The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (69 page)

“I see your scars have healed,” she said encouragingly. “Mrs. Marchmoor’s have not, and I confess to finding them quite unpleasant. As for poor Mr. Flaüss—or I suppose it should be
Herr
Flaüss—for
his
appearance he might as well be a tattooed aboriginal from the polar ice!”

With satisfaction, she saw that Roger looked as if a lemon wedge had become lodged beneath his tongue.

“Are you finished?” he asked.

“I don’t believe I am, but I will let you speak, if that is what you—”

Roger barked at her sharply. “It is not a surprise to see you so relentlessly fixed on the trivial—it has always been your way—but even
you
should apprehend the gravity of your situation!”

Miss Temple had never seen him so dismissive and forceful, and her voice dropped to a sudden icy whisper.

“I apprehend it very fully…I assure you…Mr. Bascombe.”

He did not reply—he was, she realized with a sizzling annoyance, allowing what he took to be his acknowledged rebuke to fully sink in. Determined not to first break the silence, Miss Temple found herself studying the changes in his face and manner—quite in spite of herself, for she still hoped to meet his every attention with scorn. She understood that Roger Bascombe offered the truest window into the effects of the Process she was likely to find. She had met Mrs. Marchmoor and the Prince—her pragmatic manner and his dispassionate distance—but she had known neither of them intimately beforehand. What she saw on the face of Roger Bascombe pained her, more than anything at the knowledge that such a transformation spoke—and she was sure, in her unhappy heart, that it did—to his honest desire. Roger had always been one for what was ordered and proper, paying scrupulous attention to social niceties while maintaining a fixed notion of who bore what title and which estates—but she had known, and it had been part of her fondness for him, that such painstaking alertness arose from his own lack of a title and his occupation of yet a middling position in government—which is to say from his naturally cautious character. Now, she saw that this was changed, that Roger’s ability to juggle in his mind the different interests and ranks of many people was no longer in service to his own defense but, on the contrary, to his own explicit, manipulative advantage. She had no doubt that he watched the other members of the Cabal like an unfailingly deferential hawk, waiting for the slightest misstep (as she was suddenly sure Francis Xonck’s bandaged arm had been a secret delight to him). Before when Roger had grimaced at her outbursts or expressions of opinion, it had been at her lack of tact or care for the delicate social fabric of a conversation he had been at effort to maintain—and his reaction had filled her with a mischievous pleasure. Now, despite her attempts to bait or provoke him, all she saw was a pinched, unwillingly burdened
tolerance,
rooted in the disappointment of wasting time with one who could offer him no advantage whatsoever. The difference made Miss Temple sad in a way she had not foreseen.

“I have presumed to briefly join you,” he began, “at the suggestion of the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza—”

“I am sure the Contessa gives you all manner of suggestions,” interrupted Miss Temple, “and have no doubt that you follow them eagerly!”

Did she even believe this? The accusation had been too readily at hand not to fling…not that it seemed to find any purchase on its target.

“Since,” he continued after a brief pause, “it is intended that you undergo the Process upon our arrival at Harschmort House, it will arise that, although we have been in the last days
sundered,
after your ordeal we shall be reconciled to the same side—as allies.”

This was not what she had expected. He watched her, defensively expectant, as if her silence was the prelude to another childish eruption of spite.

“Celeste,” he said, “I do urge you to be rational. I am speaking of facts. If it is necessary—if it will clarify your situation—I will again assure you that I am well beyond all feelings of attachment…or equally of resentment.”

Miss Temple could not credit what she had heard. Resentment? When it was
she
who had been so blithely overthrown, she who had borne for how many evenings and afternoons in their courtship the near mummifying company of the condescending, starch-minded, middling-fortuned Bascombe family!

“I beg your pardon?” she managed.

He cleared his throat. “What I mean to say—what I have come to say—is that our new alliance—for your loyalties will be changed, and if I know the Contessa, she will insist that the two of us continue to work in concert—”

Miss Temple narrowed her eyes at the idea of what
that
might mean.

“—and it would be best if, as a rational being, you could join me in setting aside your vain affection and pointless bitterness. I assure you—there will be less
pain
.”

“And I assure
you,
Roger, I have done just that. Unfortunately, recent days having been so very busy, I’ve yet had a moment to set aside my virulent
scorn
.”

“Celeste, I speak for your good, not mine—truly, it is a generosity—”

“A
generosity
?”

“I do not expect you to see it,” he muttered.

“Of course not! I haven’t had my mind re-made by a
machine
!”

Roger stared at her in silence and then slowly stood, straightening his coat and, by habit, smoothing back his hair with two fingers, and even then in her heart she found him to be quite lovely. Yet his gaze, quite fixed upon her, conveyed a quality she had never seen in him before—undisguised contempt. He was not angry—indeed, what hurt her most was the exact lack of emotion behind his eyes. It truly made no sense to her—in Miss Temple’s body, in her memory, all such moments were rooted in some sort of
feeling,
and Roger Bascombe stood revealed to her as no kind of man she had ever met.

“You will see,” he said, his voice cool and low. “The Process will remake you to the ground, and you will see—for the very first time in your life, I am sure—the true nature of your shuttered mind. The Contessa suggests you possess reserves of character I have not seen—to which I can only agree that I have
not
seen them. You were always a pretty enough girl—but there are many such. I look forward to finding—once you’ve been burned to your bones and then
re-made
by the very ‘machine’ you cannot comprehend—if any actually remarkable parts exist.”

He left the compartment. Miss Temple did not move, her mind ringing with his biting words and a thousand unspoken retorts, her face hot and both of her hands balled tight into fists. She looked out the window and saw her reflection on the glass, thrown up between her and the darkened landscape of salty grassland racing past outside the train. It occurred to her that this dim, transparent, second-hand image was the perfect illustration for her own condition—in the power of others, with her own wishes only peripherally related to her fate, insubstantial and half-present. She let out a trembling sigh. How—after
everything
—could Roger Bascombe still exert any sway over her feelings? How could he make her feel so
desperately
unhappy? Her agitation was not coherent—there was no point from which she could begin to untangle answers—and her heart beat faster and faster until she was forced to sit with a hand over each eye, breathing deeply. Miss Temple looked up. The train was slowing. She pressed her face to the window, blocking the light from the passageway with her hand, and saw through the reflection the station, platform, and white painted sign for Orange Locks. She turned to find Major Blach opening the door for her, his hand inviting her to exit.

Beyond the platform were two waiting coaches, each drawn by a team of four horses. To the first, his fiancée on his arm, went the Prince, followed as before by his Envoy and the older man with the bandaged arm. The Major escorted Miss Temple to the second coach, opened the door, and assisted her climb into it. He nodded crisply to her and stepped away—undoubtedly to rejoin the Prince—to be replaced by the Comte d’Orkancz, who sat across from her, and then the Contessa, who stepped in to sit next to her opposite the Comte, then Francis Xonck, who sat next to the Comte with a smile, and finally, with no expression in particular on his face, Roger Bascombe, hesitating only an instant when he saw that, due to the size of the Comte and the room accorded Xonck’s thickly wrapped arm, the only seat was on the other side of Miss Temple. He climbed into place without comment. Miss Temple was firmly lodged between the Contessa and Roger—their legs pressing closely against hers with a mocking familiarity. The driver shut the door and climbed to his perch. His whip snapped and they clattered on their way to Harschmort.

The ride began in silence, and after a time Miss Temple, who initially assumed this was because of her presence—an interloper spoiling their usual plots and scheming, began to wonder if this was wholly the case. They were wary enough not to say anything revealing, but she began to sense levels of competition and distrust…particularly with the addition of Francis Xonck to the party.

“When can we expect the Duke?” he asked.

“Before midnight, I am sure,” replied the Comte.

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Crabbé has spoken to him,” said the Contessa. “There is no reason for anyone else to do so. It would only confuse things.”

“I know everyone got to the train—the various parties,” added Roger. “The Colonel was collecting the Duke personally, and two of our men—”

“Ours?” asked the Comte.

“From the Ministry,” clarified Roger.

“Ah.”

“They rode ahead to meet him.”

“How thoughtful,” said the Contessa.

“What of your cousin Pamela?” asked Xonck. “And her disenfranchised brat?”

Roger did not reply. Francis Xonck chuckled wickedly.

“And the little
Princess
?” asked Xonck.
“La Nouvelle Marie?”

“She will perform admirably,” said the Contessa.

“Not that she has any idea of her part,” Xonck scoffed. “What of the Prince?”

“Equally in hand,” rasped the Comte. “What of his transport?”

“I am assured it sails to position tonight,” answered Xonck. Miss Temple wondered why he of all people would be the one with information about ships. “The canal has been closed this last week, and has been prepared.”

“And what of the mountains—the Doctor’s scientific marvel?”

“Lorenz seems confident there is no problem,” observed the Contessa. “Apparently it packs away most tidily.”

“What of the…ah…Lord?” asked Roger.

No one answered at once, exchanging subtle glances.

“Mr. Crabbé was curious—” began Roger.

“The
Lord
is agreeable to everything,” said the Contessa.

“What of the
adherents
?” asked the Contessa. “Blenheim sent word that they have arrived throughout the day discreetly,” answered Roger, “along with a squadron of Dragoons.”

“We do not need more soldiers—they are a mistake,” said the Comte.

“I agree,” said Xonck. “Yet Crabbé insists—and where government is concerned, we have agreed to follow him.”

The Contessa spoke to Roger across Miss Temple. “Has he any new information about…our departed brother-in-law of Dragoons?”

“He has not—that I know of. Of course we have not recently spoken—”

“Blach insists that it’s settled,” said Xonck.

“The Colonel was poisoned,” snapped the Contessa. “It is not the method of the man the Major wishes to blame—aside from the fact that man assured his employer that he did
not
do it, when having done so would have meant cash in hand. Moreover, how would
he
have known when to find his victim in that vulnerable period after undergoing the Process? He would not. That information was known to a select—a
very
select—few.” She nodded to Xonck’s bandaged arm and scoffed. “Is
that
the work of an elegant schemer?”

Xonck did not respond.

After a pause, Roger Bascombe cleared his throat and wondered aloud mildly, “Perhaps the Major is overdue for the Process himself.”

“Do you trust Lorenz to have everything aboard?” asked Xonck, to the Comte. “The deadline was severe—the large quantities—”

“Of course,” the Comte replied gruffly.

“As you know,” continued Xonck, “the invitations have been sent.”

“With the wording we agreed upon?” asked the Contessa.

“Of course. Menacing enough to command attendance…but if we do not have the
leverage
from our harvest in the country—”

“I have no doubts.” The Contessa chuckled. “If Elspeth Poole is with him, Doctor Lorenz will strive mightily.”

“In exchange for her joining
him
in strenuous effort!” Xonck cackled. “I am sure the transaction appeals to his mathematical mind—sines and tangents and bisected spheres, don’t you know.”