A Hanging at Lotus Hall

by Corrina Lawson

  Gregor had the grace to bow his head.

  “How would you like it if our positions were reversed?” She glanced at Jasper Sherringford. “Like what he did to you.”

  Gregor set his jaw. “Not at all,” he admitted.

  She would not be mollified. “You left Henry,” she accused.

  “He was thrown on the other bank,” Nick broke in. “We couldn’t get to him. But we saw the constables arrive and help. So we knew he was safe.”

  “He’s not safe. He was injured. He’s at Lotus Hall, with doctors,” Joan said. No, she would not let this go.

  “Joan, you believed I left an injured man to suffer?” Gregor set his hands on her shoulders.

  “I’ve no idea what to believe anymore. You clearly guessed Edward Dale was your father. You knew he wrote the list we found in Cooper’s room. You kept that from me. Then you pretended to be dead, without any regard to what that would do to me.”

  “I had Nick put a sign on the knob,” he whispered.

  “Which I was lucky to find. And that doesn’t excuse you for running off to London.”

  They glared at each other while the others in the room stayed silent.

  Joan finally shook her head. “There’s only so far trust can go before it’s broken. “

  Gregor nodded, curt.

  “Dammit, Gregor.”

  She allowed him to take her into his arms. He ran his fingers through her hair. “I know, love. I know.”

  “I’m not sure you do.” Her voice was muffled against his chest. Alive. Solid. Her anger, however, remained, a shadow on her relief.

  Jasper Sherringford cleared his throat and offered two more brandy glasses to his sons. “Greetings, boys. Glad to see you. So the carriage crash wasn’t an accident?”

  The brothers closed ranks. “Until you explain yourself, we have nothing to say,” Nick said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, pretending to be dead?”

  “I suppose I deserve that, though much of the past ten years was similar enough to death.” He settled into the chair closest to the fire. The flames threw shadows around the room, giving Jasper a sinister look.

  He was, Joan thought, not entirely to be trusted.

  “What do you need to know?” Jasper asked.

  “Everything,” Nick demanded.

  “My mother helped you,” Gregor said.

  Jasper nodded, a short sharp movement that reminded Joan of Gregor. “I would not have returned to Lotus Hall without her.”

  Gregor took the couch. Joan sat next to him, still furious, and avoided curling up against him, as part of her longed to do.

  Nick and Reg poured more brandy from the bar and lit each other’s cigarettes.

  “Fine.” Jasper stroked his beard, eyeing his sons. “The shorter version, as time is of the essence. The last expedition went as planned, until we hit the dead zone on Everest. That’s where the oxygen starts to thin. Edward and I wanted to press forward. I gave the Sherpas permission to descend and leave us alone. They did, likely thinking we were crazy Englishmen. They were right.” His voice softened. “We used magic to sustain ourselves in the climb to the summit. We made it. That was glorious.” Jasper stared into space, seeing something in his mind’s eye. “We left a handkerchief with the family crest under a rock to prove we’d made it.” His eyes misted over. “On our descent though, the avalanche hit.” His hand shook visibly as he sipped his brandy. “The Sherpas dug me out. They never found Edward.”

  “Why this deception? Why stay dead for a decade?” Gregor demanded, his voice like ice. Joan had often wondered what Gregor would be like in a rage. Like this, she thought.

  “I was injured near to death. The Sherpas doubted my survival, though they watched over me. I lost my mind for a time. Sometimes, I thought I was Edward. I spoke to him, I spoke to myself, I spoke to you and your brothers, and especially to my dearest Vai. But I was not coherent.” He closed his eyes. “When I finally came fully to myself, several years had passed and I was crippled. My leg had been broken, then set wrong. I reset it with magic but it was painful and healing took more time. You may have noticed the cane. I limp still.”

  “Letter writing does not require full use of the legs,” Gregor said.

  Jasper sighed. “I refused to return a cripple, a burden on my family. They already thought me dead. And, in a sense, I was. Who I was died on Everest.”

  “You utter asshole,” Nick breathed.

  “I deserve that.” Jasper closed his eyes. “I’d led my best friend to his death, all for folly. I’d let down my family. What I thought would be a triumph became my greatest failure. I thought of returning but…you already had moved on. What would be the point of that?”

  “Mother never stopped grieving,” Gregor growled.

  Nick stalked to his father. “With all due respect to your mother’s grief, Gregor, I never stopped grieving.” Nick tossed back his brandy in one gulp. “Father, did you ever think of that? Or were you drowning in too much self-pity?”

  “My God,” Joan said, thinking of the one who’d been the worst injured by this deception. “Phyllis. You raised her hopes and now you’ll crush them again. That’s cruel beyond measure, sir.”

  “I had a reason!” Jasper slammed his fist into the chair rail.

  “It better be a damn good one,” Nick said, throwing his glass into the fireplace. The shards bounced against brick.

  “Finish,” Gregor ordered.

  “Your mother never stopped grieving, no.” Jasper held Gregor’s gaze. “She’s the one who found me. Convinced me I had to come home. She was right. She’s always right. I agreed to come home, though I wanted to wait until I was at Lotus Hall to reveal my true identity. Didn’t seem the right thing to put in a letter.” He stroked his chin. “Then we were attacked.”

  Gregor’s eyebrow raised. “Attacked?”

  “Hired killers, sent by the man who’d been following Vai all over India and into Nepal. We defeated the killers.” He smiled. “Vai’s improved with age. Then we tracked the head man down. Made him talk.” He held up his hand, filled it with mage light. “Everyone’s afraid of fire.”

  Joan shivered and wondered if Jasper was right after all to have stayed dead. He’d come back a different man, and he knew it.

  “Go on.” Gregor waved his hands. “Finish it up, Father. We’re wasting time. Anne and Victoria are in danger. My mother will be vulnerable too, after helping Victoria.”

  “Yes. In short, the man said the Duke of Bennington had hired him to kill Vai and anyone close to her. I thought he must be lying, or the man who hired him had lied, but Vai said that fit with some of Jared’s recent behavior. We needed to get back to Lotus Hall and fast.”

  A dramatic pause. Like sons, like father. Jared as the killer? Perhaps, Joan thought.

  “How did you arrive?” Joan asked.

  “We came via magic, through the paintings of the mountains, like power calling to like.”

  “Whoa, wait!” Reg said. “You’re saying you used magic to zip from Nepal to Lotus Hall? Across two continents?”

  “Like calls to like,” Jasper repeated. “I helped Edward with those paintings. My magic was in them. I could discuss why that works but later, when everyone is out of danger. I pretended to be Edward Dale to buy time to uncover whether Jared had hired the assassins. Turns out, he had, and that’s when I grew alarmed. I had Vai send for you, Gregor.”

  “I was right there,” Nick said. “You could’ve talked to me.”

  “I wanted to talk to both of you at the same time.”

  “That delay cost at least one life,” Gregor snapped. “And it gave time for whoever set the trap for Joan to almost kill her as well.”

  “I know.” Jasper put his head in his hands.

  Gregor rose. Joan recognized his mood. He’d put all the pieces of the case together.

  “I believe Jared’s under a magical compulsion,” Gregor said.

  “What?” Nick said.

  “Like Anne?”
Joan exclaimed.

  But Gregor and Nick did not know that, so she had to explain.

  Jasper nodded when she finished. “Yes, Gregor’s correct. A magical compulsion, like Anne. I didn’t want to believe he’d try to kill Vai. But something was clearly wrong with the boy.” Jasper stood, no longer slumped, all sign of regret and apology gone. This, Joan thought, was the father that his sons remembered.

  “Joan, you described a mass of dark power seething in Anne’s brain,” Jasper continued. “Well, Jared’s mind contains a similar dark mass, but it’s far more integrated into his brain. I think it took years to develop that kind of control over him. Vai and I decided that the best method to remove this mass was Gregor. His power cancels out regular mage power.”

  Gregor nodded. “If it’s the same twisted power that created the spell encased in the teapot, yes, it’s vulnerable to my ability.” A pause. “Someone fitting Moriarty’s description was at the silversmith two days before.”

  So. Moriarty had pretended to offer Joan the role as teacher in order to take her measure. He’d already planned to kill her even then. But he’d underestimated her abilities.

  “Moriarty is behind it all, then.” Jasper nodded. “I wanted to move on helping Jared today, but Cooper was murdered last night, you boys went off on an errand, Anne was compromised, and Victoria went into labor. Oh, and your carriage crashed. That’s where we are now. But we must act, and soon.”

  “You could have told us last night,” Gregor said.

  “My courage failed me on our first meeting since my…death. And I thought we had more time,” Jasper confessed.

  Silence reigned for a bit.

  Jared had sent killers after Vai in India. Someone had planted a magical compulsion in Anne’s mind. Moriarty had done the same, perhaps years ago, to Jared.

  “Jared is so powerful. How did Moriarty do it?” Nick asked.

  “The tests that the students at Isca undergo, in the white rooms, when honing their mage gift, require giving control to the teacher,” Joan said.

  “And Jared was a student at Isca when Moriarty was a teacher there, though not the headmaster,” Gregor added.

  “Moriarty’s control started long ago, yes,” Jasper said. “It’s been intermittent through the years but strong enough to affect Jared’s thinking. I should never have gone on the last expedition.”

  No one challenged that assertion.

  Gregor stood and began his pacing. “Nick and I searched through the Isca School. We observed one of the teaching rituals in the white room. Suffice to say, the teachers establish controls on the students quite easily that way. And we found yet another, secret room, that I didn’t find on my first visit. It’s in Moriarty’s residence on the school grounds.”

  Joan curled her feet under her. So much made sense now. “Moriarty’s killing all those mages on the list using his control over their minds.” Had he controlled her mother the same way? Why? “And that’s why murder was never suspected. But why kill Cooper?”

  “Because I, as Dale, approached Cooper with my list of suspicious deaths,” Jasper said, “I told him I was worried about Jared. I thought Cooper might be someone I could trust. I was right. He was appalled at the idea of Jared being controlled. But he didn’t believe me, not fully. I told him to research the names, then he’d know I was telling the truth. I believe he started to do that. That’s why Moriarty killed him.”

  More silence. Gregor shook his head.

  “Then why hang the body and throw suspicion on Jared?” Joan asked.

  “Because Jared is a threat to Moriarty. Perhaps Moriarty’s control was growing thin. Perhaps he was tired of the exertions it took to control Jared. Perhaps he was afraid Gregor could undo the controls. Or all three. But, hanging Cooper was another way to ruin Jared and perhaps the entire Sherringford name.” Jasper set his hand on the fireplace mantel and lit the fireplace with a casual wave of his hand. “Moriarty believes noble mages have too much power, too much control. Moriarty craves to be the premier mage in the country, and he wants the Metaphysical Society to have more influence than any nobility. He’s cleared the powerful noble mages of the realm off the chessboard. It was time to go after the Duke of Bennington and his family.”

  “My mother,” Joan breathed. She buried her face in her hands. “Did Moriarty find her? Did he kill her?”

  Gregor knelt before her. “I think it’s clear he influenced her and supplied her with the information about the golem spell, yes. Possibly to cause chaos, because any incidents by unauthorized mages would force Parliament into consideration of the Mage Reform Act.”

  “He’s likely been gathering unauthorized mages to be under his control for a while,” Gregor said. “I suspect now that explains all of Moran’s ‘disappeared’ mages in London. That’s his other power base. But perhaps he couldn’t control your mother as well as he anticipated. I’m sorry, Joan.”

  Joan raised her tear-stained face and braced her shoulders. Hers was an old sorrow. But, Phyllis had only just suffered a devastating loss. “Yes, be sorry for me. But be sorrier for Phyllis. She’s lost her love and she’s lost her father. Again.”

  Jasper winced. “Yes, that pains me. She’s my family, my blood. I’ll do whatever I can to make it up to her.”

  “Hah,” Reg barked. “I bet you can’t.”

  Jasper nodded. “That may be but I have to try, all the rest of my life if necessary.” He looked at his sons. “Which may not be long because what we need to do is get back into Lotus Hall and confront Moriarty, all the while releasing Jared and Anne from his hold. God knows what that devil has been doing to Vai while we talk.” He stood and threw his own glass into the fireplace.

  “We need a plan,” Joan said.

  Chapter 22

  It was Joan and Reg who created the plan to confront Moriarty. She trusted the judgment of none of the Sherringfords, given how they were reeling from a thousand shocks.

  And, she admitted to herself, how they’d lied. Deception seemed written in their bones.

  Jasper and Nick would use the magic of the mountains to gain entry to Lotus Hall as soon as the Hall settled down for the night. Jasper needed another mage to work the spell and Nick’s blood connection to it helped, much as the bond between Jasper and Vai had fueled the original transport from Nepal. Nick was less powerful than Vai but this was a shorter trip.

  The remaining three of them would enter Lotus Hall via the gardens, through the outer door into the underwater ballroom. Once inside the hall, Gregor would cast the whole of Lotus Hall into shadow or as much of it as he could.

  That was her idea.

  “I’ve never done anything on that scale, love,” Gregor said as they dressed in dark clothing from a supply in Edward Dale’s cabin. She’d learned that the clothing and the cabin were another Sherringford secret. Jasper’s father had used it as a home for his assignations and deeded it to his illegitimate son Edward on his death. Edward had lived here, and he and Jasper had used it often as a base of operations to sneak out of Lotus Hall for “adventures,” at least in their youth.

  It was also here that Phyllis had been raised after her mother’s untimely death. Joan had stumbled across her bedroom, full of Phyllis’s childhood paintings. You poor girl.

  The trousers and men’s shirt were too large for Joan but she altered them quickly, with a sewing kit kept in the home. The familiar feel of the needle steadied her.

  Waiting for the rest of them, staring out the window into the abyss of the night, Joan wondered about her future after all this, assuming she and Gregor lived through the confrontation with Moriarty.

  Perhaps her dreams were too small. Or too big. Look where Jasper’s great dreams had gotten him: nothing but loss.

  “I rather think men’s clothing flatters you, Joan.”

  Gregor stood before her, all in black.

  “You look like death itself.”

  Gregor wrapped his arms around her. “Joan,” he whispered, as if her name contained all the se
crets of the universe.

  “Are the others ready?”

  “In a few moments.”

  She let his love envelop her. “You never told me how the crash happened.”

  He ran his fingers through her hair. “Jared sabotaged the carriage. He created a magical short into the spell that enabled the carriage to fly. The short, ah, detonated in a burst of power when we were over the river. I lost sight of Henry. I grabbed hold of Nick, kept our heads above water, and we paddled to the opposite shore. It was a near thing.”

  So close. They’d been taken unaware. Likely, Gregor had skipped over it because he wished not to dwell on his near death. She understood that.

  “And the knob?”

  “Floated to our side. Nick had enough energy left to burn the letter into the wood and he magically tossed it to that side.” His grip around her tightened. “We couldn’t go back to the hall. Nick needed a place to recover warmth and his wits, and I was drained. I’d have come to you tonight, one way or another, do you believe that?”

  He held her at arm’s length, attempting to read her face.

  “I believe that you would have. And I believe that you tried to tell me, in your own way. But you could have revealed yourself when we first arrived at the cabin.”

  He bowed his head. “Yes. I could have.”

  “And we are back to whether you consider me a full partner.”

  He held her gaze now. “I cannot change in a day. But, please, Joan, I am trying.”

  “I believe that too.” She sighed. Whether she believed he’d ever fully change was another matter.

  “And let me say that my parents’ deception has given me insight into what keeping secrets does to others.”

  This time, she nodded. “I wish it hadn’t taken that to provide insight.”

  He embraced her again.

  “You’d worked out already that Edward was your father when you left Lotus Hall?”

  “I suspected by the way he behaved and from his handwriting on the note. Close to Edward Dale’s but not quite. But I had no proof. I deemed it more important to uncover Cooper’s killer by searching the Isca School again, and his and Moriarty’s homes. I wanted Nick with me, to make certain of him and Reg and…you know the rest. I thought it was a good plan. I never expected Anne or Victoria to be in serious danger. Or for Jared to toss you out.”