‘And then there was the cat burglar affair,’ Bradamant said sweetly.
Irene felt her hands tighten in her gloves. She forced herself to stay calm. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘There was that.’
Kai leaned forward. ‘What was this cat burglar affair?’ he asked.
Bradamant smiled in a sympathetic, understanding, non-judgemental sort of way. ‘Oh, it was when I was mentoring Irene, when she was first working in the field. We were trying to locate a book which had been stolen by a notorious thief. Everyone knew who she was. The best police officers in the city were watching her every move and still they couldn’t catch her. And when Irene and I were trying to investigate her, well . . .’ She smiled again, tolerantly. ‘The lady in question was very charming. And it isn’t as if I was in any significant danger while Irene was so, shall we say, “preoccupied” with her. And I managed to find the book, so all’s well that ends well.’
Irene looked down at her knees and bit her tongue. It hadn’t been like that at all, it hadn’t, but that was all the story that anyone would know now. Bradamant had cheerfully spread it all over the Library in murmured detail, and anything that Irene had said then, or could say now, would simply make her sound as if she was making excuses. The alternate had been one with a very specific set of social standards. Theft was a comparatively petty transgression there, even if it was illegal; immoral behaviour was the sort of thing which could entirely destroy a woman’s reputation. Bradamant had set the whole thing up, arranging an identity for Irene as a freelance thief herself, suggesting that perhaps the woman could be persuaded to hand the book over, and even fixing up an assignation. And then she’d simply burgled the woman’s house while Irene had been sincerely trying to talk her round. And Irene had been left floundering and making excuses, and trying to explain what had happened to the other woman’s house, and her possessions, and her reputation . . .
She had come out of it with a bitter, lasting fury against Bradamant, and a resolution that she would never do the same thing to someone who actually trusted her. Never. Never.
And if she tried to object now, it’d be just the same as before. She’d look as if she was trying to make excuses for something which must have been her fault if she was making excuses for it. She’d look guilty. She’d look petty . . .
She’d look like a child.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, with a smile as pleasant as Bradamant’s own. ‘All’s well that ends well.’
Kai glanced from Irene to Bradamant, then back again. ‘Of course, this is the first time I’ve worked with Miss Winters,’ he said, a fraction too quickly. ‘I was rather hoping we might be sent to fetch some poetry at some point. I have a high regard for poetry. My father and uncles always felt that it was very important for anyone who had any claim to culture.’
‘Hm!’ Singh leaned forward, looking genuinely interested. ‘The epic poem, or shorter forms?’
The conversation shifted, much to Irene’s relief, into a debate on poetry that lasted for most of the journey. She herself was mostly silent, being more used to acquiring it than reading it. Bradamant put in a word or two in favour of the Elizabethan styles, and fortunately there had been an Elizabeth on this alternate. Vale had a fondness for Persian poets, though his pronunciation of their names was bad enough that Singh twitched. Singh himself refused to consider anything shorter than an epic poem as worthy of serious study. And Kai, not too surprisingly, favoured classical Chinese modes, with a passing nod to constructions like the sestina and villanelle.
It took a moment for her to realize that she was actually enjoying herself. Even if she wasn’t contributing much to the conversation, she was taking part in it. She was speaking her mind, she was having an honest exchange of opinion, she was . . .
Among equals, the back of her mind supplied, with the unwillingness that came with the recognition of an unwanted truth. You are discussing a common interest without worrying about betrayal or about losing them, and you are enjoying it. How long is it since you did that?
She looked around at her party’s various interested expressions and felt as if she had known them for years. It was ridiculous, and yet . . . it wasn’t unwelcome.
The traffic outside had descended from merely bad to abominable, and their cab’s progress had slowed to a walking pace, with occasional jolts at the traffic lights.
‘There isn’t any risk of us being overtaken, is there?’ Irene asked nervously.