by Hazel Hunter
“Not yet.” He pressed his hand over her forehead. “You are flushed. Do you feel feverish?”
“Not at all.” The gentleness of his touch contrasted sharply with his severe expression. “I had the strangest conversation just now.”
“Indeed.” Thorne pressed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “Of whom did you dream?”
“Mr. Emerson Thorne, your ancestor. Or rather, his ghost.” It seemed utterly fantastic to Meredith that she had spoken with the very first master of Dredthorne Hall. “When you came in, was that curtain over there dancing about in a strange manner? Of course, it wasn't,” she said before he could reply. “The windows are closed, and curtains do not dance. You must think me ridiculous.”
“I think,” Thorne said in a softer tone, “hitting your head has jumbled your thoughts.” He glanced around her. “Where is the poultice?”
Meredith lifted her hand to touch her hair. “Not on my head, apparently.” Her fingers shook as she reached back and felt the braid pinned there. Had she plaited it in her sleep? It could not be so. “I’m sure someone was here. Perhaps one of your men thought to play a joke.”
“They’ve all spent the last hour having their evening meal together.” He drew her hand away from her head. “You had a bad dream, Miss Starling. Nothing more.”
“You found me sleeping?” When he nodded Meredith let out a sigh, and then saw the pity in his gaze. “As it happens, I am feeling quite recovered.” She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Would you permit me downstairs?”
“That is why I am here,” he told her. “I thought you might like to join me for dinner.” He glanced down at her toes. “Will you allow me to assist you with replacing your slippers?”
“I’d be most grateful.” She would keep her composure and stop inviting his pity, Meredith thought, watching Thorne kneel before her and attend to the task. “Will we be enjoying food from India tonight?”
“I do favor their breakfast dishes,” Thorne told her. “For dinner, I am more of a traditionalist. Cook has prepared some roasted ham and potatoes.” He stood and offered her his hand.
Meredith held it only until she stood, but once she released him he caught her arm and tucked it through his. “I can walk without falling again, Colonel.” She hoped.
“Indulge me, Miss Starling,” he said. “Too many years have passed since I had the honor of escorting a young lady to dinner.”
“Another reason to join Renwick society,” she chided as he led her from the room. “Your services as an escort and table companion will be in great demand.”
Thorne tucked her arm more securely in his. “You may wish to reserve your judgment on my suitability as such until after the meal.”
Once downstairs Thorne guided her across the reception room to where a pair of turbaned footmen stood waiting in front of a faded chinoiserie painting of a gated garden. Beyond the white-painted whorls of iron grew a bewildering variety of flowers and plants, yet as they drew closer Meredith saw no door. The footmen bowed to her and Thorne before they took hold of concealed handles and open the wall outward, revealing it was not a wall at all but a pair of doors.
“It is called trompe l'oeil,” Thorne told her. “It means 'to deceive the eye' in French.”
“It certainly does.” Meredith recovered from her surprise over the doors only to gape again at the interior dining room.
Here Mr. Thorne had taken a turn for the fanciful, outfitting the room panels of dark woods painted with tall, narrow murals, framed by faded inlaid mosaics of shell, brass and moss-colored stone. Although cracks and black streaks left by damp marred all of the portraits, Meredith marveled at their designs. They depicted various temples, settings and figures from ancient mythology such as Herakles, Pandora, and Theseus. Between each panel marble columns stretched from floor to ceiling, their pedestals crowned with tarnished braziers, some still containing the brown, withered remains of plants.
“I have never beheld a room like this,” Meredith said, turning around slowly to take in each panel. “I feel as if I have stepped into another time.”
“It seems my ancestor had some fondness for the Greeks as well as the French,” Thorne said drily. “I fear I possess simpler tastes.” He ushered her to the end of the table, where obviously new china and crystal of simple design had been placed. “As you might guess from the settings.”
“I share your sentiments, sir.” Ever challenged by the alarming delicacy of her mother’s heirloom eggshell porcelain and lead crystal, Meredith found the colonel’s table arrangements much more attractive and practical. “In time you will leave your stamp on Dredthorne Hall. Mr. Emerson Thorne certainly did. I believe my guest chamber to be a tribute to his late wife, who was very fond of gardening.”
Thorne's brows arched. “You know my ancestor exceedingly well.”
“One hears old stories about every family in the country,” Meredith said, feeling awkward over recounting her own dream as fact.
After the footmen seated them at one end of the table another servant entered with the first course, a savory soup.
As she ate Meredith wondered how much the colonel would have been obliged to purchase for his household. The local gossips maintained that Emerson Thorne had become fabulously rich, and the heirs that followed him even more so. Of course, no one knew for certain, and it would be beyond the pale to directly inquire. Among the more prosperous gentry those whispers of abundant wealth offended as much as Dredthorne Hall’s .
“You are very quiet again, Miss Starling,” he said. “Is the food so bad?”
“On the contrary, it is exceptionally delicious.” Meredith grimaced. “Forgive me, sir. I'm afraid when I dine with my parents they do most of the talking, and I the listening.”
“I did not mean to be critical,” he told her. “I am rather glad you are more interested in the food. You look as if you could stand another stone or two.”
“You are very kind.” Meredith had never minded her narrowness until this very moment. “I have always been thin. The price of too much time in the sickroom, I daresay.”
Thorne nodded to the footmen to clear and serve the next course. “You suffered illness as a child?”
“No, my mother insists I was exceedingly healthy as an infant, before my bad luck commenced.” She took a sip of water from her glass, and shook her head when the footmen offered her wine. “Keeping to my room to recover from my latest mishap seemed dreadfully dull. I do so love to be out in the sunlight and fresh air.”
“As do I,” Thorne said. “Although that may be more an occupational habit than actual preference. Do you ride, Miss Starling?”
“My parents forbade my learning.” Meredith wondered if he would force her to reveal every inadequacy she possessed. “Doubtless they envisioned me being trampled or thrown off a cliff or something of that nature.”
He gave her a measuring look. “Yet they allow you to drive.”
“I must, on occasion,” she admitted. “The jolting of the carriage gives my mother the headache, so she rarely goes anywhere. My father is not overly fond of the village, or calling on our neighbors, so he also stays at home. Our manservant sees to the errands, but Mama depends on me to attend to her charitable deliveries.”
“It seems you are a doer of good works as well as a spinster in the making.” The colonel sat back and made a show of studying her. “I should set you as my example.”
The way he looked all over her made Meredith feel oddly heated and breathless, as if all the air in the room had fled. “Only if you wish to be bored and lonely.”
Thorne’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps that will soon change. Have you made any plans for your future, Miss Starling?”
She nodded briskly. “Once my father's estate passes to Percival and his future wife, I will inherit a modest income. I hope to acquire a small cottage.”
Her yearning for independence didn’t seem to please him, for his brows drew together. “You have no other family to
invite you to join their household?”
“Mr. Branwen, our vicar, is a distant cousin of my mother’s,” she admitted. “But I could not impose on him and his wife. I fear he is the last of my relatives.”
“I beg to differ.” A tall figure entered the dining hall, and regarded them both with her sharp gaze. “Since we are also distant cousins I shall impose on you for introductions, Miss Starling.”
Thorne rose along with Meredith and peered at the Indian man hovering a discreet distance behind the new arrival, who showed his master his hands in a helpless gesture.
“Colonel Alistair Thorne, may I introduce to you my cousin, Miss Lucetta Branwen.” Meredith felt bewildered by the arrival of the vicar’s sister. Once Thorne had bowed she asked, “Forgive me, Miss Branwen, but how is it that you are here?”
“I walked from the village after the first storm, and became caught by the second.” She sounded offended, as if the weather had conspired against her. “Colonel, your steward informed me that Miss Starling had also become stranded here. I would offer myself as her chaperon until such time as we may safely depart for home.”
“That is very good of you,” Meredith said, feeling dismayed again as she turned toward Thorne. Lucetta had presented her proposition almost like a demand. “Would it be a very great imposition, Colonel?”
“Not in the slightest.” Thorne gave the older woman a bland smile. “Have you dined, Miss Branwen?”
“Mr. Naveya was kind enough to provide me with tea, but I would be grateful for some dinner.” She glanced up and frowned. “Are you aware that you have a great many cobwebs infesting this room?”
To Meredith’s relief Lucetta proved more amicable than critical, and spent the remainder of the meal discussing the various merits of country life. Thorne seemed unsurprised to learn the vicar's sister had worked most of her life as a governess in London. When Meredith inquired as to her last position, however, Lucetta offered only a vague answer and quickly changed the subject to inquire about the accident.
“Why would you take this road if you meant to visit the village?” the older woman asked once Meredith had described the events that had brought her to Dredthorne Hall. “You do know that it leads away from Renwick.”
“I do.” How would she explain herself? Feeling some hair against her cheek, Meredith brushed back the strands. “I meant only to take a short ride before I attended to Mama’s errands.”
“That seems a pleasant way to enjoy the fresh air,” Thorne put in. “Doubtless just as you sought with your walk, Miss Branwen.”
Now Lucetta appeared as unsettled as Meredith felt. “Of course.”
When they finished their meal, both ladies refused dessert, and then offered to retreat to the sitting room so that Thorne could indulge in the customary habit of an after-dinner port and cigar. As he stood to escort them Thorne noticed Meredith again brushing at her face. From the movement of the hair strands something seemed to be tugging them free of her braid.
“Colonel, may I examine the Pandora panel there?” Meredith asked, gesturing toward the back of the room.
“If you wish, of course.” He watched her approach the wall with her hand slightly raised. “Is there something the matter?”
“I thought I felt a draft coming from this spot, but perhaps I imagined it.” As she drew closer she peered at the box in the figure’s hands. “There appears to be a crack in the paint.” She reached out to touch the portrait.
“Such things are common in old paintings, Cousin,” Lucetta said, frowning, and then went still as something clicked and the painting seemed to swing out. “Egad. That is surely not.”
Meredith glanced over her shoulder, surprised by how alarmed her cousin looked. “Sir, this is a door, not a wall.”
Thorne joined her, and took hold of the edge of the hinged panel to open it wider. Behind the painting lay a large dark space that smelled of dust and old paper. “It seems you have discovered another room, Miss Starling.”
“Now I feel a proper adventurer,” Meredith told him. “What could be hidden away behind the walls of a dining room?”
“Perhaps the servants once used it for dish storage.” Lucetta brought the candelabra from the table and offered it to him. “Here, this should provide some illumination.”
Thorne watched the flames flicker. “Your cousin did not imagine that draft, Miss Branwen.” He stepped inside, and then turned to survey the glassy upper walls of the small chamber.
Mirrors stretched from floor to ceiling, interrupted only by cases containing hundreds of books. Between two of the cases sat a small, cold fireplace with several odd instruments on the mantle.
“The servants must have been very well-read,” the vicar’s sister said as she peered inside.
Meredith’s eyes rounded. “A secret library, how marvelous.”
Her cousin did not appear as impressed. “Whoever built this likely wished to hide these books for some nefarious reason. There may be creatures infesting them as well. Cousin, we should leave this to the colonel to examine.”
“Oh, must we?” Meredith turned to Thorne. “Of course, if you wish some privacy we will leave, but I’ve never before seen a hidden room.”
“Perhaps more light will provide some reassurance for your cousin.” He handed her the candles, and went to fetch two lamps from the dining table. He handed one to Lucetta before entering the concealed room and placing the other on the small desk at the back of the chamber. The mirrored walls reflected the lights until the room took on a soft glow.
“It is incredible,” Meredith murmured.
Lucetta sniffed. “Such displays of vanity generally are.”
Thorne found curtains behind the desk, and when he drew them back he saw an inward-curved window that had been painted black. Air seeped in through a large crack in the lower pane, and when he peered through it he saw the hall’s rain-washed front steps. “Here is the source of your draft, Miss Starling.”
She nodded, but then her attention strayed to the tarnished apparatus lining the mantle above the hearth. “These instruments here appear to be scientific in nature. Was Mr. Emerson Thorne engaged in some sort of research, I wonder?”
“No one seems to know what the man did while he lived here,” Thorne told her. “The estate agent called him a staunch recluse.”
“Some of these devices are used to make measurements of stars,” Lucetta said as she inspected the collection. “I have seen their like at the British Museum. Perhaps he had a keen interest in astronomy. Then again, gentlemen often purchase such scientific trifles simply to appear as if they do.”
“The mirrors make the room seem to go on forever,” Meredith murmured as she turned around, and smiled as she saw her reflection repeated over and over in the glass panels. “I have heard looking glasses being faced to produce such an effect in ball rooms.”
“Strange that they have never blackened over the years. Given the draft, it is remarkable that they or any of these books survived.” Lucetta ran her finger along the surface of the desk and then inspected the tip. “This should be blanketed in a layer of dust, but it is spotless. The crack in the window must be very recent, Colonel.”
“I agree. When there is no air to enter the chamber everything within is preserved, as it is in a tomb.” Thorne picked up a crystal ink well, removing the silver lid before showing the contents to Meredith. “Still liquid. My ancestor must have retreated here to write his letters, and read his favorite books.”
“May I, Colonel?” When he nodded Lucetta went to a shelf and took down a slim volume. “This was printed a century past, and yet the pages are as crisp and unmarked as if they came from the press yesterday.”
“You ladies may borrow anything you wish to read,” he told her.
The older woman nodded, and made a methodical inspection of the contents of the bookcases. Meredith drifted from one shelf to another, smiling as she recognized certain titles and frowning over others.
Thorne joined her at the chi
ldren's section and glanced over her shoulder to see the storybook she had opened. “Do you favor fairytales, Miss Starling?”
“I did, once.” She showed him a page depicting fairy-like creatures frolicking in a flowery meadow. “My favorite was the story of the Swan Princes, although it always made me cry in the end.”
“I am not familiar with that tale,” Thorne admitted.
“The princess in the story labors very hard to free her many brothers from a curse which transformed them into swans. A handsome King falls in love with her, and carries her off to marry her, but even that does not dissuade her. She even risks her life to save her family. Yet despite her labors and her sacrifice, in the end she is unable to entirely save the youngest. He must go on through life with one arm and a swan's wing.” She gave him a rueful smile. “I thought it so terribly unfair, but I suppose most things seem so, when we are children.”
He thought of his own affliction. “Such resentments end with maturity.”
“I daresay they should,” Meredith said, looking a little embarrassed now.
“Colonel Thorne,” Lucetta said from behind them. “Might I consult with you on the merits of these French novels in the dining room, where the light is better?”
Thorne suspected the vicar's sister hadn't the slightest interest in any novels, but nonetheless accompanied her out of the hidden room. “My French is not what it should be, but you may find the novels of Dumas entertaining.”
“The French seldom amuse anyone but themselves,” she admitted. “What I truly wish to discuss is my cousin’s presence here, Colonel, and the threat that poses. I must ask you to do something to help protect her reputation.”
He nodded. “I am at your service, Miss Branwen.”
“Thank you, sir.” Her tone softened a degree. “I intend to say that I have been here at Dredthorne since my cousin's accident occurred. I will claim to have witnessed it, and never to have left her side for a moment. Will you support me in these falsehoods, that together we may shield Meredith?”