You’ll find far more than just a flirt.
Lord Gabriel snapped his fingers and smiled.
“It’s got to be a statue, or perhaps a miniature of some kind. Do you have any miniatures here?”
“Unfortunately, yes, multitudes…” Lady Matilda muttered, her cheeks burning bright pink. “Grandfather collected them, I’m afraid. Follow me to the library.”
Arm in arm, Eliza and Raphe followed Lady Matilda and Lord Gabriel to Thistlewayte Hall’s library, to a large glass case containing dozens of miniature replicas of classical Greek statues… nearly all naked.
Lady Matilda blushed, averting her eyes from all of that exposed carved flesh.
“Whatever you’re looking for is not hidden inside one of these miniatures.”
“Why?”
Because your riddle speaks of lifting a ladies skirt, and of a feather, and of looking beside a book. None of these match those things.”
Lord Gabriel spun around, regarding the rest of the room, as Lady Matilda sighed, her hopes dashed.
“Oh… I felt so sure, when you said…”
Lord Gabriel smiled again, and began to walk along the shelves, looking at any small statuettes they might contain.
“Let us look at these others – perhaps… aha! ‘Beside a book’ – that might mean a bookend, might it not?”
Lady Matilda’s face turned rather red as she moved to the bookend he indicated – a miniature of a couple in a quite scandalous embrace, which supported a small row of books on the shelf next to the fireplace. The woman’s back was to the books, stopping them from falling over. Her gown was loose, near baring her breasts, and the man bent to kiss her there, his hand lifting part of her skirt. It was such an embarrassing piece that Lady Matilda could barely look at it – but at least they weren’t naked!
“Well… it’s beside a book. But what about the rest of the riddle?”
All of them looked to Lord Gabriel, obviously having delegated him as leader of this search for now. He considered it again.
“Well… I’m not entirely sure about the first few lines, but if this is the first thing, it’s definitely small. And this is carved, and ‘echoes life’ in that they are doing something which people do. There is, now I look more closely, a long ostrich feather falling from her headdress – so that satisfies the ‘marked by a feather’ bit. It’s certainly a depiction of something which would likely be a scandal. And the man is in the process of lifting the lady’s skirt. So that’s a very good match. But is it enough? And if it is the right statuette, how is it supposed to reveal your ‘treasure’?”
Matilda sighed.
“That’s a very pertinent question!”
At that moment, Raphe reached past her, and gripped the statuette such that his fingers went around the man and woman’s waist. Initially, when he went to lift it, nothing happened, and he frowned. Then that frown became a smile, and rather than just lifting, he slid it to the side, away from the books. It moved easily, revealing that a long flat ‘train’ extending from the hem of her gown, had been under the first few books.
He stepped back, holding it, moving so that all could see it in better light. Matilda leaned forward, forcing herself to ignore the scandalous aspects, and looked closely.
“Is that… Is that writing? On the flat bit of her back, where it was up against the books?”
Raphe turned it, and Lord Gabriel bent forward.
“It is, definitely. Here, let me hold it, and I’ll see if I can read it.”
He reached for it, a bit awkwardly, trying to fit his two hands around it so that Raphe could release it. After a bit of fumbling, he set one hand holding the edge of the ‘train’ and the other across the lower part of the statuette, such that his fingers rested over where the gentleman’s hand worked to lift the Lady’s skirt.
Raphe slipped his hand away, and Lord Gabriel adjusted his grip, turning the statuette so that he could see the back of it, where the writing was. As he did so, there was a loud click, startling them all, and the gentleman’s hand seemed to depress beneath Gabriel’s finger, sinking into the Lady’s skirts, even as the ‘train’, which had seemed so very firmly constructed, bent upwards in his hand, to lie against the Lady’s back.
A tightly rolled up oilskin pouch slid out of the bottom of the statuette, and dropped to the floor with a resounding thump. They all froze where they stood, staring at it, until Matilda finally bent, and lifted it with shaking hands. As she did so, Lord Gabriel released his grip on the statuette, and turned it. The small brass plaque on the back of it was easy to read once he stepped closer to the window.
“It says – ‘The notorious Lady Arianna Carrington, with her most famous lover, 1782’. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of her – but that was thirty years ago. Perhaps one of our mothers would know who she is - or was?”
Matilda shook her head, a little overwhelmed by it all, then turned her attention to the pouch in her hands. Carefully, she untied the string, and unrolled it.
“Perhaps this will tell us more, as well as what the second part will be about?” The others waited as she perused the documents revealed. “It is a deed to a property in London… and another riddle for me?”
