The two men erupted into shouts, each one puffing himself up as ridiculously as possible, threats and challenges flying fast and loose between them. I heard the doctor sigh as he released my wrist. He was young for a physician, with shaggy black hair graying at the temples, a square, unremarkable face, and a wisp of a mustache over his thin lips. His complexion led me to believe he was Spanish or perhaps from somewhere in South America. He had suffered from the pox as a child, with divots and scars now peppering his skin.
“These two,” he muttered, rolling his eyes behind thick spectacles. “If they could raise the dead with the force of their argument . . .”
“It does seem impolite to fight over a woman who can’t even defend herself,” I replied. That made him chuckle, and he leaned closer, studying me. It was then I noticed his hand was on my thigh, the grip too tight to be incidental. I shifted, but there was nowhere to go on the tiny sofa. “This isn’t my fault,” I added weakly. “I only found her that way.”
“She complained to me of headaches for days,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was simply ill with some unknown malady of the brain. Even curative waters cannot help such things.”
Like greed, for example, or evil.
“Then you will speak in my defense?” I asked, although really it would make no difference. Who would they report me to? The master of the house? He could hardly turn me over to the authorities, knowing, as he did, that this murder rested on his shoulders. But they might search my room and find the stolen books I had put for safekeeping under the bed. Then they would know that I intended to steal from them. What would Mr. Morningside do to a person who tried to take from his precious collections?
“Quite readily, as soon as these two fools calm down.”
He smiled at me, rather intently, too intently for my liking. His hand remained on my thigh, and the heat of it there made me feel ill. Nobody had ever touched me in this manner, and while I generally trusted physicians, there was the not so small matter of this man being a guest here. What had he done to land himself in this cursed place? Now I was watching him back, and he flinched, suddenly taking great interest in the patterns on the carpets. What was inside him? If I looked hard enough, would I see whatever black mark stained his character?
The argument raging on next to us reached an abrupt peak, and Dr. Merriman shot up from the sofa, tangling himself in the two men, who had now come to blows over the widow’s honor. It would not surprise me in the least if the afternoon ended with a duel.
While the three of them slapped lamely at each other I took a deep breath, watching as Lee burst through the door, Mrs. Haylam not far behind with tea. Lee spared the quickest glance at the men before joining me on the sofa. He looked as pale and drawn as I. I needed no mirror to know we had become reflections of each other’s fear.
“Are you all right?” he whispered, searching my face. “You . . . You were the one to find her?”
“It’s all as I said,” I replied, putting equal weight on every word.
He took my meaning at once.
“How dreadfully, dreadfully awful,” he murmured, the very last of the blood in his face draining away. His eyes roamed to the squabbling men, but he didn’t really look at them. He was gazing beyond, thinking, and it was the same for me. What were we to do now that the scant words of warning I had given him proved prophetic?
“Gentlemen, I must insist that you stop this barbarism at once!” Mrs. Haylam bit out sternly. It was a schoolmarm’s voice, a mother’s voice, the sort of soft but steely tone that brought all three grown men instantly to heel, as if they were naughty children. “There is tea here, yes? Drink it. Sit down. There has been enough upset in this house for one morning.”
The men broke apart, each taking a separate piece of furniture and claiming it as his own.
“Now then,” she added, surveying the room and landing at last on me. She did not miss, of course, the close way Lee and I sat together. Her tight expression only became that much more strained. I had forgotten the stark, skewering power of her gaze. For a moment I remembered the crone who found me in Malton, and, as she glared at me now, I could see that spirit again within her. She had changed her clothes and hairstyle, but nothing could perfectly mask her nature. “I’m told our young maid here was the first witness to the tragedy, is that correct?”
The men piped up, but she only watched me as I nodded once.
“As such,” Mrs. Haylam continued, folding her hands together and approaching me, “I must ask that she come along now and give a statement to the master of the house. He will deal directly with the village constable. And if it would not be too much trouble, Dr. Merriman, might you examine the body and prepare an official write-up of what you find? It will make the difficulties to come that much easier to face.”
The doctor stood and brushed off his sober, simple suit. He was taking a deep breath as if to agree when Colonel Mayweather popped back up like a weasel jumping out of a burrow.
“Just a moment,” he said, twirling the ends of his mustache, agitating them until they were perfect circles. “You cannot expect us to stand idly by while nothing is done with this girl! Not only my sense of duty but my sense of logic demands that she be questioned most thoroughly. Most thoroughly! Why was she the very first to come upon poor Mrs. Eames? Why did she not call for aid? Mr. Bremerton claims he found the chit lurking, and I for one will have this lurking behavior explained.”
“For once we agree,” George Bremerton chimed in. He propped his elbow up on his knee, shaking one finger in my direction. “Why, the local constable should do the questioning himself. It’s intolerable to consider staying another moment in this place with a killer stalking the halls.”
I couldn’t feel my hands. They had gone numb with cold horror. What could I say? That they were not at all in danger? That was a lie, and while they had nothing to fear from me, I knew even now the machinery of their own demise was somewhere in motion. To lie to these men did not bother me, but in that moment, flustered and afraid, I could not conjure a single word of defense.
“There was no instrument of murder found in the room,” the doctor pointed out reasonably, unbuttoning and rebuttoning his coat. “And again, I recall the woman complaining of severe headaches—”
“She said nothing of the sort to me!” Colonel Mayweather huffed, rounding on the doctor.
“Or me,” Bremerton agreed.
I could feel Lee fidgeting helplessly beside me. Even Mrs. Haylam looked a little nervous, stranded as she was in the middle of the room, the Colonel on one side and Bremerton on the other. No matter how sincerely I silently implored the doctor to speak up again, he remained silent, shifting his eyes between the two men as he fussed with his coat.
“There! You see? No objections.” Colonel Mayweather wrinkled his nose at me, grinning, as if accusing me gave him supreme pleasure. “The girl shall be turned over to the constabulary at once.”
“And yet we will do no such thing.”
The Colonel’s smugness melted away immediately. He and everyone else turned to regard the tall, handsomely cut figure in the doorway. Mr. Morningside had arrived, and he did not appear at all pleased.
Chapter Twenty-One
“When if ever did I sign over ownership of this establishment to you two gentlemen?” Mr. Morningside was dressed impeccably in indigo with a pale green cravat. The room seemed to shrink at his presence, and my eye went at once to his feet; they appeared normal, sheathed in glossy black boots.
“Really, sir, please, nobody is suggesting—”
“Anything of merit, how right you are, Colonel.” Mr. Morningside waved a folded piece of parchment back and forth as he wandered into the room. “This letter ought to clear young Louisa of any suspicion. The widow Eames was not robbed, and her correspondence suggests she had every intention of fleecing both you, Colonel Mayweather, and you, Mr. George Bremerton. If there are accusations to be flung about willy-nilly, it is not in her direction.” He paused
when he reached Mrs. Haylam’s side, lazily finding my gaze and winking. “Unless of course you fancy her some enterprising young avenger of your honor, gentlemen?”
“Preposterous!” Colonel Mayweather half exploded with the word. He blinked hard, wringing out his hands and then his mustache. “Just . . . outrageous. To insult us and the widow in one breath—”
“The insult, I’m afraid, is hers to claim,” Mr. Morningside said, handing the unfinished letter to the Colonel. “Read it yourself. I believe you will find evidence enough to quench the flames of injustice.”
Before the old man could even finish reading the letter, Mr. Morningside extended his hand toward me, the very picture of calm certitude. “Now, Louisa, I think you should remove yourself from the room. There is no need for you to endure these unfounded allegations any longer. You must be exhausted.”
It was not a request, that much I knew. I stood without thinking, with one last look at Lee. Never had I felt such a tearing of my desires. I had no interest in staying in the room, but I also dreaded whatever Mr. Morningside might say to me in private. Did he know I had his book? But now I was standing, halfway to a decision, and I could not linger there without seeming suspicious. I might blurt out to these men that they were going to die here, that the widow was just the beginning, but what love had I for them when moments earlier they were ready to send me to the constable and then, presumably, the gallows?
“My condolences to you all,” I said softly, dipping down into a curtsy. “She seemed a very . . .”
Mr. Morningside’s golden eyes flashed at me.
“. . . accomplished woman.”
With that, I was being swept out of the room by Mr. Morningside, buoyed on a tide I felt powerless to stop. Mrs. Haylam said one more word to the men about taking solace in the tea and then followed us. Neither of them laid a finger on me, but it didn’t matter; I felt the combined force of their urgency and something else . . . elation, perhaps. Excitement.
The door to the Red Room closed with a bang.
Mr. Morningside dusted off his hands, leaning against the one blank spot on the wall without a bird painting. “What an immensely tricky knot you nearly hanged yourself with there, Louisa,” Mr. Morningside said, eyes sparkling.
“And what? I should thank you for the rescue?” Tears were building, threatening to spill, hot and humiliating, down my cheeks. “You left her there for me to find, didn’t you? A woman is dead and all you care to do is play cruel jokes!”
His demeanor shifted, that excitement I felt previously evaporating like snow in a fire. Slowly, he looked away from me, over my shoulder and at Mrs. Haylam. “Please fetch the doctor. He needs to do his examination. I want the formalities with Mrs. Eames over quickly.”
Sighing, she turned back toward the Red Room, but then she hesitated. “That you let her speak to you in this manner . . .”
Mr. Morningside waved her concerns away, his golden eyes burning into the side of my face. I didn’t want to look at him, or at her. I simply wanted to be away from them both. Already I was calculating where I would go next—back to the hayloft, perhaps, to search the book for more clues and some way of breaking Mr. Morningside’s hold over me.
“She is but a buzzing fly. Allow Louisa her tantrum; it bothers me not.”
“If that is the case, a fly hardly warrants your parading around aboveground. I’ve not seen you in the house proper this much in years,” Mrs. Haylam replied, but her lips hardly moved, her face tight with frustration. When she was gone, I spun at once to run for the stairs.
“I should rather be the fly than the spider,” I spat, hurrying away. If I was an insect to him, then my presence must be offensive. And inconsequential. Let me go, I silently pleaded. I’m nothing and no one, so just let me go.
“Back to the hayloft, little fly?” he drawled. And followed. Damn it all, leave me alone! I did not give him the satisfaction of my anger. Instead I kept on, gaining the top step as he called more loudly after me. “How are you enjoying the book? Take a peek at page one hundred and fifty-five. I think you’ll find it most instructive.”
Of course he knew. I couldn’t let that stop me.
His rich voice carried down into the foyer as I ran, the words wrapping around me, tugging as surely as the horrible magic that tempted me to his green door, to the attic. It was as clear as if he were right behind me, though when I turned I saw he was yet at the top of the stairs. “The more you learn of me and this place, the more you will crave answers, and then, naturally, more answers. Disgust and curiosity are easy companions.”
He was wrong. He had to be wrong. I could overcome the temptation of my curiosity; I could overcome whatever I had to in order to flee this place.
“I’m not going to confiscate the book, and I would have told you all you wanted to know and more, but you did not come to see me . . .” The pout in his voice was unmistakable. “It hurts my feelings.”
Whatever man or creature or demon he was, I doubted there was even a beating heart in his chest to wound.
My hand was pressed against the front door when he called out one last time. This time it was not just in my head. “You won’t find what you’re looking for!”
I braced against the door, swiveling to glare up at him where he stood posed like a portrait subject on the staircase landing. He might have been young, or older than his looks betrayed. Whatever his age, there was no mistaking that he was the lord of the manor as he stood with a hand on each banister, chin tilted up, eyes gazing down on me as if I were his lowly subject.
“Then you have no reason to follow and trouble me further,” I said, barely raising my voice.
“It simply pains me to see you wasting your time.” He was right, of course. I knew what would happen if I made it to the end of the drive. More pain. More frustration.
He descended the stairs, coming at last to regard me from the middle of the foyer. I slid down against the door, squeezing my eyes shut.
“What happened to your feet?” I asked, letting out a choked laugh. “Did I simply imagine them strangely the last time we spoke?”
“Not at all.” He lifted one foot and turned it this way and that. I watched, sickened, as the bones rearranged themselves, reverting to how his feet had been before—backward. Backward like a demon’s. My mother had told stories of cursed beings with wrong-facing feet, born that way so as to confuse when their tracks seemed always to lead away when in truth they followed. A shudder ran through me. He seemed to stand more like some satyr of myth than a man now, his calves curving away, his beautiful, shiny shoes made absurd by the disjointed position.
“Better?”
“No,” I breathed, shutting my eyes again.
“It’s a glamour. Simple magicks, really, at least for me. It would be for you, too, I suspect, if you had the willingness to try.”
Now I wanted to look at him even less. I pressed my forehead hard into the worn wood of the door. “You’re a liar.”
“Often, yes, but not right now.”
My hand slipped from the knob but I grabbed it again, holding myself up, torn between running away from this thing that spoke as prettily and confidently as any fine gentleman. But he was no fine gentleman. He was . . . He was . . . “What are you?”
I opened my eyes slowly, but he had not moved. And his feet were normal again. Had he changed them in the face of my obvious disgust? Mr. Morningside brushed his hair back, though the perfect black curls needed no rearranging.
“Do you sincerely wish to know?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered truthfully. “I don’t know.”
“It’s in the book, Louisa, should your curiosity resurface.” He sighed, taking one small step toward me. “Stop cowering that way, it’s upsetting.”
I straightened, but slowly, refusing to shed tears and look even more the pathetic little fly. My hands were still pressed tightly to the door, and I had every intention of going that minute, to at least seek some shelter in the hayloft again, but it
was then that Mrs. Haylam and the doctor emerged from the Red Room. I heard their soft conversation and watched them cross the portion of the corridor open to the foyer.
They were going to fetch the widow’s body, and hers would not be the last.
“Rawleigh Brimble doesn’t belong here, you know,” I said, succeeding somehow in keeping the tremor from my voice.
“Who?”
My head flew up at that, and I scoffed. “Rawleigh . . . Lee Brimble. The young man. He’s one of your guests.”
“Oh.” Mr. Morningside shrugged and crossed his arms. “Well, if he’s one of my guests, then he belongs here and he will meet his end here; that is all but woven into the tapestry of fate.”
“He hasn’t done anything wrong! You’ve made a mistake.”
He shook his head and squinted, studying me more carefully. Slowly, laughingly, he said, “I never make mistakes. He’s here for a reason.”
“No, no, he’s a good person. It would be wrong to hurt him.” Of course Lee might have lied to me, but that seemed impossible. I had looked into his face as he told me of his guardian. The whole thing was a misunderstanding. An accident. “He doesn’t belong on your twisted list.”
“Why? Because you like him? Louisa, please, I implore you—be better than this.”
“Than what?” I demanded, feeling bolder.
“A gullible little girl.”
That only emboldened me further. “Do you know how to speak to anyone at all without being a condescending git?”
“Not really, no.” He shrugged again, elegantly, and wandered closer. I recoiled, but he either didn’t notice or pretended not to. A thin, mischievous smile spread across his face, and that, more than his proximity, frightened me. “But I’ll entertain your theory, Louisa, and should you find proof that this Brimble boy is truly an innocent soul, then do bring it to my attention.”
“You’re serious. Do . . . You will listen to me if I can prove he isn’t a killer?”
He nodded once, pressing his lips together.
“But why? I thought . . . I thought you never made mistakes.”