Chapter 23 #2
The urge to tell her what he’d learned about his uncle burned the tip of Nic’s tongue, but like his mother’s secrets, they were truths he wasn’t sure he was ready to share.
Leaf chewed on her lip. “Perhaps the Faceless Man really is your uncle’s ghost. I didn’t think much of the idea when my aunt suggested it, but it makes a frightening sort of sense, doesn’t it.
Especially with that automaton roaming the house too.
Just think—the thing that murdered him turned on others in revenge. ”
He wished he could tell her it was ridiculous, wished he could tell her the possibility hadn’t occurred to him. Instead, he said, “But why now? He’s been dead for twenty-four years.”
“You heard what my aunt said about our fathers, how they disagreed on who would give up their title. I am sure that’s no small part of my uncle’s bitterness. Perhaps the event of another Serral and Monterris contract has awakened his rancour from beyond the grave?”
The house hates us all.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her she sounded like the gothic novels she so disliked, but what rational explanation could there be for Nic’s hand having closed on air?
Or for the living darkness that had chased them from the grotto doors?
And while Leaf had something else to set her mind to, her melancholy expression had lightened just a touch.
“Perhaps we should look in Lord Francis’s rooms,” she suggested. “In case that’s where his ghost was going.”
Nic had no desire to visit his uncle’s rooms with the newfound knowledge the man had not been his uncle at all, but he agreed, wanting more than anything to keep the hopeless light from returning to Leaf’s eyes.
Having dismissed her maid, Leaf waited in the sitting room while Nic grabbed a few bites from his breakfast tray.
It had been so long since he’d had a good meal that he ended up finishing every crumb, but soon Nic was leading the way along the upper hallway toward Lord Francis’s distant door.
The possibility he had been following the man’s ghost the night before made Nic uneasy, distressed at the thought of reaching for his arm only to miss it by twenty-four years.
With the lingering feeling he was walking with ghosts, Nic pushed open the door.
They were met with dim light and faded old carpet, moth-eaten cushion covers, and dirty windows.
Lord Francis’s rooms were much like Nic’s own, comprising a large sitting room with its own dining table, and an adjoining bedchamber and dressing room.
Although where Nic’s rooms got cleaned regularly and use alone was enough to keep the worst of the dust at bay, these had a feeling of long neglect.
“I was expecting this to be more interesting,” Leaf said, turning slowly to take in the sitting room.
“You see if this really was like The Mysteries of Udolpho, this room would have been locked,” Nic said. “And everything would be draped in holland covers and cobwebs. And there would be a portrait somewhere hidden behind black curtains.”
“There’s still the bedchamber.”
Leaf walked on toward the open door. Nic made to follow but halted as a lingering hint of magic brushed past his attention. He turned a circle in search of it, gaze raking the dusty old bookshelf, the dusty old mantelpiece, and the dusty old sofa with splits in its silk upholstery.
“Oh, this is a little better,” Leaf said from the bedchamber. “No black curtains or cobwebs, but the room is a mess. Come see.”
Abandoning his search for the spent magic, Nic joined her in the open doorway.
The room beyond looked much like Nic’s own in layout, but that was where the resemblance ended.
Books and cushions and old trinkets lay strewn about the floor, the layers of dust having been disturbed as the room was upended from its long hibernation.
“It looks like it got ransacked the other day too,” Leaf said. “Although it seems odd to ransack an unused room, unless someone was searching for something. Either that or you have an untidy ghost and it has looked like this for a while. When were you last in here?”
“Not for years. There never seemed any reason to visit.”
Because he hadn’t known who the man truly was. Nic passed a hand over his eyes and found himself wishing they hadn’t come.
“Are you all right?” Leaf touched his arm. “You look as exhausted as I do. Not more morning wine, I hope.”
He was tempted to lie so he needn’t admit to having had even a moment of joy while she mourned, but he knew it for a foolish impulse. “No, I… just didn’t get much sleep,” he said. “Dashiell and I went to the archives last night. To get a copy of Mama’s marriage contract.”
Leaf’s brows rose, and Nic realised he couldn’t explain without going all the way back to his mother’s diary, to the duke’s failure as a husband the night Millie had died, to the way life had always been at Monterris Court and the secrets Silla had spilled.
And so there in Lord Francis’s bedchamber, he sat on a faded old chair and told her it all.
All the way to the moment he had discovered his inheritance was gone.
A parade of expressions crossed Leaf’s face but she didn’t interrupt, waiting until the end to say, “I’m sorry, Nic, that’s all so awful for her.
What a mess our parents seem to have made of everything.
Do you think I should tell my father about your estate?
He might finally call the contract off before something even more awful happens. ”
“I think he already knows.”
“Oh? What makes you say that?”
“Just think. Four people are dead, one of whom is his niece, yet still your father resolutely refuses to break this contract. You cannot tell me that is just because I have a high Brilliance affinity.”
“He knows you need the money. No, stop.” She gripped his arm.
“Remember what Millie said? That Uncle Ricard had even tried to ruin your father’s business dealings?
Perhaps Papa finally found out and is trying to make amends.
It is exactly the sort of thing he would do.
He wouldn’t admit fault or apologise, he would just write a bank draft.
” She gasped. “This was an apology proposal! Of all the ridiculous, stubborn men. And now with the Requisite Care Clause invoked he’s even less likely to pull out, because he would be leaving your father with the devil of a mess and no money to show for it. ”
She threw up her arms and let them fall in a defeated gesture. “You know, I’ve never had the urge to drink away my miseries before, but I think I’m starting to see the appeal. Oh let’s get out of here. I’ve already stayed away from Lizzy far longer than I meant.”
Glad to escape, Nic followed her back into the sitting room, unable to shake the feeling that if he turned his head just so he might catch sight of Lord Francis in one of the chairs. How different life at the Court might have been had he lived. How much less lonely.
“So is your lack of sleep merely to do with searching through archives, or does it have something to do with—?”
“Stop.” Nic lifted a hand to both silence and still her as he turned his head, hunting the trace of magic that scratched at his mind once more.
“I was only asking—”
“Shh, there’s something here.” He stepped toward to the door, letting his eyes slide out of focus as he sought the sense caught somewhere between touch and sound.
“What do you mean—oh. Are you doing your magic feely thing?”
“Can we not call it that?”
“We can not call it a lot of things, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
Closing his eyes, Nic took a few more steps, trying to tell if it was getting stronger or weaker—hard when it was but a scratching whisper at the edge of hearing. “It’s not very strong. Maybe a week old or so. Here, warn me if I’m about to walk into something.”
He stepped slowly forward, hands outstretched, letting his extra sense guide the way.
“There’s a bookshelf in front of you.”
Waving a hand in front of him found Nic the edge of a shelf, and the feeling grew as he traced his fingers along the wood.
The Brilliance sang as he patted around, pressing his fingertips to each papery spine until magic pulsed through his palm, too faint to form an accent but palpable all the same. “Here.”
Nic opened his eyes to find Leaf already leaning into his vision. “Oh, it’s a wooden box. I didn’t see it there until you touched it.”
She pulled it from the shelf—a simple wooden box, unpainted and unmarked, owning a thin brass hinge but no opening latch. As Leaf tilted the lid, sigils appeared, etched in a border around its edge.
“It’s just one of those magical trick boxes,” Leaf said, handing it over. “Perhaps something Lord Francis left behind.”
“It wouldn’t feel that strong after a year let alone more than twenty. No, someone left it here recently.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. That depends on what’s inside.”
Leaf shook her head. “Trick boxes are next to impossible to open without the right code, Nic. And some of them are made to explode if you hit them with a hammer.”
Nic smiled and tucked the box into his coat. “Ah, but you see, I know an excellent vowsmith.”
They headed for the door, and as Nic pulled it closed behind them, he could imagine the ghost of Lord Francis smiled.