Chapter Six
Black was gone. They searched their entire section of the tower, including the secret hiding places, but they found neither hide nor hair of him.
Yet his bag was still in his chamber, with his spare clothes.
His toothpowder and soap were on the washstand, and a nightshirt was folded under the pillow.
And in the hiding place under his rug, they found a small arsenal of weapons that certainly weren’t there before Black was assigned to the bed chamber.
Where had he gone, and why?
“He has betrayed us,” said Baldwin. “He has found a way to signal the footmen and has gone to report to the marquess.”
“Or he has found the door to the stair and left the tower through the tunnel,” Ernest suggested. “He’s a smart one.”
“Or the marquess sent his men in somehow, and dragged him out,” Frank suggested. He waved at the evidence of the bed chamber. “From the looks of it, he was either taken away or left of his own accord but intended to come back.”
It could not be the marquess’s men. The bolts on the tower side of the exit to the mansion hadn’t been moved.
Allan could not see any way that men could have come from the house side through this door, and nor could Black have gone out through it, shut and locked it, and slid the bolts closed again from the other side.
He must have left through the tunnel. And they could do nothing but wait to see whether he had betrayed them.
“It is Christmas Day,” Allan said. “Let’s have some Christmas carols, and play some games. And we shall make wassail to have with our dinner.”
As they sang, Allan waited—no doubt they all waited—for the marquess’s men to come storming the tower. Even the bolts would not stand up forever to a determined assault with a battering ram. At the first sign of an assault, they would flee out through the tunnel.
But the afternoon wore on with no such invasion, and Allan was feeling much more relaxed by the time they gathered in the dining room to toast Christmas itself, the Christ child, the king, and one another.
Perhaps Black had been telling the truth when he claimed to be on their side. But if so, why had he come? Why had he left without a word? And did he intend to return, or had he abandoned his possessions?
The cook at the Golden Adonis kept the Sheppard brothers well supplied with leftovers, and in the early hours of this morning, she had outdone herself.
The club had gone all out for Christmas last night, including in its catering.
“You might as well take all this,” said the cook.
“Most of us are going to family or friends for Christmas, so I shan’t need it to feed the other employees. ”
She had loaded them down with slices of goose, beef and venison, roasted partridge, mincemeat pies, roasted and boiled vegetables, and other delicacies. Pears poached in brandy. Even a whole Christmas pudding that had somehow escaped consumption.
It made for a delightful feast, and if some of the brothers were wishing for other loved ones, Allan among them, they put on such a pretense of good cheer that perhaps, like Allan, they half convinced themselves.
After dinner, while Zero was gorging on meat scraps, they exchanged gifts—small things they had made themselves.
Allan gave all his brothers a leather purse that could be worn around the waist, which would be a useful thing once they escaped the tower.
He had learned leather work more than two decades ago, when the marquess had exiled him, Baldwin, and Cornelius during the marquess’s third marriage.
They had spent two and a bit years on a remote family estate in County Durham, with no money for their keep or their clothes, so all three boys had gone out to work with local farmers and craftsmen.
Baldwin had made himself useful to the local physician, Cornelius had worked with a neighborhood carpenter, and Allan had tried a little bit of everything, until the squire in the nearby manor offered him work as his secretary.
Ancient history, but Baldwin’s interest in medicine was sparked then, and Cornelius was still a useful man with a saw and hammer, as shown in the little lap desks he’d made for each of them for this Christmas.
With no club tonight, they carried on with games after gift giving, then Ernest, who was the best reader of them all, continued the tradition begun by his mother, the marquess’s second wife, and read the nativity passages from the Gospel of St Luke.
Threatened, hunted, beleaguered, yet the Holy Family had won through. Allan could only pray that the brothers’ own escape into whatever Egypt they could find to shelter them would be as blessed.
His last thought as he composed himself to sleep was of Black. He found himself hoping that the man was true, that he was unharmed, and that he would return in the night.
The following morning, his first move on leaving his bedchamber was to see if Black was back. He wasn’t.
It was unusual of them to have a day off, but none of them could relax. Every now and again, one of them would come up with yet another theory about why Black had left. Most of them involved more chicanery from the marquess.
But the day passed, and nothing happened beyond the bread and water rations arriving in the late afternoon, as usual.
They had leftovers from Christmas dinner to make something of a feast with the bread—slices piled with turkey and venison and slathered in sauce. On any other night, they would have found cause for cheer. But Black’s disappearance cast a pall over them all.
It was a relief when the time came to head to the club.
*
The bad weather persisted through Christmas day and overnight, and on into the next morning.
Mel—who was loving the time with Harriet, Harmony, and Benjie—didn’t worry about it over much.
She would go to the club tonight and return to the tower after that.
Time enough to face the problems that would arise when they occurred.
She spent a relaxed day with her family and their guests, for Lydia and her uncle joined them for much of the day.
There was something between Eastwood and Harmony.
For some reason, neither seemed willing to acknowledge it, but Mel saw the yearning glances that each gave the other when they were not aware.
The oddest of thoughts crossed her mind and became stuck there.
Did she look at Lord Kemble like that? Ridiculous.
She had never yearned after a man—indeed, she neither needed nor wanted a man in her life.
Her father and her brother had both been disappointing in their own ways, and the lesson had been reinforced during her marriage and even more in her years as an investigator.
Men could not be trusted, and were more trouble than they were worth.
Kemble was, of course, a magnificent physical specimen, and his loyalty to his brothers was genuine and admirable.
But, by all accounts, he abandoned his wife when she was carrying their second child, and he somehow—nobody she had spoken to knew the circumstances—lost his first child shortly after his wife died.
Her heart wanted to believe there was another side to the story. But her logic and her investigation so far told her that more than bad luck was behind the disasters that happened to the wives of the Marquess of Teign and his sons.
The marquess was guilty. Meeting him had dissolved the last of her doubts.
And the sons—or at least some of the sons—were also victims. The evidence pointed in that direction, and what Winifred confided added to her conviction.
But Mel had seen enough of life to know that victims often preyed on weaker victims.
Falling in love with Lord Kemble would be stupid, and Mel had no intention of allowing free rein to such treacherous emotions.
Forget about Kemble. Rejoice in the fact that, for the second night in a row, she was able to put her daughter to bed. Or at least, since Harriet was ten years old, supervise the child’s bathing, read her a story, and hear her prayers.
“Will you still be here in the morning?” Harriet asked, once she was tucked up in bed.
They had already had this conversation.
“No, darling. I must go back to work. I have loved being with you, but the money I earn is what pays for all of us to have a place to live, clothes to wear, and food to eat.”
Harriet pouted. “I want you to stay with us. At least at night. Why do you have to go away?”
“I have explained this, Harriet. Living in a particular place is part of this job. Sometimes, I can come home each night and work only during the day, and sometimes I must live where I am told by my employers. This is one of those times.”
She bent to kiss her daughter, who squirmed away and covered her face with her hands. “I do not want you to go, Mama,” she said.
“I shall come back as soon as I can,” Mel promised. “Sweetheart, is Aunt Harmony not good to you?”
That had the hands dropping. Harriet’s eyes sparked with indignation. “I love Aunt Harmony. And Benjie. But I want you, too, Mama.”
“And I want you, but I also want you to have a roof over your head and enough food. Harriet, I shall see you as soon as I can. Go to sleep now, there’s a good girl.”
Harriet turned over in the bed and buried her face in her pillow. Mel backed out of the room. These painful farewells tore at her heart, but what else could she do?
Two widows left penniless by a spendthrift father and brother, and careless husbands. Two children who deserved to be raised as the young lady and young gentleman they were by birth, and given a chance at a decent life as adults.
Someone had to earn the money—not just for the house, food, and clothes Mel had mentioned, but for lessons, too. Benjie was already outstripping Harmony’s knowledge of Greek and science, and Harriet would also soon need more from her education than Harmony could provide.