“Can anyone make any sense of these prophesies?”
“Oh, yes—they’re teeming with symbols. It’s just a question of how to interpret them.” He looked at his watch. “We have some time left. I think we ought to go on with our dancing lessons.”
“Will there be dancing at the soirée, too?”
“Probably not,” said Gideon. “Only eating, drinking, talking—and making music. You’re sure to be asked to play or sing something.”
“Hm,” I said. “I ought to have had piano lessons instead of going to those hip-hop classes with Lesley. I can sing all right, though. At Cynthia’s party last year I won the karaoke contest hands down. With my own version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Even though I was in costume as a bus stop, which didn’t suit me.”
“Er … yes. If anyone asks you to sing, you simply say you never have any voice when you have to sing in company.”
“So I can say that, but I can’t say I’ve sprained my ankle?”
“Here, put the earphones on. Repeat performance.” He bowed to me.
“What do I do if someone else—I mean, not you—asks me to dance or sing or something?” I sank into my curtsey.
“Exactly the same as if I do,” said Gideon, taking my hand. “But as far as that’s concerned, everything was very formal in the eighteenth century. You didn’t just ask a girl you didn’t know to dance without being officially introduced to her.”
“Unless she made some kind of obscene movement with her fan.” The dance steps were beginning to come naturally. “Whenever I flicked my fan even an inch upstairs there, Giordano had a nervous breakdown, and Charlotte shook her head like a sad spaniel flapping its ears.”
“She only wants to help you,” said Gideon.
“Yes, and the earth is flat,” I snorted, although I’m sure snorting wasn’t allowed when you were dancing a minuet.
“Anyone might think you two didn’t like each other much.”
Oh, might they indeed?
“Apart from Aunt Glenda, Lady Arista, and our teachers, I don’t think there’s anyone who likes Charlotte.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Gideon.
“Ah. Of course I was forgetting Giordano and you. Oops, now I’ve gone and rolled my eyes. I bet that’s forbidden in the eighteenth century.”
“Could you possibly be a little jealous of Charlotte?”
I had to laugh. “Take my word for it, if you knew her as well as I do, you wouldn’t ask such a silly question.”
“Oh, I know her quite well,” said Gideon quietly, taking my hand again.
Yes, but only her chocolate-coated side, I wanted to say, but then I realized what that remark of his meant, and all at once, I really was terribly jealous of Charlotte. “How well do you know each other, then … exactly?” I removed my hand from Gideon’s and gave it to his nonexistent neighbor in the set instead.
“I’d say as well as people know each other when they’ve spent a lot of time together.” As he passed, he gave me a mocking smile. “And we neither of us had very much time for other … er, friendships.”
“I see. You have to take what you can get.” I couldn’t bear it a second longer. “And what’s Charlotte like at kissing?”
Gideon took my hand, which was at least six inches too high in the air. “You’re making great progress in the art of conversation—but all the same, a gentleman doesn’t talk about such things.”
“I’d let that pass as an excuse if you were a gentleman.”
“If I’ve ever given you reason to think I don’t behave like a gentleman, then—”
“Oh, shut up! Whatever’s going on with you and Charlotte, I’m not interested one little bit. But it’s a bit much, you thinking it would be funny to go snogging me at the same time.”
“Snogging? What a crude expression. I’d be grateful if you’d tell me why you’re in such a bad temper—and think of your elbows at the same time. They ought to be pointing down in this figure.”
“It’s not funny!” I spat. “I’d never have let you kiss me if I’d known that you and Charlotte were—” Ah, Mozart was over, we were back with Linkin Park. Good. They suited my mood much better.
“That I and Charlotte were what?”
“More than just good friends.”
“Who says so?”
“You?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh. Then you two have never … shall we say kissed?” I skipped the curtsey and glared at him instead.
“I didn’t say that either.” He bowed and reached for the iPod in my pocket. “Once again, you must practice what to do with your arms, but apart from that, it was great.”
“I can’t say the same for your conversation. It leaves a lot to be desired,” I said. “Is there something between you and Charlotte or not?”
“I thought you weren’t a bit interested in what was going on between me and Charlotte?”
I was still glaring at him. “Too right!”
“Then that’s okay.” Gideon handed me the iPod back. “Hallelujah” was coming over the earphones, the Bon Jovi version.
“That’s the wrong track,” I said.
“No, no.” Gideon was grinning. “I thought you needed something soothing.”
“You … you are such a…”
“Yes?”
“Such a shit.”
He came a step closer, so that at a guess there was exactly half an inch of space left between us. “There, you see, that’s the difference between you and Charlotte. She’d never say a thing like that.”
I suddenly found breathing difficult. “Maybe because you don’t give her any reason to.”
“No, that’s not it. I guess she just has better manners.”
“Yes, and stronger nerves,” I said. For some reason, I couldn’t help staring at Gideon’s mouth. “Just in case you were thinking of trying it again, if we find ourselves hanging around in a confessional somewhere twiddling our thumbs, I’m not letting you take me by surprise a second time!”
“You mean you wouldn’t let me kiss you a second time?”
“Got it in one,” I whispered, unable to move.
“That’s a pity,” said Gideon, and his mouth was so close to mine that I felt his breath on my lips. I realized I wasn’t necessarily acting as if I meant it seriously. And I didn’t. I thought it was much to my credit that I didn’t throw my arms around Gideon’s neck. But anyway I’d missed out on the moment for tearing myself free or pushing him away some time ago.
Obviously that was how Gideon saw it, too. His hand began stroking my hair, and then, at last, I felt the gentle touch of his lips.
“And every breath we drew was hallelujah,” sang Bon Jovi in my ear. I’d always loved that song—it was one of those I could listen to fifteen times running—but now I supposed it would be connected with the memory of Gideon for ever and ever.
Hallelujah.
SIX
THIS TIME we weren’t disturbed either by traveling through time or a cheeky gargoyle demon. While “Hallelujah” was running, the kiss was gentle and careful, but then Gideon buried both hands in my hair and held me very close. It wasn’t a gentle kiss anymore, and my reaction surprised me. I suddenly felt very soft and lightweight, and my arms went around Gideon’s neck of their own accord. I had no idea how, but at some point in the next few minutes, still kissing without a break, we landed on the green sofa, and we went on kissing there until Gideon abruptly sat up and looked at his watch.
“Like I said, it really is a shame I’m not allowed to kiss you anymore,” he remarked rather breathlessly. The pupils of his eyes looked huge, and his cheeks were definitely flushed.
I wondered what I looked like myself. As I’d temporarily mutated into some kind of human blancmange, there was no way I could get out of my half-lying position. And I realized, with horror, that I had no idea how much time had passed since Bon Jovi stopped singing “Hallelujah.” Ten minutes? Half an hour? Anything was possible.
Gideon looked at me, and I thought I saw something like bewilderment in his eyes.
“We’d better collect our things,” he said at last. “And you need to do something about your hair—it looks as if some idiot has been digging both hands into it and dragging you down on a sofa. Whoever’s back there waiting for us will put two and two together—oh, my God, don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“As if you couldn’t move.”
“But I can’t,” I said, perfectly seriously. “I’m a blancmange. You’ve turned me into blancmange.”
A brief smile brightened Gideon’s face, and then he jumped up and began stowing my school things in my bag. “Come along, little blancmange, stand up. Do you have a brush or comb with you?”
“In there somewhere,” I said vaguely.
Gideon held up Lesley’s mother’s spectacle case. “In this?”
“No!” I cried, and in my alarm my blancmange existence came to a sudden end. I jumped up, snatched the case containing the Japanese vegetable knife from Gideon’s hand, and flung it back in my bag. If Gideon was surprised, he didn’t show it. He put the chair back by the wall and looked at his watch again, while I took out my hairbrush.
“How much time do we have left?”
“Two minutes,” said Gideon, picking up the iPod from the floor. How it had ended up there I had no idea. Or when.
I hastily brushed my hair.
Gideon was watching me with a serious expression on his face. “Gwyneth?”
“Hm?” I lowered the hairbrush and returned his gaze as calmly as I could. Oh, my God—he looked so incredibly good, and a part of me was trying to turn back into blancmange again.
“Do you…?”
I waited. “What?”
“Oh, nothing.”
The familiar dizzy feeling was spreading through me. “I think we’re off,” I said.
“Hold tight to your bag. Whatever happens, you mustn’t let go of it. And come this way a bit, or you’ll land on the table.”
Even as I was moving toward him, everything blurred in front of my eyes. Only fractions of a second later, I made a soft landing on my feet, right in front of the wide-eyed Mr. Marley. The gargoyle was looking over his shoulder, grinning.
“At last,” said Xemerius. “I’ve had to listen to Ginger here talking to himself for the last fifteen minutes.”
“Are you all right, Miss Shepherd?” asked Mr. Marley, taking a step back.
“She’s fine,” said Gideon, who had landed behind me and was now looking me up and down. When I smiled at him he quickly moved aside.
Mr. Marley cleared his throat. “I’m to tell you you’re expected in the Dragon Hall, sir. The Inner Cir—Number Seven has arrived and wants to see you. If you’ll allow me, I’ll take Miss Shepherd to her car.”
