Chapter Six
Black was gone.They searched their entire section of the tower, including the secret hiding places, but they found neither hide nor hair of him. Yet his bag was still in his chamber, with his spare clothes. His toothpowder and soap were on the washstand, and a nightshirt was folded under the pillow.
And in the hiding place under his rug, they found a small arsenal of weapons that certainly weren’t there before Black was assigned to the bed chamber.
Where had he gone, and why?
“He has betrayed us,” said Baldwin. “He has found a way to signal the footmen and has gone to report to the marquess.”
“Or he has found the door to the stair and left the tower through the tunnel,” Ernest suggested. “He’s a smart one.”
“Or the marquess sent his men in somehow, and dragged him out,” Frank suggested. He waved at the evidence of the bed chamber. “From the looks of it, he was either taken away or left of his own accord but intended to come back.”
It could not be the marquess’s men. The bolts on the tower side of the exit to the mansion hadn’t been moved. Allan could not see any way that men could have come from the house side through this door, and nor could Black have gone out through it, shut and locked it, and slid the bolts closed again from the other side.
He must have left through the tunnel. And they could do nothing but wait to see whether he had betrayed them.
“It is Christmas Day,” Allan said. “Let’s have some Christmas carols, and play some games. And we shall make wassail to have with our dinner.”
As they sang, Allan waited—no doubt they all waited—for the marquess’s men to come storming the tower. Even the bolts would not stand up forever to a determined assault with a battering ram. At the first sign of an assault, they would flee out through the tunnel.
But the afternoon wore on with no such invasion, and Allan was feeling much more relaxed by the time they gathered in the dining room to toast Christmas itself, the Christ child, the king, and one another.
Perhaps Black had been telling the truth when he claimed to be on their side. But if so, why had he come? Why had he left without a word? And did he intend to return, or had he abandoned his possessions?
The cook at the Golden Adonis kept the Sheppard brothers well supplied with leftovers, and in the early hours of this morning, she had outdone herself. The club had gone all out for Christmas last night, including in its catering. “You might as well take all this,” said the cook. “Most of us are going to family or friends for Christmas, so I shan’t need it to feed the other employees.”
She had loaded them down with slices of goose, beef and venison, roasted partridge, mincemeat pies, roasted and boiled vegetables, and other delicacies. Pears poached in brandy. Even a whole Christmas pudding that had somehow escaped consumption.
It made for a delightful feast, and if some of the brothers were wishing for other loved ones, Allan among them, they puton such a pretense of good cheer that perhaps, like Allan, they half convinced themselves.
After dinner, while Zero was gorging on meat scraps, they exchanged gifts—small things they had made themselves. Allan gave all his brothers a leather purse that could be worn around the waist, which would be a useful thing once they escaped the tower. He had learned leather work more than two decades ago, when the marquess had exiled him, Baldwin, and Cornelius during the marquess’s third marriage.
They had spent two and a bit years on a remote family estate in County Durham, with no money for their keep or their clothes, so all three boys had gone out to work with local farmers and craftsmen. Baldwin had made himself useful to the local physician, Cornelius had worked with a neighborhood carpenter, and Allan had tried a little bit of everything, until the squire in the nearby manor offered him work as his secretary.
Ancient history, but Baldwin’s interest in medicine was sparked then, and Cornelius was still a useful man with a saw and hammer, as shown in the little lap desks he’d made for each of them for this Christmas.
With no club tonight, they carried on with games after gift giving, then Ernest, who was the best reader of them all, continued the tradition begun by his mother, the marquess’s second wife, and read the nativity passages from the Gospel of St Luke.
Threatened, hunted, beleaguered, yet the Holy Family had won through. Allan could only pray that the brothers’ own escape into whatever Egypt they could find to shelter them would be as blessed.
His last thought as he composed himself to sleep was of Black. He found himself hoping that the man was true, that he was unharmed, and that he would return in the night.
The following morning, his first move on leaving his bedchamber was to see if Black was back. He wasn’t.
It was unusual of them to have a day off, but none of them could relax. Every now and again, one of them would come up with yet another theory about why Black had left. Most of them involved more chicanery from the marquess.
But the day passed, and nothing happened beyond the bread and water rations arriving in the late afternoon, as usual.
They had leftovers from Christmas dinner to make something of a feast with the bread—slices piled with turkey and venison and slathered in sauce. On any other night, they would have found cause for cheer. But Black’s disappearance cast a pall over them all.
It was a relief when the time came to head to the club.
*
The bad weatherpersisted through Christmas day and overnight, and on into the next morning. Mel—who was loving the time with Harriet, Harmony, and Benjie—didn’t worry about it over much. She would go to the club tonight and return to the tower after that. Time enough to face the problems that would arise when they occurred.
She spent a relaxed day with her family and their guests, for Lydia and her uncle joined them for much of the day. There was something between Eastwood and Harmony. For some reason, neither seemed willing to acknowledge it, but Mel saw the yearning glances that each gave the other when they were not aware.
