Phoenix and Ashes

trying to think of a retort. I'm going to dress for dinner. You, of course, are free to stay or go, as you choose—but if you choose to stay, you know what you can expect. The gloves are off, Grandfather, and they are remaining off.'

And with that, he turned on his heel and stalked all the way to his rooms.

Once there, however, he turned the key in the lock and locked himself into his darkened bedroom, and sank nervelessly down onto the neatly made bed, shaking in every limb.

I cannot believe I just did that.

All his life, his mother's father had been the one person that no one dared to defy. Even Reggie's own father had never openly flouted the old man's edicts.

But tonight Reggie had challenged him. Whether or not he'd won remained to be seen. But the challenge had been uttered and had not been answered.

It should have felt like a triumph, but all that Reggie felt was a kind of sick fear that made him curl up on the counterpane and shake. Maybe precisely because he had overturned the old order—it had to be done, but it was one more bit of stability gone.

And he hadn't even done a good job of defying the old man. There had been nothing measured or politic about the way he'd laid into his grandfather; in fact he'd probably made an enemy of the old man. He hadn't planned any of it, hadn't chosen his subject, time, or grounds, and just might have made things worse. It was only that he had been pushed once too often and now he felt he had to push back or die.

He felt too sick to go down to dinner now, stomach a wreck, head pounding and aching like someone had taken a poker to it.

Well, after what he'd just done, the old man probably wouldn't be down to dinner either. Still, he couldn't leave his mother to sit at that long, empty table alone.

So after he got his shaking under control, he dressed, and waited for the gong, and went down, down to a mostly-empty table, the silently rebuking presence of his mother, and food he scarcely tasted and ate very little of.

It should have been a triumph, but it tasted of ashes and gall. And in the end, it led to yet another sleepless night, during which he stared at the ceiling, rigid with fear, and was completely unable to muster a single coherent thought until dawn.

14

April 30, 1917

Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

'I WISH THAT THESE PLACES were somewhere more convenient. Or at least, had decent hotels nearby.' Lauralee sighed dramatically, and pouted at the old four-poster bed she was going to have to share with her sister. Carolyn was already sprawled across the expanse of it, and had voiced complaints about the quality of the mattress and the size of the room.

There really was no reason to complain; the room was big enough by coaching-inn standards. It was certainly solid and well-kept. The furnishings might date back to the previous century, but they, too were solid and well-kept. Their early dinner had been palatable, and neither under nor-over-cooked. The real cause for discontent probably lay in the fact that it was not a posh hotel and not in London, nor Bath, nor any other metropolis.

Alison frowned at her offspring; it was occurring to her just now that they were mightily spoilt. The Crown and Cushion in Chipping Norton was the nearest inn to her goal, just outside the village of Enstone, and as such things went, was superior to a great many places where she'd been forced to stay in the course of her occult career. 'You ought to be grateful you have a bed, much less a room, much less a decent room in a good, solid inn,' she told them, tartly. 'I've stayed in hovels, or camped on the ground with gypsies before this. You're just fortunate that there actually is an inn within walking distance of the Hoar Stones.'

'And that's another thing, Mother—' Carolyn began.

'Shut your mouth,' Warrick Locke said, unexpectedly. 'We're not here for your amusement. We're here to work, and if that requires a little walking on your part, so be it. You are the ones ultimately benefiting from this, after all; you ought to be pleased, not whingeing about it.'