CHAPTER 8 #2
“Someone knows something about this. That person has not confided in you. Perhaps he will confide in me.”
Montley gazed out the window a long while. Finally he stood.
“I am authorized by the duke to take you to the house where the pictures were stored. It is not far from here.”
* * *
Most families would be proud to have Dunbar Green as their main estate.
For the Duke of Devonshire, however, it was an uncelebrated property far down on the list of his holdings.
It suffered from Chatsworth’s proximity a mere hour’s ride away, no doubt, although Gareth considered that it had probably been a convenient secret refuge from the big house for lovers over the centuries.
Not as big, not as handsome, not as lucky in its designer, Dunbar Green also showed some signs of neglect. Montley noticed Gareth eyeing the eaves as they approached on horseback.
“There is work to do in the attics,” he mentioned. “We will get to it soon. At the moment, His Grace is distracted by plans for a new wing at Chatsworth.”
His Grace probably had not visited this property in years, if ever. “Does anyone live here?”
Montley shook his head. “He may sell it. The estate came to him unentailed, if you can believe it. The flexibility it has given him to alter the family’s investments from land to more current profits could be an argument against tying the land up that way.”
“If every heir were wise, that argument might stand. Too many would gamble it all away if given a free hand. Or so I am told.”
“Or their wives would,” Montley said dryly. Gareth assumed he referred in part to the last Duke of Devonshire’s first duchess, whose gambling debts would have been ruinous to all but a handful of peers.
As an uninhabited house, Dunbar Green had few servants. The white-haired man who took their hats upon entry looked old enough to have been there many years. Bent and filmy-eyed, and barely alert to their presence, he studied the floor while shuffling to his duties.
“We will be going up to the attics,” Montley said to the man, even as he led the way to the stairs. “Have the horses fed and watered.”
The attics were above the servant quarters, with small windows in dormers over the eaves. The usual remnants of a house’s long history filled it. Montley gestured around. “As you can see, most of the furniture and such was moved to this end, to make room to store the pictures over here.”
Gareth walked over and examined the space.
He judged it large enough to hold at least one hundred framed paintings if they were boxed and lined up front-to-back in long stacks against the wall.
The center of the space, under the roof beam, would be high enough to accommodate the largest canvases, those of palatial size.
“I imagine they were shocked to find it empty,” Gareth said.
“That is putting a fine point to it. The arrangements were made twenty years ago, of course, and with the last duke’s permission. The current duke was not even aware of them, until he received a letter from the Prince Regent informing him that men were coming to retrieve the goods.”
“Are any of the Prince’s treasures involved?”
“He does have a home on the coast. A few choice works from Brighton were included, I am told.”
They left the upper reaches of the house and went outside.
Gareth took in the lay of the land around the house. “Are there any external buildings that I cannot see? Could they have been moved somewhere right on this estate?”
Montley shook his head. “A few servant cottages and a vicar’s house. All have been searched.” He stepped down as the horses were brought around.
“I think I will ride a bit, all the same,” Gareth said.
“What are you looking for?”
Damned if he knew. Still, there was nothing more to learn from Montley.
“Well, return when you are done with it. We will put you up, and you can spend the evening with the collection, if you like. But I doubt you will get through even a tenth of that which is out for public view.”
“I will be there.”
Montley trotted his horse down the lane. Gareth began to mount when he noticed the servant who worked the door looking out a window. Rather suddenly the man did not appear so old and filmy-eyed. Leaving his horse, Gareth returned to the house.
The man held the door wide and stood aside, asking no questions.
“A word with you,” Gareth said.
“Me, sir?” He squinted up, confused.
“Yes. You have served here a long time, I assume.”
“Fifteen years. Was at Chiswick House until I began to slow. This is where they put those of us getting on in years. I’m to be pensioned off next year.”
Fifteen years. That meant he came after the pictures were hidden in the attics. “When the last duke died, were there any big changes here?”
“Changes?”
“Movement of household goods. Visitors wanting to go through the attics or peek under the floorboards.”
He laughed. “Getting what they could before any inventory, you mean.”
“That is what I mean.”
“A lady came by. She took a pillow from one of the bedchambers. A relic of fond memories, she said. Perhaps she had enjoyed a particularly pleasant house party.”
“Nothing else? In all that time during the transition?”
He set his face into a placid mask and shook his head.
“Come now. You will not be criticized for telling me. No one will challenge that pension. Devonshire needs to know this. I ask in his name.”
“One day the second duchess arrived. A wagon accompanied her. She explained that the late duke had given her permission to take what she wanted for her own house, from any of his properties. I expect she chose this one because there would be no one to gainsay her.”
“What did she take?”
“Chairs and tables, I suppose.”
“You don’t know?”
“I discovered the obligation to be occupied elsewhere during most of her residence.”
Wise man. No wonder he had lasted so long in a duke’s service. He could not report what he had not seen, nor answer questions should they be asked.
“Were there any other such visits during your tenure here?”
“A few overnights while journeying elsewhere, on the part of relatives or nobility who did not want to impose on the main estate. There was one house party before the late duke passed. Mr. Clifford brought some of his naval officer friends here for a long hunting weekend.”
Clifford was old Devonshire’s bastard, by the same woman who later became his second duchess. The same duchess who had raided the place after her husband died. “Did you discover the need to be occupied elsewhere that time too?”
“Why, yes, sir. How did you know? My old aunt was feeling poorly, and since Mr. Clifford had brought his own servants, I took a short journey to visit her.”
“Were there any other times you discovered the need to be elsewhere?”
“Due to my aunt’s condition, I took the opportunity to visit her whenever visitors came with their own people.”
Gareth took his leave, mounted his horse, and set out to ride the property looking for who knew what.
He did not like that two of the people who now had to be questioned were the last duke’s wife and bastard son. If Ives had suspected where this would turn and had thrown him into the fire, he intended to thrash him soundly.