“Well?” asked Mr. Whitman in a soft voice, and now there really was a warm light in his eyes. “Is there something you want to tell me, Gwyneth?”
Who knows—maybe I’d even have done just that if Mr. George hadn’t joined us at that moment. He had put an end to my moment of weakness with the words “So there you are, Gwyneth.” Mr. Whitman had clicked his tongue with annoyance again, but he didn’t return to the subject in front of Mr. George.
And now here I was, sitting all alone on the green sofa in the year 1953, still struggling to get my composure back. And a bit of confidence.
“Knowledge is power,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to motivate myself, and I opened the book again. The entries from the Annals that Lucas had copied were mainly from the years 1782 and 1912, because those, dear granddaughter, are the years that matter most to you. In September 1782, the so-called Florentine Alliance was smashed, and the traitor in the Inner Circle of Guardians unmasked. Although it does not say so explicitly in the Annals, we can assume that you and Gideon will be involved in those events in some way.
I looked up. Was that the clue that I’d been looking for, wondering why the ball mattered so much? If so, then I was no wiser than before. Thanks a lot, Grandpa, I sighed. That was about as useful as beware of pastrami sandwiches. I turned the page.
“Don’t be scared,” said a voice behind me.
Those must certainly fall into the category of Famous Last Words, the sort that are the last thing you hear before your death. (Along with “it isn’t loaded” and “he only wants to play.”) Of course I was terribly scared.
“Only me.” Gideon was standing behind the sofa smiling down at me. The sight of him instantly switched my body into emergency mode again, with all kinds of contradictory feelings swirling about inside me, unable to decide which way to go.
“Mr. Whitman thought you could do with a little company,” said Gideon casually. “And I remembered that the lightbulb down here really must need changing.” He threw a bulb up in the air like a juggling ball, caught it, and at the same time dropped on the sofa beside me in one graceful movement. “Hey, you’re very comfortable down here. Cashmere blankets! And grapes. I think Mrs. Jenkins must have a soft spot for you.”
As I stared at his handsome, pale face and tried to get my chaotic feelings under control, at least I had the presence of mind to close Anna Karenina.
Gideon was looking at me attentively, his gaze wandering from my forehead over my eyes and down to my mouth. I wanted to turn away and move farther along the sofa, but at the same time, I couldn’t get enough of the sight of him, so I went on staring at him like a rabbit hypnotized by a snake.
“A little hello, maybe?” he said, looking me in the eye again. “Even if you’re cross with me at the moment.”
The amused way the corners of his mouth lifted brought me back to myself. “Thanks for reminding me.” I put the hair away from my forehead, straightened my back, and opened my book, quite close to the beginning this time. I’d simply ignore him—he needn’t think everything was okay between us.
But it wasn’t so easy to put Gideon off his stroke. He looked up at the ceiling. “I’d have to switch the light out for a while to change the bulb. That would make it rather dark in here.”
I said nothing.
“Do you have a flashlight with you?”
I didn’t reply.
“On the other hand, the light doesn’t seem to be giving much trouble today. Maybe we’ll just wait until it does.”
I sensed the sidelong look he was giving me as clearly as if he were touching me, but I went on staring at my book.
“Can I have some of your grapes?”
At this I lost my patience. “Oh, have the whole bunch—but leave me in peace to read!” I snapped at him. “And just keep your mouth shut, will you? I don’t feel like making silly small talk with you.”
He said nothing for the time it took him to eat the grapes. I turned a page, although I hadn’t read a single word.
“I hear you had visitors this morning.” He began juggling two grapes. “Charlotte said something about a mysterious chest.”
Oh, so that’s the way the wind was blowing! I let the book sink to my lap. “Which part of keep your mouth shut don’t you understand?”
Gideon grinned broadly. “Hey, I’m not making small talk. I’d like to know what gave Charlotte the idea that you may have something in your hands that was passed on to you by Lucy and Paul.”
He was here to interrogate me, obviously. Probably on behalf of Falk and the others. Be nice to her, then she’s sure to tell you whether she’s keeping something hidden, and if so, where. After all, thinking women stupid was the de Villiers family hobby.
I drew my legs up on the sofa and sat cross-legged. When I was angry, it was easier to look him in the eye without letting my lower lip quiver. “Ask Charlotte yourself what gave her the idea,” I said coldly.
“I did.” Gideon sat cross-legged too, so that we were sitting opposite each other like two Native Americans in a tepee. Was there an opposite of smoking the pipe of peace? “She thinks that somehow or other you’ve come by the stolen chronograph, and your brother and sister, your great-aunt, and even your butler are helping you to hide it.”
I shook my head. “I must say, I’d never have suspected Charlotte of having too much imagination. Seems that all we have to do is carry an old chest through the house, and she goes right off her head.”
“What was in the chest?” he asked, in a rather uninterested tone. My goodness, how transparent!
“Nothing! We use it as a card table when we play poker.” I thought this was such a good idea that I only just managed to suppress a grin.
“Arizona hold ’em?” inquired Gideon, paying more attention now.
Ha, ha. “Texas hold ’em,” I said. As if he could unsettle me with such a feeble ruse. Lesley’s father had taught us to play poker when we were twelve. He thought that all girls should learn—why, he never told us. Thanks to him, anyway, we knew all the tricks and were world champions at bluffing. To this day, Lesley rubbed her nose when she had a good hand, but I was the only person who knew. “Also Omaha, but not so often. You know,” I said, leaning confidingly forward, “we’re forbidden to play games of chance at home—my grandmother has some very strict rules. We began playing poker just out of protest and sheer defiance, Aunt Maddy, Mr. Bernard, Nick, and me. But then we started really enjoying it.”
Gideon had raised one eyebrow. He looked kind of impressed. I couldn’t blame him.
“Although maybe Lady Arista is right, and gambling is the root of all evil,” I went on. I was in my element now. “At first we played for sherbet lemons, but now the stakes are higher. My brother lost all his pocket money last week. My word, if Lady Arista got to hear about that…” I leaned even farther forward and looked deep into Gideon’s eyes. “But don’t let Charlotte know, or she’d tell tales of us. I’d sooner she invented stories about stolen chronographs!” I sat up straight again, feeling extremely pleased with myself.
Gideon was still looking impressed. He gazed at me for a while in silence, and then he suddenly put out his hand and stroked my hair, which wrecked my self-control right away.
“Stop that!” He really was trying every trick in the book! Bastard. “What do you want here anyway? I don’t need company.” Unfortunately it didn’t sound as venomous as I’d intended, more like rather pathetic. “Shouldn’t you be traveling around on secret missions, getting blood out of people?”
“You mean Operation Trunk-hose yesterday evening?” He had stopped the stroking, but now he took a strand of my hair in his fingers and played with it. “Mission accomplished. Elaine Burghley’s blood is in the chronograph.” For a couple of seconds, he stared past me into space, looking sad. Then he had control of himself again. “So all we need is blood from the obstinate Lady Tilney, Lucy, and Paul. But now that we know what time Paul and Lucy are living in, and under what names, that’s only a formality. In fact, I’m going to see Lady Tilney tomorrow morning.”
“I thought you’d had some doubts about the aims we’re all supposed to be pursuing,” I said, freeing my hair from his hand. “Suppose Lucy and Paul are right, and the Circle of Blood should never be closed? You did say that was a possibility.”
“Correct. But I’m not about to say so to the Guardians. You’re the only person I’ve told.”
Oh, what a cunning psychological move! You’re the only one I trust.
But I could be cunning as well if I wanted. (I only had to remember the poker story.) “Lucy and Paul said the count can’t be trusted. Do you think so too?”
Gideon shook his head. Suddenly his face was serious, and he looked tensed up. “No. I don’t think he’s evil. I just think…” He hesitated. “I think he considers the welfare of an individual less important than the common good.”
“Including his own welfare?”
He didn’t reply to that, but put out his hand again. This time he wound my strand of hair around his finger as if around a curler. Finally he said, “Suppose you could develop something sensational, for example—well, let’s say a cure for cancer and AIDS and all the other diseases in the world. But to get hold of it, you had to let someone die. Would you do that?”
Let someone die? Was that why Lucy and Paul had stolen the chronograph? Because they thought the price to be paid was too high, I heard my mother’s voice saying. Was the price a human life? I instantly had vivid scenes from films before my eyes, with crosses hanging upside down, human sacrifices on an altar, hooded men murmuring Babylonian incantations. Although that didn’t seem quite right for the Guardians—maybe with one or two exceptions.
Gideon was looking at me expectantly.
“Sacrifice one human life to save many others?” I murmured. “I don’t think the price for curing all those dreadful things would be too high, if you look at it from a practical viewpoint, I mean. How about you?”
Gideon said nothing for quite a long time. He just let his eyes wander over my face and went on playing with my strand of hair. “Yes, I do think it would be too high,” he finally said. “The end doesn’t always justify the means.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to carry on doing what the count tells you to do?” I burst out with that—admittedly not very subtly. “Like playing with my feelings, for instance? Or with my hair?”
Gideon took his hand out of my hair and looked at it in surprise, as if it didn’t belong to him. “I didn’t … the count didn’t tell me to play with your feelings.”
“Oh, no?” All of a sudden, I was furiously angry with him. “Well, he more or less told me he did. Oh, come on! He was impressed, he said, to see how well you’d played your part, when you’d had so little time to manipulate my feelings—and when, stupidly, you’d put so much energy into working on the wrong victim, meaning Charlotte.”