Chapter Two
The next time Mel woke up, it was full day, though she couldn’t tell what time. Sound drifted through the door. Someone was playing music—at a guess, using a violin and a clavichord. Probably the two younger brothers. Lord Jerome had a violin in his room, and Lord Isaac had a stack of sheet music.
She rose, moving her neck to ease the ache caused by an awkward sleeping posture.
There was no point in castigating herself for falling for the Sheppard brothers’ tricks, or for falling asleep again.
In her adult years, she had learned that self-blame achieved little.
One could only learn from a misstep and move on, trying not to make the same error again.
She needed washing water, a change of clothes, and something to drink to remove the disgusting taste in her mouth. She straightened her rumpled clothing and went out onto the gallery that acted as a passage for the chambers on this upper level.
She had watched the marquess’s London house for several days before approaching him.
She had circled it twenty or more times, checking it from every possible angle.
Knowing that the sons were confined to the tower most of the time, she had given it particular attention.
It was octagonal and separated from the house.
A closed-in bridge from a back corner of the house joined it to the tower on the fourth level.
The tower rose one floor higher than the bridge, and then terminated in a cupola as high again, with an eight-sided ring of windows forming the base of the cupola.
An octagonal skirting of roof sloped from the base of the windows to the outer wall of the tower.
There were neither doors nor windows at ground level, and yesterday she had seen no way to access the lower levels from the brothers’ apartment.
Surely, though, there must be some way into those rooms? The tower had secrets, and she was determined to discover them.
Crossing the gallery to the balustrade, she looked up into the dome, and then down into the living room. From the living room floor to the top of the dome must have been at least thirty-six feet.
Lord Kemble was below, casually dressed, as he had been last night, in pantaloons, shirt and waistcoat. He had his face turned up and their eyes met. In appearance, he was a copy of his father, as the man must have been when he was in his prime. Was it apprehension that made her shiver?
Surely not. For one thing, he did not have the same aura of evil.
For another, she had faced off against villains much more dangerous than an aristocratic heir who, at the very least, stood by while his father bullied his wife, and who did not even have the gumption to leave home.
But if it was not fear, then why was she breathless?
Why did she feel suddenly weak at the knees?
Mel rejected the obvious answer. An unwanted attraction to Kemble could be ignored. It was not relevant to the investigation. More to the point, neither the tower nor the brothers set her skin creeping and her nerves jangling. No aura of evil. No sense of immediate danger.
Eight wedges made up the outer ring of rooms at both levels of the tower occupied by the marquess’s sons.
On this level, seven of them were bed chambers and one contained the stairs to the lower level.
She strolled downstairs, where there were four more bedchambers, a book room, and a double space, open to the living room, that had a table and a dozen chairs.
The soup had been heated on the stove in one corner of that part of the room.
On the outskirts of the central chamber, the upstairs gallery formed a ceiling over more intimate spaces, and Lord Isaac and Lord Jerome were in the one that held the clavichord she had noticed yesterday, which Lord Isaac was playing while Lord Jerome played the violin.
Seated as they were, Lord Jerome’s lameness was not obvious.
Was it some sort of family trait? Lord Francis, too, had a limp, though not as bad as his younger brother.
The other brothers were also scattered around the chamber, but Mel’s gaze was drawn to Lord Kemble, who beckoned her to him. “There is bread, Mr. Black, if you would care to break your fast.”
More than bread. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee was unmistakable. A little cheek was called for. “Do I smell coffee?” Mel said. “My information is that you use magic to supplement what the marquess’s household provides. I deduce that coffee is not beyond the capabilities of your good fairy.”
Lord Kemble’s lips twitched and several of the brothers laughed outright. “I shall pour you a cup,” offered Lord Baldwin.
“Preferably without whatever Lord Donald gave me in last night’s soup,” Mel suggested.
“You are our uninvited guest, Mr. Black.” Lord Kemble’s voice was as arctic as his expression. “Here to pry into any secrets we may or may not have. I advise you not to challenge us.”
“Circumstances have put us in opposition, Lord Kemble,” Mel commented. “My health and wellbeing are on the line. Perhaps my life. Probably my life. Unless you give up your secrets willingly, I must pry.”
“How do you take your coffee?” asked Lord Baldwin. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Black, thank you,” said Mel.
“I can arrange for you to leave,” said Lord Kemble. Some warmth had returned to his voice and his expression. “Escape this place, Black, while you still can.”
“And what?” Mel asked. “Hide? Change my name and my identity? Do you think the marquess will let me disappear without seeking me out to punish me for failing him?” Come to think of it, that was as good an explanation as any for why the brothers didn’t leave.
“If you know what he is like, why are you working for him?” Lord Donald demanded. “You should never have taken the job. If you do his bidding, you are as bad as him.”
If you know what he is like and what he has done, why have you not given evidence of his crimes to the authorities? You are complicit, at the very least. All of you, and especially the older ones. Mel kept the words behind her teeth. They skirted too close to her real motive in being here.
“Your coffee,” said Lord Baldwin, handing her a cup around which the fragrant bitterness of the beverage perfumed the air.
“Thank you, my lord,” Mel said, and took a sip. The taste fulfilled the promise of the smell. She sighed in satisfaction. That would finish the job of waking her up.
Except for the two musicians, the brothers had stopped what they were doing to watch the exchange between her and Lords Kemble and Donald. As Mel focused on her coffee and Lord Donald turned his attention back to the drawing before him, the others returned to their own activities.
Not Lord Kemble. He was frowning thoughtfully as he watched Mel. Once again, she shivered, as if his gaze was a gentle touch. What on earth was wrong with her? He was a suspect—and if not an accomplice to his father, at least a careless bystander.
At the clanging of the bell, he turned his attention to the antechamber door, and Mel’s relief was oddly mixed with loss. She was not attracted to the brooding earl. Or if she was, it was just a physical reaction. And a ridiculous one, at that.
One of the brothers had run upstairs while she was distracted by her uncomfortable thoughts. The others were all alert and waiting. Even Lord Isaac and Lord Jerome had stopped playing.
“The butler and a crew of maids,” reported the brother who’d gone upstairs.
“You all know what to do,” said Lord Kemble. “Mr. Black, the maids are coming to clean and the fairy you mentioned is going to prepare the place for them. Please take your coffee to your bedchamber, close the door, and wait for my signal to return downstairs.”
There was no question of refusing. Several of the brothers stood ready to enforce Lord Kemble’s request, and the earl himself was probably capable of carrying her upstairs without assistance. “Certainly, my lord,” she said.
She looked over the balustrade once she was upstairs. The brothers were collecting books and other items to load into two large baskets. The coffee pot had disappeared. Lord Kemble looked up at her. “Mr. Black,” he said.
Mel tipped her head in acknowledgement of his unspoken command. “Bedchamber, right.” Cooperating now was more likely to bring results than sneaking a peek to see where the hidden spaces were and how they were accessed, particularly since she was likely to be caught.
Sure enough, footsteps on the stairs indicated that the brothers with rooms upstairs were heading in her direction.
She shut herself in her bedchamber. Perhaps searching this room, bare that it was, would give her some clues.
If she could find the catch to a hidden door here, the likelihood was that others in the tower would have a similar mechanism.
She had searched one wall when a knock on the door proved to be a pair of maids with a pail of water, wash cloths, a duster and a broom. “We’re to clean your room, sir,” said one of them. “And Lord Kemble says he would like to see you downstairs, sir.”
Lord Kemble wanted to tell her that the marquess had ordered her to be confined in the tower today. “The butler brought today’s orders,” he said. “Three of us are commanded to appear for inspection by callers. Everyone else is to stay confined today, and that includes you, Mr. Black.”
Having said that, he went into his bedchamber. Inspection by callers? An odd way to put it. Another pair of maids came out of Lord Kemble’s chamber and disappeared into the next one. A minute or two later, a third pair moved between chambers further around the room.
“They clean once a week,” said Lord Francis, coming to sit in a chair near Mel.
“We never know in advance the day or the time, so it might be ten days between cleans or four, first thing in the morning or late in the evening. But Allan says it could be worse. At least they do come and clean. We are permitted bath water once a week, too. I daresay other prisons are less comfortable and much smellier.”
They were. Mel had visited a few prisons in her time, and this was a palace by comparison. “Loss of freedom bites hard, no matter how comfortable the cage,” she commented.
“Freedom?” Lord Francis sighed. “For the sons of the Marquess of Teign, freedom is a distant dream.”
“You are of age, are you not?” Mel asked. “What can he do to you?”
In the look Lord Francis gave her, incredulity mixed with a bitter amusement. “Anything he wishes. Did you not say it yourself?” He quoted her earlier comment. “Do you think the marquess will let me disappear without seeking me out to punish me for failing him?”
“I did say that,” Mel acknowledged. “You are his son, though,” she pointed out.
Lord Francis shrugged. “He has other sons. Indeed, if he had grandsons, we would all be superfluous to requirements. He prefers his heirs young and manageable.”
“Frank. Enough.” The warning came from Lord Kemble, who emerged from his bedroom immaculately dressed, from polished Hessians to spotless white cravat.
His cream pantaloons hugged his form, as did the green coat he wore over an ornate waistcoat.
The green stone in his cravat pin must have been an emerald, given its brilliance.
If he was appealing in undress, he was stunning in formal daywear. Mel’s mouth dried. This untoward lust toward a suspect would not do. She swallowed hard.
“Never was a prisoner so richly dressed,” she commented.
That remark was met with a thin smile and the wry comment, “You have not yet seen Baldwin or Ernest.”
“What does your father hope to achieve?” Mel asked. While the near imprisonment of the ten lords was a poorly-kept secret among the ton, no one with whom she had spoken knew the reason for it. They had defied him in some way, people assumed. But over what?
“Did your audacity not extend to asking him?” asked Lord Donald.
Mel regarded him for a moment. It was a fair question, and the hostile tone was forgivable, under the circumstances. “I did ask. He told me it was not something I needed to know.”
“You have your answer then,” said Lord Kemble.
No. She didn’t. But Mel was beginning to think she needed it. The brothers’ anger at their father was barely veiled, and if they were not her enemies, perhaps—despite her earlier assumptions—they could be her allies.
Lord Baldwin and Lord Ernest came down the stairs from their bedchambers, each as richly dressed as Lord Kemble. The maids must have finished their cleaning, for eight of them were gathered around another woman servant, this one better dressed and not wearing a mob cap. A housekeeper, perhaps.
“We are done, Lord Kemble,” this woman said.
The earl nodded, and one of the brothers unlocked the door and rang the bell.
From where she was sitting, Mel could see the footmen opening the gates, and letting out the first four of the maids, then the housekeeper and the other four maids.
It was the reverse of the process by which she had been brought inside—the furthest gate opened and a footman left inside to open the nearest gate, which he locked again once those leaving had come through. Only then did the outer footman open the furthest gate and let the group out.
“Take care,” said Lord Donald to those brothers who waited to leave.
“Lock the door behind us,” said Lord Kemble. “Keep an eye on our Mr. Black.” And he gave her a wintery smile.