Chapter Seventeen
A thousand confused fears, not least for Rupert’s life, flashed through her mind. Then the illusion fell away. It seemed that, unbalanced by alternate gloom and candlelight, she still expected him to be a boy of sixteen, not…this.
Brushing such unhelpful thoughts aside, she closed and locked the door again while he gazed around, hat in hand. She moved toward the stairs, beckoning, and he followed close behind.
“Which is your room?” he whispered on the second-floor landing, his breath stirring her hair.
An incomprehensible frisson stole down her spine.
“In case we have to bolt for it,” he added.
“That way.” She pointed behind them toward the main staircase and kept moving. “This one is Mr. and Mrs. Otteridge…”
Rupert reached for the door handle, and she hastily grasped him by the wrist, glaring at him.
His lips twitched, but he stood back, letting her press her ear to the door, then scratch it.
She didn’t think the Otteridges traveled with personal servants, but there could still be a house servant inside, lighting lamps or providing warm washing water or fresh towels.
Only when no one responded, and she heard nothing within, did she turn the handle—it was not locked—and go in.
It was dark. Rupert, who’d had the forethought to snatch a night candle from the foot of the stairs, nipped back out into the passage to light it from one of the wall sconces there, and came back, the glow emphasizing the sharp angles and hollows of his adult face.
“Muddy shoes,” he murmured. “Guns. Or anything that might have been Dinah’s.” He held the candle higher, shining it around the room till it landed on another door. “There’s a dressing room. I’ll do that one.”
Since the wardrobe in the main room was full of Mrs. Otteridge’s clothes, and the dressing table with feminine brushes and creams and perfumes, Kate suspected the dressing room was a more likely hiding place.
But then, if Otteridge was used to slapping his wife into submission—or silence—he might well hide things among her possessions.
But Kate found nothing more suspicious than a morning gown with a slightly muddy hem.
The shoes and boots were all clean, and all Mrs. Otteridge’s.
Kate raked inside pockets and on shelves and drawers.
She even opened the jewel case on the dressing table but found nothing out of the ordinary, certainly no dancer on a silver chain.
She slid her hand under pillows and both sides of the mattress, then knelt down and peered under the bed.
Rupert appeared in the dressing room doorway. “He sleeps in here. Fastidious man—nothing muddy, no pistol, nothing in the trunk except other traveling bags.”
“Oh well. Let’s try the Newmans.” She cast a quick glance around the dressing room as he left it. “Your hat!” she exclaimed, snatching it off the bed.
He grinned without obvious repentance. “Not very good at sneaking around.”
At least nothing looked obviously disturbed in either room. Rupert opened the bedchamber door a crack, then slipped out, motioning to her to follow.
Leaving him to close the door, Kate walked down the hall to the Newmans’ room and again pressed her ear to the door before knocking and entering.
The Newmans did not have a separate dressing room and obviously shared the bed.
Rupert began feeling beneath the mattress while Kate again started with the wardrobe.
“Their things are all mingled,” she said in surprise.
Rupert shrugged. “Intimacy.” He got to his feet and looked inside the bedside cabinet.
Kate closed her mouth. Perhaps the Newmans were more happily married than she’d guessed from his flirting and his wife’s jealousy. Or perhaps they were just untidy, chaotic people.
Intimacy. The word bothered her for some reason. Like a personal criticism instead of an explanation.
“There’s nothing here,” Rupert said at last. “Let’s try Nye. If we’ve time?”
“He retires late, though he could still come in. We’ll have to listen—”
On the word, she heard movement outside, a distant crunch of gravel under wheels and hooves. Rupert strode to the window and pulled back the curtain.
“Was that someone leaving?” he wondered. “Or arriving? I can’t see from here.”
“We might see from Nye’s room. He’s on the corner, so he might have a window to the front of the house too.”
The passage was still blessedly quiet, and Nye’s was the next room along. His was the one she half expected to be locked, since, even if innocent of the crimes, he was the political opposition to the other guests.
But his door opened as easily as the others. After all, he was also an old friend of Lord Chadbon’s. Kate knew a brief moment of guilt—what would the Chadbons think of her prying amongst their guests’ belongings like this? Actually, she didn’t think much of herself.
“This is all a bit grubby, isn’t it?” she said when the door was closed and the candle set down, revealing a comfortable, masculine room in dark colors with sporting pictures on the walls.
“So is murder.”
“The end justifies the means?” she said doubtfully, opening yet another wardrobe door that was not her own.
“In some things. Not taking a life. Or trying to.”
“You really don’t like death, do you?”
“No,” he said from one of the windows, which did indeed look onto the front of the house. “It’s a post chaise. Just arrived, by the look of the horses. The postilions are taking it around the side.”
“Chadbon receives guests and messengers all the time. The road must be open at last. We need to solve this tonight, Rupert.”
He nodded, letting the curtain fall back into place and moving toward the bed.
Either Nye was neat by nature or his valet was.
His hairbrushes and clothes brush were clean, his shaving kit neatly shelved by the washstand.
Clothes, sleeve buttons, and cravat pins were all put away in their proper place, as were boots and shoes on the floor of his wardrobe.
None of his footwear was muddy. Unless he had hidden a pair elsewhere in the room, he had not shot at her from outside the house last night.
She found no firearms either, or anything remotely feminine that could have come from Dinah or any other woman, not even mementos of his late wife or his betrothed.
Well, if he really had killed them, he probably didn’t want any reminders of them.
Part of Kate couldn’t quite believe what she was considering such civilized, important men to be capable of.
She moved on to the desk at the same time as Rupert.
Two or three folded letters directed to him at Chadbon Court were piled on one side.
Another lay open and incomplete, perhaps Nye’s reply to one of them.
She let her eyes dart over the half page of his writing, her attention caught by the various names scattered throughout: Chadbon, Otteridge, Ambrose…
“It’s addressed to Lord Liverpool,” Rupert noted.
“The prime minister… Then he is spying.” Hardened by the knowledge, she let herself read the missive properly. He began by grumbling about the weather that was keeping him here, then immediately after mentioned Gilbert’s returning soldiers bill as the reason for the meeting.
They are still squabbling over the fine details, but frankly there is nothing to object to, and we might well consider supporting it, one way or another.
My only quibble is Otteridge’s involvement.
I suspect he is trying to steal Ambrose’s thunder, but as usual, they’ll both lose out to Chadbon, unless Ambrose’s charming young wife manages to whip them all into shape, which I would not put past her. Something odd—
“What’s that?” Rupert whispered, interrupting her perusal.
Only then did she hear it—approaching footsteps, surely from the main staircase. She caught her breath, staring at Rupert.
The footsteps slowed, as though closing in on them.
Rupert seized her by the hand and dragged her toward the dressing room, which they had not yet had time to search.
She only just managed to pick up their candle, which wobbled precariously in its little dish.
The footsteps paused outside the passage door.
Almost at the dressing room, Rupert skidded to a halt and dived back to grab his hat from a chair, then they bolted together. Rupert seized the door handle and shoved.
It was locked.
And the bedroom door was already opening.
In panic, Kate grasped the key in the lock and turned it, and they fell into the dressing room. As Rupert swung the door, she could see the growing beam of candlelight entering the bedchamber from the passage.
Rupert finished closing the door very softly. For a moment they stared at each other over their own solitary candle, shaded by Kate’s hand. She didn’t see how they could possibly get away with this. Discovery was surely upon them. Yet Rupert’s eyes were dancing with mischief.
It was disarming. But dear God, if they were caught in here…
She frowned suddenly. Why would anyone lock their dressing room door when their door to the passage was unlocked?
As though sensing her thought, Rupert took the candle from her and held it higher, shading it from the connecting door with his hat.
They were not in a dressing room after all. They were in a feminine bedchamber, complete with four-poster bed and a lady’s dressing table. It even smelled of lavender, a perfume that was naggingly familiar. Who used that?
There was no time to discover. As one, they hurried across to the door opposite, which, presumably, led to the passage. From the other room, heavy footsteps approached the connecting door.
Rupert closed his fingers around the handle.
“It’s locked,” he breathed.
And it must have been from the outside, for this time, there was no key to turn. They were trapped.
*