A Marvellous Light (The Last Binding #1)(98)

“What?” Robin burst out.

“I’m not supposed to know this. We’d be breaking a few rules.”

“Good,” said Robin at once. “I mean, I don’t care.”

She nodded. “We need to go to the Barrel.”

“Sir Robert?” said his housekeeper, Mrs. Hathaway, from the top of the stairs. “If you—ah. Beg pardon, sir.” She folded her hands in front of her apron and descended like a queen, gaze locked onto Robin in a way that meant she’d already seen Miss Morrissey and was pointedly containing herself. “I’d heard you were going out. Will you be dining at home?”

“We were just leaving,” said Robin, conveniently still clad in outdoors gear. “As for dinner, ah . . .”

“I shall personally ensure that Sir Robert sends word,” said Miss Morrissey, “if he is delayed a minute later than planned.”

Her posh voice had somehow acquired a heavy gilt frame of further poshness. Mrs. Hathaway’s eyes widened. Robin didn’t trust himself to do more than nod. Then they were out the door and on the street.

“Sherborne Girls,” Miss Morrissey said after a moment. “If you were about to ask me where I learned to do that.”

Robin laughed, and a fraction of his tension eased with it. “By the time that’s made its way through the downstairs dining room, they’ll be saying I’ve taken up with the granddaughter of a maharajah.”

“What makes you think you haven’t?”

Humour quivered in the corner of her mouth, but Robin had a hard-earned sense for jokes that weren’t really jokes at all. “Honestly?”

The quiver expanded. “Not quite. He was—there’s no word for it in English, but my grandfather was a senior in the magical community in the Punjab before he came to England, and his sister did marry a prince. Mama used to tell us she’d come down in the world, marrying a mere colonel.”

The morning’s fog had grudgingly lifted, but the gloom of it hung in the darkening air. Miss Morrissey told him about her parents as they walked: her grandfather had lugged his family to England for what was meant to be a brief visit, due to the conditions of a will being contested. By the time the legal dispute over the property in question had dragged on for years, the man had become a sort of diplomatic liaison to the British Magical Assembly, and his daughter had met and married Colonel Clive Morrissey in a whirl of minor scandal. The Morrisseys had never been truly rich, or truly accepted in fashionable circles; they had their own circle of magician-peers, like the Courceys did, and moved quietly within that. Both of the daughters of the family had gained a taste for independence at school and had gone straight into civil service.

“It was that or marry at once,” said Miss Morrissey, “and both of us wanted to take a breath before we embarked on that. I’m glad,” she added. “Reggie’s—Reggie was a lot of fun to work with, even if he was prone to haring off around the country on no notice.”

“Were you close, the two of you?”

The rhythm of Miss Morrissey’s steps faltered. Her profile was burnished in the light of the streetlamps. “As close as any friend,” she said. “We worked together for two years. We both knew what it was like to grow up with magic and not have any ourselves.”

“I’m sorry,” Robin said, honestly. “For your loss.”

Her mouth spasmed. Robin wished for the first time that he could have met his predecessor, to work out for himself if this irresponsible man had in any way deserved the subdued longing of two clever people. Perhaps he’d had a smile like a sunrise.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be quite all right if I can land a kick on one of the bastards who did it.”

Robin had a swell of fellow-feeling. “We haven’t had much luck at unearthing them. We don’t know how many men—er, or women—are involved.”

“They’re men.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because if even a single woman was involved, they wouldn’t have decided that a man who’d been working there one day was a more likely source of information than a woman who’d been there for years.”

It was a good point. Miss Morrissey looked almost offended that she hadn’t been accosted and cursed.

It took them nearly an hour to reach the Barrel, a tall brick building just north of Smithfield that didn’t look like much from the outside. Robin had probably walked past it before and never spared it a second glance. He didn’t want to spare it a third. When he tried, he felt on the edge of some nasty, queasy vertigo. Best to keep walking, his feet seemed to say.

“Oh! I forgot about the warding,” said Miss Morrissey. “Give me your arm.”

With one red glove tight at the crook of Robin’s elbow, she walked the both of them up the steps. The queasy feeling got stronger and stronger, and Robin thought fuzzily that when they did locate Edwin he was going to congratulate him for managing to keep his wits even slightly about him in the Sutton maze, if it had felt anything like this.

The doors were high and heavy, studded with brass. Miss Morrissey pushed one door open and pulled Robin with her across the threshold, grey flagstone giving way to pale marble beneath their feet, and Robin felt normal at once.

Miss Morrissey pulled a shilling from her purse and showed it to him. “Pass token. Charmed to negate the warding; it’s not a strong one, just enough to avert curiosity for anyone without magic, which can be a bother for the in-betweeners like us. I’m sure Kitty can get you one of your own, if you—Sir Robert?”