One
June 1816
Grey
The danger of intellectual curiosity was that one forgot the essentials of survival—like keeping an eye on one’s surroundings. Cecil Greybourne never failed to teach that maxim, even to malingering assistants. Leonard knew better.
Having emerged from his office into the lecture hall, and not found the prints he’d chosen for today’s lesson, he stacked his notes on the podium and glared at the students haphazardly filing in. Leonard was seldom late but he was bordering on irresponsible this morning. Even an invaluable employee wasn’t beyond rebuke.
Needing the prints sorted, now, Grey impatiently abandoned his preparation and strode down the aisle toward the back of the lecture hall.
“The mad lion stalks his prey,” one student whispered as Grey brushed by. “Don’t he ever cut his mane?”
Grey had given up controlling his haystack hair long ago as a waste of valuable time. A good student recognized that art and education preceded appearance.
“Prof is on the rampage,” one of his better students warned, hastily removing himself from Grey’s path. In his haste, he bumped into the first student and sent his pencil rolling down the floor.
Towering over most of the adolescent lot, Grey stalked on. He wasn’t of lofty height but, as any good scientist would tell them, energy required space for expansion. A friend had once told Grey that his big brain fooled him into thinking he was a behemoth. Utter fustian, of course. More likely, he was simply unconcerned with his surroundings and expected others to pay attention. Most of the time, they did and got out of his way.
He glared in disbelief at his assistant’s empty desk in the wide outer hall. Leonard belonged there, in that damned rickety chair, guarding his class from intruders. Research books should be scattered across the battered wood surface, pens littering paper, notes everywhere. And his art prints should be out of the file drawers.
Where the devil was Leonard? His efficient, ever-composed, assistant had been there earlier. He would have reported any emergency to Grey.
The clean desktop did not bode well. Grey clamped down on his fear and hastily checked the desk drawers—still locked, thank all that was holy. He’d have to fetch his key to retrieve his papers.
His stalwart assistant would not have abandoned that desk and its valuable contents without reason. At this realization, fury replaced fear, demanding that he finally deal with the putridity no doubt responsible for his missing assistant.
The hallowed halls of Harrowby’s Young Men’s School stank of rot. It had been an excellent school once. The rot had set in last year, after the death of old Mr. Harrowby. Any historian worth his salt would recognize the source.
Grey took the stairs down to the administration wing. Ignoring the neatly-tailored secretary attempting to stop him from slamming open the double doors, he marched into the office of the newest Harrowby to occupy the Head’s desk. The original battered oak had been replaced with polished mahogany twice the size of the old one. Not a single paper marred the shiny surface.
“Where is Leonard?” Grey roared.
“If you ever attended meetings, you’d know the board has had to make a few budget adjustments.” The pudgy, balding Harrowby shrugged and opened a drawer to remove a folder most likely containing meeting minutes. “Costs keep rising.”
Grey knew Harrowby needed spectacles but vainly wouldn’t wear them. So the folder he opened was no more than a prop.
“The matching bay mares you fancy aren’t getting any cheaper?” Grey asked in a voice heavy with irony. “And the rest of the board? Are they now in alts over your continued presence?” There had been rumblings of discontent all year.
“The board was due for a salary adjustment,” Harrowby said stiffly. “Someone must attend to the education requirements of our students.”
“So, Mr. Leonard’s pathetic salary now goes to flush plums who have never set foot in our hallowed halls?” Students quivered in their shoes when Grey used that ominously quiet tone. His students were smarter than Harrowby.
The Head merely tapped his fingers on the shiny surface. “Leonard was little more than an ornament in your hall. Your point is?”
Ornament? Plain, poorly-dressed, skinny—efficient—Leonard was an ornament? What the hell did Harrowby think he was? Blind? And an idiot.
It was happening again. Damn. His life was littered with casualties.
Grey briefly closed his eyes, stifled the lecture boiling up from his bowels, and nodded cynically. “Fine. If you and the board are now attending to the education of the students, then you won’t mind teaching my class. Without an assistant. Excellent experience. Good students.”
Seething with frustration more than fury, Grey spun on his heel and slammed his boots on every hollow tread all the way up the uncarpeted wooden stairs.
He’d stayed too long, grown too comfortable, believed he’d been informing a generation of young men about history through the brilliance of art. He’d stifled his usual instinct to move on, thinking he ought to finally settle down. Stupid of him.
Locating his keys in his office, he stuck them in the lock of Leonard’s desk. . . Only this time, it was open. The drawers had been emptied since he’d last checked.
Not until that horrifying moment did he have reason to panic.
