Chapter 11
Nic was caught in his own thoughts as he made his way down to dinner that evening.
Frightening thoughts, from the doctor’s pronouncement to the figure in the passage with its living darkness, not to mention Everel’s tale and the knowledge that the automaton in the style wing had been the last Lord Francis had made—the one that ended his life.
Yet somehow the conversation he’d overheard kept edging its way in, scratching at him with its unanswerable questions and uncomfortable conclusions—uncomfortable to the point that when Nic all but ran into Lord Charborough on the way to the drawing room, he found himself reddening.
“Ah, Monterris,” the man said, falling in beside Nic on the landing. “You have my thanks for taking care of Leaf today; she is in vastly improved spirits.”
It was a shock to realise that Lord Charborough had asked him to take Leaf out for a walk only that morning, as he himself had work to attend to—a thought that set Nic’s imagination wondering what such work looked like, only to immediately wish he could scour the result from his mind.
“No thanks required, sir,” he said. “I enjoy her company and am glad to be of assistance.”
“Yes, I had a feeling you two would get along. The silly little puss was quite set against coming, you know, but I knew all would be well.”
Having reached the bottom of the stairs, they turned together toward the drawing room only to be brought up short. A footman stood before the closed door, his expression apologetic.
“The party is meeting in the second drawing room this evening, my lords,” the man said, gesturing along the hallway.
“Oh, what is this?” Lord Charborough said. “Change of room? Whatever for?”
“I couldn’t say, my lord. You will find His Grace in the second drawing room.”
Unable to satisfy the marquess’s curiosity, Nic just led the way, leaving Lord Charborough wondering aloud at the inconvenience. He strode in at their arrival, cheerful question already on his lips. “Ah, Val. What’s the meaning of changing rooms on us?”
“It seems one of the servants spilled hot coals while tending the fire,” the duke said, rising to greet his guest. “We are fortunate to have avoided greater damage, but the floor is heavily singed.”
“Ah, rotten luck, that. Was a very fine space.”
The same, Nic had to admit, could not be said of the second drawing room, a far smaller space that would not be large enough to set out the card tables after dinner.
“Oh, do you mean like this?”
Sigils whispered against Nic’s mind as Lady Lisbeth demonstrated some charmwork to Dashiell, the accent of her Brilliance altogether strange.
Through the glimmering air, the vowsmith glanced his way, perhaps thinking of their conversation that morning, or wondering what of the magic Nic felt.
It would have been so easy for Nic to stroll over and reassure him, to retrieve something of their old friendship, but it was also far too dangerous.
Nic was saved from the urge by Leaf’s arrival, her evening gown a gossamer cascade of pale green layers. “Oh good, you’re already here.” She took his arm and resolutely led him to a sofa as far from the others as they could get.
“All right, me first,” she said, straightening her skirts as she sat. “Gillingham’s room is a mess. It is, of course, entirely possible he was just untidy, although I think it’s more likely someone searched it before I got there and didn’t bother straightening up after themselves.”
“Searched it? Any idea what they might have been looking for?”
“No. His portmanteau and all his valises were open, clothing and personal items strewn around along with papers and even a few books. Some of it was quite interesting, but not worth killing him for. How did you fare? Any luck with that tape?”
Nic had almost forgotten about the tape, having done nothing more than drop it on his worktable before seeing Master Everel.
He wasn’t quite ready to share the contents of that conversation with her, however, so he said, “Nothing yet, though I spoke to a number of the servants. None of them saw or heard anything suspicious, and none of them saw Gillingham at any point in the afternoon. I asked one of the maids about when the room was cleaned, and she said the central rooms aren’t being properly cleaned at all, but the glassware was cleared away at the end of the session. ”
“Not being cleaned? Surely they must be.”
“That was my thought too, but she was very definite that Mrs. Podmarsh—that’s our housekeeper—had given orders that other than tending fires, the only thing to be done in the central rooms is clearing tables.”
“Perhaps she just meant during daylight hours,” Leaf said. “My grandmother is like that, you know, hates having servants scurrying in and out and insists they work only when she’s not around. What about the ladder?”
“The groundskeeper brought it in yesterday because one of the portraits in the hall needed rehanging.”
Leaf gave something of a defeated shrug. “So it would have just been lying around for anyone to take.”
“So it seems.”
“Then neither of us found anything useful.”
“There is something else.”
She raised her dark brows in hopeful anticipation. The rest of the party remained gathered around the fireplace in a bubble of bright chatter, yet Nic lowered his voice all the same.
“I overheard your uncle and your father arguing,” he said. “After I saw your father come out of my father’s rooms.”
“Out of your father’s rooms? Do you mean his study?”
“No.”
With barely a pause for breath, Nic proceeded to tell her everything he had seen and heard on his way in from the grounds, from Lord Ricard’s demand to have the Requisite Care Clause invoked to her father’s plea for him to let his anger go.
While he spoke, Leaf’s expression shifted rapidly from shock to confusion to a pensive little frown, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
“That makes it sound like our fathers have…”
“Yes,” Nic said when she didn’t finish. “That’s what I thought too.”
A crease cut between her brows. “And you’re saying it was my father who initiated this contract?”
“He didn’t tell you so?”
“No! He said your father made the offer. That is just like him, though, to lie if it meant avoiding an argument. Not that it stopped me putting my sasinage contract in front of him for the twenty-third time.”
“You keep count?”
“Yes, I find it helps cushion the refusal somehow.”
For a few long seconds, she stared across the room at her father standing by the fire, his broad shoulders squared and his gaze resting upon the duke with a faint smile.
“And Uncle Ricard didn’t want him to make the offer at all,” she said after a time, as though she was slowly working through the implications of his words. “And wants to browbeat him into giving it up by invoking the Requisite Care Clause. I think my uncle dislikes your father very much.”
“While your father likes him very much.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “That might be so, although it doesn’t help us with who killed Mr. Gillingham.”
“No,” Nic said. “And it—”
Leaf gasped, gripping his arm. “Unless Uncle Ricard wanted a reason to invoke the clause! A valet dying wouldn’t be enough, I shouldn’t think, but one of the negotiation party would be.”
“But why Gillingham? He could have chosen one of the others rather than his own man.”
Nic tried his best not to think about Dashiell’s lifeless body hanging from the chandelier and failed.
“Perhaps because it was easiest. They spent a lot of time together, and though Uncle Ricard would likely have kept Gillingham on despite his excommunication, without his ties to the guild his usefulness would have been greatly diminished.”
She wasn’t wrong, and Nic found himself watching Lord Ricard across the room.
The man sat with a newspaper open before him, ignoring everyone gathered in preparation for dinner.
“He did leave to meet Gillingham not long before the man was found. For all we know he asked Gillingham to meet him in the negotiation chamber.”
“It fits horribly well,” Leaf said. “Although if he did kill Gillingham to make my father invoke the care clause, does Papa’s refusal mean he will have to try again?”
The horrifying possibility that Gillingham’s death might not be the last shivered through Nic’s skin. “We had better keep an eye on him this evening.”
“Agreed,” she said. “Although that might be difficult if he leaves early again.”
On her words, the dinner bell sounded. One by one the gathered company got to their feet, their movement dragging the evening inexorably on.
“We could be wrong,” Nic said, all too aware of how much wishful thinking rang in his words.
“We could be,” Leaf agreed, rising. “But it wouldn’t change the fact that unless it was one of the servants, Gillingham was murdered by someone in this room.”
That evening’s entertainment was to be cards, so after dinner the whole party—Lord Ricard included—made their way to the conservatory.
The conservatory had always been Nic’s favourite room.
It owned less grandeur for grandeur’s sake and, with its long bank of windows, was often the lightest, warmest room in the Court.
Indoor plants flourished in a collection of ornamental pots and containers, filling the space with greenery, while a large cage of echoes helped Nic feel less alone whenever isolation became a visceral ache inside his flesh.
Card tables had already been set up, yet as the guests filed in, Lord Ricard said, “I’m all for cards, but I seem to recall Lord Monterris promised us a song.”
It was a private party and Lord Ricard was a guest, but to make such a demand seemed poor form. Lord Charborough must have thought so, for he said, “It hardly seems appropriate after last night, Ricard.”
“Then he can sing something sad.”
It was almost a snap, and as Lord Ricard threw a sneering glance the duke’s way, Nic realised the request had nothing to do with him.