Chapter 7 #4
“The doctor seems to have quite a liking for Lady Leaf,” he said instead.
“Yes, he does, doesn’t he,” Dashiell agreed. “Of long standing, I believe. Unfortunately for him. He’s Lady Charborough’s physician, you know.”
Nic risked a sidelong glance the vowsmith’s way. “Unfortunate because his position precludes him being able to marry her?”
“No.” Dashiell met his gaze. “Because she doesn’t seem to have noticed he exists.”
Nic’s heart gave a heavy thump at so intent a stare, but before he could question any underlying meaning, a distant scream tore at his attention. The low chatter around them stuttered to a halt, heads turning toward the door. Lord Charborough got to his feet. “What in God’s name was—?”
The scream came again, high-pitched and wild.
The duchess.
Leaving frightened questions milling in his wake, Nic tore open the door and sped into the hallway.
There he paused only to listen, before following the high-pitched wail at a run, a fearful pulse thrumming in his ears.
The scream wasn’t coming from his mother’s rooms but from the upper gallery of the negotiation chamber, where an open door led from the hallway to its interior balcony.
Charging through, Nic found the duchess backed up against the wall, her eyes fixed upon the centre of the room.
“Mama?” Nic gripped her arms before turning to look for what troubled her. “What is—?”
The rest of the question remained unspoken, swallowed along with Nic’s breath as the other guests piled in behind him on a chorus of queries and cries.
“By God,” someone whispered, but if God had ever watched over Monterris Court, he had surely abandoned them now, for there, hanging from the central chandelier, was Rufus Gillingham.
The young man dangled like a lifeless doll, his weight tilting the chandelier such that half of its candles had fallen from their sconces onto the table below, where a tall ladder sat at a drunken angle.
“The house,” the duchess wailed, shaking in Nic’s arms. “It’s coming for us. It’s coming for us all!”
“Nonsense,” the duke said. “Silla? Silla! Take Her Grace to her rooms. She is naturally quite overset by such an unpleasant sight.”
The duchess spun upon her husband. “It hates you most of all,” she spat. “None of us are safe!”
Nic squeezed her arms. “Mama, it’s all right. Here, look at me.” His words drew her gaze with the effort of one swimming against a strong current. “I’m sure it was just a terrible accident,” he said, not believing his own words. “And Silla is here now, see?”
“Yes, Your Grace, come now,” Silla said, pressing out a flat smile for Nic alone as she took over. “Let us get you to bed.”
As Silla led the duchess away sobbing, Nic became aware of the silence along the balcony and turned to find half the guests watching him, as though his mother was more frightening than the hanging body.
Lady Theresa looked disgusted, but when he glared at her she looked away with a theatrical shudder.
“How horrible,” she said. “Leaf, Lizzy, do look away. This is no sight for delicate eyes. Where is Ricard? Someone ought to—”
But before she could finish her words, a rush of late footsteps heralded the arrival of Lord Ricard.
The man pushed through the collected guests in the doorway only to halt abruptly, eyes caught to the dangling figure.
“Gillingham! What—?” His gaze flitted about the room, taking in the terrible details, before he gripped the duke’s shoulder, pulling him roughly around. “Explain this, Val.”
“I cannot.” The duke straightened his dark glasses and brushed the creases from his coat. “It was you who left to meet with him, not I.”
“And did not find him awaiting me as expected!”
“Poor man,” Lady Theresa wailed, lifting the corner of her shawl to her eyes.
“To climb all the way up there and do such a thing, when he was always so cheerful.” She turned dawning horror toward Master Everel.
“You don’t think it was that malaise, Master Everel? Perhaps he heard the Mad Friar and—”
The duke heaved a put-upon sigh. “Mere stories, Lady Theresa. It is more likely he took his own life due to his excommunication.”
A sensible suggestion, but Nic thought of Dashiell’s warning the night before—the man had been sure to go on working, might even have revelled in the lack of boundaries left to him.
Gillingham had seemed the sort of man who slid easily through life upon a suggestive smile, and after Rowerre and the automaton and the ghosts, it was hard to believe the answer was so simple—thoughts Nic kept to himself because the implications were too terrible to consider.
Perhaps having something of the same thought, Dr. Fanshaw cleared his throat. “We ought to send for the magistrate.”
“Edwin!” Lady Theresa cried. “You cannot mean it. And have some puffed-up nobody asking questions? I shudder to think.”
“And what then of the contract?” Lord Charborough asked.
Nic caught a flicker of disgust on Dashiell’s face before the vowsmith tucked it away.
“Unfortunately, you are correct in your concern, Lord Charborough. Whatever I might personally feel about the situation, breaking the lock-in by bringing in a third party would void the contract, requiring one of you to retract and pay both the compensation payment and the guild breakage fees. Unless you wish to invoke the Requisite Care Clause, of course, though I warn you there is no way the contract could be finished in the few days it would take the king’s men to arrive from London. ”
“No! Gosh no.” Lord Charborough let out a tight laugh. “No need to do that, making ourselves the talk of the town in the process? No. It’s plain the man killed himself. Nothing more to be said.”
There was nothing plain about it, and the ease with which a young man’s death could be dismissed the moment it got in the way chilled Nic to the bone.
“Well said, Charles,” the duke agreed. “Perhaps we ought to stop staring at the poor man and leave the servants to the unenviable task of getting him down. In the circumstances, however, it would be ill-considered to continue with our evening entertainments. Best we adjourn; we’ve all had quite the shock and the ladies are clearly distressed. ”
All eyes turned to Lord Ricard, still frozen at the railing. For a long, tense moment, he did not move, did not speak, just stared out at the dangling body of his man. Before, with a disgusted huff, he spun away and strode out without a word.