Chapter Three #2
Lord Jerome narrated that snippet of his brother’s story in such a matter-of-fact and offhand manner that the sense of it took a moment to penetrate.
Was that why Lord Francis limped? The marquess had ordered it done?
And if so, did Lord Jerome’s infirmity come from the same source?
The marquess was an even worse monster than Mel had thought.
The young lord had not noticed her reaction, as he was still thinking about travel. “I should like to see Madrid. Paris, too, and Rome. All the great cities of Europe. Have you traveled, Mr. Black?”
“Through most of England,” Mel admitted. “Also, Scotland and Wales. A couple of times to Ireland. Only once to France, a few years ago, after Waterloo.”
Perhaps it was only fair to share something of herself.
“I dreamed of travel, too, when I was young. Then, for a few years, it seemed it would always be impossible.” She had married, and her husband had kept her in the country, waiting on his whims. Not as much of a prisoner as Lord Jerome, but free only to visit the village shops, the neighbors and the local church.
“Then I began my current profession and all my traveling has been in the past eight years.”
“You are able-bodied, though,” said Lord Jerome, wistfully. “I suppose you ride? I was just learning to ride when I was locked up.”
“I do not ride particularly well,” Mel said.
Her father had been too poor for the sisters to have riding horses, though they had both straddled the old cart horse to be carried around the field while the beast grazed.
“But one can travel by carriage or boat. A lame leg will not prevent you from traveling, my lord. Was it a childhood injury?”
Lord Jerome’s huff of laughter had no humor in it. “You could say that. I told you Frank had his legs broken, at my father’s command, to punish him for joining the army and to ensure he did not do so again?”
“You ran away?” Mel whispered her question, as if the truth of the poor man’s injury was too horrible to contemplate.
“Cornelius did, with his wife.” Mel froze. This touched on her reason for being here. She had not expected to learn so easily what happened to her cousin. Lord Jerome was gently touching the keys of the clavichord and did not see how his words had affected her.
“The marquess’s men brought Cornelius back,” he continued, “but my brother would not say where Thomasina was. Later, I learned that he could not. For her own safety, he had told her to find somewhere to hide where even he could not find her.”
Then the suicide note and the evidence on the riverbank were fake, just as Mel had hoped and believed.
Lord Jerome shrugged. “The marquess had me beaten and tortured in front of Cornelius to make him talk. And then, as he did with Frank, he refused to let a doctor attend me. My brothers did their best to stitch and bind my wounds, and set my bones. Baldwin apprenticed with a doctor for a while, and is quite skilled. Even so, one leg healed crookedly.”
Mel said what she was thinking. “He is a fiend.”
“That is why they stay,” Lord Jerome told her. “My brothers. They remain for me, to keep my father from killing me. He is my guardian, you see. He has a right to beat me.”
“Jerome. Is Mr. Black bothering you?” It was Lord Kemble, glaring at Mel as if he wanted to incinerate her on the spot. Had he had a fall? His face was bruised.
The younger man was not bothered by his brother’s anger. “No need to fret, Allan. I’m not giving away secrets. I daresay every servant in the marquess’s employ knows how the old fiend treats his sons.”
“Mr. Black is not our friend, you young cub.” Lord Kemble’s irritated tone was laced with affection for his brother.
Which didn’t mean he could be trusted, but if Lord Jerome’s story was true—and it confirmed what she had already heard from other sources—the brothers were the marquess’s victims, not his followers.
“Nor am I your enemy,” said Mel. It was a risk to trust the man, but how much more could they achieve if they worked together? “In fact, Lord Kemble, we might be on the same side.”
Lord Kemble’s lip curled. “I doubt that very much. You are the marquess’s dog, here to serve my father’s purposes. My brother might have forgotten that. I have not.”
He might change his mind if I tell him my real purpose here, but on the other hand, he might tell his father.
Even disclosing her relationship with Thomasina could backfire, if any one of the brothers decided to use the information to gain an advantage with the marquess.
She wasn’t ready to be thrown out—perhaps even handed over, as the marquess had threatened, to a press gang.
“I am nobody’s dog, and my purposes are my own,” she told Lord Kemble.
He didn’t believe her. To be fair, neither did she believe him, but she was regarding the brothers with more sympathy than when she had arrived. Especially when she noticed that Lord Baldwin’s cheek was marred by a welt from a whip or thin stick, and that Lord Ernest was limping.
“I take it his lordship was not pleased with your performance,” Lord Cornelius said to his twin in an undertone. Fortunately, Mel’s hearing was excellent. She pretended to be absorbed in looking up at the ceiling, which was painted with a scene of dancing.
“The families of the brides checkmated his wedding plans by wanting to invite the Duchess of Winshire whom he apparently does not wish to offend,” Baldwin explained. “He took it out on us once they were gone. Come on, Allan, Ernest. I have some salve in my room.”
For the remainder of the day, none of the brothers would talk to her about anything beyond the merest commonplaces. Clearly, Lord Kemble had put out an order.
Mel wasn’t in the job to make friends, and was used to working in an indifferent or even hostile atmosphere. The fact she was beginning to like the brothers was entirely beside the point. She kept moving around the public areas, studying the walls and what she could see of the floors.
The gallery must have a peephole in the floor that allowed the brothers to see who was in the anteroom, but Mel couldn’t find it with a visual inspection, and anything more detailed would have to wait until she could be certain of privacy.
Perhaps she could check during dinner—another pot of soup was already cooking on the back of the stove that warmed the dining area. Mel took her notebook with her to sit in the dining room, hoping to catch someone in the act of putting a sedative in her bowl or her cup.
“What are you writing?” asked Lord Francis.
“Nothing important,” Mel said, and turned the page so he could see. There was no harm in showing him. She wrote her case notes as if they were notes for a children’s story about a talking cat.
He looked puzzled as he read, and well he might.
“‘One mouse gave the squirrel a clue to what happened to her relative. If his story turns out to be true, squirrel cousin might still be alive. The search of the mouse hole continues. The mice that left the hole were scratched by the cat, but they were not badly injured and returned home.’”
While he flicked over a couple of pages, Mel looked around her until a discrepancy caught her attention. The wall. It met the outer wall at right angles, but didn’t all the other rooms have acute angles in their outer corners?
The tower was an octagon, with the dividing walls for each outer room radiating outward. A right angle was impossible unless the room on either side also had a right angle—the two walls, now that she came to look at the other side of the room. Or, unless each wall concealed a hidden space.
“It is you,” said Lord Francis. “You are the squirrel. My brothers and I are the mice. Who is the squirrel cousin?”
She had underestimated the man. “It is just a children’s story,” Mel insisted.
Lord Francis gave her a disbelieving look, but at that moment, two of the other brothers came into the dining space—Lord Donald to stir the stew, and Lord Baldwin to put bowls, mugs, and plates out on the bench beside the stove.
She tried to keep an eye on Lord Baldwin, but Lord Francis was continuing to try to decipher her notes, and Lord Donald had come over to see what Lord Francis was doing, getting in her way so she could not see exactly what Lord Baldwin was up to without making it obvious that she suspected him of doctoring either one of the mugs or one of the bowls.
Sure enough, when the three of them left her to return to their own activities, one bowl was placed apart from the others, and so was one mug.
Mel bowed her head back over her notes and waited for her opportunity to swap them with the ones she had slipped into her bag when she was putting away the dishes.
Her chance came when the bell rang to announce the arrival of the evening basket of bread and jug of water.
While the brothers were distracted, she walked around the table and out of the dining area, making the exchange on her way.
Sure enough, both bowl and cup had some thick liquid at the bottom.
Mel put them into the slop bucket and threw a cloth over them.
After that, it was just a matter of stumbling up the stairs after dinner, weaving slightly on her way to her bedchamber. Before long, she heard footsteps passing her door. The brothers who had their chambers up here, she assumed.
She changed while she waited. All in black, from head to foot, so she would be hidden against the dark city streets.
If her guess about the dining space was right, they’d head downstairs again when they were ready.
They did, about half an hour later. She waited until she was certain all six were downstairs, then slipped out her door and knelt to peek over the balustrade.
All ten of them were there below, and sure enough, Lord Kemble was standing by the sideboard, his hands on the carving down one side. While Mel watched, he stepped back, and pulled the entire sideboard away from the wall.
He stepped into the space it had covered, and then the other brothers followed, one by one. When all of them had disappeared, the sideboard rolled back into place, presumably pulled by the last of the brothers.
Mel hurried downstairs and soon found the catch.
The sideboard needed no more than a gentle tug to swing out.
She opened the low door behind it to disclose what looked like an empty cupboard, but since the ten brothers were not within—and indeed, could not have fitted—there must be a trapdoor.
She soon discovered how to open it, and below was a flight of steps.
She was not more than a minute or two behind them, but she could not see any sign of light below.
Still, it was more important to take a moment to find out the internal latch.
She had no idea what the circumstances of her return might be, and she did not want to be caught on the wrong side of the door because she had not taken the time now to make sure she could get back in.
Fortunately, it was a simple lever on the side wall. Moments later, she hurried down the steps in the dark as fast as she could without disaster, holding tight to the rail and running her hand down the rock wall beside her.
There! A glimmer of flame down below. They were not far ahead. She continued downward, being even more cautious lest a noise had them turning back.
She need not have worried. They were strolling along the tunnel that led from the foot of the stairs, deep in conversation.
It was wide enough that they could walk three and four abreast, and Mel was able to creep close enough to hear while staying in the darkness beyond the reach of the lamps they must have picked up on their way.
The floor of the tunnel sloped, so that they were moving downhill, and a soft breeze moved across Mel’s cheek, hinting at an opening to the outdoors somewhere ahead.
“So, we shall have to move up our escape,” Baldwin was saying.
“That means you will have to go into hiding, Jerome,” said Kemble. “Just for five months, until your birthday.”
“I think the plan to scatter is best.” That was Frank. “If we run in ten different directions, we shall stretch his resources, and reduce the chance of him finding Jerome. If he can find any of the rest of us, he will try to force us to say where the others are.”
“Jerome is the only one he has legal power over,” argued Ernest.
Cornelius snorted. “When has the law meant anything to the marquess?”
Mel kicked something. A stone, perhaps. It shot away from her foot and collided with the nearest wall. She froze.
“Shush,” commanded Jerome. “I thought I heard something behind us.”
The brothers all paused. Mel closed her eyelids so that the light could not catch the whites of her eyes. Through the slits, she could see the pale ovals of faces looking in her direction.
After a moment, Lord Kemble said, “I don’t hear anything. Come on. The boats should be waiting for us by now.”
They walked off, with Mel following. A corner in the tunnel brought them within sight of a large arch closed off by bars. Kemble produced something that proved to be a set of keys, for he opened the gate in the bars, and the Sheppard brothers crowded through.
With them out of the way, Mel could see they were on the bank of the Thames, that watermen waited with their boats, and that the brothers were already greeting them and clambering aboard.
Kemble shut the gate but didn’t bother to lock it again, and Mel was able to escape the tunnel without attracting anyone’s attention.
Now what? If she joined one of the boats, she’d be seen. But she was in luck. There were four boats, but the brothers filled the first three, and as each boat was loaded, its waterman pushed off into the current.
Mel stopped the last waterman just before he started after them. “Wait! Do you see those gentlemen?” she said. “Follow them.” And moments later they were floating down the Thames.