Time for the boy to heal physically enough to be sent home on recovery leave. Time for Lord Alderscroft's introduction to bear fruit. Time for her spells to work, time for Carolyn—or Lauralee—to be the answer to his prayers, time for him to propose and for a proper society wedding. And then more time, for she did not intend for him to survive the war, and he would have to recover from his shellshock and go back to the Air Corps, and if the Yanks entered the War—
America was full of brash young men who were perfectly willing to fling themselves into combat. America was wealthy; within months she could turn her factories from making frying pans into making cannon and machine-guns. And America had immense, untapped resources on her own soil; she did not depend on ships to bring those resources to the factories. If America entered the war, it could be over within a year.