The boy stopped blathering long enough to hang his head in shame. “Someone please kill me now,” he muttered into his bowtie.
“Gladly.” Meredith went to wipe her eyes with the heels of her hands, but Sonja stopped her in time.
“One prick is all it takes, remember.” Sonja unclasped both their bracelets, then carried them carefully, one in each hand, between forefinger and thumb. She rolled her eyes at the boy’s awkwardness. “William, may I introduce my sister, Meredith. Meredith, this is William Elgin, our silent accomplice.”
“Charmed.” It might have been easier to mask her impatience had the lad possessed the manners to acknowledge her in any way at all. Instead he simply gawped, his broad masculine face bunched into a disoriented scowl, as though he were a rugby player stuck with the ball and had no recollection of what he should be doing with it. “Well, do you speak or don’t you?”
“Sshh.” Sonja elbowed her. “Don’t be evil. He’s a bit shy around you.”
“We’re obliged to you for your assistance, Mr. Elgin.” Mister? Master? It was hard to tell his exact age in the moonlight—he could be anything from a grizzled thirteen to an impish eighteen. “Tell me—I’m curious—have you some personal grudge against the Sorensen cousins? Being the professor’s ward, I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to side with a couple of strangers against his nieces like that.”
“They ‘ad it comin’. I were after makin’—” He checked himself, straightened his slouch, and looked down at his hands in his pockets. “I mean they had it coming. I wanted to make up for something that happened a while back.”
The lad’s cryptic answer intrigued her, made her want to quiz him some more. His successful attempt to switch accents, from broad Lancashire to neutral Queen’s English, was also surprising. He might be a pauper playing at a prince, but he seemed to be caught in two minds: defy his stuffy new guise—by keeping his hands in his pockets—or try to impress her and Sonja.
Meredith liked the idea that he didn’t belong here, or anywhere else for that matter. It made him a puzzle, as no doubt she and her sister were to him. “I see. Walk with us then, Mister Elgin.”
Sonja cocked an eyebrow in surprise at the invitation. “This has to be the strangest night Niflheim has ever seen. I can’t wait to see what happens next. So what’s the news, William?”
He walked behind them at first, but when Meredith swivelled her head to glance back one way, then the other, mocking his reserve, he soon scurried to Sonja’s side. A predictable choice—he was clearly less intimidated by her.
“The professors are chewing the furniture a mile a minute,” he said, making them both chuckle. It seemed to egg him on. “They all twigged who did it, quick as shit off a shov—I mean quick as lightning. Sorry.”
“Ha! Shit off a shovel—that’s good. I like that.” Sonja was never this relaxed around strangers, let alone young men. But she seemed pally rather than smitten with him. She was talking and behaving in exactly the manner she did with her big sister.
William snorted. “But it don’t seem right when girls swear.” The Lancashire accent again. He looked across to Meredith. “You know I have not heard anyone else swear since...since Tangeni left.” Back to Queen’s English. Hmm, a pattern was emerging.
“Who’s Tangeni?” she asked. The name was vaguely familiar.
“My friend—I mean our friend from...from Africa. Used to be in the British Air Corps stationed in West and Central Africa. He visits us now and then. A right good bloke, Tangeni. I’ve learned a lot from him.” He shut his eyes, puckered his lips and mouthed the word shit to himself. “Sorry, did I say Tangeni. I meant Simeon. Don’t listen to me.”
Cagier and cagier.
“It’s okay. We’re none of us in our right minds tonight. We’d be automatons if we were. Right, Merry?”
“True. So how did they wrong you, William? The cousins, I mean. You said you were getting even with them for something that happened. Pray tell.” If it were juicy enough, it might complete her sense of victory tonight.
“I can’t tell you everythin’. Let’s just say they made me do the worst thing I’ve ever done, an’ I’ve hated ‘em ever since.”
“Um, I think you mentioned it to me a couple of days ago, William.” Sonja didn’t sound too sure.
“No, no I didn’t. I could never. See, they used me for their own ends—even they don’t know how I did it,