Page 53 of No One's Bride
“As I despise falsehoods, I’d rather she call me a doaty bampot.”
Miss MacTavish touched his upper arm. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later. But for now, we should focus our efforts on fooling Professor Mangold.”
Lying to the professor shouldn’t be difficult.
Their imagined story did not stray far from the truth.
They would claim to be under the grip of a spell and plead for help to break the curse. In reality, these romantic interludes felt more like a blessing.
Entering the confectioner’s shop together, Sebastian approached the assistant and presented his calling card. “We have a midday appointment with Professor Mangold, and he gave this address.”
The tubby fellow eyed them suspiciously. “What’s it concerning?”
Sebastian kept his temper. “A private matter. Let’s just say we find ourselves enchanted and require advice on the matter.”
The man tucked the card into his apron pocket. “Cross the road to Coventry Court. When ye come to the end of the alley, look for the evil eye. Ye’ll find Mangold below ground.”
The cryptic clues proved more amusing than alarming. Was Mangold so consumed by his own self-importance he shrouded himself in an air of mystery?
Sebastian escorted Miss MacTavish through the narrow alleyway. The houses stood so close together the occupants could shake hands out of the upper windows.
“We cannae be looking for a real eye,” the lady said once they reached the branch in the L-shaped lane. “It must be a puzzle.”
“Not so great a puzzle.” Sebastian gestured to the large eye painted on the brickwork of the end house. “My groom could have invented something more taxing.”
“There’s a flight of steps behind those iron railings.”
“Yes.” He sighed, disappointed the challenge had proven rather lame.
They descended to a small courtyard. The solid wooden door leading to the basement dwelling was paint-chipped and had no number.
Sebastian knocked.
Failing to hear the hurried clip of footsteps, he raised his fist to thump harder, but after a series of odd clicking noises, the door creaked open.
No one stood in the dim, candlelit corridor.
No one stood behind the door.
Miss MacTavish clutched his arm. “I feel like a ghost has trampled over my grave. It’s like we’ve stepped into Lucifer’s lair.”
“There’s nothing sinister here.” He noticed the pulley system and a series of cogs running flush with the ceiling. “Just a simple piece of engineering.”
Still, she gripped him tightly. “The man means to intimidate us.”
“This is the Guild of Unexplained Phenomena. He means to show us that sorcery is nothing more than a trick of the mind.”
“Perhaps.”
They proceeded down the long corridor. Paintings of sigils, forked-tailed imps and witch hunts lined the black walls. The sconces looked like twisted devil horns, the candle flames flickering as they passed.
Upon arriving at a large basement cellar with stone walls and a low beamed ceiling, they saw a cloaked gentleman sitting behind a stone desk.
“It looks like an altar,” Miss MacTavish muttered.
“Or a sacrificial slab,” Sebastian agreed.
Head bowed, Mangold peered through a magnifying glass, examining text in an old tome. Despite being aware of their arrival, he did not tear his gaze away from the page to greet them.
