Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery) (25 page)

“Could this be how William is escaping?” Gage asked, voicing the same question I was thinking.

“I don’t know. But if it is, Mac and Donovan have a lot of explaining to do.” He reached into his pocket to extract a set of keys. They clinked as he shuffled them between his fingers, and upon finding the right one, he locked the door with a satisfying snick.

We resumed our journey to the next floor, Michael leading and Gage at my back. There were no wall sconces lit in the stairwell leading up to the attic, so both men grabbed a brace of candles from their recesses in the wall. Their flickering light in the draft of our movement danced over the walls around us, gleaming off the woodwork.

The attic was pitch-black and freezing. I shivered in my thin, vermilion satin evening gown and tightened my ivory shawl around my shoulders. I had expected there to be at least some living presence up here in the form of the servants’ quarters, but apparently in this house they had been built belowstairs rather than above.

Michael led us to the second door on the left and unlocked it. The door swung open easily and silently, despite the fact that I had been expecting an ominous groan. I peered around Michael’s shoulder at the contents inside. Crates and boxes were stacked next to old canvases resting on their sides and draped in heavy cloths. Everything was covered over with a fine layer of dust, except the box sitting on the top of the stack closest to us.

Following my gaze, he explained, “That’s where I’ve been storing his most recent sketches. Like the ones you saw the other night.”

I stepped forward hesitantly. “May I?”

Michael was silent a moment and then choked out his response. “Yes.”

I lifted my arm to open the lid on the box and then stopped with my hand poised in the air. My heart pounded in my chest. I suddenly felt as if I was about to dive over a precipice—one that I wasn’t sure I wanted to traverse—and wondered whether there would be something there to catch me when I landed.

The floorboards shifted behind me and I felt the warm press of Gage’s hand on my lower back. “Go ahead,” he urged me.

I swallowed and lifted the lid from the box. Immediately the ashy smell of charcoal assailed my nostrils, its normally comforting scent now distorted by my concern over what I might find rendered by it inside. I reached in and lifted out the top stack of sketches, those that had been scattered across the floor of Will’s room two nights past.

Flipping through the rough paper slowly, I saw the same crude renderings and scribbles I remembered. And the stacks below them were not much different. Some were more detailed and horrifying than others, but they all depicted the same scenes of helplessness and despair. The tortured images on his walls, of people drugged or strapped to beds or with their heads forced underwater, repeated themselves. There were also several more where people milled around a central courtyard, some fighting, some crying, and some laughing while the rest wandered around aimlessly. But predominately the drawings were scribbles of nothingness, of darkness. One depicted a pair of round, frightened eyes surrounded by nothing but black swirls of charcoal.

I set them down and turned away a minute, trying to regain control over my emotions. Tears were threatening at the backs of my eyes and I could feel the corresponding lump at the back of my throat. I swallowed hard, forcing it down.

“Is this all?” I asked Michael. “I take it he has not been painting.” That would require a much more concerted effort, and when Will went into these . . . trances he was drawing by instinct, ignoring artistic skill.

“No.”

Gage moved across the room, resting his hand on one of the blanketed canvases. “Are these from before he was confined to the asylum?”

Michael’s gaze was filled with apprehension. “Yes.”

Gage continued to stare down at them for a moment and then glanced back up at Michael, asking his permission.

He nodded.

Gage set his brace of candles on a stack of boxes to his left and slowly peeled back the heavy cloth. A fine cloud of dust rose from the fabric, forcing Gage to turn his head away. I wrinkled my nose against the musty stench. Part of me wanted to turn away before I saw something I didn’t wish to, but another part of me held my eyes captive to the painting, wondering if I had imagined the horrible depictions Will had rendered after the war.

Fortunately, the first one Gage revealed was not one of the worst. A young woman was painted in the center, her clothes being torn asunder as she struggled with the soldier who was assaulting her. An arm hid the girl’s face while the soldier smiled lasciviously down at her. However, an old woman stood behind them—her expression tortured by what she must do—with a knife raised above her head ready to strike the soldier.

Having seen enough, I turned away, facing Michael where he still stood in the doorway. His eyes were fastened on the painting and his mouth had thinned into a straight line. I watched as weary resignation spread across his features. When his gaze lifted, meeting mine, I braced myself, knowing today’s revelations were not over.

“There’s one more thing,” he admitted.

Gage and I shared a look of mutual misgiving, wondering what Michael had hid from us now. I suspected we both had been waiting for something like this. I couldn’t even summon up the anger I had felt on first learning of Michael’s dishonesty. Now I only felt deep disappointment.

He crossed the room to the farthest corner and carefully extracted a rolled piece of parchment from behind several crates. Whatever it was, he had certainly hoped no one would ever find it. That realization sent a quiver of alarm down my spine.

“William drew it during one of his episodes several months ago.” Michael offered no explanation for his omitting to tell us about it, just handed it to Gage and moved away from us toward the other sketches. He shuffled them together and stuffed them back in the box, keeping his back to us.

I stared at the innocuous-looking piece of paper in Gage’s hand warily, wishing we did not have to open it. I held my breath as he slowly unrolled the parchment, tilting it toward the light cast by his candles. The drawing made my blood run cold.

It was a crude sketch done in charcoal, like the others, but there was one main difference, and it was instantly apparent that this was what had impelled Michael to hide it. All of Will’s other drawings, even those sketched after the war, had been drawn as an outsider looking in. However, this sketch had been drawn from the artist’s perspective, staring down at a woman draped across his lap, her head cushioned by his thigh. The positioning of her body and the way she looked up at him would have seemed romantic, but for the hand the artist pressed over her nose and mouth. The woman didn’t appear to fight him, but actually seemed to be holding his hand where he had positioned it over her face.

I gasped and turned away, unable to keep looking at it. If Will was the artist, and he had drawn this from his point of view, that meant it was his hand over the woman’s nose and mouth. Until I saw this sketch, I would never have believed Will was capable of such a thing. To smother a woman with his bare hands! My mind rebelled at the idea. There must be some other explanation. Maybe the image in the picture was not what it seemed. Maybe it was harmless. But then why had it so haunted Will that he’d drawn it along with all of the other disturbing images he’d depicted?

Had he been forced to kill her? I just couldn’t accept he’d done it willingly. The William Dalmay I knew would never have harmed a woman. But if the suspicions raised by this drawing were true, if he had . . .

“Heavens! What did they do to him?” I whispered. I knew neither of these men had an answer for me, but I looked to them anyway.

“I don’t know,” Gage replied without emotion. “But we aren’t finding our answers in these drawings, only more questions.”

I followed his gaze to Michael, who still stood with his back to us. “We need to speak with William,” I told him, realizing that Gage had been waiting for me to make this statement instead of him. Whether he thought Michael would listen better to me or he wanted me to come to this same conclusion on my own, I didn’t know. “He’s the only one who might be able to answer our questions. To explain this.” I gestured to the parchment now rolled again in Gage’s hands. When Michael did not respond, I had to implore him. “Michael, it’s time.”

He spoke so low it was difficult to hear him, even in the silence of the attic. “All right. Just . . . not tonight. He does better in the daylight.”

I had witnessed the very same thing earlier that day, so I agreed.

Gage stepped forward, clasping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We need to find out the truth, whatever it may be. Will you promise me you’ll stop hindering that? That you’ll let us do what you asked us to? We can’t clear your brother’s name or, if necessary, get him the help he needs, otherwise.”

Michael nodded and finally turned to face us. “I haven’t intentionally kept anything else from you. At least, not that I’m aware of.”

He had aged before my eyes just in the two and a half short days since my arrival at Dalmay House. The man who had laughed and joked with us in the entry hall had been eaten alive by his worries. How had he managed to hide it for so long? His anxieties must have been consuming him for months. Why hadn’t he done something about them sooner? I understood that he did not wish to upset his brother with accusations, but surely Will could understand his brother’s concern over his drawings, especially this one with the girl. Maybe it was not so straightforward, but if tomorrow Will was able to explain everything to us, Michael was going to feel pretty foolish.

But I should have known it would never be that simple.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“U
gh!” I cringed a short time later when I returned to my room. I lifted an arm to cover my nose. “
What
is that
awful
smell?”

“’Tis valerian root tea, m’lady.” Lucy stepped forward with the cup of the foul brew, holding it away from her face. “I noticed ye were havin’ trouble sleepin’, and Cook swore it would put ye right oot, like a bairn.”

“Truly?” I asked doubtfully, taking the cup from her.

“Aye.”

I stared down into the pale brown liquid and leaned forward to smell it more closely. “Ugh!” I turned my nose away. “It smells like stale sweat and . . . and dirty feet.”

Lucy bit her lip and then offered helpfully, “Ye could try pinchin’ your nose. That’s what me mam used to do whenever we didna want to take our medicine.”

I hesitated, but seeing the eager look in the maid’s eyes, I decided to at least try. It was clear she was trying to make up for her earlier lack of judgment, and though I would have wished for a better token of apology, I couldn’t disappoint her without at least making an effort. So I followed her instructions and lifted the cup to my mouth, but before it even touched my lips I gagged and had to turn my head aside. I shook my head and handed the cup back to her. “I’m sorry. I’m grateful for your effort. Truly. But I simply cannot drink that.”

“I understand, m’lady.” Lucy wrinkled her nose at the concoction. “It do reek. I dinna think I could drink it either.”

I instructed Lucy not to worry about me—I could slip out of this dress alone—but just to get rid of that fetid-smelling tea before it made me ill, and then get herself to bed. I saw her out the door, balancing the tray of tea as she would a basket filled with snakes, and then crossed the room to stand before the hearth, knowing the stench would be less near the fire. Once the scent had cleared from my nose, I settled down to wait.

The foul odor of the cook’s valerian root tea was not the only reason I had urged Lucy to leave without helping me to change. I expected a visitor, and I had no intention of again being put at the disadvantage of wearing my nightclothes. I wanted to be ready this time, for I suspected I had just as much to say to him as he had to say to me.

I realized that perhaps I’d been a bit precipitous in condemning Gage for beginning an inquiry on Dr. Sloane’s behalf. His motives for doing so had not been completely unjustified. He was right. Another inquiry agent would not have been so concerned with protecting the Dalmays, and their reputation, at the very least, would likely have been damaged irreparably in the process. At least I could take comfort in knowing that Gage had their best interests at heart. I could see now that he had been placed in an impossibly difficult situation and he was proceeding the only way he knew how. It still irritated me he hadn’t confided in me sooner, but I better understood why he hadn’t.

I also realized that maybe I expected too much from Gage, that perhaps I needed to be a little less demanding when it came to the information he chose to share with me. If he wasn’t comfortable sharing the details of his past, then I needed to accept that. Just because I wanted the truth didn’t mean he owed it to me. I had secrets of my own, and I didn’t share those freely, whether a person deserved an explanation or not. The fact that I had chosen to share some of those secrets with Gage did not mean that he had to reciprocate. Maybe if I were his wife, or fiancée, or even being seriously courted, I could expect more, but as we stood now, in spite of those kisses, I was nothing more than a temporary partner and perhaps a friend.

In any case, we had to put this dispute aside, because if this evening had proved nothing else, it was that I needed Gage’s help if I was to finish this investigation. Things had become too dark, too difficult, and I wasn’t certain I could do it alone. Not facing the prospect of the truth we might uncover about William. I was too close to this one, my emotions too involved. I needed Gage’s impartiality. And perhaps his shoulder to cry on if things did not end as I wished.

I twisted around in my chair, checking the clock ticking steadily away on the mantel. Enough time had passed that I began to worry I’d misjudged him yet again, but then a peremptory rap sounded on the door.

Gage strode through it without having been given permission to enter. He glanced around the room, clearly looking for me, and it took him a moment to find me in the shadows cast by the rounded sides of my wingback chair.

I arched my eyebrows at him. “I suppose I should be happy you at least knocked.”

He ignored my comment, crossing the room toward me. “You were waiting for me.”

I tilted my head, watching the firelight flicker over his features. “You’re becoming predictable.”

He did not scowl as I expected him to, but instead trailed his eyes over my figure where I lounged in the chair. “Maybe.”

I felt a lick of heat everywhere his gaze touched and had to fight the urge to lift my hand and cover my décolletage. Perhaps I had miscalculated. I now suspected I might actually feel more secure in my high-necked night rail and wrapper than the thin silk and rounded neckline of this gown, despite all the layers of undergarments.

I frowned, irritated that he had managed to make me question my composure while he didn’t even show a flicker of remorse for barging into my private chambers. “Did you stop to consider that you could have simply asked me to meet you? Perhaps somewhere a little less scandalous?”

He replied by asking me a question instead, one of his more annoying habits. “Would you have come?”

I answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

My reply seemed to catch him off guard. His body stiffened and his pale eyes widened. I watched him study me, trying to tell if this was some kind of trick. I thought he would have realized by now that I didn’t play such games. At least, not like other society ladies.

He moved forward and sat on the edge of the other wingback chair positioned beside mine before the fireplace. Leaning forward over his knees, he pressed his hands together and started to explain, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and Michael about my working for Dr. Sloane from the start. I should have trusted you to understand.” His eyes when they lifted to meet mine were heavy with regret.

“It’s all right,” I replied softly. As much as I’d wanted to hear his apology, I couldn’t allow him to bear the full weight of responsibility. “I know why you didn’t. And . . . I can’t really say you were entirely wrong.”

“You . . .” He halted in midsentence, as if he had trouble digesting my words. “You do?”

I nodded and turned to stare at the flames licking along a log of wood. “If you had been completely up-front about it with Michael, with William, with any of us, from the start, you would never have gotten to the truth. Michael has already been hiding evidence from us since the very beginning, and possibly only making things worse for his brother. And had I known about you and Dr. Sloane . . .” I sighed. “I can’t in all honesty say that I wouldn’t have kept things from you, too.”

I could feel Gage’s eyes quietly assessing me, but I didn’t have the courage to meet them.

“I can.”

I turned to him in surprise.

“If I’ve learned anything about you, Kiera, it’s that you’re not only extremely loyal, but also unfailingly honest.”

My conscience smarted at the thought of the lies of omission I’d made to Will earlier, as well as Lucy. “Not unfailingly.”

A small smile curled his lips. “All right. But I still know that, had I told you about my investigation for Dr. Sloane, you would have found a way to tell me all while still remaining loyal to Will.”

I did not argue, knowing that assertion was about to be tested.

He sat farther back in his chair, getting more comfortable. “Incidentally, what made you change your mind? About what I did?” he clarified. “Earlier you seemed angry enough to have me drawn and quartered. I came here expecting to grovel.”

“I suppose I spoke too soon, then. I would have liked to see that.”

He tilted his head, a teasing light entering his eyes. “I’m quite certain someday you’ll get another chance.”

Something inside me squeezed and then released at his flirtatious comment. “I realized I responded more heatedly than perhaps I should have,” I admitted, running a hand over the chocolate-brown twill of the chair arm. “That you were given little choice in the matter and you were only doing what you felt you had to.” I glanced up at him through my lashes. From his grim expression I could tell that the matter still did not sit well with him. Whatever else might be bothering Gage, it was clear he did not enjoy lying or spying on his friends. “One or two things did occur to me later, though.”

“Such as?”

“Did Dr. Sloane tell you the name of this girl Will allegedly killed?” An image of the woman in that sketch, lying in Will’s lap, her hair trailing out behind her, flashed through my mind, but I pushed it aside.

Gage’s brow furrowed. “No. And I did ask. It bothered me at the time, but he told me that it was a very important person’s daughter. Supposedly this ‘very important person’ didn’t want word spreading about where his daughter had been.”

I frowned. Dr. Sloane was keeping his cards very close to his chest, and I viewed that as even more of a reason not to trust his word, regardless of that sketch.

“What else did you want to ask me?” Gage shifted in his chair, trying to look calm and at ease, but I could see the tension in his frame—the tautness in his shoulders and jaw, and the gleam in his eye that told me he was paying close attention. It was the same gleam he got when he was interviewing a suspect or a witness. In this case, however, I knew he was not trying to interrogate me. He was simply nervous about what I had to say, and since I was anxious, too, that made me feel more on equal footing with him.

“This evening’s discoveries may have altered your answer somewhat, but I was wondering what you thought about Will’s innocence. I suppose I assumed you wouldn’t have revealed your relationship with Dr. Sloane had you not believed Will blameless in Miss Wallace’s disappearance.”

“You’re correct,” he replied, staring down at his black evening trousers. “I did not, and
still
do not, think he had a hand in Miss Wallace’s kidnapping.”

I leaned toward him. “So you think it
was
a kidnapping?”

“Little else makes sense. Though what has become of her, I cannot say.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “But it just seems too coincidental for them not to be linked in some way. Lord Dalmay
must
have known her.”

“He did.”

He looked up at me in surprise.

“After I galloped away from you this afternoon, I happened to stumble upon William and Mac.” I held up my hand to forestall any argument. “Don’t scold me. I didn’t know they would be there, and I wasn’t about to be so rude as to ignore them.”

Gage did not react, though I saw the strain it caused him not to do so in the muscles of his neck.

“I walked back to Dalmay House with them, and Will was in such a relaxed and talkative mood, I chanced asking him about Mary Wallace.”

“And?”

“Miss Remmington introduced them.”

“Really?” Gage asked in genuine interest.

I nodded. “Will spoke very highly of Miss Wallace. And, if I’m not mistaken, he might be a little taken with her.” My next words were sobering. “He didn’t seem to know that she was missing, and I didn’t think it my place to enlighten him.”

“No. It was probably best you didn’t.”

I wasn’t certain what that was supposed to mean, especially spoken in the quiet voice he used, but I chose to ignore it.

Besides, I had weightier worries on my mind. I eyed Gage surreptitiously, wishing he hadn’t paid me such a compliment on my honesty, not when I was already struggling with my decision over just how much to reveal about my interaction with Will that afternoon. Part of me wished to divulge all, while another felt that would not be in Will’s best interests. After all, what if those suspicions that were nagging at me proved to be nothing?

But that sketch of Will and the girl shed a different light on all of this, one that was far darker and more ominous. What if Will was responsible for the death of that girl in the asylum and Miss Wallace’s disappearance? I had not wanted to even contemplate it, but I could not ignore that drawing or Will’s own words to me. If I said nothing and Will harmed someone else, I wasn’t certain I could ever forgive myself.

I inhaled deeply. “There are two other things you should know about my conversation with Will this afternoon,” I murmured solemnly.

He listened quietly, maintaining a neutral expression as I told him about the boat stored in Banbogle’s ruins and how Will had told me he could escape from his chambers anytime he wished. When I finished, he laced his hands together over his stomach and considered the matter. “How is he making his escapes? Did he say?”

I shook my head. “But my guess, at least after this evening, is that it’s through that door to the servants’ stairs.”

“And no one saw him or thought to stop him?”

I couldn’t answer that. In such a large manor house there was likely another servants’ staircase on the other side of the building; perhaps that was the set most often used.