Chapter One #2
However, their father’s plan was to starve them into compliance, so he usually found ways to block these other sources of food. Had it not been for the secret, Allan didn’t know how he could have held out, or his brothers either.
“Another investigator?” Donald wondered, looking up from his drawing. Those brothers who had not already been in the central space had emerged from the surrounding chambers, all looking toward the entrance. “His lordship is not due for another rant.”
“There’s a simple way to find out,” said Jerome. He was the youngest of the brothers, and occasionally impetuous—but in this case, he was correct. Allan looked up at those hanging over the balcony to the gallery that circled the room and gave access to the upper tier of rooms. Hudson was closest.
“Hudson, check who is there,” he said. Hudson disappeared from view. In his imagination, Allan visualized his brother pulling back the carpet, lifting the trapdoor that they had laboriously made in the thick oak floor, and peering down into the antechamber below.
After a long moment, Hudson was back at the balcony. “It is one man,” he reported. “Not one of the servants.”
Almost certainly another investigator. Poor chump.
According to the butler, the previous one had been badly beaten and thrown into the street.
“Let him in,” said Allan to the brother nearest the door.
He could not afford to sympathize with the man, who was, after all, working with the enemy.
They would need to treat him as they did the others: Drug him to sleep at night and run rings around him in the daytime.
The investigator entered, looking around the room with interest. For some reason, he chose to bow first to Allan.
What made the man think Allan was the eldest?
They were all there, and though the younger brothers were clearly only in their twenties, Baldwin and Cornelius, the first set of twins, were a mere two years younger than Allan.
“Do I have the honor of addressing Lord Kemble?” the man asked, in a light, pleasant voice that was more cultured than his mediocre appearance suggested.
“And you are?” Allan replied.
Another bow. “I am Mel Black. I am an investigator, and your father has hired me to find out why he is failing in his efforts to bully and intimidate you into obedience.”
Around him, his brothers stilled in shock at the investigator’s honesty.
There had been four before this one, sent to discover how the brothers were managing to hold out against the marquess’s strictures. Two had claimed to be valets, one a footman, one a drawing master, of all things. As if jailers sent drawing masters to those they were trying to starve and subdue.
None before had stated the marquess’s true purpose in sending them.
This man was audacious, to say the least. This boy, rather, for his shoulders were narrow and his cheeks showed no signs of a beard, even close up—this boy had a plump gut but thin wrists, like a youth that had just begun a growth spurt.
Perhaps Allan should offer him a way out.
“Has his lordship told you the price of failure?” Allan asked. “They will beat you, and possibly kill you. I can smuggle you out tomorrow when the gates open, if you wish to escape.”
“I am tougher than I look, Lord Kemble,” said Mr. Black. “The marquess has told me that, if I do not uncover your secrets, I shall be beaten and given to a press gang. I have a strong incentive to win. I am sorry that we are on opposite sides, but I think it best to be honest.”
“One has to admire Mr. Black’s cheek,” said Baldwin.
“I am Baldwin, Mr. Black. Allow me to present you to my brothers.” And he went around in age order, to his twin Cornelius first, then Donald, Ernest, Francis (whom they all called Frank), Gerard and Hudson, who were the second set of twins, then Isaac, and finally Jerome.
Mr. Black bowed to each of them, his bright eyes taking everything in. Allan had the feeling he was cataloguing, not just the ten brothers and their individual differences, but also this central room of the tower, from its floor to the top of the dome nearly forty feet above their heads.
He gave himself a mental shake. The young man’s confidence was misplaced. By his appearance, Black wasn’t out of his teens. Where older and more experienced men had failed, this one would be no match for the ingenuity of the Sheppard brothers.
“Baldwin, show Mr. Black where he will be sleeping,” he said. “Also, tell him where the necessary is and anything you think he needs to know about conditions here.”
Baldwin nodded, and led the youth away. Allan went back to his game, but his concentration was divided between countering Frank’s chess moves and keeping track of Mr. Black’s movements around the tower.
He seemed to be going in and out of every room—always with one of the brothers. What was he up to?
Allan found out when Frank put him into checkmate. The young investigator approached their table. “My lords, your brothers have been kind enough to allow me to visit every room in your tower except for your own. Lord Kemble, Lord Francis, may I see your bed chambers, too?”
“For what purpose?” Frank asked before Allan could do so.
Black’s lips curved as he regarded Frank with amused eyes. “So that I can ferret out your secrets, of course, my lord.” He chuckled, and added, “To be serious, checking the bounds of my environment is an old habit. If you prefer me not to see your room, then I shall stay out of it.”
Frank pushed back his chair and stood up. “You’ll find no secrets in my chamber. This way.” He limped off, not looking back to see Black following him, but Allan watched the youth until he disappeared through Frank’s door.
Donald had gone back to the diagram he had been drawing when Black arrived, but was now considering Allan with his head on one side.
“What do you think of him?” Allan asked.
“He has a good memory for names and faces,” Donald answered. “Baldwin introduced him around, and he has addressed us all correctly since. He has not even been confused by Baldwin and Cornelius, though they are dressed alike today.”
“He has charm,” Baldwin said. “I suspect he uses it to hide how clever he is. We shall have to be careful tonight.”
Coming from Baldwin, who also used charm to deflect attention from his intelligence, it was a warning worth noting. “We shall be careful,” Allan said.
“He recognized my drawings,” Donald commented. “The ones of the Trevithick locomotive.”
Allan could feel his eyebrows twitch upward. Donald had been interested in the innards of the machine rather than its external appearance. The diagrams in question looked to Allan as if an anonymous engine had exploded across the page.
“Also,” Donald added, “Zero likes him. He accepted a pat from him.”
Surprising! Donald’s scarred old black tomcat didn’t like anyone except Donald.
If Black’s charm worked even on Zero, it was a formidable force indeed.
He was an unknown quantity, and they would need to be even more cautious than usual.
Perhaps they should call off tonight’s excursion, but Allan was reluctant.
It was nearly Christmas, and the ladies of London—those who had the money and the independence to be useful to the Sheppard brothers—were in the mood to spend.
Perhaps he would conduct Black on a tour of his own room and see if he could find out how long the marquess planned to give the boy for his investigation. If it was only a week, that would still give them another week until Christmas without an intruder watching.
Yes. He would show Black around and see what impressed both Baldwin and Donald—two personalities as different as brothers could be. Allan waited by the door of his room for Frank and the investigator to emerge.
It was at least another ten minutes. Interesting. Frank was cautious with strangers, and tended to keep even the maids and his brothers out of his room.
“You wanted to see my room,” Allan said to Black when the youth emerged back into the central space.
“Come.” He opened his door and led the way inside.
The appointments were spartan—his brothers had brought in items to furnish and decorate their own spaces, but Allan had kept to the bare necessities, unwilling to spend energy, money, or thought on anything that did not contribute to their escape.
Indeed, the very plainness of the room reminded him that the luxury in which he had encased for as long as he obeyed his father had been no protection against the evil man’s whims, nor had it saved his wife or her second child.
Black strolled around the room, pausing briefly to touch the one personal item it contained—a painting Cornelius had made of Allan’s daughter when she was no more than a toddling infant. He often spoke to it, telling his little girl what he was doing, wishing he could see her again.
“Is this your daughter?” Black asked.
“That is not your business,” Allan snapped back, his jaw set against the pain, his hands clenched against the urge to forcibly remove the hand that was violating the frame of the painting.
Some of that must have conveyed itself to Black, for he snatched his hand back, and said, softly, “I am sorry for your loss, Lord Kemble.”
He stepped to the window and looked out over the courtyard, the perimeter wall, and beyond at the glimpse of street and the untidy cluster of roofs and chimneys. Did he stay silent to allow Allan time to compose himself? Perhaps.
Certainly, it was several minutes before he said, “Thank you. I appreciate your forbearance.” And he left the room.
Baldwin came in a moment later and shut the room behind him. “I am ready,” he said. “We have soup simmering on the fire to go with tonight’s allocation of bread. I suggest we put the potion in Black’s bowl, and then serve everyone from the same pot.”
“Good thinking.” That should work. Allan had been wondering how to administer the sleeping draught that had served them so well with the other investigators. This one was smart enough to refuse to drink, or even to pretend to drink but stay awake to find out their secrets.
They could not let that happen. Whatever the consequences to Black, they had to succeed in bamboozling the man, for the marquess must not discover what they were hiding.
*
The evening meal was delivered at seven o’clock—merely bread and water, as the previous investigators had told her.
But, as they had also said, the brothers produced wine from somewhere.
The pot of soup, too. It had been simmering on the stove all afternoon, but disappeared when the bell rang to announce the arrival of the bread, leaving nothing behind but its enticing smell.
It was magic, two of the agents had claimed. It was collusion with the servants, another hypothesized. The fourth had been too badly beaten to express an opinion, and it would only have been an opinion, for none of the investigators had discovered any evidence.
The marquess had found no wine nor any food when he had had the tower searched after each investigator reported. Indeed, many of the items she had seen in the bedchambers had apparently disappeared between when the other investigators saw them, and when the searches were made.
Magic was unlikely, in Mel’s opinion. She’d certainly never seen objects appear and disappear in a way that defied nature. The tower must have hiding places that the marquess knew nothing about, and if it had hiding places, it might also have hidden ways in and out.
Though if that is the case, why do the marquess’s sons stay? Why do they not just leave? Almost all of them are of age.
Mel accepted a glass of the wine, but made certain to spill it discreetly, for the other investigators must have been drugged somehow, no matter how they denied it. The soup was served from a common pot, so should be safe enough.
Mel returned to her room after dinner, and drank sparingly from the water she had brought with her. She then sat in the chair by the room’s little fireplace, for her intention was to remain awake and thoroughly search at least the public rooms once the brothers had all gone to bed.
Although I am feeling remarkably sleepy. That was her last conscious thought.
When she woke up, her head ached and her thoughts moved sluggishly, as if through a fog. Light was filtering in around the edges of her drapes, and she could hear the muffled hum of conversation.
She forced herself to sit up, hoping it would help. Pain stabbed at her temples, and the room seemed to reel around her for a dizzying moment, but then stabilized. In the dim light, she could see this was not the room at her sister’s house where she lived between assignments.
Oh yes. The tower. The marquess’s sons. They must have managed to drug her, despite her precautions! Well, then. From now on, she’d eat only what she had managed to bring with her in the hidden compartment of her bag, and drink only water.
She pulled back the curtain nearest the bed. From the light, it was early morning. What were the brothers doing out of bed?
Mel wasn’t at all certain she could walk across the room, so she crawled, and opened the door just a crack. Not enough to see, but enough that the voices from below floated up to her ears.
“Ought you to check on Black?” That was Lord Kemble.
“I won’t disturb him. I gave him enough of the drug to knock him out for the night, but he could be stirring about now.” That was Lord Baldwin—the one with medical textbooks and herbals on his bookshelf. “If we leave him alone, he might sleep as late as we do.”
“Then let’s all go to bed,” Kemble said. “A good night’s work, brothers.”
A night’s work doing what?
Footsteps on the stairs to the second level had her closing the door quickly.
Presumably, the Sheppard brothers were all heading to bed.
Let them. Then Mel would be able to examine the tower’s public spaces.
Meanwhile, her head was spinning. She had better not lie down lest she went back to sleep.
But surely it would not hurt to sit down again for a while?