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Gideon shook his head. “Hey, can’t you put yourself in my position for a change?” He was losing his own temper now. “It’s the same for me! How would you act if you knew for certain that sooner or later, I was going to make sure someone attacked you and hit you over the head with a heavy instrument? In the circumstances, I don’t suppose you’d still think I was lovable and innocent, would you?”
“I don’t anyway!” I said firmly. “You know something? By now I could well imagine bringing that heavy instrument down on your head myself. ”
“Well, there we are!” said Gideon, grinning again.
I just snorted angrily. We were passing Madame Rossini’s sewing room. Light fell out into the corridor from under the door; she was probably still at work on our costumes.
Gideon cleared his throat. “Like I said, I’m sorry. Can we talk to each other normally again?”
Normally! That was a joke.
“So what are you planning to do this evening?” he asked in his best casually friendly tone.
“Oh, practice dancing the minuet, of course, and just before I go to sleep, I’ll think up sentences that don’t contain words like Hoover, jogging, and heart transplant,” I replied caustically. “How about you?”
Gideon looked at his watch. “I’m going to meet Charlotte and my little brother and then … well, we’ll see what we do. After all, it’s Saturday evening. ”
Of course. They could do anything they liked. I’d had it up to here.
“Thank you for escorting me upstairs,” I said in as chilly a tone as I could muster. “I can find my way to the car by myself. ”
“As it happens, I’m going the same way,” said Gideon. “And you can stop running. I’m supposed to avoid too much exertion. On Dr. White’s instructions. ”
Even though I was so cross with him, my conscience did prick me, just for a moment. I took a surreptitious look at him. “Well, if someone hits you on the head with something around the next corner, don’t go saying I lured you that way. ”
Gideon smiled. “No, you wouldn’t do a thing like that yet. ”
I wouldn’t do a thing like that ever was the thought that shot through my head. However badly he’d treated me. I would never allow anyone to hurt him.
The arched gateway ahead of us was lit briefly by the flash from a camera. Although it was dark, there were still a number of tourists out and about in the Temple. The black limousine I already knew was standing in its usual parking slot. When he saw us coming, the driver got out and opened the door for me. Gideon waited until I was in the car and then bent down to me. “Gwyneth?”
“Yes?” It was too dark for me to see his face properly.
“I wish you’d trust me more. ” That sounded so serious and honest that, for a moment, it deprived me of speech.
Then I said, “I wish I could. ” Only when Gideon had closed the door and the car was moving off did it occur to me that I’d have done better to say, “I wish you’d do the same with me. ”
* * *
MADAME ROSSINI’S eyes shone with enthusiasm. She took my hand and led me over to the full-length mirror on the wall so that I could see the result of her efforts. At first glance, I hardly knew myself. That was mostly because my hair, usually straight, had been curled into countless ringlets and pinned up into a towering pile on top of my head, like the way my cousin Janet had her hair done for her wedding. Single strands corkscrewed down to my bare shoulders. The dark red of the dress made my skin even paler than usual, but not as if I were sick; I looked radiant. Madame Rossini had discreetly powdered my nose and forehead, and rubbed a little rouge into my cheeks. Thanks to her skill with makeup, I had no shadows left under my eyes, even though I’d been up so late last night.
“Like Snow White in ze fairytale,” said Madame Rossini, dabbing her eyes with a scrap of fabric. “Red as blood, white as snow, black as ebony. Zey will be cross with me if you look like ze dog’s breakfast. Show me your fingernails—oui, très bien, clean and short. Now, shake your ’ead. No, shake it ’arder. Zis ’airstyle must last all evening. ”
“Feels a bit like wearing a hat. ”
“You will get used to it,” said Madame Rossini, as she fixed the pile of hair with yet more spray. As well as about eleven pounds of ordinary hairpins holding it in place, there were some just for show, decorated with the same little roses as the neckline of the dress. They were cute! “There. Ready, my leetle swan-necked beauty! Shall I take photos again zis time?”
“Oh, yes please!” I looked around for my bag with the mobile in it. “Lesley would murder me if I didn’t put this on record!”
“I’d like to take some of you both,” said Madame Rossini, after she’d snapped me from all sides about ten times. “You and zat badly be’aved boy, just to show ’ow perfectly and also discreetly ze costumes match! I ’ave refused to argue about ze need for colored stockings again. Enough is enough!”
“The stockings I’m wearing aren’t at all bad,” I said.
“Zat is because zey may look like stockings of ze time, but elastane makes zem far more comfortable,” said Madame Rossini. “In ze old days, a garter like zat probably cut your thigh in ’alf. Of course I ’ope no one will look under your skirt, but if zey do, zey cannot complain, n’est-ce pas?” She clapped her hands. “Bien, now I will call zem upstairs and say you are ready. ”
While she was phoning, I stood in front of the mirror again. I was feeling excited. I’d tried to put Gideon firmly out of my mind since this morning, and I’d been fairly successful, but only at the price of thinking about Count Saint-Germain all the time. My fears of meeting the count again were now mixed with excitement as I looked forward to the soirée, a feeling that I couldn’t really explain to myself.
Mum had said Lesley could sleep over with us last night, so somehow it had turned into a nice evening. Analyzing what had happened in detail with Lesley and Xemerius had done me good. Maybe they were saying it only to cheer me up, but neither Lesley nor Xemerius thought there was any reason for me to jump off a bridge into the Thames because of unrequited love. They both said that considering the circumstances, Gideon’s reasons for behaving the way he did had been justified, and Lesley said that in the interests of sexual equality, boys should be allowed their own bad moods, and she felt sure that deep down inside, he was a really nice guy.
“You don’t know him!” I had shaken my head. “You’re only saying that because you know I want to hear it!”
“Yes, and because I also want it to be true!” she had said. “If he turns out an absolute bastard in the end, I’ll go and see him and beat him up in person! That’s a promise!”
Xemerius had been late coming home, because I’d asked him to shadow Charlotte, Raphael, and Gideon first. Unlike him, Lesley and I didn’t think it was at all boring to hear what Raphael was like.
“If you ask me, that lad is a little too good-looking,” said Xemerius critically. “And doesn’t he just know it!”
“Well, he’s in good hands with Charlotte,” said Lesley, satisfied. “So far our Ice Princess has managed to take the joys of life out of everyone. ”
We’d perched on my big window seat while Xemerius sat on the table, curled his tail neatly around him, and began on his report.
First Charlotte and Raphael had gone out for an ice, then to the cinema, and finally they’d met up with Gideon in an Italian restaurant. Lesley and I had wanted to know every tiny detail, from the title of the film to the pizza toppings, plus every word they had said. According to Xemerius, Charlotte and Raphael had insisted on talking at cross-purposes the whole time. While Raphael wanted to know the differences between French and English girls and how far English girls would go, Charlotte had droned on forever about the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature over the last ten years, with the result that Raphael had been visibly bored and occupied himself with ostentatiously looking at other girls. And at the cinema, much to the surprise of Xemerius, Raphael
didn’t even try making a grab at Charlotte. Far from it. After about ten minutes, he fell fast asleep and stayed asleep. Lesley said that was the best thing she’d heard in a long time, and I entirely agreed. Then, of course, we wanted to know whether Gideon, Charlotte, and Raphael had been talking about me in the Italian restaurant, and Xemerius—slightly reluctantly—had regaled us with the following conversation. I did a kind of simultaneous translation of it for Lesley.
Charlotte: Giordano is terribly afraid Gwyneth will get everything wrong tomorrow that she can get wrong.
Gideon: Pass the olive oil, please.
Charlotte: Politics and history are a closed book to Gwyneth. She can’t even remember names—they go in at one ear and straight out of the other. She can’t help it, her brain doesn’t have the capacity. It’s stuffed with the names of boy bands and long, long cast lists of actors in soppy romantic films.
Raphael: Gwyneth is your time-traveling cousin, right? I saw her yesterday in school. Isn’t she the one with long dark hair and blue eyes?
Charlotte: Yes, and that birthmark on her temple, the one that looks like a little banana.
Gideon: Like a little crescent moon.
Raphael: What’s that friend of hers called? The blonde with freckles? Lily?
Charlotte: Lesley Hay. Rather brighter than Gwyneth, but she’s a wonderful example of the way people get to look like their dogs. Hers is a shaggy golden retriever crossbreed called Bertie.
Raphael: That’s cute!
Charlotte: You like dogs?
Raphael: Especially golden retriever crossbreeds with freckles.
Charlotte: I see. Well, you can try your luck. You won’t find it particularly difficult. Lesley gets through even more boys than Gwyneth.
Gideon: Really? How many … er, boyfriends has Gwyneth had?
Charlotte: Oh, my God! This is kind of embarrassing. I don’t want to speak ill of her, it’s just that she’s not very discriminating. Particularly when she’s had a drink. She’s done the rounds of almost all the boys in our class and the class above us. … I guess I lost track at some point. I’d rather not repeat what they call her.
Raphael: The school mattress?
Gideon: Pass the salt, please.
When Xemerius had reached this point in his story, I’d jumped up at once to go down to Charlotte’s room and strangle her, but Lesley wouldn’t let me. She reminded me that revenge is a dish best eaten cold, and she wouldn’t agree when I said my motive wasn’t revenge, it was pure murderous bloodlust. She added that if Gideon and Raphael were even a quarter as bright as they were good-looking, they wouldn’t believe a word Charlotte said anyway.
“I think Lesley really does look a bit like a golden retriever,” Xemerius had said, and when I looked at him reproachfully he was quick to add, “I like dogs, you know I do! Such clever animals. ”
And Lesley really was clever. She had solved the mystery of the Green Rider book, although the result of all her efforts was rather disappointing. All she had come up with was another number code with two letters and funny little marks in it.