Chapter 24
Twenty-four
A cab deposited Colin MacAlasdair on his brother’s doorstep around quarter to ten, and Baldwin showed him into the drawing room a few minutes later.
Stephen looked up from his correspondence—a particularly unctuous proposal concerning a bill in the House of Lords—and did not remark on the time.
“Colin,” he said, standing and holding out a hand. “It’s good to see you, man.”
His younger brother looked much as he’d done ten years before: taller and more slender than Stephen, ash to his oak, with silver-gray eyes and a bluish tinge to his dark hair.
His clothes were in the height of fashion, and the silver pin in his cravat was an old Viking rune: fair speech, if Stephen remembered correctly.
“And yourself,” said Colin, with his usual easy grin. He draped himself over a sofa. “Going over the accounts, are you? I swear I’ve not been spending any more than usual—and besides, I’ve been self-sufficient for years now.”
“Have you? How did you manage that?”
“Opals. Remarkable wee stones. Went to Brazil, dug out a fair lot when nobody was around to see me, and now I sell one off here and there whenever I need a new coat or the like. Limestone’s hardly a challenge if a man has privacy enough.”
“Technically, I think that’s theft.”
“Theft, nothing. I stayed well away from any open mines. And it’s not my fault if a man can’t tell where to dig, is it? Have you turned teetotal, Stephen, or might a weary fellow find a drop of wine around this place?”
Despite himself, Stephen smiled and rang for Baldwin. Wine arrived soon enough, along with a small plate of cheese and fruit. The kitchen had been anticipating Colin’s visit, evidently.
“It’s not that I don’t welcome your company,” Stephen said when they’d each had time for a few sips, “but what precisely are you doing here?”
“Thought I’d catch the Season, didn’t I? It’s been a few years. They must have added something new.”
“I very much doubt that,” said Stephen.
“The innovation or my motives?”
“Both.”
“You wound me, Brother, you wound me deeply.”
“We heal fast, as a rule. Who is it—father or husband?”
Colin grinned. “Uncle, actually, for a change. Very large, very unreasonable man with very large and unreasonable sons. Luckily for them, I’m a great believer in subtlety and restraint—and the family sells a fine quality of whiskey.
” He sat up with the sudden change that marked any of his motions and looked seriously at Stephen.
“And I do get the Times, you know. Loch Arach, Dublin, Bath—wherever I’m keeping myself.
I keep up my subscription, and I have a fair memory for names.
Colonel Moore is dead and I hadn’t heard from you. ”
“Scarce enough evidence to go on.”
“Enough evidence to come down to London, surely. It hardly takes much. Am I right?”
Stephen sighed. “You are. Ward’s back, probably mad, and certainly a sight more powerful than when he ran off. He’s commanding demons now, not to mention more mortal forces.”
“Then I’ll be of use to you,” Colin took another, fairly large sip of wine and stretched himself out on the sofa again, staring up at the ceiling.
“Let’s see. Baldwin said he’d find me a room and put my belongings there.
I didn’t pack much for handling the occult, but I’m sure you’ll be able to supply what’s needed.
We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’ve plenty to catch up on—unless the demons will come howling in any minute or you’re charging out to meet the cad on the field of battle. ”
“No,” said Stephen. “I’m waiting to see a lady who’s out of town at the present. But there is one other person you should know about.”
***
Few things seemed to have changed about Colin, and one of the eternal constants was his inability to wake up before noon. Therefore, it was at dinner that Stephen introduced his brother to Mina, and he went into the meal with his nerves on edge.
As the dining room was distinctly out of service, they ate in the drawing room where he and Mina had breakfast. By night, it took on a different air, and an odd one: formal and intimate at the same time.
When Mina came in the door, Stephen found himself acutely aware of two things.
The first was that she was stunningly beautiful; the second that her life had been very different from his.
She wore a violet dress printed with tiny white flowers.
The color made her eyes and skin luminous, and the cut outlined the trim curves of her body, but the neckline was high and the sleeves were long.
Her hair shone the color of dark honey and fell more gently about her face than usual, but it was still done simply, and she wore no jewelry.
Of course Mina didn’t own a dinner gown.
She wouldn’t have had any need of one. Stephen was a heel for not thinking of it.
Even as he stepped forward to make the introductions, he saw Mina’s eyes go to his coat and tie, then drop to her own clothing.
Otherwise, her face betrayed only pleasant interest.
Painfully conscious that there was nothing he could do now, Stephen helped her to the seat opposite Colin and waited as Baldwin served. He’d been nervous before; now he feared that this would be a very long hour.
“Miss Seymour,” he said into the silence, “is a friend of Professor Carter.”
“His secretary, actually,” said Mina.
“I’ve heard of him. Not as much as Stephen, of course,” Colin said.
His accent had shifted somewhat over the last few years.
Now there were shades of English in it and a bit of Irish, as well.
It still conjured up memories of home for Stephen but not as strongly.
“What’s he been having you do, then? Lug around books on Egypt? ”
“The Etruscans, mostly,” said Mina, “and the Romans. The Vikings, too, lately. They’re an interesting lot—a lot more complicated than you’d think, even if they didn’t spin all the webs the Romans did.”
“Hard for anybody to manage that, I’d think,” said Colin. “Jolly strange, too. I was in Italy for a time. Gave me an absolute horror of politics.”
“How fond of them were you before?” Mina asked, and both brothers laughed: Colin in admission, Stephen in triumph.
“He’s got the sense to leave that to me,” said Stephen, “for my sins.”
“I like to put all problems into the hands of experts. Or at least into the hands of someone other than me. Luckily, being the younger son generally means I can.”
“Do you have any other siblings?” Mina asked.
“One sister living,” said Stephen, with a readiness that would have shocked the man he’d been six weeks ago. He’d always tried not to give specifics of his family to outsiders. “She keeps very close to home.”
“These days,” said Colin. “I can recall a time you wouldn’t have caught Judith nearer to Loch Arach than the Channel. At least not for more than a day or two.”
“Aye, but she’s older than either of us, and there’s only so much of the world one can see.”
Mina smiled. “My mother will be glad to hear that. I’ve got a brother at sea—same malady that your sister used to have, from the sound of it. If he’s in one place for too long, I swear he grows feverish.”
Sailors’ stories followed—the ones Mina’s brother had told and the ones Colin had picked up over the years, or at least the less scandalous of his assortment. Mina listened avidly, talked animatedly, and laughed a good deal, with her head tilted back and her eyes gleaming.
She should wear amethysts, Stephen thought suddenly, or pearls, the large silver-gray sort.
They should dangle from her ears so that they swayed when she laughed, and they should fit into the hollow of her throat, a place currently covered by far too much violet cloth.
Come to that, she should have a damned dinner gown, something with silk and gauze.
Mina would do more credit to such things than any woman Stephen had ever seen wearing them.
Naturally, she would never accept any such gifts from him.
Men nowadays didn’t give clothing or jewelry to women other than relations, wives, or mistresses.
Stephen would have cursed the rule as one more modern complication, except that he didn’t recall ever really wanting to give either to a woman before.
He’d exchanged presents with relatives on the appropriate occasions; he’d given baubles to mistresses likewise, though his last such connection had been a century in the past; but he’d never really given any thought to the matter beforehand.
“…but I wouldn’t say that Stephen’s exactly led a settled life himself,” said Colin.
Drawing Stephen out of his thoughts had doubtless not been the point of the remark, but Stephen silently blessed his brother for it anyhow. “Settled enough, in comparison. But perhaps I can travel again one day when I’ve untangled Father’s papers and so on. I’d like to visit Russia again.”
“My brother, you see, is a man of singular tastes. This one seems to be for freezing to death.”
Obligingly, Mina pretended to shiver, but she also turned toward Stephen, and her gaze was far more curious than horrified. “I’ve seen pictures of the churches there,” she said. “The ones with the domes. They’d be quite a view from up close, I’d think.”
“Aye, and the icons. There’s a great deal of skill there,” said Stephen, “and a fair bit of history. Even if half the fake mediums today do affect a Russian accent.”
“Well, if it wasn’t Russian, it would be French,” said Mina. “Nobody would believe that someone from Surrey could part the mystic veil.”
“If they could, they wouldn’t live in Surrey,” said Colin, grinning.
Awkwardness was no threat. Colin and Mina got on like a house on fire. Looking at one and then the other, Stephen realized that he wasn’t at all certain how he felt about that.