A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones (Dark Matters)

by Claire Robyns

  “I might have panicked and overreacted,” Lily was willing to concede with considerable relief at Evelyn’s alternative. She reached behind to fiddle with the pearl button at the nape of her high collar. “Ana, please help me undress. I’m riding for Cragloden Castle with Greyston and there isn’t a moment to spare.”

  The riding habit had a separate skirt and tight jacket—although less tight on her chest than Evelyn’s—that buttoned straight over her corset. Beneath the split skirt, individual petticoat panels overlapped to give freedom of movement without compromising modesty. Lily was a couple of inches taller than Evelyn and an indecent amount of silk stocking showed between the hem and the top of her short boots.

  She shrugged off the shocking display of leg with blithe disregard on her way out the room. Which, she admitted as she descended the stairs, was not like her at all. But if Evelyn was right, if she was acting out of character, perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing either at this particular junction in her life.

  They rode hard for close on half an hour, keeping to the rutted road that followed the bends of the Firth of Tay. Greyston had failed to mention that all three the horses were stallions, the smallest one standing at least seventeen hands high.

  Lily had gritted her teeth, tied the ribbons of her bonnet firmly beneath her chin, clamped her knees in tight, and soon discovered Evelyn’s advice had been apt. Within a few miles she’d found her natural rhythm and was thoroughly enjoying the sensation of rider and horse being as one as she leaned low over the stallion’s long neck. Greyston led the way and Neco brought up the rear. A cool breeze channelled in from the ocean, bringing relief from the afternoon heat and general exertion of the fast ride.

  The Tay widened considerably as they approached the headland. The terrain grew more rocky, desolate, with straggly bush and dry grass. To their left sloped the beginnings of a mountain that dipped and rose in a series of peaks that stretched seaward and looked to drop abruptly into a sheer cliff on the other side.

  Greyston slowed to a trot as the road curved inward from the bank of the Tay around a soggy marshland. He pointed at a dark smudge with symmetrical edges halfway up the furthest slope. “That’s Cragloden Castle.”

  They were still trotting slower around the bog, permitting conversation for the first time since leaving Forleough. Lily stared at the distant slope until her vision focussed. “I thought the castle had been reduced to ruins in the explosion.”

  “The original castle was,” Neco called out from the rear.

  “A new manor house was built some time in the last six years,” Greyston informed her.

  “By who?”

  Greyston shrugged. “The McAllister clan are large and powerful. There’s no shortage of lairds and heirs and money.”

  “Do you suppose the current owner would have been privy to Duncan McAllister’s activities?”

  “When I stopped by a few weeks ago, before I left for London, he wasn’t in residence and the steward’s lips were tighter than a nun’s…” he slid a grimace her way “…lips.”

  “But you do think he’ll know something?” Lily pressed.

  “I’m not familiar with the McAllister family dynamics, Lily, but I’d rather he continues to stay away.” Greyston’s grin came out. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”

  She scowled at him. “What are you planning?”

  Greyston grinned harder and spurred his stallion into a full-on gallop.

  “Well,” she muttered to herself, somewhat inclined to stall the riding party and force him to turn around and explain. But Neco’s horse was nudging her from behind, so she dug her knees in and followed. She settled into her seat with the faster gait, her thoughts drifting to her mother and the circumstances of her own birth. She was no longer entirely convinced her father wasn’t indeed her father. As Evelyn had indicated over the bloomer incident, perhaps she’d become prone to reaching extreme conclusions when a rather simpler explanation would do.

  But for the life of her, Lily couldn’t think of a single explanation of how she’d become entangled with the McAllisters and what had led to her mother’s death.

  The road took them straight through a bustling port town nestled between the base of the mountain and the Tay basin. A number of trawlers were berthed at the docks and the remnants left in the square they passed through suggested a fish market had recently been packed up for the day. Near the docks, a business district with warehouses, shops and official buildings was hobbled together in a hopscotch fashion.

  Lily’s gaze passed over the postmaster’s office and she wished she’d penned another letter for her aunt. The note she’d scribbled just before leaving Harchings House, explaining that she and Evelyn had adjourned to Scotland for a brief stay with respectable friends of Evelyn’s family, wouldn’t do for much longer. Not once Devon’s attention turned to her aunt in his hunt for his missing wife.

  They left the town and the leeward slope of the cliff that formed the final peak of the mountain was suddenly upon them. The road followed up the mountain for another mile or so, ending at imposing wrought iron gates wedged into the perimeter wall of the castle and bounded on both sides by small towers.

  The structure of Cragloden was easily recognisable now, the new manor house a rectangular pile of light grey stone slabs. Further up the slope, a narrow band of pine forest divided the main house from a large walled enclosure that didn’t appear to be enclosing anything. The entire spread was circled by a massive perimeter wall that climbed nearly all the way to the top of the slope, engulfing extensive land of shrubs and forest beyond the buildings.

  They veered off the road and across a field of tangled gorse and heather, heading for a dense copse of firs packed close to the east perimeter wall. Once they reached the cover, Greyston and Neco dismounted. While they tethered their horses to a low-hanging bough, Lily prepared for her own dismount. She stood in the saddle, putting all her weight on her right leg. The split skirt and individual petticoat panels easily allowed her to bend her right leg at the knee and angle it over the saddle. All this was very inelegant and required extraordinary balance, but she wasn’t sure how else to accomplish the necessary.

  Greyston turned to her, but Neco was already striding over to assist her down, so he turned back to delve inside his saddlebags.

  When the celludrone stood before her, his eyes were level with her chest—although his gaze wasn’t aimed there. He was looking up into her eyes. “Put your hands on my shoulders, m’lady.”

  Lily did as she was told, and wasn’t surprised to find his shoulders felt like a slab of iron. Truth be told, she wasn’t entirely comfortable with him. Neco was simply too large, too tall, too strong, and much more freely minded in his opinions and actions than she was accustomed to. The latter of which came, she supposed, from him being exposed to a far greater world than Ana, who’d been kept mainly secluded in Lily’s household. He was simply far too human, had watched, seen, heard and learnt too much, and with that surely came human weaknesses without the actual human…well, weakness.

  He nevertheless lifted her down with great care and set her on her feet, and Lily felt instantly ashamed of her heartless fears.

  “Thank you, Neco.” She smoothed her ruffled skirts and by the time she thought to offer him a sweet smile to make up for her disloyal thoughts, he’d already grabbed the reins and was leading her stallion to the tethering tree.

  Greyston had a leather box slung over one shoulder and another bag that looked to be of woven hemp over the other. His riding coat was coal black and reached the top of equally black thigh-high boots. His hair even more mussed up than usual, his brown eyes serious and his grin playful, he looked every bit a dashing ruffian up to no good. It didn’t take him long to live up to his appearance.

  A short walk up the mountain, keeping close to the perimeter wall where a stone path kept back the bush and undergrowth, brought them to an iron gate.

  Greyston rattled the heavy chain securing the gate, then stood aside and
spoke to Neco. “You’ll have to break it.”

  “Is that really necessary?” Lily squeaked, taking a defensive stance in front of the gate. “Destruction of property is a legal offence.”

  Greyston’s gaze took in the full height of the gate, which was at least half that of the twenty-foot high wall. “The last time we were here, Neco and I scaled it.” His eyes came down to sweep over her voluminous skirt. “I was assuming you’d prefer to not break your neck today.”

  Lily scowled at him. “That’s trespassing.”

  “And what Lady Ostrich would like to do to us is called murder, but I don’t see that giving her any sleepless nights.” He put his hands on her waist and deftly lifted her out of the way.

  She was on her feet again before she could kick or struggle and she was not amused. She certainly didn’t intend to measure her own actions by Lady Ostrich’s standard. She glared at Greyston. “I’m not wholly opposed to an intrusive approach, as a last resort, that is, once we’ve exhausted more conventional means. But we haven’t even—” She broke off with a gasp at the distinctive sound of metal snapping.

  Neco thread the chain and bulky lock through the iron bars and turned to her. “I’m sorry, m’lady, I did not mean to startle you.”

  Greyston unlatched the gate and entered into the courtyard beyond. When Lily followed, it felt as if she were stepping through a film of invisible sludge. The resistance tugged at her limbs and she had to push through it to the other side. She put her hand out to prod the empty space in the entrance. Once again, she felt the thickness, but couldn’t see any difference in the air. “How curious.”

  “Did you feel the barrier?” Greyston asked.

  “I felt something,” she said. “What is it?”

  “We think it may be a force field of some sort between the gate posts,” Neco said. “It has no effect on me, though, so not magnetic.”

  “It was the same when I went over the top,” Greyston told her. “Duncan McAllister was a scientist and the proclivity must run in the family.” He walked deeper inside, saying, “These are the grounds of the original castle.”

  They were in the walled enclosure she’d seen from the bottom of the slope. The narrow band of pine trees between them and the newly built manor rose high above the wall to her left, completely blocking the view of the main house.

  There was no sign of the pile of ruins she’d expected. The courtyard was a wall-to-wall garden, not exactly landscaped but definitely crafted by design. A man-made lake covered two thirds of the area, the thick rushes and slick layer of algae on the rocks indicating it had been built some time ago. The trees, bushes, grassy patches and flowerbeds were thrown together into a natural hodgepodge of countryside squashed into a civilised garden.

  Greyston had wandered over to the edge of the lake and was on his knees, digging with his bare hands in the ground beneath a squat tree. As Lily drew closer, he rocked back onto his haunches and opened the leather box that had been slung over his shoulder. The hemp bag, she noted, had been propped against the trunk of the tree.

  He brought out that ridiculous pair of goggles she’d seen him wearing the first time she’d set eyes on him across the green. The thick lenses were each set in their own five-inch brass tube and there was a complicated set of dials on one side that unbalanced the entire contraption.

  “Focal Opaque Transparency Goggles,” Greyston explained. “Or Foggles. Once calibrated to the frequency of a specific substance, this allows us to see straight through it.”

  Lily couldn’t begin to contemplate the science behind that, but she grasped the theory well enough to be amused when he put the Foggles to his eyes and pointed it at the ground. “Are you hoping to see through to the other side of the world?”

  “Come see,” he murmured. “McAllister’s laboratory was built into the foundations beneath the castle. Last time we were here, I discovered a slab of iron beneath the soil that seems to extend under the lake. This was why I acquired the Foggles in the London.” He un-plucked his face from the Foggles. “Neco, what’s the calibration code for iron?”

  Intrigued, Lily dropped to her knees beside him, mindless of the dirt scuffing her dress.

  Neco rattled off a string of digits. Greyston adjusted the dial, then put the Foggles to his eyes again and looked down. After a long moment, he let out a deep breath. “It’s as I thought.” His head came up and he handed the Foggles to her. “Don’t touch the dial.”

  Lily carefully grasped the barrel of the Foggles and peered through them at the solid metal. The vision was slightly grainy, but she could make out the top ledge of a bookshelf, stacked with manuscripts and loose papers. She tilted her head to direct her view at an angle into the room and caught the edge of a desk with a chair set in front of it.

  “The walls and ceiling must have been reinforced with iron,” Greyston said. “McAllister’s laboratory survived the explosion.”

  Lily brought the Foggles away from her face. “How do we get inside?”

  “Let’s find out.” Greyston pushed to his feet and held his hand out for the Foggles. “Neco, give me the calibration for soil.”

  Once he’d set the dial, he looped the strap around his neck and started down the length of the lake with the Foggles trained on the ground and Neco keeping pace at his side.

  Lily rose from her knees and dusted off her skirts. “If that’s really McAllister’s workspace, it might hold all our answers. Scientists are usually particular about recording detail.” A frisson of excitement and apprehension shivered down her spine.

  Greyston paused to look at her. “The laboratory has been preserved and this lake was put here specifically to prevent accidental discovery.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Whoever lives here now knows something about McAllister’s work, but is he continuing with it or merely keeping history secret?” He shrugged and went back to examining the ground. “The iron chamber stretches all the way here…” He walked around the curved end of the lake, then in a straight line toward the wall dividing the enclosure from the pine trees and the grounds of the main house. “It narrows into a tunnel…” he stopped when he reached the wall and turned to Neco “…that goes under the wall.”

  “There would be no purpose to that unless it connected the laboratory directly with the main house.” Neco asked.

  “None whatsoever.” Greyston left the Foggles to dangle around his neck and put his hands on his hips, staring at the wall. “Damned nuisance.”

  “What were you hoping for?” enquired Lily, catching up to them.

  “A trap door that I could blast open,” he replied bluntly.

  Her eyes darted to the hemp bag by the tree. “Please tell me you don’t have dynamite in there.”

  “Dynamite is noisy and the destruction is difficult to contain,” Neco said.

  She glared at him.

  “We use explosive paste that’s plastered into the cracks.” Greyston gave a disgruntled sigh. “And totally useless for imploding bloody tunnels.”

  “Or we could acquaint ourselves with the steward and wangle an invitation inside,” Lily suggested frostily. She knew Greyston was accustomed to living above the law, but exploding (or imploding) things was outside of enough.

  “I want to get into McAllister’s laboratory,” Greyston said in much the same tone. “Not take afternoon tea with a frigid manservant.”

  “I’m not a dunce,” she hissed. “I was thinking I could cause a distraction once we’re inside, giving you an opportunity to slip away and investigate.”

  Greyston opened his mouth, and then shut it without a word. He looked at her, his furrowed brow gradually easing. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  She was still irritated at him, but she did nearly jump into Greyston’s arms when a ferocious growl came from behind. He pulled her into his side. Neco stepped forward, ready to lunge. The beast bounding toward them was a wolfhound, his coat a thick silvery-grey with pure white markings around his eyes and snarling sn
out.

  “Sannon, heel boy,” came a mellow voice.

  The dog skidded to a halt a few feet from them, but didn’t quite heel. He danced a line in front of them, making gurgling sounds as if he couldn’t decide whether to whimper or growl.

  The owner of the voice appeared at the gate. He was over six foot tall, dressed in fawn leather breeches and dark brown boots that reached his knees. His open-collared white shirt contrasted starkly with his golden skin and the black hair that fell around his face in long layers.

  “Here, Sannon.” He slapped a palm to his thigh as he came closer. “He won’t attack,” he assured them, his gaze starting at Neco, pausing on Lily, and then stopping on Greyston. “Unless I give the command.”

  Lily’s fingers tightened on Greyston’s arm. The dog was still dancing excitedly, yapping, growling, whining and, she was sure, a few inches closer than the last time she’d looked. “He’s looking straight at me,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “He won’t hurt you,” Greyston said softly, then raised his voice to speak to the man. “Control your animal, sir, or I’ll see it done for you.”

  The man’s jaw set in a grimace. He’d looked slightly feral before. Now he looked downright lethal. Although he appeared to be only thirty or so years of age, his face was as harsh and rugged as the Scottish terrain they’d crossed to get here.

  The dog let out a hollow growl and strained forward.

  Greyston tensed.

  Lily yelped.

  Neco threw himself at the wolfhound. Man and beast hit the ground in a rolling scuffle. As enormous and vicious as the dog was, Neco rolled out onto his feet on the other side of the scuffle with the bulk of the dog clamped beneath his arm and his hand firmly securing its muzzle. He didn’t appear to notice the muscular hind legs kicking wildly into his hip as he set his attention on the owner. “I’m not convinced your dog is properly trained.”