Mistress of Darkness: Dredthorne Hall Book 2

by Hunter, Hazel

  “Very good, sir,” Parks said, glancing upward as well.

  As Robert climbed the stairs he realized that his hands were in fists. In fact, he clenched them so hard that the skin of his knuckles stretched tight. A heated rage had been building inside him ever since he’d had to push Gwen to the floor. As he passed her door, he paused, listening, wanting nothing more than to go to her this instant and quell her fears. But the room was quiet and he hoped that the brandy had worked its good effect.

  As he turned away, he resolved to order the servants to check every bolt and screw of every room he’d planned on using. He was going to keep Gwen safe, so that she would never fear again.

  * * *

  As the days passed, Gwen found that the fright of the chandelier had gone, probably due to Robert’s efforts to assure himself that all else was safe. But it was also growing obvious to her that Christopher was not coming to Dredthorne Hall. His silence was compounded by the complete lack of any message from Regina, and Gwen was ready to give up on ever finding her poor missing sister. Clearly, the young woman did not want to be found and had made every effort to keep her family from knowing where she had gone. Where she had learned such stealthy skills, Gwen could not imagine.

  In the week since she had arrived, Robert had turned some of the running of the household over to her. Though she suspected it was to keep her mind occupied, she relished the challenge. The day after the incident with the crashing chandelier, when Robert had ordered the servants to pore over the house for any other such issues, she had supervised them and noted a few lanterns that were in need of service or repair. However the rest of the house was fairly sound, if rather in need of a revitalizing uplift. Gwen began to divert some of the servants from their normal tasks to the upkeep of the rooms they were using; cleaning, of course, and some moderate repair. She also oversaw the restoration of broken doors and torn paper-hangings and made note of rooms where the damage was so profound that new wall coverings would be needed. Gwen was a little surprised that she was actually good at organizing.

  Instead of their usual long walks around the grounds, Robert had taken the mornings to discover what had happened to his brother. He had started by writing feverish letters to his parents, to London, to an address Christopher had once stayed at it in Paris, and to anyone who may have heard from him—but there was no trace of where Christopher had gone. No one had seen him, at least no one who would admit it to the elder Sheraton brother.

  At about the same time, Gwen had begun to use her spare time to organize notes from the journals in the library. She could at least attempt to trace a narrative trail of the courtesan who had gone missing. In the evenings, over dinner she would relate all of her latest findings.

  But what she never mentioned, for fear that it would make her seem silly, was that, when the house was quiet, she sometimes thought she heard a woman crying. Her dressing room could become eerily silent, without even the sound of the wind. It was at those precise moments that the temperature would feel as if it were dipping a little, though she couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t her imagination. Then a low, barely audible moan seemed to emanate from nowhere, followed by the muffled sound of sobbing, but never long enough for her to trace.

  To complement her hours of ghost hunting through the books in the library, Gwen spent her afternoons physically scouring the hall, looking for the source of the sounds, but to no avail.

  Likewise her hunt for hidden doors and mysteries, hoping to find a hint of what had happened to the vanished Miss Wilson, regularly ended in disappointment. A courtesan of such fame and notoriety should not have just gone missing; it should have been a scandal, something noteworthy, but she had found nothing to indicate that anyone at all had noticed. The expeditions throughout the old hall had not uncovered any more than her work in the library had—and today was no exception.

  As she climbed the stairs and entered her chamber, Gwen was once again forced to admit defeat. She sat down on her bed, discouraged, and tossed her notes onto the desk. As usual at such moments, her thoughts turned to Robert. He’d become more and more protective of her since the chandelier incident. It was almost as if he’d come to feel responsible for her. Or perhaps even deeper emotions were at play.

  She waved a hand in the air. “What nonsense.”

  He’d certainly made no such declaration, despite there being ample opportunity. She stood up as if that act alone would stop her wild speculation. When it didn’t she decided to select her dinner dress, even though it was early.

  But as she approached the dressing room and the late afternoon light spilled in, she saw an imperfection in the floor, where it abutted the wall. Though the inspection of the house that she’d done with the servants wouldn’t have revealed so small a thing, perhaps it was worth taking note.

  She frowned as she drew closer. The imperfection wasn’t only in the floor; it travelled up the wall. In fact, a thin, crumbling line of plaster appeared when she moved aside the small chair. Now she could see that the faint crack ran from the floor up to the very ceiling. This was more than a small imperfection.

  As she’d seen the men do during their examinations, she rapped the wall next to the crack, dislodging a billow of dust. Waving her hand in front of her face, she retreated for a moment and let the particles settle. When she returned, a closer inspection revealed a seam of some sort—and it had to be intentional. It was perfectly straight and fractionally wider now. Using her fists and braving the fine powder that rained down, she quickly discovered a second seam, parallel to the first and about a yard away. As she stood with hands on hips staring at the two lines, a thought occurred to her. With both hands on the walls and her feet firmly planted, she gave the wall a shove. To her astonishment, it moved inward at one seam, and outward at the other.

  “A revolving door,” she whispered. “A hidden one.” Or formerly hidden.

  But beyond its dusty threshold was only pure darkness.

  She raced to her nightstand, lit the candle, and brought it back. There, at the limit of its light, was a low passage. The tunnel was about half her height so Gwen was forced to kneel down. With the candle in front of her, she slowly crawled forward. For what felt like an eternity, she made her way through more dust and the occasional cob web. But there was no option but to press forward unless she wanted to back out, since there wasn’t enough room left to turn around. As she began to worry, thinking that she would at any moment be led to a dead end, the passage dropped out in front of her.

  Her eyes and the candle light settled on the stone steps of a stairway. She gasped in delight and held the small flame higher. Maybe this passage would hold the answers to her questions about Miss Wilson.

  Carefully she slid down the first steps until she could stand. Still proceeding cautiously, she descended the stairs, traveling to what had to be the first floor, only to find a wall that barred her way.

  But was it really a wall, she wondered, lifting her candle to it. This time the seams in the plaster were obvious. Using her shoulder, she pushed the revolving door, but only a little. There was no telling what or who might be on the other side.

  The door creaked softly from long disuse, and almost immediately the scent of dinner wafted through the crack and crept into her nostrils. Gwen frowned. Why was there a secret passage, long abandoned, from her dressing room to the kitchen? Why would someone possibly want to go into the kitchen in secret, other than a late night snack, without the servants realizing it?

  The bustle and clatter of this evening’s dinner preparations must have covered any noises that Gwen had made because no one gave any sign of noticing. She peered out into the cook’s kitchen through the crack. She must be between the ice chest and a thick wooden counter. There was a small table immediately in front of the door, and it seemed to be the pie preparation station.

  This passageway made no sense on its own, but perhaps it somehow related to all the other secrets of Dredthorne Hall. She closed the revolving door.

&nbs
p; The next mystery for her to solve was how long it would take for her to crawl back up to her room. When she finally emerged several minutes later with dust and dirt covering her in a fine layer, she sneezed repeatedly, shaking her head. Though she was no closer to finding out what had happened to the courtesan, she was thrilled with her discovery. But now it truly was time to get ready for the evening’s dinner. This passage hadn’t given her any real secrets, she was fairly certain of that. But it meant that there might be other mysteries in the hall, other passageways that might lead to places that even Robert had not yet discovered. And one of those expeditions might lead her to the answers regarding the mystery that was plaguing her: the disappearance of the courtesan.

  When Frances arrived, she said nothing at the state of her clothing; she did, however, tsk over Gwen’s abused hair.

  “I must wash this with a wet cloth, Miss,” she said timidly. “Nothing saving it but a do over.”

  Although Frances glanced at her filthy clothes more than once, Gwen said nothing, not willing to give up her secrets to anyone but Robert.

  “Frances,” she said suddenly.

  “Yes, Miss?” Frances was biting her lip over the process of drying and pinning Gwen’s hair, concentrating hard on making each tendril perfect.

  “Have you heard any noises?” Gwen asked neutrally. It wouldn’t do for the servants to start wondering if she’d gone insane.

  “Noises, Miss?” She ran the comb through an errant curl in Gwen’s hair, frowning as the strand refused to comply. “I’m not certain I take the mistress’s meaning.”

  Gwen noted that Frances refused to meet her eye, and pressed on, wondering if there was something that the maid was keeping from her.

  “I’ve been hearing this…crying. It’s almost not audible at all but I believe I can make out the sounds of a moan and perhaps sobbing. It’s muffled, as if coming from a great distance.” She paused, watching Frances in the mirror. “Have you heard it?”

  Frances stayed silent for a long time, but then said, “There are rumors, Miss.” Her fingers put the finishing touches on Gwen’s hair.

  “Rumors?” Gwen prompted.

  “Rumors about the ghosts, Miss, rumors about the hauntings, the Thornes, the hall…” She shrugged. “There are things that happen here that can’t be explained.”

  Gwen decided to let the topic drop as Frances helped her into her evening dress. Nor did Frances utter another word. With the buttons at her back fastened, Gwen dismissed the young maid, and thought perhaps there was a bit more quickness in her departure.

  That suited Gwen, since she was in a hurry herself. There was so much to tell Robert, and she knew that she had to remain hopeful that he might have something to tell her about Christopher. It was still possible that Christopher was simply delayed and that there might be word from him soon.

  But even as she thought it, she knew it was wishful thinking, because she was not sure how much longer she could be in the same hall with Robert without confessing her fears—and her growing infatuation with the man she had once regarded as contemptuous.

  But before she departed, in the pervading silence, Gwen listened carefully. There it was again—the distant crying. She could hear it only from the corner of her chambers near the dressing room. She had been over and over the nearby rooms, and now a secret passage, but she’d never found anything that would indicate the source of the crying. It was growing less frequent, as if the woman it belonged to was exhausted beyond measure. Then, as mysteriously as it had begun, it stopped. Though Gwen listened intently, nothing more came.

  “Who are you?” she whispered. “Where are you?”

  Was this one of the ghosts of Dredthorne Hall? Was it their aim to drive her mad? The curse could not possibly settle upon her if Robert was not the official owner of the hall, surely. Nor did she count as a woman staying overnight, one that would be killed before her first wedding anniversary. Certainly there could be no anniversary without a wedding. Yes, that was it. Even if there was a curse, it simply did not apply to her.

  And ghosts? She’d been frightened by the chandelier incident, and many of the servants had been too. Since there’d been no evidence of sabotage, the old rumors of hauntings naturally surfaced. Yes, that would explain it.

  She felt better, or at least she told herself that she did, and hurried downstairs to the makeshift dining room they’d set up in one of the living rooms. She found Robert waiting, a pleasant smile on his lips, as he held her chair for her. As she took her seat, she noticed that they were having salad rather than soup. She grinned at Robert as he sat down.

  “The kitchen staff do take suggestions, you know,” he said. “So what have your explorations given us to talk about this evening?”

  Though she’d wanted to draw out the tale and tease him with the ending, her excitement got the better of her.

  “Actually I found a hidden passage in my dressing room. Behind a revolving door. It was quite dusty and full of cobwebs.”

  He smiled a little. “Walking through a dusty passage with cobwebs, Gwen?” he said, chuckling. “Next time try something more plausible.”

  “Actually, I was crawling,” she said, looking directly into his dark eyes. “It was even worse than all that. But I eventually came to find that it ends in the cook’s kitchen.”

  He frowned. “You’re serious.” She nodded eagerly. “The cook’s kitchen? How strange. It would be shorter to go down the stairs if you truly needed to go to the kitchen.” He glanced in that direction, craning his neck. “Perhaps we should–”

  There was a loud crack and Gwen give a little shriek, as Robert disappeared.

  “Robert!” she cried, standing so quickly that she knocked her chair back. But as soon as she rounded the table, she found him. He was sprawled on the floor, his head not an inch from the stone hearth behind him.

  “What in the name of…” he muttered as he got to his feet.

  One of the footmen ran over to them. “Sir, have you been harmed?”

  Robert dusted off his coat. “Not at all. It was just a little accident. You can see to the dinner.” Though the man looked worried, he bowed before retreating.

  Robert knelt beside the wooden chair, examining it carefully, and frowned. “The back legs of the chair have snapped.”

  “You could have been killed,” Gwen declared. She could see it all now in her mind’s eye—the blood spattered against the hearth, his head dashed open against the stone. Shuddering, she put a hand to her mouth.

  He stood and took her hand, patting it gently. His hand was so warm, and she found that she relaxed instantly at its touch.

  “I’m fine, Gwen,” he said softly. “I promise. Just bruised pride and a small reminder of my mortality.” He turned to one of the serving maids. “Fetch Parks, please.”

  His valet reported immediately and looked horrified. “Sir, what happened?” He rushed to Robert’s side, kneeling down to examine the chair.

  “It looks,” Robert said and hesitated, glancing at Gwen. “It looks as though the wood has been sawed through. Do you have any explanation for this?”

  Gwen felt herself go pale, but stood up straight as she waited for Parks’ answer.

  “No, sir,” he replied gravely. “I’ll question the other servants to see if anyone has seen anything strange.”

  Gwen’s hand began to shake and Robert held it tighter.

  “Good,” he replied. As Parks picked up the chair and was about to leave, Robert stopped him. “Check the rest of the chairs as well.”

  “Very good, sir,” he said, and bowed before leaving.

  “Robert?” Gwen heard herself whisper.

  “Yes, Gwen?”

  “What did you say about this hall being haunted?”

  Chapter 4

  On the following day, Parks was able to report that all of the chairs at Dredthorne had been inspected. None showed any signs of tampering, damage, or rot. Though Robert should have been glad at the news, he was infuriated. He’d s
earched the secret passage that Gwen had discovered, and found nothing except for the passage itself. Looking at the ceiling where the chandelier had once hung also revealed nothing. His stream of letters and inquiries regarding Christopher and his whereabouts had amounted to nothing. All of his efforts resulted in nothing.

  This morning was yet another frustrating example.

  “Damn it,” Robert cursed softly.

  He rested his forehead on his hands, staring down at the mountain of paperwork. As his father’s health continued to decline, he was left with managing the family’s investments, as well as the investigation into Christopher’s disappearance. But it was the situation at Dredthorne that consumed him. Something was amiss in the old house, and Gwen was on to something with this hidden passage of hers; he was sure of it. But where was the connection? What did chandeliers and chairs have to do with hidden doorways, secret libraries, and concealed corridors? Every day there were more questions, and not a single answer. In another week, he’d be hunting ghosts.

  He checked his watch and was relieved. It was time to find Gwen for their daily stroll in the gardens. He looked forward to these walks more than he wanted to admit.

  Downstairs he found her at the back of the house, as usual. Though she wore her coat, it fitted her figure to perfection. She smiled when she saw him, her delicate features radiant. Though she’d obviously recovered from the fright of the previous evening, he somehow wished she hadn’t. He’d enjoyed holding her hand and simply having her near.

  “You are quite beautiful, Miss Archer,” he found himself saying, then inwardly winced.

  What had come over him? She’d allowed him to hold her hand—for just the briefest of moments—not pledge her undying love. In truth, he had no inkling of her thoughts toward him for she had never expressed any. And yet the way her features had paled when she’d thought him injured… Perhaps he had read too much into that.