Chapter Twenty-One
I wonder what the odds are that this ends with us being arrested,” Ashbridge said the following evening, as Vesper climbed into the cab waiting at the end of the mews and scooted across the seat to make room for him to slide in behind her.
He slammed the door shut, and gave the address to the driver, who eased the cab away from the curb and into evening traffic.
“It’s not as if we’re breaking and entering,” she pointed out. “Which is a shame, really; this is going to be tricky to manage, and it lacks the titillation of picking locks.”
“Your plan for the evening should be titillating enough without the added frisson of lockpicking.”
“Are you nervous?” she asked, glancing at him.
He was looking very handsome this evening, his hair a bit unrulier than usual but the rest of him impeccably groomed: clean-shaven, wearing a nicely tailored suit and tie, his cheeks a bit flushed from the chilly night air.
It was the coldest night of the autumn so far, and it had taken her a considerable amount of will to drag herself away from the comforts of a mug of cocoa with Sheep on her lap before a crackling wood fire to bathe and pour herself into one of her slinkier dresses (midnight-blue silk with elaborate beading on the bodice).
She had donned her most luxurious velvet cape to go with it, along with a matching hat that was perched at a jaunty angle atop her head.
“No.” She raised a skeptical brow at him. “All right—a little. There’s an awful lot that could go wrong with this plan, and—” He cast a wary glance at the cab driver and lowered his voice so that Vesper had to lean closer to hear him. “—using magic isn’t precisely in my normal line of work.”
“Well.” Vesper settled back into her seat and grinned at him. “Fortunately, it’s in mine.”
He looked at her in that steady way of his for a second, and then—miracle of miracles!—gave her a flash of a smile, gone after merely an instant. Vesper was so disconcerted that she was silent for much of the ride to the Grimoire.
By the time they arrived, Vesper had had enough time to grow a bit nervous herself; rather than making for the front door, where there was a short queue awaiting entrance, they wandered casually around the corner and then, with a quick glance over their shoulders, ducked into a narrow alley that ran along the side of the building.
Ashbridge glanced at his watch. “We’re a few minutes early.”
“Lovely,” Vesper said, stamping her feet; her gold satin pumps were beautiful but did little to keep her toes warm. “I’ve always wanted to lurk in a damp alleyway for several minutes.”
“Ought we to look more… er.” Ashbridge tugged at his collar.
“Yes?” Vesper asked, suddenly intrigued to hear what he was going to suggest.
“Well, if someone happens to glance down a dark alley and sees two people dressed to the nines just skulking about, it’s going to look odd.”
“Ah.” Vesper now understood the reason for the collar-tugging. “You want us to look like we’re trying to find somewhere for a quick shag against a wall.”
“I don’t think I would have phrased it quite like that—” He broke off abruptly as Vesper seized him by the lapels and pushed him against the wall in question.
“Christ,” he muttered, staring down at her.
“It was your idea,” she reminded him with a grin. “Now, put your hands somewhere interesting so we look convincing.”
Obediently, he placed one hand on her waist—or what he could find of it, given the velvet cape—and brought the other, to her slight surprise, up to cup her cheek.
The gesture was unexpectedly tender, and Vesper tilted her head back to look into his eyes, which were dark and serious as he gazed down at her.
His face was cast in shadows. His palm was warm against her cheek.
And she realized, for all that they were currently in an insalubrious alley, leaning against a wall that had probably borne witness to all manner of troubling things over the years, that she felt oddly safe, pressed against Ashbridge’s chest with his skin warm against hers.
Ten feet away, a door opened, startling them both.
There was a clearing of the throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but—”
“Oh, good,” Vesper said, too brightly, pushing herself away from Ashbridge as he allowed his hands to drop back to his sides.
Delacqua’s head was poking out around the edge of the door, and he looked slightly uncomfortable as Vesper and Ashbridge approached.
Once she drew near, Vesper could see Hazel hovering anxiously behind him in whatever stairwell led to this back door.
Wordlessly, Hazel and Delacqua extended their hands, which contained a highball glass each for Vesper and Ashbridge.
“The Fresh Faced?” she asked, and Delacqua nodded in confirmation. He and Hazel each had a second glass for themselves, in case anyone noticed what they’d ordered and thought it odd that their appearances had not changed.
“Cheers,” she said, lifting her glass, and downing it in three large gulps. Next to her, Ashbridge was contemplating his as if it was poison.
“It’s not going to kill you, you know,” she said softly, and he glanced up at her. The expression on his face was a bit pained, and she reached out a hand to his elbow. “But you don’t have to, if—if you really can’t.”
“It’s not that.” His voice was quiet. “It’s just—if I’m going to drink a potion for the first time, I wish I’d thought to have one of yours. At Holloway’s. I would’ve liked one of those to be the first.”
And Vesper suddenly, ridiculously, had a bit of a lump in her throat. She swallowed past it, but before she could speak, he raised his glass to his lips and drank.
“Thank you,” Vesper said, glancing back at Hazel and Delacqua, who were watching all of this with interest. She and Ashbridge handed off their glasses, and with a wave of farewell, the other two vanished back into the club.
Vesper and Ashbridge settled in to wait, in the cozy confines of a damp alley, their shoulders pressed together; Vesper was just about to suggest they resume their previous ruse of a liaising couple, when a glance at Ashbridge’s face stopped her short.
Witnessing the face-changing never failed to give Vesper a slightly uneasy feeling; Ashbridge looked, for about twenty seconds, as though he were melting, and she could imagine, based on the slightly horrified expression on his face, that she must look similar.
After less than half a minute, however, his features resolved into his new face, and standing before her was a man—still tall, still dark-haired, but with piercing blue eyes and cheekbones sharp enough to use as a knife.
“Oh, hello,” she murmured.
He raised an inquiring brow.
“You’re very handsome.”
“You’re—” He broke off, and suddenly looked as though he were trying not to laugh.
“What?” she demanded.
“You have a sunburn.”
“A sunburn!” Vesper felt slightly put out; why should Ashbridge get to look like a catalogue model and she be saddled with a sunburn? “In October?”
“It’s not too bad, you’re just… a bit rosy. And your eyes are blue now.”
“So are yours. It’s very… well.” She sighed, a bit wistfully, and he looked at her inquiringly. “It’s just, you’re so handsome. It’s distracting.”
“You,” he said, very thoughtfully, “look a bit like a milkmaid.”
“Merlin,” she muttered.
“It’s the pink cheeks! And the blue eyes, it’s all very Alpine and wholesome.
And you weren’t joking about that cowlick, were you?
” Now he definitely sounded as though he were trying not to laugh, and Vesper raised a hand to her head, feeling the telltale wrinkle in her hair, despite the fact that everything else about her coiffure remained unchanged, given the limits of this potion.
“I don’t know why I wasted time styling it tonight,” she said morosely.
The Fresh Faced merely changed a face’s appearance for a few hours, having no impact on hair or anything else about the body.
After considering the menu options ahead of time, Vesper and Ashbridge had decided that new faces should suffice for them, without any of the more dramatic full-body transformations that some of the stronger potions induced.
However, now that the potion had gone into effect, they were operating with limited time; it was half nine, and the club closed at midnight.
This meant that their potions shouldn’t wear off until after the rest of the clubgoers—and staff—had left; now there was nothing for it but to go inside and begin their performance.
Ashbridge extended an arm to her. “Shall we?”
Delacqua met them at the front door, as arranged, to gain them entry as his guest, since Vesper couldn’t precisely announce herself to be Vesper Holloway, given her current disguise.
The doorman barely cast a glance at them, not finding anything suspicious in the telltale shimmer of magic around their hairlines.
Once they were inside, Delacqua murmured farewell and set off to find Hazel so they could make their departure; given Hazel and Vesper’s friendship, they thought it wise not to be seen together, lest anyone somehow guess who they were.
Left to their own devices, Vesper and Ashbridge made a beeline for the bar.
“A glass of champagne and a glass of whisky, please,” she informed the bartender.
“Make it a double,” Ashbridge put in over her shoulder, close enough behind her that she caught the clean scent of his skin. He still smelled like himself, even with someone else’s face.
They downed their drinks in a hurry and ordered another round; Vesper didn’t want to risk any further spell powder or potions tonight, not when she needed to keep her wits about her, so it was important that they make a show of knocking back the drinks, so as not to draw any suspicion.