Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery)

by Huber, AnnaLee

  Clothing rarely mattered to me, but for some reason I always felt rather fetching in my riding habits. This particular ensemble featured the stylish new sleeves puffed from the shoulders to the elbows, where it narrowed through the wrists. Matching crimson buttons marched up and down the sides of the bodice in a military style while the fabric tapered to a sharp vee in the front. A small ruffle at the bottom of the jacket in the middle of my back added a bit of flair to the view from behind. I even enjoyed wearing the top hat with its trailing ivory sash that completed the ensemble.

  The promising weather of the morning had blossomed into a beautiful autumn day. In the shelter of the stable yard, the sun’s rays were almost too hot inside my woolen dress, but I knew once we mounted and rode out into the open, the blustery wind would cool me.

  It appeared Gage was just as warm inside his deep evergreen riding coat, for he shifted closer to the bit of shade on my left cast by the stables’ upper story. He turned away from me to run his hands over his horse’s flank, checking the equipage, and commented in a deceptively indifferent voice, “Do you really think Dr. Renshaw will be able to tell us anything useful about Dr. Sloane’s methods?”

  I frowned at his back, knowing it had been too much to hope that he had not been listening in on my conversation with Philip earlier. “Maybe,” I replied vaguely, hoping the man would drop the matter, but already knowing he would not.

  Gage swiveled his head to look at me, though I refused to meet his eyes. “But why would you specifically suggest that your late husband’s former assistant may be acquainted with Dr. Sloane? And why do you think he would be more willing to talk by mentioning your name?”

  “You do know that was a private conversation?” I bit out in clipped tones. I ran a soothing hand down the mare’s neck as her ears flicked, hearing the tension and displeasure in my voice.

  “Well, when the parties involved make little effort not to be overheard, it’s difficult not to hear what one shouldn’t.”

  I turned to glare at him.

  His deliberately antagonizing smile slipped and he took a step closer to me. “Come now. Why would this Renshaw be able or willing to help us?”

  “To help me,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, help you,” Gage relented, reaching up to run a hand down the other side of my horse’s neck.

  I pressed my lips together and considered refusing to answer, especially in light of all the times he had refused to answer my questions. But in the end, I knew that doing so would only make a bigger deal than necessary out of such a small matter. So what if Gage knew about Renshaw? He was no great secret.

  “Dr. Renshaw was particularly interested in the brain, and understanding why we do the things we do. He wanted to study how changes to the brain, from head injuries and illnesses and the like, affect our behavior. My guess is that Dr. Sloane’s interests are similar, and with the Larkspur Retreat so close to Edinburgh, I imagine Dr. Renshaw may have heard something of the man and his methods.”

  Gage considered my words and then pressed. “Yes, but why . . .”

  “Because I always suspected he was displeased with Sir Anthony’s treatment of me,” I snapped, aggravated that he was being so bloody persistent. I sighed and stepped back from the mare before I spooked her. Crossing my arms over my chest, I lowered my voice, lest the stable hands hear me. “Dr. Renshaw was already my husband’s assistant when we married. He was not present during the first few times Sir Anthony forced me to sketch and document his dissections, but soon after he was allowed to attend. My husband always did like having an audience he could lecture to,” I remarked bitterly. “At first, I was mortified. But soon after, I realized that Dr. Renshaw was just as discomfited. He seemed horrified by my husband’s actions, a speculation that was confirmed when Sir Anthony left us alone to complete the dissection of a man’s head one afternoon.”

  A cloud passed over the sun, temporarily dampening the bright sunlight shining down on the stable yard. “After our discussion that day, I had hopes that I had found a champion. And, indeed, I’m quite certain he did at least protest my treatment to my husband.” I shook my head with a sigh. “But it was to no avail. I never saw Dr. Renshaw again. Sir Anthony dismissed him.” Albeit with what must have been a glowing reference, as Renshaw had found himself a position at the Royal College in Edinburgh soon after. “And he declined to take on any future assistants.”

  “Didn’t this Renshaw complain to anyone about your husband’s conduct?” Gage’s brow was furrowed in displeasure.

  I shrugged, having long ago accepted the futility of expecting Renshaw’s aid. “Who would he have told? It was his word against Sir Anthony’s, one of the most influential and distinguished anatomists of the realm and surgeon to the royal family. Dr. Renshaw’s career would have ended, without even an investigation being opened into the matter. His complaint would have been less than useless.”

  Gage’s expression did not lighten. “That may have been so. But he took the coward’s way out by leaving you behind to suffer.”

  I did not argue, feeling much the same way. “Well, regardless, I feel fairly certain his guilt, if nothing else, will impel him to assist us in any way he can.”

  “As long as the ‘nothing else’ isn’t Cromarty’s fist wringing the life out of him.”

  I turned to look at Gage with widened eyes. “Oh, dear. I hadn’t thought of that. Philip is likely to expect the worst of him.”

  “Don’t fret,” Gage replied, turning to face my horse so that I couldn’t see the expression in his eyes, though I could hear the relish in his voice. “Cromarty won’t do anything to him that he doesn’t deserve.”

  The crunch of gravel drew my gaze toward the house. Michael was striding across the drive, a thunderous expression on his face. Miss Remmington struggled to keep up, while Damien trailed behind, glaring daggers at her back. I turned to share a look with Gage, much less enthused with this excursion than I had been before their trio of surly faces arrived on the scene.

  With our host’s impatient urgings, we were all quickly mounted and riding almost due south. Michael explained that the nearest bridge across the River Almond lay several miles upstream from Cramond. A ferry often ran back and forth across the river from the village proper to the north shore, but five humans and their horses would never fit on the small barge, necessitating our taking the bridge. Fortunately the Wallaces’ home, Lambden Cottage, lay south of the village and closer to the bridge, forcing us to go only a mile out of our way rather than the extra two it would have taken us to reach the village.

  While we were forced to travel away from the sparkling waters of the firth, the countryside around us was not without its charms. The forests blazed with the colors of autumn and were bordered by fields waving with golden wheat and barley. Orderly rows of orchards, the sweet scent of their fruit perfuming the air, spread out to the west, followed by the winding ribbon of one of the roads leading north and west away from Edinburgh. We joined the road just before the bridge spanning the River Almond. The clop of our horses’ hooves over the three arches of stone echoed off the water below us.

  When we reached the east bank and turned north toward Cramond, I dropped back to ride beside Miss Remmington. She had been quiet and thoughtful since we set out, and I wondered if she was thinking of her friend.

  “How long have you known Miss Wallace?” I asked her, hoping she might be able to enlighten me on the missing girl’s character.

  Miss Remmington glanced at me distractedly. “A few months.”

  “You said you met while out walking?”

  She blinked and turned to face me fully. “Yes.” She spoke hesitantly at first, as if gauging my actual interest in the topic, and then with more enthusiasm as she realized I wasn’t merely making polite conversation. “I’ve always taken long walks, and as there has been little else to do while my brother and Michael and Laura fussed and worried
over Lord Dalmay, exploring the Dalmay estate became one of the only options to relieve my boredom.”

  My hands tightened on the reins at her almost derisive tone. “You could have visited Lord Dalmay yourself,” I pointed out, trying to keep my tone even lest she realize her attitude had galled me. “After all, I’ve never known his lordship to be dull.” I couldn’t resist putting a bit more emphasis on that last word than was necessary.

  Miss Remmington gave me a look that said I didn’t know what I was talking about. “He knows nothing about fashion or poetry,” she stated as if those two things told her all she needed to know about a man. “Besides, I wasn’t allowed to visit with Lord Dalmay the first few weeks after our arrival. Not until my brother could be certain he wouldn’t harm Laura or me.”

  So even Keswick had been hesitant around William at first. I had wondered. The viscount had not seemed like the sort of man to take such things lightly, even if the man in question was his wife’s brother. That Will had been able to win Keswick’s trust said a great deal in Will’s favor, in my mind.

  “I will admit that I was curious to meet his lordship. I had heard the stories. As soon as everyone in London discovered my brother was wed to one of the Dalmays, people couldn’t resist telling me the tragic tale of the dashing war hero gone missing. And the stories my maid brought to me from the servants’ hall were enough to send shivers down my spine, both good and bad.” She straightened in her saddle, arching her neck in prideful defiance. “I even fancied that Lord Dalmay would take one look at me and be instantly cured.”

  I shared a glance with Gage behind Miss Remmington’s back, surprised to hear her admit to such a romantic notion. Perhaps acquired from reading all of that poetry.

  “But when I met him, it was nothing like I imagined.” Her mouth screwed up in distaste. “And he was old enough to be my grandfather.”

  I couldn’t resist darting another look at Gage, who appeared rather displeased with this pronouncement, himself being only seven years younger than Will.

  “Oh, I don’t think he’s quite that old,” I told Miss Remmington, resisting the urge to smile at Gage’s annoyance.

  “Well, I do know he’s more than twice my age,” Miss Remmington said in a voice that said even that was ancient.

  I repressed a sigh and tried to bring Miss Remmington back to the matter at hand. “So did you meet Miss Wallace after one of these visits with Lord Dalmay?”

  “Oh, no. I met her weeks before that. On the path that runs along the shore. I had caught the skirt of my redingote on a briar patch and I was afraid of tearing the fabric. She happened along and helped me to get it loose.”

  “That was kind of her.”

  “Yes. Miss Wallace is very kind,” she replied, imbuing more meaning in that simple little word than I’d ever heard. “Most people aren’t, you know.” She turned to look at me and I was surprised by the sincerity shining in her pale brown eyes. “They pretend they are, and they say the right things, but they’re really just looking out for themselves, their reputations.” She glanced away, fidgeting with the wrist of her left riding glove. “I don’t blame them. I’m the same way. But Miss Wallace truly is kind, in every sense of the word.”

  I watched the girl as she continued to scrutinize her gloves and wondered if something had happened in London. I had assumed she was popular because of the sophisticated air she liked to put on, but anyone could feign a confidence they didn’t feel. I knew firsthand just how mean and nasty debutantes could be, especially if you were in any way different from them. Was Miss Remmington, with her isolated upbringing, too dissimilar?

  “What else can you tell me about Miss Wallace? Was she pretty?” I asked, realizing I was testing Miss Remmington as much as I was curious about the missing girl.

  She tilted her head in thought. “Not in the traditional sense. But there was definitely something about her that was attractive.”

  “What?”

  I could see from her intense expression that she was mulling this question over seriously. “I don’t know. Perhaps it was the way she held herself. She always seemed so confident, so assured. As if she knew who she was and that she was where she was supposed to be. Do you know what I mean?” Miss Remmington turned to me to ask.

  I nodded. My maternal grandmother, Lady Rutherford, for whom my sister had been named, had been like that, and even as a young child it had struck me as something unique. She had died when I was five, but I remembered her vividly: her white hair and laughing blue eyes—lapis lazuli, the same shade as my own—her musical voice. And that distinct presence that was so powerful, and yet soothing, that seemed to say that she had made peace with herself, and nothing you could do or say would change that.

  I also recalled the things people whispered about her when they thought a small child wasn’t paying attention. The scandal over her marriage to my grandfather. The unnatural appeal she seemed to have, had always seemed to have, to other men, before her marriage and after. Her family’s lowly origins as Irish nobility. In Ireland, Grandmother Rutherford’s family might have been well respected, with the blood of ancient Irish kings flowing through their veins, as well as that of the transplanted English nobility who took over their land in 1606 under the direction of King James VI and I, but in Scotland they were less than nobodies. Which made the way my grandmother had held herself all the more fascinating, in defiance of them all.

  Did Miss Wallace also have something in her past she had overcome? Some hardship that tested the mettle of a person and forced her to accept herself as she was, because no one else was going to do that for her?

  Realizing that Miss Remmington was still speaking, I shook aside my own thoughts.

  “She also seemed so . . . knowing.” She shook her head in bafflement. “I can’t explain it any other way. It was as if she knew things before you ever told them to her. Nothing, and no one, seemed capable of shocking her.” She reached out to run a hand down her horse’s neck before murmuring, “It was comforting.”

  It sounded as if Miss Wallace was good at reading people. But if that was the case, if she was so astute, so aware of the people around her, then why was she now missing? Perhaps someone she didn’t know had surprised her. If so, then that made our search all the more difficult and widened its range considerably.

  Of course, there was another explanation. Maybe Miss Wallace had not been taken but gone into hiding of her own accord. And if that was the case, what was she hiding from? What had she discovered or read in the intention of others to make her flee?

  I could feel Gage’s eyes on me where he rode to the side and a pace behind Miss Remmington and me. I knew he had been listening to our conversation and I was eager to hear his thoughts on the matter.

  “Did you and Miss Wallace meet often?” I asked, wondering how much credence to give Miss Remmington’s observations.

  “Twice a week, without fail. Until last Friday, that is. I worried when she didn’t meet me at our usual place, but I know she has responsibilities in the village and at home.” Her face tightened. “I thought maybe she just had other things to do.”

  When Miss Remmington said “other,” I knew what she really meant was “better.” That she feared Miss Wallace had better things to do than meet her.

  At the top of a rise, we paused to stare down at the village of Cramond spreading out before us. The main road on which we had been traveling paralleled the river on its way toward the sea. Most of the buildings were concentrated on this thoroughfare, their uniform white stone bright in the sun. The Cramond Kirk, with its square, medieval tower and its surrounding kirkyard, stood to the right of the road about halfway down the hill. Through the trees beyond the church, the very top of a stone tower could be seen—the derelict remains of Cramond Tower, Michael told us. At the base of the hill, the road met the firth, pointing straight like an arrow out to the tiny island I had seen from the shore of the Dalmay
estate, named for the town it lay so close to.

  Lambden Cottage stood on a tree-lined lane at the crest of the hill. The home had evidently been built in two stages and resembled nothing so much as two squat, square blocks offset so that the back half of one connected with the front half of the other. Simple, rectangular windows were all that alleviated the pale gray stone of the façade and the dark black slopes of the roofs other than the stark white door. The Wallaces clearly favored clean lines over fussy colors and shapes.

  As we dismounted, two stable boys ran around the corner, jostling each other as young boys do, and skidded to a halt at the sight of all of us. I laughed silently at their eagerness to take the reins of Gage’s gelding and Michael’s spirited brute, a stallion named Puck, of all things, clearly named for his disposition and not his size. From the lads’ reactions, it was apparent the Wallaces didn’t have the same taste for fine, expensive horseflesh as the Dalmays.

  The footman who answered the door appeared to have been expecting us, for he bowed and led us toward the drawing room, promising to inform Mr. Wallace of our arrival. An assurance that proved unnecessary, as the man in question emerged from another room down the passage just as we arrived at the door to the parlor. He was frowning quite ferociously at whatever the man beside him was saying. When he caught sight of us, his expression transformed into a strange mixture of relief followed swiftly by dismay, and I couldn’t help but wonder why our presence should cause him such a conundrum.

  The other man stopped talking and followed his gaze toward us. I suspected he might be the village constable, or whatever title he went by. Small Scottish villages rarely employed anyone specifically for the purpose of keeping law and order, often relying on their citizens to police themselves with the help of retired soldiers. Only the larger cities had anything resembling a police force, because to establish one officially required an Act of Parliament. With Edinburgh so close by, Cramond might have followed the Scottish capital’s example and appointed a constable, but until the man was introduced I couldn’t be certain.