Page 20 of Smoke & Ashes
“I would never have the guts to eat meat that bloody in a dress that white.”
Tara licked a variety of juices from her lips and fingers in a gesture that was too indefinably classy to be pornographic but too unabashedly sensual to be entirely safe-for-work. “I’ve had practice.”
“And also you don’t have to do your own laundry.”
“Also that, although Mrs Duckworth can be quite scornful if she feels you’ve soiled your garments unduly.”
I could see that. It couldn’t be much fun to spend your professional life scrubbing blood and female ejaculate out of a series of expensive gowns. “You know I’m very tempted to wipe my hands on you.”
She smiled. “Such an act would warrant severe punishment.”
“And you think that makes itlesstempting?”
“Do you remember we have an actual dungeon.”
I leaned back. “You know, I think the difference between an actual dungeon and a sex dungeon is mostly attitude.”
“That’s averytestable proposition.”
I shifted on the bed, lost track of what my foot was doing, and kicked the cafetière over. Tara sprang out the way of the flying coffee with the speed and agility of, well, of somebody who was secretly a mystically empowered wolf-lady charged with watching the boundaries between worlds.
“Shit!” I tried to mop it up, then realised I was just rubbing coffee and bacon grease into the bedsheets. “That was an accident, I swear. If I was trying to get your clothes off I’d have been way suaver about it.”
Tara raised an eyebrow. Her dress was still immaculate. “Somehow, I doubt that. Mrs Duckworth will be livid. And I amdefinitelychaining you up next time I see you.”
If only all my crockery-related accidents had that kind of outcome. We finished cleaning up the mess as best we could, and Tara kissed me goodbye and went to gather her pack. When she was gone, I dug out the change of clothes that had once again miraculously appeared in Tara’s wardrobe, adding my old somewhat battered outfit to the pile of wreckage that the mysterious Mrs Duckworth would presumably somehow set right.
There was an element of strategy to how slowly I dealt with the aftermath of breakfast. Tara was going to be summoning her pack together and I wanted to wait until they were all assembled and out of my way before I made a break for freedom. I say “they”. I mean “the dowager marchioness”. She basically hated me, especially hated me having anything to do with Tara, and was likely to especially especially hate me now that one of her own had been horribly murdered as part of a gigantic supernatural feud which she almost certainly blamed me for. Hell,Iblamed me for it, and I wasn’t a sour old toff with a heart full of spite and condescension.
When I was sure the coast was clear, I made a bolt for the main door, where I was slightly surprised to find that Tara had arranged for a driver to meet me with the car. She could be surprisingly thoughtful like that, although I suppose it was easy to be generous when you had a small army of people whose only job was to cater to your every whim.
Still, sweet of her.
I took the relative calm and more-than-relative comfort of the drive back to Bow Street to catch up on what I laughably called my correspondence. Which basically meant texting people.
I’d had another “seriously, are you okay” message from Eve and this time I broke the habit of, well, not a lifetime but at least several months, and replied to it.Yeah, more or less.Then:Look, sorry I’ve been so shitty.Then:Thanks for your help with the Elise thing. I’ve met this professor lady who looks like she might help.
After that I sent a quick message to Sofia to the effect that Patrick’s last-ex-but-one was in town and that if she was going by her previous form she’d be keen to turn Sofia into a teenager-skin hat. Then I gritted my teeth and sent a similar message to Patrick. The next step was slightly trickier, because if the wibbly dream meetings were anything to go by I was going to need to drop in on Nimue sooner rather than later, and I’d been doing my best impression of an abject fucking coward on that front for well over a year. In my defence, I was drunk for most of it.
Gabriel and Michelle were the only two members of Nim’s old court that I was even halfway sure were still alive, I reached out to them both with a sheepishHi, I know I’ve been useless but I’ve started having dreams again and I think I should probably see Nim.I was tempted to follow it withI am a gigantic fuckup, I’d ask you to forgive me but it would be meaningless, but felt that might have edged just slightly onto the side of being too much self-flagellation.
The replies I got were, variously:
Of course, and I understand. She’s at London Bridge Hospital.
Thank you. :scared emoji: Also I think Patrick has left me for good this time.
We can’t stop you but this doesn’t make us friends. Cross us and I burn you.
Leave me, Katharine. I am done with your lies.
So … some of that was positive? It didn’t seem like I’d exactly bewelcomeat the hospital but I checked its website and they took visitors until 10pm and, well, I wouldn’t have seen the hospital in my dreams unless there was something to be gained by going there. And itwasthe hospital from my dreams, white-and-gold lights and everything, a Google image search confirmed it. Still, dropping in on a group of wizards who hated me was a job I wasverymuch inclined to put off until the evening, which left me a whole day to fill.
Tara’s car dropped me off at the office. The door of said office was still hanging open but as far as I could tell nobody had been through my stuff. That was the nice thing about having a failing business, nobody could be bothered to rob you. I rang a locksmith and explained the problem, he told me that if the door had been kicked in I’d probably need a new frame as well as a new lock, but that since they were a general security firm he’d be able to get somebody out today to look at it.
Then I settled in to ring around every fucking estate agent in fucking Maidenhead, trying to work out which one had hired Edward Brown. About halfway through the job, I got a reply from Eve. It just said:Professor lady?
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