Standing between Brasshurst and the dower house was a miniature cathedral complete with Gothic facade and minarets that mirrored the ones affixed to the front of the hall. Much like its parent, ivy had grown around it until the figures ringing the portal were crumbling beneath their roots and shoots. Even without leaving the road, he knew it had to be the family crypt. Sorrell was barely legible above the door, eroded to a dull outline after centuries of rain and sea spray. He swallowed hard, stretching and flexing his prosthetic hand before the pains could start. Would his body one day rest there? All of the men and women who hung on the walls of the gallery rested there, still in neat rows. His father had been buried in London while he was away. It was a small comfort to know that the door hadn’t been opened since his father inherited the earldom and that the bones of his ancestors had remained undisturbed for nearly thirty years.
The world died away as Eilian lingered outside the mausoleum. His eyes trailed over the lopsided headstones that lay on the periphery, half-buried by brush where servants and distant relatives rested at the earls’ and countess’s sides. He had always imagined he would die somewhere far from them, maybe in India from the plague or from a dig accident in Greece. When the dirigible crashed in the countryside and he saw the bowels of the airship alight between its mighty ribs, he couldn’t fathom that it would end here. To be trapped in English soil forever was the worst fate he could imagine, and in those moments when he was certain his life would end, did he really hope the flames would consume him until he could be scattered to the wind?
Heat lanced through his missing muscles, ripping him from his morbid thoughts. Eilian rubbed his arm as he cut through the twisted yews and ancient oaks to reach the glen before the dower house. When they arrived at Brasshurst, this was the house he had expected. Instead of being a conglomeration of mismatched styles, the dower house resembled the cottages in town with a thatch roof and stone face, but the windows had been rendered with Gothic lines and leaded glass. An ornamental garden surrounded the house, painting the lawn in delicate pastel pinks and purples. A figure floated past the glass in the upper windows, disappearing and reappearing as they crossed the upper arcade. Drawing in a controlled breath, Eilian stepped onto the porch and checked his reflection in the mirrored surface of the doorknocker. He pushed his hair down as best he could and knocked.
Minutes passed, but no one came even after he knocked again. Eilian walked back to the tree line, confirmed that the figure was still moving within, and tried the door. The knob turned easily, creaking open to reveal a familiar but scaled down version of the great hall, complete with a grand stone fireplace and columned arcades on the upper floor. Light streamed in from the wall of windows behind him, catching the strands of gold in the tapestried chairs. Taking a step into the room, Eilian craned his neck down the hall where a door stood open. The sun danced across the coffers and plaster, yet he could not tell if anyone was within. He listened for the nearly unperceivable tread of a servant as he crossed the great hall, but no one came.
“Anyone here?” he called, following the edge of the rug to the empty hallway. “I tried the knocker, but no one came. Hello?”
Passing a row of locked doors where light streamed in dusty beams from empty keyholes, Eilian waited at the threshold. In the back parlor, Randall Nash sat amongst dozens of stacks of newspapers. Much like their owner, each had been carefully pressed and creased before being set aside. They sat in grey piles nearly half a man high at the sides of his chair and around the perimeter of the room. On the table near the window, thick albums sat two rows deep with the edges of oversized slips of newsprint jutting from the tops of pages.
The older man’s face was blocked by a two month old copy of The Daily Telegraph. Eilian kept his grey eyes locked on Randall Nash as he crossed the boards on silent feet and sunk into the armchair directly across from him. When Nash lowered the paper to turn the page, he jolted back, crushing the paper in his grasp.
“Who let you in here? I told Pilcrow I was not to be disturbed,” Nash snapped as he tossed the ruined newspaper aside.
“I knocked, but no one came.”
He glared at the young man sitting across from him. “Did you think maybe there was a reason for that?”
“Well, Mr. Nash, now you know how it feels to have your privacy violated by an uninvited guest,” Eilian replied, surprised by his own boldness.
“What do you want? Did that wife of yours send you to confront me?”
“She doesn’t know I’m here.”
“That isn’t a good way to start a marriage, Lord Dorset,” he muttered under his breath as he searched the earl’s face.
He was far too confident to be there because of his letter. When people came to settle the matter, they were furious or cocky, thinking they could intimidate him, but they were never this secure. She must not have told him. Nash smiled to himself. He could use that.
“I came because I believe you.”
His face contracted into a sneer. “Believe what? I don’t need you to believe anything.”
“The silphium plant. I, too, believe it isn‘t extinct.”
“Who told you that?”
Eilian watched Nash’s face tighten with strain. “Mr. Rhodes told me there was some scandal or something in the past, but I think you’re right. After you left the other day, I found it in the orangery beside the pool.”
“Oh, that’s why you have come,” Nash began, nodding as he climbed to his feet and loomed over Eilian. “You want to lord it over me. You want to destroy my plant unless I do what you want, eh? Well, you have another think coming because—”
“Good lord, no. I want to do nothing of the sort. I’m— I’m an archaeologist, not an extortionist,” Eilian sputtered, gazing up at the seething man with pleading eyes. “I wanted to ask for your permission to study it, maybe even send a seed to a botanist in London, but that’s all. Why would I destroy it?”
“Do you take me for a fool, Lord Dorset?”
“No! I took you for a rational human being. I thought that if you listened and understood that I only wanted to continue what you started and bring it to the attention of the proper scientists and historians, you would—”
“Get out of my house this instant!”
“Mr. Nash, please listen to me a moment longer.” Eilian spoke as he walked backwards around furniture and down the hall as the older man urged him toward the door. “I’m not trying to steal your discovery; you would receive most of the credit. I simply want your permission to move forward. I didn’t want to go behind your back, which is why I came here in the first place. We are both scholars; we could even work together if you want.”
Eilian’s back collided with the front door. Even though Randall Nash was three and half decades older and several inches shorter, the earl shrank back, groping for the knob behind him with his prosthetic hand. He had never been as afraid of his father as he was of this man. His father’s outbursts were predictable—anti-imperialism, sympathizing with anyone who wasn’t British—but Nash was a different animal. His reactions were over the top and reeked of potential violence no matter the size of the offense. A slender shadow appeared from one of the locked doors in the hall, but when she saw her master’s teeth bared and his hand raised in rage, Pilcrow ducked back into the other room.
“There is nothing that would make me want to work with the likes of you. Just because you put on a clean suit and comb your hair, doesn’t make you worthy of your family name and it does not make you worthy of my respect!”
The backs of the earl’s eyes burned as he ground his jaw. Randall Nash was done intimidating him. “You’re right. It doesn’t make me worthy of a title, but I never asked for that; it was given to me by chance. But you can keep your respect. I don’t want it.” Eilian doffed his hat and straightened to his full height. “Good day, Mr. Nash. You won’t have to worry about hearing from me again.”
Turning his back on Nash, Eilian slipped out and slammed the door behind him. His b
reath hitched as a bolt of pain ran down his arm. He drew in a lungful of cool air and let it wash through him to staunch the burning. Before him stood the garden of candy floss flowers and the misshapen yews whose bodies hid the spires of the family crypt. Leaning against the corner of the house out of sight, Eilian’s eyes traveled to the gravel path. From where he stood, he could see the white line that led down to the hulking manor with the edge of the orangery’s glass dome appearing above the roof. Stepping toward the yews, Eilian vanished into the mist and murk. He would take the long way back.
***
Nadir glanced up from his portable writing desk and out at the sea as it lapped against the beach, whisking shells across the sand in a lazy waltz. Something still nagged at the back of his mind. He had yet to figure out how his cousin managed to disappear the night he followed her to her mysterious meeting. It was like something out of one of his blasted stories or a nightmare. From the pain in his ankle and backside the next day, he knew he hadn’t been dreaming, so he had to have missed something. Placing the papers inside his desk and locking the catch, he slipped it under his chair. The beach had been deserted all day, and it was unlikely that anyone would tamper with the chapter he worked on.
Climbing up the path toward Folkesbury, Nadir followed it until he stood just below the ridge, out of sight of the village. He studied the path before him. She had come this way past the rough undergrowth and low trees, of that he was sure, but somehow he thought it would be easier to work out the twists and turns of her path in daylight. Soon, he found nothing looked the same. Slipping on his dark sun-spectacles to simulate the midnight darkness, he pushed through the brush and followed the drunken fence posts up the bluff. That night, it had seemed to take hours to reach their destination as he waited and watched, but within moments, he found the tree branch where his scarf caught. Minute fibers of indigo wool still hung from its forked fingers.
He slipped off his glasses and pursed his lips as he envisioned Leona standing no more than twenty-five feet away from him with the lamp in her hand and her cheeks painted in deep shadows. Stepping into her place, he stared into the clusters of gnarled and salt-stunted trees but saw nothing. There was no door or path for him to follow. But how could that be? He had seen her step off the path and vanish. Moving into the grass, Nadir’s eyes caught a shadow on the cliff face. It had been impossible to see from the path as trees and the lip of the cliff stood in the way, but cut into the stone was an arch. His head scraped the ceiling’s smooth surface as he entered the tunnel, running his hand along the rounded diamond-shaped stones that had been laid centuries ago. Sunlight streamed into the shaft and reflected off the scant coating of water that hid the floor. Keeping one hand on the wall, he walked into the gloom.
Dusty cobwebs tangled in the waves of his hair as he kept his head down, following the tunnel until he could no longer rely on the sun to light his way. Water splashed with each step, yet it never seemed to grow any higher than the soles of his shoes as he ventured further into the rock. The diamond tiles soon faded into blackness, and with each breath, the air grew thicker with humidity and must. Nadir’s lungs tightened against his well-tailored suit as the air pushed in on his ears to the point of pain. His pulse pounded in his temples as he proceeded forward, guided by the tips of his shoes, which he could no longer see. Even his hand on the wall was no longer visible, but he trusted the cold bricks beneath his palm and the gentle splosh of water beneath his feet. In the dark, he couldn’t be sure if he had passed forks in the void or if the tunnel traveled straight under the town, but during his trek, he felt the ceiling rise away from his skull as if the room had widened before narrowing again a few yards later. He cursed himself for not bringing a torch. It had been foolish of him to assume Leona only brought it to find her way down the bluff. She had lived in Folkesbury her whole life and could have followed the cobbled paths through the woods or the trails around the earl’s land with her eyes shut.
A voice carried over the stillness, so faint he couldn't discern if its originator was male or female, but it didn't matter. He froze, pressing his back against the wall as he waited for the blaze of a lantern to appear. A thousand thoughts of who could be hiding in the tunnel flitted through his mind until his legs locked with fear and he drew a fist back in case he had to fight. With his other hand, he rolled his lucky bead between his fingers. Waiting in the thick air, his heart pounded in the ears and drowned out the voice. When no one appeared, Nadir took a lurching step forward.
As his hand slid over the smooth surface of a curve, his heart leapt at the sight of a shaft of light streaming from the ceiling. The clean air above chased away the stench of still water and eased the fear that entrapped his breast. Standing beneath the warm light, Nadir looked up to find a brass grate no bigger than a brick embedded in the stone three feet above his head. His teal suit was coated in a layer of dirt. He reached to brush the dirt away when he realized with disgust that his hands were equally filthy. Nadir ducked into the shadows as voices rose again and boots clacked above his head. This time, they were undeniable.
“He is insane. There is no other way to put it.”
Listening to the echoed words ricocheting down the vent, he cocked his head. He recognized that voice.
“Well, what happened? Did he give you permission?” a woman replied from the other side of the room.
“Of course not. You would have thought I asked him for his first-born the way he carried on. He acted like I was an extortionist or something, went on about me using the plant against him, that I would destroy it if he didn’t do what I wanted. I can’t say I understand it.”
“That’s a big leap.”
“That’s what I thought! Then, he threw me out.”
Boards whined above his head as mud-encrusted soles stopped on the grate. Bits of grass and dirt drifted down like dust motes, peppering Nadir’s suit. The man sighed, pacing over the shaft with his head down before coming to a stop a few feet away. Nadir let out a slow breath and stepped away from the wall again. It took all his self-control to keep from wiping the flecks of dried muck sprinkled across his nose.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know. I can’t let it go. If that plant is the real thing, it could be one of the most important discoveries of our century. What if it’s the key doctors need to cure consumption or malaria? Of course, Nash would never see it that way.”
“Why not just pretend you never spoke to him? It’s a plant after all, anyone could have found it, and no one can stake a claim on something that has been there since the Roman Invasion.”
“I don’t know, Had. It feels dishonest to claim it as my own.”
Nadir’s eyes widened. He was under Brasshurst Hall, right below Lord and Lady Dorset’s feet, and they had no idea he was listening in on their conversation. He had to get out and go back to the beach, but he didn’t dare move for fear they would notice the gurgle of water or the blur of black and teal under the grate. Why had Leona come to the tunnel if it led to Brasshurst?
“If he is as unstable as you say, he has no right to be the deciding factor in your decision. The silphium is growing on your property, which means it’s yours. Eilian, you are an archaeologist, and if you know there is a trail to follow, I think you should. Damn what Mr. Nash says,” she laughed warmly. “Why let him stop you?”
Eilian’s feet crossed the room to his wife in two long strides. The room fell silent. The familiar soft click of lips parting meant they were kissing, and like a voyeur, he was eavesdropping on their intimate moment. Nadir covered his reddening face and leaned out of sight, too afraid to move and disturb the water on the floor. He could picture the earl drawing back with a gentle smile as he rubbed Lady Dorset’s arms to maintain contact a little longer. It seemed like something he would do.
“You’re right, Had. Anyway, I have a seed of my own. I could grow a silphium plant myself if worst came to worst, and he would have no right to that plant, now would he?”
/> “So does that mean I shouldn’t invite him to the party?” she asked, her voice lifting with a grin.
“No, definitely not. He would probably try to turn our guests out of doors along with us if he had the opportunity.”
“I don’t think Mr. Nash cares whether he gets an invitation or not. If he catches wind of the party, he will be there. You can count on that. Now if only we could figure out how he keeps getting in.”
“I have searched that room top to bottom, and for the life of me, I can’t figure it out,” he replied, his voice trailing away.
Two sets of feet crossed over the roof of the tunnel and out of earshot. When Nadir could no longer hear the lilt of their voices or the soft groan of ancient boards, he sighed and let his head rest against the wall. He ran his hand across his face, but drew it back in disgust when he coated his lips and nose in the tunnel’s grime. The path ran from the beach to Brasshurst, but where did it go? Nadir narrowed his eyes, trying to peer past the beam of light to see what lay beyond in the gloom. Where was Leona headed that night? She could have met someone in the tunnel along the way, but if they were just meeting, then why didn’t they go somewhere more convenient and less... dirty?
Nadir sharply exhaled and stepped out of the comforting shaft of gaslight. Following the tunnel around another serpentine curve before straightening again, his heart leapt as the shadows engulfed him. The darkness was absolute. His senses betrayed him, keeping him from orienting himself. The echoing drips of water that could have been ahead of him, behind him, or in his head for all he knew. A rhythmic clatter shook the bedrock around him, and suddenly he was seized with the urge to turn back. He feared the tunnel would grow narrower and narrower until it trapped him or the marrow between the tiles would falter after a thousand years and come crashing in upon him. His lungs burned as they rapidly expanded and contracted, straining against his ribs. He tugged at his silk tie to relieve the tightness in his throat. Was the air growing thinner and colder the further he inched? He could turn around, but if he did, would he be able to tell if he was facing the way he came? For all he knew, the shaft could run through all of England or it could end only a few hundred yards ahead, just beyond the next curve.
The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Box Set Page 63