I gasped. “Then you were watching us the whole time.”
“As I told you I would.” Concern swept over his features, and he pulled me close.
I should have thrust myself away the second he did so, but I didn’t move, not at first. It was almost as if my muscles were momentarily paralyzed, but not unpleasantly so. His arms were safe, familiar even, and my heart galloped.
I heard him expel a breath of relief. “Charity.”
Then we were moving, shuffling, inching away from each other.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Did he hurt you in any way?”
I touched my previously injured shoulder. “No, I don’t think so. But what about him?”
“He’ll be fine, besides the devilish headache he’s bound to have when he awakes.” Piers knelt at Kendal’s side, jabbing his finger into the earl’s waistcoat pocket.
Shaking off my rampant emotions, I knelt as well. “What are you doing?”
“Help will be here soon enough. Thought I might do a little snooping.” He ran his hand down his face before resting his fingers on Kendal’s lapel. There, twinkling in the moonlight, was a small silver collar jewel. “What’s this?”
We leaned in together, the etched dragon taking shape in the dim light.
Piers met my eyes. “The Gormogons. Look, it even has the same Persian ivy border as the one in the journal. Quick, check his other pockets.”
I dipped my hands into Kendal’s jacket, and I was rewarded with a folded slip of paper. I held it out, spreading it open at once.
Kendal,
Lest you forget, I have access to your loyalty pledge. Don’t fail us or the cause. We need each other in times of success but, more importantly, in times of trial. We’re trusting you to carry on as planned.
Piers refolded the note. “It seems we were right. Only, this is a bit worse than I anticipated. ‘The cause’? I begin to fear this secret society is larger than just the four friends Avery indicated.”
A shiver scaled my neck. “What if the group never dissolved like your father thought it did? Could it not have carried on in secret?”
“Possibly, but when pressed, my father admitted that the group did little of anything, originating merely to oppose the Freemasons. There would be no reason for it to continue.”
“Unless they found a purpose, something to unite them?”
“Avery has always been an idealist. If he thought he might make changes in Britain for the good of society, he would definitely want to be a part of it.”
The sound of footsteps lit the air and we glared at one another. Like lightning, Piers shoved the missive back into Kendal’s pocket.
Two servants burst through the opening in the hedgerow just as Piers gently patted Kendal’s face. “Wake up, my good man.”
Kendal moaned, then opened his eyelids. He was confused at first, his gaze darting about the garden, and then his eyes narrowed.
Piers stepped back to allow Kendal’s servants to assist him to his feet, then whispered to me, “See, he’s well enough.”
His confidence was intoxicating, yet what had he set in motion with his rash behavior? “Oh, Piers, he’ll call you out again, and then what?”
“I’ll be sure to meet him at dawn this time.”
Kendal stepped forward, the fire in his stare for Piers alone. Silence roamed the bushes like a tiger, coming to rest at Kendal’s feet. “You’ll meet me for this, Cavanagh.” He wiped a spot of blood from the edge of his lip. “Considering our past, perhaps we should forgo the seconds and finish our duel right here, right now. Swords or pistols, if you please?”
Piers didn’t flinch. “A pleasant thought indeed, but I’ve no intention of doing this in such a havey-cavey way. My seconds shall call upon you tomorrow. And I assure you, this disagreement between us shall be put to rest . . . once and for all.”
“Trying to regain some semblance of honor?” Lord Kendal spat on the ground. “Believe me, there will be no chance for an apology, not with a blow to the head. You’ll meet me on that field, or you can slink back to that cottage in Liverpool even more of a coward than you already are. And if you fail to show up this time, you bet I’ll announce it in church.”
“I should expect nothing less . . .” Something drew Piers’s attention beyond the gardens.
It was Avery, racing across the side yard. He stopped but a few feet in front of us, winded and his face red. “Something has happened at the stables.” He eyed Kendal for a moment, then went on. “It’s the new groom . . . He’s been murdered.”
“How? Why?” The words were out before I’d even had a moment to think.
We departed the maze as a group, but once free, Kendal took off at a run.
Piers touched my shoulder, his voice firm. “I think it best for you to go to my mother in the card room. Avery and I will investigate what has happened.”
I nodded, but at the same moment I saw Mrs. Cavanagh bustling across the yard on her way to the stables.”
Avery threw up his hands. “What the deuce does she think she is doing? Mama!” he cried as he raced off to intercept her.
Piers and I hurried to the group huddled behind the stables, the hum of fear circling the crowd like the eerie sound of animals brought to life at night. The air had grown cooler over the course of the evening, but it was a stale chill, damp in places, stuffy in others, almost as if Whitecaster Hall had been sealed up within a cave.
We arrived in time to see Mrs. Cavanagh push her way into the woods, her voice far shriller than the others. “I was told he was a servant at Loxby Manor. Let me through.”
My gaze snapped to Piers and I mouthed, “A servant?”
Forgetting his earlier reticence to keep me from whatever horror lurked behind the stables, I was tugged along behind him into the forest.
There were several Whitecaster servants milling about a small opening within the trees where I could see the ominous reminder of what they’d found—a motionless pair of feet lying at an angle in the shadows among the leaves.
I was surprised to hear Tony’s voice at my side and grim at that. His focus remained on Avery, his eyes like slits in the torchlight. “I found him like that just moments ago.”
Avery plunged his hand through his hair. “And you didn’t hear or see anything? I thought you planned to overnight in the stables.”
A layer of unease tinted each of Tony’s words as if he were trying much too hard to say everything and nothing at the same time. “I was in the harness room with Hugh, and then I left to deliver”—he mouthed words only to Avery; speaking aloud again—“to Kendal at the ball. I returned to find him missing. We searched the stables for some time before one of the grooms turned up and said our boy saw something out the window, and we charged out the back door.”
Piers piped up. “And where exactly is Hugh now?”
Tony shrugged. “His horse is gone. He must have left earlier. Of course he never planned to stay the night.”
Mrs. Cavanagh crept up near the body before Avery took notice and tugged her back, returning her hurriedly to my side. He motioned to me with his chin to take her away. “We’ll leave as soon as I can get out of here. I doubt there will be a curricle race now.”
I clasped her cold fingers, her face a ghostly white.
“Oh, my dear Charity. The rumors were true. He never left . . . But murdered? I cannot believe it. I cannot . . . I feel faint.”
I refrained from pointing out that it was she who had forced her way forward.
She was a ball of quivers and gasping breaths.
I grasped her arm. “We should make our way back to the house.”
Piers, having got his first view of the body, nodded to me, his eyes wide.
Her voice was barely audible. “I think that wise, my dear.”
We pushed through the swarm of people, but as soon as we were out of earshot, Mrs. Cavanagh came to life, tugging us to a bench beneath a willow tree. Darkness lurked in patches beneath the branches as the moonligh
t fought to break through.
The evening chill sought to remind me of the advanced hour, yet I was determined to hear what Mrs. Cavanagh was so anxious to say. I rubbed my arms and leaned in close. A shiver skated across my shoulders as I tried in vain to make out the complexities of her face, but they were lost in the shadows. Her fingers felt almost claw-like as she pulled me close.
“It was Miles Lacy!”
Her words were like cold water splashed in my face, and it took me a moment to form a response. “Are you certain?”
Her voice dipped. “I’d know that man anywhere.”
“Did you see . . . I mean . . . Did anyone say how he died?”
“Clubbed over the head, if I were to make a guess. There was a great deal of blood on his forehead and a rather large wound.”
My hand retreated to my neck. “However will we tell Mr. Lacy?”
Her voice came out of the gloom far more flippant than I was expecting. “He was never all that fond of the boy.”
“No, but to lose anyone in such a way . . .”
“That is neither here nor there. I brought you to this spot to discuss something far more important. With Miles Lacy dead, where is my darling Seline?”
I had already surmised that Seline was not with Miles Lacy, but Mrs. Cavanagh had not. I understood now why Piers wanted me to get his mother away from the stables. I ran my hand around her back and urged her to stand, speaking quietly in her ear. “All we know at present is that the letter Seline was supposed to have left us was indeed a fabrication, or she was lying. Everything else is speculation at this point. We’ll wait for Avery and Piers before making any rash judgments. Do not give up hope yet.”
I glared back at the stables, opening my mouth to speak, then closing it just as quickly.
After all, who on earth wanted Miles Lacy dead?
Chapter 21
I assisted Mrs. Cavanagh back into Whitecaster Hall where we were confronted by the sights and sounds of a ball filled with people completely ignorant of what had transpired. Dancers swirled about the floor as a low hum buzzed from the card room. Servants bustled by as they prepared the supper table.
The house felt a blur, almost as if I were witnessing the spectacle from outside my body. A man had died only a few yards away, and here we stood, caught up in the throes of a different world. Mrs. Cavanagh begged leave to sit on a chair where we shared the next few minutes with little to no conversation.
That is, until something snapped in her demeanor, and she dipped forward. “I daresay it may be some time before Avery and Piers will be able to escort us home, and I swear I cannot just sit here and fret. It will do my heart no good.” She worried her hands in her lap. “Perhaps a card game might distract me for the time being.”
A card game? Now? Mrs. Cavanagh had always been a curious creature to me, but never more so than in that moment. I drummed my fingers on the wooden armrest. Or maybe she was right. She would be nothing but a rattled mess if I were to leave her to her own devices. At least in the card room she’d have the comfort of friends.
And a place to gossip, no doubt. A scandal that had nothing to do with her family—her lips were itching to spread the news.
I gave her a wan smile. “If you think a game of Whist will calm your nerves. I, however, am completely unable to concentrate on anything, let alone a game of skill.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Well, I can hardly leave you here alone. It just wouldn’t be proper.”
I chose not to point out how often she did so, nodding instead as I rose to accompany her into the card room, but Piers appeared through the door.
Catching sight of us, he hurried over. “Avery’s determined to assist Lord Kendal at the stables. He’ll find his own way home. I think it best for us to leave at once.”
“Whatever you suggest.” Mrs. Cavanagh’s voice had taken on a leaden tone.
Piers extended his arm, and we made our way to the front hall to await our carriage. Mrs. Cavanagh was pleased to find a friend there waiting as well. Her predilection for gossip allowed Piers and me a precious moment to ourselves.
The multitude of candles still blazed, revealing the disquiet on his face. He crossed his arms as he tilted against a nearby pillar, his eyes on the bright lights. “What an infernal waste of money this all has been.”
I breathed out a laugh. “I quite agree.”
Small talk felt foreign on such a night, and I could see it sour in Piers’s eyes. He pressed the palm of his hand against the column. “Tony said something out there that I cannot get out of my mind.”
I moved in close. “What was that?”
“You were there. The bit about him taking something to Kendal in the ballroom.”
“You think it was the note you found in Kendal’s pocket.”
His eyes flashed. “Exactly.” He played with his quizzing glass. “You know, I was standing quite close to Avery when Tony was speaking to him, and I could have sworn I felt a muscle stiffen in his arm, almost as if he flinched.”
I stepped forward. “What if you are right and there’s more to Seline’s disappearance than what we think we know? Miles Lacy was not murdered by accident. Miles and Seline have been connected since the scandal, and Miles didn’t leave the county when he swore he would. Something must have kept him here.”
Caught up in the moment, I laid my hand on Piers’s arm, which drew his sharp gaze. I pulled away, the silence of the hall buzzing in my ears.
He let out a sigh, but I couldn’t read the intricacies buried within that halting breath. His hand brushed my arm. “Habits can be difficult to break.”
“Yes, yes they can.”
“Listen, I spoke to the groom who witnessed Miles leave the stables. The groom said Miles acted quite strange, as if something had shocked him. When the groom went to the window himself, he thought he saw a figure in the trees, but he couldn’t make out who it was.”
Mrs. Cavanagh drew up at Piers’s side. “Our carriage is here and I have no intention of staying one moment longer in this house. I daresay it isn’t safe at all.” Piers gave me a knowing glance, then offered her his arm.
But I didn’t move, not yet, churning over what Piers had discovered. So the groom had seen someone in the woods. Hugh perhaps? Or Tony? It could have even been Avery.
I said little as we traversed the front door and moved into the swirling night, my hopes for the evening vanishing into thin air. All our efforts to uncover the details regarding Seline’s disappearance, and we were no closer to figuring out what had happened. Miles was dead, and now Piers had the duel to contend with. Our plans had been designed in vain.
I climbed into the carriage as the thoughts I’d been wrestling with arrested my steps.
The air around me shifted, scaling my arms and sliding across my shoulders, and for a moment I thought my legs would give out beneath me.
Was I right in my earlier assumptions? Had Seline disappeared without a clue because, like Miles Lacy, she was no longer alive?
* * *
Piers sent a note by my maid the following morning. I was to meet him in the entrance hall at three in the afternoon. He’d arranged for a carriage to take us to Tony Shaw’s estate.
I spent the morning held up in the drawing room by Mrs. Cavanagh, whose spirits were surprisingly light after all we’d endured the previous day.
She caught me watching her from my seat on the scrolled end sofa. “What is nagging you, my dear?” She set her needlepoint on her lap, her shrewd eyes quick to follow me.
I slipped my book closed on my lap, keeping my finger between the pages. “I must have been woolgathering. Please forgive me.”
“Humph.” She pressed her lips together. “I suppose you think my elevated mood out of place on such a day.”
“Not at all.”
“Don’t lie.” She lifted her eyebrows. “It can become a nasty little habit.”
I paused. “I was wondering if you might have received word about Seline? You seem different today.�
�
“No.” A deep breath. “When I returned to my room last night, I set aside some time for thinking. I do that on occasion, you understand, because I find the practice remarkable in improving the mind. You really should try it. Not too often, mind you, or it can irritate the nerves.”
She straightened her skirt. “In fact, I take Mr. Cavanagh’s pocket watch and when ten minutes have passed, I’ve either solved whatever crisis drove me to my thinking time in the first place”—she waved her hand in the air—“like what I should wear when I call on my neighbors, or the problem can simply wait till I think on it the next time.” She looked up as if she’d solved some great dilemma. “Thus, I don’t have to worry with whatever plagues me outside of my thinking time.”
She flicked open her fan, souring at my obvious bewilderment. “I daresay such a practice would be beneficial for you as well. It improves conversation, at the very least. No gentleman wants a lady who is dull.”
“And I daresay no lady wants a dull husband either.”
She snapped her fan closed. “Don’t be impertinent. Gentlemen can be whatever they wish as long as they provide you with a certain level of comfort. Take your cousin Samuel for instance.”
Oh dear. My mother had to have written her. I shifted on the sofa. “And this thinking time has given you a new perspective on our troubles?”
“Well, yes.” She frowned, but she couldn’t quite keep her lips pressed tight, almost as if a secret satisfaction ached to slip out.
Not only was Mrs. Cavanagh prone to rambles and fits of nerves, but she was also a bit mysterious in how she managed her day-to-day life. She would retire to her room for a good portion of the day bemoaning her troubles, then emerge from her self-inflicted cocoon only to lecture me on how I might snag a husband.
She leaned forward to secure her teacup, then took a long, careful sip. Her eyes met mine over the cup’s rim. “I had a thought . . .”
“Oh?”
“If Miles Lacy is no longer with us, that means Seline has not married the fool.”
All I could do was nod. Nothing Mrs. Cavanagh said at this point could possibly surprise me. I glanced down at the book in my lap. She was difficult to watch really—her ability to wade through a shallow pool of thought, coming up only to ensure that those around her met her expectations. I ran my finger along the cover, a cold sensation filling my chest.
The Vanishing at Loxby Manor Page 19