Thoroughly demoralized and with defeat unavoidable, I dash the last few moves, putting my king to the sword with unseemly haste before staggering from the room, Sebastian Bell’s voice fading behind me.
15
As ordered, Cunningham’s waiting for me in the library. He’s sitting on the edge of a chair, the letter I gave him unfolded and trembling slightly in his hand. He stands as I enter, but in my desire to put the sunroom behind me, I’ve moved too quickly. I can hear myself breathing, wheezy desperate bursts from my overburdened lungs.
He doesn’t venture to help.
“How did you know what was going to happen in the drawing room?” he asks.
I try to answer, but there isn’t room for both words and air in my throat. I choose the latter, guzzling it with the same appetite as everything else in Ravencourt’s life, while staring into the study. I’d hoped to catch the Plague Doctor while he chatted with Bell, but my futile attempt to warn Evelyn dragged on longer than I expected.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.
As I saw on the road to the village, the Plague Doctor seems to know where I’ll be and when, no doubt timing his appearances so I can’t ambush him.
“It happened exactly as you described it,” continues Cunningham, staring at the paper in disbelief. “Ted Stanwin insulted the maid, and Daniel Coleridge stepped in. They even spoke the words you wrote down. They spoke them exactly.”
I could explain, but he hasn’t got to the section troubling him yet. Instead, I hobble over to the chair, lowering myself onto the cushion with a great deal of effort. My legs throb in pitiful gratitude.
“Was it a trick?” he asks.
“No trick,” I say.
“And this…the final line, where you say…”
“Yes.”
“…that you’re not Lord Ravencourt.”
“I’m not Ravencourt,” I say.
“You’re not?”
“I’m not. Get a drink. You’re looking a little pale.”
He does as I say, obedience seemingly being the only part of him that hasn’t thrown its hands up in defeat. He returns with a glass of something and sits down, sipping it, his eyes never leaving mine, legs pressed together, shoulders bowed.
I tell him everything, from the murder in the forest and my first day as Bell, right through to the never-ending road and my recent conversation with Daniel. Doubt flickers on his face, but every time it seems to have a foothold, he glances at the letter. I almost feel sorry for him.
“Do you need another drink?” I ask, nodding toward his half-empty glass.
“If you’re not Lord Ravencourt, where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he alive?”
He can barely make eye contact.
“Would you rather he wasn’t?” I ask.
“Lord Ravencourt’s been good to me,” he says, anger flashing across his face.
That doesn’t answer the question.
I look at Cunningham again. Downcast eyes and dirty hands, a smeared tattoo from a troubled past. In a flash of intuition, I realize he’s afraid, but not of what I’ve told him. He’s afraid of what somebody who’s already seen this day unfold might know. He’s hiding something, I’m certain of it.
“I need your help, Cunningham,” I say. “There’s lots to do, and while I’m shackled to Ravencourt, I don’t have the legs to do any of it.”
Draining his glass, he gets to his feet. The drink’s painted two spots of color on his cheeks, and when he speaks, his voice drips with the bottle’s courage.
“I’m going to take my leave now and resume service tomorrow when Lord Ravencourt has”—he pauses, considering the right word—“returned.”
He bows stiffly, before heading for the door.
“Do you think he’ll take you back when he knows your secret?” I say abruptly, an idea dropping into my head like a stone into a pond. If I’m right and Cunningham is hiding something, it may be shameful enough to use as leverage.
He stops dead beside my chair, hands clenched tight.
“What do you mean?” he says, staring straight ahead.
“Look beneath the cushion of your seat,” I say, trying to keep the tension from my voice. The logic of what I’m attempting is sound, but that doesn’t mean it will actually work.
He glances at the chair, then back toward me. Without a word he does as I say, discovering a small white envelope. Triumph twists a smile from my lips as he tears it open, his shoulders sagging.
“How did you know?” he asks, his voice cracked.
“I don’t know a thing, but when I wake up in my next host, I’m going to dedicate myself to the task of uncovering your secret. I’m then going to return to this room and place the information in that envelope for you to find. Should this conversation not go the way I want, I’ll place the envelope where the other guests can find it.”
He snorts at me, his contempt a slap in the face.
“You may not be Ravencourt, but you sound exactly like him.”
The idea is so startling it momentarily silences me. Until now, I’d assumed my personality—whatever that might be—was carried into each new host, filling them as pennies fill a pocket, but what if I was wrong?
None of my previous hosts would have thought to blackmail Cunningham, let alone had the stomach to act on the threat. In fact, looking back at Sebastian Bell, Roger Collins, Donald Davies, and now Ravencourt, I can see little in their behavior to suggest a common hand at work. Could it be that I’m bending to their will, rather than the other way around? If so, I must be wary. It’s one thing to be caged in these people, quite another to abandon oneself entirely to their desires.
My thoughts are interrupted by Cunningham, who’s setting fire to a corner of the letter with a lighter from his pocket.
“What is it you want from me?” he says in a hard, flat voice, dropping the burning paper into the grate.
“Four things, initially,” I say, counting them off on my thick fingers. “First, I need you to find an old well off the road into the village. There’ll be a note tucked into a crack in the stone. Read it, put it back, and return to me with the message. Do it soon, the note will be gone within the hour. Second, you need to find that plague doctor costume I asked about earlier. Third, I want you scattering the name Anna around Blackheath like confetti. Let it be known Lord Ravencourt is looking for her. Finally, I need you to introduce yourself to Sebastian Bell.”
“Sebastian Bell, the doctor?”
“That’s the chap.”
“Why?”
“Because I remember being Sebastian Bell, but I don’t remember meeting you,” I say. “If we change that, I prove to myself that something else can be changed today.”
“Evelyn Hardcastle’s death?”
“Precisely.”
Letting out a long breath, Cunningham turns to face me. He seems diminished, as though our conversation were a desert he’s spent a week crossing.
“If I do these things, can I expect the contents of this letter to stay between us?” he says, his expression conveying more hope than expectation.
“It will. You have my word.”
I extend a sweaty hand.
“Then it seems I have no choice,” he says, shaking it firmly, only the slightest flicker of disgust showing on his face.
He departs in a hurry, probably wary of being burdened with more tasks should he linger. In his absence, the damp air seems to settle upon me, sinking through my clothes and into my bones. Judging the library too cheerless to stay in any longer, I struggle out of my seat, using my cane to hoist myself onto my feet.
I pass through the study on my way to Ravencourt’s parlor, where I’ll settle myself ahead of my meeting with Helena Hardcastle. If she’s plotting to murder Evelyn this evening, then, by Lord, I mean to have it out of her.
Heavy steps disturb my reverie, each one deliberate and slow, as if determined to draw my attention. I’ve reached as far as the dining hall, where a long oak table is overlooked by the mounted heads of long-slaughtered beasts, their fur faded and thick with dust. The room is empty, and yet the steps seem to be all around, mimicking my hobbling gait.
I stiffen, coming to a halt, sweat beading my brow.
The steps stop in turn.
Dabbing my forehead, I look around nervously, wishing Bell’s letter opener were to hand. Buried in Ravencourt’s sluggish flesh, I feel like a man dragging an anchor. I can neither run nor fight, and even if I could, I’d be swinging at air. I’m quite alone.
After a brief hesitation, I begin walking again, those ghostly steps trailing me. I stop suddenly, and they stop with me, a sinister giggle drifting out of the walls. My heart’s pounding, hair standing up on my arms as fright sends me lurching toward the safety of the entrance hall visible through the drawing-room door. By now, the steps aren’t bothering mimicking me, they’re dancing, that giggle seeming to come from every direction.
I’m panting by the time I reach the doorway, blinded by sweat and moving so fast I’m in danger of tripping over my own cane. As I pass into the entrance hall, the laughter stops abruptly, a whisper chasing me out.
“We’ll meet soon, little rabbit.”
16
Ten minutes later, the whisper’s long faded, but the terror it provoked echoes still. It wasn’t the words themselves, so much as the glee they carried. That warning was a down payment on the blood and pain to come, and only a fool wouldn’t see the footman behind it.
Holding my hand up, I check to see how badly it’s trembling, and deciding that I’m at least moderately recovered, I continue onward to my room. I’ve only taken a step or two when sobbing draws my attention to a dark doorway at the back of the entrance hall. For a full minute I hover on the periphery, peering into the dimness, fearing a trap. Surely the footman wouldn’t try something so soon, or be able to summon up these pitiable gulps of sadness I’m hearing now?
Sympathy compels me to take a tentative step forward, and I find myself in a narrow gallery adorned with Hardcastle family portraits. Generations wither on the walls, the current incumbents of Blackheath hanging nearest the door. Lady Helena Hardcastle is sitting regally beside her standing husband, both of them dark-haired and dark-eyed, beautifully supercilious. Next to them are the portraits of the children, Evelyn at a window, fingering the edge of the curtain as she watches for somebody’s arrival, while Michael has one leg flung over the arm of the chair he’s sitting in, a book discarded on the floor. He looks bored, shimmering with a restless energy. In the corner of each portrait is a splashed signature; that of Gregory Gold if I’m not very much mistaken. The memory of the butler’s beating at the artist’s hands is still fresh, and I find myself gripping my cane, tasting the blood in my mouth once again. Evelyn told me Gold had been brought to Blackheath to touch up the portraits and I can see why. The man may be insane, but he’s talented.
Another sob issues from the corner of the room.
There are no windows in the gallery, only burning oil lamps, and it’s so dim I have to squint to locate the maid slumped in the shadows, weeping into a soggy handkerchief. Tact would advise that I approach quietly, but Ravencourt’s ill designed for stealth. My cane raps the floor, the sound of my breathing running on ahead, announcing my presence. Catching sight of me, the maid leaps to her feet, her cap coming loose, curly red hair springing free.
I recognize her immediately. This is Lucy Harper, the maid Ted Stanwin abused at lunch, and the woman who helped me down to the kitchen when I awoke as the butler. The memory of that kindness echoes within me, a warm rush of pity shaping the words in my mouth.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. I didn’t mean to startle you,” I say.
“No, sir, it’s not… I shouldn’t…” She casts around for some escape, miring herself further in etiquette.
“I heard you crying,” I say, attempting to push a sympathetic smile onto my face. It’s a difficult thing to achieve with somebody else’s mouth, especially when there’s so much flesh to move around.
“Oh, sir, you shouldn’t… It was my fault. I made a mistake at lunch,” she says, dabbing the last of her tears away.
“Ted Stanwin treated you atrociously,” I say, surprised by the alarm rising on her face.
“No, sir, you mustn’t say that,” she says, her voice hurdling an entire octave. “Ted, Mr. Stanwin, I mean, he’s been good to us servants. Always treated us right, he has. He’s just… Now he’s a gentleman, he can’t be seen…”
She’s on the verge of tears again.
“I understand,” I say hastily. “He doesn’t want the other guests treating him like a servant.”
A smile swallows her face.
“That’s it, sir. That’s just it. They’d never have caught Charlie Carver if it weren’t for Ted, but the other gentlemen still look at him like he’s one of us. Not Lord Hardcastle, though. He calls him Mr. Stanwin and everything.”
“Well, as long as you’re quite all right,” I say, taken aback by the pride in her voice.
“I am, sir. Really I am,” she says earnestly, emboldened enough to scoop her cap from the floor. “I should be getting back. They’ll be wondering where I’ve got to.”
She takes a step toward the door, but is too slow to prevent me throwing a question in her path.
“Lucy, do you know anybody called Anna?” I ask. “I was thinking she could be a servant.”
“Anna?” She pauses, tossing the full weight of her thought at the problem. “No, sir, can’t say as I do.”
“Any of the maids acting strangely?”
“Now, sir, would you believe, you’re the third person to ask that question today,” she says, twisting a lock of her curly hair around her finger.
“Third?”
“Yes, sir, Mrs. Derby was down in the kitchen only an hour ago wondering the same thing. Gave us a right fright she did. High-born lady like that wandering around downstairs, ain’t ever heard of such a thing.”
My hand grips my cane. Whoever this Mrs. Derby is, she’s acting oddly and asking the same questions I am. Perhaps I’ve found another of my rivals.
Or another host.
The suggestion makes me blush, Ravencourt’s familiarity with women extending only so far as acknowledging their existence in the world. The thought of becoming one is as unintelligible to him as a day spent breathing water.
“What can you tell me about Mrs. Derby?” I ask.
“Nothing much, sir,” says Lucy. “Older lady, sharp tongue. I liked her. Not sure if it means anything, but there was a footman as well. Came in a few minutes after Mrs. Derby asking the same question: any of the servants acting funny?”
My hand squeezes the knob of my cane even tighter, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from cursing.
“A footman?” I say. “What did he look like?”
“Blond hair, tall, but…” She drifts off, looking troubled. “I don’t know, pleased with himself. Probably works for a gentleman, sir, they get like that, pick up airs and graces they do. Had a broken nose, all black and purple, like it only recently happened. I reckon somebody took exception to him.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Wasn’t me, sir, was Mrs. Drudge, the cook. Said the same thing she said to Mrs. Derby, that the servants were fine, it was the guests gone…” She blushes. �
�Oh, begging your pardon, sir. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry, Lucy. I find most of the people in this house as peculiar as you do. What have they been doing?”
She grins, her eyes darting toward the doors guiltily. When she speaks again, her voice is almost low enough to be drowned out by the creaking of the floorboards.
“Well, this morning Miss Hardcastle was out in the forest with her lady’s maid, French she is, you should hear her, quelle this and quelle that. Somebody attacked them out by Charlie Carver’s old cottage. One of the guests apparently, but they wouldn’t say which one.”
“Attacked, you’re certain?” I say, recalling my morning as Bell, and the woman I saw fleeing through the forest. I assumed it was Anna, but what if I was wrong? It wouldn’t be the first assumption to trip me up in Blackheath.
“That’s what they said, sir,” she says, falling shy in the face of my eagerness.
“I think I need to have a chat with this French maid. What’s her name?”
“Madeline Aubert, sir, only I’d prefer it if you didn’t let on who told you. They’re keeping quiet about it.”
Madeline Aubert. That’s the maid who gave Bell the note at dinner last night. In the confusion of recent events, I’d quite forgotten about his slashed arm.
“My lips are sealed, Lucy. Thank you,” I say, miming the action. “Even so, I must speak with her. Could you let her know I’m looking for her? You don’t have to tell her why, but there’s a reward in it for both of you if she comes to my parlor.”
She looks doubtful, but agrees readily enough, bolting before I have time to slip any more promises around her neck.
If Ravencourt were able, I’d have a bounce in my step as I depart the gallery. Whatever apathy Evelyn may feel toward Ravencourt, she’s still my friend and my will is still bent on saving her. If somebody threatened her in the forest this morning, it’s not a stretch to assume the same person will play some part in her murder this evening. I must do everything in my power to intercept them, and hopefully this Madeline Aubert will be able to help. Who knows, by this point tomorrow I might have the murderer’s name in hand. If the Plague Doctor honors his offer, I could escape this house with hosts to spare.
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Page 11
