Chapter 15
THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER
We that are true lovers run into strange capers.
—As You Like It
Despite my iron resolve to search Snow’s bedchamber thoroughly, the room was growing colder by the minute, and I was uncomfortably aware that I had not yet solved the mystery of the phantom.
I knew it for pretense, of course, a childish trick to alarm the superstitious.
But I could not like the idea of someone playing tricks when there were other, more sinister events afoot.
A man had been murdered in my home, and it was not impossible that his death had some connection, however tenuous, to our spectre.
Certainly, the costume of a phantom could be assumed for entirely innocuous reasons.
An assignation, for one. Not only would a spectral disguise keep people at a distance if one happened to be spotted, it also rather neatly preserved one’s incognito.
Certainly it might have been Sir Cedric, but I had little doubt Lucy intended to hold him at bay until she was properly married.
Given her mother’s sad history, Lucy would have marked her lesson well and insisted upon a ring before submitting to the ultimate caresses.
But Sir Cedric was not the only gentleman with a lady love at Bellmont Abbey, I realised with a start.
Father had brought Hortense under his roof, a notion that did not bear thinking about, I decided with a shudder.
I liked Hortense very well, but the idea of Father playing the Casanova was faintly distasteful.
Besides which, Father would never think it necessary to don a disguise to pay a nocturnal visit to his inamorata.
He would be discreet, I was certain, but haunting his own hallways was carrying things a bit too far.
That left Brisbane. Instantly my mind whipped back nearly two years in time, to a conversation I had had with Portia as we strolled in Hyde Park.
I had just met Brisbane for the first time, and Portia was entertaining me with tales of his exploits, both as a fighter and a lover.
He uses disguises sometimes in the course of his investigations…
for discretion…he came to her once dressed as a chimney sweep. Quite invigorating, don’t you think?
Ruthlessly, I pushed the memory aside. I refused to torment myself with thoughts of him and Charlotte. He did not mean to marry her, and whatever his game with her, I meant to discover it.
And then there was Plum, I thought, dread rippling in my stomach.
I had seen him once or twice watching Charlotte with some warmth.
Her manner toward Brisbane had been correct and deferential, but not affectionate.
Perhaps, for her part, the marriage to Brisbane was a means of securing her future.
And if her heart was not involved, she might well permit herself to engage in a dalliance with Plum.
For Plum’s part, he was a great admirer of beauty, and not overly scrupulous if the beauty belonged to another.
The fact that donning ghostly draperies and lurking in corridors was just the sort of lark Plum would find hilarious did not comfort me.
I shook myself, ashamed of my doubts. Plum’s amorous exploits in Italy—and they had been legion—had been restrained compared to most of the travellers we had encountered.
Everyone went to Italy to dally with the signorinas.
Holiday romances were one thing. To assume he would interfere with a betrothal was another, and I resolved to put the notion from my mind.
I extinguished the light and crept to the door, easing into the corridor.
There was no one about. Brisbane had disappeared, and in spite of his twitchiness, there was no sign of the spectre.
On a whim, I turned my steps to the staircase and made my way silently downstairs.
It was slow going, for the moon had disappeared entirely, and I had to hold the banister, feeling each step carefully beneath my slipper before I descended another tread.
At the bottom a lamp glimmered faintly, the night-light that Aquinas always left lit—a single brave little flame, wavering in the chilly draughts.
It threw shadows down the main corridor, but I steeled my resolve and made my way toward the chapel.
At the opposite end of the nave I could just make out Maurice, his claws and teeth terrible in the half-light.
Another turn and I was at the chapel, the doors firmly closed, William IV asleep at his post. His head was sunk low on his chest, bobbing heavily with each slow breath.
I clicked my tongue at him. “Really, this won’t serve. Do wake up,” I said, poking at his shoulder. Suddenly, he gave a great shudder and slid down in the chair. He gave a deep, resonant snore and muttered in his sleep.
I bent swiftly and smelled his breath.
“Dead drunk,” I murmured. He smelled strongly of brandy and there was a faint, seraphic smile curving his lips.
I stepped over him and put my eye to the keyhole of the great doors.
The key had been lost ages ago and never replaced.
Now the enormous keyhole was a tidy little window on the chapel and its erstwhile inhabitants.
Not surprisingly after her ordeal, Lucy was curled onto a crude pallet of blankets, sleeping deeply, her mouth agape, one hand flung above her head.
Emma was slumped next to her, a hand tucked in Lucy’s.
The tableau touched me. I was close to my own sisters, Portia in particular, and I could only imagine the anguish Emma must be feeling at the possibility of losing her beloved girl to the hangman’s noose.
It seemed like an intrusion to spy upon her grief.
I turned to leave then, and saw something gleam out of the tail of my eye.
I peered closer and realised it was a brandy bottle, tipped on its side and quite empty.
I looked at the slumbering footman and bent swiftly to look under his chair.
No bottle or glass there, I observed. How then did he manage to become intoxicated?
Nibbling my lower lip, I turned the heavy knob of the chapel door, easing it open just enough to slip inside. I tiptoed to where my cousins slept. I picked up the bottle and sniffed it. Brandy, yes, but something more, a shadow of something bitter.
I leaned over Emma, listening to her quiet, even breathing.
It was so soft I could scarcely hear it, and when I pressed a finger to her wrist, I felt the merest flutter.
Frightened now, I put my hand to her heart.
The beat was faint and slow. I paused only to touch the pale skin at Lucy’s wrist. It was as weak as her sister’s.
I took to my heels, bottle in hand, fairly flying up the stairs and down the dormitory wing to the Tower Room.
I was careful to keep to the carpet, my slippers noiseless, and when I reached Brisbane’s room, I scratched softly, muttering prayers as I did so.
He opened the door at once and I pushed inside. He closed the door behind me and turned, his back to it as if to shield me from whatever had caused me to take flight.
“What has happened?” he demanded. The bedclothes were askew and the bed still bore the impression of where he had lain, but the lamps were lit and he held a book in his hand.
“It’s Emma and Lucy. I think they have been drugged, and the footman as well,” I told him, holding out the bottle.
He took it, sniffing deeply. “Brandy, but it has been tampered with.” He sniffed again, then touched his tongue to the rim of the bottle.
I snatched it from him. “Are you quite mad? You do not know what may be in there.”
He shrugged. “It is laudanum, quite a lot of it, I should think. How are they?”
I spread my hands helplessly. “Senseless. They seem to be sleeping, but I can scarcely feel the pulse at their wrists, and their heartbeats are slow and heavy. The footman has been drugged as well, but he seems less affected.”
“He is taller than either of them by a foot and doubtless heavier than either by an hundredweight,” he commented, moving to the wardrobe. He flung open the door and pulled out a small leather case.
“Brisbane, you cannot mean to physic them yourself. They need a doctor.”
“Look outside,” he ordered. “The snow has begun, and it will only get worse. It would take more than two hours to fetch a doctor from Blessingstoke and they haven’t that long if we mean to keep them alive.”
“Oh,” I said faintly. I drew myself up to my full height and squared my shoulders. Whatever horrors the night would bring, I was prepared to face them.
Brisbane turned at the door, the case tucked under his arm. He nodded toward the washstand. “Bring the basin. This is not going to be pleasant.”
I gulped and nodded, snatching up the basin and following him to the chapel.
The next hours were not ones I can remember with any pleasure.
It began with a vicious argument between Brisbane and myself as to whether the rest of the household should be roused.
He insisted we should deal with the situation alone, maintaining that until he knew how and why the girls had been drugged, he did not want to alert the malefactor who had attempted to harm them.
I flew at him, accusing him of suspecting a member of my family, which he coldly affirmed, and matters deteriorated from there.
We were hardly speaking by the time we reached the chapel.
Brisbane knelt swiftly over William IV, palpating his pulse and counting.
“He will be fine. His heartbeat is strong. Roll him onto the floor and let him sleep it off,” he ordered.