Wrede, Patricia C - Mairelon 02 by The Magician's Ward (v5.0) Page B

everything?
                "Then
if that's settled, I suggest you turn your attention to sneaking inside without
waking Aunt Agatha. I see no reason to precipitate another scene if we can
avoid it."
                "Right,"
said Kim, and slid out of the carriage.

7
                Kim woke
late the following morning, to sunlight and the clatter of carriage wheels on
the cobbles below her window. As she dressed, she considered what to do with
the little heap of boy's clothes in the corner of the wardrobe. If a housemaid
found them, she'd report to Mrs. Lowe and there was sure to be a row. Finally,
Kim stuffed them in a hatbox, tucking them around the hat as best she could,
and shoved the box back onto the top shelf of her wardrobe. With luck, she
could think of some excuse to give the box to Hunch later in the day, and he
could dispose of the clothes without causing comment.
                Feeling
unreasonably cheerful, Kim left her bedroom and started downstairs. Halfway
down the first flight of stairs, she heard muffled thumps and shouts drifting
up from the lower floors. She quickened her pace, wondering what was going on
now. It couldn't be the cracksman again, not in broad daylight.
                As she
turned onto the last landing, she heard an unfamiliar feminine voice below
shriek, "Darby! Close that door at once!"
                "He's
headed for the stairs!" a second voice cried. "Catch him!"
                An
instant later, a small, yellow-brown monkey leaped onto the banister railing
just in front of Kim and directed a high-pitched shriek of defiance at his
pursuers. Kim, momentarily unnoticed, reached out and collected him in a firm
hold. The monkey shrieked again, this time in surprise. Then, wrapping his long
tail firmly around Kim's wrist, he relieved himself on her skirt.
                "Don't
think you're getting out of it that easily," Kim told him. Maintaining her
hold with some care, so as to be sure that she would neither hurt the monkey
nor be bitten herself, she rounded the corner and looked down.
                The entry
hall was full of people, boxes, and trunks. At the bottom of one of the piles
of luggage, a large wicker cage lay on its side, its door open wide. Several
disheveled footmen and an elderly, bright-eyed man in a coachman's many-caped
cloak were scrambling over boxes and trunks toward the stairs; in the far
corner, one of the housemaids was having hysterics. In the center of the
commotion stood a tiny doll of a woman, looking upward with anxious hazel eyes.
Her brown hair, where it curled out from under an exceedingly elegant
wide-brimmed hat, was liberally streaked with grey. When she saw the monkey in
Kim's arms, her worried expression broke into a cheerful smile that was the
mirror of Mairelon's.
                "Ah,
you have captured Maximillian! Thank you very much. Would you be so kind as to
bring him here and restore him to his cage? It is by far the simplest thing,
when he is so nervous and upset. I am afraid he dislikes traveling."
                Willingly,
Kim made her way to the foot of the stairs and deposited the monkey in the
wicker cage, which one of the footmen had hastily righted. The woman secured
the latch with a small padlock and said to the footman, "Now, take him up
to the library, and be sure to put the cage in a corner where it will not be
overturned again. I will bring him water and a bit of fruit presently, when he
is more settled." She turned to Kim. "You must be my son's ward, Kim.
I am so pleased to meet you at last. I am Lady Wendall."
                Kim
stared, her brain scrambling in several directions at once. Lady? Her son's ward? This is Mairelon's mother, and she's a
Lady Wendall? Feeling a strong sense of ill-usage, she belatedly bobbed a
curtsey. Somebody ought to have warned me!
                As she
straightened, she found herself being