The bolt opened and Maddie flew out, not stopping until she had put Mr. Giles between her and the cabinet. Her hair was wild around her, her eyes wide. “Oh, that wasstrange!”
Miss Slight gasped dramatically.
Maddie looked down.
The silk dress she wore was now a bright, blinding yellow that seemed to gather all the light in the room.
Mr. Giles strode over to grasp Maddie’s arms and pat his hands up and down the seams of this gown—totally ignoring quiet Alice, who snatched the torn blue silk from the cabinet and stashed it out of sight beneath the thick fireproof drapes.
Alice, after all, had been a magician’s assistant for some years with a traveling fair, and had adapted this trick from something the Wizard Falcetti used to do to change the color of a tablecloth spread beneath full goblets of wine. The mechanism to accomplish it had barely challenged Miss Slight’s abilities at all.
Alice straightened up from the concealing drapery and folded her hands demurely in front of her, professional enough not to grin with triumph.
Maddie turned her own grin into a preen and a simper for the cloth merchant’s benefit.
“Incredible,” Mr. Giles murmured, his hands still gripping Maddie’s forearm, turning it back and forth to watch the firelight flicker on yellow silk. His eyes were wide and his face paler than before, with two eager red spots high in his cheeks. He fixed Mrs. Money with an expert eye, like an angler reeling in a catch. “Are these the only colors the process can produce?”
“Horace’s dye produces a complete spectrum. He was able to replicate any hue found in nature—and one or two more besides.”
His fingers pinched at Maddie’s sleeve, testing the cloth. “Incredible,” he repeated. “It feels like fine silk.”
“Itisfine silk,” Mrs. Money replied.
“And the transformation is quick,” Mr. Giles went on. The gleam in his eyes was almost feverish now, his fingers tightening convulsively on Maddie’s cuff.
“Very quick,” Mrs. Money said. “Imagine being able to change the color of your dress during an afternoon’s walk.”
Mr. Giles’s mouth was fox-like. “Imagine being able to charge a customer more than once for the same dress.”
“You can see why it was so disappointing when Mr. Obeney left for America,” Mrs. Money sniffed. “Such an opportunity going to waste.”
Mr. Giles dropped the silk—Maddie had to fight the urge to step back out of his reach—and turned. “Madam,” he said, with his most portentous delivery, “I have a proposition to make.”
Here we are,Maddie thought.Here’s where we sell him the stored fabric, the useless device, the whole set of props. He’ll have it on his store shelves by the end of the week—and I’ll bet he won’t even bother to test it himself first. He’s a cloth merchant and an opportunist: he won’t be able to resist this fabric.
“I don’t want to buy this fabric,” said Mr. Giles.
Maddie’s heart stuttered to a stop.
Mrs. Money, wiser and more controlled, only cocked a head curiously.
Mr. Giles’s lips parted in a cunning smile. “I want to make more of it,” he said. “I want to buy the whole process from you, start to finish.” His charming smile grew wider and wider; it was all Maddie could see, just that line of sharp white teeth. “This new discovery is going to change everything—and I want to take full advantage.”
Maddie had turned to stone. The horror of this failure froze every bit of her body, from the back of her neck to the soles of her slippered feet.
Mrs. Money only shook her head apologetically. “I believe Mr. Obeney owns all the legal rights to the fabrication process, sir.”
“But not the ideas behind them. And Mr. Obeney is in his American utopia and unlikely to object for some time.” He lowered his voice as though imparting some great secret. “Think how much money we could make in the time it takes for the news to reach him. Enough to handle any small legal matters that crop up, I am sure.”
“But I had planned to travel, sir, once my business in Carrisford was completed, and my year of mourning over. I had not thought to stay for any lengthy commercial venture.”
“You wouldn’t have to stay.” Mr. Giles spread his hands. “You would only have to explain the process to me, take your money, and go.”
Mrs. Money narrowed her eyes. “How much money, precisely?”
“I was going to offer you fifty pounds for the existing stock,” Mr. Giles said. He shifted from one foot to the other, and tucked a hand into the lapel of his coat. “Of course, I would expect your price to be much higher for the technical knowledge than for a simple stock of fabric. Trade secrets and all that. I am prepared to be extremely generous. By a factor of two, possibly three.”
“I want a thousand pounds.”
