The Wizard of London

endless opportunities for exploration—at the glimpse of gardens in the rear, and beyond that, a hint of water. And for the first time they all understood that all of this was, within reason, theirs for the month, to run in, play in, explore, hide, make up stories in and act them out—

And it was Nan who summed up all their feelings in a single word.

A word which burst out of her like a cannonball out of a gun.

“Cor!” she shouted in glee.

Mem’sab, being handed down out of the charabanc, merely looked up and smiled.

8

MUCH as he admired and depended upon Lady Cordelia, there was some relief for David Alderscroft in being in a place to which she could not go. Here in his club, surrounded by men and the things of men, with not even a hint of women about (the few maidservants kept themselves discreetly out of sight as best they could), there was a sense that one could let down one’s guard and relax.

Not that Cordelia was like most women, but still… here, one didn’t have to be so terribly careful of manners and speech, and if one made a faux pas, a man would simply wave it off, where a woman would stew about it for hours. Women were grand ornaments to life, but even the best of them forgot that a man needed to be a man among men on a regular basis.

Small wonder that many men all but lived at their clubs even when they did not have rooms there. Even working men knew the pressure of too-attentive female companionship, and had their pubs and their coffeehouses. He never felt quite so comfortable as when he was at the club, with women restricted to the Visitors’ Parlor and Visitors’ Dining Room—and if there were females in a resident member’s rooms, well, that was his business and had nothing to do with the rest of the members. One could have sisters and a mother, after all. And aunts. And if they were deuced attractive sisters and aunts, who might or might not have careers on the stage, well, such things happened. So long as they did not intrude on anyone else, it was none of his business. Here, not only were the members incurious about who came in and out, so long as it was discreet, they were incurious about what came in and out, and a phenomenal number of them were Elemental Mages, occultists, or had had brushes with the uncanny. Here, they knew how to keep secret and silent when odd things happened. And here he had chosen to make the headquarters of his new incarnation of a much older Elemental Masters’ Master’s Circle.

The Master’s Circle, or White Lodge, was an ancient magical tradition, created for the purpose of self-policing one’s own kind, as it were. Originally intended to hunt down and destroy the enemies of the members, it had evolved to the more civilized function of ensuring that no Elemental Master within its jurisdiction attacked another, or attacked those not blessed with magic.

It had been at its most active during the Regency, when the notorious Hellfire Club (which actually had very little in the way of true Magical power) and those modeled after it (some of which did) had flourished. Since that time, it had declined to little more than a social group that occasionally did some investigative and disciplinary work. One of the most recent had been the ill-fated, though ultimately successful, attempt to track down and bring to heel a wayward Fire Master—the attempt that had cost David’s own father so much. It had been David’s idea, not Cordelia’s, to revitalize the lodge and make it more effective. In this, he flattered himself, he had been quite successful—enough so that he heard that he was being called the “Wizard of London” now.

Truth to tell, Cordelia did not much like the Circle. He suspected that she resented the fact that she was not permitted inside the club and had not been invited to join, but really, a woman had no real place in a Master’s Circle—

Well, most women. There were a few, a very few, who like the few neck-or-nothing riders in his Hunt Club, could keep up in terms of energy and sheer instinct for the kill with the best of the men, but they were rare indeed. He could not imagine Lady Cordelia in such a position, with her cool, calm demeanor and immaculate manners. She would regard much of what the Circle did with distaste, as “dirtying her hands.” For heaven’s sake, he couldn’t even imagine her on the back of a horse in hunting dress, much less traipsing across the countryside in search of a rogue magician!

So he ignored her obvious disdain for the work of the Circle, as he ignored nothing else she said or did, and went early to the meetings of the Circle so he could enjoy the masculine ambience of the club before he picked up his arcane duties.

This particular Master’s Circle had been the one to which his father had belonged, and it had been when his father had been unable to muster an adequate hunting party and had been injured that had made David take notice. He had decided then that the situation simply would not do, and began rectifying it.

Now it was a matter of sending a few messages across the city to muster a full-strength hunting party within the hour, and within three, a Circle of Initiates could be assembled.

There were, in fact, enough Mages and Masters in the group to gather a Circle Trine if the need arose, and that had not been the case since the Circle had first been formed. Possibly the fact that the Circle had been moved to London, where most of the members at least had town homes, had made the difference. Perhaps it was because in London there simply were so many people it was not at all difficult to find enough Mages. Perhaps it was because it was in a men’s club; it was easy to give the wife the excuse that one was going to one’s club in order to slip out. Granted, Mages usually married Mages, but women with the Talent were still women, and inclined to favor commitments to dinner parties over commitments to the Master’s Circle—and were equally inclined to be both far too curious and far too suspicious when a gentleman had to be evasive about where he was going and what he was doing.

Nor could they manage to keep the secrets secret.

But a man could say, “I’m going to the club,” and a woman would nod and think nothing more of it.

And perhaps that was the main reason for the success of the Master’s Circle. A man could come here, do the Work of the Circle, and return home late, and the spouse would ask why so late a return, and a man could say “Oh, Lytton went off on one of his shooting stories and we lost all track of time,” or “A billiard game turned into a match, you know how it is,” and if there were no signs of inebriation or the presence of floozies, there would be no further questions.

Yes, that might be the best reason for success of all.

Tonight would be routine, a follow-up meeting of the key members of the Circle to find out the disposition of a little problem Nigel Lytton had reported, a matter of an Elemental Magician gone wrong in London itself. It was fairly trivial as such things went, and a preliminary report had stated that the miscreant in question had already passed the jurisdiction of mortal justice, but Alderscroft liked to have things properly neatened up in the wake of the resolution of any situation.

And besides, it was as good an excuse as any to take supper here.

Although his cook—his chef, rather—was good, he was also French, and it was a secondary relief to enjoy simple English fare once in a while as well. It had occurred to David, and more than once, that perhaps he ought to sell or close up his town home, take up residence here, and a great many aspects of his life would be improved. There would be no more servants’ crises, for instance; those details were taken care of invisibly by the club staff. Normally such things were handled with equal invisibility by one’s wife or mother, but David had neither, and had to deal with staff upheavals himself.

But no, Cordelia would not be able to go past the Visitors’ Parlor room, which would mean that to get further lessons from her, he would have to come to her home, and something about that made him feel rebellious. Silly, perhaps, but nevertheless such a feeling would be counterproductive to actually learning anything.

He took the steps of the club briskly and nodded to Stewart, the doorman, as that worthy held the portal open for him. The familiar and comforting aroma of tobacco and brandy, books, and newspaper struck him as he entered, and he headed straight for the Members’ Dining Room without a pause. The savory scent of good roast beef met his nose as he entered, which cemented what his selection would be in his mind before he even sat down.

Scotch broth, to begin, and oysters, then roast beef and potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, new peas, and an apple tart… wonderful. He savored his brandy and a cigar afterward, and wondered why his expensive chef could not understand that plain food was just as good as, if not superior to, the fancy sauces of French cooking. And it made him think, fleetingly, of their good old cook, back at the manor, who had made it very clear that she would not be moving to London.

But no. The disadvantages of life there so far outweighed the advantages that there was no comparison. He was not, and never had been, the sort to enjoy country life. Nor was Cordelia, really. Now Isabelle—