Celia
appeared in middle of John’s entrance hall. ‘I never have liked doing that’ she
said, shaking her head.
She looked round and realised that she was
talking to herself. She shook herself, coughed and made straight for the
kitchen. By the time the others had teleported back she had already put the
kettle on.
Hardacre peered suspiciously into the
kitchen, looking just slightly more dishevelled than usual. Celia was getting
down the mugs. She smiled at him.
‘Laurence, why do you have that strange rule
about never using magic when you cook?’ she asked
Laurence flattened his hair with his hand,
pushing down the two or three strands that had been shifted by the blink.
‘Cooking is an art, and magic is a skill’ he
murmured. Celia ignored him – by now she was ferreting around in the larder.
‘Do you have any cake? I just fancy a slice
of cake’
Owen and John were just behind Laurence and
they both looked tired. John slumped in to one of the kitchen chairs.
‘That went on for a long time’ he said, ‘I’m
very pleased to have finally got away’
Celia reappeared from the larder with a tin.
‘It was a bit dull at the end’ she admitted,
‘two days is long enough to discuss Ethian politics, however useful it might be
and… Elizabeth is a little… umm… wearing’
Owen was staring at the kettle longingly, but
it was still some way from the boil. Hardacre flashed him a territorial look
and he went over to investigate Celia’s cake instead.
‘You just wait until she’s our leader’ said
Owen, ‘and we’re a department of the Ethian secret service…’
John looked completely unmoved.
‘I simply follow the will of the Council’ he
said, ‘if they need to replace me then I’ll go very happily’
‘Shut up, O,’ said Celia to Owen, ‘leave the
poor man alone’
Celia plonked the tin on the table and prised
open the lid. Inside was a plump sponge cake sitting on a plate. She lifted the
plate up triumphantly.
‘Raspberry?’ she asked
Hardacre nodded.
Celia thought for a second and then looked at
him, rather sharply.
‘When have you had time to make this?’
Hardacre’s gaze remained unwavering and
impassive.
‘You’ve hardly been here for months…’
‘Is there something wrong with the cake,
Madam? If so, I’ll rustle up another one’
Celia lifted her head up slightly and
narrowed her eyes.
‘So, cake making is an art, but magical cake
preservation is a skill, yes? Sometimes I think that you’re a bit of a tease,
Mr Hardacre’
Hardacre’s expression hardly changed, except
for a faint movement of his eyebrows. Celia felt mysteriously chastened, but
also inwardly vindicated; Hardacre didn’t always play with a totally straight
bat.
‘I’ll have a cup and a slice and then I’ll
get on’ said Owen. For a moment he looked to Celia like a beaver, about to sink
his teeth into a pine log, ‘there’s still a lot of patching up to be done’.
Celia had already cut him some cake and was
busy dividing it for the others. She made sure that Hardacre had the largest
portion and John the smallest. She had never approved of the way that John treated
his valet.
She touched Owen on the shoulder. ‘Great,’
she said, ‘I’ll be just in here if you need me’
Hardacre gave out the mugs of tea and swapped
his plate of cake for John’s. Celia sighed. It took an effort of will not to go
and switch them back again.
John jumped up, wolfed down his cake and made
his way out of the kitchen.
‘Things to do… and first, I need to track
down that Macrocephalos chap…’ he said as he left.
Celia sat down in the chair that he’d just
vacated. She started to eat her cake, slowly and with considerable relish. She
nodded appreciatively at Hardacre. His
answering tilt of the head was almost subliminal.
‘How long will you be staying, Madam?’
‘Hopefully only a couple of days – Owen
thinks he knows how to complete a permanent seal now’
Hardacre looked pleased – exactly about what
wasn’t entirely clear.
‘You can have the rose room and Mr Floyd can
have the blue one’
Celia shrugged – she didn’t care which room
she was in.
‘They’re next to each other – I hope that is
acceptable. Once again I was given no warning that we would have guests’
Celia suddenly felt slightly uncomfortable
and wondered why. The she realised that it was Hardacre who was making her feel
that way. Why would he think it was a
problem that they had adjoining rooms? Admittedly, normally Hardacre was
punctilious about ensuring that the unmarried male and female visitors were on
different floors, but surely no one would think that of Owen and her, would
they? A voice in the back of her mind whispered, of course they would.
‘Those
rooms will be fine’ she said, ‘and I’m
so sorry that we were unable to give you more warning’ she said, happy to move
the conversation on.
‘I’m not blaming you, Madam’
Celia frowned and shook her head. It was time
to put a stop to this.
‘Please, Laurence, I would prefer it if you
stopped calling me ‘Madam’ – it sounds a little like I run a brothel’
Hardacre’s eyes widened very slightly. Celia
was impressed – he was obviously shocked, but this was all of the response to
it he allowed himself.
‘Really, Mad…’ he said, struggling for an
alternative title, ‘that was obviously not the intention. I hope that I haven’t
been offending you for all of these years’
‘No, not all; it’s my problem not yours. But
I thought that I knew you well enough now to say something about it’
Laurence put down his tea cup.
‘May I
ask you, then, how you would like me to address you?’
‘Call me Celia, everyone calls me that’
Hardacre started slightly. A brief look of
shock passed over his face.
‘Everyone? Even children?’
She laughed.
‘Yes, even my nieces…’
Celia could see a struggle forming in
Laurence’s mind: protocol versus politeness. She sensed that the result would
be that he wouldn’t be calling her anything directly for a while. This annoyed
her slightly, but no more than John and Laurence’s setup did normally; she
thought the inequality of the master – servant relationship was, frankly, quite
shocking. Anyway, time to move on before things got awkward.
‘Right, Laurence – I think I’ll take my cake
next door’ she said evenly, ‘I’ll see go and see how Owen is getting on’
She left Laurence sitting for a little while,
perplexed, but he soon recovered. He drank his tea and then began to prepare
supper.
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