A Mysterious Season

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  Just then a clap of thunder sounded overhead and Plum gave a start of surprise. “I don’t think I much care for the notion of a haunted house.”

  “Fear not, Plum. Mrs. Smith told God to protect us. I should think the Almighty wouldn’t dare to cross Mrs. Smith,” Brisbane said lightly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Late in the night, long after Brisbane and I had slipped into slumber, I was awakened. I lay in the darkness, listening closely. I heard my own heartbeat, thundering in my ears from the suddenness of my waking. I could just make out Brisbane’s deep, slow breaths. It was a familiar and comforting sound, and I had just turned over to go to sleep again when I heard a noise. It was a sob—a long, mournful sob. Without hesitation I snatched up my dressing gown and flung it over my shoulders. I did not stop to trifle with slippers but went directly to the door and wrenched it open.

  There was nothing but stillness and silence in the long black corridor beyond. No candles had been left burning here, for the risk of fire was too great, and it seemed Mrs. Smith was a careful housekeeper. But I would have given half my wealth for a light just then.

  I waited in the doorway, eyes and ears straining, but the sound did not come again.

  Suddenly, a heavy hand landed upon my shoulder and I whirled, stifling the shriek that rose in my throat. “What is it?” Brisbane demanded in a low whisper.

  “A sound that woke me. Like a sob,” I whispered back.

  “Is it the children?” he asked, and I felt a stab of inadequacy as I realised I had never considered it might be.

  “I think not. It wasn’t high like a child’s cry, and even if it were, we shouldn’t hear them from upstairs,” I told him. “No, this was low and terribly sad. A woman’s sob.”

  We listened together for a long moment, but nothing disturbed the long stillness of the night. Eventually Brisbane dropped his hand and I knew he meant to return to bed. I turned to follow, and just as I put my hand to the door, it came again—a long, low moan of despair.

  “Good God,” Brisbane said. “What the devil was that?”

  Just then Plum’s door opened and he emerged with tousled hair and a candle in his hand. He leapt back when he saw us, then scowled. “I say, if you’re going to go around playing at—well, whatever matrimonial games the pair of you get up to—it would be sporting of you not to wake the rest of us.”

  “It wasn’t us, idiot,” I told him. “The sound awakened us, as well.”

  Plum looked around. “Why isn’t Portia up and threatening to dismember us? She’s the most protective of the lot of us about her sleep.”

  We exchanged glances of some trepidation. We went directly to Portia’s room and I knocked briskly upon the door. She did not reply.

  I looked to my brother and my husband, who looked at each other.

  “Break down the door,” Plum ordered Brisbane.

  Brisbane’s expression was pained. “That’s rather drastic, don’t you think?”

  Plum’s hands curled into fists. “My sister is in peril and you would quibble over the trouble of breaking down the door? I took you for a gentleman, but I wonder if you aren’t a thorough villain.”

  I shoved Plum. “We don’t know she’s in peril. She has always been a deep sleeper. Let me pick the lock instead.” I reached into the pocket of my dressing gown for the set of tools Brisbane had thoughtfully given me when he had engaged to instruct me on the principles of lock-picking. “Bring the candle down to the level of my eyes,” I directed Plum.

  He bent to do so as I knelt in front of the door, and that was how Portia found us. She opened the door wearing a dressing gown of ivory damask that would not have looked amiss on a mediaeval queen. “What the devil are you doing on the floor, Julia? And, Plum, I have no wish ever to see you in your nightshirt. Go and put on trousers immediately.” She glanced at Brisbane’s lower appendages. “Yours are splendid, Brisbane,” she said, stifling a tremendous yawn. “You really ought to consider wearing a kilt.”

  I resisted the urge to shake her. “Are you quite all right? We were all wakened by the most frightful noise, and then we couldn’t rouse you when we knocked.”

  “So you thought you would pick the lock? How perfectly revolting. A lady ought to have some privacy,” she said with reproof, but she yawned again and blinked several times in succession as if to clear her vision. “I was awakened by the sound, as well. Sounded like a sob. And I heard you pounding, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to answer. So devilishly sleepy,” she finished, trailing off as her eyelids began to droop.

  “Brisbane,” I began, but before I could finish, he caught her neatly as she slipped back into sleep.

  Plum and I exchanged glances. “I know she’s a champion sleeper, but that’s a bit much, even for Portia,” he ventured.

  “Yes, it’s almost as if she’s been—”

  “Drugged,” Brisbane said cheerfully.

  He carried Portia to her bed and laid her down as gently as a leaf. I pulled the coverlet up to her chin and turned to face him. “What do you mean drugged?”

  He held open one of her eyes, raising a candle to watch the pupil as it contracted very slowly. She made a noise of protest and rolled over, snoring gently as she wrapped her arms about a pillow.

  “An opiate, I’d say. Nothing too strong or she’d not have been able to come to the door. She will sleep it off now and be right as rain tomorrow.”

  “I still do not understand,” Plum said. “Drugged how?”

  Brisbane shrugged. “She may have taken a powder to help her sleep. It’s a new house, strange bed, and she likes her rest.”

  I pondered this, then shook my head. “No, she was yawning heavily before we came upstairs. If she took anything, it was earlier.”

  “Well, you cannot ask her now,” Brisbane pointed out reasonably. “And the night is half gone. We should all be abed and we’ll discuss it in the morning.”

  I told Brisbane I would finish my sleep in Portia’s bed should she have need of anything in the night, and he agreed. He kissed me as I slipped under the coverlet, and as he pulled away, he gave me a sharp look.

  “Julia, why are you smiling?”

  “Because,” I told him happily, “it’s only our first night in this house and we already have two mysteries to solve. A most excellent beginning.”

  * * *

  No sooner had I fallen asleep once more than the moaning began. This time it was accompanied by the rattling of chains. Portia stirred but did not waken, and I did not like to leave her. I lay awake for awhile listening to the mournful sobs and the chains. In desperation, I put the pillow over my ears and finally slept, waking only when Portia elbowed me sharply in the ribs.

  “What the devil are you doing in my bed?” she demanded. “Did you try something immodest with Brisbane and he turned you out?”

  I rubbed my eyes. “I have yet to find anything Brisbane would consider immodest,” I informed her. “I stayed with you because you were drugged last night!”

  “Drugged!” She attempted to sit up, then collapsed against the pillows with a groan. “I think you may be right. I feel as if I’d been run down by a coach and six.”

  I fixed her with a firm look. “Did you take it yourself? A powder or something to help you sleep?”

  She rolled her eyes heavenward. “No, I did not. I sleep perfectly—you know that.”

  “Yes, but I did wonder…” I hesitated. The loss of her beloved partner was still fresh enough to sting. She had turned rather too often to drink in the months after Jane’s death, but I had thought those days were beginning to pass. If she thought to drug herself into oblivion, this was fresh trouble.

  She gave me a sad, sweet smile. “My dearest ninny, no. I will confess to enjoying my wine as much as the next fellow, but I have never had recourse to more exotic pursui
ts. Unlike your husband,” she added with a touch of asperity. She was not wrong. Brisbane’s fondness for the occasional pipe full of hashish was well-known to her. What was not generally known was my own appreciation for it. Still, it was a pleasure of which we partook only rarely, and I knew neither Brisbane nor I had packed any of the stuff for our trip into the country.

  “What was it, then?” I asked. “If you didn’t take it of your own volition and you did not drink more heavily than the rest, what did you take, and how was it given?”

  She thought a moment then shook her head. “There’s no way to know. I ate and drank everything the rest of you did, but several of the dishes were brought individually from the kitchens and all the wine was poured out of our sight. A simple sedative could have been slipped into any of the food or drink.”

  I glanced around the room, my eyes lighting on a beribboned box of chocolates sitting upon her dressing table. I rose and went to it. It was a generous box from a famous London confectioner. An identical box had been left upon my dressing table, but I had yet to open it.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “They were on the dressing table when I arrived,” she answered with a yawn.

  I opened the box. Several of the chocolates were missing. “When did you eat these?”

  “Just before we went down to dinner. I was a little peckish after the journey.”

  “You must have been. Nearly half of these have been eaten!”

  I took out the nearest chocolate and inspected it carefully. There was nothing remarkable about it, but the next yielded better results. I showed Portia where the bottom of the chocolate bore the telltale prick of a needle. I looked over the rest of the chocolates, and of those left in the box, well over half of them had been handled, and all from the centre of the box.

  “But why?” Portia asked, mystified.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. But I mean to find out.”

  * * *

  I left Portia and went to rouse Brisbane. While he looked over Portia’s chocolates, I inspected my own. Half of those bore the same suspicious mark.

  “Filled with a sedative, too, no doubt,” I said, passing them to Brisbane. “But why in the centre of the box?”

  His voice was distracted. “Think of what happens when you go to choose a chocolate from a fresh box. Most people go directly to the centre.”

  “Yes, but why not adulterate them all just to be safe?”

  He considered this a minute. “Haste. If you only had a limited time to prepare them, you would inject the chocolates most likely to be chosen.”

  “Or,” I said slowly, “it was to safeguard us.”

  He quirked up one black brow. “You think the miscreant who did this meant to help?”

  “Yes, think of it. If you want to tamper with a box of chocolates to cause someone to sleep heavily, you put a sedative into them. But how can you know they will only eat a few? For most sedatives, too much taken at once is lethal. Whoever adulterated these chocolates had no way of knowing how many a single person would eat. The safest way to keep from accidentally killing one of us would be to ensure that not enough chocolates were tainted to cause death. It’s really rather thoughtful, when considered properly.”

  Brisbane shook his head as if to clear it. “I cannot believe you are actually excusing the perpetrator,” he said, shaking the box at me.

  “Because it is at worst a silly prank,” I said roundly. “Even if Portia or I had eaten the whole box, we would not have come to any harm. We would only have slept very deeply, and that’s hardly a crime. But to what purpose?” I mused. “And why not direct any efforts to you or to Plum?”

  Brisbane’s gaze fell upon the washstand. “Perhaps they did.” He rose and retrieved a bottle that had been placed there—a bottle of very fine single malt. He opened it and took a deep sniff.

  “Well?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing but peat.” Before I could stop him he upended the bottle, taking a generous swallow. “We’ll know soon enough, I suppose,” he said cheerfully. “I’m off to wash.”

  Before I could berate him for being so careless of his own health—just because the chocolates were only lightly tainted did not mean the whisky was not outright poisoned—he took himself off to his dressing room.

  My lady’s maid appeared then, looking a little haggard. “Good morning, Liddell. Did you sleep well?”

  Her gaze slid from mine. “No, my lady. I was up until all hours with the weeping and moaning.”

  “Oh, you heard it, too?”

  She nodded and went to the clothes press. “Which today, my lady?”

  “I think the violet tweed. A walk into the village would suit me very well,” I instructed.

  She dressed me quickly and competently, but her movements were a little nervous.

  “Are you all right?”

  She darted a glance at me, twisting her hands in her skirt. “Yes, my lady.”

  She was frightened of ghosts, I decided. But it would not do for her to indulge in missish humours. I took a firm line with her. “It was most probably the wind,” I said firmly, believing it not for a minute.

  “The wind doesn’t sound like rattling chains,” she pointed out coolly.

  “Oh, you heard that, as well? Never mind. I’m certain there’s a perfectly logical explanation. And you needn’t fear, Liddell. We will find it,” I promised her.

  “I wonder,” she said.

  * * *

  It was not until we went downstairs to breakfast that we realised Plum was missing.

  “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him,” Portia told Brisbane when he asked.

  Mrs. Smith had just entered the hall with a fresh pot of tea. “He did not answer when the waterman went to take up his hot water, either.”

  I dropped my fork. “And you said nothing until now? I should have thought that would be rather pertinent information, Mrs. Smith,” I chided.

  She pursed her lips. “What gentlemen get up to is none of my business. I’m a respectable widow,” she replied.

  Brisbane and Portia were already halfway up the stairs when I caught them. It took a good deal of hammering on Brisbane’s part, but Plum eventually opened the door looking as though he had slept a thousand years. “What is all that racket about? I say, it sounds as if you were taking the house apart over my head.”

  Brisbane pushed past him to the bedside table where he found a bottle of whisky. He held it up. “A glass gone.”

  “Well, of course there is a glass gone. You can’t expect a fellow to sleep through moans and chains without a bit of help,” Plum protested. “What’s all this about?”

  “We were forcibly sedated by nefarious means,” Portia informed him. “Isn’t it thrilling?”

  “Thrilling? I should think not,” Plum replied. “It’s damned impertinent.”

  I turned to Brisbane. “You had some of the whisky. How do you feel?”

  He lifted one muscular shoulder. “A little relaxed. Nothing more than a gentle lassitude. But I drank less than Plum and I have thirty pounds on him,” he reminded me. He looked at Plum. “Why don’t you come to breakfast now? Some strong coffee will do us both good, and we can think it all out.”

  Plum agreed, and by the time Mrs. Smith had brought in the coffee he was downstairs, his neckcloth a little askew and a nick on his cheek where he had cut himself shaving, but otherwise undamaged.

  As Mrs. Smith poured out the coffee, I ventured a question. “Mrs. Smith, we heard a series of curious noises last night. Moans, to begin with.”

  She tightened her mouth as if she had just sucked a lemon. “What married folk get up to is no concern of mine.”

  “It was not us!” I replied sharply. “It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. All of us heard it, even
my maid upstairs. It sounded like a woman weeping.”

  “Ah, that,” she said, flapping a hand in dismissal. “You’ll not let the Weeping Woman bother you. She’s harmless.”

  “The Weeping Woman?” Portia asked.

  “Yes, my lady. She’s the ghost of a lady who was once mistress of this place. Lost a child. Or was it a lover? In any case, she pined away and still roams the house, wailing her loss. That’s why they call her the Wailing Lady.”

  “I thought you said she was the Weeping Lady,” I put in.

  “Weeping, wailing, it makes no difference,” she said, arranging the jam pots more neatly.

  “I heard a chain rattling, as well,” I continued.

  She brightened. “Oh, that is good news! It means the Bloody Knight is on the move. We haven’t seen him in ever so long. It will be like meeting an old friend.” She nodded towards the suits of armour arranged along the walls. “It’s one of those fellows there what has a chain.”

  All of the suits of armour were fixed with weapons—swords, halberds—and three had maces, great spiked balls of iron hanging from heavy chains.

  “And one of those knights walks?” Plum put in pleasantly.

  “Only on special occasions,” Mrs. Smith informed him.

  “What is so special about this occasion?” he asked.

  Mrs. Smith drew herself up. “Well, it’s not every day the house gets a new family, is it? Besides, today is All Hallow’s Eve. They’ll all walk tonight.”

  She made to leave, but Brisbane detained her. “One thing more, Mrs. Smith. There were chocolates left for the ladies and whisky for Mr. March and myself. Who was responsible for the welcome gifts?”

  She gave him a blank look. “I couldn’t say, sir. I know nothing about them.”

  “You mean you accepted no packages from London? You did not place them in our rooms?”

  “Certainly not, sir,” she said stoutly. “But it’s a very good sign.”

  “How do you reckon this?”