Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery)

by Huber, AnnaLee

  “I don’t know. But I can’t be caged.” He looked at me, determined to make me understand. “Do you know what that’s like?”

  My chest tightened at the evidence of his distress.

  He shook his head. “I spent nearly ten years locked up like an animal, and I can’t live that way. I have to know that if I wanted to I could get free. I need that assurance.”

  I nodded, thinking I understood. However, his admission did nothing to comfort me.

  And neither did the realization of what I’d seen earlier in the shadows inside that crumbled section of Banbogle Castle.

  Will and I were passing by a shed not far from the main block of the stables, and its door stood open, allowing us a peek inside. The hull of a rowboat, about the size of a small coble, tipped on its side caught my eye and held it. There had been a boat inside the castle, and not an old, dilapidated one, to judge from the glimpse of the wood I had seen.

  I glanced at Will again, remembering how he’d said he liked to scramble around inside the ruins of Banbogle. If so, he must know about the boat. Had he put it there? And, if so, why?

  I tried to shake aside the uneasy feeling settling in my gut, but Craggy Donald’s words to us about a boat leaving Cramond Island on the day Miss Wallace disappeared would not let me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I separated from William and Mac at the top of the main staircase and turned toward my chambers to change out of my soiled riding habit. I knew Lucy was going to sulk when she saw the state of it and my windblown hair, even though I was the one who would suffer through the detangling. If I was lucky, she would be in a better frame of mind this afternoon. Maybe she would even have my bath prepared for me.

  I picked up my pace and had just turned the corner when I heard giggling at the end of the corridor—familiar giggling. I backed up a step to peer around the corner. The door to the servants’ stair stood open, held that way by a brawny arm, and Lucy leaned against the door frame laughing at whatever the person behind her was saying. Before the maid stepped to the side I already knew who was with her.

  I scowled at Donovan, not caring when he looked up and saw me. He stared right back and mumbled something low to Lucy that I could not hear. She glanced over her shoulder guiltily at me, but her anxiousness at being caught quickly faded to something more belligerent.

  “Lucy, I need to change,” I told the maid in a sharper voice than I intended.

  I watched in dismay as her chin lifted, but did not stay to see if she followed. I couldn’t bear to stand there faced with Donovan’s self-satisfied smirk when I knew the man was only toying with the girl. In any case, Lucy wouldn’t dare disobey. Or so I hoped.

  Even so, it took her several moments longer to appear than I expected, and that had given me several moments longer to grow angrier. “He’s not likely to fancy you, eh?” I mocked the girl, throwing her own words back in her face.

  She scowled and marched across the room toward the adjoining bathing chamber. “Would m’lady like to bathe?”

  “Lucy, I am not going to overlook what I just saw.”

  She ignored me and disappeared into the bathing chamber to begin drawing the water. I stood in the middle of my bedchamber fuming. Stripping off my gloves, I threw them down onto the vanity with a satisfying thwack and then began picking out the hairpins still snarled in my hair. They each landed on the wooden table with a ping.

  I heard Lucy return to the chamber but did not bother to turn around and face her. “After this evening, I will no longer require your services,” I told her.

  The girl gasped.

  “You can return to Gairloch on the mail coach. I’m sure the earl would be happy to welcome you back into his staff as an upstairs maid.”

  “Oh, m’lady, please. I dinna want to return to Gairloch.”

  “Well, I cannot keep you on as you have been.”

  “But I’ve done my job,” she argued. “Ye canna say I hav’na.”

  I turned to face her, close to screaming at her for her defiance. Instead I spoke in as calm a voice as I could manage. “You have been surly, and borderline disobedient, for days now. You were unhappy the moment we left Gairloch, and you have been insolent since we arrived at Dalmay House. Why on earth should I keep you on?”

  “Please, m’lady,” she begged, tears now threatening in her eyes. “If ye send me back, the others’ll ken I botched it.”

  I sighed, unable to remain so harsh in the face of her tears. “You can tell them you got homesick.”

  She shook her head fiercely. “Nay. They’ll ken I’m lyin’. And I dinna want to go home. No’ when I just left it.”

  “But you’ve been so unhappy. Do not lie and tell me you haven’t,” I ordered her when she opened her mouth to do just that.

  “It’s just all so new,” she murmured in bewilderment. “And I’m no’ a fast learner. It took me months to learn to use the curlin’ rods wi’oot burnin’ me hands.”

  “Things are always going to be like that when we travel. And in Edinburgh or London or wherever we end up, until you become used to your new surroundings. New places present new challenges.”

  “I can manage it. I just needed to get my bearin’s is all.”

  “Speaking of which,” I said, hearing the trickle of water. “The . . .”

  “Och! The bath!” Lucy dashed into the bathing chamber. “It’s all right,” she called out to me a moment later. “I caught it afore it spilled o’er the edge.”

  I crossed the bedroom and peered inside the tiled room at my maid, who was balancing against the edge of the tub while she carefully reached in to extract the plug to drain out some of the water. It was filled so close to the brim that I thought for sure just the insertion of her hand would send it cascading over onto the floor, but it didn’t.

  There was a pop and a gurgle and she let out a relieved breath. When she extracted her hand, I could see it was red up to her elbow.

  “How hot did you make that water?” I asked her.

  She glanced at me sheepishly. “I had a bit o’ trouble gettin’ the temperature right. It’ll be cool enough by the time we get ye undressed.”

  I frowned at the water level. “Well, don’t let it drain too much. Otherwise we’ll be wasting more of the water from the cistern.”

  I turned away and marched back into the bedchamber. I removed the amethyst pendant my mother had given me and stared down at it, watching the deep purple stone flash in the late sunlight shining through the windows. Lucy stepped up behind me and immediately began unfastening the buttons that ran up the back of my riding habit. I could hear her worried thoughts as loudly as if she’d spoken them.

  “Are ye really goin’ to send me back?” she finally found the courage to ask.

  I set the pendant on the vanity. “I don’t know what else to do, Lucy. I’m worried about you.”

  “Ye dinna have to be worrit aboot me, m’lady. I’m a good girl. I ken what men are after and no’ to give it to ’em. My mother and my brothers taught me well.”

  “That may be so,” I told her as she helped me peel the fitted garment down over my wrists. “But there are more things at stake here than just your virtue.”

  I could see her puzzled look in the reflection of the mirror and endeavored to explain. “The job of a personal maid is far more than pressing clothes and styling hair. In a way, it’s also being a sort of confidante, knowing the secrets you do about your employer. And I’m not just talking about the size of her waist or how much face powder she puts on every morning. Lady’s maids, and valets for that matter, know who their employers are keeping company with, in and out of bed, and often when they are sick or expecting a child before they even do. They are privy to some of their most unguarded thoughts and fears.” I turned to look down at her, seeing the guilt of disloyalty already stamped across her features. “Lucy, I need someone I can trus
t, and you are proving not to be that person.”

  Her gaze dropped to her feet. “I’m sorry, m’lady,” she said tearfully. “I didna mean to tell Donovan anythin’ aboot ye. But he was so kind. And he was the only one who would tell me the truth aboot Lord Dalmay.” She blinked up at me accusingly through her tear-flecked lashes.

  “And what was that?”

  She hesitated, but just for a moment. “That he spent nine years in a lunatic asylum, and he’s kept under lock and key for everyone’s protection.”

  “That’s true.”

  She gasped in outrage.

  “But did Mr. Donovan tell you that the reason he was kept in that asylum was not because he was mad, but because of his father’s own treachery?”

  Lucy’s eyes widened.

  “I thought not. He led you to believe exactly what he wanted you to so that you would feel grateful to him for his honesty and angry with me for lying.”

  The reality of the man’s deceit slowly began to dawn on her. “But he’s kept locked up . . .”

  “More for his own good than for anyone else’s protection. He gets confused sometimes. We all would if we’d been confined to a dark, dank cell for a decade. I’ve visited with him three times since our arrival at Dalmay House, and he’s never come close to anything resembling violent or aggressive. You have nothing to worry about. And I don’t know why Mr. Donovan has decided to make you think so. Unless it’s to get something from you.”

  Her gaze was filled with a world of hurt. I sat down on the bench in front of my vanity and bent to begin unfastening one of my boots. A moment later, Lucy kneeled to unlace the other one.

  “I feel like such a fool,” she muttered, but I was relieved to hear more anger in her voice than pain. “I kenned a man like Donovan would no’ fancy someone like me. Dinna I say so?”

  I scowled. “Lucy, the issue of your attractiveness, which I think you underestimate, is not the matter at hand.”

  “I ken that. But his interest shoulda been a red flag anyway. I never shoulda trusted ’im.” She fell silent as she worked the boot off my foot and set it beside the other one to be cleaned later. She helped me step out of the skirt of my riding habit and unlaced my corset, but before she removed my chemise, she paused to look me straight in the face. “I’m more sorry than I can say, m’lady. Is there no way ye could give me a second chance? I’ll prove to ye I deserve your trust. I willna let ye doon again.”

  Her voice was so pleading, her face so earnest, I felt myself beginning to yield. I liked Lucy—I always had—and until this journey we had always gotten along well. Was our working relationship worth salvaging?

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “If you tell me what Donovan was so intent to learn about me, it’ll be a start.”

  She nodded and proceeded to explain how curious he’d been about my background, particularly the time I’d spent married to Sir Anthony, which, fortunately, Lucy knew very little about. However, what she did know was enough to damage a reputation. But a large portion of Great Britain, or at least the majority of the upper class and their servants, must already be aware of my scandalous past. Gossip traveled swiftly among the elite. So what use could Donovan have for it? Blackmail? He would fail in that regard. I had little money of my own, except that which I earned from the sales of my artwork, and even less inclination to keep secrets that were already known to a large portion of the country. No, he must wish to use it for leverage of some kind. I just didn’t know what. And that thought made me uneasy.

  * * *

  For the most part, I ignored Gage at dinner that evening, uncertain yet how to interact with him, especially in front of an audience. I was still angered by his revelation about working for Sloane, but the hours since our argument had given me time to think, and I thought I better understood his reasons for doing so, even if I wasn’t quite ready to forgive him. There was much we still needed to discuss, but dinner was not the time or place. And in the meantime, we had an investigation to continue.

  I had taken the opportunity after dressing for dinner to jot off a quick note to Philip asking for information on Dr. Thomas Callart. Perhaps he couldn’t be Dr. Sloane, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t working for him. It seemed somewhat unlikely—after all, there must be dozens of physicians and surgeons in Scotland alone who claimed to specialize in afflictions of the brain—but I had learned not to doubt my intuition, and it was telling me there was some connection. How, I didn’t yet know, but I had hopes I soon would. Or else I would have to take seriously my concerns over Will’s professed ability to escape whenever he wished and the boat I had seen stashed in the ruins of Banbogle Castle.

  Rather than following the others into the drawing room after dinner, Michael made our excuses and led Gage and me toward the central staircase. I glanced at Gage in confusion, but upon seeing the watchful look in his eyes I realized where we were headed. My stomach knotted in dread.

  I’d known we would have to view Will’s sketches and paintings sooner or later, since Donovan and Mac had been unable or unwilling to shed light onto Will’s melancholic episodes or the events that had occurred in the asylum—the ones we believed Dr. Sloane was so eager to keep hidden—but I had not been looking forward to the endeavor. Ten years ago Will’s artwork had given me nightmares, and though time and experience had hardened me, I still did not think I was prepared to see those images again. However, I didn’t dare voice my trepidations. I could imagine Gage would be only too happy to leave me out of this task, and I was determined not to shy away from it, particularly knowing what I knew about his involvement with Dr. Sloane.

  At the top of the stairs, rather than turning right toward the staircase we had always taken to the next floor and Will’s rooms, Michael turned left and led us to the door at the end of the hall. My thoughts had been troubled by this door ever since late that afternoon, when I had seen Lucy and Donovan hovering there. It clearly led into the servants’ staircase, which descended two stories below to the kitchen, and now I could see it also led two flights up to the attic as well.

  “Michael,” I murmured as we approached the door leading into the corridor beyond the first locked door on Will’s floor, “you told us you keep all the doors locked so that Will cannot get out, but what about this one?” I recalled the footman who had brought Will’s dinner the previous night, who had almost stumbled upon me and Gage kissing. He had come through the door off the main staircase, not the servants’ stairs.

  “It’s locked, too. Only Donovan, Mac, and I have keys.” He pushed against the door in illustration and nearly fell on his face when the knob turned and the door unexpectedly swung inward. “Bloody hell,” he exclaimed, righting himself. “This isn’t supposed to be open.”

  “Could this be how William is escaping?” Gage asked, voicing the same question I was thinking.

  “I don’t know. But if it is, Mac and Donovan have a lot of explaining to do.” He reached into his pocket to extract a set of keys. They clinked as he shuffled them between his fingers, and upon finding the right one, he locked the door with a satisfying snick.

  We resumed our journey to the next floor, Michael leading and Gage at my back. There were no wall sconces lit in the stairwell leading up to the attic, so both men grabbed a brace of candles from their recesses in the wall. Their flickering light in the draft of our movement danced over the walls around us, gleaming off the woodwork.

  The attic was pitch-black and freezing. I shivered in my thin, vermilion satin evening gown and tightened my ivory shawl around my shoulders. I had expected there to be at least some living presence up here in the form of the servants’ quarters, but apparently in this house they had been built belowstairs rather than above.

  Michael led us to the second door on the left and unlocked it. The door swung open easily and silently, despite the fact that I had been expecting an ominous groan. I peered around Michael’s shoulder at the conte
nts inside. Crates and boxes were stacked next to old canvases resting on their sides and draped in heavy cloths. Everything was covered over with a fine layer of dust, except the box sitting on the top of the stack closest to us.

  Following my gaze, he explained, “That’s where I’ve been storing his most recent sketches. Like the ones you saw the other night.”

  I stepped forward hesitantly. “May I?”

  Michael was silent a moment and then choked out his response. “Yes.”

  I lifted my arm to open the lid on the box and then stopped with my hand poised in the air. My heart pounded in my chest. I suddenly felt as if I was about to dive over a precipice—one that I wasn’t sure I wanted to traverse—and wondered whether there would be something there to catch me when I landed.

  The floorboards shifted behind me and I felt the warm press of Gage’s hand on my lower back. “Go ahead,” he urged me.

  I swallowed and lifted the lid from the box. Immediately the ashy smell of charcoal assailed my nostrils, its normally comforting scent now distorted by my concern over what I might find rendered by it inside. I reached in and lifted out the top stack of sketches, those that had been scattered across the floor of Will’s room two nights past.

  Flipping through the rough paper slowly, I saw the same crude renderings and scribbles I remembered. And the stacks below them were not much different. Some were more detailed and horrifying than others, but they all depicted the same scenes of helplessness and despair. The tortured images on his walls, of people drugged or strapped to beds or with their heads forced underwater, repeated themselves. There were also several more where people milled around a central courtyard, some fighting, some crying, and some laughing while the rest wandered around aimlessly. But predominately the drawings were scribbles of nothingness, of darkness. One depicted a pair of round, frightened eyes surrounded by nothing but black swirls of charcoal.

  I set them down and turned away a minute, trying to regain control over my emotions. Tears were threatening at the backs of my eyes and I could feel the corresponding lump at the back of my throat. I swallowed hard, forcing it down.