Aubrey and Olivia continued their excursion, Olivia ardent with curiosity. “Were there lots of policemen? Did they question you? Did they try to lock you up?”
Olivia’s image of police seemed drawn as much from tales of Suvaginney slavery as modern investigative methods.
Aubrey said, “They were very polite.” She told Olivia the rumor she wanted Olivia to spread: “They said I didn’t stay with the police when I was bespelled.”
Not that Olivia asked; she was far more interested in how large the police were, how muscular, how good-looking. Aubrey hugged Mr. Stowe’s compact litheness to herself.
At Plimsoll’s, Aubrey hunted through broadsheets from the last eight months, selecting the ones carrying headlines about magicians and police. Olivia dropped her at home after eliciting a promise: “You must tell me if the police ask more questions.”
Following voices, Aubrey found her family entertaining visitors in the front sitting room. A goateed man rose from a spindle chair as Aubrey paused in the doorway.
“Miss St. Clair,” he said in a pleasant, high-pitched voice. “I’m glad to see you so well.”
He’d been sitting across from Andrew, and Mother cried, “Oh, Aubrey, this is Sir Prescott from Bailey College. Andrew has been offered a place.”
Bailey College was a private boys’ school in Rostand, a breeding ground for bureaucrats and diplomats. Mother had wrangled a private tutor for Richard and a brief stint at a girls’ day-school for Aubrey. Bailey College was quite the coup.
Nobody offered before I became a cat. And Aubrey eyed Sir Prescott who looked back with smiling interest.
“Andrew is a credit to your family,” said the cool voice of Richard’s intended, Gloria Cartwright.
Gloria sat beside Mother’s chaise longue in a straight-backed chair, ring-encrusted hands folded in her lap. Gloria was a slightly plump woman with a round face, the kind of woman who looked good-natured, as if she would enjoy a joke.
She wasn’t good-natured. She was entirely humorless. Aubrey pitied Richard his betrothal.
Gloria said, “When you were out just now, Aubrey, did you consider it necessary to stop by the police station?”
Olivia hadn’t had time to gossip about Aubrey’s visit to the police. Likely, Aubrey had been seen entering the station—by the ladies from Madame Merviole on their way to the park or by gentlemen at the club across the street (since gentlemen gossiped as much as ladies). The news had reached Gloria in less than an hour. Naturally, she had hurried to Richard’s side, a bulwark against Aubrey’s dangerous lack of respectability.
Aubrey snapped, “I went to report a stolen fur.”
“Oh, very good, Miss St. Clair,” Sir Prescott said.
Aubrey gave him a startled look while Gloria prissed her mouth.
Sir Prescott beamed. “Very clever,” he said.
Around the parlor, Aubrey’s family relaxed, and Mother cried, “My children are all quick-witted, Sir Prescott.”
He said with a courtly courtesy adopted from the previous century, “Andrew will be a fine addition to our student body.”
He sat when Aubrey did and finished tea from Mother’s Wallaiston tea service (carefully preserved as an heirloom from their father’s side) while, Aubrey thought, He came to see me. Andrew at Bailey College is another favor—or apology. But Sir Prescott wanted to see me specifically. Mr. Stowe was right: everyone wanted something. And they didn’t even know about the claws and fangs.
