Chapter Twenty-Eight. After-Dinner Entertainment
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
After-Dinner Entertainment
DINNER at Lord Amberley’s was a far more tedious affair than I feared.
And while he had promised that both professors Reaver and Treadway would be in attendance tonight, their continued absence grew suspicious.
Would I wake in the morning to find reports of yet another dead academician?
Or two? If so, I prayed Leona would not be in that number.
With each second wasted here, my imaginings grew more fevered.
I had to find her. I had to do something and yet I was trapped.
Trapped waiting for the party to end lest anyone realize that I was investigating Harker’s death.
I sat alone on a low settee in the drawing room after enduring six courses of over-sauced and painfully rich food.
The walls were papered in a deep cobalt silk adorned with white birds.
It was a lovely effect, accentuated by the golden accents throughout the room.
Everything in here had hints of Eastern art.
A Japanese screen near the fireplace; a large, intricate, blue-tinged celadon jar that reminded me of one I’d seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum last summer.
Chinese in origin, if I recalled correctly.
Then again, I was far better versed in books than pottery.
Lord Amberley stood by Mr. Owen’s chair, his hand on the back.
The two chatting and gesturing, deep in their cups.
I’d ruled Amberley out as a suspect almost immediately, but perhaps I’d been wrong to do so.
He was questioned about the Radix the first time it went missing.
He also had a known conflict with Julius Harker, which was far more motive than most. And yet he’d not given me a single reason to suspect him.
But hadn’t I learned my lesson before? Even the most wicked villain can wear a sheep’s coat.
Mingling with the flock before striking.
I wet my lips, glancing around the room.
No one was paying me any mind, nor had they for the last several hours.
Ruan had disappeared earlier in the evening, at the side of Professor Laurent.
He did not mind the older man’s attention, and I could not begrudge him that.
During the war, I’d had no one who knew my family well enough to understand my pain at their loss.
If I’d had, I thought it would have done me a great deal of good.
As it was, I’d nearly been sent to a hospital for mental strain—that’s what the matron diplomatically called my episode.
Others had the right of it—whispering behind closed doors that I’d flat out cracked under pressure. Gone utterly, raving mad.
Images of the bearded man I’d seen outside the Covered Market after speaking with Mr. Mueller came back in a flash. All at once I recalled how I recognized him, and why he was so familiar.
My throat grew dry. It couldn’t be.
It simply couldn’t.
For the man outside the market had the same bearing, same … aura—for lack of a better word—as the man I’d seen during the war. The one I’d imagined when I cracked. I squeezed my eyes back tight. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be happening again. I was not imagining things.
Even Ruan had seen a woman following me. Someone had attacked me, and hallucinations most certainly do not attack.
The room was too small. Too tight to breathe.
No. Not again. I wasn’t going mad. I couldn’t be.
Not now. Leona needed me. I didn’t have time to have another episode.
I shot to my feet, the ground oddly unsteady beneath me, and quickly slipped into the corridor.
Air. I needed air. A moment of peace away from the chatter of the room and then I’d be all right.
No one would miss me.
No one at all.
I padded down the darkened corridor lit by ornate candelabras and made my way toward Lord Amberley’s library.
The walls on either side were lined with taxidermy of all sorts.
An entire lion stood on one side with his sharp open-mouthed grin.
Upon the walls were the heads of buffalo and bison.
All variety of deer. Trophies mounted and hung upon the walls, row after row reaching to the ceiling.
Columns of death. My stomach recoiled at such violence, such waste.
Animals slaughtered, skins taken and stretched over goodness knew what.
I could not bear it. There had been far too much bloodshed in my life for me to admire this sort of sport.
Whether it was a trick of the light, or my third glass of champagne, I could have sworn the glassy eyes embedded into each of Amberley’s kills followed me.
Watching as I moved down the hallway. Either in pity or warning.
Intruder.
Beware.
Run.
Not mad indeed. I gave my head a good shake, wrapping my fingers around the silver handle of the door to Amberley’s well-appointed library. Books would make it better. They always did.
I pushed hard.
Heat suddenly rose to my cheeks as I struggled to not witness the amorous scene playing out before me on the great rococo-style desk in Lord Amberley’s library.
For there, splayed out on the top, was a very lovely woman in the throes of passion with Lord Amberley’s son Francis.
Sweat was beaded up on his brow as he locked eyes with me.
And instead of shrinking back, pausing for decorum’s sake, he continued on … rutting, for lack of a better word.
I took a step backward, mumbling out an apology as a faint bit of blood pooled in his nostril before creating a thin trail to his upper lip.
He wiped it away with a casual flick of his wrist, the garish smear marring his face as he continued on with his paramour, heedless of my presence.
Instead, the fellow appeared to enjoy the audience.
“Love, you can either stay and join our party or go back to theirs. But please shut the door—it’s drafty!
” The woman laughed as she stretched farther across the desk.
I was not a prude—I wasn’t—and yet the whole scene was so utterly horrifying that I could not move.
I remained frozen in place. The red lacquer on her nails caught my attention as she scraped some white substance from the surface of an old mirror.
I couldn’t tell exactly what it was she was doing, but I certainly had a good idea.
One step. Then another. I backed out of the room, closing the door. I shook my head, blotting the rather absurd scene from my head.
Cocaine and carnal appetites.
Well, that put a different light on things.
Perhaps the evening was not totally wasted after all.
Though a man using drugs and a man stealing them are two separate things.
It was something certainly worth remembering, especially in light of Lord Amberley’s connection to Julius Harker.
Perhaps I had been hasty to dismiss Amberley as a suspect.
Lost in thought, I made my way back down the garish, taxidermy-laden hallway.
I entered the main parlor where the party had mostly reassembled.
Everyone was chattering and I looked to see what had caused such excitement, as they had been rather sedate when I wandered off.
Perhaps the butler had put cocaine in the pudding to liven things up a bit?
My amusement at my own little joke withered when I spotted Frederick Reaver standing at the far end of the room boasting all his characteristic swagger and greeting a middle-aged scholar seated by the fire.
Reaver was dressed impeccably, but no matter how fine the cut of his coat, there was no hiding the newfound dark circles beneath his eyes and the wariness in his step.
Both of which gave me pause. For a man who showed so little emotion this morning, to be this visibly affected had to mean something.
I settled myself back into the plush cushions of the sofa and waited.
“I cannot believe he dares show his face here.”
I bit down hard on my tongue, startled by the sound of Jonathan Treadway’s slurred voice.
The young scholar had also arrived without my notice and had taken up a position behind me, his hand resting intimately on the back of the sofa drawing unspoken battle lines across Lord Amberley’s decadent blue ballroom.
“You scared me out of my skin,” I hissed, the words escaping my lips without a thought. “Leona’s missing. Did you know?”
He didn’t answer. But from the stains on his jacket—and the distinct smell of sweat, smoke, and alcohol radiating from him—he certainly must. Lord Amberley had not been exaggerating when he said that Treadway was out of sorts.
My champagne-addled mind struggled to make sense of his current state.
Had he swum across town on a river of cognac? “Do you have news of Leona?”
He made a loud harrumph, garnering the attention of the other guests.
Apparently not.
“Treadway, my boy!” Lord Amberley’s voice was cheerful—though his expression grew wary as he took in Treadway’s disarray.
Professor Reaver’s head shot up at the sound of the other fellow’s name, and he swung his sharp predatory gaze around the room before settling on Treadway, who placed his clammy hand upon my bare shoulder.
I shimmied away from his touch, skin rebelling against the unwanted contact.
“Good God, man, I can smell you from here,” Reaver muttered. “Have a bit of dignity.”
“Dignity?” Treadway slurred. He started toward Reaver, whacking his hip on the back of the sofa as he made the corner.
His hand grabbed wildly onto the corner of the delicate piece of furniture to keep his balance.
“Dignity? What dignity is there in your nonchalance? You did this to her! You are the reason she is gone. I know who you are, you cold-blooded fiend! You have poisoned her mind against the rest of us and this is the result!”