slaving in the pantry with the likes of Cook if it’s not work he’s born to do! And-and he asked me to dance with him tonight, afore everyone to see us, he did. That idn’t a thing a man asks if he don’t have a true care for a girl.”
Gerald met Bibbie’s concerned gaze over the maid’s bowed head. “I’m sure you’re right, Mitzie,” he said, carefully gentle. “So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to tell Her Royal Highness, Princess Melissande, all about Ferdie. And then she’ll ask Crown Prince Hartwig to look into his disappearance.”
Mitzie looked up. “Really, sir?” she said, doubtful.
“Really. Princess Melissande has strong views about the way people should be treated. She doesn’t give a fig if you’re a servant or a prince. Isn’t that right, Miss Slack?”
“Quite right, Mister Rowbotham,” Bibbie said promptly.
“But, sir… the Crown Prince?”
“Oh, yes,” said Gerald, firmly squashing his scruples. “Princess Melissande and the Crown Prince are excellent friends.”
“Oh, sir!” Mitzie blinked, awestruck. “Thank you!”
Skewered with fresh guilt, Gerald patted her hand. “You’re welcome.”
“So now you can enjoy the evening, can’t you?” said Bibbie. “Instead of sitting all by yourself in a corner, feeling weepy.”
“Yes, miss, thank you, miss,” said Mitzie. “Only I can’t really, miss, because I’m only allowed an hour upstairs before I have to get back in the kitchens so’s Effie can take her turn kicking up her heels. So I’d best go.” She held out the damp handkerchief. “But thank you.”
Reluctant, Gerald accepted the tearstained square of cotton then watched the kitchen maid out of sight.
“Poor little blot,” said Bibbie.
He frowned at her. “Well? What d’you think?”
“I think,” she said, sighing, “that it’s going to be nearly impossible to find out what Ibblie knows, especially if he’s mixed up in this. Which is starting to look likely. If he was in the stables plotting, and you-know-who overhead him then got discovered, well, of course you-know-who would run away, wouldn’t he? And of course Ibblie wouldn’t lift a finger to find him. The question is would he lift a finger to stab him? Because somebody pushed a knife into you-know-who. But I don’t suppose we’ll be able to find out who did it.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to confess. Confide. Tell Bibbie everything about the entrapment hex, the grimoire magic, why she’d felt what she’d felt when he’d questioned Ibblie earlier. He’d not feel so terribly alone if she knew.
But I can’t tell her. Not yet. Not until I know what it means.
Not until he could be sure she wouldn’t turn away from him in horror.
She was looking at him, one eyebrow quizzically raised. “Mister Rowbotham?”
He forced a smile. “That was good work, Miss Slack, noticing Mitzie was upset about something.”
“Yes, well.” Bibbie rolled her eyes. “The waterfall of tears down her face was what you might call a hint.”
“Don’t dismiss it so lightly,” he said. “My point is, thanks to you we’ve found our first suspect.”
“And much good he does us,” Bibbie muttered. “When he’s untouchable, at least by a lady’s maid and secretary.”
“We can still try,” he said. “And if it doesn’t work, we can get Melissande to question him. But let’s not forget, he’s only a suspect. Ibblie could be completely innocent.”
She snorted. “Nobody’s completely innocent.”
“So young and yet so cynical,” he marvelled.
“You would be too if you’d grown up in my family. And besides, I’m not that young.” Bibbie smiled, her eyes wicked. “I’ll be my own woman soon.”
“At which time the world will tremble,” he said. And then, because her smile was doing dangerous things to his blood, he looked around in search of Mister Ibblie.
Most of the food had been consumed, and the Splotze servants who weren’t condemned to tidying up, and the guest minions from Graff and Blonkken and Aframbigi and Fandawandi and Borovnik and Harenstein and elsewhere, were nibbling the leftovers or dancing or gossiping. But where the devil was Ibblie? Had he left the Servants’ Hall? Because if he’d slipped away, then But no. There he was, deep in conversation with the lackeys from Harenstein. Gerald stared.
Is it him? Is he the one?
Ibblie was certainly senior enough, and trusted enough, to be involved in a plot without suspicion. Was he to be included on the wedding tour? That was something to find out. If he wasn’t, then any move he made would need to be either before the wedding party departed Grande Splotze, or after it returned.
And we’re leaving Grande Splotze the day after tomorrow. So that doesn’t leave him much time, does it, if he wants to get his sabotage over and done with?
His nerves, which had been sleeping, leapt to fizzing life. Tonight? If the culprit was Ibblie, would he try something tonight? Surely the timing was perfect. Why would anyone suspect him when he was stuck downstairs presiding over the Servants’ Ball?
Bibbie plucked at his coat sleeve. “What’s the matter?”
“We should circulate,” he said. “We’re not going to learn anything more keeping this tree fern company.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “I know. Why don’t I tackle Mister Ibblie?”
What? Let Bibbie confront a potential murderer? I don’t think so. “No. If Sir Alec finds out you’re-”
“Oh, pishwash to Sir Alec,” she said, with an airy wave of her hand. “How’s he going to find out? We’re not going to tell him, are we? Besides, Gerald, what’s your plan for tackling Ibblie? Are you going to march up to him and say Excuse me, Mister Ibblie, I was wondering if you had any plans to scupper the royal wedding? Oh, yes, and how are you with a knife? If he’s guilty he’ll lie, and if he isn’t he’ll think you’re a madman and have you thrown out.”
She was right, curse her. Especially since he couldn’t use his newfound compulsion power on the bloody man, not with her watching.
“And I suppose you think you can flirt the answer out of him?”
Bibbie batted her eyelashes. “Why, Mister Rowbotham. If I didn’t know better, I might think you were jealous.”
She was saved from a shaking by the motley musicians, who launched into a sprightly jig.
“I know!” said Bibbie, with the brightness he’d long ago learned to distrust. “I’ll ask Mister Ibblie to dance! He won’t say no, it’d be rude to refuse Princess Melissande’s lady’s maid, and while we’re prancing about I’ll tell him I found Mitzie crying, and that she told me about you-know-who, and then we’ll see what he says about the last time he saw Ferdie Goosen.”
Gerald swallowed. He wished he could forbid it, but since he couldn’t risk lowering his shield she was their best chance of getting some answers. One melting look and Ibblie would surely be butter in her hands.
“All right,” he said, resigned. “You do that, and I’ll have a chat with some of the chaps from Borovnik. Only please, Miss Slack, be careful. This isn’t a game. If Ibblie’s our man that means he’s dangerous.”
“Double pishwash,” said Bibbie, loftily. “How many times do I have to tell you? Stop treating me like a gel!”
If he said what he wanted to say they’d get into a shouting match, so he restrained himself. The effort nearly gave him a hernia.
“Fine,” he said, teeth gritted. “Off you go, then. And make sure you dance him past me a few times. I got a good whiff of those dark thaumaturgics in you-know-who’s lodging, and if I go looking I might smell them on him.”
Bibbie flashed him a Gladys Slack smile that was almost as dazzling as her own. “Yes, Mister Rowbotham. Whatever you say, Mister Rowbotham.”
Hell’s bells, he groaned silently, as she headed for Ibblie. That girl will be the death of me yet.
Leopold Gertz was a damp little squib of a man. Which was odd, really, considering he was Splotze’s Secretary of State. Surely Hartwig could’ve found someone with more personality for the job?
Honestly, Melissande thought, trying not to listen as he slurped his cream of artichoke heart soup. I can’t
