by KJ Charles
“True,” Tim agreed. “But I can assure you, I didn’t nip up to the roof to drop stones on Pen.”
“Nor did I,” Greta said. “It does seem as if it must have been an accident. Still…let’s talk to the staff.”
—
They found nothing out. None of Crowmarsh’s regular staff had taken time off their duties in November or December. Nobody had seen anybody run up to the roof of the gatekeep. Pen went up himself and found the door at the top bolted though not locked, the stairs a stiffish climb, and no trace of recent activity. He concluded that it must have been an accident, and tried hard to believe it. Still, his nerves were on edge all day.
That evening, after another interminable and mostly silent dinner, he left Tim and Clem to pretend civility with Phineas and Desmond, and fled up with Greta to the Small Drawing Room.
“God,” he said, flopping into one of the over-embroidered, uncomfortable chairs. “I wish that blasted lawyer would get here and have done.”
“So do I,” Greta said. “This whole thing is unbearable.”
“And it’ll stay unbearable,” Pen said bitterly.
“It won’t. I’m sure you’ll find a way. You’ll have to lie low for a while, I grant you that.”
Pen made a strangled noise. “That’s my point. How long? How long am I going to be—” He pulled violently at the hard collar around his throat.
“I’m sure we can manage something. And if you did get into the papers, we don’t have to read them.”
“No. We could just know that everyone was laughing at me, and then you can be Lady Regret, with her disgraced brother and her bigamous father, who’ll never make a good marriage—”
“Who said anything about marriage?”
“What else do gently bred ladies do?”
“Croquet,” Greta said defiantly. “It’ll be fun.”
The guilt tugged at Pen. If he were a normal fellow like Tim, or even like Clem, unobtrusively domestic with his adored Rowley, he’d take this windfall with both hands. He should be glad his sister would be free to choose her own path, marry whoever she wanted, live in comfort. He ought to be happy that he could make her rich and safe, and all he had to do was pretend to be a man for the rest of his life and try not to choke on the lie of it.
“Come on, Pen,” Greta was saying. “Isn’t there anything good about this?”
Resentment overflowed into anger. “Oh, plenty, for you. I know you want the money and the house, you needn’t pretend.”
“That is not fair,” Greta snapped. “God’s sake. You know perfectly well I’m on your side. But yes, actually, I did want the money, and if we’ve absolutely got to live in a wonderful old house I’m not going to sit around looking devastated about it. And nor should you. You’ll only start everyone wondering what you’ve got to hide.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Pen snapped back. “I should be having a wonderful time playing the lord to a lot of people who hate my guts. I’m sure I’d love all this, if I didn’t have to face all the consequences.”
That speech led to a full and frank exchange of opinions, following which Greta stalked out and Pen retreated, fuming, to bed, where he lay feeling guilty, angry, and afraid.
He had no idea what he’d say if or when Mr. Hapgood arrived to confirm his parentage. Could he appeal to the lawyer for advice? This business of a music-hall performer becoming an earl after a great bigamy scandal—is there any way we can make sure nobody hears about it? Only, you see, I stood trial for unnatural offences a couple of years ago, and I’ve a feeling that may come up.
What would Mr. Hapgood do? He was a family solicitor. If Pen had to go through this nightmare, he needed someone a lot more practical, someone who understood and would know how to help.
Clem’s friend Nathaniel, perhaps, whose name Clem had coupled with that of Justin Lazarus often enough to make Pen’s ears prick up. He’d appeared to be as well bred as anyone Pen had ever met, from his voice and bearing, and Mark had said he was a journalist too. Someone like him would be able to help, surely. Maybe Clem could ask.
Or maybe he could ask Mark, who after all owed Pen something for the bloody awful mess in which he’d dropped him.
Not that he could blame Mark for the earldom; that was his damned father’s fault. Only, Pen had trusted Mark with the truth, his real, vulnerable truth, and Mark had ignored it. For other reasons, maybe good ones, but it still hurt because he’d told Mark things that he’d shared only with Greta before. Greta, who also knew exactly how he felt but still wanted this house, and the life that was within her grasp, and the comfort and safety he ought to be able to give her without stinting because she’d always given him everything.
Pen couldn’t let go of the kernel of anger at Mark and Greta and himself that made a little hard lump in his heart, and so he lay, worrying, guilty, and resentful, sweating under a pile of blankets, and wishing he could sleep. Perhaps he dozed, but he heard the chimes of midnight, one, and two o’clock, and each passing hour made him more convinced that he couldn’t sleep and more determined that he would, like it or not.
He was, accordingly, lying with his eyes shut in an effort to persuade his mind to follow his body’s example when he heard the sound.
This was a noisy house at night. It creaked and banged as ancient wood and metal contracted in the cold; things outside squealed and howled. Pen was slowly getting accustomed to that, but he could have sworn the noise he heard was more controlled, more meaningful. A slow, gentle movement of air as a door was pushed open, and a hint, through his closed eyelids, of a very dim light.
Footsteps. Greta, unable to sleep, Pen thought drowsily, and in a fit of tired, childish irritation with his sister, or his own guilt toward her, he kept his breathing level and his eyes shut. She could blasted well wake him up.
Another step, close enough to be unmistakable now. Pen lay half-dozing still, waiting for her to whisper his name as she came closer, and as she did, something in a deep and wary part of his mind screamed, But that isn’t Greta!
His eyes snapped open just as something heavy and smothering came down over his face.
The stifling was instant, and terrifying, the solid-packed feather pillow pressing into nostrils and open mouth. Pen bucked forward, but the pillow was hard on his head, clamped against both sides of his face, and he had a pile of blankets heavy over his thrashing feet, preventing him from moving. Panic and helplessness surged through him.
Panic, anger, and the reflexes of a trained body in which, despite it all, he’d much rather live than die.
He grabbed for his assailant’s wrists with both hands, and met thick material. He dug in his fingertips anyway with desperate brutality. The attacker was clearly strong, but Pen’s hands regularly took his own and Greta’s weight under the forces of a swinging trapeze; he could crack walnuts with his fingers. The attacker gave a stifled cry. Pen dug his thumbs into the soft underside of the wrists, where the nerves and blood vessels ran, pushing viciously through what felt like leather, and the man’s weight shifted as his hands lost strength. The pillow lifted away on one side as the attacker wrenched his hand back, and Pen twisted and thrashed and more or less fell out of bed, hopelessly disoriented, feet still trapped in a tangle of sheets and blankets. He took several precious seconds to kick himself free, and as he did he heard running footsteps recede. The dim light went with them, leaving him in pitch darkness.
Pen swore with the fluency of a stagehand. He had to grope for the window and open the shutters in order to let in sufficient light to find the lucifers and a candle, and by the time he’d done that, the door to his room gaped onto a dark corridor. The attacker was long gone.
—
“I did not dream it!” Pen was shouting, and didn’t care. He’d do more than shout.
His family, blinking and bewildered, were gathered around in the Large Drawing Room. Pen had roused the house in a towering, fear-driven rage, and the obvious disbelief on some of the faces he saw was not improving his temper.
&nbs
p; Unfortunately, he didn’t have any way to make anyone believe him except for the sole piece of evidence: an extra pillow on his bed. As Phineas had pointed out, he could have taken that from a cupboard himself, or simply misremembered the number of pillows he’d started with. His blankets were a violent tangle but that could have been a nightmare. And, most crucially, nobody around him had any marks at all on their wrists. He’d examined everyone’s wrists from Desmond down, calling every servant in the house in, men and women, since any woman who did laundry would have wrists as strong as half the men could offer. He’d seen no forming bruises at all.
“He was wearing some sort of leather gloves,” Pen repeated for about the fifteenth time. “They probably protected his skin.”
“It was a nightmare,” Desmond said irritably. “Or the fellow wishes to make himself seem interesting.”
“Someone tried to smother me!”
“If Pen says it happened, it happened,” Greta said. “And if you don’t believe him—”
“The question now surely isn’t who believes him, but what we do about it,” Tim said. “I will gladly take your word for it, Pen, but what then? The front door was locked for the night, and if you were attacked by someone in the house—well, who?”
“It does seem unlikely,” Clem said. “But I found a dead man on my doorstep, and that wasn’t very likely either.”
“That makes no sense whatsoever, you imbecile,” Phineas snapped.
Pen slammed his hand on the wall. “My God, will you keep your damned mouth shut!” Phineas’s jaw dropped; Desmond began to speak, but his creak didn’t stand a chance against Pen’s lungs. He had had enough. “You and your sneers and accusations. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be a member of this family, and I hope to God Hapgood tells us it’s all a terrible misunderstanding when he gets here so I never have to see either of you again. But let me tell you this, if he doesn’t, there’ll be some changes around here. I will not live with a pair of vultures on my shoulder, cawing and spitting, and if you can’t be civil, to me or Clem or anyone else, be quiet!” He stalked out past the open-mouthed Phineas, Greta behind him, Tim and Clem trailing after like wet washing.
“Um, Pen,” Clem said, hurrying to keep up. “Vultures don’t sit on your shoulder, that’s parrots. And they don’t spit; I think that’s snakes. And mostly, there’s no need to say anything to Phineas and Desmond on my behalf. It’s very kind of you, but that’s how they always talk.”
“They can damn well stop if they’re under my roof,” Pen tossed over his shoulder. “I will not have it, and if you bastards want me to be an earl I’m going to bloody behave like one!”
“You should probably stop swearing, then,” Greta remarked.
“Actually, he sounds exactly like Uncle Hugo in a rage,” Tim said, following them up the stairs. “A Taillefer tantrum to the manner born. Pen, old fellow, when you’re ready, Clem’s trying to get your attention.”
“I am, yes,” Clem said. “I want to bring Mark here.”
Pen stopped abruptly, so that Greta almost collided with him, and swung round. They were in the narrow West Corridor, with its leaded windows looking over the moat. “Mark? Mark said I’d be safe here, and now look!”
“Someone in Crowmarsh tried to kill you,” Clem said flatly. “We have a moat and the front door was bolted. It was someone in this house, bruises or not, and you nearly had your skull broken yesterday. I don’t understand how this happened and nor do you, so we need someone who knows about these things. We can ask the police, if you think they’ll be ready to listen to you, up from London with long hair, and not to the Taillefers who’ve been in charge round here for generations and who think you’re a liar. I think we should get Mark, because he’ll believe you.”
“Why don’t we leave?” Greta said. “If someone’s trying to kill Pen here, let’s go somewhere else. Somewhere this person can’t find him or reach him.”
“Except that we can’t be safe from him if we don’t know who he is,” Pen said. “What if he comes after me? Am I supposed to hide for my whole life?”
“Of course we know who he is,” Greta muttered. “It must be Phineas, Pen. Who else?”
“It wasn’t,” Pen said. “Phineas reeks of cigars, you can tell where he’s been for hours afterward. There was no smell of smoke, not at all. It wasn’t him, so I don’t know who it was and—” The roiling anger ebbed abruptly, draining the strength from his muscles. He sagged against the walls. “Oh God. I don’t know what to do.” He couldn’t stay here, but the prospect of leaving opened up a nightmare of pursuit and secret assassins hiding in the shadows. He certainly couldn’t return to performance in hiding, and if that was the case he might as well be the damn earl.
“Can’t we talk to Mr. Hapgood?” Greta said. “Persuade him to reject Pen’s claim, and then we can go away? I know it’s giving in to a bully, but I don’t care. They can have this house.”
Pen reached for her and she came over, strong and solid under his arm. He buried his face in her hair. “Thanks, Gret.”
“I don’t know if he’ll agree,” Tim said. “He works for the rightful heir, Pen, not in your interests.”
“And it wouldn’t make a difference,” Pen said. “I can’t renounce this ghastly inheritance if it’s mine, or give away the property legally. I asked. The only way for it to stop being mine is my death.”
“That’s not good enough.” Greta’s grip tightened. “At all. Pen…”
“We’ll telegraph Mark,” Pen said. “I’ll do that. Clem, can you go back to London, do you think, and talk to your friend the lawyer?”
Clem nodded. “I’ll go and pack.”
Chapter 10
It was pitch dark when the carriage came to a stop, but there were lights blazing in the house, and enough of a moon that Mark could see Crowmarsh’s silhouette against the sky.
It was bloody massive. It had a moat. He’d known that Clem’s family was absurdly rich and that the earldom would change Pen’s life, but there was knowing, and there was standing in front of a sodding great ancient moated grange that William the Conqueror had probably built, and that his lover now owned.
Not his lover. Not his lover. Pen might have sent for him, but nothing in the brief words of extreme urgency suggested forgiveness, and nor should they. Mark wouldn’t expect that, and he crushed each green shoot of hope underfoot as soon as he noticed it emerging. He was here to work.
He’d got the telegram that morning; it was past eight at night. He hoped to God Pen was all right.
“This way,” a servant said, indicating the bridge across the moat, which led to a huge medieval-looking door.
“You sure I shouldn’t be using the back?” Mark suggested. He knew how this worked; middle class and up expected enquiry agents to use the tradesman’s entrance.
“There’s no back. The moat surrounds the house. This is the only entrance.”
They crossed the bridge to the huge ancient door, Mark feeling as though he were going back in time. A normal-sized door set into the enormous one swung open as they approached, and he entered a wood-panelled hall hung with oils and dead animal heads staring glassy-eyed off the walls. He made a mental note to tell Rowley the preserver that he’d have a new customer here.
People took his hat, coat, and bag. “Mr. Timothy asked that you be shown to the Small Drawing Room at once,” the footman said, and set off. Mark followed, the sense of unlikelihood gathering at the age of this house, the wealth of it, the history and privilege. He always made a point of asserting his right to go anywhere he chose—his mother had taught him that much—but there was definitely a point where a scrappy brat from Herne Hill started to feel he really didn’t belong, and this was it.
He didn’t want to think how a long-haired trapeze artist from a Norfolk hamlet might feel.
An improbable succession of staircases and corridors took him to a small door that stood half open. The footman rapped, and a voice called, “Come in.”
“Your visitor, Mr. Timothy.” The footman held the door for Mark, and left them to it, closing the door again behind him.
Mark took in the room as a matter of instinct, with its faded embroidered chairs and tables covered in old china knickknacks, walls wood-panelled and hung with the kind of pointless paintings that you’d need a memory like Justin Lazarus’s to recall ten seconds after looking away. Tim Taillefer was rising from a little table where he’d been playing cards with Greta, but Mark didn’t have eyes for either of them any more than for the paintings. He could only look at Pen.
He stood by the lead-paned window, tired and worn in a suit of somewhat old-fashioned cut, and it looked good on him, it did, but it looked wrong too. Mark hadn’t realised how used he was to Pen’s shifting appearance, never one thing nor the other but something all his own. There were no gold hoops in his ears now, no heels to his shoes, no paint round his eyes, and his hair was scraped back against his head in such a way that Mark thought for a horrible second that he’d cut it, and felt his stomach plunge in response.
Pen moved then, and Mark could almost have gasped in relief at the sight of the long ponytail.
“Mark. Thanks for coming.” His face was set. “Have you met my cousin Tim?”
Mark did handshaking and greeting, which won him a somewhat sardonic look from Greta. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I think we all need a conversation—unless you want to talk privately first, Pen?”
“No,” Pen said. “Let’s start. Have you eaten?” he added, the courtesy sounding forced and grudging.
“I had something on the train.” Mark’s voice sounded equally stilted in his own ears.
“Let me get you a drink,” Tim offered. “Brandy? Er, you should perhaps know, your presence is a bit of a delicate subject.”
“Desmond and Phineas are of the opinion that Pen invented the attempt on his life this morning,” Greta said. “They don’t see he needs a private enquiry agent, and they don’t feel he’s entitled to invite guests to Crowmarsh until the place is definitely his. We’ve had quite the discussion. Don’t expect them to be welcoming.”
