“Mr. Ellery is no longer residing at Drake’s Lair. He is not to be permitted to enter here again, and that includes the grounds, whether I am in residence or not. That must be understood before we go any further. Have I made myself plain?”
A rumble of out of rhythm “yeses” replied.
“Good,” Drake responded, quelling the murmur of monotone sound that followed. “That will do for a start. Mr. Ellery has extorted money from my accounts—a great deal of money, over a long period of time—to cover his drinking and gambling debts. You are all acquainted with Mr. Bradshaw, and Mr. Mills. They will be arriving shortly to fully assess the damages. In the meanwhile, I want you to search yourselves deeply. Mr. Ellery has been your superior for the past five years. Some of you have known no other, and to those, I realize that I may indeed seem an interloper here. If that should be the case, I will understand. I need your loyalty, cooperation, and support. It is critical to your employment here. If you find that you cannot countenance giving it, that is your prerogative, and you are free to collect your wages with the appropriate severance, and my well wishes. If you choose to stay, I will expect your allegiance. Totally. Is that understood?”
Another “yes” echoed through the hall in unison.
“Good. There is one more thing. Should any of you have information regarding Mr. Ellery that might be helpful to me, I expect you to share it. Unfortunately, since I must leave for Truro on urgent business at first light tomorrow, I must ask you to make your decisions rather quickly. Therefore, anyone wishing to vacate his or her post please see me before I retire. I shall be in the study. This must be resolved before I go.”
He waited through another rumble of unintelligible sound.
“Very well, then, that is all, you may carry on,” he said. Then to his valet, who had risen to file out with the rest, he said, “Not you, Griggs, I need you in the study.”
The valet followed, and once they were inside, Drake closed the door and took his place behind the desk.
“I hope to return before Bradshaw and Mills arrive, since the post is slow, but if not, I’m going to want you to make them comfortable, and see to their needs in my absence, just as you see to mine.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I shall prepare everything they’ll need, all of the ledgers, my findings and notes, and lock them here in the desk before I go. I shall give you the key, and the spare study key. Keep the study door locked after I leave, and open it only to Bradshaw or Mills.”
“Yes, my lord. Begging your pardon, but, why are you going there if they are coming here?”
“I’m not going to the bank. I’m going to Malcolm Snead’s office. Years ago, I made rather extravagant provisions for Mr. Ellery in my will and made the mistake of telling him. I’d totally forgotten about it until we had our confrontation here earlier. I’ve got to amend that. If something should happen to me before I do, he stands to inherit a great deal of money. That has to be cancelled at once.”
“Yes, of course, my lord, but nothing is going to happen to you,” Griggs scoffed.
“I certainly hope not, old boy, but if it should, you can bet your blunt Judas Iscariot isn’t going to benefit.”
“Of course not, my lord. How did you part?”
“Not well,” Drake said through a sigh. “We’ve been together a long time. No one knows that better than you; you’ve been with me just as long. Sending him packing was just about the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. I had no choice. That he could do this to me after everything we’ve been through together is beyond belief. I would have trusted him with my life, Griggs. Do you know he actually expected me to cover his vowels in spite of it all? One of us has to be mad.”
“We all make bad judgments, my lord.”
“
Bad judgments
?” Drake blurted. “Bloody hell!”
“What about Miss Mell… Lady Ahern, my lord?” the valet said warily.
“Another bad judgment. I seem to have a penchant for them don’t I? Well, she’s his problem now. So be it.”
The valet hung his head. “Y-yes, my lord.”
*
It was late, and Drake was still poring over his ledgers. It was just as well. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep in any case. He couldn’t order his thoughts, Demelza kept creping into them. Ellery would go to her. He was probably with her right now. Why should it matter? It shouldn’t. But it did… oh how it did. Why had he just handed her over to him? Why hadn’t he fought for her? He would have in the old days—tooth and claw, and had done on a number of occasions over a bit of fluff that meant nothing to him. Was it just an act of chivalry, because Ellery saw her first? Balderdash. That never mattered in the past. Back then, it had been every man for himself—all’s fair—may the best man win. He loved her. He’d admitted that to his worst critic—himself, and he just
gave
her to him. Why? Because he thought that was what she wanted. Chivalry be damned! What about what
he
wanted?
If she only knew what the Jack o’ napes really was, knew what he’d done. Hah! She was probably in on it. That thought had crossed his mind. He didn’t want to believe it, but blunt was evidently all she wanted. She took it quickly enough—ran off the moment she had it in her hands. It didn’t matter. He would never know the truth of it now. He had driven her away. Still, the ghost of her soft, tender skin and honey sweetness haunted him. Reliving the rapid beat of her heart against him made his own beat faster. Recalling the throaty moan resonating through his body as their tongues conjoined, aroused him. The flutter of her tiny hands against his bare skin came again, tantalizing him. His fingers rubbed together, remembering those toffee-colored ringlets, softer than eiderdown that, even now, tormented him. The scent of her—peony and lavender, moss rose and sweet grass—foxed him still.
Zeus
! Would it never leave him? He was obsessed. She had bewitched his heart.
He began to pace before the cold study hearth.
Nodcock.
You should have told
her about Jim’s extortion.
You should have told her about Eva—about the herbs—every last sordid, shocking detail
.
All at once a hesitant rap on the study door halted him mid-stride. He glanced at his pocket watch. It was nearly midnight. The rap came again, and he jammed the watch back into his waistcoat pocket. Could it be a defector—at this hour?
“Come,” he called wearily, expecting one of the newer servants on the threshold for their wages. But it was Mrs. Laity’s head that looked in as the doors creaked open. “What now?” he muttered under his breath. She had been crying again. “Well, come in, come in,” he said testily. “Are you aware of the hour, Mrs. Laity?”
“Yes, m’lord,” she said through a sniffle. “You said that if any o’ us had something to say we should do so before you retired.”
“So I did,” he conceded, “but I hardly expected
you
—”
“Oh, no, no, I’m not giving my notice,” she cried, interrupting, “—never that.”
“What, then? It’s nearly midnight.”
“I can’t countenance Miss Melly, m’lord. I should have come to you with it before, but she made me swear to hold my peace. Now I’m scared. He’s after her. I just know it, and she’s gone off God alone knows where. She thought it might have been you, but I told her you’d never—”
“What the deuce are you talking about?” he said nonplussed. Her lower lip began to tremble, and he breathed a nasal sigh handing her his handkerchief, meanwhile steering her toward the wing chair beside his desk, then took his place behind it. “Now then, dry your eyes, and begin again… slowly.”
“It happened twice, or I wouldn’t be so overset.”
“
What
happened twice, Mrs. Laity? Do try and tell me calmly. Believe me I am not up to muddles at this hour after the day I’ve had.”
“Mr. Ellery, and Miss Melly,” she said, through the handkerchief.
“What about them?”
“He’s up to no good, that’s what,” she said. “The first time it happened was the night you came into the kitchen and called Zoe into the servants’ hall all out straight.”
“The first time
what
happened?” he demanded.
“The first time he went into her rooms, m’lord.”
“Yes, yes, I know. They had an assignation. Mr. Ellery bribed Zoe with half-a crown to give them some time alone. I saw him enter her chamber myself. She came up shortly after, and they were occupied there for quite a time before I came down to speak with Zoe.”
“No,” said the housekeeper, shaking her head. “He was in there all right, but ‘twasn’t an assignation, or anything like that. He was snooping around looking for something when Miss Melly went up, and he got caught in there—hiding behind the draperies, he was. She heard a noise in her sitting room, thinking it was Zoe, and called out, but it wasn’t Zoe, and when she went to investigate, the door had just clicked shut, and the draperies was still moving. Why, she even took a poker to them just in case, but he was gone.”
“What could he have been after?”
“I dunno’,” she replied, “but whatever it was, he never made his presence known.”
“You said there were two incidents?” he mused.
“Yes, m’lord, the other was the night you came home from the tour, the night before you took Mr. Ellery off to the vineyards.”
“And…?” he prompted.
“After that first time, she kept her doors locked up there, but Zoe forgot to lock up the dressing room that night. Miss Melly had just retired, when the door handles started rattling, first one then the other. She was that scared, she was, and she got to the dressing room just in time to throw the bolt before he started rattling the handles there. It was some time before he gave it over, and to hear her tell it, she didn’t go far from that poker all night. He was drunk on wine at the time, m’lord, but if you want the truth, you was acting so mean to the lass, she thought it could have been you both times. That’s what she said to me, yes, sir, she did, though I told her you would never take advantage of a lady like that.”
Drake surged to his feet all but toppling his chair, skirted the desk, and lifted the clearly flabbergasted housekeeper into his arms, spinning her around despite her size and shrill protests.
“Mrs. Laity, I love you!” he said, kissing her wildly on the blush-crazed apples of her plump cheeks.
“Here now, put me down, you rascal—lord or no!” she shrilled. “Besides, you’ll throw your back out hefting the likes o’ me!”
“I don’t care,” he rejoiced, finally letting her feet touch the floor. “You don’t know what you’ve just done.”
“W-would you mind telling me, then?” she panted, straightening her apron and mobcap, which had gone awry in the whirlwind.
“I haven’t turned idiot,” he assured her, addressing the skeptical look in her eyes, and feet edging toward escape. “I thought… well, never mind what I thought. I was mistaken. I’ve been such a fool. You were right to come to me. I only wish you’d done so sooner.”
“She made me promise not to tell it to anyone. She said that as soon as you settled the sum on her for her land, she would be off and good riddance. You treated her so poorly she couldn’t wait to see the back of Drake’s Lair, that’s what she said, m’lord.”
“She could well be in danger,” he said, preoccupied. “No, this won’t wait until morning—not a minute longer. I have to go. I have to find her right now—tonight, before…” He had been thinking out loud, and all at once he realized that the housekeeper was staring up at him mouth-agape. There was no doubt that she thought him mad, and he laughed in spite of himself. “It’s all right, Mrs. Laity,” he assured her. “Go on to bed. Just pray that I find her first.”
Streaking past her, he raced along the corridor and bounded up the staircase taking the steps two at a stride. Griggs was nodding in the boot chair when he looked in on him. He wouldn’t disturb him. This was something he needed to do alone.
His feet were mending nicely, though the deeper cuts were still tender as he tugged on his boots and tested them. It couldn’t be helped. There was only so much a man could do in his bedroom slippers; riding an Andalusian was not among those options.
Rummaging through his armoire, he grabbed a lightweight cloak, threw it over his shoulders, and went to the drop-leaf table beside the window, where he extinguished the candles. He glanced below at the grounds. A shadow not belonging to the shrubbery was slithering along the edge of the courtyard. He watched it until it came so close to the house that it was no longer visible through his window.
Crossing to the chiffonier, he yanked open the top drawer and removed his
Wheeler
military flintlock and holster, loaded the pistol, strapped it in place, and stuffed the ammunition, copper powder flask, mallet, and rod into his pockets. Then, bolting down the back stairs, pistol at the ready, he slipped out through the servants’ entrance, and inched his way along the Gothic style facade, keeping to the shadows of the columns, and tall, pointed arches, while he accustomed his eyes to the dark.
The fickle moon that showed him fleeting movement earlier was hidden again behind wind-driven clouds that promised rain before morning. Nothing seemed untoward until he approached the cobblestone terrace attached to the study. It was dark inside, and the French doors were slightly open. Had Mrs. Laity extinguished the lamps and candles? He knew he hadn’t, he’d rushed out ahead of her, and he raised the long-barreled flintlock, eased the French doors open wider, and stepped over the threshold.
There wasn’t a sound. His sharp eyes darted this way and that. Nothing met them except reflected light from the bashful moon that came and went bouncing off metal objects in the well-appointed study, though he sensed a presence. He wasn’t given time to puzzle that out. A sharp, heavy blow to his head from behind brought him to his knees, and another sent him, groaning, into oblivion.
*
James Ellery relieved Drake of a handful of pound notes, the pistol, holster, and loading tools, and glanced around the room. All was still. He had just jimmied the French doors open, when he spied Drake rounding the column from the servants’ wing. Only one branch of candles was lit in the study, and he quickly extinguished them with the palm of his hand and ran back outside. Then, flattened in the shadows, he waited, hidden in the ivy climbing the stone outer wall, scarcely breathing, until Drake entered through the open door allowing him to creep up and attack from the rear. He couldn’t believe his luck. He was certain he would have to prowl the halls half the night seeking his opportunity.