Chapter 38
“There it is.” Arabella pointed. “Right in front of us.”
Julian peered out through the carriage window. The house looked imposing, half-swallowed by the storm. “Good Lord. It looks like an old castle.”
“I believe it was once,” Arabella said. “Or so Sebastian told me. Although at this point, I do not know what I can believe of anything he ever told me.”
“No,” Julian said grimly. “Unfortunately not.” He looked at her. “What shall we do?”
“First,” Arabella said, “we ought to stop the carriages here. He is sure to have someone watching for them. We will have to walk the rest of the way.”
Julian did not love this idea but knew well enough that it was likely the only sensible one.
He rapped on the carriage door and stepped out.
Gideon, drawing on his time in the militia, had already advised that they extinguish the carriage lamps some distance off, so the three carriages sat dark in the storm, lit only by occasional flashes of lightning.
The weather here was, if anything, worse than it had been at Lynden House.
He knocked on the other two carriage doors, and his friends climbed out one by one.
“We walk from here,” he said. “Arabella says he is bound to have someone watching the approach.”
“Getting soaked through is among my very favorite activities,” Rhys said with a roll of his eyes.
“Really,” James said, “I had thought you preferred being snowed in.”
“If ever you tire of being a gentleman and a peer of the realm, I do believe there is a position open at court for a jester,” Rhys shot back.
Even now, amid everything, his friends found room for humor, and it gave Julian an odd measure of comfort.
“Right,” Nathaniel said. “Once we reach the house, we split up. There are likely several entrances. Arabella, do you recall?”
“Four that I know of. The front door, the garden door at the back, and the servants’ entrance.”
“Then we pair off,” Nathaniel said. “Each pair takes a door, and once inside, we search every room.”
“What if we come upon Devereau himself?” James asked.
“Hogtie him,” Gideon suggested.
“Subdue him,” Nathaniel said. “But whatever you do, do not knock him out so hard that we cannot question him afterward.”
“And if we come across servants?” James asked.
“My hope is he has not brought many here. It is not the sort of business a man wants witnesses to. If you do find any, lock them gently into a room, tell them their master has been up to no good, and that the constables will arrive shortly to deal with him. That should at least reassure them we are not common highwaymen.”
“Very well,” Nathaniel said. “Let us go.”
He and Julian walked at the head of the line, Arabella beside Julian, and the others following behind. Besides his friends, they had brought an assortment of valets and trusted men, twelve in total. They split up at the house, each pair moving quietly toward their assigned door.
Julian, Nathaniel, and Arabella stayed together and made for the garden door, where they had to break a small pane of glass to get through. Fortunately, a roll of thunder covered the sound nicely.
Inside, the darkness did little to help their progress.
“We check the chambers first,” Julian said.
“Second floor,” Arabella whispered, and the three of them climbed the stairs. Several boards cracked beneath them, and each time, Julian swore quietly under his breath.
At the top, they turned left and tried the first door.
Julian prayed silently that they would find Clara and David behind it and not Sebastian Devereau.
He wanted to find the man, badly, but his wife and child came first. The first room was empty, every piece of furniture shrouded in white.
They moved on to the next, and the one after, until they found a locked door.
“Why would a door be locked?” Nathaniel said. “This must be it. This must be where they are.”
“How do we get in with it locked?” Arabella asked.
Nathaniel stepped back as if to kick it.
“That will make noise,” Julian said. “I do not think even the loudest crack of thunder will cover that the way it covered the glass downstairs.”
“The housekeeper’s keys,” Arabella whispered. “She would have a whole chain of them. If we go down and find her, we could borrow them.”
Julian felt sweat break out despite the cold. That sounded far more time-consuming than they had any time to spare for, but it might also be the only option left to them. “Would the housekeeper not keep them on her person?”
“If there is a housekeeper at all. When I was here, there was not one in residence, Sebastian told me the house was usually kept shut up entirely. I do not even think the staff who showed me round live here permanently. We could go down and at least look. He showed me the servants’ quarters once, and I believe I can remember roughly where her room would be. ”
Julian shook his head, then leaned his forehead against the door. “Clara,” he called softly. “Clara, are you there?”
“Do not be so loud,” Nathaniel hissed.
“She must know we are here.” He pressed closer to the door. “Clara, do not lose heart. We are coming for you, I promise you that. I love you, no matter what you heard, no matter what you read into it. I love you. I will not leave this house without you.”
Arabella, beside him, was smiling faintly despite everything.
“What is it?” he said.
“Nothing. Only that it is good to see you truly in love again.”
“I have never truly been in love before, and you know that perfectly well.”
“I suppose I do.” She glanced between the two men. “I think only Julian and I should go down for the keys, Nathaniel. You should stay here in case he returns and tries to move her.”
Nathaniel wrapped his hand around the dagger at his belt. “My dagger and I shall keep watch, then.”
Arabella and Julian set off back down the stairs. On the way, they passed Lucian and Rhys coming up. He gave a quick account of what they had found and went up again to keep searching the remaining rooms in case the locked door was not the right one after all.
The house was quiet save for the occasional dull thud of a door opening and closing somewhere, whether from his own men or someone else entirely, he could not say.
Below stairs, in the servants’ quarters, Julian noticed at once the absence of any familiar household smell—no beeswax, no smoke from a kitchen fire. What he smelled instead was dust.
“Nobody has been here in some time,” he said, sniffing the air.
“You have always been something of a bloodhound,” Arabella said.
“I am glad to hear you have not entirely lost your sense of humor, even now.”
“Do you not remember what my father and yours always used to say? When there is nothing left in the world, when it looks as though you have reached the end of the road and there is nowhere further to turn, the only thing left that can give you any comfort at all is a sense of humor.”
They located the housekeeper’s office and found a chatelaine of keys hanging from a nail by the door. They had just taken it down and turned to go back upstairs when someone seized Julian roughly from behind.
“There he is, the scoundrel,” a voice said.
“Let him go,” James’ voice came at once, and Julian was shoved forward and released. He spun around.
“Gideon. Why in God’s name did you do that?”
“I thought you were Sebastian.” Gideon looked genuinely sheepish. “What are you doing down here?”
“We found a locked chamber upstairs that may hold Clara, but we needed a key. Have you found anything?”
Gideon shook his head. “We spent a mortifying amount of time fighting the servants’ door. We have only just begun searching the ground floor.”
“Very well,” Julian said. “We are going back up. The two of you finish here. We have still seen nothing of Devereau, nor any servants.”
The two of them climbed back up, and as they reached the landing, Julian caught a flicker of light from the corridor to the right, the one direction they had not yet tried.
“What lies down there?” he asked Arabella.
“I am not certain. I was never taken that way.”
“I will check it.” He turned to her. “Take the keys back to Nathaniel and see whether Clara is behind that door. I will join you both shortly.”
They parted, and Julian made his way down the corridor alone. From somewhere in the distance, a door banged shut. He turned back, wishing his friends did not cause such a ruckus while searching, but then pressed on.
Outside the door from which the candlelight flickered, he stopped and looked through the gap where it stood slightly ajar.
Sitting there, with a glass of what looked like whiskey in one hand, was Sebastian Devereau.
Julian’s hands curled into fists. One went automatically to the dagger at his belt.
He wished, fiercely, that one of his friends were here with him; it would have made for a far better ambush than going in alone.
He could go back for Nathaniel or one of the others who had to be somewhere on this floor by now. He did not.
He was not going to lose this chance.
He steadied his breath and with one swift kick, sent the door swinging open.