Chapter Nine
The next day found Max nursing a headache, and some resentment.
He’d only had the one whisky while he was out with Vesper, but once he’d made it back to North London and climbed the stairs to his small top-floor flat on a quiet lane in Hampstead village, he’d found himself feeling frustrated, nerves jangling.
He’d poured himself another whisky from the decanter he kept on the mantel in his sitting room, drained it too quickly, then poured another.
Sleep had been too long in finding him, leaving him bleary-eyed this morning, which had felt particularly Monday-ish as he’d moved about his small kitchen, boiling water for tea and frying an egg.
By the time he made it to the office, after a sweaty journey on a couple of crowded Underground trains, his headache (literal) had faded, which was convenient timing, as his headache (metaphorical) was about to commence.
“You’ve done what now?” asked Raffles, lowering the letter she’d been reading when he entered her office at her shouted summons.
Max cleared his throat. “Made a judgment call, ma’am.”
Raffles’s eyebrows inched toward her hairline. “And that ‘judgment call,’ as you so quaintly put it, involves you getting yourself tangled up with a family that is operating an illegal magical club right under our noses, all for some little cloak-and-dagger caper?”
Max resisted the urge to wince. The advantage of his visit to Holloway’s—and of his ensuing agreement with Vesper—taking place on a Friday night was that it had given him a solid two days to work out how he was going to explain his little off-script jaunt to his superior.
Said advantage wouldn’t actually help that much, however, if he didn’t use the extra time to come up with some sort of explanation that would keep Raffles’s eyebrows safely in their normal, slightly lowered position.
Better a frowning Raffles than an incredulous one.
“It was a good opportunity, and I decided to take it,” he said, striving for the sort of light tone that would imply that he’d done nothing at all wrong and didn’t care one whit about Effie Raffles’s opinion on the matter.
“Hmm,” Raffles said by way of reply, not precisely displaying the wild enthusiasm that Max might have hoped for.
“And it’s the Holloway daughter who’s helping you in this endeavor?
Did she…” Raffles trailed off delicately; Max’s hackles instantly rose.
“Promise you anything? In exchange for this assistance?”
“No.” His voice was short, bordering on curt. Raffles’s eyebrows inched even higher
“Vesper Holloway has a bit of a reputation.”
“Miss Holloway’s reputation has nothing to do with any of this,” he said.
“I have a history with the family, and they’re able to give me access to the magical clubs that I’d be unable to obtain easily without the Holloways’ help.
If this had happened at any other club, I’d still want to investigate who’s behind this—and I wouldn’t have been lucky enough to know someone at the club able to help me look into it. ”
“But,” she pointed out, eyebrows still alarmingly elevated, “you’d have perhaps considered sending in Scotland Yard to shut things down, wouldn’t you?”
He swore internally. This was, of course, the weak part of his plan, when it came to explaining it to Raffles.
She’d asked him to look into the club, find evidence of magic, and then arrange a raid; he’d accomplished both of the former agenda items, but had now given Vesper his word that he wouldn’t do the last. And if he did, she had a rather large piece of career-damaging information about him tucked away in an envelope in her flat.
“I thought it would be best not to let it be known that the agency is looking into matters,” he explained.
“If this is some sort of organized attempt to tamper with magic, then this could grow quite dangerous, and if we shut down one of the first clubs to be hit, they’ll realize that we’re investigating and might act more cautiously. ”
Raffles nodded slowly, her eyebrows mercifully lowering somewhat.
“That’s a good point.” She pressed her index fingers together for a moment with her elbows braced on her desk.
“I suppose there’s no harm in you investigating this if we’re able to produce a splashy story about several magical clubs operating dangerously.
However,” she added, her gaze flicking to the door to her office, currently shut tight against the noise and curious eyes of the rest of the department.
“This is a rather… unconventional arrangement. Considering how highly recommended you came when I hired you, I feel confident that I can trust you to see this through, but I’d prefer you keep it quiet.
It’s a bit of a delicate time for the F.L.E.A. ”
“Oh?” Max kept his voice carefully neutral.
He had no doubt that Raffles was privy to a great deal of political chatter, given her husband’s role as an MP—and close ally of Jacob Finlay—but Max tried to keep out of any discussion of politics while at the office.
While he knew that he saw eye to eye with Raffles and Finlay on the subject of Forbiddance, his own politics otherwise had little in common with theirs (his views were more aligned with the newly ascendant Labour Party, not that he planned to ever mention this to the woman sitting before him).
“We’re concerned that Covington might be growing closer to having the votes for his bill repealing Forbiddance. Michael spent the weekend having meetings, and he’s worried.”
Max realized, after a beat, that “Michael” referred to Raffles’s husband. All at once, he felt uneasy. The F.L.E.A. was tasked with enforcing laws as they existed—not with politicking. This felt, at the very least, like treading on dangerous ground.
“That’s none of our concern though,” he said, meeting Raffles’s inscrutable gaze. She was one of those mildly terrifying posh women who never gave away what their true thoughts were. “As we’re not politicians, nor are we working for the Conservative Party.”
“Of course not,” Raffles agreed, smiling at him, which was almost more alarming than a frown would have been.
“I am merely noting that if word of this investigation spills out, Scotland Yard will get involved, and we’ll come under a fair bit of scrutiny.
It would be far better if we could simply present this to them as a fait accompli. ”
Despite his unease, Max couldn’t argue with this particular line of reasoning; it would make his job considerably easier if he and Vesper were allowed to continue as they were, without anyone else getting involved. “Understood,” he said, and rose to his feet. “If there’s nothing else…?”
“No, that’s all. But Ashbridge—I meant what I said about watching yourself around the Holloway girl. I’ve met her father on more than one occasion, and if the daughter inherited even a fraction of his charm, you’ll be in a dangerous way before you even realize it.”
“I think I can manage. I’ve never had much of a weakness for blondes.”
Which was true, he thought to himself as he strode out of Raffles’s office, even if it didn’t go any way toward explaining why he could not get the image of Vesper’s golden hair gleaming beneath the light of a chandelier the previous evening out of his mind.
He arrived at Holloway’s at half seven—he’d lingered at the office long after most of his colleagues had departed for an after-work pint at the pub.
The Monday night crowd at the club was rather subdued; as he glanced into various rooms en route to the bar, he noted that the patrons were largely gathered in pairs or small groups of three or four, nursing drinks and engaged in quiet conversation.
A couple was deeply immersed in a game of chess at a table near the fireplace in one of the lounges; he spotted more than one person reading a book.
It was all rather cozy, and did not precisely look like a hotbed of vice and illegality.
He found Vesper tucked into a nook in one corner of the main bar, deep in conversation with the friend of hers he’d seen the other night—Hazel Thomas.
They sat with their heads bent together, each clutching a champagne coupe loosely in hand.
Delacqua, who had been escorting Miss Thomas the other evening, was nowhere in sight.
Shame, that; Max had always liked Delacqua, who came from a nauseatingly posh family of both the magical and non-magical variety but who had always been unfailingly kind to Max whenever their paths had crossed at Cambridge.
Neither lady noticed his approach, and he cleared his throat.
Vesper glanced up, a blinding smile firmly in place until she registered who he was, and her facial muscles seemed to relax in unison.
“Oh, it’s you.” Max chose not to devote much mental energy to deciding whether or not her tone was disappointed.
“You’re later than I was expecting for a man who seems to be so fanatical about timeliness. ”
He inclined his head in apology, refusing to take the bait. “I’m sorry—I got caught up with work and left the office later than I’d planned.” He nodded politely at Vesper’s friend. “Miss Thomas.”
“Mr. Ashbridge.” Miss Thomas smiled at him, seeming more receptive to his presence than Vesper had at any point in their (re)acquaintance thus far.
“Can I get you another round?” he asked, nodding at their nearly empty champagne coupes.
“No, thank you—I can’t stay. My father will fuss if I’m out too late.
I just wanted to… pass something along.” Miss Thomas looked a bit uneasy, worrying at the beaded sleeve of her dress, and Vesper hooked a thumb and forefinger around her friend’s wrist. It was the sort of small gesture born of familiarity that spoke of a long friendship.
“What’s wrong?” Vesper asked.
Miss Thomas glanced up and met her friend’s eyes. “Delacqua and I went to Plenus Venter last night.”
The name niggled at Max’s memory. “Isn’t that the club—”