Her pricked finger felt a bit peculiar. All hot and tingly. Excitement, that was. Anticipation. It made her a touch light-headed as well. Which she had to get over right quick, because she most certainly did not want him thinking she was light-headed because of him. Even if he was the most handsome of all the magicians in England. Handsome didn't matter.
So what if he had the face of an angel from a museum painting, with deep, soulful brown eyes and dark silky hair that he wore too long? So what if he possessed broad shoulders and a narrow waist and wide hands with long fingers? None of that mattered. Only that he could teach her magic and help her escape from the hell where her father had abandoned her.
In fact, Mr. Carteret's appearance was a detriment to her goals. She would simply have to ignore it, and focus on magic.
Pearl slowed her pace. She had a long way to go-clear across town. She couldn't run the whole way. Or dance, either, much as she might feel like it.
Albemarle Street was in Mayfair, but after Brown's Hotel had opened on the street, the high sticklers considered it a less desirable address. Which likely was how the first magician had been able to buy a house there. Once one magician moved in, it became easier for the next. Must be half a dozen houses occupied by magicians on the short street.
If not for that, Pearl would bet her left eyetooth that Harry Tomlinson wouldn't live here, no matter how high his rank among magicians, or how rich he might be. The man came straight out of the East End's dark, crooked streets.
He was definitely rich now, given the size and elegance of the house Pearl stared up at. She screwed up all her confidence and dug out her natural accent from beneath the Cockney veneer she'd laid on thick these past few years, and she marched up the front stairs. She might look like a grubby street urchin, but she wasn't. She was Magister Carteret's apprentice, with an urgent message for his friend and colleague, Magister Tomlinson.
There was only one way to pronounce Tomlinson, right? It couldn't be Toom-linson or Tom-line-son, could it?
Pearl shook off the stupid panic. She'd heard Mr. Carteret say it. She drew herself up to as many inches as she could possibly claim, seized the door knocker, and let fly. Moments later, the door opened and a butler stared down his nose at her.
"Beggars go around to the area door," he intoned, and prepared to shut the door again.
"I am Magister Carteret's apprentice, with an urgent message for Mr. Tomlinson," Pearl said fast as she could.
The butler hesitated, his scowl deepening. He held out his hand. "Give me the message and I will convey it to Magister Tomlinson." At least the man had a proper pride in his employer's rank.
"It isn't a written message. I have to tell the magister personally." Pearl wasn't risking leaving her master of magic stuck in jail. He couldn't teach her from jail. Her sense of urgency had nothing to do with how lost he looked in that cell.
"Who is it, Freeman?" A woman's voice floated from the depths of the house, and soon the woman herself appeared, gliding into the entry hall. Pearl leaned sideways to see around butler Freeman. Was this Tomlinson's famous female apprentice?
She was a few inches taller than Pearl and a few years older, softly rounded and serene. Her serviceable gray dress and medium brown hair smoothed into a knot at the nape of her neck only emphasized her dovelike appearance.
"A . . . person claims to have an urgent message for Magister Tomlinson from Lord Greyson." Rather than shutting the door on her, the butler opened it wider, apparently so the woman could get a better look at Pearl. "He claims it must be given directly to the magister, in person."
Wait. Mr. Carteret was a lord?
"Come along then, young sir." The woman smiled at Pearl and extended her hand, as if to lead her by it.
"Ma'am." Pearl bobbed her head and stepped through the doorway, setting aside for the moment her master's rank in society until she had time to think. "I am Magister Carteret's new apprentice, Pearl Parkin."
The woman's eyes widened as she stared. A moment later, a brilliant smile rose on her face, transforming her sedate attractiveness into a dazzling-not beauty, but something deeper. More real and alive. "Of course you are. I am Elinor Tavis."
With the hand she'd already extended, Miss Tavis took possession of Pearl's hand and squeezed. "It is a true pleasure to meet you, Miss Parkin. Pearl," she amended, her eyes gleaming. "For of course we are certain to be friends and be Elinor and Pearl together."
Pearl felt grubbier than ever, but she managed a return smile. "I should like that. Very much."
"Then it's settled." Elinor used her grip on Pearl's hand to draw her with her, deeper into the house. "It's a good thing Grey sent you so early, while Mr. Tomlinson is still at his breakfast. Once he's gone into his laboratory, he's nigh impossible to rouse from his concentration. I adore your clothes. They seem so practical. You shall have to tell me where you acquired them."
The flow of words set Pearl at ease. It had been too long since she'd been in such surroundings. She feared bumping into something and smearing it with her dirt, or breaking it beyond repair. Elinor's conversation wore down the worst of her nerves.
"I didn't know Grey had taken an apprentice," Elinor was saying. "When did this happen?"
Oh dear. She expected an answer.
Pearl scrambled for one. "Ah-about an hour ago, I'd say." She felt the edges of a blush creep round her ears. She hadn't had a friend-a real friend-in years, but she knew one didn't lie to friends. "I more or less blackmailed him into it."
"Did you?" Elinor's face was alight with laughter. "Good for you. I'm sure he needed blackmailing." She opened a door. "Here we are."
Sitting at his breakfast table, Mr. Harry Tomlinson didn't seem quite such a formidable creature as he did when striding around the halls of power, in and out of the Magician's Council Hall, or Whitehall, or Parliament. His light brown hair stuck up all directions and he had a crumb of toast on his chin. He wiped it away with a napkin and stood the instant he realized they were there, which was a bit of a while after they entered, as he'd been engrossed in the morning newspaper.
"Harry, this is Grey's new apprentice, Miss Pearl Parkin."
Pearl didn't know whether to curtsey as was proper for her sex, or offer her hand to match the clothing she wore. Mr. Tomlinson solved the quandary by offering his, and they solemnly shook hands while Elinor kept talking.
"Pearl has become Grey's apprentice just this morning by more-or-less blackmailing him into it, and she has brought you an urgent message from him."
"Like that's anyfing new. Grey has to be threatened into everything." Tomlinson gestured Pearl into a chair. "Pleasure to meet you, Miss Parkin. What's this message, then?"
Pearl squeezed herself into a chair without pulling it out. Her ears burned again. Blackmail was definitely not proper, much less legal, no matter the reaction she'd received here.
"It's why I could blackmail him, sir. He's been arrested, and I wouldn't deliver his message unless he swore to apprentice me." She was ashamed of it now, of putting such pressure on him when he was in such a defenseless position.
Tomlinson laughed out loud and slapped the table. "Time somebody got the better of Grey. So, what's he been arrested for? Simultaneously flipping up the skirts of all the ladies at Lord Hartington's soiree?"
"No, sir." Pearl eyed the food laid out on the sideboard. The aromas were making her dizzy. She'd eaten well last night, a whole pie to herself from money she'd earned honestly with protection spells. But that was the first time in a while. "Mr. Carteret's been arrested for murder."
"Murder!" Elinor cried.
Mr. Tomlinson choked on his toast and turned red with coughing.
"He didn't do it," Pearl said quickly. "At least, I think he didn't. I'm reasonably certain he didn't do it. But the man was killed by conjury, and Mr. Carteret was near where the man's body was found."
She realized something and sat up straighter. "No, I know he didn't do it, because the body wasn't there when we passed the night before, and he didn't stir from the place where he fell till he woke this morning, so he couldn't have done it."
Tomlinson nodded and ate one last rasher of bacon before he stood. "I'd best be seeing what I can do to get him out of this mess, then. Elinor, get some food inside Grey's new apprentice and do whatever else you need to do to make her presentable. Not that she ain't perfectly presentable now, but presentable to the stuffy folk with sticks up their ars-their backsides who make the decisions as to who gets out of jail and who doesn't."
The man spoke with an odd mixture of accents and grammar, the Cockney seeming to float in and out of his speech at whim. Its own whim, not Mr. Tomlinson's.
"I'll take care of it." Elinor smiled serenely at the alchemist, who nodded brusquely, cleared his throat, tossed his napkin on his plate, and departed.
Pearl looked from the door where Mr. Tomlinson had left, back at Elinor, wondering. Had she felt undercurrents in that conversation? Undercurrents of what?