Beyond the Grave (14 page)

"I doubt it," he said, but he suggested we follow him anyway.

He ushered us into a spectacular drawing room, furnished with spindly chairs and sofas upholstered in pale blue, with paintings of country scenes on the walls. The white marble mantelpiece was the largest I'd seen, but it would have to be to warm such a vast space. There were ornaments everywhere, mostly vases of differing size and design. Lady Harcourt must collect them. Filling some with flowers would have given the room a little more interest, however. As it was, it felt like a museum rather than a home.

The butler opened the curtains and bright country sunshine flooded the room, burnishing the gilt frames. It helped give the room some life, but I still felt uncomfortable in it, like I didn't belong.

"We shut the place up when his lordship and ladyship are away," Yardly said. "Mr. Edgecombe doesn't mind."

"Mr. Edgecombe?" I echoed.

"Her ladyship's brother. He lives here."

"Oh. I had no idea."

Going by Lincoln's narrowed gaze, neither did he. We both eyed the door, expecting him to walk in at any moment, but no one came. The house felt empty.

"Is Mr. Edgecombe at home?"

"He's in the garden. I'm afraid he's not well enough to receive callers, however."

"But if he's in the garden, surely he's not
unwell
."

"I'm afraid so, Miss Holloway." He tugged on a bell pull and stood like a soldier with his back to the wall, his hands behind him. I wondered if he didn't want to leave us alone in case we were, in fact, opportunistic thieves. I admired his loyalty.

Lincoln sat in an armchair, looking very much out of place in the feminine room. It made me realize how masculine the Lichfield parlor was. Our furniture was more blocky and sturdy than slender and curvy, and the colors were bolder. The vases, statuettes and other knickknacks were rather pretty here, however I didn't like the paintings of cows. There were an awful lot of them.

A footman entered, took orders from the butler, then left again. Mr. Yardly didn't introduce us.

"Andrew Buchanan disappeared about a week ago," Lincoln informed the butler. "Are you sure you haven't seen him here?"

"I'm sure. Mr. Buchanan hasn't been to Emberly for a long time."

"Have any strangers come to the house recently?"

"No, sir."

"Have there been any disturbances?"

"No, sir."

A few moments ticked by in which I could hear the clock on the mantel ticking. "What about rumors?" Lincoln eventually asked.

"What about them, sir?"

"Have you heard any about Mr. Buchanan?"

"I couldn't say, sir."

"What about the baby Lady Harcourt gave birth to a few years ago?"

The butler's mouth dropped open. A red patch crept up his throat and over his cheeks.

I shook my head at Lincoln, and he arched his brows in return. We weren't going to find out anything useful from this man. He was much too loyal. Or perhaps he simply knew nothing.

The footman returned, after what felt like a painfully long time, and Lincoln asked him the same questions, omitting the final one about the baby. The footman glanced at the butler before answering each time. Intriguing. If he had nothing to hide, then why check with the senior member of staff?

I thought for a moment Lincoln wouldn't let him go after he served us, but he dismissed him with a nod as if he were the lord of Emberly Park. "I wish to speak to the other servants," he told Yardly.

"Their answers will be the same, sir. Mr. Buchanan wasn't here a week ago."

I cleared my throat before Lincoln lost his temper. "Yardly, can you point me in the direction of the powder room, please."

"Certainly, miss."

He gave very precise directions, but even so, I was sure I would get lost in such a large house. It was fortunate that I wasn't looking for the powder room but the service area. I might have better luck getting answers without Yardly there to frighten the other servants into silence with his glare.

After a few minutes, I despaired of finding the service area, however. The doorways must be hidden. I was about to begin tapping walls when I passed through a music room that overlooked a paved terrace and garden. A man sat with his back to the house, gazing out across the low shrubs, potted flowers and lawn. It must be Mr. Edgecombe, Marguerite's brother.

I quietly unlatched the door leading out to the terrace then closed it again behind me, so that my voice couldn't be heard by any servants passing inside. I approached the figure who sat a little slumped in what I'd thought was an ordinary chair, but now saw had wheels attached.

I cleared my throat. "Mr. Edgecombe?"

The man jerked and twisted. He pushed back his cap and peered at me from beneath droopy eyelids patterned with red spidery lines. It was difficult to determine his age. The brown hair poking out from beneath the cap bore no gray, and he had smooth if somewhat slack skin except beneath his eyes, where it was dark and puffed. If he was under thirty, he wasn't aging well.

I smiled but he didn't smile back. "I'm sorry to wake you—"

"You didn't." His top lip curled up in a sneer. "I was just sitting here, enjoying a drink and doing nothing, as usual." He lifted his empty glass. Going by his slurring, it wasn't his first. "Who're you?"

"Charlie Holloway." I came forward and stood where he didn't have to twist to see me. "I'm an acquaintance of the dowager Lady Harcourt's."

"Charlie's a boy's name."

"It's short for Charlotte."

"Prettier." He appraised me, but I bore his scrutiny and didn't duck my head like I wanted to. He lifted his glass in salute, and went to take a sip, but remembered at the last moment that it was empty. He muttered something under his breath that sounded very much like a crude word I hadn't used in months. "The dowager isn't here," he said. "She never comes here. If you were an acquaintance of hers, you'd know that."

"I didn't say I was calling upon her."

His back straightened, and he grunted as he gave me yet another appraisal, this one quicker. It didn't leave me feeling like I needed to bathe.

He adjusted the blanket over his lap, pulling the edge up to his stomach. Neither it nor the blue and gold striped smoking jacket hid his paunch. "Why are you here?"

"The dowager has asked my employer to look for her stepson, Andrew Buchanan. He has disappeared."

"So I heard. Marguerite and Donald have gone to London to help with the search. Not that they'd be much help," he added with a mutter.

"I've met them. And you're right, they've been of very little assistance."

He gave me a rueful smile and a nod of approval. "I don't know why the fuss. Buchanan's a grown man and a rakehell at that. His shoes are probably parked under a whore's bed, or in an opium den. Perhaps a whore in an opium den. Does that shock you, Miss Charlotte Holloway?"

"No. I've been to opium dens. In fact, I smoked opium once." It was perhaps more accurate to say I'd accidentally inhaled the smoke of others' opium pipes, but he didn't need to know that.

His brows rose. "Is that so? It seems you're more worldly than me, and I got up to a thing or two before my accident." The grim smile softened his appearance and tugged at my heart. So he hadn't been born with legs that didn't work.

"What sort of accident?" I asked.

"You're bold, for a mere slip of a thing."

"So I've been told. You don't have to answer it if my question upsets you. I was simply curious."

"Curiosity can get a girl into trouble."

"So I've discovered," I said with a wry twist of my mouth that he matched with one of his own.

"Riding accident. I fell off my horse at home. My home, not this one."

"But you live here now?"

He nodded. "Have for a year or two. What month is this?"

"Late October."

"Then it's been one year and nine months. The days all blend into one, when you've got nothing to do but sit in this contraption and watch the world pass by out the window." He smacked the arm of his wheelchair then dragged the same hand through his hair, knocking off his cap.

I picked it up and handed it to him. He snatched it from my grip and slapped it back on his head.

"Don't you have something better to do than stand there and talk to me?"

"No. I'd like to ask you some questions, if I may. Since all you do nowadays is sit and peer out windows, I think you may be of help to me."

He barked a harsh laugh. "Glad to know you've found a use for me." He lifted his empty glass. "Fetch me a drink and I'll answer one question. Fetch an entire bottle, I'll answer a dozen."

"Where?"

"Billiards room, through the music room on your right."

I took the glass and headed back inside. No one had come searching for me yet, but it wouldn't take long before the butler grew suspicious or Lincoln became worried. I wondered if he was enjoying his tea while the dour Yardly watched on.

I grabbed the first decanter I could find from the sideboard in the billiards room and returned to the terrace. "Will this do?"

"Nicely."

I handed back the glass and poured an amount that I'd seen Lincoln drink at a time. Edgecombe waggled the glass until I poured more. He then downed it in one gulp and held the glass out again. I hesitated.

"Don't pretend you care, Miss Charlotte Holloway. Just fill the damned glass. And be quick about it. My assistant will be back soon, unless he's forgotten about me. He's stupid enough that he may have."

"Why hire a stupid man to assist you?"

"I hired him for his brawn, not his brain."

I poured another then set the decanter down. "I've fulfilled my side of the bargain, now you fulfill yours."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Of course. A gentleman doesn't renege on a promise."

I swept aside my skirt and sat on the terrace step that led down to the lawn. I twisted so that I could see him. "Andrew Buchanan disappeared a week ago. We have evidence to suggest that he wanted to come here on the morning of his disappearance, but no firm proof that he took the train. The stationmaster doesn't remember, and the butler said he never called at the house. I rather think he's lying, however. Do you remember him coming here?"

"No, but I don't come downstairs often. It's not easy when one has to rely on an assistant who'd rather be in the kitchen with the maids. My previous fellow wasn't quite so bad as Dawkins, but he very inconveniently died, and I had to hire the fat-headed Dawkins in rather a hurry. As you can probably guess, I can't manage the stairs without him."

"Your sister didn't mention Buchanan calling?"

"No."

"Your brother-in-law?"

"We rarely talk."

"May I ask why?"

He hesitated. "I don't like Donald, and he doesn't like me."

"Yet he allows you to live under his roof."

"Yes." His brittle chuckle sent a chill down my spine. "Yes he does."

I smoothed my hands over my skirts then clasped them over my knees. While I felt some sympathy for Edgecombe's plight, I was very glad that he couldn't reach me from his wheelchair unless he rolled it forward. I suspected I could leap out of the way faster than he could move. "Did you see or hear anything unusual a week ago? Did the servants act strangely, or was there more activity in the house than usual? Anything?" My desperation was getting the better of me, and I spoke more harshly than I meant to. I suspected Buchanan had made it to the house, but time was running out to find proof.

"A week ago, you say? Yes, I suppose there was something out of the ordinary." He pointed at a low rise in the distance, well beyond the formal garden and parkland. There seemed to be a small folly built on it, but it was difficult to tell from a distance. "Do you see that mausoleum?"

"Mausoleum?" I squinted at what I'd thought was a folly. "Who's buried up there?"

"Everyone who matters, according to Donald. All the Buchanans, going back centuries. But that structure itself is new. It was built only a few years ago."

"Five years ago?"

His eyes turned cloudy. "So you know?" he said quietly.

"About Marguerite's baby? Yes." But how much did
he
know? According to Estelle Pearson, no one outside of herself, Marguerite and Donald knew the baby was full-term. I decided to take another risk and said, "Marguerite told me she had him christened Hector before he died."

"After our father." He lowered his glass and stared toward the mausoleum. "Marguerite told me he was full-term. Not at the time, but later, when she was…upset. She never quite got over the baby's death, you see. It affected her greatly." He tapped his temple. "Up here. It hasn't helped that she doesn't seem to be able to have more children. She's taken her barrenness very hard. And
he
hasn't helped."

"Lord Harcourt?"

He nodded and drained his glass. He held it out for me to refill. I did. Whatever was in that decanter had loosened his tongue nicely.

"What about the mausoleum, Mr. Edgecombe?" At his frown, I added, "You implied that something happened up there."

"I can see it better from my rooms." He pointed up. "Third floor. Great view." He snorted. "With nothing else to do, I sit in this bloody chair all day and stare at the same bloody scenery. One evening, about a week ago, I saw two figures up there. The full moon was out, I remember, because I could see them quite clearly. They appeared to be fighting."

"Any idea who they might have been?"

"None."

"Did you ask your brother-in-law or the servants about it?"

"No. Why would I?"

Because it was something different, something interesting. But I didn't let him see my frustration at his lack of curiosity. "Thank you, Mr. Edgecombe. I appreciate you telling me. But may I ask,
why
are you telling me? No one else seems to want to admit that Buchanan might have been here."

"It may not have been him."

"True, but it may well have been too."

"Perhaps no one else saw the commotion. Perhaps they don't sit by windows all day and all night. Or perhaps they're protecting the great lord and master." He drained the glass again, his fingers white around the tumbler.