Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery) (10 page)

My stomach clenched. Damn him, he was right. If Will were to accidentally injure me while in the grips of one of his melancholies, he would never forgive himself. I had admitted as much to myself earlier this evening when I thought Michael was angry with me for approaching his brother.

Frustrated that he had backed me into a corner I could not reason myself out of without disregarding Will’s best interests, I glared daggers at Gage. “I can’t just walk away and ignore that he needs my help,” I challenged him. “What kind of person would I be to abandon a friend in such a manner?” I heard distress creep into my voice and shook my head in aggravation. “I can’t do it, Gage. I owe him too much.”

His brow furrowed in consternation. “Because he was your drawing master for a few months?”

I closed my eyes, trying to find the words to make him understand. “Because he believed in me when no one else did. Because he was my friend when everyone else had abandoned me.” I sighed. “Because without Will’s encouragement I would likely have given up my portraits, and then where would I be?”

I opened my eyes to find Gage watching me with a strange glimmer in his eyes. I knew he understood how much my artwork meant to me, how lost I felt without it. How desperate I had been when Sir Anthony had threatened to take it away from me if I dared defy him in his quest to complete his anatomy textbook—the textbook for which he needed my sketches. I had only ever admitted to Philip and my brother Trevor how far Sir Anthony was willing to go to carry through on his threats, but I suspected Gage had inferred more than I had let on. Even if he hadn’t guessed that my late husband had threatened to break my fingers, I knew he presumed something similar.

I could tell from the concern in his eyes that his thoughts had traveled along the same path as mine, and I dropped my gaze. Even eighteen months after Sir Anthony’s death, the hurt was still too raw.

Gage surprised me by cupping my jaw with his warm hand and gently forcing my gaze back to his. The callus on his thumb rasped against my skin as he brushed it back and forth across my cheek.

For one breathless moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. His face was so close that I could smell the smoky scent of whiskey on his breath, telling me he must have indulged in a tot or two before venturing forth to confront me. His gaze dropped to my lips, making them tingle, but he never brought his mouth closer to mine.

“I can understand why you want to help William Dalmay,” he said. His voice sounded huskier than before. “But you need to consider what would really be best for him.”

I backed away from his touch, and his hand fell away. Turning my back to him, I took several steps toward the fireplace, needing to put some distance between us. I was shaken by how disappointed I felt that he hadn’t kissed me, and thrown off guard by his persistent efforts to keep me away from Will.

Struggling to maintain my composure, I pressed a hand to my forehead. “Why are you so concerned about this?” I finally managed to ask him. When he didn’t approach or offer an explanation, I turned to look at him. He stood with his hands at his sides, watching me with a faint look of consternation on his face. “If it’s because you feel some sort of responsibility for my safety because of what happened two months ago, I assure you, there’s no need. You saved my life. Had you not jumped into the loch after me . . .” I smiled sadly. “Well, let’s just say we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Any obligation you felt toward me in not taking my concerns seriously has been fulfilled.”

His voice was soft. “Kiera, I will never stop feeling responsible for your safety.”

I wrinkled my brow in puzzlement.

“But I’m not warning you because of what happened two months ago,” he added briskly, closing the distance between us again.

“Then why?”

“Because someone needs to. Cromarty and Michael Dalmay clearly aren’t thinking.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t that rather high-handed of you?”

A smile quirked his lips. “Perhaps. But you have a stubborn streak. Someone needs to rein you in.”

“I resent that,” I gasped, planting my hands on my hips. “You were prepared to name me as your chief suspect for the murder at Gairloch if I did not help you find the real culprit. And I only insisted on continuing the investigation after you were done because I knew
you 
. . .” I pointed a finger at him “. . . had apprehended the wrong suspect.”

“Yes, well, nothing I have seen of you since your arrival here at Dalmay House has convinced me you are not as willful as you were at Gairloch.”

I frowned. “Then I’m sorry to disappoint you further. Because you’re not about to see anything from me now that will change your mind.”

He scowled. “Kiera . . .”

I lifted my hand to halt the flow of his words. “No, Gage. I have heard your objections, and I appreciate your concern, but nothing you say is going to keep me from visiting with William Dalmay. I will, of course, take appropriate precautions, for my own sake as well as Will’s, but I’m not going to avoid him like he’s got some deadly disease.”

Gage clenched his hands into fists. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. William Dalmay spent
nine years
in that asylum. Who knows what he’s endured or how it’s changed him? I don’t know that you can comprehend what vile things he may have been forced to do in order to survive.” His voice lowered. “A man does not last long in such a place without having to do things that would make grown men tremble.”

I wrapped my arms around my waist and turned to stare at the fire crackling in the hearth, unwilling to let myself contemplate what he meant. What could Gage really know of the matter? He was just trying to scare me. He was accustomed to persuading people around to his way of thinking, and if his weapons of choice, wit and charm, wouldn’t work, apparently he wasn’t above using fear and intimidation.

He acted as if he knew what he was talking about, but how could he? Even if Michael had related more of the details of Will’s confinement to him than the rest of us, surely Gage couldn’t know enough to speculate on what Will did or didn’t do while locked away.

Unless there was more to the matter than he was letting on.

“Why are you here?” I demanded, glancing up at him out of the corner of my eye. “At Dalmay House.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him. “And let’s try the truth this time.”

His eyebrows snapped together. “I never lied. Michael Dalmay invited me to visit, and I accepted. End of story.”

“I see,” I murmured, feigning interest in the lamp painted with delicate flowers positioned on one of the side tables. “When did Michael extend this courtesy?”

“About a fortnight ago, when I was wrapping up my investigation in Edinburgh. As I
told
you earlier.”

“What fortuitous timing. You might have left Edinburgh without him ever knowing you were there.”

Gage’s hesitation was slight, but telling. “I wrote to him, of course, when I arrived in Edinburgh, on the off chance that he might venture into town.”

I locked eyes with him, trying to understand why he was lying to me. Or, if not lying, why he wasn’t telling me the complete truth. I faced him head-on. “Did he confide in you about his brother?”

“Upon my arrival? Yes. Michael is very worried about him.”

“Did he ask for your help?”

Gage tilted his head quizzically. “Why would he ask for my help?”

I studied his face, wishing I knew the right questions to ask. Something was definitely suspicious about Gage’s presence here. His explanation was certainly feasible, and under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have questioned it. But Gage had shown an inordinate amount of interest in the comments made about William Dalmay since the moment I’d first mentioned him during our encounter on the stairs. I suppose, given the situation, that would seem understandable, but I knew better. Gage did not get that gleam in his eyes unless he was contemplating something serious.

I just wished I knew what it was. If Michael hadn’t asked him to look into the matter, then why was he giving such sharp attention to it?

“Kiera, I wish you would listen to me,” he began again, taking advantage of my silence to hark back to his familiar refrain.

I shook my head fiercely and crossed the room toward the door.

“You’re being foolishly obstinate. What about this missing girl?” he asked, crossing the room in just a few angry strides.

“What about her?” I snapped, surprised by the question.

“Aren’t you the least concerned that Will is involved somehow?”

“No.”

“No? How can you be so certain?”

“Because I know Will. He would never have harmed that woman,” I replied, sick unto death of repeating myself. “Besides, Michael told us it would have been impossible for him to be involved. Why would he lie?”

“Why, indeed?” Gage muttered under his breath.

I felt a moment’s alarm at his exasperated words. Had he noticed Michael’s odd behavior in his brother’s parlor as well? I had wondered for a moment if Michael had been lying to us, but then dismissed his strained expression as concern for his brother. But if Gage had questioned it, too . . .

I shook my head, irritated with myself for allowing him to plant seeds of doubt in my head. “I believe it’s time for you to go,” I declared, placing my hand on the doorknob.

His angry gaze returned to mine. “Don’t think this is over. I will speak to Cromarty and Dalmay about what we’ve discussed.”

“Don’t you dare,” I hissed, worried about being overheard by someone in the corridor. “Philip has enough to worry about with Alana’s health. I don’t need
you
adding to his concerns.”

“It would be
you
, with your foolish disregard for your own safety, who is adding to his concerns, not me.”

I glared up at him, infuriated with his interference. So be it. I would just have to make sure I spoke with Philip first and warned him of Gage’s buffle-headed nonsense.

I wrenched open the door and nodded with my head, telling him to leave. Now.

He dipped his own head sharply once and strode out the door.

I would have liked to slam it, but, mindful of my sister and her husband sleeping in the chamber across the hall, I eased it shut and turned the key in the lock with a pointed click.

CHAPTER TEN

I
spent a sleepless night tossing and turning and trying fruitlessly to pull my mind away from thoughts of Will and Gage. But the harder I tried, the more stubborn their faces became fixed in my mind and the more incessant their voices became.

So, frustrated and weary, I welcomed the first light of dawn as it seeped across the sky in shades of yellow and then pink. It seemed doubtful by that point that sleep would ever find me, so I bathed my face in the chill water left on my washstand and dressed in a simple morning gown and pelisse. Then, eager to escape the house, I slipped out of my room, in hopes the brisk morning air would clear my head.

Philip stepped out of the room across the hall just as I was closing the door to mine. Taking in my warm Venetian blue walking ensemble, he smiled. “It seems we’ve had the same idea.” He spoke in a soft voice, presumably so as not to wake Alana.

I smiled sympathetically in return. Judging from the dark smudges under Philip’s eyes, I wasn’t the only one who’d passed a restless night.

“Would you care if I joined you?” he asked, running his fingers around the brim of the hat in his hands.

“I’d like that,” I replied, realizing it would give me the perfect opportunity to speak with him in private before Gage could. “But . . .” I glanced down the hall “. . . weren’t you going to speak with Lady Hollingsworth this morning before she leaves?”

“No worries.” His eyes twinkled. “Aunt Jane was never one to rise before midmorning, even when facing the most harrowing of crises.” He came forward to take my arm and lead me down the hall. “Caroline told Alana that when her eldest brother’s wife went into labor in the middle of the night, her mother called it the height of rudeness.”

I stifled a gasp of horrified laughter.

“Luckily for Aunt Jane’s new grandson, he didn’t decide to make his actual entry into the world until almost noon the next day; otherwise I’m certain he would never hear the end of it. In any case, in the event that she should take it upon herself to rise earlier than expected, I still estimate that will be a good two to three hours from now. And I’ve left a note requesting an interview and more or less ordering her to stay put until we’ve had a chance to talk.”

I smiled, imagining how Lady Hollingsworth would take such a dictate from her nephew, even though I was certain Philip had couched it in the gentlest of terms.

We exited through a door on the north side of the manor and turned east toward the firth. Philip guided us down a well-worn path that led away from the house and underneath the towering trees of the wood. The air was crisp and ripe with the damp of early morning dew and the musk of decaying leaves. I inhaled deeply, welcoming the cold air into my lungs.

The path widened as we exited the canopy of trees and approached the water. A solid block of craggy stone rose before us to pierce the crystalline blue sky.

“Banbogle Castle,” Philip explained when I turned to him curiously. “The Dalmays’ old stronghold.”

“Now I understand why Michael and William’s father felt the need to build Dalmay House,” I admitted, staring up at the decaying tower. Banbogle Castle must have been falling down around their heads.

Moss and lichen clung to the cracks in the pale stone and grime coated the windows that were not broken and exposing the interior to the elements. Though the gaping hole in the western wall would undoubtedly have been more troublesome to its inhabitants. Elsewhere, the stonework had steadily begun to crumble away to reveal the interior layers of masonry, giving the outside a jagged, uneven appearance. Some spots looked so worn that they were, undoubtedly, a mere layer or two away from creating additional gaps in the exterior.

“And not a moment too soon,” Philip said. “Barely a month after Lord Dalmay moved his family to Swinton Lodge, while work began on the new manor house . . .” he nodded to the yawning gap “. . . that wall caved in on the nursery.”

I gasped, unable to find words adequate enough to describe the horror of such an occurrence had any of the Dalmay children or their nursemaids been inside at the time.

“Precisely,” Philip concurred. “William and Michael’s grandfather had largely ignored the family’s estate, leaving his wife and heir at the castle while he took up residence in Edinburgh and London. And by the time their father, the old Lord Dalmay, came into his inheritance, it was too late to undo the damage the years of neglect had wrought.”

I gazed out across the steel-blue water of the firth, close enough now to smell its brine. “I always remembered Lord Dalmay as a rather stern man. Constantly lecturing us on our duty.” A sad smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “He wasn’t keen on the idea of his children wasting their time trampling about the countryside or racing boats down the Tweed. Alana, Trevor, and I knew to avoid Swinton Lodge whenever he was in residence. Which was, fortunately, not so often.” My grin widened. “When she was still alive, Lady Dalmay would hang a pennant out one of the south-facing windows when her husband had gone, signaling my mother the ‘all clear.’”

Philip chuckled.

But my face fell as I remembered. “Even in the few months between my mother’s death and hers, she continued to fly her pennant for us when Lord Dalmay was away. Though, instead of bright red, it was black.” I conjured the image of Lady Dalmay, having trouble seeing any of her with clarity except her kind, gray eyes, so like her sons’. “Lady Dalmay was a caring lady. I suppose you could have called her a sort of surrogate parent to us.”

“Yes,” Philip murmured. “Alana admitted as much to me once.”

I glanced at him, knowing I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear so. But Alana rarely spoke of that time. Our mother’s death had been difficult for her, more difficult than it had been for Trevor and me, perhaps because of her age—twelve, the very cusp of womanhood—or because she was so like our beautiful, spirited mother. She did not get along well with our more serious-minded father, which couldn’t have helped matters. Without our mother there to buffer for her, Alana and Father had butted heads like two rams in a pasture. Alana had exasperated and troubled our father. Trevor had tried his patience, while still managing to make him proud. And I had merely baffled him.

That Alana had talked about this with Philip should have been expected. They had been married for eight years, and her husband was her closest confidant and friend. Closer even than me. I ignored the twinge of jealousy I felt at that thought. I certainly didn’t begrudge my sister that intimacy with her husband, but it made me all the more aware of what I lacked.

Philip patted my hand where it lay on his arm and guided me forward down the path. It skirted the hulk of Banbogle Castle and then joined a wide, trampled dirt lane that stretched north and south down the shoreline. I commented on the well-worn trail.

“It’s an old road,” he explained. “From a time long before the foundations of Banbogle Castle were laid. The Dalmays have always allowed the people in the neighboring villages and estates to make use of it. It’s sort of a tradition. The vantage is simply too pretty to keep to themselves.”

And indeed it was. The view out over the water of the Firth of Forth was magnificent. The morning sun reflected off the waves, sparkling like gems in the clear light. The northern coast across the estuary was rockier, but the same brilliant autumn colors swathed its forests. High above, soft wisps of clouds had streamed out across the pale blue sky, while crying kittiwakes and razorbills wheeled about below them. In the distance, I could see a small island resting in the middle of the water, not far from the southern shoreline. It was too close to be Inchkeith. The isolated island where Dr. Sloane’s asylum was located stood too far out in the firth to be seen easily from this shore. And thank goodness for that. I wasn’t sure I could have stomached the sight.

The waves lapped playfully against the shore, inviting us to remove our shoes and run through them, but I knew the waters coming in off the North Sea were never warm, and with the stiff breeze whipping across the inlet, stinging my cheeks, they would be downright icy. I shivered at the thought and Philip glanced at me in query. Not wanting him to cut our walk short, I smiled in reassurance and hugged my arms tighter to my body to conserve warmth.

He nodded and we returned to our contemplation of the bay. I knew I had a limited amount of time in which to discuss William with him before we returned to the house and Gage sought him out, but it was difficult to gather my thoughts. And in the end, it was Philip who broke our companionable silence.

“I’m taking Alana and the children to Edinburgh this afternoon.”

I swung my gaze from the water to his troubled visage.

“I would like you to join us,” he added, turning his head to look down at me.

For a moment, I was speechless. I had not expected him to say anything of the like, and I couldn’t quite form a response.

“I realize that you care for the Dalmays, we all do, but this . . .” He shook his head. “This is too much. Alana’s health is already worrying without the added anxiety of sleeping under the Dalmays’ roof.”

I understood then. “Neither of you slept much last night.”

Philip sighed wearily and stopped walking and turned toward the sea. “No. I knew we should have brought the children into our room after everything that Dalmay revealed, but I let Alana convince us it would be all right. I don’t think she rested for more than a quarter of an hour at a time. She couldn’t stop thinking of the murders at Gairloch and fretting for the children’s safety.”

“But this isn’t like what happened at Gairloch.”

“I know. But you know your sister isn’t always reasonable when it comes to the children. She locked herself in the nursery with them, remember, swearing she wouldn’t emerge until the murderer was caught. I can’t risk her attempting something similar here.” His face firmed with resolve. “It would be best simply to remove them to Edinburgh. She can settle herself at the town house, and the physician who was recommended to us can examine her.”

I knew he was right. Alana’s health had suffered on our journey, and I knew the last thing she needed was to worry over her children. I couldn’t even blame her for feeling that way. As much as I believed Will to be harmless, I still felt a sliver of doubt. A sliver that had been there even before Gage had expressed his concerns in the middle of the night, though I had tried to deny it. I could not ask my sister to put up with that uncertainty, especially when it wasn’t necessary for her even to be here.

I hunched my shoulders against the chill wind and watched a small boat bob across the water toward the tiny island. “What will you tell your aunt?”

“I don’t know. Michael
did
withhold information from Caroline and her family.” I opened my mouth to argue and Philip held up his hand to ward off my protest. “Perhaps it wasn’t their right to know about William while they were courting, but he certainly should have informed Caroline and her oldest brother, James, about him when he asked for her hand.”

I frowned at the frothy whitecaps racing toward the beach like pale horses. Philip was right. Michael had misled Caroline and her family, and no matter his intentions in doing so, it had been wrong. Sir Anthony had done the same thing to me and my father, though his reasons for doing so had been infinitely less honorable, and his purpose far more nefarious. Had we known that my future husband was marrying me so that he could force me to illustrate the anatomy textbook he was writing, saving the money it would cost to hire an artist and keeping the credit for himself, my father and I would never have agreed to the match. In truth, my father would likely have blackened Sir Anthony’s name.

But his deception had not come to light prior to the ceremony, and I had said my vows, and entered my new husband’s household, ignorant of what he had planned for me. That I hadn’t revealed the truth to anyone while Sir Anthony lived had been my choice. Fear and shame and despair had ensured my silence as much as my husband’s threats.

However, Michael’s deception had been quite different from Sir Anthony’s. While still poorly handled, at least Michael’s dishonesty had been well-intentioned. Sir Anthony’s had been purely self-serving. And at least Michael had had the decency to reveal the truth about his brother long before the wedding vows were spoken.

“In any case,” Philip continued, unaware of my unsettled thoughts, “I’m not going to try to convince her to stay here, even if I thought that were possible. It just doesn’t seem right for me to insist that Aunt Jane and Caroline remain here when I’m removing my own family.”

“Does that mean you think Caroline shouldn’t marry Michael?” I asked in distress.

He frowned, looking down at the crumbled leaves at his feet. “No. It’s obvious they care for each other. And I don’t know that you could find two finer people. But this problem with William . . .” He inhaled deeply and shook his head once. “It’s not going to be smoothed over with just a heartfelt apology.”

“Because Caroline won’t be made a baroness after all,” I guessed, knowing that Michael’s dishonesty was not the insurmountable issue. “Unless, of course, William eventually dies without issue.”