The Thirteenth Earl (12 page)

The valet slunk out of the room, after one more glare at Miss Seton, who was not budging.

“What is it? You know what it is,” she said.

“Not exactly,” he said, turning back to his hearth, not wanting to look at the door or her. “But since I did not send a note for you, I am not in need of your services.”

“Are you . . . are you pouting at me, Thaxton?”

“Not at you. Away from you.”

“Oh, my goodness,” she said, sounding stupefied over his shoulder. “You are angry with me.”

“I am not angry,” he said, tilting his head back a bit so that she could view the offensive pout. “I am disappointed.”

“As am I. But setting aside our thwarted affair, a symbol drawn on your door in blood is a threat. It is not a joke. It is not a harmless hoax like the séance. And I will not allow you to go all drunken and dissolute when you are this vulnerable.”

He laughed darkly.

“You will not allow me?” He poured a generous two fingers of whisky into the glass, swirling the liquid around as he sat back down. “You bloody well can’t stop me.”

If he had not felt so desolate, Thaxton might have enjoyed the way Cassandra took on the air of a bull about to stampede. She was about to unleash a speech on him; he could see it in the way her lips pursed, the way she tensed. Fortunately, Spencer spared him by stalking in, Eliza behind him.

“When did you wake up?” he asked briskly. “Sutton was to tell me the moment he roused you. And good lord, Miss Seton, you should
not
be in here.”

“I have not been awake more than ten minutes,” Thaxton said, sounding far calmer than he felt. “And as for Miss Seton, I told her the same thing.”

“It is a moot point,” she said.

“You are certain you are not hurt?” Spencer asked Thaxton.

“I am intact,” he answered. “That symbol is from my father’s notebooks, so supernatural or not, I feel I should go home.”

Spencer shook his head in the negative.

“I cannot allow that.”

“Your father’s notebooks?” asked Cassandra, unable to leave well enough alone.

Beside him, Eliza had bent down, peering at the carpet. “Has anyone seen there is blood on the floor? There is a trail . . .”

Cassandra looked down. “All the way to the balcony.”

No one rushed to follow it, but everyone crept forward. Before they reached the balcony, Thaxton halted. He saw the blood trailing out and put his arm up to block Miss Seton’s path.

“The women should not go out there,” he said.

Eliza scoffed but did not go any farther.

“He is right, darling,” Spencer said. “We have no idea what is out there.”

Thaxton was amazed when he did not hear an argument from Cassandra, but knew better than to look back at her. That was how people turned to pillars of salt. He pulled aside the curtain, Spencer behind him. The latch on the door was heavy, but it was not locked.

“I never opened that, Spence,” he said quietly. “Someone has been here.”

As they opened the door, Thaxton could feel Miss Seton on her toes behind him, straining to see without moving forward. Glancing to Spencer, he saw that he was fixated on a spot at the edge of the balcony, where there was a pool of black. He slunk closer while Spencer stayed behind.

“My god,” he said, realizing what it was.

“Get back,” Spencer said, whirling around to them, closing the balcony door on Thaxton and pushing Eliza and Cassandra into the room.

“What is it?” Cassandra demanded. “The shape in the corner of the balcony?”

“A raven,” he said, glancing behind him. “A dead raven.”

Eliza looked confused. “Thaxton killed a raven?”

“No,” Spencer and Cassandra said at the same time, albeit with very different inflections.

“He did not do this,” she added. “He is not mad. He is miserable.”

“Correct,” Spencer said.

“You left him out there with a dead bird,” Eliza said. “Who is to say he is not painting his face for war and screaming to the sky?”

“He is vomiting, actually,” Spencer said.

“He is not mad, Eliza,” Cassandra insisted.

“Oh, good,” Eliza said, throwing up her hands. “Tell him to aim away from my hydrangeas.”

Cassandra tried to see Thaxton through the window, but he must have been too far into the corner of the balcony. The worry she felt had ramped up, threatening to boil over. She had to tell Eliza and Spencer what had been going on—or a version of it.

Thaxton came back in, closing the balcony door, his head down and shoulders slumped. He looked gray.

“Should I get a doctor?” Spencer asked.

He shook his head. “No, no. No need.”

Cassandra fought the urge to press the issue; someone should look at him, to be sure. He was not in the best of health overall, and the current predicament was not helping.

“I feel it is time that we admit this is not a ghost,” Spencer said, with a quick glance at his wife. “And find out why someone is targeting Thax.”

Cassandra’s eyes shot to the viscount’s at the same time his met hers.

“We—Lord Thaxton and I—have our guesses,” she said.

“Miss Seton has a guess. I do not care,” Thaxton amended. “Might I add that you can do nothing to keep me here, should I choose to leave? Spencer. I am a grown man.”

“
You
,” Spencer said, “are not in your right mind.”

Cassandra watched Thaxton hear those words, watched his body go strained.

“Of course not. That is what everyone says—I am insane, correct? The last scion of a tragic family, slowly cracking? Fine. Allow me to lose my mind safely at home.”

Spencer ignored him and nodded his head at Cassandra. “You have a guess, Miss Seton?”

Cassandra looked to the viscount again, but he was looking away resolutely. She had no idea how much to reveal, where to even begin.

“We have been investigating,” Thaxton said before she could open her mouth. “Investigating the séance. Miss Seton suspects Lucy Macallister.”

“You have been what?” Eliza said, an indictment.

“I thought it was phony,” Cassandra said, “at least that was how it began. At this point, I think that Lucy Macallister is actively trying to convince Thaxton he is mad.”

“Why would she want to do that?” Eliza asked.

“I have no idea. But I do know that the whole séance was fabricated, and I have proof. If anyone should be leaving this house, it is she.”

“Enough for now,” Spencer said definitively. “We will have the bird cleaned up, as well as Lord Thaxton. Pray that gossip does not spread, and we will discuss this further when the rest of the party is otherwise engaged. The house is stirring.”

Cassandra tried to catch Thaxton’s eye while Eliza shuttled her out of the room, but he had crossed his arms and turned toward the balcony.

“Do not let him leave,” Spencer said to Sutton.

Eliza shut the door behind them, and Cassandra found herself facing the formidable pair of the earl and the countess.

“Now,” Eliza said, “let’s have the whole story, Cassandra.”

She knew she looked sheepish, because she felt it keenly. “I know we should have told you sooner. It is a bit difficult to explain.”

Spencer smiled. “It must have been exciting, this secret investigation. Eliza seems to be forgetting the intrigues we got into before we had to be hosts.”

“Oh, no. I have not forgotten.” The countess fixed Cassandra with a stern look. “Which is why I know that those two have not been merely investigating.”

“It is beside the point now,” Spencer said, grinning.

“Moot, in fact,” Cassandra said, hearing the sadness in her own voice. “I admit that there was a . . . gratuitous affection—it is over. Now I am concerned for the viscount’s welfare. He could be in great danger.”

Eliza looked unconvinced.

“Leaving that aside for the moment, exactly what did you find during this little espionage?”

“I inspected Lucy’s chambers—and I am sorry, Eliza, I borrowed the master key. But Miss Macallister had leg contraptions of a sort which could be used to make the rapping noises heard at the séance.” Cassandra paused. “And a pair of Miles’s cuff links.”

“The bounder.” Spencer shook his head. “I knew it.”

“Something must be done there, too,” Eliza said.

“The more pressing problem is Lord Thaxton,” Cassandra said. “The séance as a hoax is one thing, but the dead bird is quite another.”

“It is,” Spencer agreed, his hand on the doorknob. “Thank you for your help, Cassandra. I will attend to the viscount’s poor humor while you ladies . . . do whatever ladies do when they have to deal with difficult men.”

“Tea?” Eliza asked Cassandra, a smile softening her earlier severity. Tea was what ladies did when they had to deal with difficult men.

“Please,” Cassandra said.

Once they were safely ensconced in Eliza’s sitting room, comfortable and among plates of sweet things and warm tea, the countess dispensed with the formality.

“Did he seduce you?”

“No, no,” she said, defensive and altogether suspect, her fingers weak around the teacup. “Not exactly. I cannot say I discouraged it.”

“Are you in love?”

“No,” she said, an automatic response that felt like a lie. “And neither is he.”

A window was open, the breeze tinged with rain. The afternoon had not fulfilled the promise of the morning, which had been a marvel of blue sky.

“Regardless,” she added, “I will not marry Miles Markwick.”

“Write to your father,” Eliza advised. “Perhaps if you tell him that Miles is unfaithful, he will release you from the engagement.”

“I considered that, but it will make no difference. Father has been unfaithful for years; he does not think marriage is contingent on fidelity.”

“What will you do?”

“I do not know. I certainly cannot go to Lady Dorset and tell her I want out of my engagement. Right now, I intend to find out why Lucy is after Thaxton.”

“If she is.”

“She is,” Cassandra said, a sickening pit blooming in her stomach, “and now I need to know how far she will go.”

Chapter Seven

Thaxton paced the library, agitated. He would stay at the house party—but only because Spencer had called in an old debt. When they were nineteen, Thaxton had promised Spencer a forfeit of his choice if he covered for him while he spent the weekend with a special lady (his former governess’s sister, in point of fact). Spencer, shrewd devil that he was, had kept that forfeit for ten years and called it in that day.

Miss Seton, Eliza, and Spencer discussed his predicament with little regard to his sulking.

“We cannot assume Miss Macallister did this,” Eliza said, her sense of fairness always at the fore. “We certainly cannot outright accuse her.”

“She is the prime suspect, then,” Cassandra said. “If not her, then who?”

“I do not mean to be indelicate,” Eliza said, “but Lord Thaxton is not exactly known for being well liked.”

“Thax?” Spencer asked, finally acknowledging his presence. “Can you think of anyone who might have a real vendetta against you?”

He could feel the weight of the letter from his father resting in his jacket pocket. It had arrived in the early afternoon, shortly before this strange meeting of those concerned with his fate.

“You know as well as I do, Spencer, that my reputation is vastly overblown, filled with exaggerations and outright lies. Though I am antisocial, I am not unkind. I can be blunt and no one likes that, but the only person who actively hates me is Markwick. Whoever the culprit is, someone wants to hurt me. I have been thinking of who might have access to my father’s notebooks—more to the point, who was in my house after I left for Bath. The wailing woman, the séance, Lucy’s arrival . . . it is all working together too perfectly to be a real haunting.”

“I am relieved you no longer think a supernatural being is after you,” Miss Seton said with a tiny smile.

He ignored her.

“What does the symbol mean?” Eliza asked.

“I know as much as you do on that count—nothing. I do not know its meaning, but I know the Earl Vane is fond of drawing it. It’s all over the margins of his notebooks, printed manuscripts, notes to himself. It reoccurs in various forms, some more elaborately decorated, some scrawled. He does a lot of things he does not explain.”

“Did you get a letter back from him?” Miss Seton asked, with her wretched knack for asking pertinent questions. He saw Eliza and Spencer look at him—the question also betrayed a certain amount of intimacy. Thaxton crossed his arms and faced a window while Cassandra explained further. “Oh, yes—you do not know about that . . . Thaxton wrote to his father to see if anyone had been to his London estate.”

“I did receive a letter,” he said, hedging the full truth of the missive, “but the reply was quite morbid and I would rather not share. Suffice it to say, no one has been to see him.”

“If we are truly operating in the theory that Miss Macallister did this,” Spencer said, sounding as if he was thinking aloud, “then we need to ascertain her motive.”

“Tomorrow,” Eliza said, sounding a bit more spirited. “We should find some way to interrogate Miles and Lucy separately. They may reveal something to us that they would not to either of you.”

“There you are, Eliza.” Spencer grinned. “You and Cassandra can spy on the two of them, and Thaxton and I will go over his father’s papers.”

“We will?” Thaxton asked. “Now we have assignments?”

“Be grateful you are not locked in your room,” Spencer said in all seriousness. “Now, I am sure we all have other things to attend to, not the least being dressing for dinner. We can meet tomorrow and regroup.”

“You are very handsome when you take charge,” Eliza whispered to Spencer as they took their leave.

Thaxton attempted to follow in their footsteps and hide in his room, but a tiny, firm hand stopped him. He turned.

“You are cross because I called off the investigation,” Cassandra said.

“Clearly—and you did a horrible job of it. We are very much still investigating, but now you have dragged the Spencers into it.”

“You know why I did it.” She searched his face, which he kept passive. “Why I called it off. Thaxton, we were mauling each other in a dumbwaiter. We were not investigating Lucy or Miles—we were investigating each other.”

“Interesting imagery,” he said faintly.

“I thought we should . . . maintain some distance. I have to find a way out of marrying Miles and . . .” She trailed off.

“And?” he prompted.

“And you are not my way out.”

“Would that I were, Cassandra, I would be a lucky man.”

“You cannot expect to go on as we have been. My reputation would end up dragged through the mud, and you would be saddled with responsibility you do not want.”

“I agree that we have been reckless.”

“Jonathan, I was so frightened when I thought something had happened to you,” she said with feeling. “I was frantic. I felt I had lost my mind.”

He fixed her with a look.

“Sorry.” She smiled. “Poor phrasing on my part.”

The corners of her eyes curved when she smiled. He had to stop noticing things like that. He could not stop the catalog he had of the quirks of her face; he wanted to kiss each of them, and that was no longer an option. Pity he had not done so when he could.

“All things considered,” he said, looking away, “I do not think you should be involved any longer.”

“It is no longer your choice—the Spencers are a part of it now. It is serious, not some lark of ours. But feel free to ignore me. Or you could cooperate and make it easier on the both of us. Starting with exactly what was in your father’s letter—I can tell it distressed you.”

“The Earl Vane confirms that no one has been to see him.”

“And that is all he said? You called it morbid.”

“Miss Seton, you must listen less carefully to what I say and take no stock at all in my words.”

“Sound advice. Jonathan—do not reach for that snifter. What else did it say?”

Her words stopped his hand, which he had not realized was drawing near to the library’s ever-present brandy.

“If your appetite for misery is that great, then let me hold forth,” he said curtly. Thaxton faced her, one hand supporting his weight on the edge of the bar. If she wanted to know how awful his life was, then he would tell her. He felt sure she would look away soon enough. “My father tells me that no one has been to see him, except my mother. Which is impossible, because she is dead.”

Cassandra did not move, did not blink.

“I am so sorry, darling,” she said.

“It was a long time ago. All the Countess Vanes die young, from what my father says. Another part of my gloomy future.” He looked away from her, since she was apparently not going to break his gaze. He spoke toward the window, feigning rampant interest in the rolling hills beyond. “So, you see, Cassandra—I have not snatched you away from Miles, because marriage to me is essentially a pact for an early grave.”

A beat passed. He peeked back at her.

“You are serious,” she stated with a weird sort of wonder.

“Entirely.”

“You cannot marry me because you believe it would kill me.”

“Yes. I know how it sounds.”

“You . . . believe . . . on top of your own doom, you would doom your future wife? Because of your father’s illness, your nebulous family history? Thaxton, you are a smart man. How can you—”

“By all means, reprimand me.” He snorted. “That will help.”

She stepped forward, altogether too close, close enough that her bodice brushed against his lapels. Her smell made his mind wipe clean—how did it do that? She stood on the tips of her toes and planted a kiss on his cheek, lingering.

“Forgive me,” she said into his ear. “You know I do not believe in curses.”

He shivered, his hands wanting to pull her into him. But she was already out of his reach, a soft and naughty smile on her face as she exited the room. Thaxton drew in a breath. She, maddening and irresistible, had not shrunk at the idea of marrying him. She had not treated him like he was pitiable. She was not scared, and the knowledge of that left him stunned.

And stirred.

The next afternoon, he stood in that same library, behind a stack of his father’s various assorted texts.

“This is all I have,” he said to Spencer, patting the top books in the pile with care, lest he topple the whole sheaf. “Mind you, I only thought of a fortnight’s stay, not a meaningful study. I have been slowly working my way through this, deciphering, putting accounts to rights. Cannot hire a solicitor to do that, considering everything in his diary. He will note what he had for dinner or who insulted whom at a party in 1866, in the margin of a bill of sale.”

Spencer examined the stack.

“Not much to go on,” he said. “What are the books at the top?”

“Volumes three and four of the family histories—I have already finished one and two.” He opened the leaf of one of the volumes, where the Vane family crest was, including a breakdown of the various parts. He ran a finger over the family motto,
Concussus surgo
. When Struck, I Rise. “The loose papers are unsent correspondence of the Earl Vane. I have to vet it all before it goes to post.”

“It would help to know what we are looking for,” Spencer said, opening the other volume.

The colors of the mantling—purple and gray—had begun to fade. Thaxton tapped a finger on the coronet above the shield that denoted his earldom.

“I do not know why we are bothering,” he said.

“Either way,” Spencer said, peering over his shoulder. “There it is.”

He drew an invisible circle with his finger, indicating the green knoll at the bottom of the crest. Inside the grass, sure enough, was the symbol repeated in a pattern. It just looked like detail of the grass on first glance, but it was actually the very symbol his father drew, the one that had been rendered on his door gruesomely.

He needed a drink. Instead of having one, he went to lie down.

He sighed, undoing his tie as he returned to his room. Sutton had knotted it far too tightly, and it was beginning to chafe. He would rest and not go to dinner at all, would indulge the luxury of his reputation for being absent.

Miles Markwick ruined his plan, lurking in the foyer of his suite.

“Good evening, Markwick,” Thaxton said, tamping down his surprise. “I suggest you say anything you need to say at once, as this will not be happening again.”

“Drink, Thaxton?” Miles gestured to the sideboard.

“No, thank you. But do feel free.”

“I am glad to see you sobering up,” Miles said as Thaxton sat down across from him, their chairs flanking the fireplace. “You were embarrassing yourself.”

“I was embarrassing others. Myself, I could not care less. Why are you here, Markwick?”

“To make amends. We will always be at the same parties. It is inescapable.”

“Why not go back to Scotland instead? That would fix two of my problems at once.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this. It seems so senseless for us to be acting like jealous schoolboys—just because your father always liked me better.”

Thaxton could not help but laugh.

“Childish nonsense. Are you trying to get a rise out of me? You were eager for any approval at all, and he never liked me much. I doubt the Earl Vane would recognize you at all, dear old cousin Miles. It does not matter any longer.”

Miles’s smile turned cruel.

“So sour, Thaxton. Look on the bright side—he will forget his wife died bringing forth you, bitter disappointment. You and he can have a new relationship in his senility.”

“Get out,” Thaxton said, pointing toward the door. “How dare you even approach saying my mother’s name. Get out before I remove you myself.”

“Ah, not yet. Do you want to introduce the subject of my fiancée, or shall I?”

“A question that is its own answer.”

“Have you defiled her?”

Again, the viscount laughed. Miles was easily the most hilarious thing in the entire house party.

“No, indeed. But I wager you have defiled Lucy Macallister. You should have the decency to let Cassandra loose.”

“Not a chance,” Miles sneered. “I need her dowry, and I can have a mistress. A very fine traditional English marriage. Besides, it serves her right—if my father had known how much those coalfields were worth, I would be wealthy and unsaddled with a wife I do not want.”

“You are disgusting. You do not deserve her.”

Thaxton hardly knew what he was saying before it had been said, but he did not take it back. He felt the truth of it in his bones.

“Oh, but you do? Deserve her? If that is the case, then let us settle it—pay me twice her dowry and you can have her.”

“
Have
her?” Thaxton roared. “I can
have
her? She is not a thing you can sell.”

“No deal, then, I suppose. Too bad. It seemed like a very good solution.”

Yes, Thaxton thought, it would be a very good solution for him to marry Cassandra. But he would be damned if Markwick benefited from it; he wanted him to suffer as much as possible. Cassandra was not to be bartered—she was a vital, brilliant, beautiful storm of a woman. Her father should not have sold her, and Miles should not have bought her; she should have been able to choose her own fate. Thaxton, feeling the flush rise in his face, came to his senses to find his hands around Miles’s throat. He was gurgling.

“Let—go—Thax—”

He tightened his hands instead. It gratified him to see Miles turn red like the devil he was. Thaxton wondered if he squeezed hard enough, would horns sprout?

“You feel powerless, Markwick?” He resisted the urge to slam the worm’s head against a wall. “I imagine Miss Seton feels much the same.”

He released Miles, or more accurately, he shoved him back into the chair. Thaxton could see the imprints his fingers had made on Miles’s neck, and he dearly hoped they turned into bruises. Miles heaved in breaths, the color leaving his face as air came back into his lungs.

“You will not get away with this,” he puffed. “I will take it straight to Spencer.”

“What will you say to him?” Thaxton asked, folding his hands and feeling a strange peace wash over him. “He knows full well what a vicious prick you are, so tattle away. Now get the hell out of my room.”