The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (21 page)

He came up next to her. It showed his mother at the age of perhaps eighteen, just before she’d been married. “She was Lillian Morton then, youngest daughter of an aristocratic family with a lot of famous ancestors, but very little money. My father saw her at a garden party and apparently had to have her.”

“So she didn’t marry for love?”

“It was a match made in a Gentleman’s Club. My father wanted the prestige of her family. His money saved hers. I don’t suppose she had a choice.”

“At least she felt she didn’t.” Eliza let out a soft sigh. “But she had you.” She kissed his cheek and wandered away to examine the rest of the rooms.

Barry trailed after her, which was exceptionally foolhardy of him, but Wellington was not going to get between the two of them.

“Alice,” Wellington said, turning back to the maid and children. “There are rooms upstairs . . . plenty of rooms. Pick out one that suits you.”

“Very good, Mr. Books,” Alice said in a tone he had forgotten. She was speaking to him as if he were lord of the manor
which, regrettably, he was. “And what about servant’s quarters?”

“Alice,” he said, taking the maid’s hands gently into his own, “after this little adventure across continents, I would not dare insult you in such a fashion.” He motioned with his head up the staircase. “Find a room for the children, then find a room for yourself.”

The maid went to protest, but Wellington shook his head and continued deeper into the mansion, the eerie silence interrupted briefly by the thunder of the Seven’s footsteps up to the second floor.

Once again Wellington was reminded how his love had impeccable instincts. She might have never gone to Oxford or Cambridge, but she was smarter than any man he’d ever met there. By letting him have a moment to himself she was allowing him to gather his thoughts, deal with ghosts, and move on to the task at hand.

As Wellington watched Eliza he thought for a moment what a totally impossible lady of the manor she would make. Although she was gingerly removing dust sheets, and admiring the architecture of the place, he knew within weeks she’d be quite mad with boredom here. His mother at least had found ways to pass the time. Eliza, left to the same devices, would undoubtedly blow something up at a dinner party.

Or, at the rate he appeared to be working under her skin, Barry Ferguson. “Good Lord, Books, why on earth would you leave
this
lifestyle for a career in the Ministry?” he blurted out.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she finally yelled, spinning around. “We are supposed to be securing and preparing this place as our new headquarters. You’re supposed to be an agent, Barry. Start acting like one!”

Hurt filled the young man’s eyes, and Wellington saw Eliza wince immediately. Apparently Barry could go from completely oblivious to intensely vulnerable in an instant. “Sorry, Eliza Doo, I just want to help is all . . .”

Wellington could see Eliza’s jaw work, and then her shoulders slumped. “The name, Barry . . . just work on not calling me that . . . please!”

“Perhaps you could go up and check the attics, old chap?” Wellington stepped between them. “I had some idea of setting
up a watch station from there. It’s a good place to spot any unwanted arrivals.”

Barry’s face brightened as quickly as it had fallen. “Cracking good idea there, Books!”

When Wellington showed him the back stairs, he scampered off up them with apparently not a thought more of his hurt feelings.

“Thank you,” Eliza gasped out, closing her eyes for a long second. “I do love that Ferguson boy, but he also happens to work on my last nerve.”

“Don’t be too hard on him.” And this time, Wellington gave her a slight nudge. “Eliza Doo. It really is charming.”

Shaking her head in playful frustration, Eliza set about once more examining what was beneath the dust sheets, and Wellington, tucking his hands behind his back, mentally ran over the penultimate time he had been here, to rub his father’s nose in the fact he’d taken up a Ministry job. A lowly Ministry job. Wellington had no plans to return to Whiterock as its master. His father’s money would keep things ticking over, and eventually the estate might be for his children, should he ever have any. Otherwise it would eventually belong to the people who farmed it.

“Now that’s brilliant!” came an all-too-familiar voice from the kitchens.

“Bugger me,” muttered Wellington as he grabbed Eliza’s hand and tugged her over to the kitchen. “They cracked it!”

The two of them sprinted in the direction of three very excited voices. Once in the kitchen, Wellington pulled apart the dumbwaiter doors with a clatter, revealing what they had once kept secret.

“Oh, Wellington,” she cooed from behind him, “how on earth do you always know the ways to my heart?”

With Colin and twins Jonathan and Jeremy frozen in the midst of their own celebrations, the hidden armoury truly was worthy of Eliza’s approval. Rifles, pistols, and even a few experimental weapons, a small ballista, and lots and lots of ammunition, all of which had not seen any kind of attention since his father’s death. “I could not crack the combination. Well done, boys.”

Jeremy whispered something to Jonathan (or perhaps, it
was the other way around?) and Jonathan replied with, “Colin’s rather good with puzzles, Mr. Books.”

Eliza tapped at the small light fixture, and the gas flame brightened ever so slightly. She ran her fingers over the collection as Wellington motioned to the dumbwaiter. “You see, making use of the lift which goes up to all the floors, you will never be without access to what you need.”

She nodded as she spoke over her shoulder. “Every house should have one.”

“But, Mr. Books,” Colin began, “these guns have not been cleaned in a right while.”

“Very observant, young Colin,” Wellington said. “Perhaps you three under the watchful eye of Miss Braun here could inspect these weapons, return them to good service?”

“Can we?” the boy asked, Jonathan and Jeremy mirroring their friend’s expression.

“Perhaps,” Eliza murmured. “We will see how we fare after lunch, very good?”

“Yes, Mum,” they replied.

“Now, go on,” she said, shooing them in the direction of the dumbwaiter. “I would like for you all to let Alice know we will need supplies for lunch.”

“Perhaps Mr. Ferguson could go into town to help you all with supplies?” Wellington asked.

Jonathan whispered something to Jeremy. The twin thought for a moment, then whispered something back to Jonathan. With a quick nod to Jeremy, Jonathan asked, “Can Mr. Ferguson take us to the hardwa—”

“Absolutely! Not!”
Eliza said, fixing the twins with a dagger-laden look. “Remember, we are supposed to be travelling incognito.”

“Go on and find out what Alice needs,” Wellington chuckled. He looked over to Eliza and winked. “I’ll fetch Barry, Eliza Doo.”

“You do that, Welly,” she returned, her dagger eyes appearing a hint sharper.

An hour from the discovery of the hidden armoury, Wellington and Eliza were waving to Barry, Alice, and the children as they headed into town.

“Remember, Barry!” Eliza called out as the wagon rumbled down the causeway.

“Mum’s the golden word!” he called back, then mimed sealing his lips shut.

“I understand the need to keep Barry out of a hardware store,” began Wellington, “but the twins?”

“Future clankertons, they are,” she said. Eliza then turned to Wellington. “So, where are we tonight?”

The idea unsettled him for some reason. “The master bedroom.”

“Very good,” she said. “Shall we?”

The double doors that opened to where Wellington always considered to be forbidden swung open. Eliza immediately went to the grand windows overlooking the impressive grounds of Whiterock and opened them up. It took only a few seconds for the staleness of the room to lift.

“Wellington,” Eliza said, coming over to him. “This is
your
house now. Make it your own. Fill it with your memories.”

“Easier said than done, Eliza,” Wellington said, looking uneasily to every corner of the room.

“Opening Whiterock to the Ministry?” she asked as she walked around the bed. “I believe that is quite the start.”

A betrayal is more like it,
seethed Wellington’s father in his mind.

“Perhaps,” he said, walking over to the window. Could he truly reclaim Whiterock? Finally silence the ghost that haunted him?

“What on earth is this?” Eliza asked.

She was somewhere out of sight, so it took a moment for Wellington to find her in an antechamber that would have served as a changing room. Later in Arthur Books’ life—or what he believed was as such—it had been converted into a private library. She was standing in a block of sun holding the corner of a sheet in one hand. With a quick jerk of her arm and the flutter of fabric, curtains of dust filled the air but failed to mask what Wellington had already guessed lay beneath it. Seeing it so abruptly revealed, though, made his stomach lurch.

“Father’s chair,” he said, though it felt as though the words were being extruded from him.

“This is quite amazing,” she said before dropping the sheet.

Eliza bent down and examined it, running her fingers over the bellows that had once forced air into Arthur Books’ lungs, and working dials where his voice had once issued forth.

“Was it some kind of accident,” she asked, “that put him into this thing?”

“No,” Wellington replied, still not able to bring himself to go any closer to it. “Excess. Too much drink, too much smoking, too much of . . .” He walked over to the window and opened it. He needed fresh air. “. . . everything.”

“Well, he certainly knew his armaments.” Eliza gestured to two small holes in the front of the armrests of the chair, and then to a small, dull-red button on the top surface, right where his father’s fingers would have rested. “This looks like some kind of propellant device.” She pulled out a Swiss Army knife, selected the horse pick and before he could stop her, poked the side of the chair.

Wellington reminded himself the chair’s generator had been dead since his father’s passing. It was no more dangerous than the man who once sat in it. He’d identified the body. He’d seen the mausoleum sealed. Arthur Books was dead and could no longer hurt him or the people he loved. He felt his shoulders slump.

“How ingenious,” she said. “It looks like this shoots out a set of wires which delivers an electric shock. Blackwell and Axelrod would love to take this apart, no doubt.” A frown settled over her face. “I’ve only ever seen this on one other occasion; a rather nasty House of Usher agent I tangled with in Cape Town. How on earth did he get this?”

“Father was never out of this house.” His words came out sharp and defensive somehow. “At least, after his infliction,” he added in a softer tone.

Eliza glanced up and raised an eyebrow. “I’m just saying I’ve never seen this anywhere else. Did he ever mention Usher?”

Wellington clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Never. I was his life’s ambition, a living legacy that turned out to be a grave disappointment to him.” He stared down at the chair, rapping his knuckles against its dark wood. “He spent a great deal of time, resources, and effort training me to be the soldier that would lead the Empire to great victories abroad. In the
end I was able to break away from him. I joined the Ministry, just to spite him.”

He knew he couldn’t be the only person that had run towards a life in the government to get away from the path planned for them by their parents. There were plenty of stories in his own regiment that told as much.

“She won then,” Eliza murmured. “He may have outlived her, but your mother won.”

Crouched down by the chair, she stared up at him and smiled. Wellington recognised that smile. It was one of victory, the one of survival that they had shared many times on their previous adventures. It was something special between the two of them.

He coughed and adjusted his cravat. “You know, you’re correct, Eliza. I never really thought of it that way.” Somehow the atmosphere in the library lightened. “Let’s see if we can finish getting the manor ready for our colleagues’ arrival. I am sure that would also have annoyed Father. In so many ways.”

“Sounds a grand idea,” she said, levering herself up, her hand on the arm of the chair.

Click.

They both froze immediately. The sound hidden doors and compartments, and concealed locks, made was awfully similar to the noise bomb triggers made as well. For a moment they shared a look, but it was Wellington, despite his hatred of the chair, who moved closer to examine what she had accidentally triggered.

Eliza’s hand remained where she had leveraged herself. Just in case it was some kind of weapon, no doubt. Wellington narrowed his gaze on the panel under her touch, and then he let his breath out slowly.

“It’s all right,” he said, wrapping his fingers around hers and lifting them away from the chair. He placed a gentle kiss on her fingertips and nodded. “It’s not a trap.”

“Bloody exciting childhood you must have endured!” she quipped through a quivering voice.

“One way to look at it.” Both their eyes turned to the wicked chair, and Wellington’s head inclined to one side. “It’s some kind of secret compartment.”

Given his knowledge of Arthur Books, this was quite
surprising. What could possibly be important enough for his father to conceal so close to his person? He knew for certain it would not be a love letter or anything so romantic.

Eliza pried her knife under the panel and levered open the concealed compartment, but she took a step back, giving Wellington the time and space to examine what they had found.

He, for one, was done with his father’s secrets interfering with his life. “No, thank you,” Wellington spat. Then, in a more gentle tone, “If you are curious, however . . .” He motioned to the chair.

Her eyes locked with his for a moment, but she nodded. When Eliza’s fingers withdrew the telltale ring, the moment seemed to condense. It was unmistakably the silver signet ring surmounted by the embossed form of ravens that was worn by only one group. The House of Usher.

“That bastard,” he whispered. His fist tightened around the ring until the metal raven dug into his palm. “He’s been dead for nearly a decade, and still he will not grant me peace . . .”