“It’s puzzling, you see. I’m being told different things by different people, and any clarity you could offer would be ever so helpful. I’ve a feeling you know more than you’re letting on.”
Turner heaved a sigh, as if defeated. He lowered his voice. “My lady, if I may say so, you are a right canny lass. This house has many shameful secrets. Some of those secrets were once perilous and needed to be kept for many, many years. That is no longer the case.” Turner gave a tremulous smile. “I’ll leave you with this: look about your chambers. Look closely. You will find the answers you’re seeking. And for your own good, the sooner you do so, the better.”
Eliza went to her room, clapping her hands over her ears to cut out the hissing of the gas jets in the hallway. All of her senses were heightened by her condition and it was beyond vexing. She closed her door and locked it, then turned the key to her overhead chandelier.
With her chambers fully lit, she set out with a methodical determination. She had no clue as to what she was looking for, but if this house had shown her anything, it was that it kept its most precious secrets well hidden. She moved across the room, palms flat against the velvet wallpaper, feeling for any abnormalities. When she came to the area across from her fireplace, she knocked, listening for any difference in the sound, just as she’d done with the other three walls. The surface bounced beneath her hand, as if there were nothing solid behind the wallpaper. Encouraged, she pushed harder. The fragile paper tore down its length, and Eliza nearly stumbled forward. Beyond the torn paper, a hollow had opened up. It was a hidden room.
Eliza lit her Tilley lantern, this time checking that its fuel chamber was full of paraffin. She slid her house slippers on over her stockings and went through the portal, her heart thudding. Inside, a kind of anteroom with a low ceiling led to a descending spiral of stone steps, the bottom obscured by a darkness deep as an oubliette.
“Old house, you are full of surprises.”
She picked her way down, counting as she went. There were thirty-three steps to the bottom, which meant she was probably beneath the main floor of the house. The basement. She was standing on a packed-dirt floor, in a passageway of sorts, the ceiling just a few inches above her head. The walls were made of dank, rough-hewn stone, and as she moved forward, the scent of loamy earth bloomed beneath her feet.
There were two directions she could go, both of them hidden in shadow.
She turned in a circle, holding the lantern at arm’s length. To her right, the hallway was lined with cobweb-shrouded wine racks, the necks of the bottles reaching out like blackened fingers. The other direction seemed barren apart from a few empty baskets and old fruit crates.
Beyond the wine cellar, the passageway continued, extending in a long, serpentine curve that canted slightly to the right the further she went. When she reached the end of the corridor, there was another spiral staircase—an identical twin to the other.
Eliza grasped the metal railing and went up, the rusty iron creaking under her hands, each step an exercise in anxiety. When she reached the top, she found a trapdoor closed with a hinged hasp. She set the lantern on the top step and, using both hands, rocked the hasp back and forth until the rust welding it to the peg flaked free. She pushed, fighting against an unseen obstruction. The hatch opened and fell back with a loud crash, kicking up a musty cloud that smelled of ashes.
“Oh my God.”
She was in the south wing, emerging into an empty room that was a mirror image of her own.
Eliza craned her neck and hoisted herself through the trapdoor’s opening, listening. There was music, soft and low, with an occasional crackle interrupting the sweeping melody. It was a gramophone. Playing Chopin. “Hello?” she called, swinging the lantern in an arc as her voice echoed around her. Her footsteps sent up another cloud of black dust. The entire floor was covered with ash. She tilted her chin back and looked up, casting the arc of yellow-orange light from the lantern above her. Singed, bubbling wallpaper scarred the walls. There was no ceiling; only the attic rafters rose high above her head. Eliza wondered if the fire had started in this room and raged outward from it. Had this been Gabriel’s room? Or Lord Havenwood’s? She carefully picked her way forward, her feet sliding along the floor, following the muffled sound of the piano concerto.
“Hello?” she called again, projecting her voice. The music abruptly stopped, as if someone had heard her and lifted the stylus from the disc. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she held her breath to listen. Her eyes searched the room, seeking the source of the music. There was nothing.
Until there was.
Eliza heard the ghost before she saw it.
There was a gentle sweeping hiss from the corner of the room, as if the hem of a dress was being dragged across the floor. She froze as a shadow the color of the soot at her feet uncurled and floated before the window, its contours vaguely shaped like those of a woman. Ice ran along Eliza’s spine and every hair on her arms stood up at once.
The shade floated past the window, its movement setting the remnants of the fire-scalded drapes aflutter. The moonlight shining through the ragged fabric blinked as the ghost went past, as if a living person of flesh and blood had walked in front of her, blocking out the light.
The cold in the room became a void. Eliza whimpered and stepped backward. The ghost turned its countenance to her, amorphous inthe dim light, dark hollows where eyes had once been, and extended its arm.
Eliza followed the ghost’s gesture, rooted to the spot, her breath coming in small, sharp pants. It was pointing to the adjoining parlor, where Eliza could see the yawning mouth of a fireplace.
“What is it?” she stammered. “Beatrice? What are you trying to tell me?”
The specter turned away from her with a lingering look. Sadness pierced Eliza, as if she could feel what the spirit was feeling ... as if she’d lost someone dear to her. The tangy scent of birch leaves briefly wafted through the room. Then, as if it were ash dissolving in a dish of water, the spirit disintegrated, leaving Eliza’s heart in a gallop.
She pushed through her fear and dashed to the parlor, nearly stumbling over a toppled, broken chair, its upholstery ragged and torn. She went to the fireplace and peered into it. The damper was open, funneling cold air through its baffles, a rectangle of star-filled sky at its top. She ran her frantic fingers around the brick lining, feeling for anything out of the ordinary.
Ah-ha! One of the bricks above her head felt loose, its edge out of alignment with the rest. Eliza excitedly pried at the brick, rocking it from side to side. With a crumble of mortar, it came loose in her hand. She carefully laid it in the grate, then walked her fingers into the opening, expecting spiders and centipedes. Instead, she felt a smooth metal box. It was a cigarette tin. “Thank you, Beatrice,” she whispered.
Eliza hurriedly snatched the box free from the hollow and backed away from the fireplace. Too late, she remembered the decrepit chair was behind her, and she stumbled over it, her hip slamming into the floor. The lantern rolled to the other side of the room. Its molten paraffin sloshed from the globe and the flame within it turned from yellow to blue. Suddenly, a muffled shouting channeled through the chimney. Whoever—or whatever—it was had heard her.
Eliza breathed in and out, the tin clutched to her breast. The acrid fear of a prey animal sliced through her, souring her sweat. Should she run for the hatch? Remain still? With a final steadying breath, she crept toward the trapdoor on hands and knees, her fingers sinking into soot, not realizing until it was too late that the hem of her nightdress had caught on the splintered chair arm. A high-pitched screech came as the chair dragged on the floor behind her. Eliza winced, vowing to chop the wretched thing into kindling.
There was a creaking, then the slamming of a door downstairs—it was the main entrance to the south wing’s vestibule. Footsteps pounded, running now, the sound growing louder by the second. Malcolm. Eliza yanked her nightgown free and stumbled to her feet, raw fear propelling her forward. She seized the handle of the toppled lantern and shimmied down the spiral staircase. As her feet hit the ground, a menacing growl echoed from abovestairs.
Eliza took off at a run down the meandering passageway, ignoring the pain searing her bruised hip. What would he do, if he found her here? Poised, as he seemed to be, on the brink of madness? Eliza did not want to find out.
She raced up the groaning secret staircase that led to her room, comforted by the safety of warm light and familiar surroundings. She slammed the door and, with more strength than she realized she possessed, pushed her armoire across the floor to cover the hole in the wall. She piled anything else she could find—books, her dressing table, and even her washstand—in front of it. She stood perfectly still, holding her breath and listening. There was nothing but the incessant hiss of the gas jets and the clicking of a tree limb against her windowpane.
