Free Phoenix and Ashes by Mercedes Lackey Page B

reason for suspicion? Of
course, they had all been spies for the Hun, and there was never any reason to
point to Alison Robinson as the cause of their deaths but—
    But—
    Maya
toyed with her tea on the other side of the one-way mirror, listened as
Alderscroft assigned Alison Robinson to keep an eye on Reginald Fenyx, and
reflected with some relief that this was a perfectly absurd assignment. After
all, someone like Mrs.Robinson, the widow of a mere small manufacturer, was
not
going to have entrée into—
    “But
Lord Alderscroft,” Alison said, smiling, “This is really quite
impossible! I have no entrée into such exalted social circles! Why, I
should not be able to do more than glimpse the young man at a distance! The
closest approach I could manage would be in the autumn, as the hunt goes by, if
he even participates in the hunt at all! You know I have no objection to doing
anything you and the War Office might ask of me, but really, dropping me behind
enemy lines and asking me to pass myself off as a
kleine hausfrau
would be simpler!”
    “Ah,
erm—” Alderscroft coughed. “Well, perhaps I
should—”
    “If
I am to carry out this assignment, you shall have to manufacture an appropriate
background for me,” the wretched woman went on, to Maya’s dismay.
“You’ll have to find an impoverished line in Burke’s with a
daughter called Alison of the proper age, one that might well have decided that
ungenteel comfort was preferable to leaking roofs and no proper plumbing. And
then you’ll have to arrange a proper introduction to his mother, by
letter if nothing else.”
    “That
will take time, I’m afraid,” said Alderscroft, sounding apologetic.
    “I
can wait,” she replied gaily, with a delicate little laugh. “After
all, a job worth doing is worth doing properly. Thank you, my lord. This is
much preferable to investigating the occasional foreigner on a walking tour
through Shakespeare country.” That sweet little laugh grated on
Maya’s nerves. One Earth Master to another—that woman was
altogether too well shielded. But then, London was unbearable for an Earth
Master without being shielded… and although it would have been much more
polite
to forego her shields within the Exeter Club, she wasn’t a member of the
Lodge, so she couldn’t know that it was safe to do so. So that was no
good reason to mistrust her, or at least, it was not a reason that Alderscroft
would accept.
    The
creature was back to harping on that introduction. Maya had seen more than her
share of social climbers in India, and she knew another one the moment she saw
her. Though she might not be able to
read
Mrs.Robinson, she
didn’t have to in order to recognize those signs.
    Doesn’t
she have daughters
?
Oh yes… planning on marrying into the
family, are you, my dear
?
If you can manage it, that is. Well, there
was the one saving grace of Reggie’s condition; he was so heavily blocked
that the Robinson woman could run him down with a locomotive-sized love spell
and he’d be impervious to it. He was, in fact, the mirror opposite to an
Elemental Master now, he was powerfully unmagical. She could throw spells at
him for a week, and all that would happen would be that they would be swallowed
up without a trace. And as for simple vamping—
    Our
Reggie’s had every sort of woman there is fling themselves at his head by
now. He’s not going to think much of a couple of provincial belles
hanging out for a title and a fortune. And if you can’t recognize that,
dear lady, you are an utter fool
.
    And
sure enough, she was back on that so-precious introduction again. “It
probably should be a letter, Lord Alderscroft,” she was saying, with a
melting smile. “Or better still, two—one to Lady Devlin directly
and one I can hand-carry. Say that—oh, I am too diffident to push myself
on her, but would she please look me up as I’m too terribly alone down
there in the village?”
    Maya
gritted her teeth.
Oh, please rescue me from