by KJ Charles
Ponsonby glided away as two footmen came to relieve Pen and Greta of their coats. Pen managed thanks, feeling absurdly in the way. He could feel the footman’s jerk of reaction as his hair was revealed, feel the stares, but at least nobody said anything. Maybe footmen weren’t allowed to speak.
“I’ll take you to Desmond,” Tim said. “Or, at least—shall we do that first, or would you prefer to dress?”
“We are dressed,” Pen said.
“He means dressed up,” Greta said with a nudge. “But we are dressed. We don’t have evening clothes or whatever it is. These are our best.”
“There’s quite a lot in the house that might fit Pen. Edmund’s and Uncle Hugo’s,” Tim said. “You could borrow some, it might help.”
“Let’s take them in,” Clem said. “It’s not going to be any better, honestly. And we’ll show you around the house afterward.”
Pen exchanged looks with Greta, who squared her shoulders and nodded. “Thanks.”
It was a dark house on this wintry day, with wood-panelled walls. Tim led the way, Clem trailing unhappily behind. They went through a corridor, then into what seemed to be a dining room with a massive table, and through that into a large drawing room. It was at least warm, thanks to a blazing fire in the huge fireplace, and had good-sized windows, though the small leaded panes seemed to block much of what light there was. The aged Desmond and his son Phineas, wreathed in a cloud of cigar smoke, sat on opposite sides of the fire, well dressed, sleek, and looking anything but welcoming. They both looked round, but neither stood. There was a long, silent moment, long enough for Pen to realise that neither man was going to rise from his chair, and for anger to ignite. He hadn’t expected to be welcomed; his very existence was a blow to these men. But for them not to rise when a woman entered, as though Greta was too lowly for that most basic civility—
He took a deep breath, just as Tim spoke. “Uncle Desmond. Phineas. Greta and Pen are here.”
Another second, and then Phineas rose to his feet with evident reluctance. Desmond’s gnarled hands gripped the arms of his chair.
“Don’t trouble to get up, sir,” Greta said. “I wouldn’t want you to over-exert yourself.”
Desmond’s mouth tightened with fury. He levered himself upright, and he and his son stood, glaring at the younger generation.
“Repentance,” Desmond said. His voice was creaky and rusty, like unoiled hinges. “Regret.”
“Pen and Greta,” Greta said. “We don’t go by the other names.”
“I do not use diminutives,” Desmond said with intense distaste, as though she had suggested some sort of French sexual practice. “If your mother gave you those names, they are the names I shall use.”
“We choose our names,” Pen said. “We don’t answer to those other ones.”
Desmond gave him a long look. He had the reptilian appearance that age and baldness gave some men, with heavy-lidded eyes and a thin line of a mouth. “Until such time as Mr. Hapgood pronounces himself satisfied, if he does, you are in this house as an act of charity and courtesy, and I expect you to behave with becoming humility. You will not dictate terms, sir. And I told you to cut your hair.”
“I quite agree,” Phineas said. “Whatever relation you may be to us, your appearance is quite unbecoming to any associate or even servant of this family. Even Clement strives to pass himself off as an imitation of a gentleman.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. I’m not much acquainted with gentlemen,” Pen said. “I was always told that they were supposed to be courteous.”
“We may as well be clear,” Greta said, in the precise tones that betrayed she was extremely angry. “We are all waiting for Mr. Hapgood and the enquiry people to give their verdict. If it turns out our mother was married to this repulsive man, Pen will be the earl, and this will be his house, and you will be his guests in it until he asks you to leave. If it’s not proved, we’ll go back to the music hall and never see any of you again, and I can’t say either of us will be sorry about that. But whatever happens Pen will not be cutting his hair, because either he will need it long for our performances, or he’ll be an earl and he’ll do what he damn well pleases”—both Taillefers reared back at the profanity—“like our ghastly father did, and like you seem to think you can with us, only you’re quite wrong about that.”
“How dare you.” Phineas’s face was patchy. “How dare you speak to my father like that, you—”
“My sister,” Pen said through his teeth.
“This is going marvellously,” Tim said. “I suggest that Clem and I show the twins around before the light goes, and we make a fresh start this evening with a bit more amiability on all sides. We’re all members of this family. God help us,” he added under his breath.
“I’ll try a fresh start if everyone else will,” Pen said. “But our names are Pen and Greta.”
“I think that’s a very reasonable request,” Clem suggested hopefully.
“It’s not a request,” Pen and Greta said in unison.
Tim made a strangled noise. “Come on. Let’s just…it’s a big house, there’s plenty of space not to rub against each other in the first five minutes.”
Pen let himself be escorted out by Clem. Tim took Greta’s arm and led the way, in silence, through a series of rooms into a long hall, windowed on one side, with paintings hung along the other. It had a strip of red carpet running its length, rather worn. Clem shut the door behind them, and let out a long breath.
“Are you all right, old chap?” Tim asked.
“Oh, you know.” Clem ran both hands through his thick black hair. “Desmond.”
“I must say, I didn’t realise they’d be so obdurate,” Tim said. “I would have thought they’d have resigned themselves by now.”
“To what, our existence?” Pen asked.
“Well, yes,” Tim said. “Naturally it was a blow to Desmond. To be fair to the old buzzard, it isn’t only the loss of the earldom. He cares desperately about the family name, he can’t bear any blot on the escutcheon. It’s why he’s always so vile to Clem. All the scandal about Edmund, the bigamy and so on, has been quite dreadful for him.” He raised a hand toward the twins. “You don’t need to tell me that your mother was by far the greater sufferer. I do know that.” He flashed a sudden grin at Greta. “If I may say so, that was a quite magnificent put-down. I wanted to applaud.”
“Me too,” Clem said. “You know who it reminded me of? Aunt Georgina.”
Tim’s mouth opened. “Good Lord.”
“Who?” Pen asked. “We don’t have any more relatives, do we?”
“No, no, it’s all right, she’s dead,” Clem said. “She was my father’s wife’s sister.”
“Come again?”
“Your great-aunt,” Tim supplied. “Actually, Clem, don’t you think—Come on, there’s a picture upstairs.”
Pen and Greta followed him along the hall of paintings, up a flight of stairs, along a short hall, down a half flight of stairs, round a corner that seemed to have an extra corner at forty-five degrees somehow attached to it, and along another dark, windowless corridor leading off to a small sitting room.
“How many passages does this place have?” Pen demanded.
“Oh, it’s awful,” Clem said. “You find new servants wandering around hopelessly. I still get turned around sometimes and I grew up here. The problem is, one can’t extend the main house outward because of the moat, so various people built into the central courtyard to squeeze in extra rooms instead, and there’s always more staircases than you think. Look, this is Aunt Georgina.”
The picture he indicated was a pen and ink drawing of two young women sitting together. The ink was faded and the paper yellowed but the faces were clear, and so was the resemblance.
“That one does look like you, Gret,” Pen said, a little reluctant to admit it. She was a square-jawed woman with a firm expression.
“Quite like you, too,” Greta said.
“Aunt Georgina,”
Tim said. “She was a battleaxe, I must say, though she had reason; Uncle Hugo didn’t treat her sister well at all. She used to come here out of duty, or that’s what she said, but it seemed to be mostly to shout at him. The one on the left is Edmund’s mother, Henrietta. Your grandmother. She was always sickly.”
Pen and Greta leaned in together, looking at the faded face. “Did you know her?”
“She died before both of us were born,” Clem said. “This is the only picture, there was never a proper portrait done. I’d have thought Edmund might have put it in the Large Drawing Room, if not the Gallery. Did he like to sit here?”
“Possibly,” Tim said. “He wasn’t precisely sentimental, though.”
“It doesn’t seem like a very happy family,” Pen remarked.
“No, it isn’t.” Clem put his hands in his pockets. “It never has been, I don’t think. The Taillefers aren’t hospitable.”
“Is that the word you want, old chap?” Tim asked.
“Yes, I think so.” Clem rocked on his toes thoughtfully. “I think that’s exactly it. They aren’t kind. Father never troubled to hide his infidelities, and Edmund was dreadful to his wife, to both of them. Tim and Lily—that’s Tim’s sister—and I were never welcome here. We were—”
“Foisted,” Tim said. “That’s what Uncle Hugo and Uncle Desmond used to say, ‘brats foisted on us.’ My father was their brother, Lily and I were orphans, and Clem was Uncle Hugo’s natural son, but…”
“Foisted,” Clem agreed. “Edmund couldn’t cut Tim off fast enough when Father died. He only kept me on for his own reasons, and as soon as he died Desmond set out to be rid of me, and frankly if Desmond does become Lord Moreton, Phineas will be counting the days till he shuffles off. And here the two of you are, and look at the welcome you’ve had. I’m sorry. After everything, finding your family at last, it might have been a kinder one than this.”
Tim nodded strongly. “Well said. And you were quite right, my apologies. Inhospitable is precisely what it is.”
“You’ve both been welcoming,” Pen said. “I think I at least might have turned tail and run without you.”
“Oh, we don’t count,” Clem said. “Nobody listens to Tim, and I’m not a Taillefer at all. Shall we do the tour?”
Tim offered Greta his arm with a courtly bow. She sank into the deepest curtsey her skirts would allow, and took it. Pen and Clem followed, Clem moving more slowly and pausing to point out a couple of pictures until the other two had gone on into a different room. Pen wasn’t entirely surprised when Clem shut the door behind them.
“I, uh,” Clem said. “I wondered if we could have a chat.”
“About?” Pen said warily.
“The thing is, we’ve a mutual friend. Or, we do if he’s a friend of yours, which perhaps he isn’t any more, but a mutual acquaintance anyway. Mark Braglewicz.”
Pen examined his face. Clem had the slightly worried look he often seemed to wear, with no hint of a threat. Pen didn’t think his newfound relative was a guileful man, but he judged his words carefully anyway. “I know Mark. He was the private enquiry agent who found us.”
“Yes. That was for me and Nathaniel, Nathaniel Roy. We both needed you found, you see, and Mark did it for our sakes. He knew that you didn’t want to be earl—”
“He knew that very well indeed,” Pen said.
“I don’t know why,” Clem said. “He didn’t tell me that and it’s not my business. But I think you should know what was on the other side of the scale for Mark.”
Pen met his eyes. “I would be interested, yes.”
“It was partly my fault, in the beginning. Desmond’s been trying to throw me out of my house, you see. I keep lodgings, and the lodging house belongs to Moreton, and if he took it away that would be my home and my livelihood gone. Everything I’ve worked for, my future. I’d have to start all over again with nothing. It wouldn’t be pleasant.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he doesn’t want me to exist,” Clem said simply. “He wants me to go away, just as Father wanted my mother to go away, and Edmund wanted your mother to go away. Blots on the escutcheon, all of us. Nathaniel started looking for the lost heir as a way to put pressure on Desmond to leave me alone, only it didn’t work, and then, um, people were killed. Mark told you about that, yes? The first one was my lodger. He was a horrible man but he was old and lonely, and someone pulled out his teeth and cut off his finger ends with a hatchet, while he was alive. He was tortured and killed for what he knew about you, and I saw it, and—it was vile, Pen. Really vile. And then someone set Rowley’s shop on fire. And then someone killed Erasmus Potter the same way, with torture, because he had a letter about your birth. They wanted the letter but Justin Lazarus stole it first, and then people came after him to try to kill him, twice, and they nearly killed Nathaniel too.”
Pen felt as though he was trapped in a blizzard of names and death. “Clem, I don’t—”
“I’m probably not being clear, am I? It doesn’t matter—I mean, it does, but what you need to know is that two people were murdered over this, and Justin and Nathaniel are lucky to be alive, and the whole thing has all been about controlling the proof that you’re the earl. About you. That’s what Nathaniel says, and he’s very clever.”
“Uh…good?”
“And Nathaniel is worried about Justin, because someone’s tried to kill him,” Clem went on. “But Mark was worried about you. If the killer had found you before anyone knew you were anything more than a Flying Starling, you’d have been in trouble. And once Mark had found you, he was terribly worried that the killer could too. Mark’s been working with Inspector Ellis, who investigated the first murder, and the police are trying to find out who this killer is, but they haven’t yet. So Mark and Nathaniel decided the only way to keep both you and Justin safe was to bring you into the light. Once you’re confirmed as the earl, if anyone kills you it will be a national scandal—I don’t mean that’s a bad thing itself, I mean that anyone would think twice about doing it. Mark wanted you safe.”
“He may have done,” Pen said. “But it should have been my choice. He forced this on me.”
“He’s a practical sort of man,” Clem said apologetically. “He never puts feelings first if he thinks there’s something important to be done.”
“Important!”
“Yes. Um. Pen?”
“Yes?”
“The thing is, the reason I know Mark is that we go to the same club,” Clem said in something of a rush. “The Jack and Knave. I thought perhaps it might be easier if you knew that.”
Pen looked at him, his awkward, blindingly handsome new relative, as wildly out of place in this old English home as Pen himself, like a peacock on Piccadilly. Clem’s cheeks were slightly darkened with a flush but he was keeping a determined smile on his lips.
“Oh,” Pen said. “Thank you. Thank you for telling me. That’s…extremely kind of you.” He wasn’t sure if he’d have guessed; Clem wasn’t an easy man to read. A thought dawned. “Um, you and Mark—”
“No no no, he’s a friend, that’s all,” Clem said hastily. “Not a special friend, just a friend. If you come to the Jack when I’m there you could meet my friend, if you like. His name’s Rowley, he’s a preserver who makes wonderful things. But you’d be welcome any time, you know, you don’t have to go with Mark or any such thing. Er. It’s not a place Tim goes. At all.”
“Right,” Pen said. “Understood.”
Clem nodded. “I wanted to let you know that because this is quite a lonely house, and you aren’t alone. That’s all. Er, and also, the last time I saw Mark he was trying to drink himself unconscious.”
“What?”
“He’s not very happy,” Clem said. “I’ve never seen him quite so unhappy. I’ve never actually seen him unhappy at all, in fact,” he added with scrupulous fairness. “He tends to be sarcastic or hit people and that usually cheers him up, but he’s absolutely wretched now. I think probably he wan
ted you to be an earl even less than you did. And I dare say he should have given you a choice, but if he didn’t, it’s because he didn’t think there was one. He was afraid for you.”
“This person, this killer—”
“We don’t know who he is, or why he’s done it,” Clem said. “Or, I don’t, anyway. Nathaniel and Mark and Justin are trying their best to find out. And Phineas and Desmond didn’t know anything about it. You saw that.” Pen had. The Taillefers had appeared as bewildered by Lazarus’s accusations as Pen had been himself. “Nathaniel thinks Crowmarsh will be safe because there aren’t any strangers and people can’t get in at night, what with the moat. And he thinks that the killer was trying to stop you being revealed as earl, and now he’s failed he’ll go away.”
“Do you think that?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Clem said. “It’s all been horribly confusing. My brother did awful things, and the man in the fog attacked Rowley, and—I just want it to be over. So anyway, now you know, and you don’t have to talk to me about anything, but you can if you like. We should go on. Do you want me to tell you about important furniture and things?”
He did so, chattering on in a casual sort of way as though he didn’t expect to be listened to. Pen walked by him, feeling somewhat overwhelmed. This cold, dark, baffling house was less unwelcoming with a friend, especially one with whom he shared a secret. It even seemed warmer for the knowledge that Mark was miserable too. Pen found himself wanting to ask a great deal more about that, about Mark worrying about Pen’s well-being. He wanted to know what Mark had said that had made Clem feel he ought to speak out.
Except that it didn’t matter, because Pen was going to be an earl, and earls were supposed to marry and breed more earls. He’d be trundled toward a society marriage, one made on the basis of birth or family interests. The idea was appalling; that he might set up a secret life was, if anything, worse, with the shadow of discovery and disgrace. A music-hall flyer could dally with a private enquiry agent in a back-alley public house and nobody would care; even if they were caught it wouldn’t be a matter of newspapers and scandal. That wasn’t true of an earl.