The Hidden Blade (24 page)

The next afternoon she found him in the schoolroom. He had finished with his walking and was reading the day’s papers.

“I suppose you don’t really sleepwalk either?” she said from the door.

He rose from his seat. “No, ma’am.”

“What will you tell me next, that your father wasn’t a homosexual?”

“My father loved a man—it was true,” he answered coldly. “But no one minded. At Starling Manor he was much beloved.”

“Too bad he was so ashamed of himself that he put a bullet to his head.”

“Perhaps he was ashamed of himself. But he pulled the trigger not from shame, but because he could not bear the thought of being sent to an asylum again, as Sir Curtis had done when he was younger.”

“It was for his own good.”

“Remember that when Sir Curtis reneges on his promise of a missionary life in Africa because you have not produced any children. He will tell you it’s for your own good.”

The servants gossiped; Leighton listened. In the last few days he had learned that Sir Curtis and Lady Atwood’s childlessness had been a source of consternation in their household.

Sharp color rose in her cheeks. Her hands clenched at her sides. “How dare you!”

“I see. It has already happened, hasn’t it?” He was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you gloating?”

“No.” He could never like her, this woman who had found so much to enjoy in Sir Curtis for so long. But he could not help but sympathize with her disillusion.

She moved into the room and sank down onto the nearest chair. She didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to do, so he rang for tea. And when the tea tray arrived he poured and set a cup before her, along with a plate of cake.

“He courted me since I was sixteen. I made sure to take matters very slowly, because marriage is such an irreversible commitment. I thought I’d taken every precaution. I thought my happiness would be invulnerable.”

“I’m sorry,” Leighton said again.

“He said that I have pledged to obey him, and that covenant supersedes any words he might have spoken to secure my hand in the first place. Do you believe that vows of marriage override all prior promises?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. And he is mistaken if he believes I will allow such a breach of honor—such a betrayal.”

Leighton could almost taste her vehemence, an acrid sensation on his tongue. “What will you do?”

“I will give him a few chances to see the light.”

“And then?”

She lifted her teacup, suddenly all serenity and condescension again. “And then we shall see what I
won’t
do, in the name of justice and fairness.”

Chapter 16

Escape

Mid-August, Lady Atwood came back to Rose Priory in her husband’s company—it was grouse season, and every self-respecting man of property must retire to the country for sport. She was as frosty toward Leighton as she had ever been, giving no hint of having confided her private anguish in him two months before.

She also appeared as devoted to her husband as before, though Leighton felt her smiles now carried a flinty edge. Did Sir Curtis realize that his wife had turned against him, or was he so secure in his power over her that he required only her obeisance, not her love?

On the third day after their arrival, during their morning lesson, Mr. Colmes kept standing up and sitting down, clearly agitated. Finally, near the end of the lesson, he pulled a letter from his pocket and set it down in the middle of his desk.

“You go on reading,” he told Leighton. “I’ll go and speak to Cook about luncheon—yesterday’s salmon patty gave me quite an attack of indigestion.”

When Mr. Colmes had closed the door behind himself, Leighton rose. With only the slightest hesitation he picked up the letter. It was from Miss Colmes, and the envelope had already been opened.

Dear Father,

A quick word to let you know that Miss Mulberry’s cold has unfortunately turned into pneumonia. She is quite brave about it, but the doctor has told me to cable her great-nephew. He doesn’t expect her to outlast the week.

I am glad that my own plans are all in place, which allows me to direct all my attention to ensuring Miss Mulberry’s ease and comfort in what will likely be her final hours on this earth.

Love,

Cordelia

Leighton felt a little dizzy. This was Mr. Colmes informing Leighton that Miss Colmes was ready to leave—and move beyond Sir Curtis’s reach. Leighton, too, must not miss this window of opportunity: Wait any length of time and Sir Curtis would devise some other infernal scheme to hold him a prisoner at Rose Priory.

But was he ready?

Yes.

He put the letter back in the envelope and put the envelope back on the desk. Then he opened the drawer. Immediately the smell of glue assaulted his nostrils. The railway timetable, when he picked it up, felt heavier—and jangled slightly. He opened it to find the last few pages of advertisements glued together and still somewhat damp at the edges. Inside this hastily formed envelope were coins—their shape unmistakable even through the paper.

He didn’t imagine Mr. Colmes was paid extravagantly—or Miss Colmes. They probably had to pool their resources together for her new life in Australia. If only Leighton didn’t need funds so desperately—it would take more than a pound for the rail journey to London, in third class—he would have returned the gift to Mr. Colmes.

As it was, he would simply have to pay Mr. Colmes back after he gained control of his inheritance.

As usual, Leighton and Mr. Colmes ate their lunch in the schoolroom. Over roast beef sandwiches, Leighton brought up Mr. Knightly, Mother’s cousin whom Father had appointed as Leighton and Marland’s guardian—until Sir Curtis decided to remove him from said guardianship. “He lives in Derbyshire and I’ve always wanted to visit him.”

Mr. Colmes looked quizzical, until he understood that Mr. Knightly had been thrown out as a red herring. “Derbyshire, eh? I was there once, almost thirty years ago. Was pickpocketed at Euston Station on my way.”

This was one of Leighton’s biggest fears: that what little money he had would be stolen.

“After that I learned to carry only small change in my pockets. Anything of value I sew into the lining of my waistcoat.”

Which was what Leighton spent his afternoon doing, after pilfering Mr. Colmes’s sewing kit: digging the coins out of the candle, then cutting open the lining of his waistcoat and carefully stitching around each coin so that it would stay put and not jangle even when the waistcoat was violently shaken. Having never done any needlework in his life, he kept pricking his fingers. But he barely noticed, his mind churning around the precise steps—and timing—of his escape.

That had always been the problem. If he left during the day, it would be easier to catch a train on the Moretonhampstead line to Newton Abbot. But that would leave Mr. Colmes with the burden of covering for his absence—otherwise Mr. Twombley would immediately come after Leighton—and he didn’t want any of the blame for his disappearance to fall on Mr. Colmes.

If he left at night, after Mr. Twombley locked him in, by the time he walked to the nearest railway station he would have missed the last train out. Not to mention that his absence would be discovered by six thirty the next morning, when Mr. Twombley came to unlock his door—and the first train of the day didn’t reach the platform until a good forty-five minutes later.

Sir Curtis’s presence at Rose Priory further complicated matters: The house was more crowded, more people could potentially see Leighton as he left, and, worst of all, the moment he was discovered missing Sir Curtis would know, reducing the already narrow window of time during which Leighton must reach London and disappear.

But the silver lining was that the servants also had more duties to perform. And with a dinner the master and mistress were giving on the morrow, they would be busier yet.

With luck, Leighton could buy some time for himself.

With a lot of luck, that was.

Leighton complained of muscle cramps and stomach pain as soon as he awakened the next morning. Lady Atwood had been suffering from similar symptoms; he hoped he could get away with claiming the same.

And just in case Lady Atwood’s discomfort was brought on by feminine problems—not something he could co-opt for his own purposes—he also achieved a feverish and flushed appearance by asking for a fire to be laid in his room, then wrapping himself under several blankets until he was perspiring profusely.

Mr. Twombley muttered darkly of the possibility of a bout of summer influenza. “You had better stay in your room today, Master Leighton. Wouldn’t want Lady Atwood to develop a fever too.”

“But…but,” Leighton protested weakly.

“No, no, young master. You stay here and ring if you want anything.”

Leighton took him up on his offer. Every fifteen minutes he rang—for milk, tea, biscuits, toast—and a different jam for his toast, please. He asked for the newspaper, a fresh bottle of ink, another pad of blotting paper, a better nib for his pen, his Sanskrit dictionary from the schoolroom—all before ten o’clock in the morning.

In between pulling the cord on the quarter hour, he checked and double-checked everything he planned to take with him. And did sit-ups and push-ups to settle his nerves.

In the middle of the afternoon Mr. Colmes poked his head in. “Are you quite all right, Master Leighton?”

“I will be, in time,” he answered. And then. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

It was good-bye and farewell—or so he hoped.

Mr. Colmes seemed as if he might say something, but in the end he only nodded and closed the door quietly.

Leighton sat for a few minutes with his eyes closed, praying for the best for Mr. Colmes and his daughter. Then he yanked on the bell cord again.

An hour after he asked for his afternoon tea, Leighton requested an early supper. “Only soup and sandwiches, please. I can’t handle anything heavier.”

He drank the soup and packed away the sandwiches. When the maid he rang for arrived to take the plate away, he asked her to bring Mr. Twombley. The latter, no doubt deep in preparation for dinner guests who were arriving in ninety minutes, was not happy to have been disturbed—and he was no doubt aware that this entire day Leighton had put his staff to myriad frivolous uses.