He breakfasted on oatmeal and kippers, both excellent. He pushed open the door of the kitchen to tell the cook exactly that.
She was a large woman, a testament to her talent in the kitchen. A bright red apron was tied snugly around her waist, topping a dress the shade of summer squash. Her blond hair was arranged in a ringlet of curls and perched atop her head like a cap.
“I thank you, sir,” she said, her plump face blushing an unbecoming red.
“Is that the accent of Scotland I hear?” he asked, smiling at her.
“It is, sir. Glasgow was my home for twenty years.”
Cook’s helpers were scattered through the large room, and each one of them seemed to cock her head, ears twitching to hear his answer.
“I knew it had to be a Scottish cook with a fine hand at the oats,” he said.
“You’re the first to say, sir,” she said, blushing even redder than before.
He left the kitchen, not bothering to ask for directions. Sometimes, the greatest adventures are those for which there are no guideposts.
Douglas found himself in a room that would have been considered a Great Hall in any castle. Life-size paintings dominated the walls, stretching up to where the ceiling arched upward even higher. Three crystal chandeliers stretched from one end of the room to the other. For all its dimensions, however, the room struck Douglas as being one of the coziest at Chavensworth.
Throughout the room were scattered groupings of chairs and sofas and lamps as if to urge a visitor to stop and rest for a moment. The walls were covered in a gold-patterned damask, the ceiling painted in a matching shade and embellished with plaster curlicues highlighted in dark brown.
The windows, stretching easily twenty feet high, made up one entire wall and were covered in heavy gold velvet draperies, tied back with gold rope ending in tassels larger than his hand. Ebony Chinese screens blocked off the doors at the far end of the room, more of an inducement to remain in this lofty room and simply contemplate the silence.
In front of a marble fireplace so large that he could stand upright inside it, were two flanking sofas. Between them was a low table almost as wide as his bed,and on each side of the sofa was a circular table adjoining a blue overstuffed chair.
A hundred people could easily be accommodated in this room, and yet two would find it a comfortable retreat.
Chavensworth was filled with sitting rooms, parlors, and rooms devoted to individual occupations such as music and cards. A large ballroom on the third floor looked empty, desolate, and rarely used. There was, in addition to the large library, a room that looked as if it were devoted to records. A series of ledgers was stacked in large bookcases along the walls.
Where did Lady Sarah disappear to during the day?
He didn’t bother opening any of the doors on the second floor, deciding that they were probably bedrooms or guest rooms.
Instead, he found himself at the rear of Chavensworth, heading toward the stables. A curious convergence of odors struck him then: the lavender from the fields to his left and the pungent aroma from the stables farther away. He began to smile, feeling in that instant that he had truly come home. This was not some province in India, or some tiny Asian country where people who looked like him were rare. No, this was nearly home with the sound of English in his ear and the promise of a certain sobriety of purpose and regulation of his days.
The air was warm, accompanied by a mischievous breeze that flattened the material of his jacket against him as it flirted with his collar. The sky was intently blue, not a cloud in sight to mar the purity of the day.
How many times in his lifetime had he wished to be exactly where he was right now, walking down acountry lane, en route to an uncertain destination, only knowing that he was filled with contentment. He needn’t fear for his life. Nor was he going to be attacked for the discoveries he had made. Here at Chavensworth, he felt a sense of safety and security he’d not felt in a very long time.
He was nearly at the stables if the sounds ahead of him were any indication: the striking of an anvil, the whinny of horses, the call of one man to another. He ignored all of them, suddenly transfixed by the sight atop a small knoll. He left the lane, veered to his right, following a well-worn path in the grass. Someone had thought to lay boulders down into the dirt, to create a toehold. He made his way up the knoll, and stopped, as fascinated up close as he had been in the lane.
The structure that faced him was hexagon-shaped, topped with a domed copper roof now gone to verdigris. He recalled Sarah’s words—I like to study the stars.
How long had it been since she’d come here? Evidently some time, since he couldn’t open the door. He pressed his shoulder against it, and when that didn’t result in any success, he bent and excavated the dirt from around the base of the door.
The interior was damp and dark, the dirt floor giving off a sour, musty smell. A telescope was still affixed to a pulley, but when Douglas focused the lens, all he could see was a blur. He lowered the telescope and tied off the pulley so the instrument was held flat against the wall and out of the way. Turning in a slow circle, he measured the room mentally, wondering if it would give him the space he needed. Shelves ringed the room, and a stool was tucked beneath one. A series of grates covered the dirt floor. The domed ceiling could be sealed so that rain would not ruin his work. In thewinter, the building would have to be warmed somehow, but he had months before having to worry about the cold weather.
He ticked off the assets of the observatory: It was well away from other people and structures, thereby ensuring that the chemicals he used would not catch another building on fire, or produce a gas dangerous to other individuals. But the greatest asset of the observatory was its isolation. He could have the privacy he needed, no, required.
He was changing the world, and the less the world knew about it, the better.
Chapter 8
She should be ecstatic. She should be overjoyed. Her husband had disappeared, and not one person at Chavensworth had seen him since breakfast. Not one. Thomas claimed no knowledge of his whereabouts, and when Sarah went to visit her mother at noon, Douglas was not there.
Truly, she did not have time for this. If the silly man had gotten into some kind of danger, she would have to find him.
She sent one of the footmen to the stables to see if he had been spotted there. Perhaps he’d taken one of the horses to ride in the countryside. Hopefully, the stable master had the good sense to tell the man to remain on the main lanes. There were rabbit holes and burrows aplenty in the fields. A horse could lose its footing all too easily, not to mention break a leg. She also had Thomas send another footman to the river, to see if Douglas might have wandered to the boathouses.
