Chapter Thirteen #2
“Who oversees the day-to-day operations of Grenoble’s?” Max interjected.
Grenoble blinked. “What’s it to you?”
“Mere curiosity. I see you’re here tonight, in lieu of your father—is that normally how the club operates?”
Grenoble’s cheeks flushed. “Not… normally,” he said through gritted teeth, as though the admission pained him. “My father had another engagement this evening, and asked me to step in.”
“I see. Then it seems to me that since Miss Holloway does oversee the daily operations of her family’s club, you are the one who needn’t worry about this. Perhaps she can arrange the meeting you had in mind, and your father can tell you about it afterward.”
“Now see here,” Grenoble began, the flush on his cheeks deepening; Max ordinarily wouldn’t give a damn about scoring a point against an ass like this, but for some reason, the sight of that angry flush was extremely satisfying.
“With whom?” Vesper interrupted, and both men turned to look at her.
“Sorry?” Grenoble asked, impatience writ clearly in his voice.
“Whom did your father have an engagement with this evening?”
Grenoble shrugged. “I don’t know—none of my concern.”
“Do you think you could find out?” Vesper pressed. “Without letting him know what you’re about?”
“Why should I?”
“Well.” Vesper took two steps closer, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped to a quiet murmur. “If you do, then I’ll consider not telling every woman I know that you were the worst man I’ve ever gone to bed with.”
Grenoble paled, then attempted to rally. “They wouldn’t believe you.”
“All right,” Vesper said, smiling sweetly. “If you’d care to chance it…” She shrugged, then glanced back at Max. “Ashbridge, I think I’ve had enough merriment for the evening—will you take me home?”
“Of course.” He extended his arm, and Vesper pressed close to him, then glanced at Grenoble.
“Well, Edward, I suppose I’ll tell you good night.”
Max was surprised Grenoble didn’t break a tooth, given how tightly his jaw was clenched. “All right!” he burst out. “Give me a day or so, and I’ll see what I can find out.”
Vesper gave him her most dazzling smile. “Brilliant. Thank you, Edward.” And with that, she swanned off toward the exit without another word, leaving Max to trail admiringly in her wake.
Once they were safely on the street, buttoning their coats, Max slid her a sideways glance. “That was well played.”
Vesper shrugged. “Easy enough, with a man like Grenoble. Men like that are so predictable—all he cares is what people think of him. He doesn’t mind if he never satisfies a woman in his life, so long as no one knows it.
” Distaste practically dripped from her words.
“But,” she added, brightening, “hopefully he’ll tell us who his father was meeting tonight, as that might be another angle to investigate. ”
“You think someone deliberately lured Grenoble Senior off the premises, so that they’d be more likely to be able to tamper with a potion unobserved?”
“It’s not completely insane.”
“No,” he agreed, “but it would mean that we’re dealing with at least two people here—someone to distract Grenoble, and another to do the actual tampering.”
“Perhaps this mystery brunette?” she suggested. “But whoever’s doing it is magical.”
“Do we know that?” he asked, frowning; he hadn’t considered the mundane-versus-magical angle when pondering the precise nature of what was being done. “Couldn’t someone have just added an extra ingredient and made the potions go off?”
Vesper shook her head immediately. “No. If you botch a recipe, it doesn’t work at all—nothing happens.
The syrups are mixed very carefully and require a specific amount of dilution in order to work.
It’s more precise than it seems, magical bartending.
But to make a potion or spell powder have unintended consequences—like whatever Finchley was doing tonight, before he collapsed—that’s magical interference. ”
“Meaning?”
“If a family’s Word is employed on a substance that has already been bespelled by a different family… unpredictable things can happen.”
“So for the potions to be reacting like this—”
“Means someone is whispering a Word over them after they’re made,” Vesper concluded.
“So.” Max tapped his chin. “We ought to compile a list of people from magical families who have been present for any of the incidents, then, and work from there.”
Vesper suddenly looked as though she were trying not to smile.
“Yes?” he asked cautiously.
“Well,” she said, still fighting a smile, “the top of your list ought to be me, then. Two out of four, isn’t it? And we were at Plenus Venter the night of their second accident, so really it’s three out of four.”
He shook his head at her. “Somehow, I doubt you’re trying to sabotage your own club.”
“That’s the sort of presumption that won’t see you solving any mysteries!” she said in a scolding tone.
“Come on,” he said, feeling very weary. “It’s been a long night, and I fancy something to eat.”
“Max Ashbridge, are you asking me out to dinner?”
“If you count a late-night visit to a chippy, then certainly,” he said dryly.
“Be still, my beating heart,” she said over her shoulder. As he watched her slender, golden-haired figure slipping down the street a few steps ahead of him, occasionally tossing a teasing glance back at him, he was very much afraid that he needed to tell his own heart the same.