Chapter 12
“To chase the fox is bold; to halt mid-chase is wisdom.”
Impressions of England by an Unrepentant Foreigner
Entering the breakfast room, Marco dismissed the servants, requesting that the head footman, Duncan, locate MacNaby forthwith so he might meet with him.
He shut the door quickly once they had departed and turned to find his brother and friends staring at him agog.
Sebastian had a silver fork midway to his mouth, but he set it down with care.
“What is it?” Angelo asked, after swallowing his eggs.
“Miss Carter has found the miss—” Marco broke off, realizing his friends knew nothing of the journal. “We must locate the butler immediately. It appears he is connected to all of this.”
“Excellent. You have sent the footman to find him, so we may finish our breakfast,” Sebastian remarked dryly, lifting his fork once more.
“I am uncertain the butler will cooperate with my summons,” Marco said. “He may attempt to flee, so I require your assistance.”
Sebastian dropped the fork with a sharp clink and sprang to his feet. “He could be the one who set the fire?”
“Sì.”
Angelo and Lorenzo rose as well, speaking in unison. “What should we do?”
“I ask that you proceed to search for MacNaby. One of you might follow Duncan and check the butler’s pantry, while the other two search the house. I will search the third floor, and then there is another matter I must attend to.”
“I will follow Duncan and search the basement, if necessary,” declared the Norseman, striding toward the door.
Lorenzo nodded. “I shall take the ground floor, then. If I do not find him, I will search the next level as well.”
Marco had the odd sensation of a general dispatching troops as his friends hurried past him.
“Is that the missing journal?” Angelo stepped closer, tilting his head to inspect the book tucked beneath Marco’s arm. Marco drew it out, revealing the thistle emblazoned upon its cover.
“Molly located it. I did not have time to learn the particulars, but she said it was in MacNaby’s possession.”
“The butler?” Angelo frowned. “What possible connection could he have to this?”
Marco lifted the journal slightly. “I hope this will reveal his motive, if he refuses to speak for himself.”
“I will search the attic,” Angelo said. “With luck, we shall find him swiftly.”
Marco followed Angelo from the room, then took the main staircase two steps at a time to the third floor.
He marched along the east hall, knocking briskly before pushing doors open to inspect the rooms. He entered the bedchambers of Sebastian, Lorenzo, and Angelo, though with their belongings stowed away, he could not distinguish which belonged to whom.
Continuing downward, he turned the corner and soon found the baron in his private sitting room. Marco apprised him of the developments at once. John was still in his nightclothes, a colorful robe wrapped about him as he ate from a breakfast tray.
“MacNaby, you say,” John murmured. “I would never have suspected it, though his conversation with Molly at Elmstead did remind me that he joined our household when Lady Blackwood married my father. He served previously in her household in Edinburgh, having first worked for her father, the late Lord Campbell.”
“Perhaps that should have been mentioned,” Marco said tightly.
John shook his head. “Lady Blackwood made a habit of hiring staff from Scotland, so no single servant stood out above the rest. You must have noticed the servants’ livery is lined with green-and-blue tartan?”
Marco was eager to deliver the journal to Nicholas, but he took care not to betray the impatience that had earlier cost him Molly’s good opinion, a matter he still had to set right. “Yes. And what of it?”
“Lady Blackwood was a member of the Highland Society of London,” John explained.
“It has become fashionable of late to boast of one’s Scottish title, and as you have no doubt observed, many of the footmen hail from Scotland, most from the Campbell clan.
There was no reason to suspect one servant more than another, and MacNaby’s history amounted to but a single detail in a sea of information. ”
“I should have interviewed all the servants, I suppose.”
The baron laughed softly at this. “Dear boy, until I heard about the fire, even I could not credit that we harbored yet another murderous fiend under our roof. This is the stuff of gothic novels. Even Ann Radcliffe could not have devised suspense to rival what has unfolded here these past weeks. Simon did not tell you half of it the other day.”
“Nevertheless.”
“I will have you know the servants were interviewed by both the Duke of Halmesbury and the Earl of Saunton, and neither were able to learn much by doing so.”
“Was that before or after the truth came to light?”
The baron rubbed his chin, contemplating the events of the previous month. “Before,” he replied at last.
“Then I should have interviewed the servants with the knowledge of facts His Grace and his lordship did not possess at the time.”
The baron tilted his head, studying Marco with renewed interest. “That is an astute observation. Perhaps you will prove a competent lord in Simon’s stead when the time comes.”
Marco rolled his shoulders at the remark. “I am uncertain that I desire the role.”
“Ah,” the baron said mildly, “but the role may yet desire you.”
Marco took his leave with politeness intact, but once in the corridor, he paused to grit his teeth.
He would not have England and its title forced upon him without his consent.
His new family behaved as though it were a fait accompli, yet he remained a free man, capable of exercising his own will.
If he wished to reside in Italy and appoint a man of business to oversee the baronial affairs, he might yet do so. The decision was his to make.
Continuing on to the next door, he knocked and received a gruff reply, which he took as permission to enter.
The chamber was large but lacked a sitting room, though there was space for a seating area beside the fireplace.
The cross-as-crabs Nicholas reclined upon a chaise lounge, his injured leg propped on pillows.
A stack of journals rested beside him, and he appeared to be rereading them with grim concentration.
“What do you want?” Nicholas demanded. His tone was belligerent, but after their recent confrontation, Marco suspected it had more to do with the reading before him, and the relentless pressures of life in the Scott household, than with Marco himself.
“We have found a journal. I believe it is the missing one you mentioned.”
Nicholas frowned, swinging his legs down to the floor. “What? Does that mean you know who is behind this?”
“I do not yet know the particulars, but Molly found it in the butler’s pantry.”
“MacNaby!”
“We are searching for him now.”
“I decided to go through these again after what happened last night, but I have found nothing new,” Nicholas said, gesturing toward the stack.
“Now you have three more years to examine.”
“Give it to me.”
Nicholas took the journal at once, opening it to scan the first entry. He flipped to the final pages to inspect the last notation, then nodded once. “This is the three-year volume.”
Marco winced at the spider’s scrawl he glimpsed and at the grim subject matter implied within.
His uncle possessed more fortitude than Marco had credited him for, to volunteer for such a task.
Marco would dread reading his own mother’s journals, and Bianca Romano Scott Rossi had been a woman of sound mind, not a deranged murderess.
“Good luck,” he said quietly. “I do not envy you the labor.”
Nicholas pulled a wry face. “Perhaps it will prove cathartic, after all that has transpired. Truth is often uncomfortable, but … necessary, I suppose. When these dark days are behind us, perhaps these journals will answer enough questions to allow us to close those chapters and seek something better. One can only hope.”
Marco smiled in commiseration, his own poor behavior with Molly that morning providing him with some insight into Nicholas’s belligerence. Not to mention … Marco glanced at the injured leg. It must be difficult.
Nicholas noticed the direction of his gaze and grimaced.
“Lady Trafford has informed me she has found someone to assist me. Something to do with Chinese treatments and massage. She would have visited today, but I sent Lord Trafford a note the day Simon left for Scotland to inform him I could not attest to their safety. We shall have to make new arrangements once this muddle is resolved.”
“I am sorry your treatment is delayed. Perhaps, in the meantime, you should speak with Angelo. He may have liniments to ease both stiffness and pain. He is a gifted pharmacist.” Marco rubbed at his bruised ribs.
“It was most uncomfortable after the carriage overturned, but Angelo has made it tolerable.”
His young uncle gave a noncommittal nod, and with him settled, Marco continued along the corridor, checking rooms, completing the west side before returning to the main staircase to inspect the front chambers facing the street.
When he had finished, he descended the stairs and returned to the breakfast room, where he found Molly and Miss Dubois taking their meal.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Dubois.” He bowed slightly. “I have news to impart to Molly. Would you mind if she joined me in the hall for a moment?”
The chaperon frowned, then quickly smoothed her expression as if recollecting herself, unable to refuse the heir to a baron. “S’il vous pla?t, remain in sight of ze door, Meester Scott, so I may keep watch.”
Molly rose and followed him into the hall, asking in a low voice about the butler. Marco noted she did not meet his gaze, folding her arms as though guarding herself from his earlier, unwarranted scolding.
“I sent everyone to search for him, and Duncan has been instructed to summon him, but I do not yet know whether he remains in the house.”
“Oh. And the journal?”