The Night Dancers (A Twist Upon a Regency Tale #12)

Chapter One

The house known as Teign Tower felt oppressive from the moment Melody Blackmore entered. Perhaps it was just that she knew the owner’s reputation. Rumor ascribed all sorts of wicked deeds to him, including the murder of the cousin who had preceded him in the title, and that cousin’s entire family.

No doubt the sons she was here to investigate were just as bad, though the rumor mill was less informative about them. Well. Time would tell.

The footman who opened the side door at which she had been told to present herself asked her to wait in the entry hall and disappeared along a passage to the right, leaving Mel with the hair rising on the back of her neck and the sense that something nasty was watching her from the shadows.

By the time the marquess sent for her, twenty minutes later, she had almost talked herself out of staying. None of that. Thomasina needs you. If she still lives.

Keeping her goal—and her missing cousin—firmly in her mind, Mel followed the footman.

“Mr. Black, my lord,” he announced, as he ushered her into the room.

The impression of menace and evil was stronger here, and centered on the man behind the desk. He did not stand, but then, she was dressed as a man and was there to do a job. Such a courtesy could not be expected.

She knew the marquess was in his seventies, but would not have guessed it by his appearance. He was still tall, burly rather than stout, and clearly physically fit. His full head of iron-gray hair added to the illusion that he was still in his prime, as did the domineering presence he projected.

The way he looked at her as though she was something unpleasant he had found on the heel of his boot said everything that needed to be said about his character.

If the investigation he wanted her to undertake had been the real reason she was here, she would have found some excuse and left without further ado.

Although, from what he was saying, it was already too late. “You will move in immediately. You have one week to complete your investigation. At the end of that time, if you have not discovered my sons’ secret, my men will take you out, beat you, and hand you over to the navy press gang.”

This was a further escalation. Of the previous four investigators, the first had been dismissed, the second dismissed with a buffet or two from footmen, and third and fourth beaten each more heavily.

She would not give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

“Two weeks, as written in this contract.” She handed it to the bullying lord.

“You will see that my daily charge is five guineas, plus expenses. Since you expect me to live in, you will be responsible for my keep for the fortnight. And, of course, we have yet to discuss my success fee.”

He stood and leaned on the desk, looming over her as she sat facing him. “You are not in a position to dictate terms, Mr. Black.”

“And yet you need my skills, Lord Teign,” Mel pointed out, maintaining her calm facade. “My success rate is second to none. And you have discarded so many investigators so violently that word has gone out in the fraternity. It is me, or no one.”

The argument got through to him. With a visible effort, he subdued his rage and sat down. “You are an arrogant young man,” he accused, with a hint of surprise that said volumes about how seldom anyone opposed him.

Mel accepted the accusations without a blink.

She was not a man and not particularly young, but she owned to a degree of arrogance.

She had earned the right. Her disguise had passed muster.

No one saw past the short-cropped hair, a specially designed corset that flattened her breasts and was padded to disguise her waist, a male stride and other mannerisms, and a deeper voice than was natural for her.

She had been lying about her identity since the day she donned men’s clothes years ago to undertake her first investigation, and that lie, at least, no longer bothered her.

She replied, “My arrogance is justified. Within a fortnight, my lord, you shall have an answer. If we come to terms. Otherwise, I shall leave, shooting my way out if necessary.”

The last statement got his full attention. “Shooting? Damn it, man. I am a marquess. You’ll not get out of here alive.”

“My reluctance to shoot you, my lord, is not as great as my reluctance to be beaten and pressed. And if you are dead, you shall not be able to deny whatever story I tell.”

Given the reception she was likely to get from the sailors when they discovered she was a woman, she would rather die trying to escape the marquess’s house, than perish miserably in a ship’s hold after the sailors made a plaything of her.

If those were her choices, she’d be certain to send him down to Hell before she breathed her last. But with two bad choices before her, she’d try for a third way.

“We do not, however, need to be at odds, my lord. You wish to find out how your sons are managing to remain fit and well without adequate food, and going through dancing slippers without any way of leaving their tower. I wish to survive this engagement and be paid for it, so I am highly motivated to discover their secret. That is my only interest, Lord Teign.”

“You are remarkably calm,” Lord Teign commented, frowning. He pulled the contract toward him and began to read it. Mel expressed her relief in a single long respiration. In. Out. Relax but remain alert. Remember your purpose.

Having made up his mind to accept her terms, Lord Teign spent little time reading the contract, and indeed, it was simple enough.

He did not haggle over the two-week term, the daily payment, the bonus for success, nor any of the other terms, but simply read the contract through and signed both copies.

With the suspicion that had become second nature to her, Mel wondered if he was so relaxed about the terms because he had no intention of letting her leave alive.

It was not a problem. She, too, was merely using the contract to lend verisimilitude to her act—she was not here to investigate the sons, but the marquess himself.

Within twenty minutes, her copy in her pocket, she was following the butler to what he called “the young lords’ tower” through a maze of passages—servants’ passages, which might have been a deliberate affront.

The butler had searched her bag and her person, missing the false bottom in the bag and most of the weapons she had about her person.

He did find the decoy gun she had in her pocket, but not the real one worn in a harness in the small of her back under her coat.

Nor did he find the gunpowder and bullets in the heels of her boots.

On the whole, Mel was not dissatisfied. Nor was she discouraged by the butler’s pompous recitation, as she accompanied him through the house, about the impregnability of the tower—its thick walls, barred windows, and single door, which was both locked and guarded.

After all, ten spoilt lordlings had been coming and going as they pleased, evading the tower’s defenses, their father’s servants, and the surveillance of four men who specialized in solving the problems of the haut ton, and uncovering their secrets. If the lordlings could do it, so could Mel.

All she had to do was discover their secret, and meanwhile carry out her real mission.

She and the butler turned a corner and began traversing a long hall with windows that looked out over roofs on one side and on the other, down into a stable yard. Two-thirds of the way to the other end, bars blocked their passage. Two sets of bars, in fact, each containing a gate.

The butler unlocked the first gate, then handed the key to one of the two footmen who had been escorting them through the house.

The footman stayed outside and locked the gate.

The same process saw Mel and the butler on their own at the end of the hall, with two locked gates behind them.

Clever. The young lords would not be able to escape even if they overwhelmed whoever came into their chambers.

And yet, they had some way to either leave or to bring in supplies. Mel’s respect for them went up a notch. Perhaps they were not so contemptible after all. It didn’t matter. They were not her main purpose here.

Next came a door, which the butler also unlocked. It opened into an antechamber. The butler handed Mel his lamp and said, “Ring the bell and wait here for Lord Kemble.” She heard the key turn in the lock after he shut her in.

Bell. There it was, a large handbell, on a table against the side wall of the chamber.

There was a door opposite the one she’d entered by, and another table on the fourth wall of the room.

And that was all. Just bare stone walls and a wooden floor, a plain ceiling, the two tables, the two doors, and the bell.

Very well, then. Time to meet the sons of the Marquess of Teign. Apples did not fall far from the tree—no doubt they were as vicious and evil as their father, so Mel would need to be very wary. She put down her bag on the floor and the lamp on the table.

What would they say when she told them why she was there? She intended to confess she was an investigator, for she would learn from their reactions. She’d not tell them everything she was here to investigate, of course. Just their part of it.

There was one sure way to find out what they’d do. She picked up the bell and rang it.

*

Allan was playing chess with his brother Frank when the notification bell rang.

“What’s happening?” Frank wondered. “It is not yet time for our meal.”

The meal was always delivered at seven in the evening.

If you could call it a meal—bread and water, and barely enough for three grown men, let alone ten.

On days their father allowed some of them out, the cook often managed to slip them food, and those of them required to attend events could hope for a good supper.