Emerald Green (29 page)

Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gwyneth! How hysterical can you get?

I clutched the edge of the desk harder.

“You really ought to have known better—I
mean, about what had happened to me,” I said. “After all, you’re studying medicine.”

“Yes, and that’s exactly why I knew for certain that you—” He stopped in front of me, and for a change, he was the one biting his lower lip, which somehow went to my heart. He slowly raised his hand. “The point of the sword had gone
that
far into you.” He spread his thumb and forefinger quite a long way apart.
“A little scratch wouldn’t have made you collapse. And then all the color went out of your face at once, and you broke out in a cold sweat. So I knew that Alastair must have hit a major artery. You were suffering from internal bleeding.”

I stared at his hand in front of my face.

“But you’ve seen the wound yourself now. It really is nothing,” I said, clearing my throat. Something about being
so close to him was affecting my vocal cords. “It … it must have been … Maybe it was simply the shock. You know, I imagined I was seriously wounded, so it looked as if I was really—”

“No, Gwenny, you didn’t imagine it.”

“But then how did I get off so lightly, with just that little injury?” I whispered.

He lowered his hand and began pacing up and down the room. “That’s what I didn’t understand
myself at first,” he said almost fiercely. “I was so … so relieved that you were alive, I convinced myself that there’d be some logical explanation for the wound. But under the shower just now, light suddenly dawned on me.”

“Ah, that must be it,” I said. “I haven’t showered yet.” I loosened my convulsive grip on the edge of the desk and sat down on the rug. Okay, that was better. At least my
knees had stopped shaking.

With my back against the side of my bed, I looked up at him. “Do you have to prowl around like that? It’s making me nervous. I mean, even more nervous than I am already.”

Gideon knelt down on the rug right in front of me and put his hand on my shoulder, without stopping to think that from now on, I was in no position to listen properly to what he was saying, since
my mind was busy with less important ideas such as “I hope at least I smell good” and “I mustn’t forget to breathe.”

“You know the feeling when you’re solving Sudoku and you find the
one
number that makes it easy to fill in all the other spaces at once?”

I tentatively nodded.

Lost in thought, Gideon was caressing me. “I’ve been thinking over so many things for days, but only this evening did
I find that one magic number. Do you see what I mean? I read those papers over and over again, so often that I almost knew them by heart—”

“What papers?” I interrupted him.

He let go of me. “The papers that Paul got from Lord Alastair in return for our family trees. Paul gave them to me on the day you had your conversation with the count.” When he saw all the question marks in my face, he gave
me a wry smile. “I’d have told you then, only you were too busy asking me weird questions and then running away, acting all insulted. I couldn’t go after you because Dr. White insisted on cleaning my wound, remember?”

“That was only on Monday, Gideon.”

“Yes, you’re right. Seems like an eternity ago, doesn’t it? So when he finally let me go home, I was calling you every ten minutes, to tell you
that I…” He cleared his throat, and then took my hand again. “To explain it all to you, but your mobile was always busy.”

“Maybe because I was telling Lesley what a bastard you are,” I said. “We do have a landline, you know.”

He took no notice of that. “In the intervals between calling you, I started reading the papers. They’re prophesies and notes from the count’s private papers. Documents
that the Guardians don’t know about. Documents that he intentionally kept from his own people.”

I groaned. “Let me guess. More silly verses, and you didn’t understand a word of what they said.”

Gideon leaned forward. “No,” he said slowly. “Far from it. They were perfectly clear. They say that if the philosopher’s stone is to take full effect, someone must die.” He was looking straight into my
eyes. “And that someone is you.”

“Oh. I see.” I wasn’t as impressed as I probably should have been. “Then I’m the price that has to be paid.”

“I was shocked when I read that.” A strand of hair fell over Gideon’s face, but he didn’t notice it. “At first I couldn’t believe it, but the prophesies all agreed. The ruby-red life is extinguished, the raven’s death reveals the end, the twelfth star
fades, and so on and so forth. It went on like that forever.” He paused for a moment. “And the notes that the count had written in the margins were even clearer. As soon as the circle is closed and the elixir has reached its true destination, you’re to die. He says so almost word for word.”

I swallowed after all. “How am I supposed to die?” Instinctively, I thought of the bloodstained blade of
Lord Alastair’s sword again. “Did the papers say that as well?”

Gideon smiled slightly. “Well, as usual, the prophesies are vague on that point, but they make one thing very clear. It’s obvious that I—I mean the Diamond, the Lion, Number Eleven—will have something to do with it.” The smile disappeared from his face, and there was a note in his voice that I’d never heard before. “The papers say
that you’re going to die
because of me.
For love.”

“Oh. Um. Er,” I said, not very imaginatively. “But they’re only a set of old rhymes.”

Gideon shook his head. “Don’t you understand? I couldn’t let that happen, Gwenny. It’s the only reason I went along with your silly game and made out that I’d been lying and playing with your feelings.”

Light finally dawned. “So in case I got some silly idea
of dying for love of you, next day you made sure I’d hate you? That was very … how can I put it?… very chivalrous of you.” I leaned forward and put the unruly strand of hair back from his face. “Really, very chivalrous.”

Gideon grinned faintly. “Most difficult thing I’ve ever done, believe me.”

Once I’d started, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. My fingers wandered slowly over his face. He obviously
hadn’t gotten around to shaving, but the stubble felt kind of sexy.

“
Let’s stay friends
—that was a really brilliant move,” I murmured. “The moment you said that, I hated your guts.”

Gideon groaned. “But that’s not what I wanted. I
really
wanted us to be friends,” he said. He took my hand and held it tight for a moment. “The idea that saying so would infuriate you so much…” He left the rest of
his sentence hanging in the air.

I leaned even closer and took his face in both my hands. “Well, maybe you’d better remember it for future reference,” I whispered. “You never, never,
never
say that to anyone you’ve kissed.”

“Wait, Gwen, that’s not all. There’s something else I have to—” he began, but I didn’t intend to delay this any longer. I cautiously placed my lips on his and began kissing
him.

Gideon responded, gently and carefully at first, but when I put my arms around his neck and nestled against him, he kissed me harder. His left hand was buried in my hair and his right hand began stroking my throat, slowly wandering on down. Just as it reached the top button of my blouse, my mobile rang. Reluctantly, I moved away from him.

“It’s Lesley,” I said, looking at the display. “I’ll
have to answer—just a quick reply, anyway, or she’ll be worrying.”

Gideon grinned. “That’s okay. I’ve no intention of dissolving into thin air.”

“Lesley? Can I call you back?”

But Lesley wasn’t listening to me. “Gwen, listen, I’ve been right through
Anna Karenina
,” she said excitedly. “And I think I know what the count really plans to do with the philosopher’s stone.”

I couldn’t have cared
less about the philosopher’s stone. At this moment, anyway.

“That’s great,” I said, glancing at Gideon. “You must tell me all about it later—”

“Don’t worry,” said Lesley. “I’m on my way.”

“Really? But I—”

“Well, to be precise, I’m here already.”

“Where?”

“Here. I’m standing at the end of the corridor leading to your room, and your mum and your brother and sister are just coming upstairs
after me. With your great-aunt puffing along in their wake. Oh, they’ve overtaken me now. I’m afraid they’ll be knocking on your door any moment—”

But Caroline didn’t go to the trouble of knocking. She just flung the door open and cried, beaming happily, “Chocolate cake for everyone!” Then she turned to the others. “Told you so,” she said. “They’re not necking at all.”

ELEVEN

THE DAY REALLY
had been full of all kinds of strange revelations, and the most important was that Gideon really did love me after all! Oh, and then of course there was the bit about Lord Alastair’s sword and dying. But in a way, the family picnic in my room this evening seemed the strangest of today’s events. Here was almost everyone who meant most to me in the world, sitting on the
rug, laughing, all of them talking at once: Mum, Aunt Maddy, Nick, Caroline, Lesley—and Gideon! And they all had chocolate on their faces. (As Aunt Glenda and Charlotte had lost their appetite and Lady Arista had no sweet tooth at all, we had the whole chocolate cake to ourselves.) Maybe it was because of the cake that Gideon and my family immediately seemed to be on very good terms, or maybe it
was because he was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him before. Even though Mum and Aunt Maddy kept asking him any number of questions, ranging from genuinely curious to embarrassing, and Nick still insisted on calling him Gollum.

When we’d finished the last crumbs, Aunt Maddy got up, groaning. “I think I’d better go down and give Arista some moral backing—Mr. Turner managed to slip into the house
when that boyfriend of Charlotte’s arrived, and I’m sure they’re still quarreling about begonias.” She gave Gideon one of her dimpled, rosy smiles. “You know, you’re unusually nice for one of the de Villiers family, Gideon.”

Gideon got to his feet as well. “Thank you very much,” he said cheerfully, shaking hands with Aunt Maddy. “I’m delighted to have met you properly.”

“See that?” Lesley whispered,
nudging me in the ribs. “Good manners. Gets his bum off the floor when a lady stands up. Cute little bum too. Pity he’s such a bastard.”

I rolled my eyes.

Mum brushed crumbs off her dress and hauled Caroline and Nick up. “Come along, you two—time for bed.”

“Mum!” said Nick, sounding deeply injured. “It’s a Friday, and I’m twelve.”

“And I want to stay here, please.” Caroline looked innocently
up at Gideon. “I like you,” she said. “You’re ever so nice and ever so good-looking.”

“Yes,
ever so
,” Lesley whispered to me. “Is he by any chance blushing?”

Seemed like it. How sweet.

Lesley’s elbow landed in my ribs. “You’re gawping like a sheep,” she hissed. At that moment, Xemerius flew through the closed window and came down on my desk, with a satisfied belch.

“When the clever and extraordinarily
handsome demon returned from his outing, full of hope, he was disappointed to see that in his absence the girl had lost neither the piss-yellow blouse nor her innocence,” he quoted from his unwritten novel.

I mouthed a silent “shut up!” in his direction.

“All I mean,” he said, sounding hurt, “is that it was a good opportunity. You’re not as young as you were, and who knows, you may be hating
the guy’s guts again tomorrow.”

When Aunt Maddy had left and Mum had shooed my brother and sister out of the room ahead of her, Gideon closed the door behind them and looked at us, grinning.

Lesley raised both hands. “No, forget it!
I’m
not going. I have important things to discuss with Gwen. Strictly secret things.”

“Then I’m not going, either,” said Xemerius, hopping on my bed and curling
up on the pillow.

“Lesley, I don’t think we need to keep things secret from Gideon anymore,” I said. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea if, for the common good, we pooled all our knowledge to date.” I thought I’d put that rather well.

“Especially as I doubt whether Google will be much help in the circumstances,” said Gideon with a touch of sarcasm. “Sorry, Lesley, but I hear that Mr. Whitman was showing
people a folder in which you’d … er, collected up all sorts of information.”

“Oh, yes?” Lesley put her hands on her hips. “And there was I just now, thinking maybe after all you weren’t such an arrogant asshole as Gwen always said, but quite cute! Cute, that’s a joke! It was…” She wrinkled up her nose, looking rather embarrassed. “How mean of Mr. Squirrel to show my folder around! Those Internet
researches were all we had to go on at first, and I was quite proud of them.”

“But now we’ve found out far more,” I said. “In the first place, Lesley is a genius, and in the second place, I’ve had several conversations with my grandf—”

“Of course we are not about to give away our sources!” Lesley’s eyes flashed at me. “He’s still one of the arrogant sort, Gwen. Even if he’s cast some kind of
spell over you, remember, it’s only hormonal.”