Chapter Eleven The Hunting Lodge #4
Sebastian released her hand at once and rose in one swift motion, all grief narrowing into action. Marianne gathered Evangeline’s pages, folded them back into the oilcloth with hands steadier than she felt, and tucked the packet beneath her cloak.
Another sound came: footsteps on the ground floor. Not Tom’s, unless Tom had suddenly become clumsy. A faint scrape. A muttered curse.
Sebastian moved to the door and listened.
Marianne crossed to him.
He looked as if he meant to order her back, then thought better of it.
“Someone is inside,” he said softly.
“Tom?”
“He would signal.”
“Roberts?”
“No.”
A shout sounded outside, distant and cut off: Tom’s voice, angry.
Sebastian’s face hardened. “Stay behind me.”
Marianne gave him a look.
He amended, barely above a whisper, “Stay where I can see you.”
“Better.”
They moved into the corridor. The lodge seemed darker now, every closed door another possible threat. From below came another footstep, then the creak of a floorboard in the hall. Whoever had entered was not searching randomly. He was moving toward the stairs.
Sebastian gestured toward the opposite end of the corridor. “There is a back stair.”
Marianne stopped. “No.”
His eyes flashed.
She whispered, “The estate plan. There is a servants’ passage behind the linen room. It connects to the gun room and then the rear yard. If we use the back stair, we meet whoever came through the service entrance. If we use the passage, we may come behind him or reach Tom.”
“How do you know?”
“I read maps.”
Even in danger, exasperated admiration crossed his face.
“Show me.”
They crossed to the linen room. The door opened with a squeal that made Marianne wince.
Inside were empty shelves, a broken chair, and mouse-nibbled rolls of old holland.
Marianne ran her hand along the rear panel until she found the latch indicated in the estate plan, disguised beneath a row of pegs.
It stuck.
Footsteps began on the main stair.
Sebastian stepped beside her and pressed his shoulder against the panel. It gave with a groan. A narrow passage yawned behind it, smelling of dust, damp plaster and old servants’ haste.
Marianne entered first because she was smaller.
Sebastian followed, pulling the panel nearly closed behind them.
The passage was dark and close, the ceiling low enough that Sebastian had to bow his head. Marianne held one hand against the wall, the other securing the packet beneath her cloak. Behind them, the intruder reached the upper corridor. A door opened. The room they had just left.
A curse.
“He knows where to look,” Marianne whispered.
“Yes.”
The passage descended by three narrow steps and turned sharply.
Marianne remembered the estate plan’s lines: linen room to gun room, gun room to rear passage, small exterior door near yard.
But memory drawn on paper and darkness under pressure were not the same.
She moved carefully, counting steps. Sebastian’s presence behind her was steady, close but not crowding.
Once, when her foot slipped on a damp patch, his hand touched her elbow and released the moment she found balance.
That, absurdly, steadied more than holding would have done.
They reached another panel. Through it came voices.
Tom.
“…told you no one passed me!”
A thud.
Sebastian’s face changed.
He shoved the panel open.
They emerged into the gun room, where old racks stood half-empty and the air smelled of oil and rust. Beyond the open door, in the rear passage, Tom stood with his arm twisted behind him by a man in a dark coat.
Roberts, the groom, lay stunned on the floor but moving.
The attacker had a knife in one hand and Tom’s collar in the other.
He turned at the sound.
Marianne recognised him at once, not by name but by type: one of Cale’s men. Not a gentleman, not a common thief. A paid hand in good boots, trained to appear invisible near power and violent near weakness.
“Give me the packet,” he said.
Sebastian moved between Marianne and the door. “Release him.”
The man smiled. “Your Grace. Mr Cale sends his compliments.”
Tom struggled. The knife tightened near his side.
Marianne’s hand closed around the oilcloth beneath her cloak.
Sebastian’s gaze flicked once to Tom, once to Roberts, once to the narrow space between attacker and door. He could not rush without risking Tom. The man knew it.
“The packet,” the man said again. “No need for unpleasantness.”
“Unpleasantness began when you entered my house,” Sebastian said.
“Your father’s house, wasn’t it? Men like you inherit more than keys.”
Sebastian’s face remained still, but Marianne saw the words strike.
The attacker saw too. “Ledger, letters, women’s stories. Burn one, bury another. Always another paper, eh?”
Marianne stepped slightly sideways.
Sebastian sensed it without looking. “Marianne.”
The attacker’s eyes shifted toward her.
Mistake.
Tom drove his heel down hard on the man’s foot, exactly as Mrs Finch had once instructed Bess to do if grabbed in a passage.
The man cursed and loosened his hold. Sebastian moved.
Not wildly. Not rashly. One controlled step, his cane cracking across the attacker’s wrist. The knife fell.
Tom wrenched free and drove his shoulder into the man’s middle.
Marianne seized the nearest object from the gun room — an old powder horn, empty but heavy — and struck the attacker’s hand as he lunged toward the packet.
He shouted.
Sebastian caught him by the collar and slammed him against the wall hard enough to shake dust from the beams.
“Your name,” Sebastian said.
The man laughed through gritted teeth. “Names cost extra.”
Sebastian pressed him harder.
“Your Grace,” Marianne said.
He stopped, breathing hard.
The attacker looked past him toward Marianne. “Make it public and Lantern House falls first. That’s the message. Not Halgrave. Not Ashmont. Not Cale. The house of women. Pretty charity. Easy scandal. Quiet women, weren’t it?”
Sebastian’s face darkened.
Marianne stepped closer. “Who sent you?”
The man’s smile was ugly. “Ask the woman in grey.”