A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(79)
But he swallowed his fear, and instead asked aloud, “What do you want us to do with the two extras?”
Bring them downstairs to me now. Then I will be able to help you control the three witnesses as you take them.
“Right,” he gulped, and finished his preparations in a hurry.
Alf was waiting in the kitchen, dressed in his coachman’s “uniform,” which consisted of a top hat and a black frock coat. He looked up and immediately read trouble in Alexandre’s expression.
But before he could ask what was wrong, Alexandre told him, in hushed, tense tones.
“The thing in the basement wants two of the boys right now. It says if we give them to it, it will be able to help us control the girls.”
He had expected Alf to be alarmed, or annoyed, or a combination of both, but Alf stroked his chin thoughtfully. “So. The thing c’n talk t’ye hupstairs. An’ hit sez hit c’n ’elp yew control th’ girls, all three uv ’em. Tha’s new, too. So we feeds hit, hit gets stronger.”
“So it would seem,” Alexandre replied, resisting the urge to pluck at his tie or his sleeves out of sheer nerves.
“Look, guv, th’ big prollem wit’ th’ plan terday was keepin’ the girls we got unner control. An naow th’ thing says hit c’n take care’a that.” He nodded. “I don’ see a prollem. In fact that solves our prollem.”
Bring me two of the five. I will hold the three. The mage merely needs to meet their eyes.
Alf’s eyes widened for a moment. “Did yew ’ear that?”
Alexandre nodded.
Alf let out a puff of breath. “Huh.” Then he stood up. “Guess Oi better fetch them boys.”
Ten minutes later, they were on their way, Alexandre in the coach and Alf on the box. Alf had handled the boys himself; he told the other three that the Master had come to take the two strongest to his country house. They’d been too sleep-fuddled, all of them, to do anything other than take the words in as Alf roused the two oldest and strongest and led them down the outside stair to the back door. By the time he got them to the basement door, they had figured out that something wasn’t right, but at that point, his iron grip on their upper arms prevented them from escaping, and once the heavy basement door swung shut, no one could have heard their cursing. And, being boys, they didn’t think to shout for help; instead, they tried to kick him.
When one of them connected with Alf’s shin, they were about halfway down the stairs. With a curse of his own, Alf had thrown them both down the stairs. They landed within two feet of the void in the floor, and before either of them could scramble to his feet, the temperature in the basement dropped, the void had become a pillar, and the pillar had grown tentacles and pulled them in.
They didn’t even get a chance to scream.
And that was that. Alf and Alexandre headed for the coach. If the other boys gathered enough of their wits to look outside, they would have seen the two men heading for the vehicle, and they’d have assumed their erstwhile companions were already in the coach. They were probably too ignorant to be aware that servants would never have been permitted to ride inside—or if they actually did somehow know that, they’d think that being allowed inside was a mark of their new Master’s “softness,” all of a piece with the warm, comfortable beds, plenty of coal for the fires, the abundant food, and the run of a six-room flat that included an indoor bathroom.
He knew what to look for, having observed Americans, and their women in particular, in the past. He didn’t want the extremely wealthy, the ones who had brought daughters over looking for husbands with important titles and large estates. He wanted the ones who were the equivalent of the English girls he’d been taking—wealthy parvenus. And he knew exactly what they looked like, or more accurately, dressed like. In clothing that was visibly expensive, at least marginally in bad taste . . . and visibly a copy of something out of a ladies’ magazine, made by a local American seamstress. That was partly why they came here—for new wardrobes.
The hotels that Alexandre had chosen were each at a considerable distance from one another. Should one of the girls’ families realize she was gone and raise a hue and cry, he wanted to be sure the other two hotels were far enough away that the alarm did not reach to that neighborhood.
The first hotel he had selected was the Langham, a block or so from Regent’s Park. There were plenty of exclusive shops on Oxford Street nearby, and American girls, he was told, were accustomed to walking miles in the course of the day. And, of course, Liberty of London was a mere three-tenths of a mile from the door of the hotel. Unlike the truly wealthy girls, who came back to London as often as every year for their new wardrobes, these girls got one trip to London, Rome, and Paris. After that, they would have to depend on their local seamstresses again to copy their London and Paris gowns. So a trip to Liberty of London was a necessity—they would travel home with a steamer trunk full of the laces, ribbons and trims they couldn’t get in San Francisco, or Kansas City, or Chicago.
And as it happened, he was able to use that little tidbit almost immediately. From the lobby of the Langham, he picked out a lively looking young lady, marked the overabundant profusion of pink ostrich plumes on her hat, and followed the plumes to Oxford Street. Once there, he window-shopped, keeping an eye on her as she made several purchases, then followed her into a haberdashery, just in time to hear a clerk say “. . . but the best place for that is Liberty’s.”