Chapter Five
S omething must have been horrifically wrong with him. That was all Dunstan could think as he walked away from Carys, intent on joining Alden and the others in decorating the trees. He must have consumed a bad bit of bacon at breakfast or put too much sugar in his tea. Those were the only explanations for the shivery, overheated way he felt and the quivering in his gut.
Well, not the only explanations. He could not afford to think of the other, however. He had learned too much in his miserable life to trust feelings of affection that extended beyond friendship. Charlotte had taught him that.
“My lord, are you quite well?” Edgar asked, approaching Dunstan as he veered a bit aimlessly off toward the stack of family diaries on one of the great hall’s tables instead of joining Alden and Arnold at the tree, as he’d originally intended.
“Hmm? I beg your pardon?” Dunstan asked, pulling himself out of his distressing emotions.
He focused on Edgar and found the underbutler staring at him with an odd look and holding a glass of punch. It struck Dunstan as strange, like Edgar was a party guest who had arrived days early for the Christmas ball instead of one of the servants of the house. Then again, the inhabitants of Godwin Castle had a tendency not to treat each other as the masters and servants they were.
“Oh!” Dunstan said, remembering the question Edgar had asked. “Yes, I am quite well, thank you.”
Edgar pursed his lips for a moment, then offered Dunstan the glass he held. “Here, my lord. Perhaps you should refresh yourself before continuing with the decorations.”
“Yes, yes, thank you,” Dunstan said absently, taking the glass.
Edgar watched him in anticipation for a moment. Dunstan smiled at him, then raised the glass as if toasting the man.
That caused Edgar to make a strange face before turning and walking slowly for the door.
It was the oddest interaction Dunstan had had all morning, and that was saying something. Perhaps the Curse of Godwin Castle truly was overtaking them all and causing some sort of mild form of madness.
“Dunstan, stop lollygagging and bring yourself over here,” Alden called from the tree, snapping Dunstan from his thoughts. “We need another set of hands.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Dunstan said.
He raised the glass of punch to take a drink, but the sickly-sweet, plummy scent did not appeal to him. He stepped over to the table with the old diaries and put the cup down before joining his brother at the tree instead.
“Are you certain we should be affixing candles to a cut pine tree?” Arnold asked Alden once Dunstan had joined the two of them.
“Why not?” Alden asked, handing a small basket of candle holders to Dunstan. “The effect is glorious when all the candles are lit.”
“Oh, I do not doubt it,” Arnold said. “Only, do you truly think it wise to tempt fate by bringing lit candles anywhere near something so combustible inside a cursed castle?”
Alden snorted. “Do not tell me you actually believe in the Curse of Godwin Castle.”
Dunstan looked at him, looked at the basket of candle holders, then reached for the tree, removing the holders that had already been affixed to it.
“No candles on the trees,” he insisted, plunking the holders he’d removed into the basket.
“Dunstan,” Alden scolded him with a grin. “You’ve no need to be such a killjoy.”
“I would rather not have my home and future possession burned to the ground before I can inherit it,” Dunstan answered.
“There’s an idea,” Arnold said as he went to work assisting Dunstan in removing the candle holders. “Perhaps if you burn the castle to the ground the curse will be lifted.”
Dunstan did not deign to reply to a suggestion like that. He merely stared hard at Arnold and yanked a candle holder from the tree with particular force.
Of course, in doing that, he speared himself on some of the needles, scratching his fingers to the point where he had to set the basket down to suck on them. That could have been seen as a coincidence or a result of his carelessness, not the curse.
But five minutes later, Carys let out a yelp at the other end of the great hall as she nearly spilled off the stepladder she was using to hang red ribbons around the grand fireplace. Dunstan’s heart nearly leapt right out of his chest at her cry of alarm, and he twisted as if to bolt towards her so that he might rescue her, even though she’d already landed on her feet.
In doing so, his feet seemed to tangle beneath him, and instead of rushing gallantly across the room, he nearly fell over himself. The only thing that saved him was that he was close enough to the edge of the table to grasp it for support. But in doing so, he jolted the table enough to send the glass of punch he’d set down earlier spilling.
“Oh! Stop it from damaging the diaries!” Lady Kat shouted, pushing herself up from where she was seated in a chair near the end of the table and dislodging Napoleon from her lap as she did.
Napoleon let out an irritated hiss and darted under the table, nearly tripping Lady Minerva as she, too, came to swipe away the diaries as a puddle of punch raced toward them. By that point, Dunstan had recovered from his near fall enough to help in the efforts to remove the diaries from the path of the punch, but in his and Lady Kat’s haste to save the ancient texts, they crashed into each other and dropped their armfuls of books.
“Good lord!” Lady Kat hissed in exasperation, not unlike Napoleon, as several of the old books hit the floor and split, sending pages scattering. “I was of two minds about your family’s curse, Lord Dunstan,” she said as they both crouched to pick up the brittle pages, “but you shall make me a believer yet.”
“Is everything well?” Carys asked as she suddenly appeared by Dunstan’s side. She crouched with him to help gather pages. “Nothing is damaged beyond repair?”
Lady Kat gave up reaching for pages and stood slowly, a sly smile gracing her handsome face. Dunstan saw a bit too much into that look, particularly when she said, “I shall leave you to it,” and stepped away.
A tightness formed in Dunstan’s chest that somehow also caused his face to heat. His suspicion that the family had gotten it into their head that they should matchmake for him grew.
“It does not look good,” he said gloomily, gathering as many of the broken books as he could, then standing and searching for a clean place to put them. Napoleon had jumped onto the table and was now licking at the spilled punch, so the table was out of the question.
“Let’s move these to Lord Gerald’s desk,” Carys said, taking control of the situation.
Dunstan breathed half a sigh of relief. He could always count on Carys to keep a calm head when everything else was in turmoil.
But as the two of them walked to the desk together and deposited their armfuls of broken diaries, he felt a distinct anxiety rolling off of his friend. She peeked furtively at him a few times as they set their books down, then went back for the rest of them.
Finally, when they’d taken all the books to the desk, while half the family seemed to be covertly watching the two of them instead of going about their decorating or investigating tasks, Dunstan said, “Perhaps there is something of the curse infiltrating our activities today. Nothing seems quite right. Perhaps we should—”
Dunstan’s attempt to suggest they should work apart for the remainder of the day was interrupted by Lady Kat’s shriek of “Napoleon!”
Dunstan frowned, uncertain what could have caused such an outburst until he saw Lady Kat rushing toward the table. Napoleon was crouched uncomfortably on the tabletop and seemed to be hacking and convulsing.
“It is merely a hairball, my darling,” Waldorf said, leaping up from where he’d been combing through journals. He seemed concerned, though. “He gets them all the time.”
“Not like this,” Lady Kat said, pulling Napoleon into her arms and attempting to soothe him. “It must be the punch. He licked at it, then went into a fit. Something in it must have disagreed with him. Someone fetch me water.”
Prickles broke out down Dunstan’s back. That punch was intended for him. Edgar had handed it to him personally.
He sucked in a breath and searched the room to ascertain if Edgar was still present. The man was gone, so Dunstan glanced to Carys instead.
It could not be deliberate, could it? He was aware that Edgar had a particular interest in Carys, but the man was not so foolish as to stoop to poisoning him as if to eliminate a rival, was he? In any case, Dunstan had no marital intentions toward Carys whatsoever. Perhaps it was all meant to be some sort of cruel joke?
“I’ll have one of the maids clean up the mess immediately,” Carys said, stepping away from Dunstan and heading toward the hall, where maids were likely going about their business nearby.
“Oh, my poor darling,” Lady Kat wailed, moving to the sofa and sitting with a still-hacking Napoleon on her lap. “What has happened to you?”
Napoleon answered by convulsing a few times, then vomiting up the punch-colored contents of his stomach.
Unfortunately, Lady Bernadette was nearby, and when she witnessed the expulsion, she turned downright green and pressed a hand to her stomach, whispering, “Oh, dear.”
It was a small blessing that Lady Bernadette was able to propel herself up from the chair where she had been reading diaries and that she made it to the hallway before the sound of her distress wafted back into the room.
Dunstan pinched his face in misery and glanced around at the stunned assembly of his family.
“Curses can be such a bother sometimes,” Lady Minerva said with a sigh.
Dunstan hoped his cousin-in-law was merely making light of the situation to put everyone else at ease. A few of them laughed weakly, and everyone went about their business once more. Napoleon seemed to settle after vomiting, but Lady Kat was left with a soiled gown and a cat on her lap that did not seem to want to leave her.
That would have been enough to fill an entire week with disaster, but no more than ten minutes after the turmoil, Carys returned to the great hall, her face stony with concern, leading a short, bespectacled gentleman in a plain suit behind her. Edgar followed the two of them, his back stiff and his hands clasped behind his back in the posture of a butler. There was something undeniably smug in his expression.
“Lord Gerald, you have a visitor,” Carys said, her tone colder and tighter than usual.
“A visitor?” Lord Gerald pushed himself to sit straighter in the chair where he’d mostly been watching the entertainment of his family instead of contributing to the diary research. “Who would have any interest in visiting us at this time of year?”
“Mr. Pontius Isaacson, my lord,” the short man said, stepping ahead of Carys when she shifted to the side, allowing the visitor to pass. Edgar paused by Carys’s side as well. “Solicitor in the employ of His Majesty, King Swithin’s Exchequer.”
Dunstan was merely curious, until the man identified himself as a solicitor. He abandoned the decorating he’d returned to so that he could hurry to his uncle’s side. Cedric stood and joined the unfolding scene as well.
“Solicitor?” Cedric asked.
“Exchequer?” Uncle Gerald asked, his face pinched in distaste. “Does my wife’s cousin need money now?”
Mr. Isaacson’s face pinched as if he were not amused by the jest. He cleared his throat and said, “I will come straight to the point, my lord, as I see you are quite busy this morning.” He glanced toward the others, who all stared curiously back.
“I am entertaining the gaggle of my family,” Uncle Gerald said as Dunstan took up a position on the opposite side of his uncle’s chair as Cedric. “But I always welcome additional diversion.”
That didn’t amuse Mr. Isaacson either. “Very well,” he said with a short nod, then cleared his throat. “It has come to the attention of the royal treasury that the Godwin family has failed to pay the required taxes on Godwin Castle for more than a decade now. By our calculations, your family is in arrears to the amount of six thousand guineas.”
“Six thousand!” Cedric shouted, his eyes going wide.
The buzzing feeling of doom that had been following Dunstan around for weeks flared loudly within him.
“What utter rubbish,” Uncle Gerald said, brushing away Mr. Isaacson’s alarming statement as though the man had told him they were running low on tea. “Our taxes have been paid faithfully every year for as long as I’ve been alive.”
“It seems they have not,” Mr. Isaacson said. At least the man had the decency to nod his head respectfully to Uncle Gerald as he broke the awful news.
Carys stepped forward, adding another twist to the scene by saying, “Begging your pardon, Mr. Isaacson, but I know it to be fact that the taxes on Godwin Castle have always been paid. I keep the house accounts and send payment to Winchester myself every year.”
Mr. Isaacson turned to Carys with a shocked expression. Cedric looked surprised as well. Dunstan hadn’t been aware that Carys handled Uncle Gerald’s finances, but he wasn’t surprised.
“You?” Mr. Isaacson asked, then blinked and sniffed. “Surely not.”
“Mrs. Weatherby is not only a fine housekeeper,” Uncle Gerald defended her, “she is an exceptional accountant.”
Mr. Isaacson frowned and glanced back to Uncle Gerald again. “This explains why the taxes have not been paid,” he said. “Clearly, this woman has done something else with the money.”
“I beg your pardon?” Dunstan rushed to defend Carys. “That is an outrageous suggestion.”
“Mrs. Weatherby is as good as a member of our family,” Cedric said, his expression darkening as well. “We do not take lightly to slander against her.”
Mr. Isaacson squirmed, glancing from Cedric to Dunstan, then back at Uncle Gerald. He cleared his throat yet again, then said, “Very well. If you can provide me with proof that the taxes have been paid, some sort of receipt or account of payment, I will take that information back to the treasury and confirm it.”
“I most certainly have proof,” Carys said, her initial alarm visibly resolving into determination. She turned and marched across the great hall to Uncle Gerald’s desk.
“I will assist you,” Lady Minerva said, leaving the books she’d been poring through to race up to Carys’s side.
Awkwardness followed as Mr. Isaacson stood before Uncle Gerald, as if he were petitioning a king and did not know what to do while waiting for the answer to his inquiry, and as Dunstan and Cedric both crossed their arms and glared at the man.
“Perhaps I could fetch some sort of refreshment?” Edgar asked with a smile that seemed far too casual for the tension that gripped the room, taking a hesitant step forward.
“Certainly not!” Lady Kat snapped from where she continued to cuddle a recovering Napoleon on the sofa. “Look what your refreshment has already done.”
Edgar turned to the sofa with a confused frown, his gaze dropping to Napoleon.
“This is what has become of the last recipient of your refreshments,” Lady Kat told him, her expression so fierce it might have struck Edgar dead on the spot. When Edgar continued to look flabbergasted, Lady Kat added, “The punch you provided for Lord Dunstan spilled and my poor Napoleon lapped it up.”
Edgar gasped and whipped to face Dunstan, his eyes wide with alarm.
Dunstan wasn’t certain whether he should have the man taken into custody and questioned about his intentions immediately or whether he should roll his eyes and set the man straight where his lack of intentions toward Carys was concerned.
He had no time to do either. A moment later, Carys let out a loud sigh, then returned to the cluster of men around Uncle Gerald empty-handed.
“The payment records are not in Lord Gerald’s desk, where they should be,” she informed Mr. Isaacson. “They have most likely been removed to the formal study. In which case, it will take a bit longer to retrieve them for you.”
“A likely story,” Mr. Isaacson scoffed.
“Yes, it is a likely story,” Uncle Gerald replied, his tone full of offence. “You have no understanding of how this castle is run if you believe otherwise.”
“I have my suspicions about how it is run,” Mr. Isaacson said, eyes narrowed.
“Enough of this,” Cedric said, slashing his hand through the air. “Mrs. Weatherby has paid the taxes. I have no understanding of why you would think otherwise. The records will be procured for you forthwith, and you will have your proof that the Godwin family is honest and loyal to the king.”
“In the meantime,” Dunstan added, “I think you should leave.”
“Not until—”
“We do not have accommodation for you at the castle at present as we are expecting other family members for the season,” Uncle Gerald cut Mr. Isaacson off. “Kindly give us the name of the inn where you are staying and my staff will make certain the proof of payment you seek will be sent to you at our earliest convenience.”
Dunstan’s mouth quirked into a wry grin. Sometimes he believed his uncle to be entering his twilight years. Other times he saw full well how clever and sharp the man still was.
Mr. Isaacson hovered on his spot for a moment before bowing curtly and saying, “Very well. I am staying at The Hart and Hare. Good day to you.”
He turned and marched for the door. Edgar glanced anxiously to Uncle Gerald, then at Dunstan in outright terror, then followed the man from the room.
“I swear to you, my lord, the taxes were paid,” Carys said, her certain look twisting to worry once Mr. Isaacson was gone.
“I believe you, my dear. I most certainly believe you,” Uncle Gerald said, taking her hand and patting it.
Dunstan sent Carys a reassuring smile and was treated to a look of thanks in return, but before he could say anything, Lady Minerva shouted, “Oh!”
Everyone glanced up from what they’d been doing or turned to Lady Minerva, who was still standing by the desk, now reading through what looked like a scroll that she must have found there. The suddenness of her shout, coupled with the bizarre and intense encounter that had just passed, had Dunstan’s heart pounding against his ribs.
“What is it, my darling?” Lawrence asked, leaving the table he stood beside to go to her.
“This is extraordinary,” Lady Minerva said, tilting the parchment so that he could read it.
“What is extraordinary?” Lawrence asked.
“Firstly, this desk is filled with old bits of parchment and scrolls of an exceedingly ancient age, for some reason,” Lady Minerva said.
“Minnie, upon my honor, if you leave us in suspense instead of just stating what it is you’ve discovered, I shall waddle my way over there and beat you around the head,” Lady Muriel sighed from the sofa.
Lady Minerva laughed for a moment before saying, “It appears to be a page of some larger chronicle, or perhaps an inventory of the Godwin family’s treasures. It cannot be a first-hand account as this parchment could not possibly be nearly a thousand years old.”
“The point, my dear,” Lawrence said. “Please do reach the point.”
Lady Minerva sent him a saucy look, then said, “According to this, Morgana’s half of the amulet that Aethelbore gifted her is not, in fact, lost to time.”
“It is not?” Carys asked, stepping toward Lady Minerva.
Dunstan followed, as if by instinct.
“No,” Lady Minerva said, tilting the parchment toward Carys and Dunstan as they neared her. “According to this, Morgana’s half of the amulet was buried with her.”