Reserved for the Cat

It was the “astonishingly good-looking” part that caused Nigel the most amusement. He expected that Ninette would find him attractive. He also expected that something would then occur with regards to Jonathon. Either he would take the same interest as any friend would—and if he had any sense, and the attraction was mutual, he would urge Ninette to pursue that attraction—or he would react with jealousy. In either case, this would be good for Jonathon. All this restless vacillation was distracting everyone at a time when they needed to be anything but distracted.

As for the little dancer, well, there was no telling what the girl would do—except that Nigel was fairly certain she wasn’t the sort to deliberately break a fellow’s heart and lead him on. Plus, she was French, and French women, in his experience—if they were the good-hearted sort—were honest in their affaires de couer. Mind, he didn’t think that she actually knew what she wanted yet. She had plenty of life experience in seeing amour as a business transaction, but was pretty heart-whole in that department herself.

Women tended to be fascinated by Jonathon, the wretched dog. It was the stage persona partially. Women were attracted to dangerous men, and even though Jonathon was no more dangerous than any other confirmed bachelor, and rather less dangerous than confirmed womanizers, he appeared dangerous. Partly it was the challenge; here was a personable man, well-educated, well-spoken, at the top of his trade, who could not possibly care less about women. Several of his assistants had, over the years, fallen into an infatuation with him. Always he revealed something to them that made them decide that there were better prospects elsewhere.

On the other hand, he’d been treating Ninette in a way he had never treated another woman before. He gave her more respect than any Nigel had seen with him before. Alan’s mere presence might wake him up to the fact that here was a rival that could compete with him on his own ground.

If there was a fault that this paragon had, it was that Alan was, well, mild. He never became passionate about much of anything. That might have been his youth, but Nigel suspected it was his nature. This was no bad thing in a Water Master, though Nigel sincerely hoped that one day he would find something he cared deeply about, be it a cause or another person. Nevertheless, this was what they needed right now. Alan would not get upset or agitated; he would simply apply his mind to the problem at hand and keep at it until they had solved it.

Furthermore, Alan had the luxury of being able to devote his entire mind to the problem. He did not have tricks to work out, choreography to create, dances and acts to practice, a theater to run, or an orchestra to keep under control.

Last of all, he had the advantage of coming to it with a fresh set of eyes and thoughts.

A tap at Nigel’s office door caused him to look up and smile broadly. “Alan, my boy, good to see you!” There was the young man himself: lean and fit, a good six feet tall. He had a chiseled face with handsome, angular features, frank blue eyes, and hair just a little untidy.

“Sir, if I may interrupt your work—” Alan began in that Scots burr tamed and softened by his terms at university.

“None of that,” Nigel interrupted. “There will be no ‘sirring’ here. You are our peer in power and it is high time you got used to thinking that way.”

The young man’s mild blue eyes lit a little, and he smiled. “Very well, Nigel. ’Tis true enough my people at home treat me in that way, but I never expect it outside our walls. My uncle said only that you had a rather nasty problem, and a dangerous one. What can I do to help you?”

“Close the door, then come sit down; this will take some explaining.”

As Nigel laid out the situation that faced them, he noted with approval that Alan was actually paying close attention; he interrupted from time to time, and asked Nigel to explain some things further.

Finally Alan sat back in his chair and absently swept his sandy brown hair off his forehead with his thumb, then rubbed his eyebrow a moment. “This is a puzzler,” he admitted. “You’re all right, though, a good place to start would be to hunt for places where our Elements are excluded, and I have just the tools for that particular task.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Nigel said with relief.

“Just one more question, and this one is personal, so you can tell me I’m an impertinent brat if you like and that I should keep my nose out of your business.” Alan paused a moment, but on getting no reaction from Nigel, went on. “Why are you spending all this time and effort to protect this girl? She’s nothing to you, and from what you’ve been telling me, she has scarcely enough magic to qualify as such. She lied to you from the beginning, so why are you repaying deception with trust and protection? I tell you now, my uncle would likely have turned her out the moment she revealed her falsehoods.”