Thirty-nine #2
Before he said anything, she declared in glee, “We must tell Thea her father has been arrested!” She rushed for the door, leaving him unable to utter a word of warning.
The deuced valets were still on the loose and anything could happen. He dashed after her.
“What will they do with the awful Humphries?” she asked, stopping long enough to grab an apple from the baskets gathering in the inn yard.
“We’ve notified his family of his incapacitation.
He’ll be transported to the nearest hospital and out of our hands.
He has a warrant for his arrest hanging over him, but it won’t be our concern.
” Fort’s mind for details wanted to start plotting all the next steps but couldn’t get further than enjoying the beauty of the overcast day, the scent of apples and lavender, and the beautiful woman dancing at his side, actually talking to him.
“I’d love to see a real play someday. Wasn’t Reynard’s troupe wonderful? Everyone figured out who they imitated without naming any of them! Have you ever been to the theater?”
A topic he’d normally avoid, but if he wished her to keep talking.
. .“I tried once. The duke has a box at the opera. Before the play even began, the box filled with. . .” Mostly ladies, but he refrained from mentioning that.
“People wanting to impress my father or my brothers or to offer invitations and. . . Well, let us say I did not fare well and slipped away the moment the path was clear. I have not been back.”
“You could sit in regular seats like everyone else,” she laughed, grasping the difficulty of being a duke’s son. “You are very good at disguise. Do you want to see plays?”
He wanted to go anywhere she did. On his income, regular seats might be all they could afford. “Yes, I think I’d enjoy it. I’d love to escort you. But we’d have to stay at my father’s. . .”
He was making rash assumptions based on nothing but his own desires.
She caught his hand and raced the last few steps to the manor. “We might pretend to be impoverished relations. Or we could ask grandmother. She has a flat in Town. Let us tell Thea and Arnaud the happy news before anyone else does. It can be your wedding gift to them.”
Butterflies flitted, Fort understood. He was a weed, stuck in mud, that she occasionally landed on. But weeds were hearty. They lived and prospered almost anywhere. He could put down roots in the cracks of pavement, if needed.
As soon as they entered, before they could tell anyone anything, they heard excited shouts emanating from overhead.
“Gallery.” Lavender pointed at the ceiling.
They dashed up the service stairs to the guest bedroom hall.
The door into the portrait loft was open.
Below, the workers in the ballroom sewing factory stared up with curiosity.
Lavender waved over the balcony before taking Fort’s hand and tugging him toward the excited gathering at the far end of the long gallery.
He’d been up here upon occasion to show the boys their ancestors and discuss the history of their times. But these were mostly the late earl’s daughters and sisters and not relevant to more than the first King George’s era.
“Ruffle,” usually-silent Oliver shouted as they approached.
“Square cuff,” Davy concluded with an air of satisfaction.
These boys were geniuses, but they’d never be communicators. Fort didn’t know how they’d survive school. He hadn’t.
Thea and Arnaud stood to one side, and with an instinctive understanding, let the boys explain in their own ways. They’d be good parents someday.
“Curve,” Oliver drew his finger along one lady’s skirt. “Zed, square, arc.”
Davy grinned proudly and traced his finger over the same lines in another painting.
“And?” Lavender asked, practically bouncing in excitement since she’d showed them how to find the geometry in clothing design.
“Rectangle, triangle, circle.” Davy produced a sheet of paper with the squiggles they’d traced from the clock’s pendulum. “Code for time, clock, shelf.”
Fort was very much afraid he understood.
He still spoke their language. He found the arc-shaped clock on the mantel in one portrait, the linear case clock in another.
A round pocket watch in another, a zig-zag pocket chain in another.
Each of those portraits portrayed an ancestor wearing one of the famed Wycliffe pendants—and skirts and coats created with geometric precision. No wonder the artwork was mediocre.
“Explain, please,” he instructed. The two needed to find the words to communicate with those of lesser understanding or their genius would go unheard.
They gave him the sketch book they’d been using, then pointed to the relevant portraits.
“Words, please,” he insisted.
Beside him, Lavender studied their crude sketches of zig-zag ruffles, rectangular handkerchiefs, square bodices, and bell-shaped gowns.
They had incorporated lines from the pendulum into the sketches in a different color.
The similarity between their drawings and the actual paintings was crude but effective, identifying which portraits to examine out of dozens.
“Arcs.” Oliver pointed to the billowing hem of a hooped gown and to several smaller arcs incorporated into the elements of one painting. “Clock, arc.” He indicated the round-top mantel clock and shook his head. “All wrong.”
“Doesn’t belong there,” Davy added.
Arnaud and Thea stood over them like proud parents—as they would be for Davy once his father was arrested. Lavender narrowed her eyes and tried to figure it out for herself. Oliver’s Aunt Clare, apparently drawn by the curious crowd below, entered to join them and study the sketchbook as well.
Fort sensed excitement building only because he was so aware of Lavender. She was almost humming with it.
“The clock doesn’t belong in the painting?” he prompted.
Davy pointed to the familiar long case clock in one of the portraits. “Our clock.” Always the more verbal of the pair, he gestured at the velvet draped surroundings of a male figure and the background elements of windows, floor clock, and a cabinet of shotguns. “Not the landing.”
Floor clocks could conceivably be moved, but the background did not appear to be the place for one. It did, indeed, look out of place.
Davy pointed out each portrait with a clock of any sort. “Added to match design.”
“Design?” Clare demanded.
Lavender grinned as she pointed out the geometric design of the garb in the designated oils.
“It’s almost shouting ‘look at me!’ But no one ever does.
Look, the case clock is all straight lines, squares and rectangles, like the set of the gentlemen’s trousers or coat sleeves and the weapons cabinet.
We found jewels and the code in the case clock. ”
Oliver helpfully held up the patterns found on the pendulums, pointing out the angles that matched the portrait they’d described. “Arnaud says,” he took a deep breath while finding the words. “Pigments don’t match.”
“So, these oils are saying look at the clock. Since we’ve already found diamonds in the case clock, we should also look for a mantel clock?” Clare wrote mysteries—possibly a sign that she’d inherited some of the Wycliffe penchant for puzzles.
No wonder Fort felt at home in this eccentric household. None of his family cared for puzzles as he did.
Thea pointed at the shelf clock, a pocket watch, and a wall clock. “None of these timepieces belong in these portraits. The painter had a decent hand and an eye for color, but the brushstrokes are different, as well as the pigment saturation.”
“Tell them where,” Davy insisted, nearly bouncing on his heels.
Fort lifted a questioning eyebrow at the couple. “You know where to find the timepieces?”
Arnaud nodded. “My great aunt wrote how time stopped. She returned here after the earl’s death to discover not only that all the servants had left, and the vault of jewels had been emptied, but objects like the valuable clocks no longer worked and couldn’t be sold.
She complained bitterly of the earl hiding his family’s treasures and leaving nothing but rubbish behind.
She was a good woman, but a product of her time and upbringing.
She liked people, not puzzles. She expected clocks to function like good servants.
If they did not, she banished them from her sight.
The case clock was too large to be removed, but the others. . .”
“She did not throw them out?” Clare asked in horror.
Fort knew the answer to that too. The boys showed him their found treasures all the time. He waited for them to explain.
Oliver’s elfin face lit. “Upstairs.” And he raced off for the attic stairs.