Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery) (13 page)

I fought a frown. “It was more difficult than I expected, but I think I’ve mastered it now.” I was rather proud of the accomplishment, even though I wasn’t certain that said much for my character.

“You mean you’ve mastered the ability to pick that one type of lock,” he informed me. “There are many more.”

This time I did scowl at his insufferably pompous tone. “I know that. But it’s a beginning.”

At this proclamation, he finally looked down at me. He sighed in resignation. “I have no one to blame but myself, do I?”

I tilted my head in question.

“I should never have told you I could pick locks or shown you how easily it could be done.”

I only smirked.

We drew to a stop outside Will’s rooms and my anxiety returned. I wasn’t certain in what state we would find him. Michael had said that the episodes similar to what we witnessed the night before rarely happened now, but how did his brother behave in the meantime? Because Michael thought it necessary to keep him behind locked doors, I found it hard to believe he behaved like his normal self, and I was more than a little afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle whatever I saw without losing my composure. Fatigue always blunted my self-control, making it far too easy for me to lose my temper or, worse, the reins on my softer emotions, and the last thing I wanted to do was to break down in tears in front of Will. But I’d promised him I would visit him again, and I couldn’t be certain when I would have another chance. I didn’t want him to think I had lied, not for a second.

I pressed a hand to my hollow stomach. I had barely eaten anything at breakfast, too uneasy after our discussion in Michael’s study to eat more than a piece of dry toast and sip a cup of tea. I wondered if I would soon regret that.

Gage turned to look down at me, much as Michael had done the evening before. I summoned my courage and nodded with as much assurance as I could muster. He hesitated a moment longer before lifting his fist to knock.

A strange man opened the door to our summons, and I realized that this must be Donovan, Will’s other manservant, the one with medical training.

He certainly was brawny, as Lucy had alluded to, with short-cropped brown hair. His plain lawn shirt stretched tautly across his shoulders and chest, and I could see the outline of his biceps through the material. Even his forearms, clearly visible at the edges of his rolled sleeves, were well-defined. He eyed us neutrally, though I knew he must have been at least a little curious as to why we were there.

“We’re here to see Lord Dalmay,” Gage told him.

Donovan took Gage’s failure to elaborate in good stride and stepped back to allow us entry. I hoped Michael had warned him we might be stopping by and that he wasn’t always so unconcerned about the visitors William received.

“He’s through there,” he said with a nod toward the bedchamber door, which stood ajar. He paused to examine us one moment longer before striding across the room. “M’lord, ye have visitors,” he called through the doorway.

I tried to ignore the pounding of my heart as I allowed Gage to guide me across the parlor and into the bedchamber. All that had been toppled and tousled the night before had been put to rights. The drapes covering the room’s tall windows had been thrown open to allow in the morning light, illuminating all the dark corners and crevices that had been cast in shadow a dozen hours before. In fact, only the crude sketches covering two of the walls, which I tried to ignore, and the haggard appearance of the room’s occupant hinted that anything unsettling had ever happened at all.

Will sat in a sturdy chair positioned before the window. The sunlight shining through the glass haloed his honey-brown hair and allowed me to see that it was now liberally dusted with silver. Unfortunately the bright light did nothing to soften the harsh lines of his gaunt face or to hide the dark circles around his eyes that gave them a sunken, bruised quality. He was dressed like any country gentleman, minus the frock coat, in a pale waistcoat and buff trousers; however, the clothing hung awkwardly on his too-thin body. They were not ill fitting—I could tell they had been tailored for him—he simply did not have the flesh and muscle to fill them out. A half-f glass of beige liquid stood on the table at his elbow next to a book left unheeded.

When we entered the room, he seemed as if he had been lost in thought, his face turned toward the window and his chin propped on his fist, and it took him a moment to return to the present. A subtle wash of pleasure spread across his features at the sight of us. It was a small display of emotion, but in so sharp a contrast to the blankness of his features and the dimness in his eyes the night before that it made something tight inside my chest loosen.

“Kiera. Mr. Gage.” His voice had the same husky quality as before, but it was much less strained. He shifted forward as if to rise, but I waved him back down.

“I may be an invalid,” he scolded, ignoring my motion, “but I can still rise when a lady enters the room.” The soft light in his eyes removed any of the sting from his words, but I flushed regardless.

He reached out to me slowly. All of his movements seemed sluggish and blurred, as if each action took great thought and effort. His hands trembled in my grasp as he pulled me closer, trailing his gaze over my face with keen intensity, as if he was starved for the sight of me, of anyone familiar. “It’s wonderful to see you,” he murmured.

I blushed brighter. “You, too.”

And it was. Last night had been a shock. Today, with the bright sun chasing away the shadows, and some of the light returned to Will’s eyes, it felt more like I was welcoming home a long-lost friend. I could embrace the joy, the sweetness of it, and feel some pleasure in his presence, even with my lingering worries over his health and the state of his mind, not to mention the concerns Michael had shared with us earlier in his study.

Releasing me, he stretched out a hand toward Gage. If his greeting was not particularly warm, it also held no rancor. Gage responded in kind, though I could also read the watchfulness in his gaze. He was suspicious, and more than a little curious about our interaction. And, if I was interpreting him correctly, even a bit displeased by it. I didn’t know whether I felt annoyed or flattered. Perhaps a little of both.

Will’s arms shook slightly as he lowered himself back into his chair, and I could tell he was not fully recovered from his incident the previous evening. I hoped his energy was sufficient enough to endure our visit without him suffering for it later. I had no wish to impose on him the overwhelming fatigue that had made it impossible for him even to carry a spoonful of soup from the bowl to his mouth the night before. In any case, our visit would need to be brief if I was to see my sister and her family off.

I settled into the chair closest to Will’s, glancing over my shoulder out the window where he had been staring when we entered. “Oh, my,” I gasped. “What a view.” His rooms looked out over the trees northeast of the manor house toward the ruins of Banbogle Castle in the distance. On such a fine autumn day, the forest blazed with fiery color and the gray stones of the castle glistened in the sun. The sounds of twittering birds and rustling leaves came in through the window, which was open a crack. In the distance, I thought I could even detect the bass rumble of the firth’s water rolling against the shoreline. How peaceful it must be for Will.

“Yes,” he told me, staring at the vista beyond my shoulder. “My brother made certain I had the best view in the manor.”

And, I couldn’t help but think, it must be far nicer than the outlook from his cell at the Larkspur Retreat. If, in fact, he’d had any view at all.

Inchkeith Island was a treeless lump of granite in the middle of the windswept Firth of Forth, with nothing to recommend it save for its isolation. At least once in known history it had been used to quarantine people with disease, and a bizarre scientific experiment commissioned by King James IV had taken place there in the late fifteenth century to discover the original language of mankind. The only reason I knew anything about it was because of my late husband’s fondness for medical absurdity, as well as his appreciation of the novelist Sir Walter Scott, who had derided the test, and its clearly feigned results, for its utter foolishness.

“Will there be anythin’ else, m’lord?” Donovan asked Will as he bent over the table next to him and gathered up his employer’s breakfast dishes. I noticed that much of the food had gone uneaten.

Will looked to me. “Tea?”

“Uh, no, thank you.”

Gage shook his head.

Donovan nodded in confirmation. The china clinked together as he hefted the tray. I frowned as he disappeared through the door, leaving it standing open behind him. I wondered why the servant had not tried to get Will to eat more of his breakfast. Or was my old friend just much more willful than I remembered?

I turned back to find both men watching me. Gage’s stare was knowing, as if he had followed the bent of my thoughts and shared my curiosity, while Will’s was more thoughtful. He seemed content to sit in comfortable silence and enjoy our company. Perhaps his time in the asylum had taught him the value of such companionable stillness.

I
, however, felt no such ease. I shifted in my seat while I racked my brain trying to find a safe topic of conversation that was neither inane nor prying.

“It’s all right, you know,” Will surprised me by saying. “We can talk about it. I promise I won’t fly up into the boughs.” He smiled sadly. “Contrary to what you saw last night, I am usually in my right mind.”

I flushed. Was my discomfort so easy to read?

“Oh, I know,” I hastened to assure him. “Michael told us how much you’ve improved since your . . . release. He explained how last night’s . . . ah . . .” I fumbled, trying to come up with the right word “. . . episode has become a rarity.”

“And yet that must be hard to believe, since you’ve seen me no other way,” he replied, not unkindly, before glancing significantly toward Gage.

I burned with shame, cursing Philip for forcing me to bring him along as a guardian. Will was not fooled. He knew why Gage had accompanied me.

“It’s all right,” he assured me, yet again. “I understand why Mr. Gage is here.” His gaze shifted to him. “And though I would like to be insulted, I can’t. Not knowing I would insist upon the same thing were our situations reversed.”

Gage, who had at least had the grace to look uncomfortable when Will was speaking, now shared a more level look with the man.

Still smarting with embarrassment, I blurted out, “Well, I didn’t want him to come.” Gage’s eyes snapped to mine. “His presence seemed entirely unnecessary.”

“I can well believe that.” Will’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “You always were quite stubborn and independent.”

I scowled, wanting to scold him for calling me stubborn, especially after Gage had done so unjustly only the previous night, but I couldn’t. Not when the humor that had flickered so briefly in his gray eyes faded.

“But . . . perhaps . . . it is necessary.”

I searched his face, not wanting to believe he truly meant those words. But from the pain and uncertainty that tightened his features, it was all too apparent he did. A chill ran down my spine like an icy raindrop.

“You can’t believe that,” I protested. “I know you would never hurt me.”

His words were bleak. “I hope not.”

I wanted to stop up my ears, to deny what I was hearing. Did he not understand how that sounded? I could feel Gage’s eyes watching him, watching me, weighing the truth of his words. What was Will thinking? What did he know?

“Why would you say such a thing?” I demanded, my voice cracking in distress.

“Kiera.” Will leaned toward me. His voice was gentle, as it had been ten years before when he was soothing a distraught fifteen-year-old who had been told her paintings were no good. “I
want
to believe that I would never harm you. That I would never harm
any
woman. And, in my right mind, I know I never would. But . . .” He sank back into his chair with a dejected sigh. “I’m not always myself,” he admitted guardedly.

There was such despair in his gaze that it wrenched something inside of me.

“I don’t know what happens to me. And I can’t seem to control it.” He shook his head in obvious frustration. “I thought I was getting better, that I had finally put those moments behind me.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I guess I was wrong.”

I glanced at Gage, who was studying Will with a mixture of wariness and compassion.

“Do you have any recollection of what happens to you during those times?” I ventured to ask him. “Michael suggested it’s like you go someplace else. Somewhere he can’t reach you.”

His brow furrowed. “All I know is that one moment I’m fine and the next I’m not. I’m . . . there.”

My stomach clenched. “The asylum?”

He nodded. His eyes were unfocused, staring off into the distance.

“Do you ever . . . return . . . to the war?” I asked, remembering all he had told me a decade before about his time on the continent during the war with France.

His gaze lifted to meet mine before drifting away again. “Sometimes. But usually it’s that
hellhole
.” He spat out the word angrily.

I couldn’t fault the man for his rage, and, in fact, I welcomed it. It was comforting somehow to see him express his fury at what had happened to him. I found it far more disturbing when he faced me with such resigned acceptance.

“And the drawings?”

He looked up at me as I worked out how to ask my question.

“Is that . . .” I tried again. “Are they representations of what happened there?”

Will had never hid the darkness inside of him from me before, even if he had hidden his paintings, and he didn’t do so now either. “Yes. Exaggerated. But . . .” He heaved a sigh. “Yes.”

I glanced at Gage, who was watching me, his brow furrowed in concern. I turned away to look up at the wall on my left, covered in Will’s crude sketches, for the first time since our arrival. The light of day had softened the charcoal’s harsh lines, but the drawings’ contents were still disturbing, particularly if they depicted fact and not just the fevered imaginings of a troubled man. My gaze snagged on the image of the man having his head held underwater by two burly figures standing behind him.