The world’s shriveling beyond the windows, darkening at the edges and blackening at the center. The hunters are beginning to emerge from the forest, waddling across the lawn like overgrown birds. Having grown impatient in my parlor waiting for Cunningham’s return, I’m heading to the library to inspect the encyclopedia.
It’s already a decision I regret.
A day of walking has sapped all my strength, this ponderous body growing heavier by the second. To make matters worse, the house is alive with activity, maids plumping cushions and arranging flowers, darting this way and that like schools of startled fish. I’m embarrassed by their vigor, cowed by their grace.
By the time I enter the entrance hall, it’s filled with hunters shaking the rain from their caps, puddles forming at their feet. They’re soaking wet and gray with cold, the life washed right out of them. They’ve clearly endured a miserable afternoon.
I pass into the group nervously, my eyes downcast, wondering if any of these scowling faces belongs to the footman. Lucy Harper told me he had a broken nose when he visited the kitchen, which gives me some hope that my hosts are fighting back, not to mention an easy way of picking him out.
Seeing no disfigurement, I continue more confidently, the hunters standing aside, allowing me to shuffle through on my way to the library, where the heavy curtains have been drawn and a fire set in the grate, the air touched with a faint perfume. Fat candles sit on plates, plumes of warm light pockmarking the shadows, illuminating three women curled up on chairs, engrossed in the books open on their laps.
Heading to the bookshelf where the encyclopedia should be, I grope about in the darkness, finding only an empty space. Taking a candle from a nearby table, I pass the flame across the shelf hoping it has been moved, but it’s definitely gone. I let out a long breath, deflating like the bellows of some awful contraption. Until now, I hadn’t realized how much hope I’d invested in the encyclopedia, or in the idea of meeting my future hosts face-to-face. It wasn’t only their knowledge I craved, but the chance to study them, as one might one’s own twisted reflections in a hall of mirrors. Surely in such observation, I’d find some repeated quality, a fragment of my true self carried through into each man, unsullied by the personalities of their hosts? Without that opportunity, I’m not certain how to identify the edges of myself, the dividing lines between my personality and that of my host. For all I know, the only difference between myself and the footman is the mind I’m sharing.
The day’s leaning on my shoulders, forcing me into a chair opposite the fire. Stacked logs pop and crackle, heat shimmering and sagging in the air.
My breath catches in my throat.
Among the flames lies the encyclopedia, burned to ash but holding its shape, a breath away from crumbling.
The footman’s work no doubt.
I feel like I’ve been struck, which was no doubt the intention. Everywhere I go, he seems to be a step ahead of me. And yet, simply winning isn’t enough. He needs me to know it. He needs me to be afraid. For some reason, he needs me to suffer.
Still reeling from this blatant act of contempt, I lose myself in the flames, piling all my misgivings onto the bonfire until Cunningham calls me from the doorway.
“Lord Ravencourt?”
“Where the devil have you been?” I snap, my temper slipping away from me completely.
He strolls around my chair, taking a spot near the fire to warm his hands. He looks to have been caught in the storm, and though he’s changed his clothes, his damp hair is still wild from the towel.
“It’s good to see Ravencourt’s temper is still intact,” he says placidly. “I’d feel positively adrift without my daily dressing down.”
“Don’t play the victim with me,” I say, wagging my finger at him. “You’ve been gone hours.”
“Good work takes time,” he says, tossing an object onto my lap.
Holding it up to the light, I stare into the empty eyes of a porcelain beak mask, my anger evaporating immediately.
Cunningham lowers his voice, glancing at the women, who are watching us with open curiosity. “It belongs to a chap called Philip Sutcliffe,” he says. “One of the servants spotted it in his wardrobe, so I crept into his room when he left for the hunt. Sure enough, the top hat and greatcoat were in there as well, along with a note promising to meet Lord Hardcastle at the ball. I thought we could intercept him.”
Slapping my hand against my knee, I grin at him like a maniac. “Good work, Cunningham, good work indeed.”
“I thought you’d be happy,” he says. “Unfortunately, that’s where my good news ends. The note waiting for Miss Hardcastle at the well, it was…odd, to say the least.”
“Odd, how so?” I say, holding the beak mask over my face. The porcelain’s cold, clammy against my skin, but aside from that it’s a good fit.
“The rain had smeared it, but best I could tell, it said, ‘Stay away from Millicent Derby,’ with a simple little drawing of a castle beneath it. Nothing else.”
“That’s a peculiar sort of warning,” I say. “I wonder who it’s from?”
“Warning? I took it as a threat,” says Cunningham.
“You think Millicent Derby’s going to take after Evelyn with her knitting needles?” I say, raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t dismiss her because she’s old,” he says, prodding some life into the dwindling fire with a poker. “At one time, half the people in this house were under Millicent Derby’s thumb. There wasn’t a dirty secret she couldn’t ferret out, or a dirty trick she wouldn’t use. Ted Stanwin was an amateur in comparison.”
“You’ve had dealings with her?”
“Ravencourt has and he doesn’t trust her,” he says. “The man’s a bastard, but he’s no fool.”
“That’s good to know,” I say. “Did you meet with Sebastian Bell?”
“Not yet. I’ll catch him this evening. I wasn’t able to turn over anything about the mysterious Anna either.”
“Oh, no need. She found me earlier today,” I say, picking at a loose piece of leather on the arm of the chair.
“Really, what did she want?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Well, how does she know you?”
“We didn’t get around to it.”
“Is she a friend?”
“Possibly.”
“Profitable meeting then?” he says slyly, replacing the poker on its stand. “Speaking of which, we should get you into a bath. Dinner’s at 8:00 p.m., and you’re beginning to smell a bit ripe. Let’s not give people any more reason to dislike you than they already do.”
He moves to help me up, but I wave him back.
“No, I need you to shadow Evelyn for the rest of the evening,” I say, struggling to raise myself from the chair. Gravity, it seems, is opposed to the idea.
“To what end?” he asks, frowning at me.
“Somebody’s planning to murder her,” I say.
“Yes, and that somebody could be me for all you know,” he says blandly, as though suggesting nothing more important than a fondness for music halls.
The idea strikes me with such force, I drop back into the seat I’ve half escaped, the wood cracking beneath me. Ravencourt trusts Cunningham completely, a trait I’ve adopted without question despite knowing he has a terrible secret. He’s as much a suspect as anybody.
Cunningham taps his nose.
“Now you’re thinking,” he says, sliding my arm over his shoulders. “I’ll find Bell when I’ve got you into the bath, but to my mind, you’re better off shadowing Evelyn yourself when you’re next able. In the meantime, I’ll stick by your side so you can rule me out as a suspect. My life’s complicated enough without having eight of you chasing me around the house accusing me of murder.”
“You seem well versed in this sort of thing,” I say, trying to scrutinize his reaction from the corner of my eye.
“Well, I wasn’t always a valet,” he says.
“And what were you?”
“I don’t believe that information was part of our little arrangement,” he says, a grimace on his face as he tries to lift me.
“Then why don’t you tell me what you were doing in Helena Hardcastle’s bedroom?” I suggest. “You smeared the ink while you were rifling through her day planner. I noticed it on your hands this morning.”
He lets out a whistle of astonishment.
“You have been busy.” His voice hardens. “Strange you haven’t heard about my scandalous relationship to the Hardcastles, then. Oh, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for you. Ask around. It’s not exactly a secret, and I’m sure somebody will get a thrill from telling you.”
“Did you break in, Cunningham?” I demand. “Two revolvers were taken, and a page torn from her day planner.”
“I didn’t have to break in. I was invited,” he says. “Couldn’t tell you about those revolvers, but the day planner was whole when I left. Saw it myself. I suppose I could explain what I was doing there, and why I’m not your man, but, if you’ve got any sense, you wouldn’t believe a word of it, so you might as well find out for yourself. That way you can be certain it’s the truth.”
We rise in a damp cloud of sweat, Cunningham dabbing the perspiration from my forehead before handing me my cane.
“Tell me, Cunningham,” I say. “Why does a man like you settle for a job like this?”
That brings him up short, his normally implacable face darkening.
“Life doesn’t always leave you a choice in how you live it,” he says grimly. “Now, come on. We’ve a murder to attend.”